Red Hot Obsessions (178 page)

He might be the third generation of a secret Nazi Aryan eugenics experiment and survived when the Nazis tried to wipe out the evidence.

She touched the browser icon on her phone and opened a search engine. She tapped the screen with her oversized fingers, delicately tracing words on the screen keyboard, until she had typed in Wulfrum van Hanover.

A bunch of garbage results came up, but a link on the top of the list suggested, Did you mean Wulfram von Hannover? which looked to Rae like it could be the correct spelling for Wulf’s name. She had never seen it, after all. He had only said it the one time.

Rae tapped the top link and then desperately wished to God that she hadn’t.

Lizzy and Georgie whipped around and stared at her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Rae tapped the home key on the phone screen. Icons lined up in neat rows, hiding the horrible picture that would reappear if Rae opened the browser.

“Bullshit,” Georgie said. Lizzy nodded.

“Really. Nothing.” Rae composed her face to be blank as stone, acting with all her might.

Georgie said, “I call bullshit. You jumped and gasped like you stuck your finger in a light socket. Give it up.”

Never. Her eyes burned with tears.

Rae said, “Just remembered that I have homework due tomorrow morning in Abby Psych. I’ve got to get on it or I’m toast. Can’t fail two classes.” She plastered a grin on her face and tried to breathe but her nose was clogged so she sucked air through her teeth.

“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” Lizzy said.

“I mean, Monday morning. It’s due Monday morning, but I need to do it right now.”

Lizzy and Georgie glanced at each other then turned their suspicious faces back to Rae.

Lizzy said, “We’re here for you, if you need to talk.”

“I just need to go back to my room and grab some books before I head over to the library. I think I’ll study in the library because I’ll need the bigger table to set out all my books for my homework,” she babbled. “And it’ll probably take a couple hours, so I probably won’t see you guys at dinner. Maybe later. Maybe tonight.”

Georgie asked, “Are you going to The Devilhouse tonight?”

Saturday night. Wulf had said that she should go to The Devilhouse that Saturday night.

If she saw him, she wouldn’t know what to do. She didn’t think she could hide her horror. “I’m supposed to.”

“Then you’d better go. Do you want to ride with us? It’s Lizzy’s turn to be the designated driver.”

Lizzy bobbed her head cheerfully. The blond pixie spikes of her bedhead hair didn’t move, despite the vigorous nodding.

“I think I’d better drive myself, and Lizzy should go early, anyway. What time are we supposed to show up?” Rae stared at her phone. She had to see the pictures again. She had to be sure.

“Like, nine,” Georgie said.

“Okay, like, nine.” Rae fled, gripping the phone and its terrible images in her hand. She ran through the bathroom to her own bedroom and locked the door from her side.

In the small bedroom, she slid down the door and opened the browser on her phone because she needed to see it again, needed to see if somehow, possibly, please dear God, she was wrong, and the child in the photo wasn’t Wulf.

In the formal portrait beside the news picture, both boys looked like a child version of Wulf. Baby skin plumped their faces, but Wulf’s deep blue eyes stared out of the little boy on the right. The other little boy had gray eyes, though his hair was just as blindingly blond. The gray-eyed boy’s face was a little longer, a little thinner, than Wulf’s. They weren’t identical twins, but the one on the right with the strong cheekbones and jaw even through the baby fat looked so much like Wulf.

The expression of the blue-eyed boy in the picture didn’t look like Wulf, though. The little boy looked stiff, almost haughty, as haughty as a child of seven or eight can look. Neither of the boys smiled, like the picture had been taken in the 1800’s, but it was in color, and their little-boy suits looked like they were tiny, modern CEOs.

Rae could see Wulf in that child as clearly as she could see herself when she looked at her own baby pictures.

But the other image, the news picture, drove a terrible arrow through Rae’s lungs.

Grotesque red smeared the child Wulf’s screaming face as he clutched his brother’s shattered head. The words around the picture made no sense, just random jumbles of letters, and it took Rae a second to realize the article was written in some other language.

Rae wished she hadn’t seen it. Wulf had been right to tell her not to search for anything about him. No one should have to endure such horror, and she couldn’t bear that Wulf had been nearly murdered and that his brother had been killed in front of him.

Sweet Jesus, she wanted to hold Wulf and make it all go away, and she couldn’t imagine the terror and pain when he was a boy, such a little boy, crumpled in the street, bleeding on his murdered brother’s body.

She sobbed out her horror, gulping and dripping, holding the phone screen to her heart. The posters of island beaches and Christian pop bands tacked on the walls blurred into incomprehensible smears.

The door to the small study room opened, and Hester peeked into the bedroom. “Reagan? Are you all right?”

Rae reached out for her cousin, hysterically grasping the air because, even though they had such different views, they were flesh and blood and Rae couldn’t imagine Hester lying dead in the street, let alone one of her own brothers.

“Lord in Heaven, Reagan. What happened?” Hester settled beside her on the floor and set her arms around her. “Are you all right? Should I call your mom?”

“It’s not me,” Rae squeezed out, though her voice was strangled. “A friend of mine, a guy I know, I just found out something terrible happened to him when he was a kid. He was shot, and his brother was killed in front of him.”

Hester held Rae closer. She whispered, “Drug connections?”

Rae shook her head. “He’s not from the Border.”

“I’m sorry, Rae.” Sitting there on the floor, Hester held her and rocked her.

Rae couldn’t think of anything to do so long after it had happened. “Will you pray with me?”

Hester pulled away and surprise lit her face. “Seriously?” but she composed herself. “Yes. Of course.”

Hester adjusted so she was kneeling, rearranged her skirt, and steadied Rae while she pulled her pajamaed legs under herself. They kneeled together, and Rae leaned on Hester.

“Dear Jesus,” Hester said, strong and sure. Rae wished she could pour her heart into it, too. “We come to You today in pain. Our friend,” her voice dropped, “what’s his name, Rae?”

Another choice. “Dom.”

“Short for Dominic?”

“Yeah.”

Hester’s voice rose to ring from corners of the low ceiling. “Our friend, Dominic, has suffered a grievous loss, and he needs your grace and peace, Oh Lord. He needs to be healed. We come to you, Oh Lord, Sweet Jesus, to offer ourselves as Your vessel, to bring Your love to him, so that he can believe in You, and come into Your Light and be healed. In the name of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, Amen.”

“Amen,” said Rae, even though that wasn’t what she wanted to say. She had wanted to pour out her grief and to rage at God for letting such a terrible thing happen to a child, but Hester’s way must be better.

“Now,” Hester turned her gaze on Rae. “Where did you meet this Dominic?”

Rae was so wrung out that she couldn’t even figure out a decent lie. “At work. They yanked my scholarship. I had to get a job to stay in school.”

“Hmmm. Is that where you’ve been late at night the last couple weeks?”

Rae nodded.

“What are you doing?”

If Rae said she was a waitress at some restaurant, every member of her family including Hester would show up to be waited on to show their support. “I’m serving drinks at a bar.”

Hester sniffed. “Reagan, you shouldn’t subject yourself to being in the presence of alcohol and drunkards.”

“It’s the only way I can stay in school.”

“Some things aren’t worth it, Rae. You should avoid sin and sinners and keep yourself pure. A college education isn’t worth tainting your immortal soul. I would never debase myself so. God would send someone else to be a teacher in Pirtleville.”

Steel filled Rae’s spine because she was doing the right thing: humbling herself at The Devilhouse so she could build an autism clinic.

It would be worth it.

~~~~~

Georgiana’s Gossip

Wulf lounged behind his desk and scanned through email on his phone, scrolling quickly with his thumb.

His office door was ajar, and it creaked open.

Wulf’s thighs tightened, ready to leap. Sneaking up on him was a singularly bad idea.

Georgiana sidled in the open door and pressed it closed behind her.

Georgiana was a bright girl with a blazing independent streak, and she now reminded him of his sister, but that was odd because olive-skinned and brunette Georgiana in no way resembled honey-blond Flicka. Georgiana was still wearing jeans that clung to her slim hips and a tight Golden Devil tee shirt over her athletic body, so she hadn’t dressed for tonight yet.

Georgiana asked, “Sir? Can we talk for a sec?”

“Of course.” Wulf thumb-clicked his email closed and laid his phone screen-down on his desk. If she was submitting her resignation, losing two contractors in the same week would be difficult to manage. Sonya’s retirement had produced a hole in the schedule that his office manager was scrambling to fill.

Georgiana fidgeted by twisting one toe of her sandal into the carpeting, an unusual gesture for her. Wulf had seen her fidget three times in the past few years. Once was after their first date, and the other two times were when she had problem clients and needed help dealing with them.

Georgiana said, “You’ve got two girls in love with you.”

Not a problem client then, which was the predicament Wulf had been hoping for. He sat back in his chair and tapped his desk once. “I never tried to lead you on.”

Georgiana looked up at him, and the serious gaze of her brown eyes caught his attention. “I’m not one of them.”

“Then I don’t discuss personal matters. Thank you for your concern.”

“You don’t have to talk. You just have to listen, but you do really need to listen to me.”

She wasn’t fidgeting anymore, and she had leaned forward as if her next statement might be a shout. Her distress alarmed him. “Please sit down. Please continue.”

Georgiana sat in the chair on the left in front of his desk, and she braced herself with her arms on her knees. “Lizzy took the let-down after your date really hard.”

His innate sense of privacy would not allow him to gossip in return. “I see.”

“She thinks she’s in love with you. She wants to sit naked at your feet and be your slave girl.”

He should have been able to predict that. Failure rankled him. “Go on.”

“She’s on her way here now to confess it all to you and beg you to take her on as your sub. I don’t know what you want to do about that, but I thought that you shouldn’t be caught unaware.”

Wulf slowed his breathing and his heart rate. It wouldn’t do for Georgiana to see him react badly to that news because he would not want to embarrass Lizbeth. He had thought that he had been forthright with Lizbeth about the nature of their evening, but evidently, he hadn’t.

Georgiana said, “She’s really fragile right now. She had a break-up a little while ago over the Devilhouse, when the guy found out what she did for money, and she’s really hurting. She just wants acceptance.”

“Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I’ll handle the matter.”

“Be careful with her.”

“I will. I never meant to hurt her.” To Wulf’s consternation, he had not meant to be so forthcoming. America must be influencing him.

Georgiana said, “Some girls can’t handle The Boyfriend Experience.”

“Understood.” Wulf touched his phone, a nonchalant gesture that suggested he might pick it up, even though crawling over the desk to obtain the next piece of information was uppermost in his thoughts. “And the other girl is?”

“Rae.”

Despite his practiced suppression of adrenaline, Wulf’s heart jumped in his chest. “Reagan?”

“This morning, Lizzy was telling Rae and me about how she felt about you, and I thought I was going to have to take Rae’s coffee away from her before she crushed the cup.”

She paused.

Georgiana paused just when Wulf’s heart was blocking his throat and he could not draw air into his lungs.

He said, “Go on.”

“Rae told Lizzy to tell you how she felt, and then Rae ran back to her own room, and we could hear her crying. Those dorm walls are about as thick as construction paper.”

“She was crying?” Wulf’s voice rose, and he swallowed hard to modulate his reaction. Rumors had started on less.

Georgiana said, “Sobbing her heart out, and you haven’t even taken her on an official Dom-Date.”

“That’s correct.” He picked up his phone. The corner of it oscillated in time with his pounding heartbeat. When she had stripped his shirt off him last week and seen the grotesque on his back, her pitiless anger when she had demanded whether they had shot the bastard had allowed him to retain his dignity, a small mercy. Her righteous outrage at injustice had been a wondrous sight to behold.

“Maybe those private Domme lessons are getting to her, but she really fell apart.”

Those lessons were certainly getting to him. “I see. Thank you for bringing both of these to my attention.”

Lizbeth was not in love with Wulf. She was in thrall to The Dom, a wholly owned subsidiary of Wulf at best and a shell company at worst. Lizbeth wanted to be a sub, not to love him. He had no pity for himself, only for her.

An option presented itself to Wulf, one that would solve both the problem of Lizbeth and mitigate a problem client of Lena’s. It would have to be done carefully, gently, on both sides, but it might work.

Wulf stood as Georgiana took her leave of his office, and then he picked up his cell phone and slid his thumb over the numbers, dialing.

He ignored the exultation swelling in his chest and mind.

~~~~~