The answer was simple.
I couldn't resist her.
Since the first moment I saw her, I’d found it impossible to stay away from Chloe. It was as if there was a magnetic pull between us, pushing us together at any given opportunity, and I knew Chloe felt it too. It was obvious from the way her pupils dilated when I was close, from her body language, from her plump lips parting in expectation whenever my mouth neared hers.
And as if the scandal with our parents and the murder case wasn’t enough, her mother was marrying my father, meaning Chloe was going to become my stepsister. I mulled over the word in my head, so deliciously dirty and naughty that it made me swallow a groan. It was wrong to like her, wrong to want her in all the ways I did. I couldn't even begin to imagine her as a sister—she wasn't even close to that in my head.
In my head, she was all mine.
We finally pulled back up in front of the prison, and this time, we managed to get through the gate and park in the visitors' area. I noticed Chloe's hands shaking badly but thought it inappropriate to comment on it. Still, when I opened the passenger door for her, she nearly stumbled as she got out of the car. I offered her my hand and she didn't look at me as she took it. I locked my car behind us and held her as discreetly as possible as we made our way into the building.
I realized pretty soon that I'd have to do most of the talking to sort out Chloe’s visitor pass, and I was glad I'd gone with her after all. Imagining her alone in a place like this was unbearable, and I made a mental note to go along on these visits every time, as much as I despised the man we were about to see. There was just something about the way that Chloe came off—like she was prey, and the men around her were mere predators. Even the guards and the admin staff. I knew she didn't realize it, but it was painfully obvious to me, and I wanted to keep her safe.
"I don't know if they'll let me come inside with you," I said softly as we waited for a warden, and Chloe’s small fingers dug into my forearm. Her eyes widened as her brows knitted together, and for the first time in my life, some strange need awoke inside of me, telling me I had to take care of her and make sure she was all right. It was odd, to feel such compassion for another human being when I'd always been a selfish bastard, but at the same time, it felt oddly comforting to know I had to take care of her and that she'd be safe in my arms. It made me stand up straighter, made my steps feel a little lighter. “Don’t worry,” I added. “It’ll be okay. We’ll figure something out.”
The warden finally rounded the corner and gave us a suspicious look. We were both prompted to show our IDs, and if the man was surprised by who we were, he didn't show it. He didn't even flinch when he saw my driver's license. I assumed he was used to seeing a lot of shit between these walls, and I shrugged the thought away, finding it too disturbing to think about.
"Are you coming inside with Miss Carlyle?" the warden asked, and I looked at Chloe to try and decipher what she wanted. "There's two visitors allowed, so you can go in. Just don't cause a scene."
Shit. Did I really want to go in there and face the man who’d murdered my mother in cold blood? I knew Chloe believed in his innocence, but I sure as hell didn’t. Judges and juries weren’t stupid; they wouldn’t convict a man if there wasn’t a fuck-ton of evidence stacked up against him.
"I..." Chloe looked at the floor, her cheeks lightly blushing and her hands shaking badly.
As soon as her face pinked up like that, I decided what to do immediately. "Yeah, I'm coming with her. Can you show us the way?"
The warden nodded and unlocked another gate for us. It all felt straight out of a movie, though not in a good way.
"We're not telling him who I am," I told Chloe softly, and she looked up at me, those big, pretty eyes wide with concern. "I don't want him getting pissed about me coming here. Just tell him I'm a friend of yours from Claremont Bay, okay? Aaron Baker."
"Okay. Good idea,” she said with a nod, her voice barely above a whisper.
I led her down another hallway, and we followed the warden toward the visitation area. Since the penitentiary was more for white-collar crimes, it was low in security. Truth be told, Chloe’s father was lucky for being placed here instead of some of the more awful prisons we had further inland in the state. The reputation of those places made it clear they didn’t tolerate men who hurt women.
There were none of those plastic walls separating us from the prisoners, and it all started to feel very real as we walked into a large room with inmates in orange uniforms talking to their visitors. I gulped down the lump in my throat and escorted Chloe to the table we were shown to by the warden. I pulled a chair out to her and she sat down, hiding her palms in her lap to stop them from shaking.
"You can expect him out any minute," the warden said in a hushed tone, and I nodded, sitting down next to Chloe. There was a single chair on the opposite side of the table, and my pulse quickened. The man who killed my mother and my unborn half-brother or sister was going to be sitting across from me any minute now.
I didn't have time to think about the situation any more than that as the doors opened on the side of the room and two guards brought forward a man in handcuffs. He was wearing a prison uniform like the rest of the inmates, but unlike them, he looked like fucking hell.
He approached our table slowly, his feet shuffling along as he moved his bruised body toward us. I could feel Chloe’s nervousness as her father came closer, and I wished I could reach for her hand under the table, offer her at least a little bit of comfort in this awful situation.
As James saw his daughter, his shoulders sagged and he hunched. For a second I thought he would start sobbing, but he held his own and carried himself with the small amount of pride he had left until the guards sat him down on the opposite end of the table Chloe and I were sitting at.
“Chloe,” he said.
He breathed slowly, and his voice was heavy with things left unsaid. I felt like an intruder in that moment, like I’d forced my way into this intimate meeting, which I supposed I had. After all, Chloe hadn’t wanted me to come with her. It was almost voyeuristic, watching father and daughter interact in front of me, and it made me feel slightly ashamed of myself. But only slightly. It was hard to feel ashamed in the presence of the man who murdered my mother—he was the one who should be ashamed.
The two of them looked at one another for a long time, their eyes drinking in each other’s features. I knew it had to be difficult for both of them, and I was unsure whether my presence here made things harder or easier for them.
Finally, James’ eyes left Chloe’s, and he looked at me, eyebrows drawn into a quizzical glance. “You look familiar,” he said, and my heart rate picked up as I panicked and worried he recognized me. “Have we met before, young man?”
I shook my head and Chloe reached for my hand, squeezing it under the table. “He’s just a friend, Dad,” she told her father in a shaky voice. “His name is…Aaron.”
James seemed to accept that with a grunt and a nod, and his eyes went back to his daughter, trying to memorize every feature of her beautiful face; the features he hadn’t seen in many, many months. I used the moment to scrutinize him further, and it became abundantly clear that prison was sucking the life out of him.
The man was covered in cuts and bruises, his chiseled and handsome face tired from everything he must’ve gone through in this hellhole for the last year. Even though I’d already condemned him for the murder of my mother and my unborn half-sibling, I felt a strange and sudden twinge of compassion for the man as I sat across from him at the table. He looked awful, so much worse than the pictures I’d seen from court. So tired, beaten, and worst of all, like he’d simply given up on life.
The twinge only lasted for a split-second before it was replaced with cold fury toward him. He deserved this. He deserved every second he spent in here, and I had no business feeling bad for him.
“How are you?” Chloe asked in a small voice, and James laughed bitterly. It was an obligatory quest
ion, but seeing the man in ruins in front of her should’ve answered it for her.
“It’s terrible,” he replied, his voice shaky and his fingers trembling as he placed his hands on the table. My eyes went to the handcuffs on his wrists, chafing his skin as he struggled to find comfort despite them. “I’m not just a man who allegedly hurt a woman in here. Apparently I’m a child killer, too. Catalina…”
Chloe flinched at the sound of my mother’s name being spoken out loud, and even I found myself uncomfortable as the word left James’ mouth. He seemed to have noticed our discomfort, as he sighed heavily and went on.
“What I meant by that is, she was pregnant when she was murdered, as you know already,” he continued. “So I’m considered a child killer in here as well. And they don’t treat those nicely, they have no mercy for them in a place like this.”
I noticed how he maintained his innocence in here, how he still spoke with conviction and how adamantly he was sticking to the story he’d given in court. According to him, he was innocent of this crime. He never killed my mother, and he wasn’t a murderer. Not that it mattered now, anyway. Not with him stuck in prison until his sorry life finally ended, like a candle being blown out by the wind. I suspected, seeing him now, it would happen sooner rather than later. The man was breaking in front of our very eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Chloe said in a soft voice, her fingers shaking in her lap. Even though I knew I probably shouldn’t be doing it, I reached for her palm and gently stroked the inside of it, and she shot me a grateful look. I wanted to offer her at least a little bit of comfort after the shitty way I’d acted earlier today.
“How is the food?” she went on. “Is it all right? I can bring you some stuff next time, if they’ll let me…”
“Awful,” her father said simply, his eyes wandering to a spot behind our heads. I realized it would be increasingly hard to have a conversation in here, what with James claiming he was innocent and so hell-bent on getting out of here he couldn’t even appreciate his own daughter paying him a visit, as fucked up as the circumstances were.
“And what about…” Chloe started, nervously biting her bottom lip. “What about the things you do in here? Do you have a TV? Or maybe some books to read?”
James laughed bitterly and Chloe blushed as his laughter rang out in the room. “It doesn’t matter,” he muttered. “None of it matters now. They gave me fucking life, Chloe, for something I didn’t even do. I’m never getting out of here, am I? I know it, you know it…hell, everyone knows it.”
He leaned into his arms, his handcuffs making a terrifying noise as he did so, reminding us of our freedom and his captivity. I looked at Chloe from my peripheral vision, trying to imagine how awful this must’ve felt for her.
Yeah, I’d lost my mother, but in a way, she’d lost her father, too, and while my loss was final, hers was possibly even worse. The man she loved unconditionally was rotting in prison accused of a heinous crime, and even though Chloe always claimed she never believed him to be guilty, I could tell she had her doubts by the way her forehead crinkled, by the vaguely doubtful looks she occasionally cast in his general direction. She was still biting her bottom lip, and I watched, mesmerized, as a small drop of blood from her split lip leaked into her mouth. She licked it clean and my stomach turned at the sight.
“I’m not guilty, Chloe,” James finally said, raising his head from his hands. “I didn’t fucking do it, and no one—not in here, not on the outside—believes me.”
“I do,” she replied in a small voice. “I know you didn’t hurt her, Dad.”
James’ eyes wandered to me, as if he’d just remembered I was here and was expecting me to say something as well. I looked down at the table, because I couldn’t claim I didn’t believe in his guilt, not for a second, not even to make the man feel a little bit better. I just couldn’t do it.
And why the fuck should I? I’d come here for Chloe’s benefit, not his.
I could tell it bothered James, and he furrowed his brows as he stared me down. Finally, he groaned, and his fist hit the table, hard. I noticed a guard coming toward us, and I motioned for him to stay back, trying to convey the message that I had things under control here. He backed off slowly, but his eyes never left James as he went back to his seat.
“I’m sorry, dad,” Chloe said softly. “I know how difficult this must be. But the prosecution… They had evidence, they had enough to convict you, and there was nothing I could’ve done. You know that, don’t you?”
He glared at her and Chloe’s fingers trembled as she went on.
“You didn’t have an alibi for the night of the murder,” she said softly. “When you were questioned by the police, you admitted you didn’t like the fact that she got pregnant.”
“Of course not,” he scoffed. “I was a married man, for god's sake. That wasn’t supposed to happen. But it doesn’t mean I wanted her dead.”
Chloe flinched at his words and tried to go on as if he hadn’t said anything at all. “Dad, it happened in your investment house, with one of the kitchen knives from the set you bought for the house. Your fingerprints were on it.”
“Of course they were on it. I stayed there and cooked with Cat quite often when your mother thought I was away. So half the things in that kitchen were probably covered in my prints!” James said, his eyes narrowed. He paused for a second, then went on. “Christ, you believe them, don’t you?”
Chloe shook her head vehemently. “No, of course not. I’m just trying to explain the way the jury saw it. You understand what I mean, don’t you?”
James was silent for a long, excruciating moment, and we all sat there in tense silence. “I was cheated,” he finally said, his voice soft and sad. “I didn’t fucking do it. I didn’t, Chloe. You have to believe me.”
“I do, Daddy,” she said quietly, and I saw the tears in her eyes. At that point, I realized she was getting way too upset, and I was glad I’d come with her. She couldn’t have handled this on her own. She was already breaking, for fuck’s sake. “I’m really sorry that I couldn’t have done anything else.”
James lunged across the table all of a sudden, grabbing Chloe’s hand. “I didn’t do it,” he said, his voice pathetically desperate. “I didn’t fucking do it, Chloe. I was cheated, they put me here for no reason. The real killer is still out there.”
“Hands off her now, prisoner!” A guard yelled out and James’ shaky hands went back to his lap. Chloe was visibly shaken up and I could barely restrain myself from telling her father to just leave her the fuck alone. I managed to swallow every curse word on the tip of my tongue, though, and I didn’t say a fucking word even though I wanted to.
“There’s no touching allowed in here,” the guard said from across the room. “You’d be wise to remember that.”
James muttered something to himself as the guard retreated, and Chloe and I both ignored it. We sat there in awkward silence, waiting for him to go on. And he did, making me regret ever coming here in the first place.
“Is your mother seeing anyone?” he asked Chloe, his voice shaky. “I can’t believe she divorced me the moment things got rough. Never should’ve fucking trusted that woman. Should’ve been smarter. She’s a snake.”
How fucking hypocritical. He was the one who’d had the lengthy affair with another woman, knocked her up and then killed her, and yet he was calling Victoria an untrustworthy snake? My hands curled into fists by my side as I tried not to call him out on his bullshit.
Chloe blushed at the derogatory words about her mother but didn’t say a word about them to her father, and I could tell she knew I was close to my breaking point, because she reached for my hand again and squeezed my fingers gently, as if she were asking for another moment with her father before I broke in and ruined everything.
“Yes, she’s seeing someone,” she finally said in a small voice. James’ heated gaze was following hers as she looked at the table, uncomfortable and seemingly almost scared at the prospect having to admit
the truth to her father. “She’s engaged to be married. That’s part of the reason I came here to see you today, Dad. I wanted you to hear it from me.”
“What?” James’ breaths were low and angry, and I felt my pulse begin to speed up. This was a convicted fucking murderer, after all, and what was separating him from hurting Chloe? A table and a pair of handcuffs. That was it. He could hurt her if he really wanted to, and I hated the thought of that. “When did this happen? Why didn’t they tell me?”
“It’s all very recent. I only just found out the other day, and I came here to let you know,” Chloe said in a small voice. “I knew you’d find out eventually, but I didn’t want the news to hurt…too badly. I’m sorry, Daddy.” She looked at our intertwined fingers, her hands shaking as she wrapped them around mine. “It’s my family that’s falling apart. Our family. I feel absolutely awful about the whole thing. I know you do too.”
“Who is she marrying?” James barked in response, completely ignoring everything Chloe had said about how she felt about the destruction of their family. I gritted my teeth in anger, realizing just how selfish the man on the other side of the table was. He didn’t give a fuck about his daughter, not in this moment at least. All he cared about was getting his old life back, and getting the justice he believed he’d been cheated out of.
“It’s…um…” Chloe swallowed hard, and I could tell she had trouble getting the words out.
I decided to help her out. I’d been silent the whole time since we’d arrived, and I felt like Chloe needed a little more support than me just sitting there, holding her hand like some pansy-ass bitch.
“Robert St Clair,” I told James in a steely voice, and he looked at me, really looked, for the first time since we’d arrived. “Victoria is engaged to Robert St Clair.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time, but the anger was radiating off him in waves and I could tell how pissed he was about this new piece of information. He wanted to punch something, tear a fucking hole in the wall, but he was trying to restrain himself. I wished it had been for Chloe’s sake, but it was painfully obvious it was merely for his own. The man was proud, and he didn’t want anyone seeing him vulnerable.
Scandal (A Dirty Money Novel) Page 8
