Page 66 of A Murderous Crow
“Come on,” he urged, and took me by my elbow and led me into his place through the back French doors off the kitchen.
“Where do you want me?” I asked wearily.
“My room,” he said. “We do need to talk, though…”
“Yeah, I guess we do,” I murmured unhappily.
He came to me then, and smoothed hands over my shoulders and down to my elbows, cupping them through my pajamas and robe.
“I’m not upset with you,” he said and I snorted.
“Liar,” I muttered.
“Disappointed, maybe. Definitely upset you’ve been living like that and that your ceiling just collapsed – but I’m not upsetwith you. It’s an important distinction to make, Kitten.”
“Don’t,” I said softly. “Not with the pet names, not with the pretenses – not tonight,” I sniffed, and felt the weight of my own disappointment settle onto my shoulders. I wasn’t disappointed in him, but rather myself at the moment.
That I’d been caught out. Discovered for the absolute fraud that I was.
I reached up and rubbed my forehead and he pulled me into his chest, wrapping his arms around me.
“Talk to me,” he said, and it was the first time I think I’d ever heard him beg. He didn’t order me. He didn’t command or demand it of me. His tone held genuine pleading. He was begging me.
I think that, more than anything, made me lose it and start to cry.
“Okay, or cry it out. I’m good with that too,” he said and he hugged me close and I laughed, the sound broken by a bubble of sob escaping me at the same time; but I couldn’t help that.
I got over myself as quickly as I could, and he showed some extraordinary patience, leading me into the library as he had that first night, and sitting me in the overstuffed chair, switching on the reading lamp.
He went over to the liquor cart in the corner and poured me a drink, bringing it over and holding it out to me.
I gave him a withering look, and he gave me an amused one back, taking a healthy swallow of the liquor in the glass, and then holding it out to me once more.
I took it and sniffed.
Brandy by the smell of it.
I sipped tentatively.
He hooked a booted foot into the leg of a nearby ottoman and pulled it over, taking a seat on it in front of me and resting his forearms on his knees, lacing his fingers between them and looking up at me expectantly.
“Story time,” he said. “Take it from the top.”
I swallowed hard and explained, “My family is a farming family from South Carolina.”
I sniffed and took another light but steadying sip of the brandy in the glass and huffed a breath.
“The farm was my grandparents’ pride and joy – their whole life. Something like three or four generations of my dad’s dad go all the way back on that land. My grandfather ran the farm, my grandmother the kitchen. Then my dad took over and my mom too, and then grandpa got sick. He was gone pretty quickly, and it was my senior year of high school. Things were going alright, but then it became apparent that grandma couldn’t keep up. She was forgetting and so my mom and dad fully took over.”
Dad didn’t want to tell us, but I guess things had been tight for a lot of years, and grandpa had fallen behind on the taxes. We had to come up with a way to pay those back taxes and we couldn’t afford lawyers or any of that shit. So I went into real estate, sort of faking it until I made it, you know?”
He listened, and I fell quiet, not really sure what to say after that.
“You can’t fake the things you’ve done in this field, Bright Eyes,” he said quietly. “That was all you, Kitten. All you.” He sighed.
“I don’t know if that’s supposed to be a compliment or…”
“It’s just the truth. You’re skilled and smart as fuck to have made it this far. Money doesn’t mean a fucking thing. You’re not at all what I expected.”
