Successors (21 page)

She frowned at him, mocking his pain. “You should have come yesterday, like I told you.” Despite her grimace, her eyes twinkled with joy. She was enjoying his pain. “You could have stopped her.” She stood for her dramatic recitation of his could-a, should-a, would-a. “One outcry and the alarms would have gone off. One whisper of escape and Danato would have locked this place down. You could have held onto her.”

“You knew?” He banged the bars. “Of course you knew.” He ran his fingers through his floppy hair.

“Don’t worry too much. I have a feeling even if you had known, you might have let her go anyway; your love for her is stronger than even you realize.”

Ethan resented her assumption. “It’s just a crush. I’ll be over it in no time.” He paced, trying to convince himself that it was true.

She smiled. “Do you want to know where she is?”

He stopped and looked her over, trying to decide if enlisting her help was yet another bad choice in a series of
really
bad choices. “Danato can’t go after her unless he knows where she is,” he conceded.

“I can tell you that, or at least where she plans to go, but be aware, if Danato brings her back, he will go so far as to chain her to these walls rather than let her go again. There are rules to this prison. The rule is: everyone who enters becomes a prisoner to it in one form or another. Are you sure you want to tell him where she is? Are you sure you want to be the one responsible for taking her freedom? Danato is prepared for that guilt, but are you?”

Ethan wondered how long it would take Cori to forgive him for that indiscretion. “I’m not sure I want to be here without her.”

“You won’t be. She’ll return.”

Ethan returned to the bars. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about.” She approached the bars and looked him over like she was appraising his value.

He shook his head, still not understanding her. “When is she coming back?”

“You know when. The secret she didn’t want to know about. It was a wise secret to keep from her. Without the truth, she can freely love him. She’s already starting to now.”

“I’m the reason she can love him? Yes, very wise of me.” Ethan rolled his eyes at her interpretation of wise.

“Love will break her walls, and quiet her anger. The violence of her past will be consumed in the fires of their carnal passions.”

“Christ!” He leaned on the bars, lowering his head in case he might need to puke. “Thank you for the heart-wrenching visual honesty.”

“When she returns to you…” Mezula reached through the bars and raised his chin with the tips of her fingers. He shifted his feet under him, prepared to pull away. “She will have no resistance to your affections, apart from her grief, which will be great but surmountable.”

Despite the risk, Ethan stepped closer to the bars. “It doesn’t matter. When she finds out I knew and didn’t tell her, she’ll hate me all over again. I’ll just have to get over her, somehow.”

“You know, I can do that.” Mezula drew him in closer with the hefty weight of her gaze and two delicate fingers.

He leaned into the bars and let her kiss him. The softness of her lips persuaded him to participate. He reached around her, cupping her head and pressing her toward him. She responded with a tongue thrust that sent a lightning bolt of desire through him. His knees weakened and he repositioned to get closer to her, but the bars kept him too far away to access her body.

The world started to swirl in his mind, and he felt a little part of him let go of Cori as a potential love interest. He pushed back from the bars and out of her reach. “Emotional amnesia?” he asked, trying to slow his heart.

“Mm-hmm.” She nodded, reaching out to him. “It only takes once with me, and you’ll forget all about her.”

“You said I had a chance with her, if I wait.”

“You still will, but there is no reason to…” Mezula looked over his body, which was far too approving of her attentions. “…ache, in the meantime. You’ll forget her temporarily after each encounter. You will control how often you need to forget. Nothing I do will break your connection to Cori.”

The offer was appealing. Damn appealing. He knew she would help him forget. He knew he would enjoy every minute of forgetting. He also knew it was cheating. Not cheating on Cori, but cheating on himself.

He had never loved anyone before Cori. He had never hurt this bad before, and he liked it. He didn’t remember his parents well enough to miss them like this. As masochistic as it was, he liked feeling this pain. It meant something to love someone enough to hurt this badly.

It was also against the rules to fraternize with the inmates, and Danato would kick his ass if he got caught with her. “No, thanks. I’ve heard heartbreak only makes you stronger.” He walked away, thankful that his lower extremities had already gotten the message loud a clear.

“Just remember,” she called after him, “what doesn’t kill you, will eat you alive.”

39

After a quick stop in Paris to collect his painting supplies, Vince and Cori were on their way to a small cottage in the south of France, an inherited estate that no one knew about. With unfamiliar familiarity playing the role of hostess, they found the first few days as uncomfortable as a never-ending first date. On the third day of Vince toiling with his paintbrushes and not so much as kissing her, Cori decided not to skirt the issue any longer.

She entered the living room which, except for the couch and television, was now an artist’s studio. Three easels flanked Vince. A long wooden table to his back was covered in all manner of paint. Tubes of oil paint were scattered across the table, half rolled up, missing caps, and bandaged where they had been punctured. Several palettes of watercolor paints were stacked to the back of the table. A few large paint cans filled with latex house paint seemed out of place, but looked to be frequently used. The smell of turpentine filled the air along with a leather musk that came with the house.

She climbed over the back of the couch that was shoved against the side wall, barricading him in between the table and his easels. The couch was covered with a white sheet that was intended to either protect it from paint splatters or conceal its hideous floral motif. Whatever the purpose, it was an improvement.

Vince was working on his fifth canvas. Along with the three on easels, two more leaned against the shelf of the bay window that looked onto the front drive. The colors and images were garbled in all of them. Not one of them looked like art to Cori. Luckily they didn’t seem to look like art to Vince either.

His face wrinkled deeper into abhorrence with each new swath of paint. He smacked his palette with his brush and grimaced at the canvas, as if
it
was responsible for the hideous, tangled images it was projecting. Cori hated to interrupt his heated work, but his concentration was easily broken.

He froze mid-stroke and looked over at her, seemingly trying to figure out why she was there. She smiled, trying to improve his somber mood. “Hi.”

He frowned at her as if she had lost a family member to a deadly illness and he didn’t have the right words to express his condolences. “Are you hungry? I can make something,” he offered.

Make yourself at home. Can I get you some tea? Feel free to peruse my library if you get bored. The grounds are beautiful; you should take a walk. Please, take the bed. I will be much happier on the couch in case I get the urge to paint in the middle of the night.

That was the extent of their conversation over the last three days. What he was really saying was,
“Could you please get away from me, so I don’t have to deal with you and this convoluted as hell situation you’ve gotten me into?”

“You’re mad at me.” She stated it rather than asked. She didn’t want him to instinctively deny it, as everyone does when they’re accused of an emotion that is socially amoral.

He still shook his head. He turned back to the canvas. Looking at it with fresh eyes, he scoffed and crisscrossed it with his paintbrush. Satisfied with his banishment of the offensive image he set it against the window, adding to his retrograde work.

“Do you want me to go back?” she asked.

He paused on his way back to his easels to look at her. She knew he wanted to say yes. Like the morning after a drunken hookup, he wanted so much to get her out of his house and out of his life. He regretted taking her out of the prison, but he was too much of a gentleman to say so.

He didn’t say anything official to answer her. He just picked up a new white canvas and started afresh.

She stood up and moved to block his arm movement with her shoulder. He paused, but persisted to paint with a smaller stroke. She grabbed the paintbrush and pulled it from his fingertips. He finally looked at her. He wore the same emphatic expression that screamed:
I don’t know what to say to make you feel better.

“I know we don’t know each other well yet,” she said softly, “so I’ll let you in on a little insight into my personality.” She snapped the wooden paintbrush between her fingers. His faced hinted at the pain of his beloved tool being mishandled. “I don’t do well with being ignored, and this is me controlling my temper.”

“Yes, I’ve sensed that,” he said. She kept forgetting that he could smell her emotions, which brought to light even more questions as to why he was treating her this way. He knew she wanted to be near him, with him. Why was he denying her? Did he really not return those feelings?

She dropped the brush to the floor and all but pushed herself between him and the canvas. “Are you mad at me?” she asked this time.

He shook his head again and she almost screamed the question back at him to demand he speak to her, but he spoke just before her anger peaked. “Not mad. I just don’t know why I took you. I mean, I want to help you, but Danato and I are friends. I’ve betrayed his trust.”

That wasn’t the answer she wanted. What she really wanted to know was if he felt anything for her. If he still wanted her. However, that wasn’t what she asked. “You agree with his slavery?” she said, addressing the issue that was apparently primary to him.

“You didn’t have much of a life to look forward to without his help.”

Her mouth gaped a little. She couldn’t believe what he was suggesting. “So, if he saves my life, I owe him the rest of it?”

“I think you underestimate the care he has offered you,” he said.

“A fancy prison is still a prison.”

“He would have given you anything. You just never thought to ask.”

“Everything but my freedom,” she said.

Vince smirked and shook his head. “You never asked for it. He would have given it, if you explained how important it was. Danato has a weak spot for you. It doesn’t take my senses to detect that.”

She shook her head. She didn’t believe him. “I made you betray your friend. That’s why you are mad at me?”

He sighed and dropped his head. He tossed his paint palette on the table behind him. “Not mad,” he reiterated. “I’m just disappointed.”

“In me?” Her eyes flared.

“No, in myself.”

“You’re disappointed that you helped me.”

He leaned down and picked up his broken brush. He took it back to his table to wash the paint off it and bandage it like the rest of his wounded supplies. “You came to me before my mind was clear. You seduced me with my own lust. I would have done anything for you at that moment. Can you really ask me to believe that this was all just spontaneous?” He glanced back at her, challenging her say otherwise.

“You think I used you, sex and all?”

He nodded as he attended to his brush.

“Can’t you sense what I’m feeling? Can’t you sense the truth?” she mocked.

“I sense confusion. I sense that you aren’t even sure what you’re feeling.”

He was right. She was questioning her love for him. She had felt it so strongly after they were together, but now, three days without so much as a peck on the cheek,
she
was feeling used. She was starting to resent him. “Well, you’re right,” she said.

He looked up and waited to hear more from her. His face revealed nothing beyond his interest.

“I knew that very day that an escape attempt was well overdue. I knew you were the key and I knew you would be blinded by your instincts. I had every intention of seducing you for my gain.” She spoke the words with no shame or apology.

His face turned cold. “You’re out now. You don’t need me anymore.” He nodded to the front door that wasn’t visible from where he stood, but the point was made. “I guess I’m just waiting for you to run off.”

Cori gulped down the knot in her throat before she spoke, lest it wrench tears from her eyes on its way out. “You are ignoring me, because you don’t want to bother getting any closer if I’m going to ditch you anyway?”

He nodded, losing some of his coldness.

“I think ditching you
was
part of the plan at some point.” She could see the pain in his eyes at the honesty about her plot. “I wonder then,” she motioned to the nefarious front door, “why I'm still here?” She sat on the arm of the couch. “Why three days later I'm pestering you instead of just making an excuse to go to town and never come back?”