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Jace
I cradled her head against my chest, my heart thumping dully beneath her. Like hers, I suspected, my mind raced with conflicting thoughts. I’d expected to feel the same jolt of lust I always felt when I saw her—but when she’d opened the door, it was so much stronger than I’d anticipated. Because it’d been days since I’d even seen her. Because the last time I’d seen her, she’d broken things off. She wasn’t mine anymore, and I needed to claim her again. I’d had to stop myself from running my hand up her white thigh-high stocking and under that yellow skirt.
I had no idea why she was dressed up for Halloween—in all my years of working at Richmond House, I’d never heard Sterling or Eugenia, or Oren for that matter, ever mention getting a trick-or-treater on the Peninsula. Presumably, when Blair and Anna were old enough, they’d gone into town. But here was my little Greer. All dressed up with nowhere to go. All long legs and miniskirt and long, shiny hair and big eyes. My body ached, and I’d longed to touch her, but Oren’s confession was more important.
She’d led us through the decaying mansion to the parlor, a room only less ridiculous because it was clean. Eugenia was nowhere to be seen, so at least we hadn’t had an audience.
Once I’d been able to prod Oren into confessing the truth, I’d watched Greer’s face. I’d been prepared for the anger. I’d even come prepared for tears. What I hadn’t prepared for was avoidance. She’d turned tail and run. I should’ve known.
I wondered for the hundredth time since I started my quest to discover this truth whether knowing or not knowing was better for Greer, but it was too late now. Picking her up from the scrubby grass in the field, all I’d wanted was to throw myself at her feet and make her take me back. It was time. It was past time. I understood now, and I was ready for her—however and whomever she needed me to be. I just needed to convince her.
She closed her eyes as I walked back toward the open front door of the house. I planned to take her to the parlor to talk until there was nothing left unsaid, but when I slid into the house, she whispered, “Upstairs.”
“I need to set you down to get the door closed, sweetheart.”
“Later.”
We could still talk upstairs, right? Inside her bedroom, I deposited Greer on the same bed I’d laid her on after she’d almost plummeted to her death. This time, though, instead of pacing, head on fire, and sitting somewhere adjacent, I crawled right on top of her, both of us fully clothed, Greer’s once-white stockings now streaked with mud. I bracketed her with my arms, my face inches from hers. She closed her eyes, scrunching them tight.
“Open your eyes, sweetheart.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“Fine, I don’t want to.”
I sighed. “Maybe I should have taken Oren’s confession to my grave.”
“No…” she trailed off, finally opening eyes fringed with damp black spikes. I drank in their honey-brown color like it was the finest scotch in the world. “It’s something I’ve wanted to know for as long as I can remember. I just expected to feel…differently…once I found out.”
“How do you feel?”
“Fine,” she said automatically.
“Sweetheart, how do you feel?”
“Fine. I said fine.”
“Greer Richmond. How. Do. You. Feel?”
She paused for a moment, tears leaking out the sides of her eyes. I kissed the wetness before I slid my face back to hers, not letting her close her eyes, not letting her escape the question.
“How do I feel…how do I feel…I feel…stupid. Stupid for not realizing he was my father all along. I feel…betrayed. He’s lived here this whole time. He knew my mother, knew what kind of life I had with her back in Seattle, and just stayed here and worked for an incestuous pedophile and did nothing to help me.”
“He paid your way,” I pointed out gently.
“He did nothing to help me emotionally. He’s the reason I’m all fucked-up.”
“Keep talking.”
“I feel sick at the thought that he was a pedophile too. That I’m a product of that.”
“No, sweetheart. Oren wasn’t a pedophile. I mean, it was definitely wrong. He had sex with a seventeen-year-old. In the eyes of the law, he took advantage, but I believe he loved your mother and that she pursued him. It’s a crime, but it’s different from Sterling. You’ll have to come to terms with it, but for what it’s worth, I don’t believe Oren was a predator. Is a predator.”
She sniffed, moving her hands to caress my abs, hovering inches above her. I froze in place, willing my body to calm the fuck down, letting her touch me without mauling her. The last time Greer touched me was the night before her near-fall. The last night we’d properly made love. I didn’t count my rushed attempt to reestablish a connection between us the day after as making love. I’d loved her, but I’d been angry. Desperate to put my hands on her and make sure she was still there. Desperate to brand her as mine so she knew she should never do anything that stupid again.
Greer’s soft hands trailed up from my abs, widening across my chest over my T-shirt. Staring directly into her eyes, watching her watch me, was making me hot as fuck. If I lowered my face just a few inches, I could touch my lips to hers. I felt her sweetness on my lips already, but I held back. After everything we’d been through, I didn’t want to scare her off.
