Behind the Green Curtain (28 page)

Chapter 41

It was more than punishment. It was
hell. They were her personal hell. There wasn’t a single form of torture Amelia
could imagine that would be greater torment than an eternity in the presence of
Jack’s parents.

“So, Jack tells me you have an
assistant,” Victoria uttered. It was almost pleasant, her demeanor, like a snake
curling around a body in temporary embrace before it squeezed the life out of a
person.

It was the same every time. Amelia
tried to be ignored. She tried to be polite and silent, letting the
conversation happen without her. But that was boring for them. These people
were hunters. They needed a target. So, they drew her in against her will,
hoping she would give them a reason to shoot her.

“Did he?” Amelia returned.

“We saw the car in the driveway,”
Victoria added.

“Not paying her much, I see,” Jack
Sr. joked, and Jack and his mother laughed along at Caton’s expense. The
have-nots, they were such comedic fodder for the haves. As an ambassador for
the poor in their luxury world, Amelia had learned that lesson quickly.

Saying nothing in Caton’s defense,
knowing it would only lead to grander insults, Amelia took a drink, bitterly
swallowing as she looked toward the doorway. It was always the same, and, yet,
it was different. Normally, Victoria and Jack Sr. were the major nuisance of
any given day in which she had to endure them. Tonight, they were just one more
thing plucking at Amelia’s thin nerves. Jack’s interruption had been the first,
and, since she left, Caton wouldn’t take her calls. Amelia had tried her half a
dozen times, before deciding she wasn’t going to behave desperately. It wasn’t
her fault Jack returned, it was the last thing she wanted, so if Caton chose to
blame her, if she chose to be unfair and juvenile, Amelia wasn’t going to keep
trying.

Mostly because she didn’t have her
phone, and these weren’t the kind of people who allowed one to excuse herself
from a meal. They expected their prey to stick around to face their taunts and
flying bullets.

Returning her eyes to her uneaten
food, Amelia realized her in-laws were waiting for her to say something. She
never knew with them when they actually expected response, or when they were
just running commentary on her life. “Jack brought her here.” Amelia hoped the
truth would be the end of it.

“Yes,” Jack said with a boastful
grin. “Amelia was a little overwhelmed with the duties of both fundraising and
being a beautiful wife.” If anyone else had said it, Amelia might have thought
it a compliment.

“Hmm,” Victoria hummed. “Well, I
guess some people are just more capable than others.”

Amelia was amazed, as usual, at the
way the woman delivered her insults as if she was making a passing reference to
the weather. She wasn’t the only one thinking it, they all thought it, but this
was one of the many rules in their world. Only a woman could attack another
woman. If a man did it, it just looked uncouth.

“How’s Selene?” Jack Sr. changed
the subject, and Amelia was grateful to sink back into invisibility.

“She’s back at school,” Jack
responded. “She’s doing well.”

Fighting her urge to scoff in
response, Amelia wondered how Jack made such an assured declaration. Not once
since Selene left home had he actually picked up the phone to call his
daughter.

“That’s good. I noticed she was a
little clingy at Christmas,” Victoria declared, eyes sliding to Amelia in
silent blame. “I thought she’d grown out of that. You are encouraging her to
make her own way, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am,” Amelia stated,
hand tightening on her glass.

“Our children can’t simply be
reflections of us.” Victoria doled out her parenting advice in the same way she
delivered her insults.

Glancing at Jack and Jack Sr.,
sitting across the table from each other, exact same mannerisms, exact same
beliefs, same fields of business, same infidelities, Amelia might have laughed
if she cared enough to truly engage. Of course, it wasn’t that they didn’t want
Selene to be a reflection. They just didn’t want Selene to reflect off her.

Taking another drink, she was saved
from the repercussions of the sharp response on her tongue by Sole walking into
the dining room to clear their plates. Reaching Amelia’s, Sole cast her a
worried look that Amelia avoided before taking the uneaten food away. “Could I
get anyone dessert?” she dutifully asked.

“Not now,” Jack’s father answered
for everyone, waving Amelia’s only ally from the room. “I have a few investors
who are looking for a project, Jacky,” he continued once Sole was gone. “I’m
going to tell them to invest with you.”

Amelia’s relief at having the focus
pulled from her and the people she cared about was eradicated by the long delay
in Jack’s response. Taking a drink, Jack swallowed with effort, returning his
glass slowly to the table. “We’re not really in need of investors right now,”
he finally replied, hand going to his chin and rubbing the five o’clock shadow
there. It was his tell, the too-common gesture paired with every well-crafted
lie. “I think we’ll need them more in a few months. If you could hold them off,
I’ll be able to use them when I need them.”

Their way of talking about people
as if they were cash cows was unsurpassed, but Amelia was accustomed to that.
It was the composed answer, initial hesitation disguised with the prolonged
drink, that gave Jack’s bluff away. Though his response was completely
transparent, as usual, his parents pretended they couldn’t see through it.

“I’ll explain to them that you’re
in transition,” Jack Sr. returned. “That you’ll have more lucrative
opportunities for them down the road.”

As Jack nodded his appreciation,
Amelia felt the injustice swirl warmly amidst her slight intoxication. They had
no problem going after her, Selene, Caton, for being overwhelmed, affectionate,
middle-class, but Jack off-handedly admitted he’d gotten his company into some
kind of serious trouble and it didn’t even warrant a question.

“We can always use their donations
in our charity work,” Amelia interjected, knowing too well she shouldn’t. It
would come to no good end, but, as far as she could see, there was no good end
in sight for a day that had started with such promise.

“I think these people actually want
to make money,” Jack laughed. “They’re looking for an investment.”

“It’s an investment in the future,”
Amelia countered with her usual line of persuasion, and the smile with which
she always delivered it. “Isn’t that what we tell all our donors? I’m sure they
would be happy to invest in the future.” When she glanced over to include Jack
Jr. in her pitch, he looked at her with unconcealed contempt that she would
dare challenge his son.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Jack stated,
not even bothering to play, smile fading as he wiped the cloth napkin across
his lips.

“I don’t understand,” Amelia
returned sweetly. “Why wouldn’t you want their money? If you can’t use it, you
can put it toward the charity work, which helps build the company’s
reputation.”

“I’m not looking to build
reputation right now,” Jack declared.

“I thought you were always looking
to build reputation,” Amelia countered.

“We will talk about it another
day.” Jack’s voice rose just enough to satisfy Amelia’s immature desire to ruin
his night as he had ruined hers.

“The needs of these people don’t
wait, Jack.” Amelia’s smile faded.

“What people are those, dear?”
Victoria’s voice cut through the smog that had formed between them, odious and
unbreathable. “Your family?”

Flinching as if it was an actual bullet
Victoria had sent her way, Amelia swallowed the bile that rose into her throat,
a searing mix of wine and stomach acid. Turning her gaze to Victoria’s smug
expression, she barely contained the urge to lunge across the table and tackle
the bitch to the floor. The fact that she had never broken a glass and stabbed
her mother-in-law in the jugular might have been Amelia’s only remaining shot
at Heaven.

All that talk about Selene becoming
her own person, and they still ended up right back here. Amelia challenged
Jack, and, when it looked as if Jack wasn’t outright winning, Victoria rushed
in to rescue him like he was a three-year-old on a playground.

Amelia knew better than to engage
in a battle of wills when it was three-to-one, but she had lost herself for a
moment, rebellion fueled by too much wine on an empty stomach, by having to
endure some of the most vile human beings on the planet, and by Caton, who
wouldn’t take her fucking calls.

Pushing up from her chair, she
didn’t glance back, letting them, and knowing very well they would, call her
what they wanted when she left the room. She remembered the first time like it
was yesterday. When she had arrived in the States with Jack, and he had taken
her to his parents grand estate, she had felt like a queen. Then, she’d gone to
the gilded bathroom and returned just as Jack’s mother was calling her his
Moabite bride in such a way that she really should have just said ‘savage’ and
spared everyone the translation.

Then, there was the wedding, that
glorious, glamorous affair, when they lavished her parents with clothes and
expensive haircuts and spa treatments. At the time, she was naïve enough to
believe it generosity. It would take her years to see it for what it was, a
necessary concession to make them more presentable, because the Halstons couldn’t
be embarrassed on a day that invited public scrutiny. Appearance was
everything, and her parents had to look the part.

As Amelia rounded the corner into
the kitchen, Sole turned from her dinner at the bar. “Are you okay?” she asked,
though she didn’t have to ask to know the answer.

“Where’s my phone?” Amelia
demanded.

Sliding it from the bar top beside
her, Sole handed it to Amelia. Having given it to Sole with the instruction to
let her know if Caton called, it was infuriating to ask for it back.

Moving toward the French doors,
Amelia heard Sole jump up behind her. “It’s cold,” Sole said. “Let me get you a
coat.”

“I’m fine,” Amelia tossed over her
shoulder, wrenching back the lock and pulling the door open.

The frigid air biting into her
exposed skin at once, the physical punishment was almost relief in the wake of
the other pains she’d been made to endure. Closing the door behind her, Amelia
marched through the snow that remained on the ground, cold flakes flicking onto
the backs of her legs as she made her way from a house that had never been
refuge. Dialing Caton, she waited, once more, for the phone to go to voice
mail, angrily ending the call when it did and immediately calling again,
prepared to repeat the pattern as many times as it took.

She couldn’t say what she was
thinking to Jack or Jack’s parents, to her supposed society friends, to her
repeat donors, or even to Sole or Selene most of the time, but, with Caton, she
could be honest. She could tell her exactly what she thought about her avoidance.
She could unleash on Caton the reaming she deserved for ignoring her all day.

“Hey,” Caton’s voice softly
answered as Amelia was getting ready to end the call and try again.

Eyes closing at the sound, Amelia
missed her cue. Instead of rupturing from her in a torrent, the anger abated,
and she felt dizzy. She felt cold. She wasn’t angry, she realized, not at
Caton. She was hurt. She was confused. She was everything she had learned not
to be.

“I’m sorry I didn’t pick up,” Caton
stated carefully. “I… couldn’t find my phone.”

That was a lie too, Amelia knew,
but at least it was a lie told for her sake, meant to make her feel better
instead of worse. She wanted to ask why Caton would lie to her at all, why she
didn’t want to talk to her. She wanted to ask Caton to come back and take her
away from it all. For a night. Two nights. For the rest of her life.

“I’m sorry that Jack came home.”
Amelia could get no further than the same apology from before.

“Maybe it’s better this way,” Caton
returned.

That hurt too. Not just that Caton
would say it out loud. That she would even think it.

Agreement would have been the
highest form of self-preservation, the simplest, least messy path, but, gaze
trailing to the house, the soft light from the kitchen appearing more cold and uninviting
than the dark, snow-covered landscape around her, Amelia didn’t have the
strength to pretend.

“No,” she said simply.

The only response from Caton came
in the form of a deep, drawn-out sigh, which sounded perfectly harmonious to
Amelia’s ear, because she felt exactly the same way.

Chapter 42

Though it sounded the same
monotonous tone she woke to every morning, the alarm echoed like a warning.
Pressing it off on automatic, Caton knew she needed to get up, to leave, to
flee the city even, but she made it only as far as sitting before losing all
motivation.

It was only two months, she tried
to remind herself. Two months until her contract was up, until her assignment
was fulfilled, until she was freed from Amelia and the overwhelming pains and
pleasures that went with her.

She had used the same self-talk to
power through the monotony of the storage room, Jack’s come-ons and Amelia’s
animosity.
It’s only temporary, Caton. The end is in sight.
Once a point
on the horizon that looked like freedom, though, the end had become a looming
threat, and, with no consolation awaiting her on the other side of it, Caton
simply couldn’t find the point in rising.

At some point, her phone rang. She
didn’t know how long she had been sitting there as it trilled its annoying
blast into the room, and, clock right beside her on the bedside table, she
couldn’t find the desire to look.

It rang again sometime after. And
again sometime after that. When the ringing finally stopped altogether, Caton
wasn’t sure if the caller had given up, or if her phone had used up the last
dregs of its battery she hadn’t bothered to charge the night before.

Knees pulled to her chest, cheek
resting against one bony point, time moved fast and slow, and she made no
guesses as to how much of it had passed between the last weak ring and the
knock that came at the door, loud and emphatic. With no noticeable break
between the first thunderous assault and the next, Caton pressed her ear
tighter to her knee, hand rising to cover her other ear in protest.

At last, the racket ceased, the eye
of the storm, Caton discovered, as a crash made her jump from her skin.

“Caton?” Amelia’s voice was almost
unrecognizable, and it occurred to Caton she had never heard Amelia truly
panicked.

An unrecognizable thunk followed,
before Caton’s bedroom door opened and Amelia appeared breathlessly in the
doorway. Concern mingling with annoyance when she saw Caton sitting there in
perfect exterior condition, Amelia blew out a short breath. “Why in the hell
didn’t you answer the door?”

“I didn’t feel like it,” Caton
returned, watching confusion bordering on doubt pass over Amelia’s features.
The receptive response of her body to Amelia’s presence reminding her she was
in the most dangerous possible position, she slid from the bed, glancing down
at her relative nudity with alarm, and reached for her pajama pants.

“Are you okay?” Amelia questioned.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Caton
countered, pulling the pants over her hips and casting an anxious glance toward
the door at Amelia’s back.

Only one way out, and no fortified
place to hide, she attempted to skirt around Amelia. When Amelia reached out,
Caton shrugged her off, but the touch on her arm lingered as she continued into
the main room, her gaze going instantly to the ajar door, knob hanging on by a
single screw, the fire extinguisher from the glass case in the hall abandoned
in her entryway.

Just one more mess to clean up.

Back turned, she filled a glass at
the faucet and tried to think of something she could say or do to put an immediate
end to the ongoing tug-of-war she had jumped into with the naive belief she was
going to be an adroit player, only to discover she was the rope.

It wouldn’t take much. Amelia had
exposed herself far more sensitive to certain types of criticisms than Caton
would have ever expected her to be. The right words, and Caton trusted she
could turn Amelia off for good. All she had to do was find the right button to
push.

The thought alone made the glass
tremble in her hand, and she placed it carefully on the counter, knowing it was
the right thing to do, even if they both got hurt in the process. Spinning to
look for a point of weakness in Amelia before she lost her nerve, she stepped
back when Amelia was right there, so close Caton wasn’t sure how she made her approach
without detection.

“Don’t,” Amelia uttered.

Prescient pain swirling in the dark
eyes locked on her own, Caton had the disconcerting feeling Amelia could read
her thoughts. “Don’t what?” she tried to play it off.

“Just don’t,” Amelia’s voice further
softened until it became more plea than command.

Shadows playing across the contours
of Amelia’s face, Caton yearned toward her, to give into her, to fix
everything. But she didn’t have the power to fix everything. She didn’t have
the power to fix anything. Arms folding behind her, she dug her fingers into
her forearms, locking them together, the closest thing she had to restraints.

Fighting her own desire, she longed
to go back to a time of ignorance, when her undeniable attraction to Amelia
bred nothing but contempt, when Amelia had no redeeming qualities, aside from
her captivating charm and beauty. And she longed to go forward to a time of
enlightenment, when she could fully understand why a woman with so much to
offer kept it hidden behind a curtain of detachment and deceit.

She couldn’t do it. Even if it was
right. Even if it made sense. She couldn’t hone in on a vulnerability and
exploit it, not now that she knew Amelia had so many she kept locked away, how
carefully she guarded them. But things couldn’t go on as they were either. Rack
or rope, something had to give, or Caton would come apart, fray at the sinew
until there was nothing left holding her together.

“I can’t do this,” she quietly
stated, all attempts at outward blame turning inward where they belonged.

Amelia shifted, and before Caton
could think to move, Amelia’s body was flush against her, altering her
intentions. “Yes, you can,” Amelia whispered. “You can.”

Amelia didn’t know what she was
asking, what she encouraged, and Caton didn’t know how much she wanted talked
back into what she had tried so hard to talk herself out of until Amelia
managed it in two words. Hands going to Amelia’s face, she brought their lips
together, realizing in an instant she had been depriving herself. She couldn’t
control what she wanted to burn freely, even if it ended up consuming her. The
taste of Amelia going instantly to her head, she pulled away, head oddly tingly
as she dropped it to Amelia’s shoulder, nose teased by the familiar scent that
somehow calmed and aroused her at once.

“I need you.” Amelia’s whispered
words were so quiet, Caton wasn’t sure if they were a statement, a prayer, or a
figment of her imagination.

Regardless, they were a lie. Amelia
didn’t need anyone. But Caton didn’t need to be needed. Knowing Amelia wanted
her, at least enough to come busting through her door like a lunatic, was more
than enough.

When Amelia kissed her again, Caton
didn’t care if it was imagined or wrong or foolish. She had been nothing but
foolish, and as much agony as it had brought her, it had brought her ten times
the ecstasy. With Amelia’s body pressed softly against her, Amelia’s hand on
the back of her head holding her close as her tongue worked magic in Caton’s
mouth, ecstasy always felt only a heartbeat away.

The knock at the door was so soft,
Caton thought she had imagined that too, until Amelia pulled back and glanced
toward the doorway, eyes registering only a fleeting trace of shock, before her
face settled into the same determined charisma she faked so well.

“Excuse me.” The voice called
Caton’s eyes to the door, and she went board-straight as she registered the
uniform of the police officer standing inside her apartment. “Is everything
okay here?”

Amelia’s hands retreating from her
body, Caton felt exposed in their absence. Glancing down, she reaffirmed that
she was, in fact, wearing clothes.

“Yes, Officer,” Amelia responded.
“I’m so sorry. This is Caton. She lives here, and, as you can see, she’s fine.”

“A neighbor called in a
disturbance,” the officer explained, glancing from the fire extinguisher at his
feet to the broken door knob.

“Yes.” Amelia smiled her winningest
smile. “Sorry about that.”

“Miss.” The officer addressed Caton
directly. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Caton managed,
despite the extreme discomfort that snuck up the back of her neck to set it
aflame.

“I’m just going to take a look
around,” the officer said, and Amelia gestured with an open palm, as if she
could grant entrance to Caton’s place.

“Hello,” Amelia greeted someone in
the hallway to no verbal response, and Caton assumed there was a partner she
couldn’t see.

Why not add spectacle for the
neighbors to the mix, she thought, cracking her neck as she watched the first
officer disappear into her bedroom, wondering what he might determine about her
character from the clutter scattered about the room. If he made any snap
judgments, he kept them to himself as he came back through the door.