Liars and Liaisons by Sav R. Miller
40
The shower sprayis scalding as I step beneath it, finally rinsing the blood and sweat and other grime from my skin. I tilt my head and close my eyes, relishing in the feel of being washed clean after everything that happened at the James estate.
It’s surreal, being back at the South House after so much time. The girl who stayed here with her cousin and her little flowers doesn’t even exist anymore.
Maybe she never really did. I was just holding on to the ideal, desperate for something to cling to during a time of complete uncertainty in my life.
Micah’s dead. Her sister is not.
I shot and killed a man tonight.
I don’t feel bad about it.
Any remorse I might have had once, any ounce of forgiveness yielded for the sake of giving it out, is gone. Dried up like water in a vast, relentless desert.
Forgiveness might be a gift, but not everyone deserves it.
Ultimately, the gift is to yourself—and that isn’t one you have to give out if you don’t want.
My mother’s downstairs with everyone else, having tagged along after Grayson carried me out of the James estate. She’d been ragged with worry, and it felt like some sort of fever dream, coming out and seeing her standing by Kal. The secret I’d been harboring for years in the flesh, and she didn’t even seem to mind it.
Evidently, he stayed by her side during the entire thing. He claims it was to keep her from being stupid and running inside, and that it went against every facet of his being not to run in to save me.
I’m just glad to know she wasn’t alone.
I felt a small kernel of relief pop in the pit of my stomach when she told me my father was safe and sound, visiting Greece. For real this time. Evidently, when he made his last payment to the Persicos, he decided he needed to get his shit together and took off for a private rehab facility close to his extended family.
When I asked how they intended to pay for it, she said someone reached out to anonymously sponsor him just this evening, when we were en route to Alistair’s home. I have an idea about who that may have been, but I’ll let him tell me if he ever does.
Regardless, I won’t reject his help. Not this time.
And as for my father… better late than never, I suppose.
I can’t be mad at him completely for the disaster he turned my life into. Not when it brought me Grayson James.
Laurel’s lying on the bed with my mother in my old room when I hop out of the shower. I wrap a purple towel around my head and stop in the doorway, waiting for her to speak as she rubs slow circles on the dog’s head.
Her dark hair spills down her shoulders, and I feel a little pinprick of regret as I note the crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes, the laugh lines that weren’t there when I was nineteen. She’s aged so much, and yet somehow, she is the exact same woman I grew up loving and modeling myself after.
I wonder how different I look at her. If she still sees the little sunflower she spent two decades nurturing or if something rotten exists in its place instead.
She holds out a hand to me, and my stomach flips as I approach the bed, taking it and letting her drag me to her side. I settle in with my head on her chest, just below her neck, and she tucks me beneath her chin. Her fingers are warm as they begin circles on my shoulder, slow and sure, as if she’s simply checking to make sure I’m still here.
“I should’ve known this is where you’d end up,” she says after a while.
Laurel watches us with his big brown eyes, and I reach out with one finger, stroking down the soft fur of his snout.
“In a mayor’s house after being attacked and almost burned alive?”
She pinches me. “Stop it. It’s not nice to joke like that. I’m just happy I don’t have to go through what my poor sister did last year with Lucian…”
A pang shoots through my heart at the thought of my cousin’s death. The devastation Cora experienced with the loss of her brother.
How distraught she would’ve been if she’d had to bury me too.
“You know, once, a very long time ago, I fell in love with a man who begged me not to.”
My brows arch, and I pull back just enough to look up at her as she speaks.
“He told me he would break my heart, and because I was a silly little eighteen-year-old, I thought his self-awareness was sexy.”
I cringe. “I really hope you’re not talking about Dad.”
“Of course I am. I’ve never loved anyone else.” She laughs softly, gazing up at the ceiling as she continues stroking my arm. “It didn’t take long for me to realize that he wasn’t kidding though—about loving him being the most painful thing I’d ever do. Early on, it became clear he had a gambling problem. He’d work through the week, and back then, he was just doing construction and didn’t own the body shop, so his body was quickly deteriorating, and his mind… well, he was stressed with a new wife to care for and no familial support since he’d come to the States by himself as a child. So, after work on Fridays, he’d head for the riverboat at the state border and blow whatever money he’d made that week.”
My chest aches. I didn’t really known it’d been going on that long.
“Anyway, it got to the point where we were swimming in debt, on the verge of losing the little house we rented, and I turned to God. The church.” She pauses, as if waiting for my response, but I don’t give one. “I know that seems silly to you and that you never cared for any of that… you found your religion in the dirt, my mama used to say. But anyway, I started praying for some kind of shift in your father, that he’d overcome the addiction, and even if we couldn’t be well-off, I just wanted to be stable. I wanted to be able to breathe.”
I know the feeling.
“Sometimes, when he disappeared for weekends at a time, I’d just sit up all night and pray that he was out having affairs rather than spending our money.”
Her laugh this time is sad, hollow, and I put my head back on her chest. Laurel scoots closer, his wet nose touching mine.
“Imagine my surprise when that prayer actually seemed to work, and suddenly, your father was coming home, smelling like Chanel No. 5.”
Finally, she sighs, twisting out from under me so she can look into my eyes when she speaks.
“I found out I was pregnant with Alec around the same time Kallum’s mother did. I didn’t… your father insisted he didn’t want anything to do with the baby because he loved me and didn’t want his mistake to define him for the rest of his life.” She blows out a breath, wringing her hands together. “But it wasn’t right to just abandon that boy. So, I contacted your grandfather, aware that there was a hefty trust he’d set up many years before, and asked him to transfer it into Kallum’s name.”
I blink. A part of the reason Kal reached out to me as an adult was an attempt at giving me some of that money from our grandfather. I’d always just figured the man hated my brothers and me and gave it to Kal to spite our family.
“And I tried to make it right. I tried…” She breaks off on a small sob, tears springing to her eyes. Sniffling, she wipes them away and shakes her head. “I’ve never forgiven myself for allowing your father to turn that boy away. Not as a baby and not as a thirteen-year-old, grieving the loss of his mother. I tried to find him after that, but the people he lived with… they wouldn’t allow contact. The woman, his foster mother or something, threatened to have me scalped if I attempted to intervene in his life again, so I sort of gave up, hoping he’d come around one day.”
As if summoned, like Death himself, Kal appears in the open doorway. Watching the two of us, the dark night rippling off of him like an aura of shadows. He doesn’t say anything, and I wonder how much of this he heard.
“I hoped that you’d find him, Violet. Or that he’d find you. I didn’t care how it happened, but I knew that if someone was going to bridge this family together… it’d be you.” She smiles, reaching out to kiss my forehead, and then slides off the bed.
Her gaze stays on Kal, even as she approaches the door, and I note the complete lack of fear or trepidation in his presence. As if she doesn’t see the man he grew into, the criminal he’s rumored to be, and instead thinks of the child he was.
The one who only ever wanted a family.
He steps to the side, clearing a path for her. After a short pause, she nods, dropping her chin and exiting the room.
Kal takes a few seconds, staring off into space before entering.
His hands are stuffed in the pockets of his suit pants, and he glances slowly around the room, raising his brows at the dead potted plants near the balcony and the bloodstained clothes in the corner of the room.
“A little depressing, don’t you think?”
I nod, running my hand down Laurel’s back. He flips over, presenting his belly, and I give him a couple of solid scratches, watching his tail thump enthusiastically.
“Agreed. If I have to stay here, it needs a definite overhaul. Any suggestions?”
He makes a face, like he’s surprised I’m asking for his opinion. “I’m not much of an interior decorator.”
Shrugging, I press my lips together. “Guess I’ll just have to drag Elena and the girls out with me one day for a family shopping spree. I bet they have great taste.”
A small, almost-imperceptible smirk tugs at one corner of his lips. Like he understands the olive branch being extended and doesn’t care about the past, so long as the future looks brighter.
Forgiveness is mostly for us after all.
Later, most of the people at the South House have left or gone to their respective beds, after ensuring there are no more psychos lurking in the shadows—at least not the malevolent kind. My mother takes up residence in the room across from mine, and I go in search of the reason I’m still here at all.
I find him sitting outside by the pool, his pants rolled to his knees and legs dangling over the edge. He stares down at his reflection, brutally silent, as if soaking in the serenity after the excruciating day we’ve had.
Dropping down beside him, I kick off my slippers and drape my feet over the edge. The water is warm and soothing as small waves stroke my calves.
Grayson doesn’t look at me. “Everyone gone?”
“Yep. Your mother took Priya and Sydney back to the mainland, and Kal went home to his family. My mom, Cora, and Alistair are in their rooms. I don’t want to think about what Cora and Alistair are doing, so please don’t ask.”
He smiles, but the gesture doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s wooden, and given that I’ve only gotten one or two smiles from the man in the first place, it’s completely unsettling.
“Nate wasn’t always like that,” he says finally. “We used to get along. Used to even be… friends. Our father loved pitting us against each other, but I never thought…” Sighing, he shakes his head. “And my mother and Priya helping keep Sydney right under my nose? In my home? After faking her death, all because she was afraid of my dad. Janus working with them, my father trying to kill me, hurting you—”
“Hey.” I nudge him with my shoulder, kicking my feet in the water. “I’m fine.”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you never wanted me to touch you again.”
My brows arch into my hairline, and I bite back a laugh. “Well, that’s going to make the rest of our lives really awkward.”
He turns his head as I push to my feet, ripping my T-shirt over my head and then shimmying out of my pajama shorts, standing before him in just a pair of flimsy lace panties. I’m aware that Cora or my mother could witness my bare breasts at any moment if they happened to look outside, but I don’t really care.
What I care about is reigniting the heat in Grayson’s emerald gaze. He watches me with forced restraint pulsing in his eyes, and my skin sets aflame when I see him clutch at the concrete, like he’s trying to keep from reaching out and taking me.
I take a step forward, grabbing his arm. Bringing it up, I flatten one palm over my breast, squeezing the heavy flesh, forcing my warmth into his icy fingers.
“Does that feel like I don’t want you to touch me?” I do the same with his other hand, and my pulse speeds up, clamoring between my thighs.
“You shouldn’t—”
“Don’t even start with the you deserve better than me bullshit, Grayson James. I didn’t ask, and I don’t care. If you wanted to get rid of me,” I say, crouching to straddle his hips, “you shouldn’t have come into that house to save me. I am afraid good deeds like that deserve rewards.”
He moves his hands from my breasts, sliding them around to my back and then down to settle on my ass. An almost grin lights up his face. “I don’t do good deeds.”
“Well, lucky for you, I do. And loving you, Grayson James, might be the best deed of all.”
My heart pounds behind my ribs, alight with so much affection and acceptance for this man who terrorized me when we first met. I absolutely shouldn’t be with someone like him, shouldn’t even be considering any of this, given the horrors of what transpired tonight that I’m sure we’ve only reached the surface of.
“You love me?” he asks.
I nod. “Unfortunately. I love you very much.”
He laughs, the sound free and clear as it drifts up into the night sky. Then, he leans up, capturing my lips in a kiss that feels like it alters space and time with its severity, and I realize the wrongness of our situation doesn’t matter.
Forgiveness is for me. Being with him, choosing to no longer deny that parts of my soul enjoy the darkness, is the kindest gift I can grant the both of us.
After all, daylight can’t exist without the night that comes before it.
