Everything You Are(16)

He dry swallows two of the capsules and then flings the door open without bothering to look through the peephole, words already spilling off his tongue. “Fine. You’re right.”





Chapter Eight

PHEE

“I am?”

Phee has a rudimentary plan. She’s brought flowers. She’ll offer condolences to Allie and Braden. But when Braden answers the door, uttering the last words she expects to come out of his mouth, shock steals all of her words and apparently also her brain cells.

“I mean, yes, of course I’m right,” she says, pulling herself together.

She’s disoriented by music, a haunting cello melody that twists her heart in her chest, weakens her knees.

Braden’s hair, always unruly, is wild. His hands shake visibly. The years have etched themselves deeply into his face. A fallen angel, Phee thinks, beautiful and ruined and in need of saving.

“I am not in the business of saving people,” she mutters under her breath. “Not even you.”

“Pardon?” he asks. And then his eyes narrow with recognition, and he finally asks the question she’s armored herself against. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Phee raises the flower arrangement she’s carrying, as if that makes her presence self-evident. “Would you mind if I bring these in?”

Taking advantage of his inclination to be polite, she brushes past him, across the threshold and into the living room. A battered old suitcase spills jeans and underwear and socks out onto the floor. A pill bottle lies on its side on the coffee table, open. Green-and-black capsules are scattered on a white carpet marred by a crimson stain.

Librium and a wine stain. Phee is an expert on both. She ignores the evidence, traipsing through the house as if she is a frequent visitor. She finds the dining room, also carpeted in white and decorated with a stark minimalist elegance.

The shining black lacquered table is nearly obscured by floral arrangements, all funereal and formal, unlike the profusion of color Phee has selected. The sadder the occasion, the brighter the flowers should be, she always thinks, and she’s brought a loose bouquet made up of sunflowers, dahlias in pinks and purples, blue cornflowers, and irises.

“Listen, this is a bad time,” Braden begins as Phee turns again to face him.

Her eyebrows go up at that bit of obviousness, but he plows on.

“Not that there will ever be a good time. I can’t believe you would come here now. Like this.”

Phee can’t quite believe it, either, and yet here she is. The contract—his contract, the one he is in violation of—is folded into her purse. That’s why she’s here, and he knows that’s why she’s here.

In her head, she hears her grandfather’s voice.

“Get it over with, Ophelia MacPhee. Open your bag, show him what he signed, hold him to his oath. Your emotions have nothing to do with this.”

But the truth is, her emotions have everything to do with it.

The moment that Phee fell in love with Braden Healey is lodged in her memory with the same pristine clarity as her first glass of Scotch. Both had a similar effect on her. The burn, the sense of melting away, the instant addiction. Both have been eradicated from her life, but she is now in the way of temptation. It’s almost eleven years since their last disastrous conversation, and yet every nerve in her body is tuned to his voice, to the movement of his hands.

She wants to gentle those hands between her own, to run a finger over that scar on his face, to kiss him. Hell, she wants to clean his house and make him dinner, and Phee is not a domestic creature.

But none of this is why she is here.

“I came to check on her,” she says.

“I assume by that you mean the cello and not my daughter.” His tone and his eyes are dangerous. “You’ll stay away from her, Phee. Oh hell. Too late.”

His gaze shifts and Phee’s follows.

Allie stands at the edge of the room, a personified question. “Who is staying away from whom?”

Even if Phee hadn’t been cyberstalking Allie for years, hadn’t seen her at the funeral, she’d have recognized the girl anywhere. Her face is modeled on the same plan as Braden’s, same cheekbones, same strong jaw and cleft chin, only more rounded, the cleft more of a dimple. Her hair is darker, and straight where his is wavy, but the resemblance is obvious.

“Allie—” Braden begins, but she cuts him off.

“Who are you?” she demands.

“This is the luthier who maintains the cello,” Braden cuts in before Phee can answer. “She brought flowers. She’s leaving.”

“I’m so terribly sorry about what happened.” Phee knows the words are useless, that Allie has heard them uttered so many times already she’s probably sick to death of them. She bites her tongue before she can add the usual “if there’s anything I can do” claptrap, because clearly there is nothing.

Allie’s gaze is unsettling, her eyes so like Braden’s, but the soul looking through them is entirely different.

The girl says nothing more, just swivels and stalks away. There’s the sound of footsteps running up the stairs, a distantly slammed door.

Braden follows her with his eyes. He looks stricken.

Phee’s knees have begun to quiver. She still hears the cello music, louder and clearer, if anything, and it’s not Allie playing. It has to be a recording, with a damned impressive sound system.