by Hannah Ford
“No.” I shook my head and set the phone back on the island. “No. Fix it.”
“Until I know you’re, that’s all I’m willing to allow.”
“Until you know I’m safe? That’s all you’re willing to allow?” I shook my head. “Listen to yourself.”
But I knew it was no use.
I grabbed the phone, then stalked out of the kitchen.
I grabbed my sister’s coat from where it had fallen near the door, shoved my arms into it.
“Where are you going?” Landon asked from behind me, always there, always following.
“I’m going for a walk. Do not follow me.”
I walked out the door, out of one storm and into another.
Okay, so calling it the weather outside a storm may have been an overstatement.
It wasn’t a storm, at least not the kind that was common on the East Coat, the kind that blanketed the ground with snow, the kind that made it impossible to drive or see more than a few feet in front of you, the kind that we’d encountered on the drive here.
This was the aftermath of the blizzard, the swollen flakes falling slowly, almost lazily, landing languidly on the piles of snow that were already on the ground.
I walked down the driveway, listening for the sound of Landon coming after me, waiting for him to follow me.
But after a second, it became apparent that he wasn’t.
I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed or relieved.
I paced around the long, circular driveway. Now that I was outside, I was realizing it would be hard to go for a walk. The snow covered every surface.
But then I saw that the main road we’d taken to get here had been plowed at least somewhat recently, and that, along with the tire tracks left by Landon and Conner’s cars had made it passable.
I walked a little ways down the road, slowly, trudging through the snow, the soft wind biting at my cheeks.
I found a pair of gloves and a hat inside the pockets of Violet’s jacket, and I put them on. Still, I wasn’t dressed for the snow, and soon my sneakers were soaked through.
I sat down on a log, pulled out my new phone, and called Emma.
She answered on the first ring.
“It’s me,” I said. “I got a new number.”
“Jesus, I’ve been so worried.” I heard the sound of typing in the background, muted voices, a computer booting up.
“Where are you?”
“At a job interview,” she said. “Second interview with Stitch Me Up, you know that fashion delivery service? They need someone to be an assistant to one of their designers. Of course, I won’t do anything important, it’s just admin work, but-”She stopped. “But who the hell cares where I am, where are you?”
“Vermont. Some secret Sheer brothers mansion that looks like a castle you’d see in a Disney cartoon.” As if to prove to myself that I was still here, I glanced behind me. Sure enough, the Sheer castle rose up into the sky. I realized that if I’d been nervous about getting lost out here in the woods, there was no reason for it. It would be nearly impossible, since you could always see the house in the distance, giving you a point of reference.
“Did you find Violet?” Emma asked.
“Yes.”
“Was she with Conner?”
“Yes.”
“And?” Emma sounded breathless, waiting for me to tell her what was going on.
“And… it turns out her and Conner may be brother and sister.”
“What?”
I filled her in as quickly as I could, leaving out the part about how I’d told Landon about the life jackets, but telling her pretty much everything else – how Violet had taken off with Conner, how Landon and I had hooked up (leaving out the BDSM part), how confused I was about everything.
After my rambling stream-of-consciousness rant, there was silence on the other end of the line.
“Wow,” she said.
“Wow?” I tipped my sneaker into the snow, digging down, not caring that my toes were going tingly and numb. “What does wow mean?”
She hesitated. “Well…I mean, do you want me to be supportive, and just tell you what I think you want to hear, or do you want my honest opinion?
“Your honest opinion.”
“You have to let this go, Aven. Violet left with him. She took off with Conner. She’s an adult. She can make her own decisions, and she’s making it pretty clear what those decisions are.” She paused, waiting to see if I was going to contradict her, but I didn’t. “You need to come back to New York. You have a life here. You need to find a job, you can’t be taking days off running around looking for your sister. She’s safe. These are her choices, not yours. You’re not responsible for her.”
“But what if –”
“What if nothing. Whatever you’re about to say, it would be her choice. Do you understand that?”
I nodded.
“Aven?”
“I’m nodding.”
In the background, I heard someone calling Emma’s name. “I have to go. I’m getting called in.”
“Good luck,” I said, standing up and dusting the snow off the back of my pants. “You’re going to do great.
“Aven?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a good sister.”
I smiled. “And you’re a good friend.”
When I got back to the house ten minutes later, the front door was locked. I picked up the knocker, letting it fall heavily against the door, but inside, the house seemed silent and still. Panic squeezed at my stomach. Had Landon just left me here?
No. His car was still in the driveway, and besides, I would have seen him leaving.
I pressed my finger to the keypad, not expecting anything to happen, but to my surprise, it turned green.
“Welcome, Ms. Courtland,” the soothing robotic woman’s voice said, and then there was a beep, and the door unlocked. Landon must have programmed my fingerprint into the door. If this was his way of trying to apologize, some billionaire’s way of making me feel like I mattered, he could forget it.
I walked through the foyer to the kitchen, but there was no sign of him. I called his name, but there was no answer.
I was about to head back to the foyer and head up one of the long staircases that led to the second floor, thinking he was perhaps up there, but before I could, I spotted him.
Outside, through the windows, standing on a long porch that wrapped around the back of the house.
He was in front of the railing, his back to me. He wore nothing at all except for the silk pajama pants he’d had on when I’d left him, the darkness of the material stark against the white and gray mountains that provided the backdrop.
He was shirtless, his feet bare.
As I got closer, I realized he was talking, and as I got closer still, I realized he was on his phone, on a video call.
I cracked the door.
I was spying, I knew it.
Landon obviously wouldn’t have come outside wearing almost nothing when it had to be, like, twenty degrees out if he had wanted me to hear what he was talking about.
No, he’d come out here so I wouldn’t hear.
“…I told you I was.” His voice was low, even, stern. He shifted and turned just slightly to the right and I held my breath as a bit of his profile came into view, along with his left hand, which was holding his phone.
On the screen, a man’s image came into focus. He was older, gray hair and a sun-weathered face. I recognized him instantly from photos I’d seen online. Landon’s father.
“Yes, you told me you were, but it doesn’t seem as if you are,” the older Sheer said. “Your brother – ”
“Is capable of making his own goddamn decisions,” Landon said.
“Conner is special, Landon. He doesn’t think the way other people do. You know that.” Unlike Landon, his father’s voice rose, filled with emotion. Anger. Distaste. And something else, something that slithered under the surface, something almost threatening.
Landon stayed quiet.
“And where is the girl?” his father demanded, and my stomach twisted, thinking he was talking about me. But a second later, it became clear he wasn’t.
“I told you. He took her with him.”
Violet.
“Find them, Landon. And take care of it.”
The line went dead, and a second later, Landon pulled back and threw his phone over the railing and into the snow.
I gasped, and he turned to see me standing there.
His eyes met mine, burning holes through me as he walked inside.
“You’re freezing.” His eyes raked up my body, and he made no mention of the conversation I’d just heard, or the fight we’d had.
“Says the man with no shirt on,” I shot back.
“Go upstairs and take a shower. First room on the right. There are clothes in the closet. I’ll make us dinner.”
I bit my lip, wondering if I should bring up what I’d just heard. But what did it matter? Apparently Landon’s father wanted Conner and Violet broken up just as much as I did. But like Emma had said, Conner and Violet were adults. And I was done meddling in their business.
I would do what Landon said, I decided. I would go upstairs and take a shower. But if he thought that he was going to get away with not talking about our fight, he was very, very wrong.
The room upstairs was a normal bedroom with a queen-sized bed and tasteful art on the walls – nothing like the torture room Landon had taken me to earlier.
I took a hot shower and dressed in some of the clothes I found in the chocked-full closet -- a soft white button-up shirt and a pair of jeans whose price tag let me know they cost more than my rent.
There was nothing but lingerie in the drawers, push-up bras and thongs, and I put those on too, wondering if these things had been chosen just for me, or if they were always here for whatever other women Landon brought here, a faceless parade of supermodels and pop stars, heiresses and it-girls.
When I got downstairs, there was a fire roaring in the fireplace, and Landon was setting two bowls down on the table.
Both were filled with something that smelled delicious. Stew, filled with carrots and potatoes and chunks of beef so tender they fell apart under my spoon.
A loaf of crusty ciabatta bread has been sliced thick and slathered with butter, and a piece of it sat next to my plate.
“Your phone is most definitely broken,” I said, looking out the window to where he’d thrown it. “And I don’t think shoving it in a bag of rice is going to help.”
“Eat your dinner,” he growled.
I dug in, mostly because it smelled delicious and I was starving, not because I wanted to please him. Still, my body betrayed me, my core tightening with that now-familiar heat, the heat that made it clear that what Landon Sheer wanted, he got.
I shifted on my seat away from him, and he glanced at me.
“Something wrong?”
“Besides the fact that you were a total ass to me? Nope.” I took another spoonful of stew.
“Your hair is wet.”
“Wow, you can see!” I said sarcastically. “Of course it’s wet. I just got out of the shower.” I scowled at the bowl of stew in front of me, wondering if he’d made it himself. He didn’t seem like the type of man who’d made his own meals, but it didn’t taste frozen.
“You shouldn’t leave your hair wet,” he said. “You were out in the cold.” His hand tightened around his spoon. “I should have never let you leave.”
“You didn’t let me do anything,” I said. I took another bite of stew, trying to calm my racing heart and recalibrate. The last thing I needed was to get into another argument with him. “You were a dick, and so I left.”
“Finish your food.”
I put my spoon down. “I’m not hungry. I want to talk.”
His hand tightened again, and I saw the rawness on his knuckles, still there from where he’d been using the heavy bag.
“Jesus, Aven,” he growled. “Always so fucking defiant.” Then he stood up and leaned down, slid his hands under my knees, and picked me up in one smooth movement.
The breath slid out of me quickly, my chest tightening. He was so strong, his arms huge, his chest so expansive, that suddenly, I felt small. His eyes met mine, the hunger swirling there almost palpable, and I swallowed as warm desire filled my belly.
For a moment, I thought he was going to kiss me, but then he began heading toward the stairs.
“Put me down!” I said. “Where are you taking me?”
“You obviously have no idea how to take care of yourself,” he said. “So I’m going to have to do it for you.”
He brought me into the room I’d just been in, carried me through it and into the bathroom, then set me down on the counter.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
He opened a cabinet and pulled out a hair dryer, plugged it in.
“This is ridiculous,” I said, sliding off the counter. “You’re not going to dry my hair for me.”
But he was on me like a flash, his body pushing me back against the counter behind me, his hips pinning me in. “I can make his much worse,” he growled. “And I’m in just the mood to do so.”
His tone had no trace of anger. It was stern and low, but very matter-of-fact. The marks he’d left on my ass over the past few days, with his hand, his belt, his whip, flamed and burned at his words.
I knew he was right.
He could and would make it worse.
“Fine,” I said. “But I want an apology for the things you said to me.”
He reached down and grabbed my hips, put me back onto the counter like I was a naughty child who didn’t want to listen to her parents.
He pushed my legs apart with his body, making sure I was trap and couldn’t get down.
“I’m waiting,” I said impatiently.
His jaw tightened, his eyes hooding. “I shouldn’t have said those things to you.” He reached over and grabbed a brush from a drawer that sat under the counter. It was brand new. He pulled off the price tag and then reached up, began to brush my hair.
I shivered.
Something in the air had shifted between us – I could feel it. It was the intimacy of the gesture of him brushing my hair, but it was something else. Something indefinable.
“You shouldn’t brush wet hair,” I said. “It’s not good for it.”
“Dammit it, Aven, just shut your mouth for once and relax.”
I did as he said, letting him brush my hair, letting him take control, and it felt so good, being touched like this, that when he picked up the hair dryer, tested the heat against his palm, and then began to dry my hair, I didn’t try to stop him.
Instead, I closed my eyes and let go.
When he was done, Landon set the dryer down but didn’t move away.
I opened my eyes. He was standing there, in front of me, still shirtless, and I tried to resist the urge to reach out and run my hands over his bare chest. But I couldn’t. Even though he was pressed into me, so close, I wanted – needed -- more.
So I ran my hands over the corded muscles in his shoulders, the chiseled lines of his pecs. His skin was flawless, smooth, and I shivered.
“I shouldn’t have let you leave the house,” he said.
“Again, you didn’t let me do anything. And what you shouldn’t have done was say those things about my parents.”
He grabbed my wrists, the gesture now becoming familiar, the light pressure he exerted sending a dart of heat right to my pussy.
“They were all true,” he said. “It was your parents’ responsibility to make sure that they were safe. But at the end of the day, Aven, it wasn’t their fault. It wasn’t yours, either. It was no one’s fault. It was just one of those things. One of those terrible things that happen, with no real reason or blame.”
My eyes filled with tears. They were the words I’d wanted to hear for as long as I could remember. “See, then why didn’t you say it that way bef
ore? Why did you have to be such an ass?”
He was still holding my wrists, and the pressure intensified. When he finally released me, he guided my hands to the edge of the counter.
“Hold onto the counter and don’t let go,” he instructed.
I gripped the counter, willing to play along for a minute.
But when his hands reached for the shirt I was wearing, when his fingers went right for the top button, I shook my head.
“No,” I said. “We need to talk about this.”
“We are talking about this.”
“Landon.”
He sighed. “I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
There was a pause, and then he reached up and scrubbed at his face with his hands. “I’m not good with emotions.”
“Ya think?” I tried to keep my voice light, to make a joke, but his hands found my hips, his grip holding onto me so tightly it hurt.
He didn’t say anything, and I saw the pain reflected on his face, and I so badly wanted to reach up and touch his face, to pull him into my arms, to tell him whatever it was that had made him the way he was okay, but I was afraid if I did that, he would shut down completely.
“Tell me,” I said simply. “Tell me what made you this way.”
“Your parents,” he said. “They meant a lot to you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“They were nice to you.”
“Yes.” My eyes filled with tears. My parents were the kindest people. They may not have had the ability to give Violet and I fancy clothes or extravagant vacations, but we never wanted for anything, and I couldn’t remember a time -- even when Violet and I were driving them crazy -- that either one of them had ever uttered a cruel word.
“Well, that wasn’t my experience.” Landon’s hands released my hips and moved back to my shirt. He pushed my hair back and his hands rose to the first button. He released it from its hole, and I shivered.
“What was your experience?” I asked.
“I wasn’t the favorite.”
“What does that mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. Conner was the golden child.” He reached down and slipped the next button through its hole, then the next. The shirt I was wearing loosened and slipped down my shoulders, and Landon ran his hands over my bare skin, skating over my collarbone, his thumbs brushing over my throat. I bit back the moan that threatened to escape my lips, wanting so badly for him to keep talking.
