by Maisey Yates
Not that she wanted to reach his heart. Nope. She didn’t have the inclination for that. They had to see this through. To see through the destruction of Jason Treffen, and after that, she could start making a life for herself.
But it wouldn’t be with Austin. It wouldn’t be wrapped up in Sarah’s death. This entire situation was too close to parts of her life she despised, and when it was over, she was leaving New York and never coming back.
She was leaving all this to burn to the ground behind her.
For now, though, she did have access to Austin’s triple showerheads. And she was going to take that.
Chapter Nine
“I suppose I should have realized by your lack of decked halls that you weren’t super into the season.”
Austin turned in his chair and saw Katy, standing in the doorway. She was wearing sweats and had that just-showered look that made his cock jump a little bit. The only explanation being that thoughts of her being freshly showered put his thoughts onto her being slick, wet and naked. Which was in no way neutral territory.
“No tree flocking or menorah lighting in the month of December for me, I’m afraid. I continue on in my dull, undecked, semi-heathenous existence.”
“Since when?”
“Since Sarah,” he said. “It’s left a bad taste in my mouth for Christmas.”
“Oh.” She sort of shrunk back after that. “You did care about her, didn’t you?”
“I told you, she was my friend. I was an asshole who failed her. But I did care. A lot.”
“You didn’t love her, did you?”
“Not like that. She was dating Hunter. I never looked at her as anything more than my friend. Sometimes I liked her better than I liked him.”
“She had a pretty strong effect on people. A good one.”
“Yes,” he said, his chest getting tight, “she did.”
“So, to change the subject awkwardly and inappropriately, why weren’t you in bed this morning? And why do I get the feeling you weren’t there for most of the night?”
“Because I wasn’t. I slept in here.”
“Right...and why?”
He looked straight ahead, his posture rigid. “Because what happened last night wasn’t okay.”
“Why?”
He felt like he’d been punched in the chest. “What the hell do you mean why? Does it not seem like some seriously sick stuff to you that your sister was in some sort of weird manipulative relationship with my dad and the minute I meet you...I want you. And now that I have you I suddenly want to turn you over my knee and spank you? Usually, I’m a huge fan of my penis, but lately, not so much.”
“Interesting. I recently became a fan of it.”
“Stop,” he said, his throat so tight he couldn’t breathe. “It’s not happening again.”
“Because you know what I should want?”
“Because I know what I should want, and it’s not this. I don’t like the fact that I’m using you. And that’s what I’m doing, Katy, make no mistake. I’m not going to fall in love with you and live dominantly ever after with you. I’m using you because I’m going through something hard. Because I want to control something, and right now, the only thing I can control is you. That is a special kind of screwed up.”
“And you’re protecting me from it because...I’m just so normal and well-adjusted you’re afraid you’ll screw me up? I mean, seriously, Austin, I almost begged you to spank me harder. Because I liked it that much. Shall we psychoanalyze just why I enjoyed you punishing me so very much?”
“No. Because I have issues of my own. I’m not taking yours on board, too.”
“Fair enough, not asking you to. But just be aware that I was using you, too. Because I’m so damn sick of carrying everything. And letting you have the control? It lets me drop it for a while. So I can honestly say, your issues suit me.”
“They don’t suit me,” he said, meeting her gaze. “This isn’t who I want to be. This isn’t what I want to do. I do not want to do anything that even remotely resembles... I am not my father. I don’t want to be, not even anything close. If I have to give something up to distance myself from him, it’s going to be this...relationship, or whatever you want to call it. The alternative is giving up baseball, and I damn well won’t do that.”
She blinked rapidly. “Oh. Okay. So I rate somewhere beneath baseball?”
“No, but my enjoyment of baseball doesn’t terrify me to my very soul. How about that?”
“I terrify you?”
“The things I want to do to you? The things I have done? That terrifies me.”
“You know,” she said, “inexperienced though I am, I do know there are plenty of normal people who have relationships where they do this sort of thing. And there’s nothing wrong with them. Not if it’s mutual and consensual, and you can’t doubt for a second that what we did was just that.”
He let out a sharp breath. “Yes, that’s true. But this has nothing to do with them. It has nothing to do with anyone but the two of us, and as far as we’re concerned? There’s nothing normal or healthy about it. You’re Sarah’s sister. I’ve never done things like this with a woman. What my father enjoyed doing to your sister didn’t need handcuffs for there to be a power differential, and I’m afraid... Sure, there are plenty of people who do this and it’s not screwed up, but between you and me? It is.”
“I guess right now isn’t the best time to be exploring something like this,” she said, her eyes on the ground.
“Everything is horrible right now,” he said, hating to admit it. Hating to admit just how deeply all of this affected him. Just how utterly hopeless and out of his hands it all was. “I can’t change that. I can’t stop it. I have to go and ruin my mother’s life sometime next week because...because it’s for the greater good. You know...it’s not personal for them.”
“For who?” she asked, her long, delicate fingers curling around the doorframe.
“For Alex and Hunter. I mean, they loved Sarah, too. The revenge, though... It doesn’t hurt them. It heals something for them, atones for things. And nothing else. Jason Treffen being brought low doesn’t change a thing for them. It just gives them the ability to look at their hands and hopefully...not see her blood there anymore. For me? For me it’s different.”
He didn’t know why he was telling her this. Why he was pouring all this onto her. But he supposed if he could spill himself on her stomach, he could try to explain what was going on inside of him.
“I can’t destroy him without hurting myself. I can’t let him go on without hurting other people. But this... When I was a kid my father seemed perfect. My family was perfect. My life was perfect, and nothing went wrong because...because things went wrong for other people, not for me. It’s like I’m paying for that now. Like there’s only a certain amount of good you can have before it all goes bad.”
She laughed, the sound hollow and bitter. “Does that work in reverse?”
“It should.”
“Then stick with me. I’m about to win the mother-effing lottery. I’m sure of it. I may also find out I’m the long-lost princess of some little-known island nation. Probably I’m also an heiress to a shipping magnate, too.”
“Been that bad, has it?” he asked. He felt like an ass going on about all of his stuff when she’d never had a good day in her life. At least, it didn’t sound like she had.
And how fair was that?
Katy was a hard worker. Someone with a strong backbone, a sense of loyalty. And what was he? Just a lucky guy who’d been born into money. Without it, what would he be? Nothing. Without his family name? What was he?
Maybe nothing. But at least he’d still have his money. So there was that. He wasn’t sure what else there was, to be honest.
“If I covered it up...” he began, hi
s voice ragged as he tried to voice his deepest, dirtiest desires. And why not? She’d seen his dirtiest physical desires. Parts of himself he’d never wanted to expose anyone to. Because that wasn’t respectful. It wasn’t right. And he’d grown up believing in that. Dominating a woman went against so much of what had been instilled in him, so he’d done his best to ignore the fantasies. Even though he hadn’t always managed.
But this was more shameful than a desire for spankings and bondage. Much more so.
“If I covered it up,” he began again, “things could be like they were. My mother wouldn’t lose her husband. My sister wouldn’t suffer any repercussions. She’s in college, you know. Tearing her way through Columbia, continuing on the tradition. She’s part of the legacy that I’m about to destroy. And what will happen to her when I do? But if I don’t...she can go on like she always has. And I...I can, too. When people hear my name, when they hear Austin Treffen, they’ll think of a legacy of good works. Of achievements and advancements made for women. That’s what they’ll think of.”
He looked at his hands, not really able to believe he was saying this out loud. Not able to believe how well-formed it all was. That it had been building in him like this.
“But if I go ahead with it...my mother loses her marriage. My sister potentially becomes a target at school. And every time someone hears the name Treffen they’ll think of prostitutes and abuse.”
He heard Katy swallow, saw her throat working. “I do understand how hard that would be, Austin. And I get that it’s costing you. More than it is them, more than it is me. But as it is, my life is so damned expensive. It costs me all the time. Because I can’t rest until this is fixed for her. I am truly sorry that people will think bad things when they hear your name, but what do people think when they hear Sarah’s? They barely hear it. They barely think of it. And if they do, they think of some stupid drunk slut who jumped off a building. Not the woman who gave me sanity. Who taught me how to love people. Who instilled in me the value of hard work. She was my example.” She swallowed hard. “When I lost her, I lost my way. I lost everything. She was the person who showed me that you could make it out of a situation like ours and go on to bigger things. And I know I haven’t done that. I know I haven’t done a lot of bigger and better things. But I believed I could. Just believing that brought me through more than you can possibly imagine. But no one knows that. They only know that she was a nobody from nowhere who just couldn’t handle any measure of success, ’cause you know those dirty poors just can’t.”
That assessment shamed him. And he deserved it. All things considered, he sort of liked it. Since it helped him focus on something else.
“She deserves better than that,” he said. “But you know that if they judged her before, they’ll all judge her more now. She’s the woman at the center of the scandal. He might have dealt in whores, but by default, whether she was paid or not, she was one. She will be one as far as the public is concerned. That’s how these things work, trust me. I deal in sexual crimes against women all the time. It’s what I do for a living. Until there is no way to blame a woman for all the sex, she will be blamed for it. It can come down to the fact that the rapist says she didn’t say no loud enough. Or that she didn’t fight hard enough. It’s ugly, and it’s something I hate, something I battle constantly in court and out, but it’s the way things work. And when all of this hits? Every woman involved is getting dragged straight through the mud with him.”
“But her name is mud already, Austin,” Katy said, her eyes glistening. “And it will never be anything else unless this is finished. Not only that, he’ll make more of her. How many other Sarahs do there have to be?”
Her question hung in the air, an accusation. Stark in the silence. Austin let out a slow breath.
“No more,” he said.
“Because if you really need control that badly, I’d much rather have you tie me down and spank my ass than back out and leave these other women to be abused by your father.”
“I’m not doing either thing. I’m not backing down and I’m not... We don’t have time to mess around with whatever is happening between us.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Right. I agree. So nothing is happening between us. And what did is...”
“Not important.”
“Nope.”
“By the way,” he said, leaning back in his chair, “would you mind coming with me on Wednesday to ruin my mother’s life? She really did want you to come.”
“Probably not for what’s actually happening,” she said.
“No. But I think it would be good for you to be there.”
“And can we trust her with my safety? You know, all the safety that had you forcing me out of paycheck and home?”
“If not, we’re screwed, because I’m going to be very clearly letting her know that I’m actively attempting to stop Jason from ever doing what he did to Sarah again. So she’ll have the chance to stop both of us, I suppose. If she sides with him, she’ll tell him.”
“She won’t, though,” Katy said. “I can tell just from that brief meeting with her.”
“If she believes us, there’s no way she would side with him.”
“And your sister?”
“Addison is a spoiled brat. It’s almost cute. But she’s not stupid, and she isn’t cruel. I think once she sees the evidence...”
“The pictures. You’ll even show Addison?”
“Life is so ugly, and she’ll find it out sooner or later. I’d rather have her learn it this way than through being used by someone. This way, she can know that it happens. That people lie. That they manipulate. She can learn it without experiencing it.”
“She is, though,” Katy said. “It’s her dad. I know you’ve been disillusioned about him for a while, but has she?”
“Probably not. I survived it, though, and so will she. We’ll all survive it. Even if we come out of it without a reputation...we’ll survive it.”
“I know what it’s like to survive things,” she said. “It’s not as glamorous as it sounds.”
“In what way?”
“Survival is only the beginning. It’s the living after that’s the problem.”
“Has it been your problem?”
She narrowed her eyes. “When you met me I was a twenty-six-year-old virgin with a vengeance complex. Now I’m a twenty-six-year-old with a vengeance complex. You tell me how well you think I’m living.”
“You’re surviving,” he said.
“Exactly. Which is more of a half life. So I hope you do better than that. Though,” she said, her lips twisting into something that sort of looked like a smile, “I think some of us are maybe better off. Focus on other things. Idle hands and all that.”
“When you put it like that, I might be better off, too. But I hope that my mother and my sister do better than that. Addison is too young for anything else. My mother... She’s never hurt anyone. She’s never been anything but supportive and loving. And she doesn’t deserve this, not any of it.”
“And you do?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.” His chest felt heavy. With something. He wasn’t sure what. He didn’t understand what his feelings were doing. All this complex crap. He was used to happy, angry, hungry or horny, not necessarily in that order or frequency, and this...all of this...was not conforming to that.
This was something else entirely. All-consuming emotion. It filled him completely, making every word, every movement, a challenge. All he really wanted was to stand up and turn everything in the room upside down. The desk. The chair. To break glass and spread out the papers until everything was as big of a mess outside as it was inside of him.
But he couldn’t do that. He had to get a grip on himself and keep it.
No outward signs of rage. No attempts at gaining control by using Katy’s body.
> “Sometimes I think maybe this is all keeping me from heading the same direction as my father.”
“Do you really think you might have?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Because I don’t know how he got there.”
“I said it before, and it’s true—you’re not as charming as he is,” she said. “You’re much more honest. I think there’s something to that.”
“I hope you’re right,” he said. “Anyway, I’m about to use some of that honesty to ruin my family. So here’s hoping that it serves a higher purpose. Otherwise, I’m setting my entire world on fire for nothing.”
* * *
The Treffen estate was impressive. Sprawling grounds, blanketed in crystalline snow, and a massive home with turrets rising from it, like an imposing old guard.
Which is what it was a representation of, in so many ways. The old guard. The system as it had been for so many years.
And, as Austin had so eloquently put it during their conversation on Christmas morning, they were about to set it on fire.
He put the car in Park and got out, and she followed. The snow muffled the sound of the doors closing. The silence seemed to press in on them.
It was so different from the city. Even different from her neighborhood in Connecticut. It had been a small town, but the houses had been crammed together. And there were always dogs and fights, eighties metal music and revving truck engines.
This was an isolation and silence that cost, and she could see why people paid for it.
“It’s incredible,” she said, the fog created by her words lingering in the air. “I mean...what a place to grow up.”
He nodded slowly, slipping his hands into the pockets of his long, dark wool jacket. “It was. Do you see why I thought my life was enchanted?”
“Very much.”
“You can’t go back. You just start to wonder what’s hidden in the corners. What kinds of skeletons are buried in the yard.” He looked up and squinted against the sun. “But, hell, time to raise the dead.”
