Knots (Club Imperial Book 4) (12 page)

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that I’ve always been in love with her. But now--I see we can try a relationship and the feeling went from a vague infatuation to the reality of: I’m falling in love with this woman.”

“You just can’t seem to keep your life simple, can you?”

“Simple is boring,” Killian sighed. He walked away from the bag and leaned against the saw horse that was standing nearby. “She’s amazing, Darien. Amazing. In bed. In life. Do you know why she agreed to marry Paul? For her sister. She loves that girl. Her passion for everything blows me away. She electrifies my life far more than anything since Da died.” He folded his arms over his chest. “That was one day, Darien. One. From early dinner to a kiss I didn’t want to break with her out the door at noon. A kiss I knew, and know, I can’t have again. It’s driving into my gut that the kiss was only two hours ago and all I want is to find her again and hold her, kiss her senseless. She’s meant to be mine, and I want to be able let the whole world know. And I can’t have her.”

Darien stared at him for a moment. “This is why I don’t believe in love. You are fucked, my friend. Fucked and screwed.”

“I know.” He let out a sigh. “The one thing I know right now is if I can’t have her, I want no one.”

Darien poked a finger through the air at him. “Diane is your first concern.”

“I have lunch with her tomorrow already set to tell her whatever she thinks is going on, isn’t and we’re not an item and she should lose my number. Forever.”

“Good,” he nodded. “My next concern. Your scheduled tonight for the Training Routine.”

“I’m aware.”

“Can you handle it?”

Killian raised an eyebrow. “It would be a poor reflection on my Mistress and House if I couldn’t, don’t you think?”

“I’m serious, Kay,” Darien said. “I can’t have you slipping.”

“I’m fine, Darien,” he answered. “You know me better than that. Of course I would tell you if this is going to be a problem. But it’s not. The TR is simple for me at this point.”

Darien sighed. “If you need to back down, I can still fill it.”

“I’m fine.”

“Love does stupid things to yins,” Darien stated.

Killian smirked at him. “Just wait.”

Darien turned and started to leave the room. “For what? Forty-one years, and I haven’t had a nibble. I like my life. I like my little pets. I have no use for love.”

“You just wait, Darien. Cupid is going to get you hard.”

Darien turned at the door and gave him a half smile. “I don’t need Cupid to get me hard.”

The dress was lovely, Cece had to admit. The fact that her mother had bought it made it hard to wear. The woman had bankrupted the family, and Marjorie was buying ridiculous clothes. Being the underhanded sneaky bitch that she was, Hannah had arrived with the dress. Which was better all around because first, Cece didn’t want her mother in her house, and second, Marjorie knew that if Hannah brought the dress, she’d be less likely to refuse it.

“It took me a while to talk mom out of the high necked long sleeved disaster she wanted to send. I finally told her that I should really pick it out, otherwise you were going as an Eighties reject,” Hannah smiled.

“You know I should make her take it back.” Cece twirled around in it once.

“Yes, I do.” Hannah laughed. “But I know you love it.”

“Yeah, I do,” Cece answered. She loved the light flair to the skirt and the way it was a demure neckline without covering her up to her chin and down to the floor. That’s what Marjorie would have put her in every day if she’d had a say. One of the many small reason that Cece had her own place.

“Are you going to wear it?”

“Because you picked it out,” Cece smiled.

They caught each other’s glance in the mirror, and Hannah’s smiled slid off her face. “Cee, you don’t have to do this.”

“Do what?” Cece snapped.

“Marry Paul because of me.”

“Who told you?”

Hannah threw her hands in the air. “I’m not a child anymore, and you’d all do well to remember that! I know what’s going on. There’s a contract, and for some reason you have marry Paul because of me.” She turned back to Cece. “You don’t have to do this. There’s nothing so bad that you’d have marry someone you don’t love.”

Cece considered her sister a moment, then said, “I
am
marrying for love.”

Immediately, Hannah’s face clouded in confusion. “Wait, what?”

“I agreed to this because I love you.”

“I don’t…”

Cece motioned her sister over to the couch, and sat down. “Did you see the contract? Did Chas talk to you about it at all?”

“Chas is the worst of all,” Hannah answered. “I’ll never be older than ten in his eyes. He’d never talk to me about anything serious.”

That was typical of the asshole. Cece nodded. “Of course he didn’t. Hannah, I’m marrying Paul because if I didn’t, you would have to.”

“Why on earth would that happen?”

“Because if one of us didn’t marry Paul, the entire Robbe family would be destitute.” Cece sighed and explained what Marjorie had done to them all. “The ultimate issue here for me though, is you. Your health.”

“If you don’t love Paul, let me marry him.”

“Holy shit, no,” Cece gasped. “No. Hannah, Paul is a very rough character. You can’t marry him. You’re not strong enough.”

“Strong enough how?” Hannah jerked up from the couch, and whirled on Cece. “You all need to stop treating me like I’m going to fall apart! I’m not dying. The disease has been in remission for three goddamn years! Let me marry Paul. There’s no reason you have to. I’m never going to get another offer, so let me marry him.”

“What do you mean you’re not going to get another offer?” Cece was confused.

“Chas has my life scheduled to the last damn minute. I can’t do anything without his input and opinion. I have never been on a date. If Paul is my only chance to get away from Chas, please let me take it.” She dropped back to her sister’s side. “Please. I want to go to college. I want to get away from Chas and mother and father. Don’t you see that Paul is that chance?”

Cece was dumbstruck. She’d never thought about how staying in that house was destroying her sister, and hearing the words halted her in her tracks. “I never… Hannah, I understand you want out. Believe me I understand that. But this isn’t the way to do it.”

“Please” Hannah rolled her eyes. “I marry him, I drop a kid, I get the hell out.”

“I can’t even begin to tell you what was wrong with that statement. But let’s start with, one doesn’t ‘drop’ a kid. That’s exactly the kind of attitude that got us into this mess. Mom and dad, the Wainwrights, the McInnises…God the only family I can think of that was happy were the Walshes. You don’t want to keep the cycle going. I don’t either. I want us to have happy lives.”

“You’re totally contradicting yourself.”

“Ugh,” Cece said, standing up. “I am doing this to keep you safe, Hannah. I can handle Paul.”

Hannah waved her finger at her sister, threateningly. “Just because you have all those big strong friends at the…” She halted her words.

A roiling panic spread through Cece’s gut. “What?”

Shaking her head, Hannah tried to dismiss what she’d just said. “Never mind.”

“No.” Cece was not about to drop it. “Just because I have those big strong friends at the what, Hannah?”

The guilt that Cece caught her sister’s eyes forced her to look down at her shoes. “Really it’s nothing,” Hannah tried.

“It’s not nothing,” Cece growled.

Hannah shook her head, and picked at her skirt. “Just because you have all those big strong friends at the club doesn’t mean you’re a wit better off than I am marrying Paul.”

The chair was there to catch Cece as she stumbled back. “The Club?”

“Club Imperial. You never even knew I followed you there.” She stared at her sister, and Cece wanted to answer her. But Hannah was pissed and plowed on. “And there’s half the damn problem. You’re sitting there telling me that you’re going to marry Paul because you’re worried about me. You’re concerned about my health. You think I can’t handle myself. Chas is being cruel to me to keep me from college—but where the hell do you get off thinking that you know me at all, Frances?!”

She stood from the couch and started pacing the room. “You leave me at the house. You never come to visit. You don’t know me enough to know who I really am! Are you really doing this because you’re worried about
me
, or are you doing this out of some sense of familial obligation?” Hannah stopped in front of her. “You don’t know me. And you know who else doesn’t know me? Chas. Do you know who else claims to do things for me? Chas. Do you know who else keeps throwing my disease in my face? Chas. See a pattern here?”

Cece felt the dismay from her sister knowing about the club crash into the utter horror of the truth that Hannah had just pitched at her, and came very close to throwing up. She put a hand to her mouth as a sharp pain crossed her heart.

Hannah was right. Her intension were noble, but her methods were… well, not just flawed, but down right wrong. She couldn’t claim to care about her sister, when they barely saw each other. She wasn’t even sure of her sister’s favorite color, never mind what she thought of things like her own health and wellbeing.

Her hands shot out and grabbed her sister’s. “I’m sorry, Hannah, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was doing that. I really do honestly care about you, and your health, and I want to be your sister. I’m sorry that I haven’t been around more.”

“When you say that, I believe you.” Hannah smiled, squeezing her hand. “When Chas says it, I want to run away. Far away. Never let him have anything to do with me again.” Hannah pulled Cece off the chair and on to the couch with her. “I’ll tell you a secret if you tell me yours.”

“My…secret?” Cece felt the nervous butterflies slamming around in her stomach.

“Oh, Cece, it’s so easy to see you’re freaked out by the fact I know you go to Imperial. I want to know what you’re doing in such a high class kink club. But if you want, I’ll go first…”

Cece was ready to choke, but Hannah was so earnest and excited to share her secret, she knew she couldn’t say no to her without crushing her and the hope for a sisterly bond with her.

--And she realized, right in that moment, there were only two things that she wanted in her life: Killian and Hannah. Everything else could fall away and never been seen again, as long as she had those two things. Strangely enough, the thought seem to unshackle her. Oh, she still wanted to play at Imperial, and she’d never give up her ropes, not as long as she had a choice, but if she had to—she could. To keep Killian and Hannah.

Cece gripped her sister’s hand and patted it with the other one. “You go first.”

Hannah’s face burst into grin. “I’m going to college.”

“What? Where?” Genuine excitement leapt into her voice.

“I’ve been going.” The devilish smile on Hannah was a delight. “I started two weeks before high school graduation. The trip I took to Florida this summer had nothing to do with getting a tan. I had two lab classes I could only take on site. I made it look like I was going down with a group of friends, and I totally didn’t. The labs were incredible. I had to be there for eight hours a day for three weeks. I learned so much I think my brain is still working on processing all of it even four months later.”

“Where are you going? Oh, my God, Hannah, I have a thousand questions!” Cece let herself laugh.

“Okay, so I’m going to the University of Florida through their online program. It’s in forensic studies, and it’s a five year master’s program.”

Her brain stuttered. “Forensics!”

“Yes,” Hannah smiled. “At first I only wanted to go to piss off Chas, but now that I know what it’s all about, and that I happen to love biology, I adore the program. It’s amazing. Oh, Cece, I can’t even put into words how cool this all is. It’s all online classes, but I’ve made some real friends online and while I was down there. Well, all online except for the yearly labs in Florida.”

“Online?” Cece knew that U of Florida had online programs, but that her sister was taking them and pursing one of the toughest degrees that she knew off? “You’re sure this is the right program for you?”

“Yes, yes!” Hannah was practically jumping on the couch. “Yes. And I have to start doing research soon. Please, Cee, let me come to the library! I want to see where you work, and I want your help writing all these papers up. I wish I could just be out and out honest about this with mom and dad, but I can’t. Chas will pull everything. Oh!” The had she slapped over mouth made a popping sound. “If mom’s bankrupted the family…”

“You’re fine,” Cece answered. “I had a friend whose wife is a financial guru check into the financial impact of this whole thing, and our trusts are safe. Yours and mine; they can’t touch them because they aren’t actually part of the estate.”

“Whew!” Hannah slumped a little. “I thought that I might have to give up the whole charade.”

Cece turned on the couch. “Hannah, even if we were so broke we didn’t have a bucket to piss in, I would never tell you to stop going to school. I would lie, beg and steal to make sure that you could go all the way through.”

“Ugh! Why haven’t you been around more! I need girly encouragement like this every day!”

“You don’t need a lick of my encouragement, Hannah.” Cece smiled. “You’ve made it so far without anyone’s help. Put a wicked evil disease on top of that, and you’re the strongest out of all of us.”

“Horse shit,” Hannah laughed.

“Not horse shit! True shit!”

“Ha!” Hanna stood and did a little twirl, letting out a string of swear words. “I can’t do that at home you know. A certain prick brother of ours has decided my mouth should be washed with soap if I say a swear word with in his delicate hearing.”

“Bullshit, he does not!”

“He does.”

“Why do you let him do that?!”

Hannah paused from her gleeful romp around the cottage’s living room. “You don’t know? You might think I’m strong, Cece, but you have to remember that forever and always I have to deal with the myasthenia. Even if the flairs and the worst of it are under control and in remission, I simply don’t have a lot of strength. Weak as newborn foal, I think dad accused me of being the once time. I have no muscle mass. I never will. Physically resisting Charles would be about as effective as pitched tent in a hurricane.”

Cece grabbed her sister’s hand again. “I’m sorry, Hannah, I forgot. And forgetting is a good thing. Since I now have the upper hand, I’m going to make sure that he never does anything like that ever, ever again.”

“Thank you.” The smiled was big, and infectious. “You have no idea how bad soap tastes.”

“Only by accident. I’m not really one to chew on bars.”

“Free snack in the shower?”

Cece burst out laughing and pulled her gleeful sister back to the couch. “I wouldn’t recommend that.”

“But your toilet would be clean all the time.”

Cece laughed even harder. “Stop!” But she couldn’t because Hannah started giggling with her and before they knew it, they were both gasping for air on the couch, trying to stop laughing. When Hannah had the first hiccup, it started all over.

“Get me--”
hic
“—a drink!” Hannah managed.

Cece laughed all the way to the kitchen and back, returning with a glass of water. Hannah accepted it gratefully and chugged it. Once she let out the most unladylike belch, and pitched them into a fit of giggles again, they managed to settle on the couch again.

“That was the first time in my life I’ve ever had hiccups.” Hannah smiled.