Deceptive Innocence, Part Three (Pure Sin) Page 2

  When that policewoman first delivered me to the social workers, I had been desperate for the comfort of my mother’s arms. But I was told that was impossible. So I remained frightened until I began to believe the lies of strangers. All those liars, the ones who told me that my mother was a villain? The ones who convinced me that I should blame my mother for everything? They cleansed me of my fear and baptized me in anger.

  And I was reborn.

  But now the fear is back, and in that fear I feel traces of my former self. I want comfort.

  And this time I’m not that little girl, and I can have it.

  Which is why I’m now on the Upper East Side, standing across from Lander’s building, trying to talk myself out of going to him. Even now, after I’ve traveled across the city to see him, I’m still trying to convince myself that I don’t need to do this. I want to believe that I can go home, curl up in my anger and Micah’s blood money, and draw strength from that.

  But the problem is, I’m still shaking. So I left Micah’s money on my bed, unprotected and unwanted, and now here I am.

  The traffic is light this time of night. There aren’t many pedestrians around, and the ones who do pass me give me quizzical glances. I must look odd, standing here in the middle of the sidewalk, shivering as I stare at a mostly dark building.

  But this is New York, so no one stops to ask if I’m all right or if I need help. And to be honest, I’m not sure it would be any different in Kansas or California. That’s the thing about fear—people can smell it on you. It repels the lambs and attracts the wolves.

  E’s Wolflike Indecency. I still don’t know what that drawing’s title is an anagram for, but the image says enough. I look around me, wondering when the wolves will come. I imagine Micah with a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth advancing on me, redefining our relationship, calling me enemy.

  I can’t be thinking like that. Fear is simply not an emotion I can work with.

  Anger. I need anger. I squeeze my eyes closed and imagine Travis leering at me. I think about Jessica lying her ass off on the witness stand—anything that will bring me that warm feeling.

  But then those images give way and I’m in that limo again. I can feel Javier’s hand on my thigh. I can smell the cigarettes on Micah’s breath as he calls me friend and unloads my gun.

  I’m shaking.

  “Bell.”

  My eyes fly open and I take a step back. Lander is standing before me, wearing a long coat partly covering up cotton jersey pajama pants and a white cotton undershirt.

  “The doorman just called and told me you’ve been standing out here for the last half hour.”

  I stare at him for what feels like minutes but is probably seconds. I don’t say a word. I can’t even find my voice.

  He reaches out to me and I fall into his arms. Clinging to him, I press my head hard against his chest as he pets my hair.

  “Warrior,” he whispers, “what’s happened to your armor?”

  I still keep my mouth shut. I can’t risk saying anything. And if I could, what would I say? As it stands, I can’t even explain my presence here to myself. I’m seeking comfort from the man I want to destroy, and the reason I need comfort is because someone is trying to keep me from destroying him.

  It’s enough to make me giggle. Lander pulls away so he can see my face. But when he looks at me he can tell that my short burst of laughter wasn’t attached to any actual delight, more like an encroaching madness.

  He wraps his arm around my shoulders and leads me to his front door, through the brightly lit lobby, and then up to his dimly lit apartment. I sit down on the couch, still not speaking. He walks to the bar, resting his hand on a bottle of brandy before shaking his head.

  “I think tonight might call for something gentler,” he mutters.

  He leaves the room, and for a few minutes I can hear cabinets being opened and closed in the kitchen and then finally the alarmist whistle of a kettle. When he comes back it’s with a cup of chamomile tea. I take it in both hands, warming them and allowing the steam to roll across my face as he stands over me.

  “Want to talk about it?” he asks.

  “I shouldn’t be here.”

  He doesn’t respond right away and for a minute I think he’s not going to. But then Lander cuts the silence with three softly spoken words: “You belong here.”

  I inhale a sharp breath and gaze out those floor-to-ceiling windows. “No,” I say as the lights of the city sparkle beneath us. “I belong down there, with both feet on the ground. I don’t think I was designed to be above it all.”

  “Essentially we’re all primates, Bell. Our instinct will always be to climb.”

  I laugh and bring my cup to my lips, taking some pleasure from how the hot tea stings my tongue and throat on the way down. “Are you a goal-oriented person, Lander?”

  One corner of his mouth curls up. “You have no idea.”

  “I am too. I can be . . . single-minded.”

  He gestures to himself with his thumb. “Same,” he says, and takes a seat beside me.

  “I’ve made so many mistakes,” I whisper. “I just keep screwing up over and over. Every time I think I’m on the right track, I’m confronted with a new challenge or twist that I just don’t know how to deal with and then I screw up again.”

  “I believe that’s called life, Bell.”

  “Well,” I say with a small smile, “it’s certainly called my life.” But then my smile fades. “How long have you hated your brother?”

  “‘Hate’ is a strong word.”

  “It is,” I acknowledge without bothering to amend it.

  Lander sighs. “I have . . . disliked my brother all my life. Every once in a while I’ll feel a spark of sympathy for him, but he’s pretty good at stomping that out. Why?”

  I shake my head. “I want to know you. And I don’t. I’ve made assumptions about you, maybe even drawn a few premature conclusions . . . but I don’t actually know you.” And then finally I turn to him and meet his gaze before adding, “And you don’t know me.”

  “I know that you’re scared. And I can see that you’re shaking.”

  Again I close my eyes, willing my body to still.

  “Did my brother do something?”

  “Oh, I’m sure your brother has done a lot of things. But he’s not my problem right now. I’m the problem. I’m scared because . . . because for the first time in years I feel a need for human comfort. I’m scared because I don’t know you and yet I’m beginning to feel like part of me needs you. I don’t know how to handle this. I’m not equipped to handle this.”

  Again the room grows quiet. I can’t believe how brazen I’m being. I don’t even know what it means. Am I playing him? Am I digging for information that I can use against him? Or am I searching for information that will allow me to drop my vendetta against him? Is it possible that I really want to be closer to this man, that I need him?

  How terrifying it is that I can no longer read my own intentions. I’ve played so many roles: the easy temptress, the vengeful angel, the affectionate and loyal girlfriend, the opportunist, the eager student . . . So many different identities and now they’re all trying to merge. But that’s not really possible. My body can’t be a melting pot for the various facets of my personality, and so instead they battle it out inside my heart and my head, driving me fast toward something that feels like insanity.

  Lander runs his hand over my hair. “Ask me anything.”

  I look up at him wonderingly. “Tell me,” I say quietly, “about your mother.”

  “Ah,” he removes his hand and crosses his ankle over his knee. “My mother was a martyr. She was always sacrificing herself for lost causes. Before I was born she was a small-town schoolteacher in Florida who publicly campaigned against the use of ‘under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance. She thought the pledge should be read in its original form. She did a whole lesson plan on how the pledge was written by a patriotic American socialist. Sure, it was true, but it predi
ctably cost her her job.”

  I give him a quick, quizzical look. “The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a socialist?”

  “A Christian socialist. But that’s not my point. My point is that incident was indicative of how my mother lived her life. She was always seeking out lost causes. She met my father when he was traveling for business. He was already married but had told her that his wife had announced her intention to abandon him and their son. So of course my mother gave up her dreams of being a college professor so she could devote herself full-time to raising someone else’s child and taking care of my dad.”

  “Oh.” I look down at the light amber liquid in my cup. I think about Travis’s hardened demeanor and penchant for cruelty. “I didn’t know Travis’s mother abandoned him,” I say softly.

  “Well, as it turns out, she agreed to abandon Travis,” Lander says, “in exchange for a hefty divorce settlement, and that was only after my unwitting mother had accepted the burden of my father’s proposal. I realize that a lot of women don’t think marrying a ridiculously wealthy and powerful man could possibly be a hardship, but those women don’t know my father. And then when you throw Travis into the mix?” Lander shakes his head. “Trust me, my mother had a better chance of getting God out of the Pledge of Allegiance than she did of making either one of those men happy.”

  “How long did your father wait between divorcing Travis’s mom and marrying yours?”

  “He married my mother one week after his divorce was finalized. I was born seven months after that. My father tells people I was premature, but I wasn’t.”

  “A week,” I repeat. I’ve done a lot of research on the Gables, but I failed to dig up that detail. Of course, until recently I wouldn’t have thought any of this was relevant to my goals, but now, sitting next to Lander, I wonder. I’ve spent so much time studying what kind of people Travis and Lander are, but I hadn’t thought about what made them that way, which is odd. If anyone knows the importance of cause and effect, it’s me. My whole life has been little more than a series of reactions. Perhaps it’s the same way for Lander. Perhaps it’s the same way for everybody. “How did Travis handle the . . . the mom switch?”

  Lander scoffs. “He resented the hell out of it, which I suppose is understandable. He took out his anger on my mom. My entire life I sat back and watched him shower her with abuse and scorn, and I watched her take it and repay him with nothing but affection and kindness.”

  “Did your father try to smooth things over at all?”

  “My father is not a peacekeeper. He has no interest in the sport.”

  “The sport of peacekeeping,” I say with a smile. “I can’t say I’m very good at that one either. So your mom and dad . . .”

  “They’re not together anymore,” Lander says, answering a question that I hadn’t actually intended to ask. “And when he left her she found new ways of martyring herself. This time she martyred herself for me. But that’s just the way she was, always looking for a cross to die on.”

  “You’re talking about her in the past tense.” I stare at the floor as the statement leaves my lips. I know his mother is dead and I hate that I’m forced to feign ignorance. This moment feels something close to pure, and I hate poisoning it with this deceit.

  “She died,” Lander says, his voice completely cold. “Cancer.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Lander stares out the window, not answering.

  “Did you love her?” I ask quietly.

  “I did love her. I respected her too. But I didn’t always admire her.”

  “And your father?” I ask. “How do you feel about him?”

  “My father,” Lander says with a dry laugh. “Now there’s a man only a stranger could love. But respecting him? I suppose that depends on your definition of the word. In a way everyone respects my father, particularly his enemies.”

  “Are you his enemy?”

  “I’m his family,” Lander says vaguely. “Words like ‘enemy’ and ‘friend’ don’t apply so well when you’re talking about family. A family’s conflicts, resentments, and affections are rooted in such a deep history. That’s the distinction. When we argue with a friend or lover it’s because we disagree with something they’ve said or done. Their offenses are exterior events. When we argue with family it’s because of disagreements that are so old they’ve become part of our fundamental nature.”

  I think about that for a moment. My mother was the only family I ever had the pleasure of knowing, and I hadn’t been given nearly enough opportunities to disagree with her. Resent her? Ignore her? Yes, I’m certainly guilty of that. But if things had been different, if I had been allowed to grow up with her, what arguments would we have had? Would they have been over my curfew? Over what I could or couldn’t wear to school? Or would they have been more fundamental? Did my mother and I have similar political views? Did we have different views on the importance of science or higher education?

  I never asked her. My knowledge of my mother is that of a ten-year-old.

  “You’re shaking again,” he says.

  The feeling of Lander’s hand, now on my back, is disturbingly soothing.

  “When you were younger,” I say slowly, “were you ever afraid of your father?”

  “Terrified,” he says in a hoarse whisper. “I was a scared little boy, always hiding behind my mother’s skirts. He never raised his voice, but he could be cruel. Back then I was never really clear about what he was and wasn’t capable of. And that scared me to death. It definitely kept me in line.”

  “And now?” I ask softly.

  “Now I know exactly what he’s capable of. When you remove the unknown it’s easier to be brave. I know where I stand with him. I know how to talk to him. I know how to draw my own line in the sand.”

  I think back to the time Lander testified against my mother. I had seen it on TV. Not only did he praise Nick Foley, but he testified that he had witnessed an explosive exchange between her and Mrs. Foley. He said that my mother had made threats and that she wasn’t in her right mind. Many of the details of the testimony now seem dubious at best. But now, when I think back on it, what stands out to me is Lander’s appearance. He had been just under twenty-one. I remember he had looked harried, exhausted, and anxious all at the same time. If it hadn’t been for Jessica’s and Sean White’s testimony, Lander’s testimony might have been useless. He had been too unnerved to be given too much credibility, despite the influence of his family name.

  Had his father strong-armed him into taking the stand? Looking at him now, it’s hard for me to imagine anyone intimidating him, but he just acknowledged that he wasn’t always this confident. And the relative boy I saw on that witness stand was so very different from the man sitting by my side.

  I’m reaching. I know that. Lander’s motivations for perjury shouldn’t matter to the law, and they sure as hell shouldn’t matter to me.

  But he had been young—admittedly not much younger than I am now, but the rich age slower than the rest of us. A pampered lifestyle encourages immaturity. So maybe he was scared. When you’re scared you do stupid things.

  I’m making excuses for him.

  I think about seeing him with Sean White back when I was still a teenager. I think about his current relationship with his father. Hate him or love him, Lander still works for his dad. That is Lander’s choice.

  But perhaps there’s a reason for that too.

  “Has there ever been a time when things were better between you and Travis?”

  “Oh, there was a short period when he seemed to soften up a bit. When I was an undergrad and he was nearing thirty. He had met some woman, I didn’t like her much, but she seemed to be able to reach him in a way that the rest of us never could.”

  “What happened to her?”

  Lander shrugs. “I’m not entirely clear on that. All of a sudden it was just over. And then in a year or so he announced his engagement to Jessica, and shortly thereafter the other woman’s wedding announceme
nt popped up in the New York Times. She ended up marrying some millionaire philanthropist. His family isn’t as rich as ours, but they have fewer enemies.”

  I smile. My guess is that most political dictators have fewer enemies than the Gables. But then, dictators are probably more aware of their vulnerability to those enemies too. Gables seem to think that the only people capable of hurting them are other Gables.

  “I’ve told you a lot about my history,” Lander continues. “May I ask about yours?”

  “No, not tonight,” I say quietly.

  My audacity startles us both and together we laugh.

  “I know I’m being unfair,” I continue, “but I just don’t have the energy to comb through my history.”

  “Is there something I can do for you? Is there something you need?”

  I nod, and then I do something that surprises even me. I reach over and take his free hand in mine. I’ve been underneath Lander, had him inside me. I know what it’s like to have him caress my skin. I know what he tastes like. But other than a fleeting, thoughtless moment in the bedroom, this is the first time I’ve ever held his hand.

  His eyes spark with something warm and he pulls me to him so I’m tucked into the crook of his arm.

  And that’s when the shaking stops.

  We sit there, just like that, silently looking out at the city, until eventually I feel sleep pulling at me and I close my eyes, slipping into unconsciousness while I hold his hand.

  chapter three

  Hours later I wake up. We’re still both on the couch, his right arm still wrapped around me as his body leans to the left, his head lolled to the side. The sky has an orange glow and its color penetrates the room, making everything look a little bit magical. The rhythm of Lander’s breathing is slow and sweet.

  Everything about this moment feels blessed.

  Gently I put my hand on his chest, feel the methodical and determined beat of his heart. His eyes open and he takes in the room and our place in it before turning to me. When he presses his lips against mine the sensation is gentle and filled with more adoration than lust.