by Maisey Yates
“Séance time,” she said.
She locked her arm through his as he pressed the doorbell. Because they were supposed to be playing a couple. And because she knew that this was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
Things had been awkward with him for the past few days. They’d avoided each other. No more shared takeout. No more sex. Barely even a conversation.
But none of that mattered right this second. Really, none of it mattered at all. They had one thing they were united on. And that was bringing Jason down, seeking out justice for Sarah. That was why they were here. It was why she was still in his house. Because nothing else—not their relationship, not her feelings about him—really mattered.
All of this was for Sarah.
An older man in an honest-to-goodness butler getup answered the door.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Treffen,” the butler said, sadly lacking in British accent.
“David, good to see you. This is my...girlfriend, Katy.” He stumbled over the word, but then, what suited for his father—lover or mistress—did not suit for lunch with his mother and Katy well knew it.
She couldn’t imagine being Austin’s girlfriend. She wouldn’t want to be anyway. Between the two of them they had so much baggage they’d require assistance carrying it all.
When she did find someone, it would be someone normal. And it would be when she felt normal. When she finally got her head on straight and learned how to live life without this endless need to fix everything.
For some reason, for just a second, that thought made her feel like she was in a free fall, with no idea of where she might land. It was terrifying. Nothing to hold on to, no idea of when she might hit bottom.
And then, just as quickly as the feeling hit, it was gone.
They were ushered through the expansive entryway, which was more like a grand antechamber to some palatial throne room, then through the living area and into a large, bright room with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the snow-covered field outside, the white reflecting the sun and washing everything so that it looked overexposed.
There were bookshelves, a cluster of furniture around a fireplace and, by the windows, a small, round table. Lenore was already sitting there, a smile on her face. Next to her was a beautiful blonde that Katy assumed was Addison. She looked like her mother probably had many decades—and many face-lifts—ago.
She didn’t have the same artifice to her beauty. Her hair was back in a low bun, her lips the same shade of pink as her cheeks and the dress she was wearing. She looked like a fresh rosebud. All new and pretty, and unexposed. Still closed up tightly, untouched completely by the elements.
Katy felt a pang of guilt that ran so deep it almost made her double over. Because today was the day that Addison Treffen would be shown what Katy already knew. That life was an utter bitch.
She took a deep breath and walked in with Austin. She was dimly aware that he was doing the polite thing. Making introductions, greeting everyone and holding her chair out for her. She sat, nodding at what she hoped were appropriate times.
Then the luncheon was served. And it was adorable. Pink lemonade, martinis and little sandwiches.
They ate while talking about nothing. The weather and who wore what to where. And as lunch started to wind down, something in Katy started to wind up.
And she wondered if she should excuse herself before the big moment. Fake a bathroom emergency. Something to do with an eyelash in her eye or...
She caught Austin’s gaze, just as everyone’s plates were being cleared, and she knew that escape wasn’t an option.
“There is a reason I wanted to have lunch with you today,” he said, looking at his mother with a steadiness that Katy could only admire. Because she could hardly look up at him, and yet he was meeting his mother’s eyes, giving her every respect, in spite of the fact that it was killing him to impart the news. “It’s about Dad.”
“What about him?” Addison asked, perfect lips turned into a frown. “He’s not sick, is he?”
“Not the way you mean,” Austin said, his tone dry. “I may be making the wrong choice telling you both at once, but it does affect you, Addison. And I don’t particularly want to tell the story twice. I have evidence that Dad had an affair. Ten years ago with my friend Sarah. The one who killed herself during the party.”
Lenore’s face didn’t move. Addison’s did. Her brow crumpled, her expression turning fierce. “You aren’t serious, Austin. She was so young and...”
“I am serious. And there’s more. And the reason that I’m here telling you this is that it’s all about to go public and I don’t want either of you standing with him.” He reached out and took his mother’s hand from across the table. “I don’t want you standing there behind him with that stoic supportive look on your face like some lobotomized politician’s wife,” he said, his tone intense. “Because he doesn’t deserve it. He deserves for you to take his money and make his life hell.”
Lenore blinked rapidly, her eyes glassy with tears. “You have evidence, you said, Austin?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “I don’t need to see it. I’ve suspected as much. That he was unfaithful. But...you know, in my position, in the world I’m from, we’re taught not to care.”
“You’re taught not to care?” Addison said. “You never taught me not to care. I don’t see how you can sit there so calmly and say that.”
“I taught you to expect more, Addison,” Lenore said, her tone turning to steel, “because I damn well wished I had expected more for myself. Because I didn’t know how to ask for more, or go out and get more, because I thought you just had to sit back and endure it when you suspected your husband was having affairs. I must say, Austin, it’s much harder to do when someone confirms it. Until now, I only had the suspicions.”
“The affair is the least of your worries. He’s been involved in illegal activity. Some of which...Katy has evidence of, as well.”
Katy nodded slowly. That was her cue to take part in the play. “I’m Sarah Michaels’s sister. I’m sure you know that name. Austin and I met...quite by accident. But after we...spent some time together, we found out why it was we were both at that party. Both of us were looking for answers. For Sarah. And we’d both found things. Putting them together...”
“We have a rough idea of what was happening. None of it is very pleasant, Mother, and I hate to trouble you with the details. But my advice...”
“Is this legal advice, Austin?” she asked with a trace of dry humor.
“Yes. And advice as your son. Walk away. Make the break now, take him for everything he’s worth. Make the public question the man they always thought they knew. You’ll come out of it stronger. Better. Rather than ruined, because make no mistake, Jason Treffen is going to lose it all and you don’t want to be part of that. You want to be someone who took something, not someone who stayed in Rome while it burned.”
Lenore’s shoulders lowered a bit. “Avoiding scandal has always been so important to your father.”
“He created this one,” Austin said. “It’s his own mess and he’s going to have to clean it up. You don’t. I know it will be hard, but I’ll be there for you. I brought it to you now because soon it’s going to be in the media, and I wanted you to have time to distance yourself from him before then. I hate telling you this,” he said, looking tired now. Older. “Both of you. I hate knowing it. I hate that it’s our life right now. But no matter how much I hate it, it doesn’t change anything.”
Lenore looked at Katy. “You aren’t his girlfriend?”
The older woman looked so shattered. And she knew the devastating news wasn’t really the question of Katy and Austin’s relationship. But even so, she couldn’t bring herself to disappoint her. She didn’t see the point of making things worse. It was only Jason’s blood she want
ed.
“Oh, no, I am. We met almost by accident. I mean, at the party like we told you. But...but then it turned out...”
“Very convenient,” Addison said, her arms crossed under her breasts, her eyes now on Katy, and gone very sharp, digging into her. “And you have all this supposed evidence about my father?”
“I have my own, Addison,” Austin growled. “And before you go accusing Katy of anything, remember that in doing so you’re accusing me of being a gullible idiot. And I know you wouldn’t do that.”
“Will you excuse me, please?” Lenore asked. “I’m not feeling well. Thankfully, because of the weather Jason is staying in Manhattan all week. It will give me some time to process it all. I’ll call you in a couple of days, darling.” Lenore stood and bent, cupping Austin’s chin and kissing him lightly on the cheek before she walked out of the room.
Katy felt nothing but sadness for her. For the position they’d put them in. Austin was right about the cost of all this. It wasn’t light. Vengeance hurt more people than she’d ever wanted to hurt. But it was the truth, so that had to make it right.
Addison stood, too, her eyes on Austin. “Mom might not need your evidence, but I do. We’ll get in touch later. For now...for now, I have to deal with Mom.”
“I understand. Tell Mom I love her.” Austin stood and Katy followed suit.
“I will.” Addison gave Katy a hard look. “You’d better be right. If you’re going to go saying things like this...you’d better be right.”
“I’d rather be wrong,” Katy said. “But I’m not.”
Addison nodded once, then walked out of the room.
Katy felt like she’d misjudged Addison. She wasn’t as soft as she’d seemed at first, but that shouldn’t surprise Katy, really. She was a Treffen, and she seemed to have that same spine of steel her mother had. That Austin had.
“It’s time to head back,” he said, “now that we’ve done our damage.”
“Right. And you were right,” she said, when they were outside and getting back into the car. “It wasn’t fun. At all. Because I can appreciate ruining Jason’s life. I can appreciate taking them from him. But I didn’t really enjoy taking him from them, if you know what I mean.”
He started the engine. “Yeah, I do. Damn, it’s cold.”
“Yeah.” She turned on the heat before leaning back in the seat.
“I’m hoping that we’re not driving on a sheet of ice the whole way back.”
“Do you have studs?” she asked.
“No. I don’t drive often enough to put special tires on.”
“Chains?”
“No.”
“You weren’t a Boy Scout, were you?”
“Because I’m not prepared? Don’t I always have a condom when we need one?”
She snorted. “Unless you can put condoms on tires to help give you more traction, I’m not really impressed with that right now.”
“We’ll be fine.” He pulled out of the driveway and onto the two-lane road that headed back toward town and the interstate.
Not long into the drive it became pretty clear that the roads weren’t fine. It was cold enough that the roads were frozen, and with snow falling, the cars that had come before them had flattened it into a hard, white sheet.
“How far is it to the freeway?” Katy asked, holding on to the door handle, like it might keep her safe if they slid off the road.
“A ways. But we’re fine.”
Except they weren’t fine because the road up ahead was closed.
“There’s another route,” he said, his jaw set, that stubborn man-look firmly etched into his face. That look that meant he would drive them over a freaking frozen pond if it meant proving that he could handle it.
No. Thank. You.
“Another route that’s less snowy? Does this other route happen to take us through Bermuda? Because if not, please just release the death grip on your pride. Because I don’t want to die in an icy Aston Martin–shaped tomb.”
“This isn’t about my pride,” he said, teeth gritted.
“Bull, Austin. I’ve seen your penis. I know it’s big. So can you just find us a place to stay for the night so we don’t end up dead in a ditch?”
He put the brakes on and the car slid for a few feet before stopping completely.
“That!” she said, hand on her chest, her heart pounding. “That is why the stopping somewhere for the night.”
“I know how to drive in ice.”
“I don’t know how to be a passenger in it!”
“Fine.” He turned the car around, the snow crunching beneath the tires. “We’ll see what we can find.”
Chapter Ten
What they could find turned out to be a nearly-booked-solid B and B in the center of town. An old Shaker-style house with an ornate entryway and a wreath on the door. It was like a Christmas card. And Austin hated that shit.
Now he was staying in one room with the woman who was driving him crazy, slowly but surely.
Today had beaten the hell out of him.
He hated his father; he hated himself. Mostly he hated how much all of this was out of his control. It was a beast that was bigger than he was. Part of him had imagined he’d be able to control it. To turn it all so that only those who deserved it were hurt in all of this.
But after seeing his mother receiving every hit quietly, after witnessing the hurt in Addison’s eyes, he knew he was lying to himself.
He knew that this was a monster that would consume indiscriminately, and while part of him had come to that conclusion before today, it was only today that he’d truly seen it in action.
And this place, so full of Americana and the woman he wanted like another hit of a drug, was getting under his skin. He would have rather chanced the blizzard.
The room the owner had shown them to was as quaint and precious as the rest of the house. Solid oak floors with oriental rugs, a four-poster bed with ornate carvings in the wood. Stamped, cranberry-colored wallpaper and a matching blanket for the bed.
“If the first room we stayed in together was a vampire brothel, what’s this?” he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed and watching Katy explore the room.
“A respectable vampire family home.”
“Is it all vampires with you?”
“It is when it has an edge of Gothic to it. And life in general seems to have that Gothic edge of late.”
He planted his hands on the mattress and leaned back. “What’s my penthouse, then?”
“Oh, you’re that slick urbane vampire who tried to pass himself off as a mortal. You lure women back to your penthouse and turn them into blood slaves.”
He snorted. “Blood slaves?”
“Sure. You make them crave things they’ve never wanted with anyone else. Things that are so very bad for them.”
Her voice had gotten a little husky, her words reaching down deep into his gut and squeezing him tight. “If I were a vampire, I would, that is.”
“Yeah. Sure.” She jumped, then reached into her pocket and tugged out her buzzing cell phone. “Hang on. Hello? Trey! What’s up?” She paused, her expression changing, her eyebrows locking together. “What do you mean your scholarship is being reviewed? What do you mean—” She started pacing. “I thought you said your grades were good.” She paused. “You lied to me? You little worm! You need to tell me these things so we can try to work them out! Yes, I know I’m not your mother, but news flash, your mother doesn’t care what you do! Or what I do! I do care, though. I care,” she repeated. “And you didn’t work this hard to— Fine, it’s just a review. Whatever. You handle it, then, since you seem to know everything.” He could hear her brother’s voice on the other end, the terse angry tone of a teenage boy who knew when it was his fault, but who wouldn’t admit
it. “Did you know about this last time we talked? And you were B.S.ing me about it all being fine?” His response obviously didn’t thrill her. She let out a long breath. “Don’t pull this crap with me again. If you need me for anything, call me, you idiot.” She hung up the phone and pitched it onto the bed, letting out a feral growl.
“Trouble in paradise?”
“My brother is an idiot. He didn’t work this hard... I didn’t work this hard for him to lose it all now. I did. I worked so hard, Austin,” she said, her breath coming out on a sob. “I always worked. I had no personal life. No boyfriends, no friends. Nothing but work, and Trey, cooking him dinner, making sure I knew where he was, and then...getting high in my room at night to keep all the pain from crowding in on me when I needed to sleep.”
“You what?”
“I’m so stupid. I didn’t want to tell you. I’ve never told anyone.”
“You told me you took drugs once on accident.”
“I took Ecstasy once. And I never wanted to take it again. But I had a bad couple of years. When I moved out and took Trey with me. I was stressed all the time and depressed. Sarah was dead, and the payoff money was mocking me. A full savings account I would never touch because it was money I got in exchange for her blood. So I worked, and I did what I could to deflect all the stress and pain, and I used drugs to do it.” She sat on the edge of the bed next to him. “I felt like an idiot. And a hypocrite. But I justified it because I was just doing really mild stuff, like painkillers. They work for the pain inside you, too, and they’re pretty easy to get. My drug use was different than my parents’, so I told myself. Because they were legal drugs. I was just using them illegally, but hell, what did doctors know about my pain? And anyway, it’s not like I could afford a doctor.”
He put his hand on her thigh, not caring if it violated their new no-touching, no-sex policy. “When did you stop?”
“When I woke up passed out on the floor, totally disoriented and late to pick Trey up from school because I’d broken my own rule and taken some during the day. Because it was a hard day. Because it was the third anniversary of Sarah’s death and I wasn’t able to cope with it. Christmastime, right?” She turned and looked at him. “I almost killed myself, and not on purpose. Just with my own denial. I didn’t think I had a problem. I didn’t think I was taking too much. Just enough to relax, to sleep. To keep the pain away. I didn’t examine myself.”
