“Thank you,” I replied because that was what I was taught to say.
“Your mother is waiting,” he whispered regretfully. What he was regretting I didn’t even want to speculate, so I took the arm he had offered me and let him lead me out the door and down the elevator.
His sleek Jaguar C-X75 was waiting for us in front of the building. He opened the door for me and helped me slide onto the luxurious leather seat. I hadn’t bothered with a coat and I had forgotten my purse, so I fiddled with my cellphone idly while I waited for Nix to climb into the driver’s seat.
Nix put the car into drive and eased out of the circular driveway in front of our building. We headed north, away from downtown and toward Dundee, a quaint section of Omaha with expensive bistros that served unique, but world class food. It wasn’t that long of a drive, and silence filled the space between us. Nix was intense while he drove. Nix was always intense and never tolerated idle conversation unless he absolutely needed to. I was intimidated and anxious, so silence was fine with me.
My phone buzzed in my lap, but I ignored it. If Exie or Sloane were texting about Nix or really anything right now, I didn’t want him to get curious. I was more afraid that it was Chase though. We exchanged numbers yesterday and I didn’t want to have to explain too much about him to Nix. There would be too many questions, too much investigation and if Nix asked me to do anything in regards to the relationship I would have to say yes. And I wasn’t ready for that.
Nix found a parking spot directly in front of the restaurant, which I thought was lucky, but probably normal for someone like him. The very best of life just fell into his lap, he was used to it, expected it even. I stayed put in the car while he climbed out and walked around to open the door for me. Years of training had taught me how to behave properly; I was a prisoner to manners and tradition.
And the curse.
Just like Nix was.
My mother was already seated at a table inside the dimly lit French restaurant. She stood when we walked in the door, greeting us each with a gentle hug and a kiss on both cheeks. Her eyes flitted over me from head to toe and I forced myself not to cringe from her scrutiny. She was of course, above reproach in stylishly cut, high waisted black tailored pants and a soft pink silk shirt. She looked more like a movie star than a mother. That was always my thought about her. She was stunning, completely elegant, poised and absolutely untouchable and distant.
Eventually the beauty would fade, she would develop wrinkles, and her hair would thin and gray and her body would begin to sag. It happened to every woman, we were without exception. But my mother would never lose her allure; men would always be drawn to her.
And to me. No matter how I detested this outward beauty, men would always worship it.
“How’s Honor?” Nix asked first while we settled behind our menus, and they sipped their wine.
My mother paused for too long. She made a show of drinking her wine and looking around the restaurant impatiently for our waiter. I clenched at the napkin in my lap, dreading whatever had my mother so nervous. Her eyes flickered everywhere in the room, except to Nix and this only made me more anxious.
“She’s very devoted to her father,” she finally admitted.
A rush of air expelled through my mouth and I felt myself visibly relax into my seat. Nix shot me an intolerant glance but I smiled brightly, hoping to avoid an explanation. I loved that my sister had a father and they were so close. I loved that she had been saved from our world, from my mother…. From Nix. But obviously I couldn’t explain that to them.
Nix slid his wine glass between his thumb and middle finger slowly. He didn’t have very many tells, his ability to mask every emotion was one of his greatest skills. But his fingers were white with the effort to stop himself from crushing the glass between his fingers.
I wiped at the corners of my mouth to keep from smiling at his frustration. “So she isn’t willing to go back to trial?” I asked in a meek voice.
My mother’s sharp green eyes found mine with such intensity that it felt like she slapped me. “No, she doesn’t want to dispute custody. She says she’s happy with the way things are.” My mother’s words fell off her tongue like malicious drops of acid. How dare one of her children be happy…
Nix’s gaze bore into my mother like he could change the finality of her tone with a powerful look. His lips had formed a tight frown and I watched, practically mesmerized, by the pulsing, angry vein in his neck. When he finally spoke, his words were carefully controlled and measured. This was Nix with barely concealed anger management issues; this was Nix just at the verge of losing control. Terrifying. Captivating. Deadly.
“She doesn’t know better, Ava,” he finally relented. “She’s been with that man for as long as she can remember, she doesn’t know life differently. Continue how things are, we’ll work on the details together.”
My mother nodded curtly, as if she were in complete agreement. It was only the tremble of her fingers when she reached for her glass that gave away her internal fears. I found her quiet terror comforting, even though it meant that if my plans failed in the future I would be imprisoned to a life of fear.
“But I will not tolerate this for much longer,” Nix continued, “Your failure to possess your own offspring is not acceptable. Her father is an anomaly, I understand that, and I’d rather not risk exposure by pressing him too hard. But there cannot be loose ends, there cannot be….” Nix cleared his throat, pulling himself back from the hateful monster he was becoming.
“So you don’t think that could ever happen again?” I asked before I could stop myself. Ryder had felt like this giant impossibility ever since I met him, but I had forgotten Honor’s father was also completely resistant to my mother’s spell. Maybe there were men alive that could resist us. Maybe there was hope!
“Ivy you have nothing to worry about,” Nix answered, misreading my curiosity. “What happened with Smith was a fluke. It won’t happen again, especially not to you.” His eyes settled on me appreciatively and I could almost feel my mother’s bitterness radiating between us.
What he didn’t know was that I thought it had already happened to me.
My mother wasn’t alone. And I could solve this new gap between us caused by Nix’s implications if I was honest with her about Ryder.
But I never would be. Never ever.
“Smith and Honor are extenuating circumstances,” my mother defended herself. “Who knows what those chemo drugs did to his mind, to his brain. Nobody expected him to survive those treatments or his disease, not even his expensive team of experts.” We sat in silence as my mother’s unnecessary argument settled around us. I didn’t have an opinion that could be said out loud about her situation and no matter what my mother said, Nix had his own ideas that would not be dissuaded. “Maybe I should talk to my lawyer about that. Maybe it just wasn’t his relationship with me that was affected. Nobody knows the long term effects those drugs could have on his mental capacity.”
Nix made a noncommittal sound and gestured for the waiter to come over and take our order. Nix proceeded to order for all three of us without asking our opinion, and then dismissed the waiter just as abruptly. I was used to this. It was annoying, but I was used to it. And at least I wouldn’t have to eat dry lettuce, my mother’s favorite food.
We sat in silence for a few more moments, lost to our own thoughts. Nix’s concentration never softened, and if anything he grew more agitated with each passing moment. He was wound tight with powerful energy, his eyes burning holes into the table as his fingers worked his wine glass in small twists back and forth. My mother seemed to shrink under the force of his intensity and I could only watch with sick fascination, hardly knowing what to expect.
“Ava,” Nix looked at my mother over the small candle in the middle of the table, the dark lighting of the restaurant casting a shadow over half of his face. He pinned my mother to her seat, leveling her with the concentration of his dark eyes. Before he said anything else I kn
ew she would agree to whatever he was about to say, she couldn’t help herself. When faced with a force of nature like Nix, one did not say “no,” one simply shook their head and quivered in promises to carry out his wishes. “It’s important that Honor is put in your custody soon.”
“I know that, Nix,” my mother crooned confidently, but I saw the way she pressed her lips together to hide her nerves. Her attempt at hiding her anxiety was slipping quickly. She needed more wine.
“Honor needs to be your legacy, not Ivy,” Nix continued and I choked on a piece of ice I had been crunching on. Literally, I choked. I flailed my arms, chugged my water and made an entirely unattractive spectacle of myself. My mother and Nix waited for me to gain control of my motor functions and breathing with disapproving glares.
“Sorry,” I squeaked, looking intently down at the beige table cloth and wishing I could crawl underneath the table and hide or find a gun. A gun could solve a couple problems right now.
“Why not Ivy?” my mother asked defensively, showing the first sign of backbone I had ever witnessed. And the first sign of possessive connection to me. “She’s grown into a stunning young woman. She’s everything you want in your legacies and more.”
“I’m not arguing with you,” Nix was quick to respond, waving his hand in the air for effect. “You’ve done a fantastic job with her; she’s everything I could ever hope for.”
Except for my mental instability, I thought dryly.
“Then-“ my mother started to ask, but Nix interrupted her.
“I want her for me. I want her in my collection,” Nix explained as if this were typical dinner conversation, as if my world hadn’t come crashing down around me at his words, as if I could still breathe.
My mother looked over the table at me, beaming with pride. Her green eyes sparkled and her shoulders bounced a little relishing the news. I realized too late that she was never defensive of Nix’s opinion of me, her pride had been wounded. She was soaring now, what with a daughter handpicked for Nix’s personal collection, how could she not be? This was what every mother wanted, what every mother dreamed of her daughter becoming….
But what about the daughters? What about what they wanted?
And my heart stopped beating. I stopped living. I stopped existing.
“Nix, I had no idea Ivy had made such an impression on you,” my mother gloated.
“When?” I croaked. The word tumbled from my lips in a hoarse, desperate plea for time.
“When you would have come to me anyway,” Nix explained, his eyes drinking me in with calculating indifference. He wasn’t happy with my reaction, with how my face had paled, and my hands gripped the table to keep myself from falling out of my seat. But this was the best I could give him; this was my last desperate attempt from falling apart. “I won’t ask you to leave your mother just yet. But you will be mine, Ivy.”
His words sunk into my skin like deathly sharp daggers, cutting and slicing open every vestige of hope I held. I bled despair and anguish from every pore, and cried invisible tears of defeat. Eighteen was more important now than ever, but never more unattainable.
The dinner continued on without me present, at least intellectually. Nix and my mother moved onto different, less life-changing topics. But I remained in the soul-wrenching limbo of suffocating hopelessness.
There was no point to breathing anymore. There was no need for air.
Chapter Eleven
You will be mine, Ivy. You will be mine. You will be mine. You will be mine.
“Hey are you, Ok? Ivy, are you Ok?” Kenna’s voice cut through the memory of last night and shook me into the present.
Breath.
One full breath.
“Um, yeah, I’m fine,” I smiled at her, hoping I looked fine. Obviously I didn’t, but to be fair, she caught me in the middle of reliving the worst nightmare of my life. And I had lived a lifetime of nightmares. “I was just thinking about something.”
She smiled back, but I could tell she didn’t really believe me. I relied on our acquaintance-only-status to keep her from prying further and with one more fortifying breath I turned my attention back to Chase as he inhaled his pizza. I reached over and stole a pepperoni before he could consume everything on his plate and then ignored the instinct to lick his plate clean for him.
“I tried to share with you,” Chase scolded. He wiped his hands on a napkin and gave my lonely orange and bottle of water a depressed once over. “That is so not enough food for lunch.”
“It’s plenty,” I argued, savoring the taste of the greasy pepperoni on my tongue. “I’m just not a big eater,” I explained. I wasn’t a big eater, but not by choice. It was part of the rules I lived with. I wanted to be a big eater. I wanted to weigh four hundred pounds and eat ice cream all day long and drink soda by the two-liter.
I wanted to wear elastic pants.
Chase made a noncommittal grunt that sounded like he didn’t really believe me either. I ignored him and dug into the orange in front of me, my fingernails sinking into the soft flesh causing juice to squirt out everywhere, speckling my hands with sticky spray.
“So who’s coming tomorrow night?” Phoenix asked by way of greeting. He sat down directly across from me, flashing a goofy grin and waggling his eyebrows. “Ivy, you in?”
“Yeah, I’m in,” I grinned back, and nudged Chase with my elbow. “Chase invited me.”
“Nice,” Phoenix’s smile grew bigger and he reached out with his gangly arms to steal my water bottle and take a drink. Apparently our lunch table was more like a communal buffet.
“Wait, is this the first date?” Ryder asked, squeezing in between Phoenix and Kenna. He threw his arm around Kenna and placed a quick kiss against her neck before waiting for the answer. I watched them helplessly, feeling something hollow and open in my heart but not understanding it.
Kenna giggled loudly and then wiggled out of Ryder’s arm so that she could finish her lunch. She really was pretty, even today when she wasn’t really trying. Her stick straight hair was thrown up into a messy bun, but it was so straight that it fell limply on top of her head. She was wearing a simple v-neck t-shirt and tight jeans with a loose scarf around her neck, but she was still eye-catching, still beautiful.
I found myself jealous for a moment. Not because I didn’t think I was pretty, I knew I was. But each one of my outfits had to meet the approval of my mother and anything less than perfectly styled hair was completely out of the question. Even the ballet flats I wore today with skinny jeans took hours of convincing and negotiating. My mother was under the impression that unless I was in at least four inch stilettos I just wasn’t trying.
I tore my eyes of Kenna to stare at Chase, expecting him to answer Ryder’s question. He was blushing just barely, his cheeks pinkened and his eyes averting me completely.
“This is the first date,” I acknowledged, saving Chase from having to answer.
“F for effort,” Ryder goaded. “Don’t get too attached to that one, if the best he can come up
with is a lame-ass party at Bates’ house.”
“It’s my fault,” I felt the unexplainable need to defend Chase from Ryder’s judgment. “I’m busy tonight and he had already promised Phoenix he would go.”
Ryder gave me a skeptical look and I wasn’t exactly sure what it was for, but Chase jumped in and saved me from asking. “Like you’re any better Sutton. You’re taking Kenna to the party, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Ryder agreed. “But tonight I have big plans.”
“Oh yeah?” Kenna nudged Ryder with her elbow gently. “What kind of plans?”
“Big ones,” Ryder smirked at her, and the innuendo was clear.
I felt my cheeks get warm and I had to avoid any eye contact at the table while everyone snickered and laughed around me. I didn’t know why I felt so embarrassed by Ryder’s comments; it wasn’t like my life was protected from sex, or sex-related activities. In fact, it was more inundated with them than anything. But I didn’t like t
o think about whatever Ryder had planned for Kenna tonight. For whatever reason those thoughts made me extremely uncomfortable.
“Hey,” Chase lowered his voice and leaned into me. “We don’t have to go to the party. We can always do our own thing.”
“No you can’t,” Phoenix jumped in, shaking his head and giving Chase a stern look. “No you can’t do your own thing. Ivy’s never been to one of my parties. They are seriously epic. There will be no ditching my party.” This was the most serious I had ever seen Phoenix, and he was still glaring at Chase.
“Geez, eavesdrop much?” Chase complained, shaking his head at his friend. “And you can’t peer pressure Ivy into going, she makes her own decisions.”
“Very true,” I laughed at the two of them going back and forth. And it was true. I was completely immune to peer pressure. Parental pressure was a whole different category however and in my case, so, so much worse. “Don’t worry, Phoenix, we’ll be there.” I turned to Chase and smiled at him. “I don’t want to disappoint him, he seems so pathetic.”
Chase just shook his head. “How do you always get your way, man?”
“Boyish good looks and infinite charm,” Phoenix offered seriously. “Oh and my parents have good weed.”
I let that sink in for a minute before declaring, “Nope, sorry, so not into recreational drugs.” I shook my head, my auburn hair whipping around my face, hammering in my point. I didn’t know what made my confession so absolutely vital, so important that I needed to say it out loud with loads of conviction. But I had to assume it had something to do with Kenna presuming my drink the other night was vodka. I had a reputation, and I couldn’t stop the rumors, but this group of people was different than anyone I had ever hung out with before. They were better…. more wholesome or something. And I felt myself wanting to prove my virtue. Which was totally lame….
The Rush (The Siren Series) Page 9
