Pretty Perfect Toy -- A Temptation Court Novel (Temptation Court, Book 2) (8 page)

She fingers back the hair from my forehead. “That was good?”

“That was fucking amazing.”

She’s quiet for a moment. “And it got even more amazing when you met Lily.”

“Lily wasn’t amazing.” I’m unsure what shocks me harder: the speed or the vehemence of my rebuttal. Neither escapes Mishella either, blue crystals of curiosity in her eyes. “She was…enlightening. Intriguing. Maybe even confusing.” Despite how my brows pull in, I recognize the words as therapeutic—to me
and
Ella. “No. That part came later.”

“But at some point, you fell in love with her.”

I grimace despite her leniency with the conviction. So easily—and justifiably—she could’ve turned it into accusation. Used my own honesty against me.

And you…loved her?

Yes, Ella…I loved her.

I’d surrendered the confession in the middle of Bryant Park, minutes after she’d learned about Lily the wrong way. Even if that night hadn’t ended with my ass in an ambulance and Ella’s sobs in my ears, the lesson from it was clear. Delaying the truth, even with the excuse of making it “easier” for someone, is just as idiotic as lying. In the end, it’ll eventually bite you in the ass.

“Yes,” I finally state. “I fell in love with her—though at the beginning, it wasn’t that at all.” My forehead falls atop her knuckles. “It didn’t come close to what happened with you.”

I don’t break the pose. Pray that some magical osmosis takes over and bleeds the truth from my brain straight into her. Right. And unicorns
are
real. If
I
were her, only one thought would be permeating my mind at this moment.
This asshole sounds like a greeting card—and believes every stupid word of it
.

And there’s the shittiest rub.

I do believe every word. To the depths of my fucking soul.

“So…what was it?” Her insecurity rasps every syllable, confirming my qualms and stabbing my gut. At this point, my greeting card might as well be printed on toilet paper.

So prove that it’s not.

Wade into the quicksand.

Give her your truth.

“At first, more than anything, it was just…curiosity.”

The word is accurate but sounds lame. Relief floods in when she rocks her head again, looking like I’ve just conveyed aliens are real and living in relics of a city beneath the Atlantic. “About what?”

I should’ve expected the question—but my mouth opens on nothing but air for a long second. “I was a kid from a shoebox apartment in Jersey. Farthest I’d ever been in my life to that point was the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. So getting to
see
a real European castle, much less find myself living in one…” I stop to pull in a breath—and make a new stab for all the right words. “Very quickly, it started to feel like a dream. A damn good one.”

“And Lily became part of that.”

“To an extent…probably…yes. I mean, she sure as hell
looked
the part…” My voice trails as the remembrance takes over. In those early days, Lily
was
every inch the princess, with her porcelain skin, dark hair, and tentative smile—when she decided the situation warranted a smile. “But…”

“But what?”

Belatedly, I realize how thick my silence has gotten. Silence—the gift Lily keeps giving. Once upon a time, I called it her “glamorous stillness.” Once upon a time…when I was a Jersey apartment kid suddenly living in a castle. “But dreams are different things to different people.” I surprise myself by looking up. Looking
there
. Making sure the maw of that shattered window is stamped hard into my psyche. “If you fall asleep in the tower, you’ll dream of clouds and flying. If you curl up in the dungeon, you see monsters in your sleep.”

More silence. But just a moment of it.

“And Nash Quinn kept his daughter in the dungeon?”

Harsh laugh. “Nash Quinn would have built a stairway to the clouds for Lily if she asked.”

Ella sighs. The sound is filled with instant understanding—and unique sorrow. “So she chose the dungeon.”

I lift a stunned stare. Smack it away with a fresh dose of
duh, dumbshit
. Will I ever get used to the dichotomy of this woman? Do I
want
to? Her ability to figure people out like an ancient seer, though things like automatic tellers, flavored water, and Twitter fascinate her like a child discovering its own toes…I really
am
reduced to a card-carrying dumbshit—and proud of it. Beautiful sorceress. Bewitching girl…

“Yeah.” I release a long breath too. “She did.”

One of her hands lifts again to my nape. Soothes with rhythmic motions through the ends of my hair, into the tight muscles beneath. “And there was nothing your friend could do about it.”

“Which tore him apart.”

“Which tore
you
apart.”

I let my grimace serve as a
yes
—before my mind fills with more scenes from those days. Five years. They sometimes feel like five decades—and sometimes, like now, feel like five minutes. “Nash wasn’t just my first real world boss. He was the first major business figure who believed in me, mentored me. Lily was the only thing he had left of his wife, who died when Lily was a girl. Watching him grieve about her, even after spending millions on her…”

“But things weren’t what she needed.” Her caresses continue, matching the quiet calm of her voice. “Help was what she needed.”

“Yeah.” I remain a block of tension, refusing even a thought about any pleasure from her touch. Punishing myself for everything, even now. “Help we couldn’t identify.” I jab a growl into it. “You hear all the talk about depression…all the signs, all the stats…but when it’s staring you in the face, you hit the damn denial button. Call it ten thousand other things. Make up excuses for it…”

“Try to save it?”

I jerk up my head. Search her face. “Was that wrong?”

Her brows lower. Her lips purse. “Wrong?” she replies. “Do you mean following your nature? Being true to who you are?”

I feel my own gaze narrow. “What the hell does that have to do with—”

The music of her laugh cuts me short. “Oh, Cassian. It has everything to do with—everything.” She slides her fingers along my jaw. “You are a warrior. You fought to excel in school then in business. In the middle of the two, you battled even your mother—though I wager you have fought on her behalf as well, depending on when your brother was not around any longer.”

I jerk to my feet. It does nothing to dispel the rocks she’s dumped down my limbs. “Damon has nothing to do with this.”

“Forgive me, my love—but bullshit.” Ironically, she finishes by looking like a Madonna. Shifted forward on the chaise, angling more of the chandelier’s light over the golden waves on her head, she caps the moment by spreading her hands, palms up. “But we shall burn his back for now.”

“You mean…back burner him?”

“Exactly.” She returns the hands to her lap. Twists them just softly enough that I’m reminded of the truth here—that she’s really struggling through all this as much as I am.

Screw the Madonna. If I’m a goddamn Conan, then she’s my valiant Xena. If she’s getting through it, then I can too.

“For a while,” I go on, “it was…idyllic. A gorgeous bubble. I worked hard with Nash, and loved passionately with his daughter. We finished on Eurail but another contract came through from the Dutch government, ensuring Lily and I could stay on in Utrecht for another three months.” I fold my arms while facing the ruined window once more. Am drawn to the jagged frame as if it’s a magic mirror, revealing the depths of time instead of a regular reflection. “We were so young,” I grate. “And in the custom of ignorant youth since the beginning of time, thought it would be that perfect forever. Or maybe we were so desperate to believe it, we just did.”

“Which is why you proposed.”

I drop my arms. Past the buzz swarming my head like pissed-off cicadas, my palms burn from the stab of my fingernails.

Did I expect her to come to other conclusion?

No.

But did I expect this corner of the memories to hurt so damn much?

Same answer, shittier version.

But I’ve been through worse. Like the first time I lived through this crap. Months and months of it, instead of a few bitter minutes.

Words finally choke their way up. “Let’s define ‘proposed’.”

A rustle. A change in the air behind me. Though Ella doesn’t move beyond that, I can picture her stance now. Proud but pensive. Elegant hands clasped high against her waist, as regal as the royalty she served back in her kingdom. The “trap” I thought I was saving her from—a call I now question with every new second that passes. Every new corner of my past now exposed by her light.

Every dark, dirty corner…

“I do not understand.”

Just like a queen, her voice is velvet girded by steel. Just like the beggar at her palace, I shuffle through a turn back at her.

“Yeah. Of course you don’t.”

“What are you trying to say?” Exasperation bites her words. “All right, you loved her. Then you married her—”

“Yes.” I jog up my head another notch. “I loved her. I married her. But I never proposed.” Hard breath. One more. “I wasn’t given that choice.”

*

Mishella

T
here’s an intent
here. Something he dreads saying so much, he cannot frame the words for it. Something his stare pleads with me to figure out, resulting in a stalemate of frustration because I cannot. I know my tight glower and leaden huff do not help—but despite his obvious assumption, the answer is
not
as clear as a spot on the floor between us. If it is, then it was created with invisible ink, and I have yet to locate the black light for revelation.

I didn’t propose. I wasn’t given that choice.

I am tempted to call bullshit again.

He formed those feelings for Lily Quinn of his own volition—perhaps encouraged by his mentor, but certainly not forced. Even a girl from a sheltered past on a tiny island can deduce that. Besides, had Cassian not bid for Lily’s hand, there were likely five hundred others waiting in line to do so.

So what had been different? Why was Cassian “expected” to marry Lily without taking the steps expected from a social echelon he had worked so hard to become a part of? I have snuck glances at enough of his daily mail to know. The magazines, newsletters, and social notices of the American upper crust are unique journals, chronicling day-long spa visits, tiny-sized food, and “casual parties” that took weeks to plan and thousands to fund. Events like engagements approach the status of national holiday celebrations. The wedding plans of someone like Lily Quinn would have boosted the family’s social and financial clout—

Unless those plans had to be made in a hurry.

“Creator’s toes.” The spot blares to clarity. “She—Lily—she was—”

“Pregnant.”
Now
the explanation flows from him without effort, even murmured like a prayer. But is it a prayer of gratitude or shame? The dazed cast of his gaze does not supply any definition. “With my baby.”

I pull in a breath. Am not shocked that the air shakes in my chest. Imagining him as a father-to-be is the easiest—and hardest—thing in the world. Watching his protective ways with Prim and Mallory makes it simple to envision him doing the same with his own child—but in my mind’s eye, that child has no other mother than me. The force of the fantasy weakens my knees. “So Nash made you marry her.”

“Nash didn’t make me do shit.” His nostrils flare and his lips thin. “She told me the day after Christmas, during a trip back here to see her parents. The day after
that
, we hit the jewelry store then the courthouse. Her stepmother was understandably horrified, but Nash yanked the curtain on our masquerade pretty fast.”

“And then what?”

“And then he couldn’t wait to welcome me into the family.”

“And were you happy too?”

“I was delirious.” He issues it as if confessing to murder—likely reading the little “Baby Daddy Cassian” scenario that burns across my face by now, and knowing the words will be its ice bath. But he has not brought me up here for an evening of wine and roses. For two months, I have not been allowed into this turret for a reason—and I have held no illusions it would be a pleasant one to hear. “In my mind, the bubble had just received steel plating,” he explains further. “I was on top of my professional game, now running the European division of Quantumm for Nash. Lily and I started looking for a home. We had a child on the way. Life was damn good.”

“But even steel plates can be blown back.” It is the logical response, as my gaze follows his back over to the destroyed window pane. When he descends into his unnatural stillness once more, I prod, “
Cassian
. What happened?”

His head angles to one side. The light catches the whisky tint in his hair as it teases at his forehead, though cannot illuminate the new darkness in his eyes. In an instant, he is not here with me anymore. Distant memories claim him…as well as their ruthless stamp of grief. “Not what happened,” he grates. “It’s what
didn’t
happen.” His eyes slide closed. “The person who should’ve been most thrilled about the baby…wasn’t.”