by Gemma Weir
I hold back the snort of derision that threatens to burst from me. My parents don’t care about me. They want something, although I’m not sure what. Tonight is a power play to get it.
“That’s a really pretty picture, Dad. Shame it’s hiding all the ugly truths,” Arlo snarls.
When we pull up outside the house, my nerves ratchet up until it feels like a herd of elephants are stomping around in my gut. The only thing keeping me grounded is the feel of Arlo’s thumb rubbing reassuring circles on the side of my hand. Right now, he’s the only thing I’m certain of, because real or not, I know he won’t fail me. He won’t forget me, and he won’t leave me, because he sees me. Me, Tallulah Marie Archibald; and I know that, without thought, without question, without doubt.
Channeling my inner Carrigan, I pull back my shoulders and drag in a shaky breath before I follow Arlo from the car. He reclaims my hand the moment he can, reassuring me with his touch and making this awful night marginally better.
Mrs. Humphries opens the door, her expression wary and fearful. “Miss Tallulah, Mr. Lexington, Mr. Lexington,” she greets. “Please come in, Mr. & Mrs. Archibald and Miss Carrigan are waiting for you in the living room.”
I offer her the most reassuring smile I can muster, squeezing her arm as I pass her on my way into the house. Her eyes are screaming a thousand questions at me, but I can’t tell her anything. Because I honestly don’t know what I’m doing back here either. Closing the door behind us, we wait for her to lead us to the living room, like I didn’t live here for the last eighteen years.
“Miss Tallulah, Mr. Lexington, and Mr. Lexington have arrived,” she announces formally as she opens the door to the living room, stepping aside to let us pass. Richard steps in first, then I go next, with Arlo still holding my hand tightly entering last.
The room is just like it was the last time I was here, when both my parents violently assaulted me like I was nothing more than a disobedient dog. A shudder of revulsion passes through me when I step over the spot where I was curled on the floor, hurt and bleeding. The spot my sister helped me up from on the night she told me to run from this house and our family.
So much has happened since then, but standing here now, looking at the fake friendliness on my parents’ faces it feels like it was only yesterday. Objectively, I know these people are my parents, but I don’t feel any kind of familial warmth toward them. Right now, the people in front of me are just strangers who contributed to my DNA, nothing more.
“Tallulah, sweetheart,” my mom gushes, clamping her hand over her mouth as she rushes toward me, fake emotion curving over her features.
She throws her arms around my neck and I freeze, not letting go of Arlo’s hand, and not making any effort to return her pretense by hugging her back. From over her shoulder, Carrigan catches my eye and waves her cell at me urgently, her eyes wide and scared. I offer her a barely perceptible dip of my chin and then pull back until my mom is forced to release her hold on me.
Curling my body around Arlo’s, I back away from my father, who offers nothing more than a grim smile. “Nice to see you, sweetheart. You’re looking well.”
“Hello,” I offer, not addressing either of them with the parental monikers of mom and dad. If Richard wasn’t here, I’d probably have used their first names as a ‘fuck you’, but I manage to bite it back.
Arlo greets them with forced cordiality. “Mr. Archibald, Mrs. Archibald, Carrigan.” And then the room falls into stilted silence.
“Let’s sit,” Mom says brightly.
My cell vibrates in my clutch bag and as I lead Arlo over to the couch furthest away from my parents’ I pull it out and quickly open the unread message.
Carrigan – Don’t drink the champagne.
As we sit down, I lean into Arlo and whisper. “Don’t drink the champagne,” against his ear. His eyes widen and he looks at me for more information, but I don’t know anything more. I just smile, and he returns the gesture, curling his arm around my body, like the young lovers that we’re pretending to be.
My dad moves, pulls a bottle of champagne from an ice bucket that’s been set up on the far side of the room and starts filling glasses. I take the moment to look at my mom and sister. Mom’s dress is all seduction, the bright red color, tight fit, and plunging neckline showing off the results of the several plastic surgeries she’s had in the last few years. She has the body of a woman in her twenties, despite her real age being in the forties. Carrigan is dressed in white, her hair straight, her makeup flawless as usual in pastel tones.
My dad looks tired and old and I wish I could find some sympathy, but my hatred outweighs anything else I could feel for him. Moving toward us, he hands the first two glasses to Arlo and I before handing one to Mom, Richard, and then Carrigan, before finally taking one for himself.
“A toast,” Mom says, a wide smile spread across her lips. “To new beginnings and a joining of our families.”
I glance at Carrigan, then look at Arlo, tapping my glass against his then lifting it to my mouth and pretending to sip from it without letting the liquid touch my lips.
The conversation is stilted and strained, especially because neither Arlo or I answer any of the questions my parents send our way with anything more than a yes or no. There’s an audible sigh of relief when Mrs. Humphries announces that dinner is ready. We all rise, and my cell vibrates again. Surreptitiously, I twist around glancing at the new message.
Carrigan – Excuse yourself to the bathroom, say you’re not feeling well. Tell Arlo to come and find us in two minutes.
Carefully, I press the cell into Arlo’s hand as I turn back around, blocking him from view while he has chance to read the message. For a moment, I wonder if I should trust my sister. She was once a very willing participant in my parents’ games, but I think the night Mom and Dad attacked me changed things for her, almost as much as it did for me. Call it gut instinct, or just sheer blind trust, but something has been telling me that she was on our side since the night she got drunk and told me about Rupert Overston.
Arlo reaches for my hand, pressing my cell into it, as he hooks it through his elbow and moves to escort me into the dining room. A few steps out of the living room, I pause. “Excuse me for a moment. I’d like to freshen up before we eat; I’m feeling a little strange.”
Arlo smiles at me, his eyes full of some unexplained emotion. “Are you okay, baby?” he asks, winking at me, when no one else can see him.
“I’m fine. I’ll be back before you know it.”
“I’ll come with you. I need to freshen up anyway,” Carrigan offers, looping her arm through mine and marching me down the hall. Dragging me into the bathroom, she closes and locks the door behind us.
“They drugged your champagne,” she blurts.
“What?”
“They drugged both yours and Arlo’s champagne. They put Rohypnol in your drinks and they want me to…” she pauses, squeezing her eyes tightly shut and grimacing. “Mom told me that I needed to take you up to my room and lock you in, that the drugs would knock you out. Then she wants me to put on your clothes and take Arlo to your room and have sex with him, in the hopes that I’ll get pregnant,” she confesses, her voice barely above a whisper. “She set up cameras in there so she could blackmail him into marrying me, not you.”
“Oh my God,” I say, nausea hitting me like a freight train. “They tried to drug us so you could rape Arlo. This is just… Oh my God.”
“They’ve lost their minds. They just sat there discussing it over coffee when I got back from school. Like it was the most normal thing in the world that they were planning to use the date rape drug on you. I need to get out of here; I can’t stay here anymore,” she cries, big fat scared tears rolling down her face.
A knock at the door makes us both jump. “It’s me,” Arlo says.
I fumble with the lock three times before I finally get it undone and throw open the door, grabbing Arlo and pulling him into the small room, locking the door behind
him. “Tell him,” I say, looking at my sister, needing to hear the words from her mouth again, just in case I misheard her.
“The champagne was drugged with Rohypnol. My parents planned for me to lock a knocked-out Tallulah in my room after taking her clothes, then take you to her room and have sex with you. They even got colored contacts just in case you were still conscious enough to notice.” She swallows thickly, before forcing herself to continue speaking. “They hoped the sex would result in me getting pregnant; but if not, they set up video cameras to record it all with the intention of blackmailing you into dumping Tallulah and forcing you to marry me instead.”
Arlo’s face pales and his mouth falls open. Without thought, he reaches for me, dragging me into his chest as if he needs to be touching me to know we’re both okay. “We need to leave, right fucking now. All of us. Carrigan, you too. Your parents have completely lost their shit and it’s not safe for you here anymore.”
My sister nods, tears still rolling down her face.
Arlo pulls his cell from his pocket and dials a number. “We’re ready. Yes, thank you.” Ending the call, he presses a kiss to my temple. “The car will be here in two minutes.”
“Are we leaving without your dad?” I ask.
“Yes. I arranged for Carson’s limo to be on standby around the corner just in case we needed to leave quickly.”
Burrowing a little closer into his chest, I reach out and take my sister’s hand. “It’s going to be okay,” I tell her, even though after tonight I’m not so convinced anymore.
She nods, her eyes unfocused. “It is going to be okay. I know what I have to do to fix this.”
Arlo checks his watch. “Let’s go,” he says, unlocking the door and pulling me from the room.
I keep hold of my sister, towing her along behind me, not releasing her until we’re through the door being held open by Mrs. Humphries. “It’s time to quit,” I tell her, and she smiles as we rush down the steps and into the limo that’s waiting with the engine still running at the curb.
An hour later, we’re sat in the penthouse suite at the Hamilton again, all of us subdued and quiet now that Carson, Watson, and Olly have been filled in on my parents’ plans for us this evening.
On the way here, we stopped by Arlo’s house, grabbed a change of clothes and picked up the guys, and now Carrigan is curled into a ball at the end of the couch wearing a pair of my pajamas.
Arlo hasn’t let me go since we left my parents’ house, even helping me change out of my war outfit and into soft flannel shorts and one of his t-shirts, before pulling me onto his lap on the couch while my sister told the guys everything she’d told us.
The haunted look in her eyes is still there, but a resolve has settled over her too. “I thought I could do this the easy way, but I can’t,” she says softly.
“Hey,” Carson says gently, touching her shoulder. “This wasn’t you; this was your psycho parents. You did the right thing.”
Arlo presses his lips to my neck, his hold on me tight and possessive. “We have to figure out how to stop them. Your parents are out of control and honestly, I don’t really know what they’ll do next.”
I scan the faces of the people in the room, people I actually care about, and Arlo, the boy I’ve fallen in love with. As much as I wish there was another way, there’s only one solution that I can see, even if it’s not the one I want. Glancing at Arlo, I offer him a sad smile before I turn to my sister. “There’s only one way to stop them. We run.”
Twenty-Two
Carrigan
As I look at my sister in Arlo’s lap, guilt hits me like a wrecking ball, making the nausea that’s been barely kept at bay all night rise up like a wave once again. I’m not really sure what her relationship with Arlo is, but I can see the spark between them in the way she looks at him and he looks at her when they think the other isn’t looking.
I’m an awful person. I let greed and power and my parents ruin me, but I won’t let them ruin her too. I’ve tried to find an easy way out of this hold the money has over my life, because I’m selfish enough to want to come out of this whole mess unscathed, but I can see that’s not an option anymore.
Tallulah deserves her chance at happiness and to get that she needs to be here, not on the run with me.
It’s time to stop thinking about myself for a change. I know what I have to do, and I think I know who will help me, but either way before the night’s over I’ll be truly ruined. I’ll do what I have to do to break this curse that has tarnished too many years of our lives already.
Maybe this small but significant act will go some way to redeeming myself and making up for three years of being the world’s biggest bitch to my twin. Maybe not, but either way it will be over.
After that, maybe I’ll spend some time making my parents’ lives as miserable as they’ve made mine and Tally’s. Because karma is a bitch, and it’s time my parents learned that you reap what you sow.
Twenty-Three
Tallulah
The next day I wake up to find Carrigan gone and I’m not surprised. Grabbing my cell to call her, I find a text message from her.
Carrigan – I’m fine and I haven’t gone home. I figured out how to end all of this. Carson’s going to help me. I’ll tell you everything at the party tonight xoxo
I try to call her, but her cell goes straight to voicemail, so I end the call and try Carson’s number, but he doesn’t answer.
“You okay?” Arlo asks, stepping out of our room in just his boxers, his chest bare, his tattoos on display.
“She’s gone. She sent me a text saying she knows how to fix all of this and that Carson is helping her. We should be running, Arlo, not waiting around for Mom and Dad to regroup and come at us with something even more stupid and dangerous.”
“You’re not running, Tally,” he snarls, reaching for me and pulling me into him.
“We have to. This is never going to end. My parents are certifiable; they were prepared to drug us and then have my sister rape you,” I cry, pushing away from his chest.
“I know,” he shouts. “But if you run now where would you go? What would that solve? It’s only Carrigan that needs to go. She needs to get away from their influence and then figure out a way to break one of the will’s clauses. Maybe she can just refuse the inheritance.”
“She can’t refuse it until after she turns twenty-five; it’s another one of the stupid clauses my great-grandfather had written into this will, as if all the other ones weren’t bad enough.” I say.
“Look, let’s just wait for tonight and see what her and Carson have been up to. Then if she wants to run, I’ll help her. I’ll help her hide, then I’ll hire the best lawyers money can buy to go over every word in that will and find her a get-out clause. I promise.”
….
The dress I’m wearing is beautiful, a red so deep it almost looks black depending on the light. Strapless and figure hugging, it clings to my curves before billowing into a mermaid skirt just above my knee, with chiffon ruffles that look like roses flowing to the floor. My hair is loose, natural and wavy around my shoulders. My only jewelry is the Lexington diamond adorning my finger.
I feel like a princess and I wish this was all real so I could enjoy it.
Arlo’s fingers are wrapped around mine and I glance at him walking next to me. He looks just like the king he is in his tailor-made tuxedo. Unlike last night, his hair is messy in that unstyled way that takes twenty minutes of preening to achieve, giving him a softer edge despite the tattoos that seem more visible than ever peeking over the top of his crisp white shirt.
“I don’t want to share you,” Arlo says, surprising me.
“What?”
“I want to keep you to myself, little ghost. You look too beautiful to share and I’m a selfish asshole. If I could, I’d take you home and hide in our room, forget everything else and just be together in a little bubble, where nothing and no one else matters.”
My feet stop moving and I turn
to look at him. “I don’t want to go down there either,” I admit.
“We could bail,” he says with a mischievous grin.
“There are two hundred people downstairs all here to celebrate our engagement,” I say, my tone a little bitter.
“So, fuck them.”
“Are you serious?” I snap. “It’s bad enough that we’re lying to everyone. We can’t just decide not to turn up to our own party.”
The smile falls from his lips and his eyes harden, visibly darkening as his intense gaze searches my face.
“Is that how you feel? Like we’re lying?”
“Well, aren’t we?” My breath catches in my throat as I ask the question. I don’t want this to be a lie anymore. I don’t want this to be fake, because it feels real.
“Then fucking marry me,” he snarls.
“What?” I ask, pulling my fingers free of his and taking a small step backward.
“You keep telling me over and over that this is fake. Well, it doesn’t feel fucking fake to me. I’m in love with you. Tally. I would do anything for you, be anyone for you. Do you not feel anything for me at all? Is this all still pretend for you?”
His brows are pulled together and for the very first time since we met, I can see doubt and insecurity in his eyes. My heart misses a full beat and a gasp escapes from my parted lips. “You love me?” I whisper.
“Yes, little ghost. I’m completely, ridiculously, obsessively in love with you. I see you, and I want you to fucking marry me. Today, tomorrow, ten years from now. I don’t care. We can be rich or poor. I don’t give a fuck. All I want is you, the rest is insignificant.”
I can feel my eyes widen as I take in his words, his beautiful words that are so out of character, so important, that I can’t speak, because nothing I could possibly say would ever be as perfect.
As I stare at him, his eyes dim, his mouth pulling down at the corners in a frown and he scoffs. “Nothing; you’ve got nothing to say?”
