Tempting the Knight (The Fairy Tales of New York Book 2) Page 15

  It’s not that I can’t admit my feelings, it’s that I don’t want to.

  The surge of hope felt almost painful as he recalled Zelda’s words, the one phrase that he’d gotten stuck on the million or so times he’d relived the conversation they’d had in the taproom. “I guess you could be right. She didn’t tell me she didn’t have feelings for me, she just told me she didn’t want to tell me what they were.”

  “Okay, then maybe you need to find out what those feelings are before you give up on her?”

  “But how will that help? If we can’t have a relationship because of her recovery?” he said, trying not to let the surge of hope blind him to the reality of the situation. “If us being together messed that up for her, I could never live with myself.” Thinking Zelda didn’t care for him had been tough enough, but forcing her to admit her feelings and screwing up her recovery in the process would be far worse.

  Finn nodded. “I’ll admit I’m not an expert on this stuff. But if there’s one thing you’re good at, Ty, it’s coming up with a plan. I happen to know that because when you were Batman, Casey and Ro always got to be Superman and Spiderman, which meant I always had to be Robin.”

  “Yeah, and as I recall you used to whine about it every damn time, so I don’t see how it’s relevant.”

  “The whine was just for show. I loved being your sidekick, because while Ro and Case were busy running around like loons wasting all their ammunition on each other and Mrs. Zigler’s tomcat, you always came up with a cool plan to ambush them. Remember that time we soaked them both half an hour before their Holy Communion?”

  “How could I forget it,” Ty said, unable to resist cracking a smile at the memory, despite the dull pain in his chest. “Mom nearly murdered all four of us.”

  “Uh huh, but you managed to argue our sentence down from outright murder to a missed supper, no TV privileges for a month, and a couple of stinging wallops on the butt. So don’t tell me that guy can’t come up with what to say to the woman he loves, so she can see he could be the best thing that ever happened to her. Instead of the worst.”

  The blast of fiddle and pipes had them both reaching for their cell phones.

  Finn grinned when it turned out to be his. “Cool ringtone.” He lifted the phone to check the caller. “It’s Dawn. I better take this. I won’t be long.”

  Finn got up and walked towards the kitchenette, for privacy, but Ty could still hear the affection and easy domesticity in the hushed tones. Who would ever have thought that Finn would be the first of them to settle down?

  The stabbing pain in his chest got worse, because he wanted to make things right with Zel. He wanted to give them both another chance. But what if the obstacles were too great? And the stakes too high? Even for him?

  “Yeah, I’ll see you later.” Finn clicked off the phone as he walked back.

  Ty drained his beer, feeling like a fifth wheel. “I should scram if Dawn’s on her way home. You’ve got the next generation of Sullivans to start creating.” Plus he had a lot of thinking to do.

  Finn dropped his cell on the table. “Actually she’s on her way to Zel’s for the evening. Apparently the shit has hit the fan and the press is camped outside her place on the Upper East Side. Couple of the tabloids have printed a story saying she’s off the rails again.”

  Every protective instinct Ty had went on high alert. “Why the hell would they say that?”

  “The shampoo company released some bullshit statement saying they’d ditched her because she cut her hair. That she’s a liability they can’t afford to have fronting their brand any longer.”

  “Those sons of bitches, they didn’t ditch her, she ditched them.” He protested, outraged on her behalf. “She should sue the bastards for defamation.” But he knew Zelda would never defend herself against the accusation—because she had never apprised anyone but her closest friends of the struggle she’d fought and won for the last five years.

  “I know.” Finn agreed. “Dawn said the same thing. But apparently the shampoo company has gotten hold of a photo of her at Coney Island, in a clinch with some mystery dude on the beach that they say proves she got her hair cut before they dropped her.” Finn lifted his eyebrows, making it clear he knew exactly who the mystery dude was. “The thing’s gone viral. The girls are heading over there after work to give her moral support.”

  “Shit.” Ty jumped up from the couch. “I should never have taken her to Coney Island. I might have guessed someone would spot her. She warned me she was always getting this sort of negative attention from the press.” And he knew how much she hated it, but he hadn’t taken that seriously enough, any more than he had her revelation about being an alcoholic. “This is all my goddamn fault.” Gathering up his suit jacket he headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Finn asked.

  “Over to her place, she may need my help.” He could offer her his expert legal advice. She probably wouldn’t want it, but damn it, if nothing else, it was a reason to see her again. “And I can offer myself up to the press to take the heat off her.”

  Finn unlocked the deadbolt, but paused before he pulled the heavy steel door open. “Would you take some advice before you go?”

  “What advice?” Ty said, impatient to get going.

  “Don’t go dashing over there half-cocked. Take some time and figure out what you’re going to say to her first. You don’t want to scare the shit out of her all over again.”

  “But she needs my support now.” He protested. He didn’t want to wait. If she needed his protection, he wanted to be there for her, because he knew for damn sure her brother wouldn’t be.

  “She’s got support. The girls will be there in a half-hour or so. They can hold the fort until you get there. And you said yourself she’s a strong lady.”

  Ty rested his forehead against the door and took a steadying breath. And then took another, forcing back the panic, and the need to ride to Zelda’s rescue. Damn it, his brother was making sense. He couldn’t afford to screw this up.

  Faith and Dawn and … His mind snagged on the name of the other girl until a vision of the exotic-looking girl sitting in the booth at Sully’s came to him. Mercy! That was it… Would be there watching out for Zelda for the next couple of hours. He had time to go back to the boat and change, and do some vital research, so he knew exactly what he was going to say, and how he was going to say it. He had to gather all the evidence and make a persuasive case; a case that would prove to Zelda giving this thing between them a chance—whatever this thing was—didn’t have to be bad.

  Once he’d done that, the decision would be Zelda’s.

  But whatever happened, he was not about to fuck up presenting the most important case of his life a second time.

  “Okay, you’re right.” He straightened away from the door and nodded at his brother. “I probably should have told you this before, Finn, but you were a great Robin.”

  His brother gave him a high five as he hauled open the door. “Holy heck, Batman, you got that right.” The smartass grin spread across his face. “Now go figure out a plan to capture Catwoman.”

  Chapter Eleven

  ‡

  Zelda stared out of the library window at the gauntlet of photographers and journalists. They had been camped outside the townhouse all day like a pack of ravening wolves, but she felt oddly detached from the chaos her latest screw up had caused.

  Not that she was actually guilty of the ‘reckless’ behavior the press had attributed to her. She hadn’t cut off her hair during a drink- and drug-fuelled weekend spree in Brooklyn over Labor Day. But defending herself would only draw more attention to the story—and make them more determined to identify Ty. She’d already caused him enough trouble. If she didn’t give the story any oxygen, the press would be gone tomorrow, to go hound some other celebrity screw-up—and Ty would be spared another reason to regret the misguided declaration he’d made a week ago.

  He hadn’t contacted her again. As she’d known h
e wouldn’t. And even though her sponsor, Amelie, had assured her that a committed relationship didn’t have to be a threat to her recovery as long as she managed her expectations, she had decided her knee-jerk decision to push Ty away was for the best.

  She had no experience of making relationships work, especially not intimate ones. And even if starting something serious with Ty didn’t have to threaten her sobriety, it was still scary, new territory, which she had no guarantees she would be able to negotiate. Handling the problems she already had was a full-time job. How could she risk having Ty in her life, when that could mean the possibility of losing him?

  Of course, using her recovery as an excuse not to admit her feelings had been cowardly and dishonest. But Ty was an optimist, who, for all his pragmatism and intelligence, believed he could fix things if he tried hard enough. But he couldn’t fix her.

  Then again, now he knew exactly how broken she was, he probably had no desire to fix her anymore anyway. Which just made it all the more pathetic that losing something she had never really had still hurt so much.

  She picked her mobile up from the library table and keyed in a text to Seb. She needed a distraction from the hopeless thoughts which kept circling around in her head like vultures hovering over a rotting corpse. Unfortunately, her brother was the only distraction on offer.

  Can you join me for dinner tonight? Zx

  She pressed send, not caring how needy it sounded. Even her brother’s monosyllabic company would be more appealing than spending another night eating alone in the townhouse’s cavernous dining salon while the memory of the meals she’d shared with Ty—sitting on the roof chatting over their ad hoc picnic supper, or watching him cook her pancakes—made the loss seem all the more acute.

  She waited for a reply, but nothing came.

  Perhaps Seb had stayed late at his office on foundation business, or he might even have a date. How would she know, when she knew virtually nothing about his personal or professional life because he refused to share details about anything?

  She noticed Mrs. Jempson, their housekeeper, walking past the library door and called out to her. “Mrs. Jempson, do you know where my brother is this evening?”

  The housekeeper nodded, because she was clearly permitted to know more about Seb’s life than his own sister. “He’s in the roof garden, working on the new trellis he’s designed for the roses.”

  Trellis? What new trellis?

  “I see,” she said, but she didn’t see.

  Since when did Seb care about the rose garden? Their mother had adored roses. One of Zel’s earliest memories was of her mum kneeling in the embassy garden, her beautifully manicured hands covered in dirt, as she planted the cut-offs she’d brought to London from the garden upstairs. Zel also recalled Seb getting into trouble once for kicking a football into the growing bushes—which only made the thought of him designing and constructing a trellis for the plants now all the more absurd.

  Mrs. Jempson excused herself as Zelda keyed in another message. She’d give him one more try. Maybe he didn’t have his phone with him. But instinctively she knew he did. He was blanking her, the way he always did, because the futility of trying to reach him felt all too familiar.

  How about coming down to dinner, then I could explain what the press is doing outside the door? Zx

  Maybe that would get a reaction. He must have noticed the paparazzi besieging the house again. She should explain to him what was going on. Not that he’d asked for an explanation, but her pride demanded she supply one.

  The reply popped onto her phone.

  Can’t do dinner. Busy tonight. And I don’t care why the press are here, I’d just like them the hell off my doorstep.

  She hadn’t really expected him to accept the invitation. But even so, her fingers began to tremble, and the air squeezed out of her lungs as she read the typically blunt text.

  And suddenly an incandescent anger was surging up her chest like hot, viscous lava, searing everything in its path. She felt it exploding in her heart, and charging through her bloodstream, as she slammed down her phone. She marched out of the library, into the oppressive grandeur of the hallway and took the main staircase two at a time, her heels sinking into the Aubusson carpet. The fading summer day shone through the mullioned windows but the dusky light was hard to distinguish from the red haze descending over her vision.

  After racing up four flights of stairs, she flung open the door on the top landing that led past Seb’s suite of rooms towards the back stairs. Rooms she hadn’t been invited to enter since she’d returned to New York months ago.

  She supposed he didn’t bother to lock the door, because he would never expect her to enter his inner sanctum without his express permission.

  Well, bugger that.

  She strode down the corridor, and headed up the staircase that led to her mother’s old roof garden, the volcano of fury burning up her torso. She knew the anger was irrational. That it was spurred on by the brutal pain of losing Ty. And the thought of all the lonely days, which hung like thunderclouds over her future and would be that much harder to bear now she knew what she would be missing.

  And in that tiny corner of her brain that was still rational, she also knew it wasn’t fair to transfer that pain and anger onto her brother.

  But fuck it. She was through being fair and reasonable and rational and bloody polite with Sebastian. And blaming herself for the crappy way he’d treated her all these years—as if she were an embarrassment, or a burden, or worse, simply an inconvenience.

  Just because she couldn’t take what Ty had to offer, she could bloody hold her useless brother to account. For all the times he’d failed her. For all the times he’d shunned her and dismissed her and refused to see her pain because he was too busy wallowing in his own. He’d made her feel like nothing for so long, and she didn’t want to feel like nothing today.

  She stepped into the palatial roof garden, and stopped dead, stunned for a moment by the heady fragrance and the sight of the beautiful twisting vines, clinging to the garden’s latticed ironwork in riotous profusion. Seb stood in the sunlight at the end of the terrace, his dark hair tinged with gold, his face for once devoid of its usual brooding scowl, a tool belt slung low on his hips as he hammered the trellis against a wall.

  The fury surged back. What right did he have to be so content, when she was so miserable? And then the volcano in her chest erupted right out of her mouth.

  “You cold, heartless, son of a bitch.”

  Sebastian jerked round, his hand plunging into a clump of roses, then swore and yanked his hand back to suck on his thumb.

  Good, she was glad he’d pricked himself, because he’d been a total prick to her for far too long.

  “Zel, what are you doing up here?” The nickname that he hadn’t used since they were children, plus the complete astonishment on his face, made her hesitate for a second. But then she gathered her strength and her fury and marched towards him to jab a fingernail into the center of his shirt.

  “So this is why you’re too busy to have dinner with me.”

  “I have work,” he said, but she could see the lie in his dark shuttered eyes. “I was taking a short break.”

  “Bullshit. You’d rather spend your evenings here than spend any time with me. I’m your sister, Seb, and we’ve been living in the same house for months and you know how many times we’ve dined together?”

  He didn’t answer, his brows lowering in the familiar frown.

  “Twice. And both times you spoke approximately twenty words to me. Why do you find my company so excruciating? I’m not drinking anymore. I won’t get hammered or high and make a spectacle of myself or start gushing uncontrollably. I just want to be able to talk to you. Occasionally, like a normal human being. Like your sister. Instead of being treated like someone who has the plague.”

  She wanted him to care enough to be interested in what she had to say. All those mundane details of her life. The way Ty had been interested.

/>   “I know we can never be a normal brother and sister.” She continued when he remained stoically silent.

  Or rather, she’d spent the last five years forcing herself to come to terms with the fact their family could never be as warm and loving and supportive as the Sullivans.

  “But why can’t we at least talk to each other? You’re the only family I have left, Seb?”

  “I’m well aware of that,” he said, turning away. But she noticed the fine lines round his eyes, the tension in his jaw, the scar that bisected his lip going white with stress. He was hating every second of this.

  Seb didn’t do confrontation. He didn’t do soul-searching. He had never even admitted he had a problem. So it had been far too easy for him to make her think that all their problems had been hers alone.

  Why had she let him have his way for so long? She wasn’t nobody. Or nothing. And she wasn’t the only one to blame for their estrangement. Ty had noticed that, why hadn’t she?

  “Did you even know I’ve given up my modeling career?” she tried again.

  Even if going postal on Sebastian could never make up for losing Ty, she needed to at least try to sort out this area of her life one last time.

  “I could hardly fail to know it,” Seb said, his expression rigid, his voice tight. “Given that those bloody parasites have been besieging us since five this morning.”

  She heard accusation in his tone and her pride kicked in. “What they’re saying isn’t true. I didn’t go on some alcohol-induced weekend jolly and shave my head. I made a conscious decision not to sign another contract.”

  “It makes no difference to me,” he said, the brooding expression back to hide his discomfort. “What you chose to do with your life, Zelda, is your business. I’ve never interfered.”

  “Didn’t it ever occur to you that I wanted you to make it your business?” she said, forcing herself to say the words that had been buried inside her for so long—and had come out in so many self-destructive ways.