Young, Allyson - Absolute Perfection [Aspire 3] (Siren Publishing Classic) (9 page)

“Iris. Will you let me explain?”

She shook her head and turned her face away. She wanted to crawl into a hole and lick her wounds like a dying animal. Being in the same space as him was becoming unbearable, and she thought she might scream.

“When you want to know the truth, I want you to call me.”

Truth. Iris would probably never know any kind of truth again. Her world was off its axis, skewed, and she didn’t know what she was going to do. The car finally stopped, and she realized they were at Haley and Warren and Gordon’s home. She dully registered the slam of Georgios’s door, then he opened hers. He unlatched the seat belt and stood back while she forced her legs to first swivel out of the car and carry her up the walk toward the house. She refused his help, and he was wise enough not to touch her. She probably looked as wild as she felt and he thought she might bite his proffered hand.

The front door yawned wide, and Gordon’s bulk filled the opening. She fell into him, and his arms closed around her.

“Take care of her, Gordon. She’s had a shock.” Georgios’s voice sounded as if from a distance, and Iris let Gordon help her inside. The door shut with a thunk, a final sound, and she sank into the first available chair.

“Iris! Iris! What’s wrong? What happened?” Haley rushed to her side and knelt by the chair. She reached up to touch Iris’s face and then pulled a tissue from her pocket.

“Here, Iris. Gordon? Will you make us some herbal tea please? With honey? And some toast.”

Gordon didn’t verbally respond, but Iris heard him move away, his measured footsteps echoing on the hardwood.

“What’s going on, Haley?”
Warren
came into the room, and he crouched beside her sister, looking anxiously into her face. Iris felt terrible, bringing her personal uproar into this household when Haley wasn’t feeling well.

“I should go.”

“You’re not going anywhere until you have something to eat and drink and tell me what’s going on. You need help, and we’re your family.”

Iris saw
Warren
tear his eyes away from Haley and focus on her. He nodded and then nodded again, this time with determination. He offered his hand, and she took it, letting him pull her up and escort her into the huge, renovated kitchen where Gordon was busy making tea and toast. He urged her to sit at the counter, and Haley joined her.

Iris sipped at the tea but couldn’t manage the toast. No one pressured her, and she slowly organized her thoughts. She wondered if she could get away with going back to her hotel but doubted it. Haley’s husbands were not going to let her upset her sister any further by rejecting her. Damn Georgios for bringing her here, although she realized she had been in quite a state. The way she’d spoken to him made her flame hot with shame. She never spoke to people like that, and she’d been unconscionably rude and cruel. But then she’d never been in love before and betrayed by the object of her sincere affection. The hot tea and honey were helping with the shock, and her thoughts were indeed becoming clearer.

“I’ve been seeing Georgios Andreas.”

Haley tilted her head in a gesture Iris recognized as her own and that of their mom’s. It made her heart ache with additional loss.

“Okay. I know him a little. Kind of dark and deadly. Never smiles. Hot.”

“Haley.”
Warren
’s tone was silky but implicit.

“Phooey. I’m married and knocked up,
Warren
, not blind.”

Iris had a sudden urge to giggle but daren’t because she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop and
Warren
would probably call the crazy police.

Gordon intervened. “He stayed with her the night of the ceremony. He kept the other Doms from hitting on her while she waited. I noticed his interest and thought to interfere, but Iris accepted an invitation to dinner. I thought I should mind my own business, although I mentioned it to
Warren
of course.”

Haley looked bewildered and contrite. “I’m sorry, sis. I didn’t think about you waiting while we…I mean, you know. Anyhow, so George hung out with you while you waited and you guys connected?”

Iris nodded. “I thought we did, Haley. He definitely appealed to me, and while at first I wrote it off to the situation and the environment, we really got along when he took me out to dinner.”

The silence stretched out, and Iris decided to say it all. She needed their support, and who better knew about D/s and any fallout and all the ramifications? Even if they might not know how to fix being used as a stand in for a dead woman. Who
would
know about that?

“Georgios told me he believed I was submissive and wanted me as his sub. He offered to train me, and I agreed.” The rest of it came out in a rush. “I was intrigued and attracted, and so I agreed to try and we spent last night at the club. We ended up at his house, and I saw their wedding picture.”

She couldn’t go on. She felt used and humiliated and so very angry. That was probably better to experience than the bone-crushing hurt and betrayal she was refusing to feel and allow to overwhelm her. She wasn’t sure she believed in broken hearts before, but she sure as shit did now.

Haley still looked confused.
Warren
soon figured it out, however. “I think you’re submissive, too, and so does Gordon, Iris. We remarked on it actually and wondered if the club might speak to that part of you. Gordon told me George had asked you out, and it surprised me because he hasn’t done anything other than work or attend the club since his wife died. I didn’t see any harm in it. You didn’t know he was married? He didn’t tell you?”

“That’s right,” Haley breathed. “I remember now. I never knew her, but there was all sorts of gossip. Poor George.” Her voice faltered and any hint of sympathy vanished. “He didn’t hurt you, did he? He’s not a killer, is he?”

Gordon scooped her off her stool and sat back down with her cuddled on his lap. “Relax, little one. George wasn’t anywhere near Jane when she died, and he was cleared of any suspicion. I suspect Iris has heard some gossip.”

“I’ve heard nothing. Not from you
or
Warren.” Iris couldn’t help it. Her pain was spilling over, and she was angry with her brothers-in-law for not telling her about her resemblance to Jane.

Gordon raised an eyebrow, and
Warren
frowned. Iris spoke impatiently. “Oh he told me he was married. It’s what he didn’t tell me! I look just like Georgios’s dead wife, Haley. The spitting image actually. I dated the man, submitted to him, let him do all manner of things to me and fuck me senseless, and worst of goddamn all, fell in love with him. As an identical replacement for a ghost.”

“What?” Three voices spoke as one, and Iris leaned away from the variations in inflection. She shrugged and fought back a sob.

“I found their wedding picture, purely by accident. There was nothing of her around that I could see except this awesome grand piano and one wedding picture like a shrine or something sitting on it. Well, facedown on it. And curiosity killed this cat. I picked it up. It was like looking into a mirror.”

Iris dropped her face into her hands and willed back the nausea the memory evoked. The pain in her chest increased. Haley exclaimed softly, and someone patted her shoulder. She shuddered through a couple of deep breaths and looked up. Could this get any worse?

“I really don’t see it.” Gordon’s deep voice got her attention. He was looking at her consideringly. “I suppose you’re the same general body type and you’re blonde over blue, but you really look nothing like her except maybe in repose or from a distance. You actually look more like Haley in your expressions and movements. The way you act and respond to others.”

“That’s true,”
Warren
agreed. “Jane was a cold, aloof person. Always looking down her nose at people. And I should know, because Haley explained that unfortunate habit to me clearly, didn’t you, sweetheart? Jane really wasn’t a good submissive. No heart. No real surrender. She liked the erotic pain and the sex, but there was no real passion behind it all, and no real submission. It was as if she separated herself.”

“Not to speak ill of the dead, Iris.” Gordon’s dry tone had
Warren
flushing a little. “But
Warren
’s pretty much right on. Jane was shallow, and it showed, at least to the rest of us. She married George for his money. Or his family’s money anyhow.

“She made him think she was what he wanted, and he married her. It seemed halfhearted, but George isn’t easy to talk to and I doubt anyone could have gotten through to him back then. She influenced him for certain, and no one really knows why she left and ended up dead in that room. There were
rumors
of an affair, but I didn’t hear anything further, and the police have it as unsolved. Oh, and I don’t think Jane ever played piano.”

Iris struggled to process the information. She didn’t care about what happened to Jane or if she played piano, even if that made her a bad person. All she could see was the other woman’s face and body in that wedding picture. She looked exactly like her. She’d seen herself in the mirror often enough. How could
they
not see it? Even if she allowed herself to believe it was superficial, a passing resemblance, why hadn’t Georgios mentioned it? She shook her head, and Haley acted.

“You’re going to lie down in the guest room. I’ll give you something for nausea that’ll help you rest. Oh, I recognize an upset system when I see one, Iris! This little creature Gordon visited upon me is playing havoc with mine. C’mon. Once you have a chance to think some more, we’ll talk. And my guys will do some research for you. You need to make an informed choice here, Iris. Believe me, I know.”

Iris heard the note of caution in Haley’s voice and knew she was referring to the fact she’d almost lost
Warren
and blamed herself for that debacle. Iris didn’t see the correlation, and considering how effectively she’d pushed Georgios away, the things she’d said, well, she didn’t see any happy ending to this particular situation. She followed her sister upstairs and once again stripped off her dress. She wasn’t putting it back on again, ever. She would wear her maid of
honor
dress back to the hotel if she had to, as it was still stored in Haley’s closet. But she wasn’t wearing that dress. She scented Georgios on it the entire time she’d tried to explain things to her family, and it was as though he was in the room with them. She could see his face in her mind’s eye as she screamed those things at him. Her heart hurt so badly she thought she might groan with the agony of it.

She accepted a fine lawn nightgown from Haley and put it on, then slipped between the cool sheets. She swallowed the little pill her sister provided and washed it down with a sip of water. She closed her eyes against Haley’s anxious face and heard her leave the room quietly and close the door behind her. The tears slipped in hot rivulets from the corners of her eyes to run down her temples and pool in her ears, spilling over to soak into her hair. Life was shit, and she had a day and a half to recuperate and get on with her career. There was no room in her life for anything else if she wanted to survive.

* * * *

George sat at his kitchen table and glumly surveyed the mess of his attempt at making a celebratory breakfast for him and Iris. At least he’d just turned the element off to drain the bacon when he heard the sound of piano keys, so he hadn’t returned to a house full of smoke, or worse, a fire. Although maybe that wouldn’t have been such a bad plan. Iris was gone, and he’d never forget the look on her face, standing there with that goddamn picture frame in her hand, staring at him with such stunned hurt and betrayal.

He was honest with himself. He’d packed away everything belonging to Jane during each evening of the past week and shoved them in the closet until he could find the time to donate them. It was time he moved on, and he barely noticed the items anyhow. They’d become just part of the environment and meant nothing to him. It was just that he’d had no reason to care before. He knew Iris wouldn’t want to see pictures of him and Jane, particularly when he had no fond memories of her. He didn’t want Iris to see how much she and Jane looked alike at first glance until he could tell her himself. It hadn’t seemed important, but it was Casey’s lascivious stare last night that underscored how others might remark on the resemblance until they realized how different the two women actually were.

He scrubbed his face with his hands before taking another deep draught of coffee. He remembered that picture falling face-first on the piano lid, his sleeve catching it as he piled up all the other things to carry away. And he’d forgotten it. It had laid there, a thin, eight-by-eleven picture frame with a fine pearl inlay in silver around the edges, the wedding picture Jane liked the best. Probably because she looked so perfect, so refined. George didn’t want perfect. He wanted Iris, with all her sereneness, behind which seethed such amazing passion, and she thought he’d wanted her because she looked like Jane. She’d rebuffed
the leavings of a ghost
. George winced when he thought of how Iris choked that comment out. He hadn’t been much more than a ghost until he met her. She had saved him from himself and didn’t know it, believing he’d merely replaced his dead wife. George hurled the coffee cup at the backsplash behind the sink where it shattered. Shards of china clattered into the stainless-steel basins, and the dark viscous fluid seeped down the glass tiles. Well, it was time he figured out how to retrieve the situation. He wasn’t giving her up, and she was going to have to understand that and overlook his stupid omission. George hadn’t forgotten the other issue. He thought he’d win Iris back before telling her she might be pregnant, so that in itself put him in a time crunch. How long did he have? A week? Two? Three? How long before her monthly cycle? There was so much he didn’t know about Iris. So much he wanted to learn. But so much he did know. He was a Dom, and Doms paid attention to their subs. He set to work cleaning the kitchen, planning his next move.