by Cassie James
“Tell me what else is going on. Smith is no good at gossip, he never knows what’s important and what’s not.” That would explain why she’s concerned about Jax. He’s the one person Smith pays extra close attention to—besides me, at least.
“I don’t know much,” I admit. “I’ve been sort of out of the loop with everything going on with Pearl.”
Sadie’s expression softens. We got to talk over the phone after I took Pearl home, and I told her everything Pearl and the doctors had told me about her health. There are still more questions than answers, with her tumor growing inconsistently. Every time the doctors check her, they seem confused, which I don’t think really bodes well for us. Pearl and I have an agreement not to talk about time anymore. Mostly because I got tired of her acting like it would be any day now, and she got tired of me going along like we had years left to go. The only happy medium we could find was just agreeing not to talk about it anymore at all.
“Knowing that woman, she’ll go when she’s ready and not a damn minute before.” Now there’s something we can both agree on.
We fall into silence for a few minutes as we draw closer to the tree line that I assume marks the end of the property. Or at least as far as I imagine Sadie’s allowed to go. It looks pretty creepy back in those dark woods, a sharp contrast to the pretty glass building behind us.
“There was an orgy back there last week,” Sadie announces out of nowhere, pointing right in the direction that I was looking. There’s nothing through the trees but pitch darkness, but I guess that’s about all you need for an orgy. Rehab orgy… there has to be rules against that or something. Sadie continues, “Okay, no one’s actually confirmed it, but that’s what the rumor mill is saying. In fact—” She stops and looks behind us like she’s checking to make sure no one snuck up on us out here. “People are saying Killian Lake was involved.”
I nearly choke on my own saliva. “Killian Lake is here?” My head twists to either side as if I’m expecting him to materialize out of nowhere. Sadie laughs, clearly enjoying my reaction.
“Down, girl, I think you’ve got enough boys to juggle without adding a guy like that to the mix.” She’s not wrong, but Killian Lake.
The guy’s a total heartthrob. Not to mention the leading man of most of my late night fantasies—and probably those of every other teenage girl in existence. He’s a musician, one of those hot singer-songwriter types that’s been tearing up the music charts. I had no idea he was in rehab. I would have expected that to be all over the gossip rags and entertainment sites. Killian Lake is a big deal. The kind of guy who you call by his full name every damn time you talk about him. Killian Lake. God, I’m practically panting just thinking of him.
“I’m not really supposed to tell anyone about him being here. So, keep it to yourself, okay? We all had to sign special NDAs when he showed up.” I guess that explains why it’s not a front-page story on every gossip blog in the country right now.
“I won’t say anything.” I have a weird thought. “Wait, you weren’t in the orgy, were you?” Because that would be some seriously red flag behavior I think.
She laughs so loud she startles some birds out of the trees. “God, don’t I wish? If Killian Lake invited me to an orgy, I would go, Juliet. No questions asked.” Me too, probably. Sheesh, it is Killian-fucking-Lake we’re talking about.
“Yeah,” I concede, “that’s fair, actually.”
“Right? It’s much less of a stretch for you though, I guess.” She snorts lightly. Her words are light and teasing, but they make me stop short just as we were starting to walk again. Her words might be lighthearted, but there’s something else. A sort of judgement layered underneath as if I wouldn’t notice it.
For a second, we look at each other both with passive faces, but then Sadie is the first to break. She looks the opposite way, squinting when the sun shines right in her face. “I’m sorry,” she apologizes, sounding much more authentic than she did just now. “I shouldn’t be like that. Love is love, right? It’s not really my business. I just… don’t want to see my brother get hurt,” she admits.
“And I don’t want to hurt your brother.” I’m not sure why she would think otherwise.
“He’s in love with you, you know.” My heart freezes up in my chest, forgetting to beat as I absorb those words. “I’m sure he hasn’t said it, yet, especially not with the whole Jax thing still on the back of his mind. But I guess I’m just a little worried that he’ll let his feelings make him blind. That he’d agree to anything you wanted just to keep you, even if it was hurting him.”
For someone that just apologized for being a bit of an asshole before, she’s sure throwing a hell of a lot of knives with her words now. In just a few sentences, she’s managed to cut right to my biggest insecurity: that I’m being unfair by keeping all three of my boys. But fuck, every time I picture trying to cut them loose—any of them—I find myself struggling to breathe. If they were really bothered by our arrangement, would they say something? I think back to Patrick at prom. He wasn’t thrilled, but he stayed. But didn’t he only do that because he thought he’d lose me otherwise? Dammit, why does this have to be so hard? And why did Sadie have to bring this up now?
“Look, it’s none of my business, okay? Smith would be really mad if he knew I’d said anything.” She glances back nervously to where he’s sitting on the patio, facing out towards us as if he’s watching us walk the grounds. Seems to me like Sadie’s saying a lot of things she shouldn’t today.
“Sadie.” I wait until she looks at me, wanting to make sure I have her full attention before I say my piece. “I showed a lot of grace when you came to me in the spring to try to make amends. It would have been easy to turn my back, to say you hurt me and I wouldn’t give you the chance to do it again. Since that’s not what I did, I want you to consider this our line in the sand moment.” Her face falls, but I don’t even feel a little bad about it. Our friendship needs this if it’s ever going to survive. “When you get back from rehab, you can either accept how things are or find a new pity-bestie, because I’m done playing that role and I’m not interested in your judgments.”
“I don’t—”
I shake my head and cut her off. “If you’ll excuse me, I think it’s time I go home.” I take a few steps away from her before I can’t resist turning back. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m in love with your brother. So, finish getting your shit together, Sadie. Then maybe you’ll finally get to see that for yourself.”
She stands in stunned silence as I turn on my heel and stalk the rest of the way across the yard, back to Smith, who doesn’t even question me when I tell him I’ll be waiting in the car when he’s ready to go. It wasn’t my brightest moment, blurting out that I was in love with Smith for the first time to his sister instead of saying it to him. He deserves to know, even though I haven’t worked up the nerve to say it properly since that day I accidentally let the words slip in the hallway.
Maybe Sadie will tell him. Hell, so what if she does? I love Smith, and I’m not going to let someone take that away from me just because they think love has to be black and white. I lean my head back against the seat of the car and remember Ace’s words.
There’s nothing wrong with having a lot of love to share.
Chapter Six
Pearl isn’t doing well. It’s the very end of the summer, only days away from the back-to-school bash Allie Townsend is throwing, and the only thing I can focus on is how delirious Pearl has suddenly gotten. The doctors all say it’s a normal progression of her diagnosis, but there’s nothing reassuring about that. I don’t want normal progression. I want a goddamn miracle.
I’m surprised none of the guys have shown up unannounced yet, though I’m sure it’s coming soon. I’ve stopped answering my phone, too afraid that I might get tied up in a call and miss Pearl needing something. I barely even drag myself away to go to the bathroom or shower anymore unless the nurses swear not to leave her side for even a second.
No one ever prepared me for this. I’ve never watched anyone I love die before.
“You always carry such a heavy heart,” Pearl’s sleepy voice carries to me. I was curled up in a chair reading, but I drop my book the second she speaks so that I can lean closer. The last few days, she starts to trail off in the middle of sentences. I’ve learned that if I get close, I can sometimes catch the tail end of things before she’s falling asleep again.
“I’m not sure what that means,” I tell her, watching the way her eyes struggle to stay open. She’s deteriorating much faster now than before, just like she said she would.
“It means you need to lighten up, girl.” She cackles at her own little joke, and I can’t help but laugh, too. It’s ironic really, this woman who was desperate for me to learn the ropes of high society, now telling me to lighten up.
Resting my arms on the edge of her bed, I tell her, “I’ll lighten up when life stops being so hard.”
“What’s so damn hard about it?” Jesus, it’s so jarring to hear her curse. She’s only done it a handful of times in the last week, and each time actually seems worse than the last. “You’re a beautiful—and very rich—girl with four hot boyfriends. Sounds like a breeze to me.”
“Three,” I correct her with a smile.
She shoots me a look much like the ones she shot me when I first came. The kind she used to tell me I wasn’t doing something to her liking. “I’m still counting the Woods boy, whether you like it or not.”
No matter how out of it she gets, these are the details she remembers. She never forgets that I’m dating more than one boy, and she never forgets to remind me that she still counts Jax as one of them. She barely remembers my name some days, but of course this she can’t seem to let go of. And I indulge her every damn time because I want to appreciate all the little moments like this that we have left. This is by far the most time we’ve spent together, and even though she won’t be around to remember it, I know I always will.
“It’s such a shame I’ve ruined your summer, dear.”
I blink as warm tears start to fall. I’m really glad the nurse is on a lunch break and not here to see this. My voice is thick with emotion as I tell her, “You didn’t ruin anything. This is the best summer I’ve ever had.”
It’s the truth, too. A summer spent with family, even if it’s just me and Pearl and the circumstances aren’t ideal. This is the kind of thing I always dreamed of, just with a few extra details I absolutely never could have imagined. Plus, I’ve gotten a few stolen moments with my boys, and those have been just as precious as this time I’ve gotten to spend with Pearl. I wouldn’t change this summer even if given the chance—unless it was to make it so Pearl was never sick in the first place.
“Next summer…” She starts to falter and my lips curl down. I hate when she trails off in the middle of a sentence. It always leaves me wondering what she meant to say. And it always makes me panic that they’ll be her last words.
Her eyes pop open again. “Next summer take those nice boys of yours to the beach house. They can skip the fancy vacations for one year. Spend some real, quality time together. Learn each other’s secrets.” She yawns, and I can tell she’s struggling to stay awake.
This has been one of her more lucid moments, and my heart-rate drops as I realize this might be one of the few chances I have left to ask her that one burning question I haven’t been able to forget.
I clear my throat twice before I can get the words out. “Pearl, I need to ask you something about Hollis.” Oh my god, am I really going to do this? I don’t have a choice. It’s now or never. I’m not sure I could live with myself if I don’t at least try to get answers.
“Oh, Hollis.” She tsks. “What about him, dear?”
“Did Hollis hire the Browns to kill my mother?” Time seems to move in slow-motion as Pearl turns her head to look directly at me, more clarity in her eyes than I’ve seen in weeks. There’s a solemness to them, too, and I think I know what the answer is going to be even before she says it.
“Oh, Juliet. You’re going to find out eventually, anyway, aren’t you?” She moves her fingers around strangely, and it takes me a second before I realize she’s trying to reach for my hand. I curl my fingers gently around hers. “All he ever wanted was to bring you home—and instead he did the exact opposite.”
I raise my eyes to stare at the wall, blinking slowly as I try to process her words. I want her answer to be different. I want her to be chastising me for saying something so outrageous. For casting a bad light over Hollis’ legacy. Instead, it sounds like she’s confirming what Lynne said. Could my own grandfather really have hired the junkies that killed my parents? It sounds like something out of a bad TV show.
“He wanted my mother dead?” I whisper the question. I’d been so excited just to have a family legacy that I don’t know if I stopped enough to consider what that legacy might be. This? This is not the legacy I want. A family ripped apart from the inside.
“Courtney Bernard was a monster.” Pearl sounds so cavalier about it.
Courtney Bernard. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to hear Pearl use my mother’s maiden name. It’s clear Hollis and Pearl never considered her a Lexington. What could have been so wrong with her to make them dislike her so much? Being new money instead of old money—and liking modern touches—didn’t make a person a monster.
As if reading my mind, Pearl lets go of my hand. “Get the photo album, dear.” I’m not sure which she means until she adds, “The wedding album on the bottom shelf.” She gestures to the built-ins by the fireplace.
I stand up and go where she pointed, fingering the books along the bottom shelf until I come to the one I realize is a wedding album. I haven’t seen it before, probably because it was hidden down here among the dust and old copies of classic children’s books. I blow across the cover, watching dust scatter into the air as the dirty gray cover becomes something more like an off-white. I imagine the book was actually pure white at some point, but time hasn’t been kind to it.
“Turn to the third page,” Pearl tells me when I start to hand her the album. She closes her eyes as if she can’t bear to look with me. I flip three pages in just like she asked.
I recognize my parents from other pictures of them, the two of them standing at the altar on their wedding day. There’s something weird about this picture of them. They don’t look happy the way you expect people to on their wedding day.
“Look at the front row,” Pearl continues. “Do you see the man in the pinstripe suit?” It takes me a minute to see who she’s talking about—mostly because it’s hard to tear my eyes away from my parents. “That man was Benny Tribeca.”
My head snaps up so I can gawk at her. “The mobster?”
She nods. Benny Tribeca isn’t a name anyone around here could forget. He made national news a few years ago when the feds finally brought him in. He was running an illegal adoption ring, which was just a nicer way of describing human trafficking. He had babies kidnapped from all over the world to sell to desperate parents who couldn’t get approved by the real adoption agencies. Everyone was talking about it for months. The guy was as scummy as they come.
“Why was he at their wedding?” Already, I can tell I’m not going to like where this story is heading.
“Courtney had quite the affinity for trouble. It didn’t matter that your father would have spent every red cent he had to please her, she wanted trouble and went asking for it. But you don’t get into bed with a man like Benny without consequences.” Fucking hell, I hope she only means getting into bed in the figurative sense. “He showed up to the wedding to threaten her. She didn’t just owe him power, she owed him introductions. Now that she was a Lexington in name, he wanted those connections. Hollis had friends in high places.”
Her eyes start to drift again. “Pearl!” She startles at her name and I mutter an apology, but I have to hear everything once and for all. “Tell me the rest. What happened with Benny?”
“What?” My voice is small.
“People would have paid good money for a blue-blooded little girl like you.” Pearl makes a little growly noise in her throat. It would be funny, if the words she were saying weren’t so fucking heartbreaking. I wasn’t just raised by monsters—I was born to one, too.
“What the fuck!” I drop the wedding book, not caring at all that it falls to the floor. Right now, I’d be happy to throw into a fire and watch it burn. What the fuck was wrong with the woman that birthed me that she was willing to trade me off to a mobster? And for what? Just so her society friends didn’t find out where she liked to get her thrills? I thought nothing could be worse than what the Browns did, but this? This is actually worse. So much worse.
“Your father came to Hollis for help when he realized what she’d done. They paid Benny off, sent him away, but they knew they’d never be able to trust Courtney after that. So, they made a decision to do what was needed to protect you.” Pearl’s eyes are drooping again, but this time I don’t care. I think I’ve got the gist of things now—which is already far more than I ever wanted to know. “They weren’t supposed to shoot until your father got you out of the crosshairs. Never should have trusted a pair of druggies to stick to the plan…”
