Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Elaine

Maybe Harriet would save me from myself.

I sat there alongside her at Work Truths’ quarterly fundraiser and stared across at the tables around us. Faces I knew. Bishop’s Landing faces and Regent Country Club faces and celebrities hitching along for the tabloid ride. I was wearing a tight burgundy dress that showed off my cleavage, determined to at least make it as a family success in one paltry area.

Better make the most of it. This was the only way I’d ever please them. With my pale hair and pale skin, I looked like a Constantine. That was the only thing we had in common.

Harriet kept shooting me kind glances, knowing just how much I was struggling. I hadn’t told her the full extent of the Lucian Morelli story, but I’d told her enough. Enough for her to know that I was on dangerous ground, and it wasn’t the Morellis themselves that were the main threat. It was me, losing my crazy mind over the evil prince at the heart of them.

I hadn’t had a single sip of alcohol since the weekend. No clubs. No dancing.

There were a few seats still empty at our table, and my stomach was jittery from nerves. Sure enough, I looked across the room to see my mother air kissing the surrounding tables and waving to all her friends as she made her way closer. My heart shriveled in my chest as she looked at me, coldness glaring out from her eyes under her smile.

She hated me. She was ashamed of me. She’d given me up as worthless.

The little girl part of me wanted to leap up and run to her and beg her to hold me tight. I wanted to tell her I was trying to be a good girl for her. I promise, I promise.

Please, Mom. Please love me. Please.

But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t run to her.

It would hurt too damn much when she pushed me away.

She sat herself in the seat opposite Harriet and me at our round table, placing her champagne glass down in front of her. I knew who was going to be joining her. Lionel Constantine. My uncle. My father’s brother.

The uncle that wanted my mother. It was clear in his eyes.

The uncle who made his marks on me, when I was too young to know what marks were.

Shh. Secrets.

Our family was built on secrets. Secrets and lies.

Even the very sight of him gave me shudders. He gave me a nod as he dropped himself into the seat beside her, and I felt my jaw tense.

He was wearing a tuxedo with a navy-blue bow tie, and his brows were heavy and laced with gray. He was attractive even though he was fading fast. I just wished he’d fade a whole lot faster and say his farewells for all time.

I was almost considering giving up my efforts at being polite, but Harriet gripped my hand under the table before I could move. Her eyes spoke more than her words ever could. She shook her head, just a little, and I took a breath, forcing myself to stay in my seat.

I barely had a second to gather myself together before I heard Mom’s voice lashing out in its usual iciness, quiet enough to keep her spite to our table alone.

“Nice to see you actually turn up for something, Elaine.”

“I’ve been busy,” I told her, praying that the event started up soon.

I could read exactly what she was thinking. She was thinking I was a disgrace and wishing I would fuck off and die quietly somewhere to save any more humiliation to the family name. That’s the thing about my mother—she was determined to keep the Constantine glitter over the drudge of our slimy ways. It was more important to her than any of us could ever be.

I didn’t dare cast my eyes at Lionel again. It always made me feel sick, especially when I let thoughts of him creep inside me.

Please, Uncle Lionel. No. No. Don’t let them in. Don’t let them hurt me.

I kept my attention firmly on the other chattering tables and the man taking up his position onstage. I wanted to enjoy it. I wanted to love being there, and love being away from the clubs and the partying, just for one night. I wanted to love the people around me and believe, for just a second, that they truly loved me back.

Tonight’s list of auction items were the same usual fanciness. Gowns and designer sessions and diamonds and pearls. Vacations to some of the top venues in the world and a personalized song from one of the most A-list pop singers.

People lapped it up. My mother raised her hand to several of them, grinning away like a sugar plum fairy when she beat off the competition.

“For you,” she said to Lionel, once she’d won the trip to an Australian boudoir hotel.

“What a darling sister-in-law I’m blessed with,” he said with a dark twinkle in his eye. “My brother was a lucky soul.”

That’s when my tongue burst free from my mouth. “Your brother is a dead soul,” I spat, barely audible under my breath. “Your brother was a lucky soul enough to be murdered by someone who wanted what was his. If only we knew who that was. Hey, Uncle Lionel, do you know who that was?”

“Enough!” Mom said, then realized just how loudly she’d snapped. She pasted on that smile of hers all the brighter, waiting a few long seconds before leaning into the table to give me more. “You’re not a child anymore, Elaine. Whatever it is you need to get over about your father’s death, it’s about time you did it. Grow up and stop being rude to your Uncle Lionel.”

I hated it when she spoke to me like that. I could feel our Constantine table all sinking inside, each one of us fully aware of the bristling tension.

Grace, Vivian, and Tinsley lined the table to my left, and Kingston and Harlow, on Lionel’s side, were on the right. Yeah. Everyone knew about the tension.

“Leave her alone, Mom,” Tinsley said in a soft, pleading tone.

It would only make my mother turn on her, too, so I said, “Don’t worry about me, Tins.”

Everyone knew I was a failure. A compulsive, worthless failure. Why not just join in with the pitiful joke of the whole damn thing? So, I did. Just like usual, I did. I pasted on my own fake smile, and then I summoned up my finest bravado for the room.

I did it for me. I did it in the face of Uncle Lionel and all the shit he made me feel inside. I did it because I didn’t know what else to cling to, other than my own spectacle of glorifying myself somehow in this hell of a room.

I put my hand in the air to bid on a penguin adoption at the local zoo, ignoring the pounding in my chest, knowing plenty fine that I was in too much debt already to give a shit about a few more thousand dollars. I could win this. I could win this and win the applause that went along with it. Just a small smattering of applause for the small little soul who couldn’t do any better than adopt a fucking penguin.

But it wasn’t a few thousand dollars I was bidding, not after the first few seconds.

Five thousand…eight thousand…twelve…

Mom was scowling at me, but I was past it, downing more champagne and keeping my hand in the air. I wasn’t going to lose this. I got an allowance like any good heiress, but not enough to cover this. She knew I was broke. She just didn’t realize how broke.

Harriet squeezed my knee under the table, but I took no notice.

Eighteen thousand dollars! Eighteen!

“Elaine,” Mom began, but I didn’t listen, just kept my hand up high.

I don’t know why I wanted this so bad.

Lionel laughed at me, trying to brush aside my efforts as nothing, and that made it burn all the harder in my chest, keeping my hand right on up there.

I didn’t have eighteen thousand dollars. I barely had anything left anymore. I’d used it running up debt in places I shouldn’t…in people I shouldn’t. Places and people I could never share with my family without them scoffing at me. The Power brothers were after me and my debts, charging interest at an unbelievable rate knowing full well I was broke.

Twenty thousand dollars!

My mind was swimming in the fear and the shame and the insanity of not knowing my own heart anymore. It was swimming in the need to win, just to be someone, even if it was just for a few short moments of getting the cheers from the crowd.

“Elaine!” Mom tried again, but I didn’t listen.

Harriet squeezed my knee even tighter, but I didn’t listen.

Twenty-two thousand dollars!

The woman battling me was a celebrity wrestler’s daughter who dabbled in modeling. I guess she was trying to prove herself to the room and the tabloids as much as I was.

Twenty-four thousand dollars!

Mom was scowling, even through her false whoops of cheer.

Twenty-seven thousand dollars!

Zelda Hart. The wrestler’s daughter was Zelda Hart.

Twenty-eight thousand dollars!

“Seriously,” Harriet whispered. “Please, Elaine, what are you doing? I didn’t think you had the…”

Her voice trailed off. My hand stayed high in the air.

Twenty-nine thousand dollars!

I felt sick. Hungry for attention. Fit to throw myself from the chair and give up on everything. But it was about the applause. It was about drowning out my own inner demons, just for that one short minute. It was about drowning out the demons of Uncle Lionel and his shadowy friends with their shadowy secrets in the corners of mine.

And drowning out the demon that was Lucian Morelli.

Holy fuck, Lucian Morelli was a demon.

A demon I wanted to possess me and my worthless soul.

Thirty! Thirty thousand dollars!

Somehow, I had to stop thinking about Lucian Morelli.

It knocked me back when Zelda’s hand dropped at the other table. She clapped her hands and let out a cheer for me across the room, and it was on me. Every iota of attention in that whole ballroom was all on me. I’d done it. I’d won some random penguin when I didn’t have enough cash to buy my soul an escape from hell.

My eyes felt glassy. The applause meant nothing when it came. Mom’s disgust still rang loud through my veins, even though she wore a fake smile along with the rest of the crowd.

But then a voice sounded out. A voice that made no sense to me.

“Fifty-thousand dollars,” the man said.

No.

It couldn’t be.

I saw his darkness. I saw the solidity of his stance. I saw the broadness of his shoulders as he held his hand up to the auctioneer like he was the calmest guy on the planet.

Lucian Morelli. My own personal demon.

Unlike Tinsley’s birthday party, he would have been invited to this charity auction. The Morelli family was much like the Constantines, though my mother would throw a fit if I ever said that out loud. We were both rich and amoral. They were as powerful as we were.

That was what made the feud last forever.

My mother’s face had gone stone hard. Lionel was muttering something in her ear. They didn’t like me bidding on the penguin, but they hate even more that a Constantine was bested by a Morelli. It will feel like losing a battle for them.

I couldn’t stop staring.

My hand was trembling as I dropped it back to the table top, because I had to be wrong. I had to be losing my mind.

“And the penguin goes to the gentleman at table five!” the guy on stage called out, and the applause struck up even louder, all for the monster in our midst. “Your name?”

“Lucian Morelli.”

A soft gasp runs through the room. People who couldn’t see him now know exactly who’s in their midst. The Morellis may be a lot like the Constantines, but they’re different in one way. They’re known to be more dangerous.

The applause starts again, louder this time.

It was Harriet who leaned in to my side when the applause started up again, her giggle a surprise enough to jar my senses.

“Is that him?” Harriet whispers into my ear. “He looks intense.”

Yes. Intense is a good word to describe him. His dark gaze met mine, and all that intensity was directed at me.