“I’m not the one who’s trying to be perfect,” he informed her dryly. “I’m allowed to have flaws.”
“Oh my god.” She gave him a shove. “How are you this annoying?”
“Because I didn’t have you to put me in my place.”
Jay smiled reluctantly and his eyes lit with triumph.
As they walked back to the lot, Nicholas pointed out some wild cucumber and even though she knew he was manipulating her, turning up that charm full blast—that he didn’treallycare about what the plant was—she decided to pretend that he did. She told him the name and that it wasn’t edible, and he grinned predictably when she added that it was sometimes called “manroot.”
He never used to smile, she thought wistfully, watching him.He was always so angry.
That was his flaw, she realized. She was terrified of disappointing people; Nicholas had decided that everyone else had already disappointedhim.
They were two sides of the same fucked-up coin.
More people were on the trail now, including families. She heard the distant whoop and scream of kids, followed by the lower warning shouts of their parents not to stray too far. The parking lot was full to bursting and Jay hoped that none of those other hikers had been close enough to hear them on the trail, when Nick had been talking aboutfather’s dayandgood sex.
A car slowed, noticing them approaching Nicholas’s Tesla.The lot had filled up while they were gone. Nicholas squeezed between a silver Mercedes parked beside them to open the door for her, waiting for her to slide fully into her seat before closing it again.
Like a gentleman, she thought, except that he wasn’t.
And she was starting not to mind.
???????
Jay couldn’t remember the last time she’d been inside a church but this one was filled with sprays of white flowers. The cloying scent of them was like drowning in perfume, and as Jay walked slowly up the aisle, she could feel herself becoming sick with dread.
This is supposed to be the happiest day of your life, a voice whispered as she stared unseeingly into the amorphous sea of faces watching her walk down the aisle.You’ll never be alone again, now.
She was wearing the dress her mother had gotten married in: a sequin-covered monstrosity that revealed more than it concealed, just barely clinging to her shoulders.Like mother, like daughter, she thought. Even the diamonds around her throat looked garish being paired with them, but they were real. She recognized them. They had belonged to Nick’s mother and during that benefit gala for sick children, she had worn both the necklace and the bracelets.
Now, they were hers.
Unwilling to look at her new husband just yet, her eyes swept over the church. It was Our Lady of Perpetual Grace, the Catholic church in Hollybook that none of them had ever attended. The stained glass was blinding in the sunlight,aggressively colorful even, and Jay, looking closely at some of the painted statues of the saints, noted both the flaking gilt and their blank, dead eyes.
“You may now kiss the bride,” said the priest, and her new husband lifted her veil.
Jay looked up, just as she caught a whiff of heavy, familiar cologne, and a hint of rot that not even the flowers could conceal—and let out a terrified scream when she found herself looking into Damon’s cold eyes, icy gray, but with a whitish glaze that could only come from death.
“Be a good girl,” her stepfather said, in his son’s deep, resonant voice, “and give Daddy a kiss.”
Jay shot up with a gasp, looking wildly around the room. Gone were the stone floors and varicolored lights. Greenish-grey light filtered in through her voile curtains, making the faded sunflowers stenciled on her walls shimmer. She straightened her tank top with a shudder.
It was just a dream, she told herself.It’s not real.
But thirteen years ago, it could have been.
Still trembling, Jay got dressed for work in a sensible A-line and a backless embroidered blouse. As she pushed her arms through the sleeves, she tried to shake off the filaments of nightmare still clinging to her skin like a spider’s web.
On the other side of the door, she heard Nicholas’s heavy tread. That man was like a bull, the way he charged up and down the stairs. Unlike her, he’d never had anything to fear in this house.
Despite the tightness in her throat, she still smiled a little when she walked into the kitchen and saw the sprinkle jar out with the butter. Nicholas was hovering over the toaster, in slate-grey slacks and a black shirt he hadn’t bothered to do up. Shesaw him stretch, almost like he was posing for her, and her mouth went dry as she watched his abdominal muscles flex.
“Nicholas.”
He looked at her, and both of them startled a little when the toast popped. He recovered quickly, giving her a slow, sexy smile as he picked up the bread and dropped it on a plate.
“You’re up early. You must have slept well.”
