Page 14 of Vicious Butterfly
“Can’t wait to crush North Point in a few weeks, Coach,” he says, standing. “The team will be ready for you.”
He leaves. As if I needed him to remind me of that inconvenient fact. Ryan will be here, and I won’t be able to stay away.
My brother’s suspicious. I’ve got to rectify that, which is why I’m trekking across campus on a Sunday morning with meager offerings of coffee and croissants from the most popular place on campus. I had to fight through a horde of freshmen and endure multiple shouts of “Hey, Coach,” asking me how I’m doing.
It was a battlefield of talking and smiling, while I dodged conversation landmines all over the place. But Luke will never know who—what—I really am. That’s something I’ll be taking to my grave. He thinks I like socializing. He doesn’t understand how much of a chore it is for me, even if he relates. My brother prefers the company of trees and woodland creatures to humans.
We’re more alike than he can ever know. Except for one thing—Luke has a heart. I don’t. And I’ll protect that wolfish heart of his at all costs.
I knock on the door to the house on campus he’ll occupy for the next several months, and wait, knowing it’ll be locked and bolted. I hear the slides and clicks as he opens the door, and as soon as it’s open, I glide through without waiting to be invited. I also slide into my role of Cheeky Little Brother, one that’s not a complete lie. Luke’s the only person in the world who gets to peek behind the Tate curtain.
Well, well, well. He’s cleaned up. He strode on campus, looking like he’d just returned to human form after the full moon. A wild bush of a beard and hair that almost gave lion’s mane. Now, the beard’s gone, showing off that solid jaw ofhis and his dark hair trimmed and styled into something more civilized. Something closer to mine with a big swoop on the top, clean on the sides. Luke’s big like I am. Over six feet tall, broad-shouldered—you know, the general stature of a VanCourt.
He's still more ruggedly handsome than I am. Luke never lost that hunger of a wolf he got from our shit childhood.
“Do you think coffee and pastries are gonna make me forget what you promised me for doing you this massive favor?” he says, with emphasis on massive.
Well, that’s one way to ruin a morning. I breeze by him, making myself comfortable in a chair at his kitchen table. I don’t know why he’s suddenly decided to be such a hard-ass about this.
“I told you I’d honor the requirements of the will. Is this because McKinnon was acting up?” It took McKinnon all of five minutes to decide to be a shithead in class. If only I could deal with him like Uncle used to deal with me, there wouldn’t have been any need to call Luke here.
Luke studies me. “Promise me again, and I’ll leave it.” He leaves off thefor now,but I hear it loud and clear.
“I’ll get married, and you’ll have your fortune.”
Fucking Uncle Jasper, dealing a final hand from his grave. I know it’s a game, I just haven’t figured out what the fucking game is other than to—once again—keep me in line beyond death.
The will stipulates that I have to marry before I turn forty so that Luke will receive Uncle Jasper’s fortune. I’m thirty-six, so I still have plenty of time if you ask me. The only reason Luke would push is that Uncle Jasper’s little game has penetrated his mind—Will Tate protect you the way you’ve always protected him?—and that royally pisses me off.
I’ve done nothing but protect him. But he can never fucking know that.
Unless this is Uncle Jasper’s way of getting me to tell Luke myself. It’s hard to say for sure. It could be both. Uncle Jasper’s mindfuck game was unmatched.
But I will make sure Luke gets his fortune. He gets everything, and I get nothing, as it should be. If Uncle Jasper was trying to slight me there, he can go fuck himself in whatever level of hell he ended up in—because he definitely went to hell.
Of course, big brother Luke is adamant that he’s giving me half as soon as he gets it. He talks about it like it’s ours, but it isn’t. Uncle Jasper left it to him.
I have other things I’ll inherit.
The real mindfuck is me getting married. In addition to everything else, because there are levels to Uncle Jasper’s treachery, he’s making me trade my freedom for Luke’s. And I’ll be doing it to myself. I can choose not to marry, but then no fortune for Luke, and I know how much of his life he’s given for that fortune. I’ve never had freedom anyway. I gave it up to that fucking snake when I was too young to know what I was doing.
Being married to someone means I’ll have to make a choice. I’ll either keep hiding who I am or give up the real way I make money. I need a legitimate explanation for the income I already have, because a coach’s salary doesn’t come close. The Pacific Conference Commissioner position pays well, gives me white-collar connections to balance out my blue-collar ones, and provides a clean cover. It’s the kind of position people respect—and I need that.
Marriage is Uncle Jasper’s final prison for me. Having a spouse means someone to watch me, someone to keep up the charade for, someone who ties me even tighter to the underground life he built for me.
Luke’s under the impression that I can get married, satisfy the will, and then divorce. Is he really that naïve, even after everything Uncle Jasper put him through? For some reason, heis, or he’s choosing to live in Delulu Land. When Uncle Jasper’s lawyer and co-conspirator, Clarence, read the will for Luke and me, he left out the part that binds me to the deal irreversibly. For that, he pulled me into a special meeting.
If my marriage ends for any reason other than myaccidentaldeath, the fortune will be stripped from Luke piece by piece. And that’s not all. Clarence has been instructed to leak all of my secrets in that case. Every single one. That was off the record, of course. It’s never wise to document extortion. But Clarence isn’t just Uncle Jasper’s lawyer. They were friends, and I suspect lovers, though I don’t have any hard proof of that. Just a look here, a hand touch there. Bruises and hickeys in places I caught sight of when Clarence’s collar shifted.
The way Clarence looked at him like he’d hung the moon. I know for sure he loved Jasper, but was it reciprocated? Sometimes it seemed like yes, and other times no.
If Uncle Jasper felt anything for anyone, he never would have made that public—too risky. Rule One: Keep vulnerabilities hidden in the dark where no one can find them.
But no one can know about me, the real me. Especially not Luke. It would crush him, and Luke is the only fucking thing I care about. His good opinion of me is everything. The thought of his disappointment is the only thing that has the power to make me comply.
So I’ll put on my well-practiced sweetheart smile, say “I do” at an altar, get Luke his money, and make sure he keeps that money, along with his good opinion of me.
It’s all a game anyway. What Uncle Jasper always wanted—a way to pit Luke against me. In a fucked-up way—amajorlyfucked-up way—Luke was his favorite child. His golden boy. I was the dark horse he molded into his obedient pet monster. His experiment.
