Snowbound with the Santas (Forbidden Fantasies)

34. Rayne

34

RAYNE

“ U ncle?” I rise from the bench and move toward the cell door. “What are you doing here?”

Should I be worried that Frankie and Archer will try to get to him through the bars? I get the impression that Archer’s anger is strong enough that there’s a real chance he might succeed. The revelation that Uncle Cecil is even linked to them still sends my mind into a spin. There’s a small bubble of guilt that comes with being associated with him. I briefly toy with the idea of how different this day could have gone if they hadn’t seen Cecil as soon as they stepped out of the truck.

“Rayne. Are you alright? Are you hurt?” Uncle Cecil regards me with the same cool indifference that he always does.

While he was a staple in my life growing up, the time I’ve just spent with Archer, Nick, and Frankie has taught me one thing. Presence doesn’t equal love. Just because he was there, doesn’t mean he cared. The same goes for my mother. These men have taught me and shown me what love and affection really are. My childhood seems extra cold now in comparison.

“No, I’m not hurt,” I reply. I have to fight the urge to look into the adjacent cell which has fallen deathly silent since Cecil’s arrival. “I’m fine.”

“Good. Well, as I’m sure you’re aware, charges were to be raised against you?—”

“It wasn’t my fault!” I jump in, cutting him off. “I mean, it was because I was driving and I accept that. I own that, but you have to understand, I was drugged. I had been off alcohol for a while, but Ashton…” My voice trembles slightly, and I curl my hands into fists at my sides. “He abused me. For years. And I put up with it because he was showing me more attention than you or Mom ever did. And I was scared. And that night, he spiked my drinks and then he kept giving me alcohol so I was past the point of saying no. I have no idea how much I drank. And then he forced me to drive. So yes, I was the one driving, but you have to believe that I had no idea what I was doing. I was so out of it, so under his control. He’s guilty. I don’t know how, but you have to make sure?—”

“Rayne,” Cecil snaps, interrupting me in turn. He holds up one thin hand and silences me. “Because of my job, I will be making sure that you will not serve jail time.”

My heart stops in my chest like a punch, and when it restarts, there’s an acidic taste coating the back of my tongue. “What?”

“I said, I will make sure you won’t see jail?—”

“I heard that part. I mean, how the hell are you able to pull that off?” I grip the bars in front of me. “When Mom was faced with that DUI, you couldn’t help her. You insisted, actually, because you said you could only help family and she was so pissed at you.”

“Well, the people who died in that accident don’t have any living relatives so there is no one with an emotional connection to push for a harsher punishment. At most, you’ll see some community service, but that’s merely a formality more than anything else,” Cecil replies as he adjusts his tie. “Just something to put down on the paper.”

“But that doesn’t answer my question,” I insist, and a hollow sensation opens up inside me. “How did you do this? Don’t tell me it’s because you’re sleeping with my mom because I kind of hate you for that, but it doesn’t make us family.”

Someone chokes slightly in the other cell.

“Because…” Cecil awkwardly clears his throat, and when he looks at me, he can barely hold eye contact. “Because we are family.”

“Oh, having wealth doesn’t make us related,” I snap. “You’re just throwing money at the problem, aren’t you? That’s all you and Mom ever do. Something goes wrong, just throw money around until something sticks!”

“No, Rayne. I mean it. We are family.”

An ice-cold chill crawls down my spine. “What?”

“What you… witnessed between me and your mother. That wasn’t the first time. Not by a long shot.”

I step away from the bars on shaking legs. “You’re not saying what I think you’re saying…”

“Yes. I am your father. You are my blood, so what protects me also protects you.”

Something pops softly in my mind and a sudden roaring fills my ears. I step back further and for a moment, I think I might fall. Somehow, I remain standing, and I press one hand to my abdomen to stop the hollowness inside me from spilling out.

“I don’t… I don’t understand.”

“Years ago, your mother and I slept?—

“I get that part!” I snap hoarsely. “All these years…”

“I simply could not raise a child with my job, Rayne. You have to understand I hold a very important position and I did not have the time to raise a child. Your mother was very understanding.”

“She knew?”

“Of course she did.”

“But… but all this time, all those years, she told me my dad was some deadbeat who wanted nothing to do with me,” I gasp.

“She wasn’t wrong,” Nick mutters from his cell.

Cecil shoots a sharp look toward Nick, then faces me. “You have to understand?—”

“No,” I snap, cutting him off and lifting my gaze. Tears swim in my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. “You were around. Not always, sure, but you were around enough that I called you Uncle , yet you stand there and tell me you didn’t have time to be a father because of your job, and my mother knew?”

The emptiness inside me suddenly floods with anger and in a second, my entire perspective changes. How have I spent my entire life under the thumb of these people? Worrying about what they think, trying to make them happy, trying to understand that I’m the odd one out that everyone is ashamed of. It should be them . They should be ashamed. They should be the ones trying to earn my approval.

“It was the best choice at the time,” Cecil says firmly.

“And now? What about my entire twenty-six years on this fucking earth? You didn’t see a good time to tell me you were my father?” Surging forward, I slam my hands against the bars. “You’re pathetic. I can’t believe I used to feel bad for you and how lonely you seemed. It was your own doing. So don’t think for a second that just because you’re finally helping me out for once in your miserable life, that you will ever have the right to call me daughter!”

“I am under no illusions,” Cecil replies. “I am doing this for your mother.”

I roll my eyes so hard that it’s almost painful. “Of course. We don’t want to upset her , do we?”

I stalk away from the bars and wrap my arms around myself. There’s a terrible chill running up and down my arms, turning my skin to gooseflesh. Cecil’s shoes clack on the floor, and when I look back, he’s standing in front of the other cell facing down my men.

“Archer. Frankie. And you, I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Nick,” he says stiffly. “What a displeasure.”

“Ah.” Cecil appears mostly unfazed. A talent from his work, I’m sure. “Archer. You may not believe me, but I am still as sorry as I ever was for how things went down during that operation.”

Archer remains in the corner with his arms folded so tightly that his muscles bulge. His face is as dark as a shadow, making his fury clear.

“I cannot bring those men back. Nor, I suppose, can I make up for everything that went wrong that day. I cannot change the past or what it made me do, but I can do my best now to make sure my presence in things works to aid you.”

“We don’t need your help,” Frankie snaps. “We never need anything from you.”

Cecil’s thin lips twitch into a faint smile. “Be that as it may, I won’t be pressing assault charges. I’ll be clearing everything with the lodge so that when you are released, you are free to do as you please.”

Archer doesn’t speak. I suspect he doesn’t trust himself. Thankfully, Nick is there to do it for him.

“Thanks,” Nick replies, not sounding at all thankful. “That’s decent.”

“You—Nick, was it?”

“Yup.”

“I will arrange the same for you. I think young Ashton will be too caught up in other matters to think about pressing charges against you. You should all be released within the next few hours.”

Nick nods curtly, and Cecil takes his leave, moving back to the front of my own cell. Just the sight of him makes my stomach flip, and I have a terrible urge to claw at the walls for a way out. I need to be able to move around and breathe free air. I need to feel something, anything other than this trapped, confined feeling that’s crawling up my body.

“Rayne.”

“I have nothing more to say to you.” Not a word. Learning Uncle Cecil is my father is still unfathomable. I can’t decide what hurts more, that he only tells me now because he’s using his power to keep me out of prison or that my mom knew and never told me. All those years I was kept in the dark.

Maybe this is a good thing. Too often, I feel a pull back to my mother, to the family I feel like I owe with my presence. I got guilted far too easily into being here. Sure, if I hadn’t then I never would have met Frankie, Nick, and Archer. But never again.

This is my limit. These people aren’t my family. Not even a little.

I glance over at my men who are all watching me closely. Even Archer holds softness in his eyes when we look at each other, and my heart beats a little stronger.

“I understand. Emotions are high right now.”

“You’re kidding.” I snort. “Just tell me one thing.”

“Sure.”

“Why didn’t you want me? Why, at any point over these past years, did you never want to tell me, to reach out? Even when I became an adult and had my own life, you were always there , so why didn’t you tell me?”

Cecil straightens his stance. “Honestly?”

“If you’d be so kind .”

“I have no interest in being a father. Not then, not now. My initial relationship with your mother was an affair, so keeping things secret worked for both of us. After that, well… I had no desire to be strapped down to a child.”

“Strapped down ?” Nick bites out. “You’re a fucking piece of work, you know that?”

Cecil sends him a cool glance. “Not everyone is cut out for fatherhood. I understood my limits. Would you have preferred I did a half-assed job of parenting and gave Rayne someone to resent?”

“Because growing up thinking my father had abandoned me was so much easier?” I snap, drawing his attention back to me. “Although I suppose that wasn’t a lie, was it?”

Cecil raises one brow. “We can discuss this fully when you are out of here. Then we can go home and talk it through with your mother.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” I repeat. “I have absolutely no interest in anything you or she has to stay. I’m staying right here with the men I love. Because you know what? They care about me. And I care about them. And it’s the first time in my li f e that I’ve felt loved, and I like it, so I’m staying right here until they are released.”

Cecil wrinkles his nose slightly. “You… love them?”

“I do,” I say proudly, and then I glance at the three warm, awe-filled faces peering through the bars. “I love them. And this is where I belong.”