A Storm of Revelations, page 20
Alastair didn’t care about any of this, but Alastair was a man who lived by his own rules and of his own accord. He had no time for cloying mothers and denying oneself. After that first kiss, he’d made it absolutely clear that he wanted Julian, while also expressing that he’d never force him. I can be patient, he’d said, and only Alastair could make a regular old sentence sound erotic.
And oh, how Julian wanted him back! He both loved Alastair, and wished he’d go away and leave him alone. Both emotions stemmed from the same set of fears. Sometimes he’d pause in mid-laughter or some other fun thing they did together, and the voice of his mother would tear through the moment. You don’t even know this man, Julian. He could be a serial killer for all you know! And who are his parents? A man with any pedigree never hesitates in sharing it.
But while Alastair was a man who certainly benefitted from his wealth, he wasn’t one who seemed to care much for it. He wore it like an expensive coat when it suited him and discarded it to the floor when it did not.
Alastair was his most fervent supporter in his decision to return to school. He always asked him how his day went and what he learned. He put aside whatever he was doing to listen, giving Julian his full and rapt attention always. He was so curious and involved that Julian sometimes looked for something to say, even when he had nothing to share, just to see Alastair’s wide brown eyes watch him with authentic empathy.
The only time Alastair’s attentions were not so friendly was when the subject of Charlotte came up. And the topic only came up if Julian mentioned it, because Alastair had grown weary of the subject and let him know in the most dramatic ways.
Julian had tried to stop letting his obsessive thoughts take over his life. He really had. He’d gotten to a point where he could go a whole day without his thoughts devolving into rich conspiracy theories, and once he even went two days without thinking of Charlotte at all.
But then he’d run into Lawrence at Mr. B’s Bistro on Royal Street in the French Quarter.
He was late meeting Alastair when he spotted Lawrence and a group of businessmen entering the restaurant. Lawrence looked both entirely in his element and absolutely miserable.
“Hey! Lawrence!”
Lawrence didn’t hear him at first, his attentions swallowed up by the surrounding conversation. Julian followed him inside, and as he entered, Alastair waved to him from across the restaurant. Lawrence and Julian both spotted the wave at the same time, and Lawrence turned to see who it was directed at.
“Jack Dempsey?” he said, a touch distracted as he glanced back toward Alastair.
“Julian, actually,” Julian replied, sheepish. Now wasn’t the time to apologize for lying, even if Lawrence had known all along it wasn’t his real name. “Hey, you still talk to Charlotte?”
Lawrence looked again toward Alastair. When he faced Julian again, he wore a deep frown. “You know that guy?”
“Yeah, sort of,” Julian said. He mentally smacked himself. “I mean, yes, I do. We’re friends.”
“Friends,” Lawrence repeated.
“Do you know him?”
“I know him,” Lawrence said. “He tell you who he is?”
“Who he is?”
Alastair’s face shifted. He was no longer smiling as he marched across the restaurant toward Lawrence and Julian.
“We’re leaving,” Alastair said and tugged Julian’s arm so hard he winced in pain.
“I just got here! What about lunch?”
Lawrence shook his head. “Nice to see you, Armand.”
“Armand?” Julian’s head whipped between them as he was dragged out the door. “Who is Armand?”
“Who knows,” Alastair hissed and Julian watched helplessly as the swinging door of the restaurant pulled Lawrence Henry out of his sight, and life, once more.
* * *
“What’s wrong with you?” Julian demanded when they got to Canal Street. Alastair pounded on the signal changer, cursing as they waited for the light to change so they could cross. “He knows Charlotte! He might know something!”
“That man is a crook, and so is his father,” Alastair said.
“He called you Armand.”
Alastair snorted. “Archibald Henry stole millions from New Orleans, and you think he bothered to learn a single name properly, of the people he ruined? His son is no different.”
This didn’t sound like the Lawrence Charlotte had fallen for. Had risked her life for.
Julian watched the red and yellow Canal car amble by. He had an urge to jump on it and escape this situation. Escape. Where had that word come from? Why did it feel so real, so urgent?
Why didn’t he believe Alastair?
“I want to go back,” Julian said, looking toward the Quarter. “I want to ask him about Charlotte.”
“Will you fucking knock it off already about Charlotte!” Alastair screamed, so loud the midday drunkards stopped to stare. He dropped his eyes and started across the street. “Sorry, I’m a little tense when I don’t get lunch.”
Julian pointed behind them, skipping to keep up. “Well, there’s a perfectly good restaurant back there that we were going to eat at! And hundreds more. We only live in the best city for food and all.”
“We can eat at home.”
“My home or yours? Because I don’t even know where you live, come to think of it.”
“You wanna do this now, Julian?”
“Do what? I don’t even know what’s going on right now!”
“Better that way.”
“Why did he call you Armand?” Julian panted as he struggled to keep up with Alastair, who was walking fast enough to keep up with the St. Charles streetcar as it turned the corner.
“I told you, he’s a scammer.”
“No, you didn’t really tell me anything!” Julian’s mind swarmed with memories, large and small, over the past months. Alastair dancing across the living room to Neil Young. Alastair wiping crumbs from Julian’s mouth. Alastair ordering his meals in French. Alastair crying in his sleep. Alastair, Alastair, Alastair. Alastair who? What was his last name? Who was he? Why had it never mattered, until now?
Alastair came to an abrupt halt. He looked toward the sky, turned, and pulled Julian in for a hard kiss. “I love you, Julian. Please stop asking questions.”
Julian’s cheeks burned with tears, and he didn’t even know precisely why he was crying. “Why?”
“Do you care for me, too, Julian? Do you love me?”
Julian’s mouth flapped with words he couldn’t find. He nodded instead, licking the tears from his lips.
Alastair wrapped his palms around Julian’s cheeks. “Then, please, for your sake, for my sake, don’t ask another question. Forget the past. There isn’t one, for us, not if there’s to be a future.”
The streetcar driver asked if they were coming or not, and Alastair jogged up the steps and deposited enough change for them both. He didn’t turn around to check for Julian.
And why would he?
In Alastair’s mind, there was only one answer.
Of course, Julian would come.
Julian always did as told. He always had.
He watched the doors close. Alastair’s shocked face regarded him from an open window near the middle of the packed car. Alastair’s eyes darkened. Something shifted in him, between them.
Julian looked away. He choked on the sob rising in his chest and stumbled back toward the Quarter, to Mr. B’s Bistro, where inevitably at least some answers awaited him. If not answers, then an elimination of options that would lead him closer to the truth.
But Lawrence was gone. His colleagues sat at a table in the corner with their appetizers, an empty chair signaling where their last member should be sitting.
Lawrence, like Alastair, had his secrets.
Lauren
Lauren didn’t know how to work with Ashley after his declaration about taking a break, and this was an uncomfortable position for Lauren, who felt she could work with everyone. Especially after conquering the Sullivan egos at their own firm.
She equally didn’t know what to do with the puppy eyes he trained on her when he thought she wasn’t looking. He probably wasn’t even aware of it. She definitely was, and it killed her focus. But she couldn’t be angry with him, no matter how maddening it was. Any man who’d lost what he’d lost had a free pass for life, though it didn’t make it any easier on her.
She was researching hotels for their Ecuador team when he set his pen down. It was loud enough to get both their attention, and the change in the room’s atmosphere was a sign he was getting ready to say something serious.
“I know I said I wanted space, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk.”
Lauren hit the key command on her laptop to bookmark the hotel she was looking at, and then closed the lid. “I know, but I honestly don’t know what to say. It’s hard to be around you right now.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, with a forlorn look at his pen.
“I also have a lot on my mind. Cassidy’s dragging me into this custody battle, and while she’ll never win going up against the Deschanels and Sullivans, it won’t stop her from trying to ruin my reputation in the meantime.”
“She’s unbelievable. You know we can stop her.”
“Permanently?”
Ashley watched her with a serious look, unable to decide whether she was serious. “Maybe not that.”
Lauren laughed. “Cassidy would harass me from the afterlife. I can’t escape her.”
“She doesn’t always have to win.”
“And she doesn’t,” Lauren said. “But losing brings out the worst in her. I think she knows she can’t win this one, and so she is going to go down clawing and scraping, taking everyone and everything she can in her path. Namely me.”
“I’ll talk to Uncle Augustus. He’ll fix this.”
“How is he going to fix this, exactly?”
Ashley explained that Augustus was the family fixer, due to his unique Deschanel ability being the power of influence. With one look, he could make Cassidy abandon the whole endeavor. Lauren was aghast.
“I know I shouldn’t ever be surprised around your family anymore, but, wow… what a power. How does he resist the urge to use it for, well, anything? The possibilities are endless.”
“Have you met Augustus? He’s one of the only Deschanels who wishes he wasn’t. He built his entire media empire without once using the ability. As far as I know, he’s never used it for his own gain. Only to help us when it’s gone too far for us to help ourselves. He helped me once.”
“How?”
“After everything with my family, I… well, you might remember that my storm creating isn’t something I do intentionally. It happens when I’m really upset, and I usually can’t control it. I caused a lot of damage in the CBD, and let’s just say he smoothed that over before it became a legal issue.”
“Holy crap.”
“And then made an anonymous donation for the rebuilding.”
“I don’t want to ask him for help. Especially if he’s reluctant to use it for his own family.”
Ashley waved his hand. “Let me talk to him. I’ll get a feel for whether he’d be up for it and let you know. Augustus is a good guy. He’s good to a fault. But he wouldn’t want you to suffer needlessly, and your nieces are Deschanels as much as they are Weatherlys. We protect our own.”
Lauren regretted bringing up the subject of Cassidy and Cameron. The Deschanels were already helping Cameron, and she wasn’t going to use them to solve what was undoubtedly far more petty than the futures of Cameron’s daughters. The Deschanels were always quick to ride forth on their white steed, but in Lauren’s world, there was no such thing as truly good guys. She’d rejected her father’s offers to put her through college because she knew what the strings were… knew he could use this to force her into the family business, instead of her own path. The Deschanels might ask for nothing, but they also might, one day, and she didn’t want to find herself in a position where she owed them anything.
This would all pass. Cassidy’s venom, Cameron’s endless calls that went straight to her voice mail, and stayed there, untouched. Her fears for Charlotte’s future and the jarring stillness that followed the rapid escalation of events both in Paris and New Orleans. Her confusing relationship with Nicolas, and her maddening one with Ashley. Lauren didn’t indulge in burying her head in the sand, or pretending problems weren’t problems, but she knew they’d all pass, as all problems did.
Not for the first time, she wondered if she’d been foolish to sign her time over to helping the Deschanels, instead of focusing on her own hard-earned clients at the firm.
“You got quiet,” Ashley said, sounding quiet himself.
“Like I said, a lot on my mind.”
“I’m not trying to be unfair to you, even though it might seem that way.”
Lauren swallowed. “I know.”
Ashley’s movements were harried and uneven as he first pushed his pen and paper away and then slid, awkwardly, closer. He tangled one hand in the hair resting against her temple and kissed her. The softness of his mouth melted the edges of her anxiety. He was so pretty, so kind and pure. Even in his desperate attempt to protect himself from heartache, he worried more about her own.
“What I feel for you is real, Lauren. But everything real to me has been taken away.”
She wrapped her hand over his, lacing their fingers. “I know.”
“Not just my wife and kids. My brother. Cousins, aunts, uncles. It’s dangerous to love when you’re a Deschanel. And I know how that sounds. It sounds like something I’d roll my eyes at if someone else said it, but it’s proven to be true, time and time again. Every time it seems like happiness isn’t just an idea, something else happens. My mother even made the bold declaration several months back that the worst was behind us, and she’s never said that, no matter how tempting. She knows better than to invite fate. We thought the worst of our enemies were behind us, and then the LaViolettes show up. Instead of asking ‘where does this end,’ now I just ask ‘how long can we enjoy the peace?’ I find myself bargaining with God, or whoever is listening.”
He wanted her to say that what they had was different. Even as he worked to convince her that this was the way of things for Deschanels, he wanted her to prove him wrong. He wanted her to say she would never leave, or never hurt him. But those were promises that begged to be broken. Words that never led anywhere but despair, because no one could promise either of those things without knowing the precise nature of the future. She wasn’t a seer, and neither was Ashley. She knew how she felt right now, and she could predict how she might feel in a year, or ten, but that was not the same as knowing.
“I want to tell you that no one can live their life with that kind of fear, but few have lived a life like yours,” she said. “I suspect you want me to tell you that you’re wrong, though.”
Ashley shook his head. “No. And that’s something I like about you, Lauren. You don’t try to change someone else’s truths. This is mine. And if you said to me, I’ll never hurt you, I’d be more afraid of it happening, because how can we ever know such a thing? Being sure of who we are is not the same as being sure of who we will be. I’m not the man I was a year ago, and I’d guess you’re not the same woman as you were a year ago, either.”
“No.”
“I’m not playing games,” Ashley said. “I don’t play games. I don’t even know how. I’ve only ever dated three women in my life, and I married one of them, and the other is sitting across from me. I just want to be real with you.”
“I know,” Lauren said. She wished she could find more eloquent responses to his gradual reveal of his heart. But there wasn’t anything to be said. She understood everything he was saying, and had no rebuttal, other than to say yes, I hear you. You’re right, and there’s nothing either of us can do about it. “I don’t know where to go from here.”
Ashley dropped his gaze. “I don’t, either. Maybe we… I don’t know, take a few days off from work, or we can work from our own places for the time being, until it feels less weird. I can take Morocco, you take Hungary, or vice versa, if you prefer. We’re still waiting on a team for Ecuador, so we’re in a holding pattern right now, anyway.”
Lauren checked the clock on the wall behind him. “Sure, if you want. That’s fine.” She kissed his head as she stood.
He asked her where she was going, and she told him about the dinner date with the client.
“You don’t look too excited about it,” he said, and she read the worry in his face.
“This has never been the part of the job I love. Give me case law any day.” She searched for her purse.
“Call me,” Ashley said, and when she turned to give him a confused look, he added, “Tonight, I mean. If you need a bailout.”
Lauren smiled, nodded, and left before the emotional impact of the afternoon became too deeply rooted.
Charlotte
Charlotte had a closet full of gowns she’d worn over the years, to the various events her parents dragged her to, and later, events she’d been invited to of her own accord when she started her work with the ACLU. Sophie insisted a lady never wore the same gown twice, and Charlotte thought that was silly, but never minded new things. She loved the feel of new, unwashed fabric brushing against her skin. Of a dress that had lost none of its resilience or shape. Sophie had always bought her jewel tones, which she said highlighted Charlotte’s subtle glow in her pale skin.
She’d been raised to amplify her beauty, as if that were her most essential contribution to any room she entered. When she grew older and had been allowed to pick her own dresses, she’d rebelled in small, but petty ways, showing up in pastel pink instead of garnet red. Where Annette fell in line like the dutiful debutante, Charlotte couldn’t wait to break free of the restrictions of her sex. When she’d been accepted to Yale law, Sophie smiled and was outwardly proud of her, but Charlotte saw in her eyes the disappointment that she’d chosen a man’s job. More than once, Sophie had said to her, Few are blessed with your beauty. It’s your responsibility to use it.
