Keep Me (Sinful Manor #1)

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

After the wedding, everyone comes back to the house. Once it’s filled with guests and food and music, it feels like a different place.

I’m a feather in a hurricane, blown frivolously from one end to the other, never landing. Killian is rarely by my side, and for that, I’m grateful. Most of the day is spent being introduced to relatives and friends by Anna. They ask about my family, how I met Killian, how I like Scotland, how many babies I want to have.

Every time I get my hands on a glass of wine, I gulp it down as fast as I can, as if it will soften the blow of this god-awful, miserable day.

There are moments when families laugh together that make the absence of mine feel debilitating. Then there are moments when they are obnoxious and overbearing that make me grateful mine are not here.

It’s nearly two hours after the start of the party, and I manage to slip out the back door of the house and onto the stone veranda. Once there, I scurry down the stairs to escape the eyes of anyone at the party.

I desperately need a break.

But as soon as I reach the gravel pathway below, I nearly run headfirst into the last man on earth I want to see—my husband.

“Oy,” he says with a groan when he spots me interrupting his escape. His large hands engulf my arms. “Watch where you’re going, wench.”

“Let me go, Killian,” I argue.

He releases my arms, and I step away from him, fixing my dress.

“What are you doing out here?” he asks. I pick up the scent of something smoky on his clothes.

“Getting some air,” I reply, turning my back on him. “What are you doing out here? That’s your family.”

“Aye, but they don’t like me much. That’s the whole reason you’re here. Make them like you, and then they’ll like me.” He reaches into the small leather pouch tied around his waist and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. I screw up my nose and turn away from him, wrapping my arms around myself to keep warm in the cool fall air.

“Disgusting habit,” I mutter quietly as he lights up.

“Thanks for letting me know,” he replies. “Since your opinion does matter so much to me.”

I scoff, spinning back to face him. “How do you expect your family to like me when you clearly despise me so much?”

“Och, you’ll fit right in,” he replies with a sarcastic chuckle. “You’re selfish and entitled, just like them.”

“You are literally the rudest and most entitled person I have ever met!” I shriek.

“Well, when your family conspires against you to take your house, how kind and gracious would you be? What’s your excuse?”

“Ugh!” I stomp away from him, not getting far before my retort comes flying to the forefront of my mind, so I turn back his way. “You do realize that all you need to do to get your family off your back is take care of yourself, get your life together, and be a responsible adult? You don’t need me here at all.”

He chuckles around his cigarette, and I quickly look away from that siren song of a smile. “It’s my fucking life. I can live it however I want. They have no rights to my house or my privacy. But don’t worry. You won’t be here long, darling. I predict you won’t make it a month before you’re boarding a plane back to America.”

I take a slow step toward him. “Technically, it’s your family’s house, Killian. It’s not wrong of them to want to preserve it before you burn it to the ground. And second, I will make it the year because as much as I hope your family does get that house from you, I want the money they’re offering me more.” By the time I finish, we’re practically toe-to-toe, but I have to crane my neck to see his face.

We’re in the middle of a stare-off when I hear a set of footsteps on the veranda. I don’t pull away before Lachy spots us standing so close together.

“Uh-oh. What am I interrupting?” he asks with a charming smile.

“Nothing,” Killian mutters as he finishes his cigarette and stubs it into the ground with his shoe. Then he storms back up the stairs without another word, and I’m left alone with his younger brother.

“Don’t mind him,” Lachy says with a crooked smile. There are deep dimples on both sides of his cheeks, and I never truly understood the power of good dimples until he aimed that beaming grin in my direction.

“Oh, I don’t,” I reply, looking off into the distance. It’s nearly dusk. The sun has set, but there’s just enough light left in the sky to give the world a sepia filter. Light without the sun is eerie, like we are caught in between two days.

And maybe that’s what my life is right now. A mystic dusk. Not quite day and not yet night; just stuck in the middle. A yearlong dusk.

Once this whole thing is over, I’ll be free. No longer living in my parents’ shadows. I won’t need them anymore, and it’ll finally give me the peace to just be happy.

“Everything all right?”

I’ve nearly forgotten Lachy was standing there when he interrupts me from my thoughts. I tear my gaze away from the misty glen in the distance and turn my attention to him.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I lie.

He scrutinizes me for a moment before he speaks. “Listen, I know this whole thing is just…a farce. But you’ll be around, part of the family, for the next twelve months. And I know you have your own reasons for doing it, but I just want you to know that you’re really helping him more than you think.”

“Helping him?” I ask, astounded.

“Yeah. It sounds strange, and I’m sure you think we’re terrible for lying to him, but there’s so much you don’t know about Killian. He needs this.”

I kick some gravel with the toe of my shoe. “It’s a bit elaborate if you ask me.”

Lachy laughs. “I know. But when I tell you we’ve tried everything, I mean it.”

“Is it really that big of a deal to you that he moves out?”

Lachy’s face falls. “It’s not about the house. Not to us. If Anna made it sound that way, it’s because Anna is pragmatic.”

I raise a brow as I take a step toward him. “Then, what’s it about?” I whisper.

Lachy clenches his jaw, and his eyes dart out to the horizon. He looks a little uncomfortable with the question. “Anna really hasn’t told you much, has she? I mean about Killian.”

I shake my head.

“The truth is…” he mumbles quietly. “We don’t think Killian has left the house in nearly ten years.”

My jaw drops. Suddenly, I’m replaying every interaction I’ve had with him. The argument over the wedding being at the house instead of the church.

“Why wouldn’t Anna tell me that?” I say, staring straight ahead, unfocused and in shock.

He shrugs in return. “Don’t be mad at her for that. Like I said, she just…thinks in black and white. To her, getting the house away from Killian is the same as getting Killian out of his grief.”

“From your parents’ deaths?”

He gives a noncommittal shrug. “In a way, yes.”

“In a way?”

Lachy laughs uncomfortably. “This conversation is too heavy for a wedding.”

“I deserve to know these things. I’m about to be stuck in a house with this guy, and I don’t even know him,” I argue, stepping closer to Lachy.

He puts up his hands in surrender. “Hey, I don’t want to overstep, but I can assure you that you’re safe with Killian. He might act like a brute, but he’s not really one.”

I take a step back and shake my head. “Anna told me we’re supposed to make a public appearance next month. How does she expect any of that to happen?”

Lachy heaves a sigh. “Wishful thinking,” he replies with a tight smile.

It suddenly feels like I’m going to have to work harder than I thought for that ten million.

“Ugh.” I let out a groan, suddenly remembering our argument the other day when I ridiculed him for being able to go wherever he wanted without a driver while I was stuck here. I feel like an idiot. “Everything makes so much sense now,” I mutter quietly to myself.

Not having a car for myself must be Anna’s way of ensuring that I don’t abandon him here. Maybe she’s hoping that Killian and I can go places together or that having me with him will give him the strength to leave the house.

“Listen…” Lachy says carefully. “I don’t want to tell you Killian’s business, and I think there’s a lot that Anna is hoping he’ll tell you himself. But I do want you to understand that my brother is a good man. He’s just…been through a lot. He’s hurting, and there’s nothing any of us can do to help anymore. But I think having you around might.”

“He hates me,” I reply without turning toward him.

“Killian hates everybody,” he laughs. “But I don’t think he really hates anyone, ye know?”

I let my eyes drift closed, and I force a few deep breaths into my lungs. Because I know exactly what Lachy is trying to say. But I also know what it’s like to hate everyone. He’s just sweet and naive, so he might not understand what it’s like to be so filled with hate that it blooms like flowers in your bloodstream.

He might not think Killian truly hates anyone, but I think it is quite possible he does.

Because I do.

“I better get inside,” he says with a nervous laugh. His footsteps crunch in the gravel as he walks toward the stairs that lead to the veranda.

“I’ll be in in a minute,” I reply.

When Lachy is gone, I open my eyes.

And just like that, dusk is over.

Now it is night.