DELILAH
It’s still too weird being here. There’s always tension in the air, no matter how nice Celia tries to be. And she does try. I can tell. Even when I don’t feel much like smiling or sounding pleasant, the way she keeps trying to lighten things up at the breakfast table makes me feel like I should at least give it my best effort.
“You’re going to want to go shopping for more clothes, I assume,” she muses. I don’t have the heart to tell her I’ve never equated shopping with good times, not the way other girls probably did.
Nobody ever handed me a credit card and told me to go crazy. Just the opposite. Having to add up the numbers on the tags to check whether I had enough to afford everything, even at the thrift store. Hunting around in hopes of finding a pair of shoes that matched on the disorganized shelves.
Knowing no matter how I tried, I’d never look good enough. That doesn’t exactly equate to happy times.
I shrug. “Maybe. Though I have enough to get by for now.”
Living in a house like this, I wonder if she understands what it means to have just enough and not a little bit extra. She moves and speaks and even eats like a rich person, the way I remember my family doing during the few visits I was permitted to go to.
She didn’t come from nothing the way I have. Not that I hold it against her. None of us can do much about how and where we were born.
“If you don’t have time to shop, I could always give you a few things. We’re the same size, after all.”
“It isn’t that I don’t have time. I don’t know where the money is coming from, and I don’t take money aimlessly.”
“Then that’s even more of a reason to take some of mine. Please, I don’t need half of it.”
She’s trying hard to be nice. But dammit, I can’t keep gritting my teeth. “I’m not a charity case.” Pain is etched between her bunched eyebrows. Right away, I feel bad. “Sorry,” I mumble.
“You don’t have to apologize. I didn’t realize how condescending that could come off.” She sighs while picking up her coffee cup. “Sometimes, I forget what it’s like to be where you are now. Like you’re hanging in limbo.”
“You know how that feels?”
Her head bobs up and down, her eyes wide. “Oh, yes. It’s frustrating and scary when everything is moving around you so fast, and you don’t know who you can trust. You might even feel like you can’t trust yourself because you start liking things and even people you know you should hate. It makes you question who you are—the real you, deep down inside. It’s scary enough when your life is in danger without all that confusion in your head.”
“Honestly? It’s hard to imagine you ever feeling that way.”
She snorts softly. “You never saw the before. You’re only looking at the after.” There are footsteps outside the doorway, and her eyes seek out the source.
I watch as her face lights up and know it has to be Nic. It’s hard to imagine a time when she didn’t light up at his presence, but I’m not dumb. I can connect the dots. They didn’t have it easy in the beginning.
Lucas is with him, and the way he drops into the chair beside mine tells me all I need to know about the conversation he had with his brother.
He takes food from the covered platters seemingly at random, filling his plate before sloshing coffee into his cup.
“Good morning,” Nic murmurs after kissing his wife. “Sorry to have kept you ladies waiting.” His tone is cordial, but he keeps shooting looks at Lucas, who’s obviously going out of his way to pretend he doesn’t notice.
He doesn’t have me fooled. I see the way the muscles in his jaw keep twitching as he stares down at his plate, pushing food around with a fork before shoveling it in his mouth.
I can’t shake the feeling this is about me. Nic’s been civil toward me, but that’s about as far as it goes. He’ll have me in his house, but that doesn’t make us friends. I’m sure there’s liability involved with harboring somebody like me. He has a wife and a kid. He doesn’t need my drama.
And it’s like he can hear my thoughts. His gaze flicks over to me before landing on his brother again. “Word has already spread of what happened.”
All of a sudden, the fresh blueberry muffin on my plate doesn’t look so appetizing.
Lucas doesn’t react beyond the flaring of his nostrils. I get the feeling this announcement is for my benefit, not his. “Preston made sure everyone knows about it,” Nic continues, staring at his brother. If he looked at me the way he’s looking at Lucas, I’d probably wet my pants. The man has turned glowering into an art form. He’s even better at it than Lucas.
Maybe it’s a family trait.
Celia shoots me an apologetic look. I know she feels sorry for me, the way any woman would. What would she have done in my place? Nobody would willingly let something like that happen without at least trying to defend themselves. Lucas is silent. I can feel the heat of his anger rolling off him.
“Have they used my name?” I murmur, dreading the response.
“They know it was you.” My mouth opens when the next question follows, but he predicts it. “I don’t know how. Nathaniel might’ve reached out to Preston after Lucas’s first visit. For all we know, it could’ve been Preston’s idea to get you out of there before we came to free you. Somehow, he knows it was you, Delilah, that his old man took from the whorehouse.”