He isn’t, no.
He’s not the only Mr. Jackson.
But for the life of me it never ever occurred to me that his dad would be involved. The man I’d never even seen. Not once in all the times that I’d been to their house.
He was always either away for business or at the office.
I saw their mom once though.
She was on the balcony, looking so small and beautiful with her blonde hair fluttering in the wind. I guess Tempest and Reed both get their dark hair from their father.
The man who had me arrested for stealing his son’s car.
“So you… knew this the whole time?”
“Yes.”
Oh my God.
I press a hand on my stomach and lean against the booth.
All this time, I thought it was him.
Because it was his car, the thing that he loved the most. So it made sense that he’d want to punish me for stealing it. And strangely, those charges hurt me even more.
Because he cared about his car more than he ever cared about me. Which I knew already but still.
He didn’t though.
He didn’t.
He had the charges reduced. He… he brought my brother the deal.
I can barely draw a proper breath or form a coherent thought in my head. But still, I make myself ask my brother, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why do you think?”
“You knew that I thought it was him. You knew that. Why didn’t you tell me if you knew?” I ask, tears welling up in my eyes.
“Because you’re naïve, Callie,” he snaps, his voice making me flinch, and my tears fall harder. “Because I didn’t want you to paint him as a hero who swooped in to save you after everything that he did. Because I wanted to protect you. Because I wanted you to be smart. I wanted you to move on and live your life and think about your future. I didn’t want you to waste your life over a guy like him. A guy you almost destroyed your life for. A guy who broke your heart and made you cry.”
God, I wish I could hide myself somewhere. I wish I could stop this shame from spreading out over my body. I wish I could stop these tears.
But more than that, I wish I could hug him.
I wish I was back home with him so I could tell him how sorry I am for everything that I put him through.
My brother who brought me up. Who’s more like a father figure to me — to all of us — than my brother.
As it is, all I can do is whisper, “I’m not going to waste my life over him, Con. I’ve learned my lesson.”
But maybe that’s not enough to convince him because he speaks in a rough, heartfelt whisper. “Do you remember what I told you, Callie? Two years ago, I told you that Reed Jackson is an asshole. I told you that he isn’t the guy for you and I still mean that. I don’t know why he had those charges reduced. I don’t know if it was his conscience or if he was playing a game and I don’t care. I don’t fucking care, you hear me? Because if he ever so much as looks at you again, ever, I’m going to take him apart. I’m going to break every single bone in his body and I’m going to take my time with it. Do you understand that, Callie? Stay away from him.”
***
It’s Thursday and I sneak out a little earlier than I usually do.
It could be slightly riskier, since Wyn hasn’t really gone to sleep yet. But it’s not, because she knows everything now. About the Blue Madonna, my ballet dreams.
Him.
I told her.
After last Saturday at Buttery Blossoms where Reed showed up, I had to. And now I’m wondering why I didn’t talk to her sooner. Because she totally believes in me, in my ballet dream, in Juilliard.
She also thinks that there’s more to him than I think. Because I also told her what Con revealed on the phone call.
How the guy who I thought had me arrested was actually the one who got me off on a reduced charge.
He saved me.
Isn’t that surreal? Isn’t that… what I always thought of him?
Back at Bardstown High, I always thought that he had more to him than what he showed the world.
But I was wrong.
I was so wrong that when I learned the truth, look what I did.
Look what I became.
My brother is right. He might have saved me — for whatever reason — but I know better now. I’m smarter and I’m not listening to Wyn.
I’m staying away from him.
That’s why I left earlier than usual and got on a different bus. It was just as empty but whatever.
That isn’t the point.
The point is that I need to stay away from him. And he has no business telling me what to do.
Hopefully my whole violent display at Buttery Blossoms managed to make it clear that I don’t want anything to do with him.
But apparently not.
Apparently it’s too much to ask, because he’s here.
At my silent, empty ballet studio, Blue Madonna.
I see him in the mirror.
All the way across the room, he is standing behind me, propped up against the white wall. He has his arms folded across his chest and from the looks of it, he’s been here a long time and he’ll be here even longer than that.
Because he appears so… engrossed, so absorbed in the moment.
In me.
In my bowed body.
I’m on my knees, see.
With my fake, feather-light wings slung across my back, I’m on the floor and my body is bent in an arc, and he’s watching that arc, tracking it with his wolf eyes.
My shoulder blades, the slope of my spine, the line of my neck, all the way up to my tight, blonde bun.
And he’s so enamored that he doesn’t even know that I’ve spotted him.
Not until I unfold myself and stand up.
Only then do his eyes snap up and clash with mine. And what a clash it is.
I feel the impact of it right in my chest, right where my wounded heart lives, and I spin around to face him.
“You’re here.” I state the obvious. “Again.”
I knew he’d come.
Even though I was hoping that what happened at the cupcake shop might give him the message, I knew he’d follow me like he used to two years ago.
He’s a predator, isn’t he? A villain, and I’m the lost girl at midnight.
That is exactly why I chose to make my point that he can’t control me like he did before by getting here the way I wanted.
Reed doesn’t answer right away.
He’s watching a drop of sweat sliding down my throat, and when it disappears under the neck of my leotard, only then does he lift his eyes and say, “Because you ran from me the other day. Again.”
His usual statement said in a dangerous tone jacks up my breaths. It makes me hypersensitive. So much so that I feel that drop he was watching slide further down my body, reaching between my breasts.
But I try to focus on what he’s saying.
“I had to. You were being an asshole,” I tell him.
“And you were quite the picture of politeness yourself.”
I fist my sweaty hands at his accusation. “Well, you made me angry.”
“So you dumped your lemonade on me.”
My eyes go to his foot then, his right one that I stomped on. “And stomped on your foot.”
He narrows his eyes slightly as he continues, “You also left me to pay your bill.”
I wince.
I can’t believe I did that.
I’ve never, not in my entire life, run out of a restaurant without paying the bill.
Not until him.
But then that’s nothing new, is it?
I do things for him that I’ve never done. I feel things for him that I’ve never felt before.
He turns me into a different Callie. His Callie.
His Fae.
Swallowing, I dispel these useless thoughts. "Well, yo
u broke my heart so I think I’m allowed that.”
His eyes flash when I throw back his words from the bar. “You are.”
“But even so, I can give you back your money. I have some cash in my bag.”
I do, and I can pay him back.
His folded arms flex as he considers my offer. And they’re so big and sculpted that I can see the hilly contours of them, his biceps, even through his hoodie.
His soft, cozy, warm hoodie.
Finally, he says, “Yeah, money is not what I’m interested in tonight.”
Like always, his tone is what gets me. His tone that sounds all dangerous and villainous.
And something else that I’m trying not to think about, seductive.
I lick my lips. “Are you here for revenge then?”
He glances down at my lips for a second. “I haven’t decided yet.”
I don’t think a threat that sounds like a threat, feels like a threat, should also make things move inside of my stomach.
Innocent things like butterflies and tingles.
Corrupt things like thick, heated desire.
“Before you decide either way,” I begin. “I want to say something.”
He arches an arrogant eyebrow. “I’m listening.”
I want to purse my lips and narrow my eyes at his condescending tone, but I keep my features blank and say, “Even though you deserved it, it wasn’t my intention to do those things. It wasn’t my intention to dump my drink on you or stomp on your foot. Or even attack you like I did back at the bar. I’m not this violent person, despite all the evidence to the contrary. I don’t do these things. I don’t…”
I don’t steal cars…
I don’t say that but it’s right there. On the tip of my tongue.
That and the question, why.
Why did he save me? Why did he have the charges reduced after how I tried to destroy something that he’d built?
As I said, he deserved it, but why?
Reed, on the other hand, has no hesitation in asking me that question.
“Then why did you?” His voice is thick and raspy. “Do those things.”
I know he’s asking me about these recent events and not what I did two years ago. Still, I answer him like he is. “Because… because you make me crazy. You make me angry. You make me do things that I never thought I’d do in a million years. You turn me into this…”
I trail off again and again he picks up the thread. “I turn you into what?”
Those innocent little things inside of me, those corrupt little things, all of them go haywire. They go crazy and chaotic as I whisper, “Bad. You turn me into a bad girl.”
Fae.
Maybe that’s the magic in him. That dark magic that makes girls do things for him.
That makes them go crazy for him, fall in love with him even though they know that he’ll always end up breaking their hearts.
His gorgeous features are blank so I have no clue what he’s thinking right now and it’s not my business to figure it out either and so I keep going. “And that’s why I think it’s better if… if you stay away from me.”
At this, he says something even though his features are still unreadable. “You want me to stay away from you.”
I nod.
It’s more of a jerk than a smooth motion. “Yes, I do. Aside from what I just said, my brothers will lose it. They will kill you for going near me. And —”
“I can handle them,” he says. “Haven’t I told you this before?”
I grit my teeth and purposefully stop my breaths.
I refuse to breathe.
Refuse to take air into my lungs and give life to my body, give beats to my heart.
All these years later, his cavalier attitude still gets me. His reckless, cavalier, daredevil attitude.
God, Callie. You idiot.
“Even so. I don’t think we have anything to say to each other after what happened.”
“You mean how you stupidly fell in love with me and I broke your little heart.”
It shouldn’t hurt this much.
What he just said.
The wound inside my chest shouldn’t flare up and pulsate as if it’s new, freshly inflicted. But it does.
Maybe because he said it without flinching.
Maybe because he can talk about breaking my heart as if it’s so inconsequential that it doesn’t even warrant a change of tone or a ripple in his features.
And maybe that’s why my eyes sting. “Yes. So unless you’re trying to use me again, I suggest you leave.”
“I’m not trying to use you,” he says, studying my face. “You don’t have anything that I need.”
I want to laugh at myself then.
I want to laugh at my own stupid self that his statement made me flinch. That the fact that I’m now useless to him makes something contract in my chest.
“Well then, there you go,” I say with clenched fists. “I’m useless to you. So staying away shouldn’t be so hard, right? I don’t have anything you need and I don’t want you around either. Besides, you don’t even live here anymore, do you? You live in New York and I’ve heard it’s amazing. I mean, my brothers are crazy about that city. I bet you have a wonderful life at college. I bet you have great friends. People must be crazy about your soccer skills and you must be the campus stud and soccer superstar or whatever. So what are you even doing here, wasting your time? Who cares what bus I take or how I get to my studio? I really think you should leave and resume your awesome life and —”
“That’s different,” he says, cutting me off.
“What?”
He motions with his jaw, his gaze dipping down to my lips. “Your lipstick.”
My hand goes up and I touch my lips.
It’s so bizarre that he noticed. So strange and unexpected, his observation and his interruption, that all I can do is say, “Uh, yeah.”
His eyes come up. “So?”
“So what?”
“What’s this one called?”
I lower my hand and automatically reply, as if I’m still in a fog, “Train Wreck Princess.”
It’s blue with subtle notes of green and is overall lighter than Heartbreak Juju, which I wore the night of the bar.
“Why, because you’re a princess?”
“I’m —”
“But you’re not, are you?”
You’re a fairy…
His long-ago words flutter through my mind and probably in his mind too. Because his wolf eyes glint. They sparkle and so does his vampire skin.
And for a second, the studio vanishes, the polished hardwood floors, the barre, the mirrored wall, and all of that gets replaced by those woods.
The woods that we used to go to.
That lonely dark place where I used to dance for him.
Where I danced for him for the first time and he called me a fairy. Where…
“You’re a fairy,” he finishes his earlier spoken statement, his eyes grave and his lips tipping up.
I believed him.
Back then, I believed that I was a fairy.
Not anymore though.
Even though the wings at my back flutter and rustle against my spine as if coming alive now that he’s here. “No, I’m not.”
“You’re fucking up your développé écarté devant,” he says. “Isn’t that what it is?”
I watch him a beat. “Yes.”
“And you’re supposed to hold it? For eight counts.”
I remain speechless, motionless. He remembers.
He keeps going though. “And if you can’t hold a position in ballet, it’s supposed to be a big fucking crime.”
How does he remember everything like I do?
When I always thought that all this time he’s been living his glamorous life in New York, I probably never even crossed his mind.
He straightens up and moves away from the wall.
Keeping h
is eyes on me, he starts to walk. Toward me.
And when he does that, again all I can do is stand in my spot, all frozen and immobile. Like I used to two years ago, whenever he decided to prowl toward me.
I used to stand glued to my spot, my traitor legs refusing to move.
My traitor heart refusing to slow down, and I’m about to stop him. I’m about to tell him to not come anywhere close to me.
Because I don’t know what’s happening.
I don’t know what he’s doing.
I don’t know how and why he remembers everything from two years ago. And neither do I know why he saved me.
But my wayward, confused thoughts break when I realize that he wasn’t.
Coming near me, I mean.
He was going somewhere else.
He was going to the black stereo off to the side. And when he reaches it, he bends down on his knees and starts fiddling with the buttons.
I finally string some words together as I watch him. “What are you doing?”
“Helping you with your routine.”
“My routine.”
When he’s done with it, he comes back to his feet. “You want to go to Juilliard, don’t you? Well, you’re not going with the way you’re dancing. Because it sucks.”
I’m too shaken up to take offense.
Besides he is right.
It does suck. I can’t, for the life of me, hold that pose. I can do développé à la seconde, which is folding your leg out to the side, but écarté devant is my weakness.
Even so, I don’t need his help.
I don’t need him to give me any more reminders of before. Of when he used to help me, make me better. I already remember those days plenty on my own.
I’m already plenty devastated and broken.
“I don’t need your help.”
“You’re getting it nonetheless.”
“You hate twirling, remember?”
“Maybe I’ve changed. Maybe now I’m ready to embrace my feminine side.”
“You —”
“Unless you’re afraid,” he says, tilting his head to the side.
“Of what?”
“Of me.” His eyes turn hooded. “Touching you.”
I frown as my spine goes up. “Why would I be afraid of that?”
He shrugs, his shoulders that were already massive have now become even more muscled as they move. “I don’t know. You tell me.”
A Gorgeous Villain Page 22
