Chapter Seventeen
Harper
That stuns me silent.
Vincent eats a few more bites. In silence.
All I see in my mind’s eye is James straddling my hips in the hallway as he positions his dick over my face.
Your self-respect.
“Fuck. I’m sorry. Again.” Vincent reaches across the table and puts his hand on mine. “Are you OK?”
I nod. Smile. Nod again with a bigger smile. “Fine. It’s just…” I need to change the subject. Like now. “I’m not sure what’s going on here. Is there some sort of… contract?”
All my life my father has used that word. The contract needs to be fulfilled. The contract needs to be negotiated. The contract has been violated.
Violated. I have only ever heard that mentioned once and it was the day Nick left. Right before we turned eighteen.
Vincent squints his eyes at me. As if he’s suspicious. And that immediately makes me suspicious. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, you say you’re my promise. Aren’t there contracts in place for promises?”
“Harper,” he says in a tone that comes off as admonishing. “Promising girls to men on their eighteenth birthdays isn’t even legal. Why would we need a contract that can’t be upheld?”
I can think of a dozen reasons right off the top of my head. But the most obvious is to hold it over someone when they screw up. See, one might say, I have your daughter promised to blahedy-blah. That was a nice match, hmm? But if you don’t fulfill your end of the deal, she gets a fifty-year-old pervert from this pile of filth here.
“I dunno,” I say instead. It’s obvious there are things going on with this little… arrangement… that no one is going to tell me. I mean, come on. Vincent is identical to my dream guy, only he’s not insane and he’s not a killer. He’s filthy rich, he’s got some sort of sway in the Company, and if I’m his wife, I go from little girl to powerful woman in one breath.
It’s like…
Wow.
His fingers stroke the underside of my wrist as he waits for me to finish, but the sudden tingle that runs through my body steals my words.
I look down at his touches and then look up at his brilliant green eyes. They are smiling. “Hmmm?”
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
“Why do you look so flushed?” he prods.
He must know why because he takes it one step further and picks up a strawberry from the small bowl of fruit on the side of my plate and touches it to my lips. I open them, unsure what choice I have, and take a bite.
The juice drips onto my lips and then he stands up and leans over the table and licks it off.
I blink up at him.
And then his hands are on my face and his tongue is on my mouth. His tongue is sweet from the champagne, and gentle as he teases me to see how far I’ll go.
I really don’t want to go far at all, but the trouble is, I don’t know how to say no. I have so little experience with men. James is the kind of guy who tells you want you need, even if you don’t want it. And I like to follow orders. I do it automatically.
Vincent must know this. He’s probably taking advantage of the fact that I’m so easily manipulated.
But as soon as that thought manifests, he pulls back. “What’s wrong?” he says, leaning a little farther in so he can breathe the words into my ear. “You don’t like it?”
I didn’t have a chance to wonder if I liked it. “I’m sorry, I just… I just don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing here.” I inhale deeply and his scent fills my nose. It’s something I’ve never smelled before. It makes my mind swirl.
He leans back and takes his seat again. “Eating,” he says simply. “I thought you might like a bite of fruit before we started with the main meal.”
I bite my lip a little. “It was the kiss, that’s all. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing when you kiss me.”
This makes him chuckle and I hate myself for thinking it’s a nice rumbling sound. I picture James making that same noise when I lie on his chest in bed. “You can kiss me back, Harper.”
I press my lips together and swallow.
“You can tell me no.”
I stare into Vincent’s eyes. The eyes that remind me of James. How do two men look so much alike? And how is it fair that I’m having trouble understanding why this man, who looks exactly like the man I love, is not him? Especially when I ache so badly for his comforting touch and bossing ways. I don’t like to be in control of things. I’m not good at it. I have panic attacks, and I don’t think straight. I’m a fighter because I was conditioned that way by my brother. But that’s just me on the outside. The girl on the inside is so very, very weak.
“I’m not very good at saying no.”
“That’s because you want to say yes, Harp.”
The nickname jolts me out of my little trance. He’s so familiar with me. “Did you watch me every year, like James did? Did you come for my birthdays and watch me from afar?”
“God.” Vincent laughs louder this time. “I can’t believe that freak did that shit. It’s so sick.”
“What?” I’m confused.
“Harper, he was stalking you all these years. Your father was paranoid that he’d just steal you away or kill you in your sleep.”
“What? That makes no sense. James loves me. My father sent him a plane ticket to wherever we were anchored for the party. He was just never allowed to see me in person.”
“Is that what he told you?” Vincent shakes his head. “No, baby, that’s not what was happening. James has been obsessed with you since that first year. He turned down the offer and I became your promise. James went on to become Six. He was captured in some shithole of a country that same year. They tortured him, scarred up his body real bad—”
“Wait.” I put up my hand. “He doesn’t have any scars. I’ve seen his body and it’s perfect.”
Vincent’s eyes narrow as he takes in the full meaning of my words. “Then you didn’t look close enough. He was treated with lasers after One rescued him, but they were not completely removed.” Vincent’s expression falters and he frowns for a moment. “You know, I loved him. I might’ve never known him since we were separated when we were two years old. But I knew of him and I loved him. I missed him too. I’m sorry he had that life and I had this one. I’d have given this all up to be his twin. I’d even have joined him. I would’ve been Six Point Five if we were allowed. You should understand that, Harper. How a twin feels about their sibling.”
And this I can relate to. I try and imagine my life without Nick. Nick, who protected me. Nick, who loved me unconditionally. Nick, who taught me to fight back and be strong. What kind of person would I be without Nick? “I’m sorry,” I say. “I bet that was hard.”
“It was. I don’t relish the fact that you’re mine and not his. I don’t have any jealousy of him. Why should I, Harper? Why should I be jealous of him? I look exactly like him. I have the same features. The same intelligence. The same natural abilities. But he’s so fucking damaged, you have no idea. He’s not safe to be around. He’s unstable in every sense of the word. He’s got no loyalties, Harper. Don’t mistake whatever you and he did together as meaningful. Because the Company has been watching him for more than a decade now. He takes women in every job. Befriends them. Fucks them blind. And then he kills everyone around them. And that’s exactly what he’s been doing with you.”
I can’t even breathe.
“He used you, Harper. He wanted that file you had to get even with your father for giving you to me. For making a mistake when he was sixteen that would change his life forever. He’s never forgiven them for not rescuing him quicker even though he knew, if you fuck up a job, the only answer you’ll get from the higher-ups is denial. He knew going in if he was captured he’d be left behind. And One risked his life to save him.”
“So why has he been around so long? Why not kill him off ages ago?”
“Because he’s efficient, Harper. You don’t just train up a guy like Tet. All twenty-eight years of his life made him what he is. A killing machine. The perfect fucking assassin.” Vincent leans over again, cupping my cheeks in his hands. “I need you to understand this, Harp. He’s not the person you think he is. He’s manipulative, calculating, and deadly. I can’t blame you for falling for it. World leaders have fallen for it—”
My mind stops listening as I remember back when James was tallying up his kills back in the desert. Destabilized entire governments, he’d said. Too many to count, he admitted. What he did in Mexico counts as genocide.
He said it all right there. He told me everything Vincent is telling me now, only I never saw it clearly.
“—so don’t think that you ever had a chance, Harper. Because you didn’t. He’s been planning this since that first year he went looking for you on your birthday.”
“Planning what?” I ask, desperate to know what’s really going on.
“To use you, Harper. He’s going to kill your entire family, and he’s gonna use you to do it.”