EVEYLN
“He’s in the dining room, ma’am,” the butler said to me as the maids took my coat off.
Once upon a time, I used to know all the butlers and maids within this home by name. However, death had taught me many lessons throughout my life. The first was to only remember those who only truly mattered. If not, you’d learn that the heart could break infinitely. And the second lesson came almost immediately after…heartbreak happened on different levels and all caused various scars, some so great they never healed. You just learned to manage the pain.
“Nana!”
Turning back, I saw nothing but a blur of dark brown hair before she was clinging to me. Smiling, I hugged her back, placing my hand on her head.
“The princess is back in the castle.”
“Finally, someone who misses me.” She laughed, pulling back, standing eye level with me. Apparently, our heel height was the same today too. Despite the smile on her face, I could see a twig of familiar sadness in her green eyes.
“How was Wyatt?”
“Long story.” She shook her head. “How has it been with the great one?”
“Long story,” I repeated, nodding my head. “Now come on, I’m sure he’ll want to yell at me before dinner.”
“What now?” She groaned, walking with me toward the dining room.
There, all the way at end of the white clothed table, sat Ethan, cutting into his steak, while the butler poured wine into his glass.
“You’re both late,” he stated, his voice almost as emotionless as his green eyes, a trait both he and Donatella had inherited from their father.
“Here we go,” Donatella muttered to herself, walking me to my chair on the left of him. When she kissed my cheek and moved to take her seat at the right side of him, he paused, the marinated beef still on his fork, only an inch from his lips.
“How is Wyatt?”
“Do you care or are you asking just to remind me that I broke your law?”
He pretended to think for a moment. “Both.”
Sighing, I lifted my glass for wine because I sure as hell was not getting through this dinner without alcohol.
“I don’t know, Ethan. Why don’t you call and ask? His number hasn’t changed and you still have it in your phone.”
“So he’s coming back to beg forgiveness then?” He went on, obviously missing her point. Actually no, purposely missing her point. “Because that is the only way he’ll ever get a call from me.”
“Funny, he said the same.” She just had to go stoking the flames.
“Dona.” Before either of them went down this path, I intervened. “Did you hear your brother is getting married?”
Her eyes widened and her face relaxed as she turned to Ethan. “You’re what?”
“Speaking of that, I asked you to go see her, not our damn lawyer. I could have called the damn lawyer.”
“You. Want me. To go to prison to talk to her?” I said slowly, just to make sure I wasn’t killing a child who had lost his mind.
“It is important.”
“Then go your damn self—”
“WAIT!” Dona hollered, glaring at both of us. “Prison? Marriage? What the fuck are we talking about? Why the fuck do I not know? And how fucking dare you let me find out like this?”
“I’m the one getting married. How does that involve you?” Ethan asked her, and I didn’t know if I should cry or scream at his idiocy.
“Ho—how?” She gasped as the server brought out our food. However, in her rage she grabbed the glass and threw it, nearly hitting Ethan in the face, but he didn’t even flinch, letting it shatter on the wall. “GET OUT!”
They ran so fast they almost dropped the food. Pity. I was actually hoping to eat sometime tonight.
Ethan sighed. “Dona—”
“I have a twin brother who hates being a part of this family so much he ran off to Boston to become a doctor. You and your infinite wisdom told me not to worry because he’d be back. Five years later and he’s still not back, Ethan. So whenever I’m feeling a little down, I have to fly my ass to Boston, just so he could tell me he’s busy and only meet up for coffee. I shared a womb with him for eight months and the bedroom for almost twelve years, and now I get twenty minutes over a shitty cup of coffee. You know why it’s shitty? Because I don’t drink COFFEE!” she hollered, snatching the bottle of wine the waiter left on the table and filling her glass. “I do, however, drink wine. Thank God, because if not, I’d actual want to kill you, big brother. You’re getting married? You? The same person who does not allow anyone to touch his skin? Really? How is that going to work—”
“Sex is always an exception—”
Oh God. I didn’t want to hear that.
“That is not the point!” she screamed. “You…goddamn it, Ethan. You are so busy scheming and moving everyone around like they are damn chess pieces you forget we are fucking human beings! I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone—”
“I’m not.”
“He’s not.”
Both Ethan and I said at the same time.
Rising to her feet and grabbing her glass, she marched toward the door, saying before leaving, “Did you ever think this kinda sucks for me, Ethan? That just because I know you’re supposed to be a grown up and get married, and prove to everyone you can be everything Father was, doesn’t mean I’m happy about it? That giving up my chair to some random woman, whom you’ll have to put above me, sucks? That knowing everyone but me gets to stay a Callahan sucks?”
She looked over her shoulder at him, and Ethan, to his credit, looked back at her for a moment, frowning before reaching for his glass.
“I guess not,” she said, leaving.
“Good night.” He had the balls to say.
And I shook my head at him, Ethan the iron heart. “You could at least pretend to com—”
“Comfort her?” He snickered at that. “Nana, in this family Dona is the last person who needs comforting. She isn’t pissed that I didn’t tell her. She does not care. She’s pissed because she is now confronted with the fact that she, as she said, doesn’t get to be the queen Callahan. Everyone thinks because she smiles and laughs and acts so sweet that she’s actually the best of us three. But the truth of the matter is she is the child of Liam and Melody Callahan, which means like all of us she is calculating, cold, and ruthless. It’s the reason why Wyatt left. He couldn’t handle being second all the time and so he’s gone off to play hero. Dona…she’d kill for this seat, to be where I am. I didn’t tell her because I was saving her the pain of waking the fuck up and realizing no matter how much I care about her, she will never control me. Now, do you want beef or chicken?”
“Chicken,” I answered and reached for the bell, ringing it before placing it down.
“Good choice,” he said and repeated it for one of the servers.
“Right away, sir.”
When he reached for his fork and knife again I just sat in silence. I wasn’t surprised. In all honesty, I was tired. Tired of all of them. But I had a promise to keep…and this was the fastest way to do it.
“Ivy O’Davoren. I’ll go see her in the morning.” I reached for my napkin, unfolding it and placing it on my lap.
He nodded. “Expect her to be hostile.”
“Why?”
“She hates this family.”
He’s a masochist.
“And why is that?” I grabbed my drink.
Again he thought for a moment, sticking a piece of steak between his lips. “She believes we killed her whole family.”
“Did we?”
He smiled and when he did you could see how handsome he truly was. Tall, toned, ivory skinned, with the deepest green eyes, like his father, and dark brown hair that was almost too perfect and yet suited him nicely. Women fell at his feet and most of the time he’d just walk over them as if he hadn’t noticed. The colder he was, the more they loved him…but when he smiled, he looked so…innocent and sweet.
“What?” he asked me.
“Nothing.” I leaned back, making room for the server to put the plate down. “I was just thinking how handsome you look when you smile.”
“I know, that’s why I try to contain it,” he joked and it was that…that twig of humor that always reminded me he had a heart, he just kept in locked under ten feet of steel in the middle of the desert.
“This woman better be worth it.” For his plan…and for his heart. Arranged, a pawn, whatever, she had one hell of a life ahead of her. “And you still haven’t told me how you plan on getting her to not hate us.”
“By telling the truth and lying.”
I thought back to his father and for the first time since…since losing him…I wanted to smack him for leaving me with this mess.