Page 148 of Powerhouse: Boxed Set
“I’m going to go for a run,” I declared, desperate to get out of the house before I broke down for everyone to hear.
Ezra and Walcott frowned in tandem, the latter saying, “I don’t think Tiernan would like that. He, uh, doesn’t want you gallivanting around Bishop’s Landing. It can be a dangerous place.”
My laugh was hard and hollow. “Bishop’s Landing is the wealthiest strip of land in the country. I doubt I’ll be mugged on the sidewalk, Wally.”
Still, he looked worried. “Let me talk to Tiernan before you leave.”
I shrugged, already jogging up the right curved staircase to my room. I had no intention of waiting for Tiernan to “sanction” my desire to go for a jog. I was seventeen for God’s sake and I’d taken care of a seven-year-old boy for most of my life. I was responsible enough to go for a run and not get myself killed.
I shucked my uniform quickly, trading it for black spandex shorts and a sports bra Tilda had forced me to buy because apparently my ratty old tees weren’t acceptable now that I was a makeshift McTiernan. I grabbed my earbuds from my school bag and raced back through the hall and down the staircase, pushing through the door just as Walcott appeared at the mouth to the other hall, calling after me.
The door slammed shut on my name and I was off like it was the firing shot at the starting line.
I realized as I sprinted through the small pedestrian gate in the massive walls guarding Lion Court that I hadn’t yet explored the perfectly landscaped scope of Bishop’s Landing beyond Tiernan’s gothic manor. I took a left out of the gates and started down the road along the curve of the ocean, passing massive lots filled with expensive homes, manicured lawns, tennis courts and heated pools wafting hot mist into the cool evening.
Music pumped through my earbuds, the echoing melancholic strains of Imogen Heap filling my ears as the sentiment echoed through my heart. I was running away from Tiernan, from the calamity of emotions he beat out of my chest with each passing day. I’d spent the last few weeks wondering why a cruel man like Tiernan would take in two orphans and I knew it wasn’t simply out of the ‘goodness of his heart.’ He was guarded and rude, clearly out to get something from Brando and me, maybe something to do with Aida, but more likely, something to do with my father.
Only, Lane hadn’t left us anything to find.
No money, no assets, no last letter filled with love.
Only a locket he’d given me that Tiernan had stolen and a brother I’d love and protect until the end of time.
I pushed myself harder, sweat beading across my forehead, chest heaving.
Tiernan was our guardian because he’d chosen to be, for whatever reasons, though I doubted it was because he couldn’t stand to see Aida’s children left out in the cold. It was more obvious now than it ever had been before that he’d never loved my mother. It panged in me that I’d loved her for being my mom, but that the loss of her didn’t echo painfully through the days of my life. She’d already been gone more often than not when she was alive, barely contributing to our family life unless she had just broken up with a boyfriend or felt unusually tender toward us.
Still, I’d hooked up with my mom’s ex-boyfriend.
Shame snapped at my heels like a rabid dog.
Which reminded me of Picasso, making Brando laugh back at Lion Court. Making himsafebecause Tiernan had gone out and blown a wad of money on the best service dog he could find.
So, not heartless, at least, not enough to write him off entirely which was dangerous.
Not for my safety, per se, but my heart.
Which clanged as I ran too hard, Tiernan’s name a question called out with each beat.
Who was he?
Monster or man?
Could he be both?
Could I be drawn to both sides of him, the dark and light with little space in between? He wasn’t so much a spectrum as two sides of a coin pressed back-to-back, one or the other. It was a coin toss every day, each moment, to see which side he’d land on.
But I could admit that I liked the risk.
The meanness stirred my blood and made it heat.
The kindness…well, the kindness blew the walls around my heart to smithereens.
It was utterlywrongto want him the way I did. He was my guardian, my mother’s ex-boyfriend, twelve and a half years older than my seventeen. Taboo didn’t even begin to cover our relationship.
It didn’t matter.
Now that I’d had a bite, I couldn’t seem to forget the taste of that forbidden fruit.
