AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A lazy grin lifts the corner of his impeccably full lips at the memory. "I still don't understand how she could have forgotten you. You never shut up for more than two minutes."
"She still doesn't." I laugh, unable to help myself.
Rhea elbows me in the ribs playfully and then sighs. "I think that's why she left me, honestly. But it worked out just fine because mom fired her, and then we had Lenore, and she was perfection."
"She smelled like a French whorehouse." Remy deadpans. I realize he needs to join us, so I start scooting further away from Rhea, leaving space for him in the middle of us. But he walks right by it and sits on the other side of me. He manages to keep a respectful distance between us but still sits close enough that his scent permeates the air. It’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever smelled—sweet and smoky like when you blow out a fragrant candle. It does nothing to help dismiss the arousal that I’m drowning in. In fact, I can feel the electricity rippling over my skin at his proximity.
"Yes, I'm sure you've got a lot of experience with that." Rhea quips. "I mean, she may not have been able to smell for a damn, but her cooking was unparalleled. And she was so sweet... it was like having a real grandmother for once."
"Delores would slap your mouth for that."
"Good thing she's dead." Rhea, who had been thumbing through the album again, finds a picture and points to the woman in the corner of it. "I can't believe we still have a picture of the hag."
I look at the woman in the photo with her enormous black hat obscuring most of her pinched, pale face. "Our mother's mother, obviously," Remy explains. "She was a bit of a—"
"Bitch." Rhea interjects flatly. "Sociopath? Narcissist? I could go on."
"Well, fortunately, there's no need because karma finally caught up to her. How are you enjoying your inheritance, by the way?"
Rhea reaches across me and swats Remy in the arm, laughing. "She had the world's meanest chihuahua, and that is what she left me,” Rhea explains. “Remington here was always her favorite, so he got the Rolls Royce."
Remy shrugs far too casually. "I sold it off and left the cash with some woman walking her dog. I don't need her cursed car."
"Exactly why I gave Tinker to her housekeeper." Rhea agrees solemnly.
"You guys had a weird childhood."
Weird doesn’t necessarily mean bad. It was clearly better than what I had, but I had expected something much different. Rhea is so happy, so confident, so capable that I was sure when we’d first met that she had come from a loving, well-adjusted family. I’d gathered enough context over the last few years to realize that isn’t necessarily true, and now with Remy’s arrival, I’m witnessing it firsthand.
"You are not wrong." Rhea laughs, tipping her wine glass toward me in a sort of toast. "Here's to the dysfunction of the Claremont Boudreaux family."
"Yes, so why don't you tell us what it's like to grow up normal." Remy watches my face like he’s looking for any signs of fear. His words do spark it; A tingling spreads beneath my skin, the total opposite of the things he made me feel before. It’s a cold tickle that turns to an itch, like all the things I have tried to shove down for so long are trying to claw their way out of me from the inside. I don’t like talking about my past, but I’ve learned the stronger my reaction, the more people become intrigued. Vultures and voyeurs, everyone wants to know the gory details, the dark secrets.
I’ve learned to disguise my fear well, so I only laugh, keeping my cards close to my chest. "If you're asking me, I'm not sure I fit the mold of what you would call normal. I grew up kind of..." I look around the room with its screen, the length of the wall, and the velvet red couch we sit on. There’s a plush rug on the floor before us, a full bar to the right, and a small kitchen to the left. "Well, exactly the opposite of this. My parents died when I was pretty young, so I grew up in foster care. I've lived with a lot of different people, but I wouldn't call that normal." I shrug, hoping my voice didn’t tremble and give me away.
"So... you don't have a family?" Remy ventures, his eyes on me with something like interest or maybe suspicion.
"I'm her family," Rhea says fiercely, sparing me from having to answer him. She doesn’t know the details about all the people I lived with before finally getting my government-granted freedom. She does know that my childhood isn't a favorite source of discussion. I don’t want to talk about it at length, but I kind of like his curiosity.
"I spent time with some good people, but nothing ever stuck. Some of them had almost nothing, some of them were middle-class. I never had my own room, though... I mean, until I took over yours." I feel my cheeks warm a little more and wonder why I even said that.
"You must have been good in school, then. You're at Darrington on scholarships, right?"
"What the fuck, Remy?" Rhea demands, swiveling toward him. "Is this twenty questions?"
"I'm just trying to get a sense for who Claire is." He shrugs.
I almost laugh but stifle it instead. Join the club.
"You did say she is like family to you, after all." Remy turns his eyes back on me, and something in them suggests that he’s challenging that assessment. And suddenly, it all makes sense. Why he claimed he thought I was some kind of assassin, why he'd treated me like a threat even when he'd clearly been in control, why he was asking so many questions.
I've never had money or power or anything that people might covet. It has never occurred to me that people may think our friendship is based upon Rhea's financial freedom and that I could be using her for her family’s wealth. But apparently, it has occurred to him.
Now that the thought has crossed my mind, I can’t push it off. Not until I make myself clear. The fact that he may even think that our friendship is financially motivated makes me feel gross. "You don't think my friendship has anything to do with..." I trail off, exchanging a glance with Rhea. "I'm not friends with Rhea for her money. Or her taste in music, for that matter." I laugh, but it doesn't quite sound genuine to my own ears. There’s too much hurt underlying it. "And to answer your question, I was pretty good in school. I was top of my class, so scholarships cover most of my tuition, and state grants pay my rent and other expenses. What else do you want to know, Remy?" I face him straight on, my chin tipped up in defiance. Other than the past that I keep under lock and key, I have nothing to hide... especially after our earlier encounter.
"Many things, I assure you." His eyes slip from my face momentarily as he fixes me with a simmering glance. "But we have plenty of time for all that."
"Oh?" That catches me by surprise. My indignance at having my motives questioned starts to waver. "Are you staying in the States after the funeral?"
