Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Once she was in bed, she was all over me, clinging to me like I was the flames in the hearth. My shoulder became her favorite pillow, and she hugged me under the sheets, fingers resting where my ribs sat beneath the skin and muscle.
I lay there for a while and stared at the ceiling, the question she’d asked coming back to me. It was easy to forget most things, to move forward in life and never look back. But some events stuck with you forever—like a scar.
Chapter 5
Bastien
Eighteen Years Ago
Winter had struck the City of Light, and snow covered the sidewalk and streets. I looked out the front window into the night, seeing the gleam of the snow on the opposite sidewalk. It was so cold I could see the frost in the corners.
“What are you looking at?”
I heard my brother’s voice from behind me but didn’t turn to look at him. “Snow.”
“Snow.” It was a single word, but it was packed with incredulity. “You’re staring at the window so hard, I assumed there was a naked woman across the street.”
“Get down here.” Father’s voice came from the parlor downstairs.
“See you later, perv.”
I turned to look at Godric, but I only saw his back as he stepped out of the room.
Father’s voice called again. “Both of you.”
I heard Godric’s steps halt on the landing instead of hurrying down the stairs. It took him a moment to continue and head to the first floor, where our father waited.
I made my move a moment later, unsure what my father wanted from us at this time of night. As I drew closer, I heard Godric and my father speaking from the parlor.
“Why does he have to come?” Godric asked in a quiet voice.
“Because he’s your brother—and my son.”
“But he doesn’t belong here.”
“Godric.”
I stilled on the stairs and gripped the banister, feeling ostracized in my own home. Godric and Father had always been close. I just assumed it was because Godric was older than me, the eldest son. But sometimes I wondered if it was more than that.
“You don’t need him when you have me,” Godric continued. “He’s not cut out for this.”
My brother and I used to be close when we were younger, but a couple years ago, everything changed. My best friend disappeared overnight, and he kept me at arm’s length. He struck me down with insults. Every time I asked what the hell I’d done to incite this hatred, he never gave an answer. Eventually, I stopped asking and accepted this was the way it would be. My father prepared him to take over the business, and I stayed home with our mother.
My father left the parlor and approached the stairs. “Bastien, get your ass down here—” He stopped when he spotted me at the bottom of the stairs, clearly eavesdropping on the conversation.
I didn’t pretend otherwise, and he didn’t seem to care either way.
His eyes were glazed over like usual, like he was thinking about something else besides the two of us. “Grab your coat and your gloves.”
“Where are we going?”
“I gave you an order. Now, follow it.” He returned to the parlor where Godric remained.
I went to the coatrack and grabbed my things. I put on my heavy boots and then pulled the beanie over my head because I wasn’t sure if we would be outside in the cold.
Father and Godric walked to the front of the house where the main door was, their voices growing distant.
“Why do you need him when you have me?” Godric asked. “I’m your firstborn son.”
“Godric.” He didn’t raise his voice, but his tone showed how short his fuse was. “Trust takes months to earn among friends, years among strangers. It takes nothing among brothers. Don’t ever forget that.”
I crossed the room and joined them in the entryway, and Godric was red in the face. Red like he wanted to scream and accept the beating that it would cost him. But he found the restraint, and then his eyes shifted to me.
He hated me.
Father pulled on his coat and opened the door to step into the night. “Let’s go, boys.” The line of blacked-out SUVs was already parked outside the gate to take us wherever we needed to go. A gust of ice-cold air entered the warm home and struck me in the face.
Godric maintained his angry stare.
I approached him, mirroring the hate he felt for me. There were so many things I wanted to say to him, that I didn’t trust him not to stab me in the back on Christmas morning. But it was a relationship that had already been burned at the stake. Ashes couldn’t harden back into bones. We would never rebuild what we’d lost, and we both knew it.
So I wouldn’t waste my breath.
“Don’t do it.”
I walked past him and shoved him so hard in the shoulder he stumbled back into the wall. “Fuck off.” I stepped into the night, down the steps, and past the gate.