Always Us (The Jade Series #8) (25 page)

“Hi, Lilly.” I bend down and give her a hug. I’m still in the hallway but I need to hug her. She’s hurting and could use a hug. And hugging her helps me relax.

“Hi.” Her voice is soft and tiny and sad.

She needs her brother. I stand up and Garret picks her up.

“Hey, Lilly.” He smooths her hair as she lays her head on his shoulder. She hugs him really tight, her arms and legs attached to him like she’ll never let him go.

“I’m sad,” she whispers.

“I know.” He kisses her head.

Whenever I see those two together, it makes me want to cry. Lilly’s doing better now that she goes to school and has some friends, but she still really misses Garret. They have a special bond that Lilly doesn’t have with anyone else. She trusts him and listens to him and loves him, probably more than she loves her own parents.

“Hello, Garret.” Eleanor appears in the doorway to Lilly’s room. She’s wearing a black dress that almost matches Katherine’s dress but without the belt. And she’s wearing a pearl necklace with matching earrings, her short hair framing her face.

“Hello, Grandmother.” Garret walks past her into Lilly’s bedroom.

I remain at the door, frozen in place, my heart thumping fast.
 

Eleanor gives me a slight smile. “Jade. Thank you for coming.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.” I sound like a greeting card, but I didn’t know what else to say.

She steps aside and I walk into the room and stand next to Garret, who still has Lilly glued to him.

“How was the flight?” Eleanor asks. “I haven’t flown commercial for years. I’ve heard it’s even more unpleasant than it used to be.”

“It’s not that bad,” Garret says.

There’s silence. None of us knows what to say. Eleanor hasn’t talked to Garret since last summer, other than to call him and tell him to come here today.

Katherine appears at the door. “Lilly, I need you to come downstairs.”

Lilly doesn’t move or say anything. The room is quiet as we all wait for Katherine’s reaction. She straightens up and her lips purse as she stares at Lilly.

Katherine goes and stands next to Garret. “Did you hear me, Lilly? I need you to come downstairs. Right now.”

“I want to stay with Garret.”
 

Garret smiles a little, which makes Katherine even more furious.

“He’s here all weekend. You’ll see him later. Now hurry up.”

She doesn’t move. I guess Lilly’s developing a rebellious streak. Good for her.

“Garret.” Katherine’s tone has an edge, like she’s warning him.

“Katherine.” He says it back the same way, staring at her.

More silence as this standoff continues. Then Garret turns and kisses Lilly’s head, which is still on his shoulder. His gaze returns to Katherine as he says, “I have to go get ready, Lilly, but later we’ll watch a movie, okay?”

“She’s not allowed to—”

“She’s not what?” Garret cuts Katherine off. He gives her a look which she seems to understand.

She clears her throat. “Very well. But for now, she needs to be downstairs.”

He lowers her down to the floor. “Lilly, let go.”

She reluctantly releases him. “We’ll watch a movie later? You promise?”

“I promise.”

Lilly follows Katherine out of the room. The woman still hasn’t even acknowledged me.

Eleanor steps in front of Garret. “I should say a proper hello.”

He leans over for her usual faraway hug, but she moves in and gives him a full hug. A real hug. Arms all the way around. I see his face. He’s completely shocked, but he hugs her back.

“Go get yourself ready.” She pats his back, then steps away. “And please shave, Garret. A five o’clock shadow is so unsightly on a man.”

“I will. We’ll see you downstairs.”

Actually, I like Garret’s five o’clock shadow. I think it’s sexy.

We go down to his room. Katherine still hasn’t touched it. I keep waiting for her to tear it apart and redecorate it, painting the walls beige or white instead of the dark blue he picked out.

“Damn, I’m tired.” He collapses on the bed and so do I.

“Me too. Maybe we should’ve left yesterday so we wouldn’t have had to get up so early today.”

“I guess, but too late now. I’m sure we can find some caffeine to keep us awake. Charles always has coffee going.”

“I want to go see Charles. Let’s go to the kitchen.”

“We’ll see him later. We need to get ready. It’s getting late.” He gets up and pulls me to standing. “You can shower first. I’ll shave.”

I follow him into the bathroom. “What’s going on with you and Katherine?”

“What do you mean?” He turns the shower on for me.

“You gave her a look and she just backed down.”
 

He smiles as he goes back to the sink. “Yeah, we kind of have an agreement when it comes to Lilly.”

“What’s the agreement?” I strip my clothes off and grab a towel.

“A few years ago I made some videos of Katherine, and just recently I told her about them and threatened to release them to the media.”

“Videos of what?”

“Her gossiping on the phone about her rich friends. Saying all this bad shit about them.” He rinses his razor in the sink.

“Why would the media care about that?”

“The gossip pages would care. Society pages. Whatever they call it. They’d eat that shit up. And Katherine’s reputation would be destroyed.”

I step in the shower. “So you’re blackmailing her?”

“Yeah, but it’s not like I need to anymore. The organization will make sure she never attends another charity ball or any other high society gathering. And once my dad divorces her, she won’t be able to keep me away from Lilly.”

“You think they’ll still be allowed to get divorced?”

“I don’t know why they wouldn’t. My grandfather was the only one who forbid it and he’s gone now.”

“That’d be great for your dad if he could finally get rid of her.”

“It’d be great for
all
of us.”

We finish getting ready. Garret puts on a black suit and I wear a black dress. We walk down the hallway and I look over the banister and see at least 30 people downstairs. Everyone is wearing black. It’s so somber and depressing.

As we go down the staircase, I spot Victoria. She’s looking right at me and she’s not smiling. In fact she looks angry.

I can’t wait for this night to be over.

GARRET

Jade and I come down the stairs and the first person to greet us is Victoria. I can’t stand the woman. She’s almost as bad as Katherine.

“Garret.” She puts her long skinny fingers on my shoulders and leans in to hug me. Not a real hug, thank God, but a distant hug, which I expect to get a lot of tonight. “My deepest sympathies to you and your family.”

“Thank you, Victoria.” Her perfume is filling the air around me and making me feel like I have to cough. I step back.

She smooths the side of her hair which is pulled back into some type of twisted knot. She probably paid someone hundreds of dollars to style it that way. When I was dating Sadie, she’d pay $200 to $300 to have her hair styled for the ritzy parties she made me go to in DC.

“It’s such a tragedy when death is sudden like that,” Victoria says, referring to my grandfather but also probably to her husband.

“Yes. It is.” It’s eerie that Royce was killed by my father just steps away from where we’re standing and yet Victoria has no idea.

“It’s a shame you couldn’t attend the funeral.” She makes sure to only look at me, like Jade doesn’t exist.

“The timing of it just didn’t work out.” I glance over at Jade. “I believe you’ve met Jade, my wife.”

“Yes, we’ve met.” Her eyes do a quick scan of Jade, then dart back to me.

“Hi,” Jade says, but Victoria pretends not to hear her.

“Thank you for coming, Victoria.” I walk away before I do what I want to do, which is to call her out on her rudeness.

I’m trying to stay calm and get through this night without any drama. Yeah, like that’ll happen. Wishful thinking.

“You okay?” I ask Jade as I lead her down the hall to the kitchen.

“Yes. But let’s try to avoid her the rest of the night.”

Being around Victoria made Jade as nervous as she was around my grandmother. It makes sense. Both of their husbands tried to kill her. Shit. What the hell was I thinking? I shouldn’t have brought Jade here. This is way too stressful for her.

I take her to the kitchen because I know she’ll relax if she sees a friendly face.

“Charles,” I say to get his attention. He’s at the sink, washing a pan. “Someone wanted to see you.”

He turns around and smiles. “Jade. Garret. Welcome home.” He dries his hands on a dishtowel and comes around the island to shake my hand. “Congratulations on the marriage.” He turns to Jade and hugs her. “Is this guy treating you well?”

“Extremely well.” Jade smiles. She loves Charles. “And Garret does all the cooking.”

“Not even close to as good as you could do, Charles, but I try.”

Charles winks at Jade. “I taught him everything he knows. Don’t let him tell you otherwise.”

“I give you credit all the time,” I tell him.

“He does,” Jade agrees. “And he uses your recipes, too. He cooks almost every night.”

Jade takes a seat on one of the stools by the island. So I guess we’re staying a while. She’d stay here all night if I let her.

“I tried cooking, but it didn’t work out so well,” she says. “I ruined Garret’s birthday dinner.”

I stand behind her and rub her shoulders. “You didn’t ruin it.”

“I ruined it,” she says to Charles.

He laughs. “Not everything turns out. That’s just part of cooking.”
 

Jade points to a tray of cheese-filled tarts that’s sitting on the counter. “Those look really good.”
 

“They’re all yours.” Charles goes back around the island and slides the tray over to her. “Katherine decided she didn’t like them so I was getting ready to throw them out.”

Jade tastes one. “These are delicious. You can’t throw these out. Garret, try one.”

She hands me one and I taste it. “Yeah, they’re good. Why didn’t Katherine like them?”

“She didn’t like the way they looked on the tray,” Charles says. “It was an appearance issue, not a taste issue.”

“That’s crazy,” Jade says. She doesn’t understand how it works when you’re rich. She grew up with barely enough food to eat, and here my wicked stepmother throws perfectly good food away because it isn’t pretty enough.

I agree it’s a waste, but it’s how I grew up. For years I watched people toss shit aside because it wasn’t pretty enough or good enough or didn’t fit with the rest. And yeah, I’m talking about more than just appetizers.

“Charles, we’re running out of shrimp.” Katherine comes storming into the kitchen. She stops when she sees us. “What are you doing in here, Garret? You need to go out there and mingle with the guests.”

“It’s not a party, Katherine.”

“It is a social gathering and you need to represent the Kensingtons to the best of your ability. And besides that, your father is looking for you.”

“Let’s go.” I help Jade off the stool. “We’ll see you later, Charles.”

“Bye, Charles.” Jade waves at him, then says to Katherine, “Those cheese appetizers are the best. You should try one.”

As we walk back down the hall to the main part of the house, I put my arm around Jade. “Look at you, trying to rile up Katherine.”

“I just think she should serve those appetizers. I’m sure she wasn’t listening. She won’t even talk to me.”

“You’re better off not having her talk to you.”

“Garret, look. Harper’s parents are here.”

I follow Jade’s gaze to the side of the living room where Kiefer is talking to my dad. Kelly is next to him. Kiefer sees us and motions us to come over.

“There you are.” My dad puts his hand on my shoulder. “I was looking for you. In a few minutes I’m going to say a few words about your grandfather and I wanted you to stand up there with me.”

Is he serious? I don’t even want to
be
here. I can’t believe my dad can even find anything good to say about his father.

My dad is much better than me at putting on an act, pretending to be something he’s not. Tonight he’s playing the role of the grieving son who loved his father and is hosting this event to pay tribute to this wonderful man. Fucking ridiculous. Why not just tell the truth? Tell everyone how he killed my mom and tried to kill Jade. That’s the man he was and that’s how he should be remembered.

“Yeah, okay,” I say, agreeing to stand next to him. But I’m not happy about it. I’m only doing this for my dad.

“Garret, we’re very sorry about your grandfather.” Kelly sounds sincere when she says it. I think she’s a nice person, so I don’t know why she’s going along with her husband’s plan to join the organization. She has to know it’ll destroy her family. It already has. Harper’s not even talking to her parents anymore.

Kiefer gives his condolences as well, then both of them say hello to Jade.

“How is Harper doing?” Jade asks. “Is her shoulder better? I haven’t talked to her for days.”

There goes Jade, stirring up trouble. She keeps hoping she can fix this thing with Harper and Sean, and now she wants to fix Harper’s relationship with her parents. I know she means well, but she can’t keep interfering like this.

“It’s a long recovery for that type of injury,” Kelly says. “But she’s getting better each day.”

“That’s good.” Jade’s eyes keep darting over to Kiefer. He seems uncomfortable. He keeps swishing his liquor around in his glass, the ice cubes clinking against the sides.

“If you’ll excuse us,” my dad says, “I’m going to go say a few words.”

Kiefer nods at him. “Of course. Go ahead.”

My dad’s hand remains on my shoulder as we go and stand by the easel that holds the photo of my grandfather.

My dad lowers his voice and speaks by my ear. “You know how this works. Be serious when I’m serious and smile when I smile.”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“Do you want to say anything?”

I huff. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“We do what we need to do, Garret.”