Page 36 of Reckless Devotion

Chapter 14

Sunny:You know that vase you love?

Pepper:Is it broken?

Sunny:Define broken.

Pepper:As in, no longer in one piece.

Sunny:Well, technically it is in one piece, but it’s going to be more of a decorative vessel from here on out.

Pepper:Why is that?

Sunny:Because of the gaps.

Pepper:Why does it have gaps?

Sunny:Because I smashed it and glued it back together again.

PEPPER

Something is wrong. Very wrong. I don’t know what, but I can tell it’s bad from the way Chase’s face turned pale and an iron guard slid over his features.

“Stay here,” he bites out, flinging open the door to his town car. He’s out of his seat and the door is slammed in my face quicker than I can respond, and I blink in confusion after thetowering frame in a cut three-piece suit as he strides across the road and toward a house.

Dappled light filters in through the canopy of honey locust trees above, sheltering its well-to-do residents from the hustle and bustle of the city. With Fifth Avenue a stone’s throw away, I dread to think how much these classic New York City brownstones go for.Eyewateringsprings to mind.

The silence settles around me in the dark car interior, and that familiar itch that steels over me from being alone with my thoughts for too long starts to pull at my strings. The ghost of hot breath warms my cheek and that tilting feeling I get sometimes takes over my stomach. I bite down on my lip, glancing back over to Walker and then down to my watch.

“Fuck it.” I throw open my door, quickly exiting the vehicle and trotting over to the man now scaling wide stone steps.

He pauses with his hand on the door, catching me in his periphery. The look he shoots me could almost be considered scathing, but some instinct deep inside my gut tells me it’s not aimed my way. Rather something rotten that has turned inward, haunting from within.

“Misery loves company?” I offer tentatively, wanting him to understand I’m not looking for a fight…for once.

He opens his mouth to speak, but a crash of glass loud enough to be heard through the door cuts the tension, drawing both of our attention as muffled shouts follow. Chase opens the door and the decibels increase by a hundred, the sounds of someone pleading reaching us in the short hallway that leads to a runnered staircase sweeping up one side of the room.

“Please, Mom!”

Another crash and we bolt forward, heading for the door that turns left into a grand sitting room, bedecked with cream embellished wallpaper and an amber glass chandelier hangingfrom the crown molded ceiling. An intricately carved wooden mantelpiece sports an eclectic mix of picture frames above the fireplace.

Next to it, a chalky-faced young woman stands to one side, her dark glossy hair flowing down past her shoulder and tears staining a face that I recognize. Not that I’ve ever met her, but I’ve seen her image on nearly every designer makeup campaign and fashion show for years.

“I just want to be leftalone!” an elegant and austere older woman cries from the other end of the room, swiftly followed by the crashing tinkle of another piece of china bursting into a thousand pieces against the mantle.

“Mom!” Chase’s voice booms across the room, rumbling from within my bones. The older woman stops, the glasses shoved into her salt and pepper hair dangling haphazardly. Esther Walker takes one look at her son’s face and starts to cry, rapidly shaking her head.

“Chase, help her,” his sister Emily pleads from the other side of the room, her voice frayed at the edges and her striking ice-blue eyes scrunched at each corner.

The six feet and six inches of man standing in front of me turns to stone, his eyes flattening to near pools of black. The older woman shakes her head again, beginning to back away from him. One of the champagne silk scarves she wears becomes tangled with the lamp that sits on a side table, and it slithers to the floor.

Chase slowly holds his hand out. “It’s me, Mom. It’s Chase. I’m not him.”

I’m not him?Some of the shadows beneath the older woman’s eyes lift, and she bats long eyelashes slowly—as if drugged.

“Chase?” Her voice is frail and…confused.

“Stay where you are, there is glass on the floor,” Chase warns, taking a step toward her, his shoes crunching the remains of undistinguishable crystal and china.