But once I sifted through the files he had on Mom—all the lies, all the pictures, all the testimonies, edited recordings of her, emails she’d never written, orders she had no idea were going to arrive with cocaine bags stashed inside the frames of the paintings—I considered it my little, final, burn-in-hell parting gift.
Once I’d deleted everything from Fairhurst’s cloud and destroyed all the evidence on his camera, I smashed my boot into the laptop and tucked it into Harry’s neatly made bed.
I finished off by pissing all over said bed and laptop, in case he was bad at taking hints.
That still left me a few hours to burn before my next train to Berkshire. Dad called a couple more times. Mom, too, but I didn’t feel like talking to them from Fairhurst’s house. I was too on edge whenever he was concerned.
I settled for giving myself a tour of Harry’s house. I’d never been there before. I took it upon myself to unplug his fridge and open the freezer, letting the meat thaw. Then I opened the back door in case any wild animals found themselves itching for a treat. I finished by helping myself to some of his pricey status watches, to make it look like common burglary.
Of course I made sure to deposit the Rolex and Cartier watches at the train station, in the hands of a homeless person sitting outside, begging for pennies, charitable piece of shit that I was.
By the time I got back to Carlisle Castle, I had two emails waiting.
From: [email protected]
Vaughn,
I checked the clouds of his other account. All clear. Your father said he’ll foot the bill for this job. Good luck and let me know if you need any further help concerning the matter.
- T.
From: [email protected]
Son,
Either you pick up your damn phone and answer me or I’ll make my way over there. Spoiler alert: you won’t like it if I do.
- Your father
Had Jaime told him about the trust-fund money? Or had Mom found out what I did with it through her arty-fartsy friends? I clenched both my teeth and my phone, knowing I wasn’t quite finished with my multi-million-dollar task.
Dad could wait.
He had to.
LENORA
“Oh, God…Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.”
I woke up in my bed, feeling like a fist the size of a wrecking ball had pressed against my eyelids. I was never going to drink again. Ever.
Unless drinking would make the headache go away, in which case I was fully prepared to binge-drink my way into a coma.
The room came into focus in pieces. First, I saw a pile of wrapped gifts lying in the corner. Someone had brought them in while I was asleep. I made a quick, albeit painful count. One from Poppy (probably the long one; she knew I was interested in a particular watercolor print for my room). One from Harry (possibly the fancy-looking bag, containing an equally fancy sensible sweater I’d never wear), a tiny bag from Papa (jewelry, no doubt), and a large box enfolded haphazardly in paper. That was one-hundred-percent Pope’s doing. He knew I needed new tools and had splashed out.
Nothing from Vaughn. I didn’t let myself dwell on that fact.
It was truly over, as it should be. It had been a god-awful idea to begin with. Don’t roll in bed with a tiger and be surprised when you wake up with claw-shaped wounds. Lesson learned.
Speaking of rolling, I did just that, falling to the floor with a thud. It hardly surprised me when I couldn’t even feel the hit my body suffered. After spending a full minute staring at the ceiling and giving myself an internal pep talk about not drowning in self-pity, I turned on my stomach, crawling on all fours toward my door.
Then I realized I didn’t really have a plan. Who was I going to call? Officially, I was not talking to my father (was he even talking to me?), Poppy was probably long gone back to London, I’d put Pope in enough trouble by showing up plastered on his watch, and Vaughn—not that he had a shred of humanity in his entire ripped body—cared as much about my wellbeing as he did about the cobwebs under my bed now that we were over.
Whatever we had been.
Christ, I was good at making a mess of my personal life. I wish I could do that for a living.
Somehow, I scraped my door open. Another basket full of chocolate, brownies, and two cold bottles of water awaited me, along with a steaming cup of coffee that looked fresh.
I managed a smile, even through the headache. Poppy.
Dragging the basket inside and unscrewing a water bottle took immense effort, but after a few sips and the sugar rush of a brownie, I wobbled to my feet and hauled myself to the showers. Papa and the senior staff had plush bedrooms, with showers and built-in closets, and at times like this, I longed for Papa’s private bathroom, but of course, not at the price of accepting a truce.
I couldn’t look at his face without imagining Arabella lying beneath him, purring like a cat, and it scared me to think our relationship was irreparable. I still hadn’t spoken to Poppy about it, but I knew she deserved to know, and that she’d be just as broken as I was, if not more.
After emerging from the showers, downing more coffee, and helping myself to another heavenly brownie, I uncovered my work in progress and stared at it, holding its dead gaze. It had taken a familiar shape, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Something about the frown of the sculpture made my heart squeeze in pain. I continued working on it all day without taking as much as a bathroom break, until someone knocked on my door.
“Who is it?”
It was probably Rafferty, checking in on me. I’d turned to the door and started walking when a voice boomed behind it, grave and serious.
“It’s your father.”
I froze in my spot, like a statue carved from ice. It took me a second to recompose.
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Frankly, that’s exactly why we should be having a conversation right now.”
Frankly, you’re a fifty-nine-year-old perv, and I carry your DNA. I wish I could scrub myself clean of my association with you.
I turned around and made my way back to the statue, picking up the needle and thread for the fabric I’d stitched to its shoulders.
I didn’t expect him to barge into my room.
I didn’t expect him to fling the door so hard it put a dent in the wall.
Edgar sucked in a shocked breath behind me. “Whoa.”
At first, I thought it was because I looked like something that had crawled out of a sewer. But I turned around and noticed it wasn’t me Papa was looking at.
It was my assemblage sculpture.
“You did this?” he gasped, his eyes wide and exploring.
I snorted out a chuckle. Now he was impressed with my work? How bloody convenient. And unlikely.
I returned to the stitching, ignoring his words.
“Lenny, that is…”
“Brilliant? That’s quite a coincidence, considering you didn’t give me the internship I’ve been dreaming of since I was five, and this comes less than a full day after I publicly called you a pig. Are you trying to make amends, or are you trying to cover your arse so I won’t go around telling people what kind of person you are? Because rest assured, Papa…” I spat out the word. “I don’t want people to find out the extent of how corrupted you are.”
Strong words, but time, I found, had two opposite effects. Either it made the pain dull and evaporated the anger or it allowed you to stew in your fury, multiplying your rage. The more I thought about my encounter with Arabella yesterday morning, paired with the two occasions where she’d slipped from his room, the more I was livid with my father. She’d confessed the affair to me, and Vaughn had confirmed it. In fact, according to Arabella, Vaughn had caught them in the act. It couldn’t get any clearer than that.
Papa put his hand on my shoulder, twisting me around to face him. I swatted his hand away.
“Touch me again, and I’m calling the police.”
He stared at me, confused and hurt, the creases around his eyes deeper than I remembered them yesterday. He had dark circles under his eyes. He was tired. Sleepless. Pale as the ghosts of his castle. Bet it was Arabella who kept him up at night, not the showdown with me.
“Darling, what is this about? You are worrying me to death. It is unlike you to get irrationally upset. And it is definitely unlike you to lash out. What happened yesterday?” His voice was tender, crisp as an autumn leaf. My father was not an unkind person, but he was busy, impatient—a gentle giant.
I could tell he was being genuine, but just because he regretted hurting me didn’t mean he was excused.
“Maybe I got bored of being good.” I hitched up one shoulder, thinking about Vaughn’s pet name for me. “Maybe my eighteenth birthday resolution was to be myself. And I don’t like you right now. You disgraced Mum, me, and Poppy. I know it was very convenient for you when I walked around in black clothes and piercings. I got the grades, did my volunteer work, steered clear of trouble. But know what, Papa? It didn’t work for me. You didn’t work for me.”
He stared at me, shocked. “What on Earth are you on about?”
His question only riled me further. I couldn’t help myself. I gave him a little shove toward the door. He was huge, yes, but he also knew social clues when they were thrown in his face. He took a step back.
“I’m talking about how you never asked me about my art. About my life. Mum died, and you did nothing to make us feel like we had someone to talk to. I was lucky Poppy took the role of a mother. But what if she hadn’t? You were always too bloody busy for me. Still are.” I shook my head, finding the first thing in my sight—Poppy’s poster, still wrapped—and throwing it like an arrow. He dodged it, taking another step back.
“You don’t understand—”
“Oh, but I do.” I smiled, feeling lighter somehow, now that everything was out in the open.
Sure, I’d always felt timid and embarrassed about asking for my father’s time. I didn’t want to bother him. But I never quite realized the extent of the anger I’d harbored toward him until now.
I picked up another wrapped gift and aimed it at him. “I understand everything so perfectly clear. Vaughn is more important than me. Arabella is more important than me—”
“They are not more important than you,” he cried desperately, flinging his arms in the air. “Vaughn got his internship because he deserved it.”
“And Arabella?” I raised an eyebrow, cocking my head, waiting for his explanation. “The affair,” I enunciated meaningfully.