“Your daughters are clever in their own right.”
“Bah.” Horace waved a hand. “My elder is smart, but she's rude and ungrateful. And the younger one, her head is full of daydreams and nonsense. You mark my words, she'll never amount to anything. She’ll live off my money until I'm dead. Absolutely useless.”
If I had any suspicion that there wasn’t anything to be respected in Horace, it had just been cemented into certainty. “You do realize that's your daughter you're talking about.”
My defense of Karin was clearly not something Horace wanted to hear. His face grew red as he drew himself up indignantly.
“She's a drain on my resources!” he spat. “I spoiled her and what did she turn out to be? A free-loading parasite! Painting and drawing… talking to herself like a goddamned idiot. If the doctors hadn't assured me otherwise I'd have thought she was a retar—”
“You might want to stop there before you say something you'll regret,” I cut in quietly.
“I have plenty more to say about my own daughter, young man,” Horace smirked, “and none of them’s any fucking business of yours.”
“Karin's more intelligent than you realize,” I said evenly. “She sees things that others do not. She thinks differently, and that makes her more valuable than most.” I let a pause sink in. “Present company included.”
Horace looked livid at my words. “Cocky bastard,” he sneered. “Don’t forget that you’re under my roof, living off my generosity. Watch your words or I’ll take you out of my will.”
“Do it. I don’t want a cent from you, nor that position.”
That stunned the old man for three whole seconds. His eyebrows lowered over his eyes in warning. “You’re being emotional now. You don't mean that.”
“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.” I tilted my head, taking in his fury with dispassion. “I want nothing from you. Not your money, not your company, nor your assets.”
I’d long realized that being under Horace’s thumb would never allow me the freedom I wanted. Power bestowed by another could just as easily be taken away, and that was not at all what I was after.
Horace, naturally, wasn’t pleased with my decision. “I'll forget this on behalf of your mother, but you will want to tone down your after-school antics. I could find myself in a bad mood one day, and your mother and I may decide not to turn a blind eye to them any longer.”
My lips curved. “Of course.”
It was an empty threat, and we both knew it. Estelle had Horace wound around her finger, and he wouldn't do anything that he thought might lose him her favor.
I was tempted to add that Estelle couldn't care if I lived or died as long as I was bringing her Horace’s money.
“Get out.” Horace waved his hand in disgust. “I'm sick of this pointless talk. Tell your mother I'll be out for the evening.”
I rose to my feet and slipped my hands into my pockets, looking down at the man across the table. “One last question. Do you intend to provide for your daughters?”
“They’ll be taken care of,” Horace muttered, resentful that he had been cornered. “I won’t have anyone saying I can’t afford it.”
With a final nod, I left the study, unwilling to spend even another minute in the same room as him.
But the moment I stepped out into the hallway and shut the door behind me, I exhaled for another reason.
The scent of vanilla was lingering in the air.
Bloody, fucking hell, but she truly had the worst timing.
I checked my watch. I was due to meet with Gabriel for a night spin about town, but the notion of Karin alone and obsessing over what her cunt of a father had said about her sat ill with me.
For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why I even cared that she was upset, but I’d long given up on questioning my sanity when it came to Karin Beckett.
Knowing Karin, she would have wanted to escape the mansion, so I took a blanket from my room before going to the kitchen to pick up a flask of hot coffee. Then I headed through the freezing forest, finally coming to the watchtower.
I stared balefully at the faint light flickering in the upper window. “Open up.”
A moment passed, then Karin’s pale face peered out. An unpleasant feeling came over me when I saw that she had been crying.
She disappeared from the window and there was rustling from within, then the door at the base of the tower cracked open an inch. Karin stood behind the door, looking subdued. Her long hair was a mess, with twigs stuck in them like she had been rolling about on the ground.
I exhaled. “How much of it did you hear?”
“Most of it,” she admitted. “When Allie told me eavesdropping’s bad, I always thought she meant for the people who are talking. I guess it's bad for those listening in too.” She bit her lip. “Wanna come in?”
“Not particularly.”
“Please?”
“Five minutes.”
The weather was turning cold now, and Karin shivered under her thin cartoon pajamas as we headed up into the tower. She had rushed out in her bedroom slippers as well, which was a good thing I came prepared.
She sat crossed-legged in front of the fire, and I dropped the blanket over her head and the flask of coffee in her lap before settling down beside her.
Karin tugged the blanket about her shoulders, scarcely noticing the flask.
I frowned. She wasn’t leaping to inhale the coffee. “Are you ill?”
“I’m not in the mood for it, I guess.” She hugged the warm flask as she stared into the small cluster of candles on the stone floor. “Thanks for defending me earlier,” she said quietly. “That was nice of you.”
“I wasn't being nice, I merely wanted to end the conversation.”
“And the fastest way is to talk about his least favorite subject. AKA, me.” Karin sighed. “Admit it though, you like me. I've finally gotten through that hard shell to reach the boy inside.”
She shifted closer to me, pressing into my side.
“You’re pushing it,” I warned.
“We have to share body warmth or we'll both freeze,” she insisted.
“Not at sixty degrees, you won’t.” I grabbed a corner of the blanket nonetheless and tugged it over both of us. “Get comfortable.”
Karin burrowed herself into my side, sighing as she leaned her head against my shoulder. “Much better.”
I didn’t put distance between us, though I knew I should have. The feeling of Karin’s small, soft body against mine was disconcertingly pleasant. I had to hold myself still, remind myself not to do anything stupid and scare her.
“I don’t know what to say.” Karin poked at a dead leaf, completely unaware of the turmoil within me. “I’m still trying to figure out the best way to hide my embarrassment. I want to talk it out, obviously, but you might get bored…?”
She glanced at me hopefully, the gray of her irises looking nearly bottomless in the candlelight.
It did something dangerous to my insides, and I looked away. “Like I said, five minutes. No more than that.”
Karin chewed her lip thoughtfully before speaking again. “Dad isn’t a bad guy, you know. He just doesn’t care that much about girls. He wanted sons, and he kinda blamed Mum for us.”
“Then he should be informed that the child’s gender is decided by the sperm, not the egg.”
“Like he’ll listen. Dad’s the kind of person who thinks he’s right all the time.” Karin rested her chin on her knees. “He’s wrong about one thing though. I may have my head in the clouds, but I am going to amount to something. I don’t know what yet, but it’ll be something.”
My mouth curved at her stout declaration until she asked her next question.
“What about your dad? You never told me what happened to him, or what your life was like before you came here.”
“Weren’t we supposed to be talking about you?” I said smoothly.
“Nope, you’re not getting out of this.” K
arin nudged me with her shoulder. “Tell me? Please? It’s a fair trade.”
I exhaled, pulling the blanket tight around her slim shoulders. “I lived in Boston. My biological father was a socialite from old money who had everything he wanted but a son. His wife couldn’t have children, so he took a mistress. That’s Estelle.”
Karin’s brows furrowed. “That’s horrible!”
I inclined my head in agreement. “My mother gave him what he wanted; a son. In exchange, she had the life of luxury she’d always known she was meant for.” My lips twisted. “Then one day, my father’s wife became pregnant with a boy, and he suddenly wanted Estelle and me as far from his family as possible. I was just a placeholder until the real deal came along.”
I stared blindly at the wax pooling under the candles, recalling the uproar that followed the event, the new look of disgust on my father’s face whenever he saw me. “If he could flip a switch and make me disappear, I think he would have.”
Karin was silent, and when I looked at her I realized she had gone pale.
“Is that why you were sent to England?” she whispered.
“Estelle cut a deal with him,” I said simply. “A lump sum payment for her, and in return he wouldn’t have to worry about my existence again. I was arranged to be sent to Barclay, where I was to remain until I was eighteen.”
I gave no more information about my time there, not wanting to dredge up the memories. I would have a sleepless night if I did.
Karin hugged her knees. “I never thought I’d hate someone,” she quietly admitted. “She’s like poison, but for the heart.”
My lips curved at her troubled expression. It was just like her to jump to the defense of someone else. It felt heady that that someone was me.
“Do you love her?” she asked.
“I’ve never thought about it.” I considered her question. “I suppose I have to. There’s no one else in this world who shares my blood. None who cares about my existence, anyway.”
“I understand. My own family tree is more like a shrub.” Karin bit her lip like she wanted to say more but couldn’t.
“She must have wanted you to take Dad’s money,” she finally said. “Thanks for turning it down. It means a lot to me.”
I inclined my head. “I didn’t do it entirely because of you. I want autonomy and being under your father’s thumb isn’t going to afford me that.”
“Oh?” Her lips curved. “What would you do then, with autonomy?”
“I think I might start my own company.”
Karin burst out in shrill laughter at that, choking harder when she saw my irritated expression. “Oh no. Your poor, poor employees!” She made a sad face. “You’ll torture them to death. Are you gonna have monthly fight clubs in the office lobby?”
“Weekly ones,” I returned without missing a beat. “I’ll invite my favorite clients to come watch, and I’ll charge a premium for front row seats.”
She gasped, then narrowed her eyes when she caught my arch look. “I thought you were being serious for a second there.”
“It won’t be that much different. I’ve spent my life strong-arming others to get my way. Business is just another game with the same set of rules.”
“You’re more than just a bogeyman.” Karin patted my arm indulgently. “I have faith in you.”
“Your faith is misplaced.” I held her questioning gaze. “Estelle wanted my help with your father in return for my freedom from Barclay. I said yes. I agreed to play her game and get your father into her web.”
“You’re wondering if I blame you for that.”
“Do you?”
Karin considered my question seriously, chewing her lip as she thought.
My breath held as I awaited her answer. I had no idea before this how much her answer mattered, and it was an uncomfortable feeling.
“No,” she finally said. “You turned him down in the end, and you defended me and my sister. That counts for something.” Karin sighed in contentment, leaning her head on my shoulder again. “If there’s anyone to be blamed, it’s Estelle. She bargained with your life.”
“Everything has a price,” I said automatically.
“Love doesn’t.”
Hers didn’t. Karin loved freely and unselfishly, that much I had surmised from my short time with her. She had crawled under my skin with her careless smiles and teasing, and I found myself wondering about it, that love. I wanted to know what it was like to have it.
But I knew that even that much could ruin me. I’d never be able to stop at just a taste. I would become greedy and want all of her.
And if Karin gave herself to someone like me, she would grow to be unhappy beyond measure. I didn’t want to be the one who snuffed out her light.
I said nothing as Karin busily arranged the blankets around us again.
“I do this with Allie sometimes,” she told me. “Especially when it’s raining. There’s nothing like being safe and warm inside when there’s a storm outside.”
Karin launched into chatter then, taken suddenly by a passing idea. I let her talk all she wanted, and I listened, marveling at the way she could go on and on, thoughts springing to her head every other second that she abandoned one topic midway and leaped to another with blinding speed.
She was bright and eager when she spoke, gesturing her thoughts as if she could see them forming in the space between us. Her face lit up in an expression that I could only describe as wondering, and I found that I couldn’t look away.
“Why are you staring like that? Is there a bug on my hair?” Karin patted her hair self-consciously, and her hand came away with a twig. “Oh.” She tossed it aside before hugging her knees, sighing woefully.
Then she bit her lip, looking back at me again.
“They should have protected you,” she said softly. “You were just a boy, and they were wrong to abandon you the way they did.”
Her words seemed to be a balm to every wound I never realized I had.
“Your father’s wrong about you too,” I murmured. “You’re everything that’s good in this fucked up world.”
Karin smiled shyly then, just for me, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Present day
I stood on the sidewalk of Manhattan’s financial district, peering up at the glass building before me. It was thirty floors high, and if Google hadn’t let me down, the top three floors housed the New York branch of Theo’s law firm.
I shielded my eyes with a hand as I looked up towards the sky. If this was his branch office, his main office in Seattle had to be crazy snazzy.
It’s been a week since my catastrophic lapse of judgment at Berling Straits that left me burying myself under my covers in horror every time I recalled it—which was constantly.
I had let Theo seduce me. I lost my mind and begged my nemesis to screw me, and the worst part?
He had lied to me again.
I chewed my thumb, thinking furiously. I needed to get a grip more than ever. Time was ticking, and Allie’s video call from Paris earlier this morning only made that fact clearer.
Because she and Ryland had just gotten engaged.
While she had been glowing with happiness, we both knew the wedding wasn’t coming anytime soon. Not when the problem with Estelle was still hanging over our heads like a guillotine.
I needed to get the recording, or better yet, Estelle herself. It was crucial now. Imperative.
You can do this. I hoisted my satchel high on my shoulder, tied my blue scarf tighter about my neck. You will walk up to Theo and use your words. You won’t take no for an answer.
I took a minute to psyche myself up, running through different scenarios of how I was going figuratively grab Theo by his collar and make him surrender.
But just as I was about to charge through the revolving doors of the building, I caught a glimpse of a familiar form emerging from within.
The woman was short, around the same height as me, with the kind of soft, gener
ously rounded form that was comforting to hug. Her face was weathered and her hair was nearly all gray now, but I would never forget that motherly figure and its liking for matching floral blouses and skirts.
“Mrs Smith!” I stared in shock. “Oh my god, it’s really you!”
“Miss Karin?” Mrs Smith’s mouth fell open. “My dear girl, you’re all grown up now—”
Our greetings were smothered by fervent hugs and exclamations.
“How are you?” Mrs Smith ran her hands down my arms, taking me in with a pinched expression that said she was about to cry. “We heard you went to New York, but your sister and you left no note. I tried to find you for years.”
I squeezed her hands, feeling tears prick at my own eyes. Mrs Smith had been the closest thing we ever had to a mother, and I missed her horribly the first few years away from San Juan.
“We’re doing fine. I meant to call, but for some reason I—"
I broke off, unsure of how I was to explain my sudden disappearance. I had been too heartbroken when I first left, from Dad’s death and from Theo’s inexplicable change of heart towards me. I had wanted nothing more than to forget that little town that had held so many bad memories for me.
“I didn’t mean to worry you,” I managed. “I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Mrs Smith patted my cheek. “Don’t be. You were going through so much, and I’m just glad to see you healthy and all grown up. How’ve you been?”
I told her about our years since we left, how Allie had scraped together a new life for us in New York, how things were finally looking up.
But in my excitement, I didn’t forget to leave out the part about Estelle. It had been classified as an accident thanks to Estelle buying out the coroner and the cops, and knowing Mrs Smith, she would blame herself for not realizing the truth. There was no need to drag yet another innocent person into the mess.
“I’m so glad you’re well,” she beamed. “My prayers were answered after all.”
“What about you? I didn’t know you moved to New York too.”
“Oh, I’m only here on a work trip.” Her smile faltered. “But not for long. I’m retiring.”
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