Volition (27 page)

I’m assuming she’s the sister he mentioned before, and apparently the one who knows Evanna, but I don’t see the family resemblance. In fact, she looks more like me than she does like him.

“Well, I’ll let you two finish up in here,” she says suggestively as she pulls the bedroom door almost shut. “But you’d better hurry. We still have to catch the helicopter to Kyler Place.”

“You take the helicopter, Addy. We’ll drive.”

“Suit yourself, lovebirds.”

Then she’s gone.

I’m sitting there, clinging on to the sheets for dear life, and Hayden doesn’t find anything wrong with this situation. I scoff, to which Hayden’s response is to roll over and kiss me, like that solves everything.

Except, it works, and I hate the fact that I let it.

“Addy?” I say once I’ve disentangled myself from him enough that my head isn’t cloudy.

“My sister. It’s complicated,” he confirms.

I wonder how a sister can be complicated. Then, I remember my own, and I don’t ask any more questions.

He reaches over me to check the time on his phone. “Well,” he says in that morning voice that’s going to drive me wild every time I hear it, “we’ve got an hour before we have to leave. I’d say that’s more than enough time, wouldn’t you?”

I’m out of bed before he can seduce me again.

“Maybe for you. I just met your sister while I look like an urchin, and I’m not going to meet your mother that way, too.”

Somewhere inside me, propriety takes hold. I also realize that I wouldn’t care what I looked like meeting his mother if I didn’t care about him.

But I know that I do—deeply. I just don’t want to admit it.

So, I lean down and press my lips gently to his, giving him the same kind of kiss that he gave me in the elevator last night when our hands were full. It’s the kind that tells him something my voice refuses to say, but my heart already knows.

Hayden’s holding one of my hands because I kept smoothing my dress down. I’m blithely aware of the fact that I’m wearing white, and I hate white. I added a red necklace to make it look like I’m a festive holiday person even though I’m not. I despise holidays that aren’t Halloween. I’m Scrooge.

Hayden has gathered as much, but his family knows nothing.

His family needs to like me.

I never thought I’d be grateful for the finishing classes Lara sent me to, but in this moment, I am. I need to impress the Rockefellers, which might be harder than impressing the Hales.

“Stop, Tate,” he says as he opens the passenger-side car door for me. “They’ll love you.”

I give him a look as I climb into the car. Every time I get into the front seat of a car, I think about the fact that my mother died in one of these. So did my father, but he was driving. My mother was in a seat just like this one when she took her last breath.

Hayden shuts the door and climbs into the driver’s seat.

Now, he’s where Denny sat.

I remember his tattoo and how his brother died in a car accident before his wedding. I wonder which seat he was sitting in.

Hayden starts the car, and I’m so distracted by everything that I haven’t realized he’s driving.

“Where’s Al?”

“We don’t need him.”

“You can drive?”

I realize this is a foolish question as the words are leaving my mouth, but they come out anyway.

He takes my hand and sets it on his knee before he reaches over it to shift the car. “Just because I have a driver doesn’t mean I can’t drive.”

He proves it by revving the car up and entering the street from the underground door with unreal grace. Then, he takes my hand on his leg and laces his fingers through mine.

He doesn’t say anything else. He just drives. I look out the window, praying to whatever entity is out there that I can do this and that I can do this well.

My anxiety is palpable, and he sighs as he turns onto the highway that will take us north to Kyler Place.

“My mother’s name is Lane. My father’s name is John. You’ve already met Addison.”

“What was your brother’s name?”

“John.”

“After your father?”

“Yes.”

He pulls the car down an exit ramp, and my heart starts to race so loudly that I’m sure he can hear it. This car is so quiet that I barely knew he started it in the garage. I hate this. I hate caring, and I’ve never cared in my life. When I met Casper’s mother, I was drunk. I was belligerent. I didn’t care, but I care now.

“Did he look like you?”

I can tell by his face that I’m asking sensitive questions, but I ask them anyway. I need a distraction, and I know he’s willing to give it.

“Yes.”

“But Addison doesn’t.”

“Addison isn’t my biological sister.”

“Oh.”

And then, we’re here. I recognize the grounds from the pictures that Catherine sent me when I told her I was going.

My heart keeps pounding, and I want to cut it out of my chest.

I didn’t know I had a heart made of flesh and blood until today.

It’s good to know but also awful to feel.

“Miss McKenna.” An attendant is opening the car door.

I’m forced into the sunlight. I want to shrivel up like a vampire and hide inside the car with Hayden until this is all over.

Except, he’s climbing out and handing another attendant his keys. Then, he’s pulling his sunglasses out of his perfectly tailored pocket. The suit he’s wearing is to me what lingerie is to men, and I’m not sure how I’m going to deal with this in front of his family.

He takes my hand and squeezes it again before leading me up the steps. I see Addison waiting at the door with a drink in her hand.

“Ah, lovebirds,” she says under her breath, so I just barely catch it. “They’re here!” she calls into the house. She stalks in while she eats an olive from her martini glass.

A whiff of perfume hits me as a short woman is suddenly straining his grasp on me when she leans into hug him.

“So, who is this you’ve brought?”

She kisses him on both cheeks, and I wonder how he doesn’t drown in her perfume.

I don’t have to think for long because then she’s air-kissing my cheeks, and I have to hold my breath and smile the way Cece taught me with our Great Aunt Lizzy.

“You know who I’ve brought. Mother, this is Tate. Tate, this is my mother, Lane.”

I call her Mrs. Rockefeller as I shake her hand and tell her I’m pleased to meet her. She doesn’t tell me to call her Lane, and I start to chew on the side of my lip.

“Son, welcome.”

A man steps into the room, and I immediately understand where Hayden gets his looks from. He’s tall and debonair, and even though he’s aged, he has a certain sophistication about him that makes everyone else in the room look inferior.

He shakes Hayden’s hand and stops when he gets to me.

“Beautiful, Miss McKenna. My son’s claims aren’t exaggerated for once.”

He gives Hayden a meaningful look as he takes my hand and kisses it.

“Come, come.” Mrs. Rockefeller breaks the moment and leads her husband down the marble hallway. “Henry, you must tell us how the acquisition went yesterday.”

At first, I think I’ve heard her wrong because there’s no one in this room named Henry—that is, until Hayden speaks.

“I’ll let you know. I’ve scheduled part two of the meeting for next Friday. It was interrupted by other more important matters.”

He squeezes my hand, and I know he didn’t do what his mother is asking him about because of my breakdown in the rain.

“Ah, I see.”

She drops it, and I think she wants to drop me over the side of a cliff.

Addison whispers in my ear as she passes me to catch up with her parents, “Henry Hayden.” She winks at me before she turns.

“I guess I could have Googled that,” I tell him wistfully as we follow his family.

“I’d really rather you didn’t.”

I take a deep breath and prepare myself for what’s sure to be the most awkward day of my life with Henry Hayden Rockefeller’s family. I think I’d rather spend a day in the rain even if that rain was lemon juice and I’d been through a paper factory.

Instead of a meal and an interrogation like I expected, Hayden’s mother whisks them all off into a sealed family conclave and I’m left drinking by myself in one of the living rooms. The place is massive, and I have no idea where I am even if I wanted to explore.

It looks like a museum because it is. There are no tours today because the family has reserved it for their biannual meeting, and I wonder if I’m witnessing a cult. Hayden is normal. Addison seems normal, and so does John, but I don’t like Hayden’s mother. His mother doesn’t like me. She can sense the darkness inside me, the darkness that I can’t hide but Hayden can.

I take my drink down a hallway to look at the pictures and plaques because I can’t stand to sit still for one more second.

There’s a picture of a couple laughing, and I recognize Addison. Her hand has a giant diamond on it, and it’s resting on the chest of a man who looks so much like Hayden it makes my breath catch.

I reach out to touch the glass gently, and something chills me to the bone. Addison isn’t Hayden’s biological sister. This man in the photo is clearly his dead brother, John.

“Addison is my sister-in-law.” I hear his voice behind me. He steps forward and wraps his fingers around mine before leaning in to kiss the side of my head. “She and John were married in a court ceremony before their church ceremony. I gained a sister but lost a brother. She took control of all his holdings in the company when he died.”

My heart breaks for Addison. She married the love of her life, only to have him taken from her before it could even begin. I suddenly feel selfish for having Jesse
and
Hayden and all the drama I’ve created within myself over the two of them when Addison doesn’t have anyone like that to care for.

“I have something to show you,” he says, lightly tugging on my hand.

“What about your meeting?”

“You’re more important.”

“Your mother hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you. She’s very particular. She didn’t like Addy at first and look at her now.”

I sigh, and I let him lead me down a flight of stairs into what begins to look like a medieval castle. There are candles along the wall now instead of lights, and we’re in an underground tunnel. It’s at least ten degrees cooler, and he’s rushing me through because it’s freezing.

We come out on the other side and descend yet another staircase. It’s slightly warmer, and the airflow is improved, but it still looks and feels like we’re in Vlad the Impaler’s castle.

I feel something in the air that I’m not unaccustomed to, and it takes me a moment before I can place it. I start to see boxes and engravings in the wall, and I know exactly what that aroma is.

Death.

We’re in a mausoleum vault, and we’re surrounded by hundreds of boxes that presumably hold all the Rockefellers remains since they arrived in America.

He knows this fascinates me beyond belief and leads me over to one in particular.

I read his brother’s name and death date that I recognize from Hayden’s back. I can picture Addison standing here with her palms pressed against the stone, spending time with the husband she barely got to marry.

“Hi, John,” I whisper.

Hayden smiles. “I have one you’ll like even better.”

There’s a row next to John’s crypt where the vaults aren’t sealed like his is. Hayden pulls on the bottom of one, and the box slides out, revealing a casket. He opens the lid, and I look inside. I know it’s empty, but morbid curiosity makes me look anyway.

He’s still standing by the front of it, and I read the name engraved on the side.

I feel like I’ve been electrocuted.

Henry Hayden Rockefeller
.

His birth year is supplied, but his death date is blank.

“Yours?” I ask as I run my fingers over the letters.

“Yes.”

This is where Hayden will be for all eternity once his heart stops beating. He’ll be in the halls of his forefathers, like I’ll be in mine with Denny and Maggie. Only this is the Rockefeller mausoleum, and it’s grander than our cemetery.

I notice that Hayden’s casket is larger than most because it’s meant to be luxurious. It’s not that high off the ground, so I decide to climb in. I want to know where he’ll be when he’s dead. It’s comforting in a way.