My father shoots daggers with his glare, but I ignore it and sip at my water.
I can do this.
Brand is still watching me, still waiting to come to my aid. But he can’t. Because this is a family affair. There’s nothing anyone can do.
“I’d rather discuss it with you,” William says, taking a swig of Scotch. “You’re more agreeable than your father. But if tomorrow doesn’t work for you, we’ll do it another time.”
I glance into his eyes and his are icy, dangerous. He’s pretending to be understanding now. It won’t last. When I’m alone with him… when I’m alone with him… when I’m alone.
My breath catches and I can’t take another one.
I’m frozen.
My mother comes to my aid.
“Nora, if you’re finished, can you come to my room? I’m taking a trip to France in a month or so and I’d like for you to look at something.”
Thankfully, I nod.
Yes.
Thank you, God.
William stands when I do, and he presses my hand as I leave, his thumb biting into the pad of my palm. Hard. A warning.
Don’t try and run from me.
Gratefully, I trail after my mother down the hall and I feel William staring at me as I leave. I don’t look back, instead, I numbly stop in the bathroom and scrub my hand where he touched it before I join my mother in her room.
Silently, I pray that Brand will be all right with the piranhas back in the dining room.
My mother brings several items from her closet and searches my face.
“Are you all right?”
I nod. “Of course, why wouldn’t I be?”
Because she doesn’t know. Because I’ll never tell her. It’s too awful. Too humiliating. No one can ever know.
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened? I know something did.”
I paste a smile on. “Everything is fine. William is just… William.”
My mother nods, unconvinced.
“He’s difficult,” she agrees. “He always has been. He… er, he was slightly in love with me when I was dating your father, back when I first came from France.”
I stare at her in shock.
“Slightly in love? How can someone be slightly in love?”
My mother smiles tightly. “He was in love with me. He made some unwanted advances. I put him off. I was still in love with your father, you see.”
Her words are so telling. She was still in love with my father then, unlike now.
“If he ever harms you, you must tell me,” she instructs softly. “Don’t go to your father. Come to me.”
Her eyes are steely and determined, an expression I’ve never seen in them before. I stare into them, mesmerized.
“And what would you do?” I ask softly, before I can help myself.
“I would do what any mother would,” she says firmly. “I would take care of it.”
Her words send chills through my heart, because her face tells me she means it. Which further steels my resolve to never tell her. I can’t have her doing something crazy and getting into trouble because of me.
I shake my head, even though I desperately wish I could spill it all to her.
“No, it’s fine,” I assure her, every word a lie. “He hasn’t hurt me.”
Lies.
Brand
Five minutes after Nora leaves with her mother, Maxwell approaches me.
“Come have a scotch,” he instructs me. It’s not a request.
I decide to humor him. What he has to say might be interesting.
I limp to the sidebar where he pours me a scotch. I down it in one gulp, thumping the glass onto the bar, and turning back toward my seat.