Burn for Me (Hidden Legacy #1)(24)

My hair wasn’t silvery blond but a darker, tupelo honey kind of blond. I almost never burned in the sun, just got darker, while my hair turned lighter, especially if I spent the summer swimming. Once, when I was seven, a woman stopped my grandma and me as we were walking to my school. She tried to chew Grandma out for dying my hair. It didn’t go well. Even now people sometimes asked me which salon did the coloring job. Nevada didn’t exactly fit me. There was nothing wintery about me, but I didn’t care what he thought about it.

I shook my left hand, unfolding a Mercer Arboretum gift T-shirt, black with a sage green Mercer logo on it. “For you.”

“You bought me a T-shirt?” He raised one eyebrow.

Every nerve in my body was shivering with tension. Steady. “You keep forgetting to put one on, so I thought I’d bring you one. Since we’re having a serious discussion.”

He leaned forward, his beautiful face framed by soft hair. “Do you find my chest distracting?”

“Yes. Every time I see that panther with horns, it makes me laugh.”

Adam Pierce blinked.

Didn’t expect that, did you? “Just out of curiosity, why horns?”

“It’s Mishepishu, an underwater panther of the Great Lakes. It’s revered by Native American tribes. It has the horns of a deer, the body of a lynx, and the scales of a snake.”

“What is it famous for?”

“It lives in the deepest reaches of the lakes, where they guard copper deposits. Those who cross their waters must pay it tribute.”

“And if the tribute isn’t paid?”

Adam smiled, giving me a small flash of teeth. “Then Mishepishu will kill you. One moment the waters will be placid, and the next you will see your death glaring you in the face.”

So Adam thought of himself as Mishepishu. He ruled, and those who crossed his waters had to pay him tribute. Full of himself didn’t begin to describe it.

Adam was looking me over in a slow, evaluating way. “I don’t believe my mother hired you.”

“Why not?”

“She hires for appearances. Those jeans cost what, fifty dollars?”

“Forty. I got them on sale a couple of years ago. I wore them especially for going to see Gustave.”

“Why?”

“Because I needed him to trust me and I wanted to show him that I’m a working person, just like him. I’m not ‘them.’ I’m not the Man. I don’t even know the Man, although he does occasionally pay my bills. If I went to see your mother, I would’ve worn my Escada suit. It cost sixteen hundred bucks, so your mother wouldn’t be impressed, but at least she wouldn’t dismiss me as a beggar right away.”

Adam’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve looked you up. You’re small potatoes, Snowflake.”

Pet names? Ugh. “Our firm has an excellent reputation.”

“Why would you spend a grand and a half on a suit? Isn’t it like half of your monthly paycheck?”

I forced my voice to be casual and light. “See, this is how I can tell you’ve never been poor. Are you poking at me, or are you genuinely curious?”

He leaned back. “I’m curious. When I start poking at you, you’ll know.”

I let the innuendo fly by, pretending I didn’t get it. “When you’re wealthy, you have the luxury of wearing whatever you want. You’re rich. If someone does attempt to judge you by the way you’re dressed, you would find it amusing and rub their nose in it. When you’re poor, your ability to land the job you need or accomplish some social task often depends on what you wear. You have to cross that threshold from supplicant to ‘one of us.’ It’s amazing how doors can open once people stop looking down on you. So you save up, buy one outrageously expensive outfit, and wear it to every special occasion for years as if it’s your everyday clothes. I have two, an Escada and an Armani. Once in a blue moon, a large insurance company or a wealthy member of some House wants to hire us, so I wear one to get the job and the other to deliver results, because I like to be promptly paid. The rest of the time they hang in my closet wrapped in two layers of plastic, and my sisters know that to touch them is to face a penalty of horrible death.”

Adam laughed. It was the rich, self-indulgent laugh of a man who didn’t have a care in the world. “I like you, Snowflake. You’re genuine. Real. Why are you on this job?”

“Because our firm is a subsidiary of Montgomery International and if I don’t bring you in, they will take away the business I worked years to build. My family will be homeless.”

Adam laughed again. Something about my family being homeless must’ve been hilarious.

“How much do you weigh?”

“That’s an odd question. About a hundred and thirty pounds.”

He shook his head. “You don’t lie at all, do you?”

When an occasion called for it, I lied like he wouldn’t believe. “People lie too much, because it’s easier. I don’t lie unless I have to. Adam, you know you can’t evade the cops forever. When they find you, it won’t be ‘put your hands on the back of your head and kneel so we can cuff you.’ It will be a bullet to the brain.”

He leaned his elbow on his knee and rested his chin on his fist. “Mhm.”

“If they don’t find you within the next couple of days, they will offer a reward. Then any junkie on the street will be gunning to turn you in. The only logical way out of this situation is turning yourself in to your House.”