Page 18 of Never Bound

Well, shit. I had to get out of this. I might be able to charm the birds right out of the trees, but she was now less a bird and more an angry, buzzing horsefly, nimbly dodging whatever I tried to swat her with.

I turned to push her aside, but in a second, it didn’t matter, anyway.

Louisa stood in the doorway, where the fiery light of sunset had at some point been replaced by the violet twilight, and almost would have been beautiful if her eyes when I met them hadn’t been utterly, terrifyingly blank.

The maid spun around, sizing up the situation instantly. Any idiot could have.

I should have known it all along. She’d had no intention of telling anyone about anything. She’d just wanted to fuck things up between us, plain and simple, and her work here was done. Little did she know that hers was just the icing on a fucked-up multi-layer cake.

“Well, good luck,” she told me lightly, reaching up to pat my cheek. “You know where to find me if you need me.” She turned to Louisa in the doorway. “Thanks for the hat, miss, but you can have it.” She handed it to Louisa, who took it robotically before dropping it in the dust, her eyes glued tome.

“I’m not really a hat person, either,” the maid whispered conspiratorially before slipping away.

Ironically, I’d wanted to buy myself some time. But it only took one terrifying second for Louisa’s eyes to fill with tears, another for her face to crumble, and a third for me to watch helplessly as her silhouette disappeared into the gloom.

“I didn’t,” I said to Louisa’s back as she sat in her pink velvet swivel chair, writing something out in a notebook. She didn’t turn around.

I hadn’t been able to avoid the housekeeper, who seemed convinced that I was up to something, which, of course, I was. Ialwayswas. So I told her this, which seemed to put her off for a second while I disappeared upstairs. After all, it was either risk her wrath or Louisa’s if I didn’t at least attempt to explain myself, and the choice was obvious. I took a deep breath.

“I know,” she said. “But you would have.”

“Maybe,” I admitted. “But only to get out of the situation.” Like that made it any better.

She spun her chair around so suddenly it startled me.

“Oh, you mean the situation where she saw you callingmyprofessor, with a number that you took offmydesk, in an attempt to save your sister from a supposed kidnapper who you think ismydad’s business partner?”

And I thought I’d been speechless in the shed.

HER

“Maybe I haven’t stressed this enough,” I began, channeling my father in the way he peered down at people from behind his massive desk. If he insisted on treating me like an idiot. “I may not know as much as you do about chemistry, or physics, or calculus, or metaphysics, or epistemology, or French post-gypsy jazz, or whatever other highfalutin Eurotrash art forms you think are really cool,but I am not an idiot.”

“I know you aren’t. But—”

“That day I saw you at the window looking at the mountains,” I said. “You found that piece of paper with Erica Muller’s phone number on it, in that little pink box on my desk. You had to grab it fast and shove it in your pocket, and then you put it back when I turned away.”

His shock was evident. But all he asked was, “How come you didn’t say anything then?”

“Because I was willing to giveyouthe benefit of the doubt,” I said. “But you weren’t willing to givemethe same. Instead, you looked like you were about to kiss and do who knows what else with a chick I’m pretty sure you don’t even care about—stop me if I’m wrong—just so you could continue to sneak around.”

“You’re not wrong,” he said quietly and seriously, in a way that was breaking my heart already. “I don’t care about her. I never did.”

I bit my lip. To my surprise, I believed him. Maybe because I already knew him well enough to know that if he ever betrayed me, it wouldn’t be by doing something so cheap and lazy and stupid as kissing some slave girl in a toolshed. It would be smart, calculating, and deeply, deeply deceptive.

Just like him.

“But what I don’t understand is how I was supposed to give you the benefit of the doubt.” He seemed genuinely confused.

“How? Do you really think I wouldn’t have just given you the number if you’dasked?”

“I know you would have,” he said quietly, coming farther into the room. I backed up a bit, but I didn’t prevent him from entering. “And then you would have asked why. And then we’d be right back here. With you asking me to choose.”

I leaped out of my chair. “Don’t you understand, you absolutely infuriating idiot? I’m notaskingyou to choose. I’m asking you to let me in and help you. That’s all I’ve been asking this entire time. Why don’t you get that?”

“I do get it. I just can’t do it.”

“Why not?” I demanded.

---