Til Debt Do Us Part (Married At Midnight #4)

Chapter 5

Five

Dare

A nother day, another horribly lavish party at the Morgan estate. I stand in the mansion's huge living room, leaning against the wall, and watch as one hundred people that I have never seen before, dressed in their absolute best suits and gowns, float around me. The guests are all smiling, pleased that they were able to wrangle an invitation to Remy Morgan's house. It’s all very gauche, in my opinion.

I throw back the last ounce of scotch that's in my tumbler and push myself off the wall. Beside me, my Uncle Felix contemplates the crowd as well.

"Freaking yuppies," he mumbles. "Every single person that's in this room relies on our family for their fortunes. It's sick that Remy calls, and they all come running to celebrate whatever he feels like celebrating. I doubt that most of these idiots even know what Twelfth Night is."

Inclining my head, I flash the whole room a frown. "It's a joke. A sycophantic joke. It's disgusting, but what else are toadies for if not to kiss the King's ring?"

His lips twist sourly. "What a bunch of assholes. Do you know what I plan on doing with my cut of the inheritance?"

He unbuttons the top button of his tuxedo shirt, undoing his bow tie. We've been here for two hours now, and a glance out the window tells me that it's almost dark outside. It's nearly time for my uncle to get properly soused.

I spot a waiter and motion him over, ordering another scotch. My uncle does not seem to notice whether or not I am actually paying any attention. He carries on his monologue, his tone and the volume of his voice rising steadily into a rant.

"I'm going to take my money, catch a flight to Eastern Europe, and never look back. I can set myself up there for life with enough money to live like a king. I'll have women, I'll have land, and I will never think about the family business again. I promise you that."

My lips twitch. Felix certainly looks as though he means every word of it. But whether it will come to fruition is dubious. Felix doesn't seem to be able to stay away, not when it comes to the Morgan family. At least, that's what I have seen him do time and time again. He grows angry and resentful, he makes a huge scene before leaving the family forever, and then a few months later he comes back with his tail between his legs.

But I don't say any of this to my uncle. It's not worth starting a fight over something so meaningless right now. Instead, I just clap him on the shoulder.

"When we take over the family business, everything will be different."

He shrugs and looks away. "Maybe. It does seem that no matter what I do, I always get pulled back into the dealings of this family."

I accept a fresh tumbler of scotch and raise my glass to my uncle. "Here's to not being caught in the cycle again. If this goes right and I take the business from my brother, we will both go out of our way to establish new patterns and set new trends."

"Yeah, we will!" He pulls his bow tie off and crumples it in one hand. "I am going to head into town. I am over whatever’s happening here."

I don't say anything as my uncle leaves me. He is soon lost in the sea of black suits and glittering multicolored dresses. I take a last sip of the scotch and then leave the tumbler behind on a side table and start navigating my way around the party. I step out of the living room and dart into the cool darkness of the servant’s corridor.

Closing the door, I head down the dimly lit passage. This is the only place in the entire house where cobwebs build up. I flick my hand out as I pass one. These servants’ passages run all around the house, running between many of the rooms and culminating at the kitchen. As kids, Burn and I would always run through them, giggling and looking through the various peepholes into the rooms on the main floor. Now, I rarely use them, as I am rarely back here on the estate. It is even rarer that I should happen to be alone on one of my visits.

I walk past the billiard room and the solarium, then pass Remy's office. I make a sharp right turn at the large library and come to a set of steel doors. Pushing my way through them, I let myself into the kitchen, where a fragrant tomato sauce bubbles away on the stove just to my right.

In front of me, there is a vast kitchen island and a large open pantry on the wall just behind it. To my left, there is an old woman who has her head buried in the oversized double refrigerator. As I make my way around the large kitchen island toward the stove, she pulls her head out of the refrigerator.

When she sees me, her entire face lights up, and she pushes back a few strands of her gray hair that have escaped from her bun. She's dressed in all white. Her white apron around her thick waist is covered in red stains, presumably from whatever vegetables she had to chop up and put in the tomato sauce.

"It smells good, Magda."

"Dare!" She says. "Oh, it's so good to see you! I was wondering when you would come and visit old Magda."

She hustles over and gives me a hug, mindful of the stains on her apron. I don't mind her touching me in the least. Honestly, at some points in my childhood, Magda was the only person who would give me hugs and worry over me in the way that you would expect from a parent.

Not my parents, of course. But some other, more stable parents, perhaps.

I squeeze her gently and then turn her loose. She starts to push me toward the seat at the massive kitchen island. "Sit, sit! I will make you a plate of my special cake. And a glass of milk, yes?"

I smile and take a seat at the island, feeling as though I were a boy again.

"If you're not too busy. That would be nice."

"I'm never too busy for you, Dare. You know, your brother was just in the hall. If you want me to, I could…”

Before I can even say no, the door slams open, and I hear footsteps. I don't even have to look to know that it is my twin brother. No one else in the family has enough courage to intrude here, in Magda’s fortress. The kitchen has long since been her domain, it was already this way before I was even born.

My lips curl and I move my gaze to the open door. Burn appears, one hand in his slacks pocket, a smirk on his face.

He greets me. “Hello, brother. You're looking particularly wretched this evening."

My smile drops away. I fix him with a glare, wishing like anything that I had the kitchen and Magda to myself.

"Burn," I say as a greeting. "Don't you have homes to wreck? Villages to pillage? Peasants to burn?"

Magda looks back and forth between us, her hands going to her hips and a frown kneading her brow. "Boys, please don't fight. You know I love you both. Burn, come sit down. Have some cake."

She waves him over and heads to the refrigerator once more. I press my lips into a thin line as I watch him come closer, smirking all the while. He settles himself on the stool next to mine and looks me up and down.

"So? What's new?"

I can't help but want to smack his teeth down his throat when I see his handsome face. "Quit smiling at me, you bastard."

I whisper it low so that Magda doesn't hear it. But she has ears like a dog, and she intercedes before he can even say anything.

"Dare!" she says. "Come on now."

She brings a cake stand and two plates with a cake server over to us. Burn looks like he has something to gloat about as she uncovers the beautiful chocolate cake and carefully cuts us each a slice. The cake looks amazing and delicious, with no less than five full layers of death by chocolate. Though I am very angry right now, my mouth automatically starts watering at the sight of Magda's cake. It's been too long since I sat at this exact table and let Magda mother me.

With my mother dying at a young age and my father busy drinking himself to death, I received all of my attention as a cyearshild from Magda.

Magda cuts two thick slices of cake and plates them, pushing them across the island to us. Burn looks at me with a smirk and picks up his fork, toying with the cake slice. I know that he'll do what he always does, eat the cake from the inner edge to the top corner, where the frosting is smooth across the top and the sides. He was always one for delayed gratification like that.

I look at him and gather a forkful of the best part of the cake, right at the joint of the two frosting sides. I smile at him thinly as I put the fork to my lips. The sweet bitterness of the chocolate cake bursts across my tongue. But it's not as sweet as I imagined. Nothing is, not since my brother stole from me.

Magda leans her thick forearms against the stainless steel top of the kitchen island and leans forward, looking between us. "Well? Are you going to make me ask?"

Burn plays it cool. "About what?"

I still have another forkful of cake and shove it in my mouth, chewing and swallowing angrily.

"Why has Dare been so distant for the last six months?" she asks.

I can feel her watery eyes trained on me. I look down at the cake and frown. "It does taste as sweet and wonderful as I remembered, but suddenly I've lost my appetite altogether." I put my fork down.

Burn laughs a little. "You’ll have to ask Dare about that. I don't know exactly why he does the things he does. Eh, brother?"

I push my plate away and glare at him. "You know very well why I don't come around anymore." I dart a glance at Magda and then smooth the front of my tuxedo. "I've been busy working on a new project."

"Yeah, a new project that Remy hates. He already told you exactly what he thinks about your project." He laughs to himself. "Deep sea drilling. What a fucking crazy idea."

I hurriedly stand up, my fists bunching. But Magda settles the fight, as she has been doing for our entire lives.

"Boys, boys. You two are brothers. I do not know why you sit around and pick at one another like two chickens eating bird feed. Why can’t you just be nice?"

She comes around to where I am standing and puts her hand on my shoulder, pressing down to get me to sit. She is short, probably no more than five feet tall. Having her gentle hands on me makes me give in, though with anyone else I would fight the touch. She smiles and pats me on the shoulder, then rubs the back of my hand the way she has always done.

It’s not chicken soup for the soul, but I do relax a little bit. Burn is somewhat chastised, and he looks at the two of us with an expression of longing. Magda sweeps a hand across his back as she heads to the stove. She picks up a wooden spoon and stirs the tomato sauce.

"Now what’s this all about, really?" She asked. "Surely it’s about something serious, no?"

I grit my teeth. "It’s nothing, Magda."

Burn is quick to rat me out, just like when we were kids. "It’s not nothing. He is mad because his fiancée dumped him, and then I started dating her after they were totally done."

I glare at him. "Yeah, five minutes after. As far as I know, you and Daisy were cheating on me while we were still together."

He rolls his eyes. "And I am telling you, we did nothing wrong. After it came to light that things weren’t working out between you and Daisy, she decided to leave you for the better version of you. That is not my fault."

I snarl at him. "You told her a bunch of lies in order to get her to break up with me. There’s nothing about that that is confusing. I wasn’t angry that Daisy broke up with me; I am angry because I thought that you and I were closer than any two people on the planet. But I guess I was wrong."

He arches a brow at me. "I guess you were. When it comes to matters of the heart, Daisy and I were meant to be together, and you were meant to do... I'm not sure, something else. Go find another girl. There are plenty of fish in the sea."

“That’s rich, coming from the guy who stole his twin’s fiancée.”

“It’s not my fault that Daisy and I are drawn to each other. Find somebody else to be your wife and have your babies, you weirdo.”

"That’s not the issue," I grit out. "And I don’t want to even have kids. After what we went through as children, with our dysfunctional parents and our grandfather pretty much raising us, I’m not even interested in having children at any point."

Burn shrugs at me. "So, what’s the issue?"

"What’s the issue?" I ask, as if he is truly dense.

A red light over the door switches on. Burn and I both look at it, knowing what it means. Magda pulls off her apron, looking at both of us sternly.

She points at us both. "No arguing until I get back from finding out what your grandfather needs. Do you hear me? And Dare, please don’t leave without at least saying goodbye this time. I have barely seen you these last few months."

Glaring at my brother, I nod stiffly. "Of course, Magda."

Burn nods but does not respond. We wait in silence as she fusses with her hair and then disappears out of the room into the servant’s passage. Burn plays with his cake, looking at me as he spears chunks of it and destroys it messily.

What a child he is.

"So? Are you still planning on this whole deep sea drilling business?"

"I think you know that I am," I say. I lean back in my seat and tilt my head.

"That will never work."

I fan my hand out, gesturing uselessly. "So you say. We’ll see who’s right."

He leans forward on his elbows, dropping his fork. "Remy will never allow you to take charge of the company. He knows what your little plan is. You want to move everything to the coast and shut down the headquarters here in Harwicke."

I scoff. "That just goes to show that you have no idea what you’re talking about. I do plan to move the operation to the shore, and I do plan on shutting down the headquarters here. But I want to maintain an office in New York City. It’s a pain in the ass to drive all the way out here to Vermont from Manhattan. You have no idea, I assume."

"So what? It’s only a forty five-minute helicopter ride from Harwicke to Manhattan. Not that it even matters, because I’m going to take over the business and run it just like Remy would have."

"We’ll see about that."

"Yeah, I guess we will."

I push myself to my feet, practically radiating with angry energy. I turn to head out of the main door, but Burn’s voice stops me cold.

"You’ll never get her back. Daisy? You know that she made her choice when she chose me over you."

My fists gather into bunches. My entire body tenses. I don’t turn to look at him, but I do stop before I head out of the room.

"Enjoy Daisy. While you have her, that is. Because Daisy has one hard and fast rule. She wants to be the only one to whom you give all your attention. And while I did not find that challenging, I know for a fact that you have always cheated on every girlfriend you’ve ever had. I have no doubt that you have done the same to Daisy. And I am going to find proof and rub it in her face. I’m going to destroy your relationship just for the sake of destruction. Then, and only then, will I be happy."

I push open the swinging doors and stride into the hall without another word. If Burn has a reaction to my words, I don’t hear it.

Grabbing my coat, I quickly head for an exit. The door I choose puts me out in the back of the house, between the hedge maze and the beautiful sculpted gardens, brought in to remind my grandmother of the Palace of Versailles. Pulling on my coat, I see that there are a number of guests out here, stepping on the immaculately cut grass and trampling the trailing roses.

It disgusts me, the symbol of what our family once was or could have been if all these greedy gold diggers hadn't destroyed it. Remy loves them, loves entertaining these sycophantic strangers. Meanwhile, his own family can hardly bear to look at each other; the only goodwill toward him stems from the possibility of inheritance.

I am the only one of my family that is left with any kind of common sense or basic fucking decency. According to Daisy, I am emotionally closed off and pathologically unable to listen or compromise. She told me so right before she wrenched the promise ring off her finger, called me cheap, and left me for my twin brother.

Now I’m just walking around with a massive hole in my chest, hoping that my common sense and ability to look fucking forward will see me through the rest of this year.

I look toward the driveway, which is just out of view around the front of the house. If I can just get out of here, past the sea of Morgan wannabes, I can make it to my car and get the hell out of here. Even if it means taking a late-night flight, I need to get out of this house, this town, and this whole fucking state.

Squaring my shoulders, I use my height and my musculature to my advantage. It’s often useful in crowds like this, where people turn and scoot out of my way as soon as they see me coming. I’m sure that my scowl doesn’t seem inviting to them either.

Out of my eyes, a few people ahead, I can make out the outline of a young woman in a dark gray wool coat that is obviously a dozen seasons old. Owing mainly to the way that it has worn the patches at the elbows and on the bottom. I cock my head as I walk, thinking that even from this distance I can see that her coppery hair is piled up in quite a disheveled looking bun. Her shoes are honest to God army boots that hover just below a plain brown skirt.

What on earth is someone who is dressed worse than the help doing out here?

As I push past the last person in front of her, I can hear her arguing with one of our suited security guards, whose head is shaved bald and whose colored shirt has an earpiece sticking out of its ear.

"Miss?" the man says. "Miss, are you an invited guest? If not, you need to go."

The redhead turns, a panicked expression on her bright blue eyes. She is young, probably just out of school or college, maybe. And beneath that disheveled hairstyle, she has a proud nose and high cheekbones, she’s quite beautiful. Like a diamond that has yet to be polished, I suppose. She heads full speed towards me, barely looking where she is going.

I have about three seconds to process that she is on a collision course with me before she comes crashing into my arms, the glass of red wine that she is clutching dashing against my white shirt and spreading like a blood stain. Her mouth opens in a silent scream.

She looks up at me, blinking. There is a moment of recognition, before she curls her lip out of some sort of distaste.

She thinks I’m Burn.

It’s not the first time that I’ve been mistaken for my twin brother, to say the least. Not even the first time that she has been somewhat repulsed and wanted nothing to do with me or Burn.

She looks up at me, her slight frame rests against mine. "What are you doing here?"

A fleeting thought comes over me. If this woman knows my brother as I think that she does, it could be useful to me. She could be the key to embarrassing Burn and crushing his relationship to dust.

Smiling down at the woman, I slip my arm around her waist and pull her closer. "Don’t you know? This is my house. And now you have come to me, haven’t you, darling girl?"

The disgust in her bright blue eyes gives me hope that I am going to hear exactly what I want to hear from her lips.