Atone: A Fairytale (Fairytale Trilogy) (12 page)

“She was Elise Parker.”

Becca’s mouth fell open. “Elise Parker? The Darling of the Silver Screen?”

Nicholas nodded.

“They did an entire segment on her at the Oscars last year. And she’s your grandmother? How did this not come up when I googled you?”

Nicholas barked out another laugh. “You googled me? I don’t know if I should be scared or flattered.”

“Neither. You have almost no online presence. The only things that came up were a few articles about your parents, none of which mentioned your grandmother.”

“My father wasn’t on the best of terms with his mother.”

“Just to recap, you’re basically Hollywood royalty and you live in a castle in the Hollywood Hills.

Nicholas turned his head over his shaggy shoulder, throwing her an amused look. “No. I’m from an incredibly dysfunctional but incredibly rich family. And I never wanted her money or my parent’s money. I was perfectly happy to make it on my own.”

“Hmmm.” Becca crossed her arms again, propping one foot up against the wall. “Well, that kind of spoils the poor little rich boy lecture I’m just dying to give you.”

“Why am I not surprised?” he said sarcastically.

“That I have a lecture just ready to go? I think I always knew you were secretly rich.”

“I wasn’t, actually, as I’ve just pointed out.”

“You had a Ph.D by twenty-six. How much school debt do you have?”

When Nicholas didn’t answer, she smiled tightly. “I bet none. You never acted like you were on the same plane as us. Always above us.” She wasn’t sure why she was picking a fight with him.

“You were high school student volunteers,” he pointed out dryly.

“By ‘us’ I meant everyone who worked at the museum, not just the volunteers.”

“Or maybe you’re reading your own insecurity into it.”

“Oh, really? You think so? Sorry to break it to you, but nothing about you has ever made me feel insecure.”

He turned and stalked toward her. “I think you’re lying.”

Becca laughed. “No. Insecure does not define any feeling I’ve had toward you.”

“Then why have you always hated me?”

“Because you were a jerk! Because you used your good looks and your charm to manipulate my friend!” Becca pushed away from the wall and closed the gap between them, clenching her hands into fists. The purple-gold fire was painting the inside of her eyelids again, but she ignored it. “Alex was fourteen—FOURTEEN!—the summer we first started at the museum. Don’t think I didn’t see it from the first day we were there. You had to know what you were doing…it was deliberate.” She felt a solid mass of fur under her fists and realized that she was pounding on his chest. She dropped her arms to her sides.

“You’re right.” His voice sounded different. It scared her. “I did manipulate Alex. It wasn’t…at first, at least, it wasn’t on purpose. I guess I’ve always relied on my looks to get what I want. And I did take advantage of it…not just with Alex, but my whole life. And you’re right, my response to what happened to Luke—to the magic, to all of it—was self-centered. I would say that I never meant to hurt anyone, but I don’t know if it’s true. I honestly don’t think I thought of anyone else but me for years.”

Becca felt like a pit had opened up in front of her and she was teetering on the edge. That Nicholas was admitting to basically everything she’d ever thought about him made her unbalanced. She didn’t know how to react.

“Why...why’re you telling me this?” She could feel her heartbeat racing under her palm and realized she’d brought her hand up to clutch the base of her throat. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

“I’ve been an animal for weeks. I’ve had time for some self-examination.”

She shook her head mutely, not quite sure what she was denying.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Becca, I’m truly sorry.”

Becca couldn’t stop staring at him, his words whirling in her head. Then she turned and ran from the room.

~

She didn’t see Nicholas the next morning; he seemed to have confined himself back to his little downstairs apartment. That was fine with her. She was embarrassed that she’d run away from him last night instead of accepting his apology. Or maybe refusing it. She wasn’t really sure which she wanted to do.

Becca stuffed her hands inside her hoodie’s pockets and wandered down the upstairs hallway looking at the walls with a critical eye. She’d thought the house lacked personal touches, but now that she was paying closer attention, she could see discolored rectangles on the walls where pictures had hung until recently. She wondered what Nicholas had done with them. She guessed some had been of his parents—those he wouldn’t necessarily want to see, and some had probably been of himself—those he really wouldn’t want to see either. But some had to have been of his grandmother.

She’d pretty much gone over the house with a fine-toothed comb already, so she knew they weren’t stashed anywhere inside—unless they were in Nicholas’s rooms downstairs. But she had no intentions of seeking him out today. She was still off-kilter. She tried to tell herself it was because she hadn’t seen the apology coming, but it was more than that. Anger had been her default response to him for so long. Anger was safe. Even over the last few days, whenever she felt unsure how to react, she’d found a way to needle him or be sarcastic. It was easier when she was mad with him or he was frustrated with her. It was easy to blame it on how he used to be.

It’s why I picked a fight last night.
That much she could acknowledge to herself. She’d felt too comfortable with him, too sympathetic, so she’d retreated back into the safety of the anger. And then he’d ripped that security blanket away from her by apologizing.

She walked back into her room, opening the blinds and looking out over the manicured lawn to the detached multi-car garage. The open door and the glimpse of the shiny car that it revealed inside caught her attention.

Well, I’m cold and it looks like a gorgeous day out.
Becca headed downstairs and out the sliding glass door. As she reached the garage, she could see where the dirt in the planters around it had been violently disturbed when she’d called to her flowers. Becca giggled in spite of her lousy mood. “Thanks, guys.” She leaned down and ran a finger over the soft, velvety petal on one of the plants before making her way into the garage.

The car was gorgeous. And it looked like it cost a lot of money. It also looked like it hadn’t been driven much and it was getting dusty from the door being perpetually open.

There was space for at least four more cars in the garage, but other than the BMW it was empty.
Insanity. Complete insanity. Who needs a five car garage?

There were, however, a few boxes up against the far wall.
Bingo
. Becca caught sight of a few picture frames peeking out from behind the boxes. The frames were various sizes, some meant to be hung up on the wall and others that were small enough to have been sitting on tables or counters. They looked like they’d all been gathered up and dumped unceremoniously.

She recognized Nicholas’s grandmother immediately. She’d seen all of Elise Parker’s movies when she went through a vintage phase in her early teens. Now that she knew they were related, she could see the similarities in bone structure and coloring. His parents were also easy to identify. His dad looked quite a bit like Nicholas, right down to those dark navy eyes ringed with silver. But his eyes held none of the emotion that Nicholas’s always did. In every picture he looked…detached. As if the smile on his handsome face didn’t reach his eyes. Nicholas’s resemblance to his mom was harder to find. She had perfectly styled and highlighted blond hair and light eyes. In every picture she had almost the same expression. It was perfect too. The kind of perfect you see on porcelain dolls, not on real people.

Just looking at the pictures told Becca more about his childhood than she guessed Nicholas ever would. She could tell that the way he was raised had shaped who he’d become. He didn’t seem inclined to blame his upbringing for his self-absorbed attitude as an adult, and Becca wasn’t interested in giving him a pass for it, either. But that didn’t mean it hadn’t affected him. She would be the first to admit that her family had a huge influence on how she saw the world. How she saw herself.

His tone when he’d briefly talked about his parents had been flat, uncaring, but Becca couldn’t bring herself to be emotionless. She stared down at the picture of his parents that she’d picked up. It was shaking. No, those were her hands. Rage was flooding through her. Her anger felt like an almost physical entity as it poured itself into the ball of power in her chest, feeding her magic with an unstable power. For the first time the anger wasn’t directed at Nicholas.

The thought of Nicholas here in pain and starving to death while his parents were living a mile away…a mile! That was like a leisurely stroll up a few blocks. Becca couldn’t comprehend it. What if she hadn’t come back? Would his parents have ever even known, or cared, what happened to him?

She tightened her fingers on the metal frame, trying to stop the shaking. “I wouldn’t have cared either,” she whispered to herself. “I need to get a grip.”

She set the photograph back against the wall with the others. Becca closed her eyes and concentrated on wrestling the magic back under control. The desire to defend Nicholas, to march over to his parents house and read them the riot act, had left her breathless and disoriented.

Eventually she felt in control enough to return to the pictures and choose three. There was a nice one of his grandmother by herself, and one of Elise with Nicholas when he was young, about ten or so. He stared out of the photo with the most serious eyes she’d ever seen on a child that age. His grandmother wasn’t looking at the camera but down at the top of his head, her lips curved into a loving smile.

The last picture was of Nicholas at a graduation—probably college, because he looked just like she remembered him, from when she started at the museum, except happier. He grinned down at his grandmother as she looked up into his face with pride. Becca could see why Elise had both pictures framed. Becca ran her finger across the photo, tracing the lines framing Nicholas’s smile. They weren’t quite dimples, just deep grooves etching his happiness onto his face.

She didn’t think she’d ever seen him smile like that. The thought made her sad. And a little bit upset with herself at the same time. She’d been sure she had Nicholas pegged.

Maybe I did, at least the part of him he let us all see.

Those smile lines told the story of a different person. She didn’t know what was more frustrating—that he’d never let anyone see that other person, or that she’d never looked.

She brought the pictures inside, putting the one of Elise by herself on the counter in the kitchen where she knew he would see it when he finally came out of his rooms. The one of him as a child with his grandmother she placed on an end table in the media room.

She wasn’t sure what to do with the final picture. She clenched her fingers against the frame as she stared down at it. It seemed wrong somehow to put it in the mirror room, even though she knew he liked to sit at night and look out the large windows. A picture that showed him that happy shouldn’t be put next to the magic twisting him into what he was now.

In the end she put it on the night table in her room.

~

Her magic alerted her to his presence again, jolting her out of the dream. It was the same as it had been the night before—the golden claws, the wild animal eyes. She stared up at her dark ceiling wondering if maybe sleeping this close the mirror room was a spectacularly stupid idea.

She untangled herself from the blankets and pulled on her sweatshirt, lifting the hood up to cover her ears. It seemed colder at night, even though the temperature in the house stayed the same. She slipped her feet into her sneakers as she glanced at the picture of Nicholas and his grandmother on the bedside table. She’d left the blinds open and enough light was coming through the window that she could see his smile. She touched the top of the frame and then walked across the hall to where she knew he’d be waiting.

“Hey,” she said softly as she came into the room. She thought about staying against the far wall like she had the night before. At the last minute, she marshaled her courage and joined him in front of the windows, sitting on the floor with her knees drawn into her chest. Even from about a foot away she could feel the heat coming off his body.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, staring out at the city lights.

“Thank you for bringing in the pictures of my grandmother.” His voice was soft.

“You’re welcome.”

“I took them out when I first got here. I was upset. I hadn’t been here since she died and I wasn’t thinking straight.”

Becca rested her chin on her knees. “You can tell she really loved you.”

“Yeah.”

Neither of them said anything about the other pictures in the garage.

Becca watched as a breeze ruffled the branches of the trees at the edge of the property. It was very late, or really very early. Soon the sky above them would lose its black orange glow and become blue-grey with the coming dawn.