Wildalone (44 page)

He said this without taking his eyes off Rhys. Then, leaving them no time to fall on anything else in the kitchen, he turned around and went upstairs.

T
HE PARTY WAS
only a few miles from campus. Rhys had assumed we would all go in the Range Rover, but Jake insisted on riding his motorbike—I knew only too well why.

In size and opulence the house was a match for Pebbles, although it lacked the ease with which an impeccable taste mixes old with new, leaving its mark on everything. We walked in, the two brothers on both sides of me (Rhys's hand on mine a subtle reminder which one of them I was with), and heads began turning—the quick eyes of women flashing their envy at me, ready to blaze me down to ashes for the audacity to claim both of these gorgeous men for the evening. And there were many women. Rhys knew almost all of them. He smiled at some, barely nodded at others, but didn't hug or shake hands with anyone. Jake walked next to me like a shadow, eyes lost ahead, not bothering to return a single greeting.

An enormous oval library was converted into a bar for the night. We had just come in when a familiar voice made my stomach turn: “Rhys! Finally, man! We thought you'd bailed on us again.” Evan lifted a fist and waited for Rhys to do the same.

“I always show up if I say I will. Thea, this is Evan, the party host.”

I couldn't avoid the handshake, but otherwise had nothing to say to the guy. He hurried with an apology that Rhys must have demanded for me in advance:

“Sorry about the last time. My mouth ran ahead of me.”

That was a mild way of putting it. I smiled as politely as I could, trying not to encourage further conversation.

After some brief cigar-fumed blather, he left us with one final piece of advice: to knock ourselves out with his dad's booze collection. When Rhys pulled out a chair for me at one of the tables and asked what we wanted to drink, I knew that the moment I dreaded had come. That, for a minute or two, Jake and I would be alone.

He sat down across from me. His body rested on the chair with tired detachment—legs stretched out, elbows propped on both ends of the backrest, head tilted forward. His eyes traced Rhys's steps across the floor, avoiding me.

“I had to go back to him, Jake.”

“I knew you would.”

“But it doesn't mean that what happened in my room—”

“You don't have to explain. There's no better man than my brother and I am happy for both of you.”

A few moments later, without touching the drink that Rhys put in front of him, he said he was going to get some air.

Rhys watched him leave, then shook his head. “We have to find him a woman, Thea.”

I couldn't bring myself to risk a reply.

“My brother acts like he's lost the will to live. I've seen it once before and I can't let it happen again. We need to set him up with someone. Tonight.”

Once before
. He couldn't possibly mean Elza; there had to have been someone else. The thought bothered me and I stopped being careful.

“I don't think your brother needs help. He can have any woman in this room.”

“Yes, but the woman who did this to him isn't in the room, and the others
don't seem to exist for him. So he needs a little nudge. Preferably from someone hot who'd fuck his brains out.”

“That shouldn't be a problem.”

He looked at me for a second, dismissing the suspicion before it had taken shape. “No, finding her certainly won't be a problem. But getting him on board will.”

The thought of Jake with another woman—one of the many gorgeous women in the room—sent a jab of pain through my chest. It had to be much worse for him. Seeing me with Rhys. Being forced to watch, over and over, while his brother took the girl who should have been his.

“Fine then. How about . . . her?” I pointed to a tall blonde surveying the bookshelves by herself.

“No, not that one.”

“Why not?”

“She isn't Jake's type.” He said the words slowly, as if struggling with momentary amnesia, and I realized that something else had caught his attention. Something that hadn't been in the room before. “
That
one.”

He directed my eyes with the slightest of nods, but I didn't need it: the girl who had just walked in was impossible to miss. She looked impeccable—a sculptor had carved his final masterpiece out of pristine white marble, then brought it to life. A lush copper mane fell in waves down to her waist, lit up the entire place with its astonishing color, and tricked you into believing that a late-summer sunset hid behind her, making its way through the crowd. She smiled at everyone—a benevolent gesture while having to be among mere mortals—and moved with absolute assurance, as if she owned each molecule of air in the room.

“So, what do you think?” Rhys seemed to love every second of it.

I think she makes the rest of us look like pencil sketches.
“You know Jake's type. I don't.”

He looked at her again until finally she noticed, and her smile shot back an instant challenge: challenge to an equal.

“Ah, speaking of my melancholy brother—there he is, just in time.”

Jake sat down. Took his glass and drank half of it in one go. Rhys
watched him with a certain spark in the eye he always had when about to ridicule someone.

“‘
Not having that, which, having, makes them short
.' Right, Jake?” Then he turned to me and clarified: “Lack of love. Romeo's explanation of what makes his hours long.”

“I've read the play.”

“Of course you have; I underestimated my woman!” He leaned over and kissed me. Jake's eyes escaped within the crowd. “I was just about to tell our dreamy Romeo that we've found someone who will cut his hours very, very short.”

Jake's eyebrows curved up. “We?”

“Yes. Thea and I found you the perfect woman.”

“You have
found
me a woman. And what made you think I needed to have one found for me?”

“This morose face of yours. The last time I saw a smile on it was months ago.”

“I don't recall much smiling around our house. Not lately, anyway.”

“Touché!” Rhys's laughter ricocheted without an impact. “But that's exactly what I mean. You solved my problem, and now I want to do the same for you.”

“I can solve my own problems, Rhys.”

“With self-imposed celibacy? Never a great solution.”

“The greatest solution—for everyone—would be to drop me as a conversation topic.”

“Stubborn, just as I told you.” Rhys shrugged in my direction, but I could tell he wasn't done yet. “Jake, seriously, you should check this woman out. We were both floored when she walked in.”

“Floored at first sight? Always a promising start.” His eyes kept trying to catch mine. “And the collective ‘we' has decided I should go for the woman it has handpicked for me?”

“Actually, the ‘we' wasn't all that collective. Thea picked first, but I had a different choice in mind.”

“I see. So I owe this to Thea?” He said it only to me. Watching me.
Waiting for me to look up, to explain it all—but I couldn't. My mind had shut down, terrified of where this was going to end. “And whom did she pick?”

“The one browsing those books. But then the redhead walked in and we both knew she was the way to go. Over there, by the fireplace.”

Locating the girl took Jake only a second. In a single swoop, he bent over the table toward his brother, slamming the empty glass down.

“Is this your idea of a joke?”

Rhys backed off immediately. “Sorry. My bad.”

“What exactly are you trying to do, get clever with me?”

The fight was escalating so quickly that the trigger had to be something from the past, unrelated to me.

“Forget it, okay? I just thought you'd like her, that's all.” Rhys kept retreating. “We should probably head home anyway. Thea seems tired.”

“Too late to be leaving now.” Jake's eyes returned to the redhead, taking her in, head to toe. “I'm game. After all, what's the downside?”

He walked straight up to her. I watched her eyes fall on him for the first time, watched as he said his first words to her—words I would never know—and she leaned in to whisper something back, reaching for his elbow, a few of her curls dropping over his shoulder to mark their territory without him noticing.

I was desperate to get out of that room. Or for the two of them to leave. To skip this display and take their lovey-dovey chat to some other part of the house where I wouldn't have to see it.

But he brought her to our table. Her name was Nora. She said it to me first, smiling briefly to show a vague curiosity. Then she repeated it to Rhys—measuring him up, savoring the mix of his name, voice, and handshake.

“How come we haven't seen you around Princeton before?” He took the small talk upon himself, since Jake seemed unwilling to utter a word.

“Princeton isn't my thing. I just finished school in Europe.”

“Really? My girlfriend is from Europe.” A tap on my knee clarified the girlfriend reference for her. “Were you East or West?”

“Prague.”

“Nice! Czech blood, I take it?”

She shook her head, and the copper waves spilled around her neck as if a lovestruck wind had decided to reshuffle them. “Believe it or not, I'm one hundred percent Irish.”

“We're Irish too! Only half-Irish, though.” A glance at Jake, who was still silent. “Is your name then a tribute to Nora Joyce?”

Her laughter rang its crystal ripple through the air. “My mother adored James Joyce. When she chose the name, Dad told her that if I turned out half as wild as poor James's wife, he would disown me.”

“I don't blame him.” Another glance at Jake. “And did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Turn out half as wild.”

“No.” She beamed her stunning smile at him. “Much wilder.” Then her eyes glided over Jake's unreadable face. “The wild gene runs in my family just as the mute one seems to run in yours.”

“Don't worry, my brother can be very sweet if given the right inducement. The rest is just veneer. Dark and brooding.”

“Yes, I can tell.” By now her smile was gone. She seemed fed up, ready to leave.

Finally, Jake's lips opened:

“And by ‘right inducement' Rhys means a girl who knows how to handle darkness.” He said it so softly that at first I thought he was talking to me. That we were alone again, in a room somewhere. “If she exists, I'd give anything to find her.”

Nora didn't lose a second. “Try me.”

Her provoking smile again. The quick hair toss, the flushed cheeks.

Rhys rose from the chair. “For that, you two don't need us. By the way, when Jake offers to give you a ride home later, don't get on his motorcycle. Take a cab with him.”

“I don't think Jake will be giving me a ride home tonight.”

Rhys was reaching for my hand but froze when he heard this. Jake's expression hadn't changed. He watched her, waiting for an explanation.

And she did explain, but not before enjoying her brief moment of victory. It was the only possible outcome, the only leap of logic that didn't involve a woman rejecting an Estlin.

“I'm already home.”

“You're Evan's sister?” Rhys tried to clear the surprise from his voice but failed.

“Half sister, although sometimes I think even that's a stretch.” She looked at Evan and his friends, whose drunk voices had been knocking the mood out of the room for quite some time. “Anyway, it was a pleasure to have you over. Drive back safely and . . . I promise to cheer up your dark and brooding brother.”

While Rhys led me out, I tried not to think about what that promise actually meant.

“I COULDN'T WAIT TO LEAVE
that stupid party and have you all to myself. Was it too obvious?”

We were in his living room. He had started to kiss me and unzip my dress when the distant sound of an engine reminded me that Jake hadn't come home yet.

“Rhys, we can't do this here.”

“You can do anything you want, anywhere in this house. It's now yours too.”

“No, it's yours and Jake's. He might be back any minute.”

The notion made him laugh. “You are so adorable when you panic about propriety. That time when you refused to walk across my lawn—it made me want to devour you right there, under those trees. But I think it's safe to assume that Jake won't be sleeping here tonight.”

“You don't know for sure.”

“Believe me, my brother may be stubborn but men are men. He won't say no to her. No one would. In fact, I bet he's still at Evan's right now, doing exactly this—”

His hand slipped under my dress and everything from that night—Jake's silence, Jake's anger, Jake's unplanned conquest—dissolved like a collage of shadows.