Angry God

Her reply came promptly.

Poppy: For God’s sake, don’t worry about us! Just go home.

Me: Pope and I did things. They meant nothing to either of us, but they still happened. I don’t want you to be blindsided.

Poppy: Buh-bye!

Upon arrival, I shoved the key in, pushed the door open, and locked it behind me. Sighing heavily, I shouldered out of my coat and hung it in the foyer, kicking my heels off once and for all.

“Argh, never doing the high-heel thing again,” I announced to the empty space.

After finding a glass of water, I went upstairs to my old childhood room, which barely reminded me of my younger years now. I identified that period of my life with Carlisle Castle more than anything else. I pushed the door open. As soon as I did, the glass slipped from my fingers, dropping noiselessly to the carpet.

A yelp escaped my throat.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” Vaughn said, perched on my bed, looking at me like nothing had happened at all.

Like he’d never left.

Like he hadn’t broken and entered into my house for the thousandth time.

Like there wasn’t a six hundred kilogram sculpture in the middle of my room—life-sized, gigantic, and absolutely gorgeous. I’d never seen anything like it. Violent shivers ran down my arms and back, and pure adrenaline dropped me to my knees as I tried to gulp a deep breath.

“It’s…”

“Us,” he said, standing from my bed and approaching me in measured, careful steps.

He looked good—healthy, tall, ripped, and still in his tattered black jeans and half-torn black shirt that couldn’t dim his brutally stunning features. He stopped in front of me, offering me his hand.

Tentatively, I took it.

I stood, stepped forward, and examined the statue.

It was the two of us, curled against each other as children, lying on a bed. We were twelve and thirteen and looked just the way we had the day I’d caught him and Harry. Only in the sculpture, he wasn’t standing above me, watching and threatening. Instead, we were entwined together, his face partly covered by my hair. I was breathing into his neck, my arms protectively circling his shoulders.

Everything had been realistically carved, to the point that it looked like a giant, living picture. I was sure if I put my fingers to our necks, I’d find a pulse. But when my gaze moved down to our stomachs, I noticed something weird. Our bottom parts were meshed together, mermaid-like, as if we were conjoined twins. We didn’t have legs. We couldn’t escape each other.

We were one.

The name of the sculpture was carved on its side:

Good Girl

Vaughn took me by the hand and walked me to my bed, where we slipped under my blanket, legs entwined, mimicking the statue—his face in my hair, my nose pressed against his neck. Home, I thought, and everything became clear.

That’s why Papa had taken Pope for an after-show drink. That’s why my sister had stayed behind. She had no interest at all in Rafferty. They wanted to give us our privacy.

Emilia knew, too. That’s why she didn’t tell me how Vaughn was doing.

It dawned on me that Vaughn and I had been ruthlessly patient with one another all those years. He’d waited for me to open up while I long-sufferingly watched as he crawled from behind the tall walls he’d built around himself.

“I started working on this statue before we were together. I started it before we’d even kissed. Before Jason. Before Arabella. Before everything, there was you,” he whispered into my hair. “You came before art. Before life. Definitely before hate.”

I shook with unrestrained tears. They were falling down my cheeks now, hot and furious and grateful. I pulled back reluctantly, catching his gaze.

“How could you think you are less than enough? How could you ever think that?” I asked, feeling my cheeks heating up with anger.

“I don’t think that anymore,” he said softly, caressing my hair. “Or if I am, I don’t care. I couldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t kill your uncle. I stood there with my weapon, and all I could think was what if he were right—if it was getting revenge or getting the girl…” He closed his magnificent blue eyes, taking a deep breath, opening them again. Determination zinged through them. “I’d rather have the girl.”

I hugged him to a point of suffocation, laugh-crying. When we disconnected again, I frowned. “So who did it?”

I still didn’t believe Uncle Harry had committed suicide.

Vaughn shrugged. “Perhaps another angry god.”

I nodded, catching his drift.

“Why did you leave if you hadn’t killed him? Where have you been all this time?” A pang of pain slashed through my heart. Those weeks apart felt like forever. They’d stretched longer than all the years I’d lived without him by my side.

“I stuck around, admiring you from afar—but never too far.” He took my chin between his thumb and index, bringing our lips together in a sweet, unhurried kiss. “Stayed at the cottage my parents rent downtown. I watched you walking into town with Rafferty, buying groceries, and hiking. I didn’t come close, because I knew that without me out of the way, you wouldn’t have your chance to display your work at Tate Modern. And frankly, you were far more deserving of this spot. I’ve been your shadow for so long, Lenora. I wanted you to bask in the sun a little.”