Behind the Green Curtain (37 page)

Though she watched the lips on
Amelia’s profile move in time with the words, Caton still wasn’t convinced she
had heard them.

“I guess it does.” Her mother
sounded equally stunned.

“Good,” Amelia returned simply,
gaze drifting to Caton, and, seized by it, Caton felt as spellbound as ever.

“I’ll just leave that here for
you,” her mother said, and Caton assumed there was something being left as her
mom started out the door again, then changed her mind just inside it. “Do you
want to come to dinner?” she asked, and Amelia’s gaze abandoned Caton to swing
back toward the door.

“I would love that.” Amelia’s smile
was sincere. “I do have my daughter with me, so I would like to bring her, if
that’s okay.”

“Daughter?” Caton’s mom sounded
overwhelmed. Weren’t they all? “That’s right,” she uttered. “Caton said
something about that. Of course... Seven, Caton?”

Only somewhat aware that she was
being addressed, Caton nodded, not realizing her mother had left until Amelia
turned to her again, a smugly satisfied smile on her face. The expression faded
slightly as Caton brushed past her to the door, shutting it with a light slam,
and turned to grab Amelia by the expensive fabric of her shirt, crushing their
lips together so Amelia stumbled back into the desk.

Lips reluctantly breaking from
Amelia’s, Caton searched dark eyes. She didn’t dare hope. Yet, hoping was all
she could seem to do. “Was that true?” she questioned breathlessly. “Or are you
just using those expert skills at telling people what they want to hear?”

Smile returning, more honest than
before, Amelia’s hand stroked down Caton’s cheek, eyes trailing its path until
it came to rest at the base of Caton’s neck. “What do you think?”

Caton didn’t have to think. She
could see it, not flagrant or theatrical, but stripped bare in Amelia’s gaze.
Stepping back into the comfort of Amelia’s body, she could feel it wrap around
her.

“It won’t be the same, you know,”
Amelia warned, hands on Caton’s hips easing her closer. “We’re going to be like
Dan and Reese, working to make ends meet for the rest of our lives. Plus,
there’s Selene, and, as you know, she can be challenging. It may be hard.”

Not sure if Amelia was trying to
counsel her or remind herself, the notion of such a life with Amelia brought
Caton nothing but relief. “I told you I’m not proud.”

Grin flashing briefly, Amelia’s
usual swagger faltered just enough to be noticeable. “Does that mean you’re
in?” she questioned, swallowing the anxiety that appeared to chase the question
up her throat.

Laughing brokenly at how
senselessly she was in, Caton slid her hands beneath the dark fall of Amelia’s
hair, earning a look of indulgence from Amelia that eased away any lingering
doubts. “I’m pretty sure I was in the day I followed you down to that fucking
basement,” she confessed.

A brilliant smile spreading across
her face, Amelia wrapped her arms around Caton’s waist to pull her closer, and,
for the first time since Amelia walked into the office, Caton was convinced
what she held in her hands was real.

Chapter 56

Considering the trajectory of their
relationship, landing at dinner with Caton’s parents and Selene was surreal in
its domesticity. Amelia could tell she had her work cut out for her when it
came to raising Caton’s mother’s opinion of her, but Reese and Selene were like
kindred spirits.

Selene had never spent any real
time in a house like the one Caton grew up in, so pragmatic and homey, and she
was fascinated with everything, from the thirty-year-old dining room table to
Caton’s dad’s record player. Dan was more than happy to show off the relic of a
bygone era, educating Selene on girl groups of the 60s as he thumbed through
his substantial vinyl collection.

The squalor that surrounded
Amelia’s childhood was no more than family mythos to her daughter. Selene was
accustomed to the perks of affluence, without even realizing it, and it was a
relief to see how she took to a world of less privilege.

She made herself so at home that
Caton’s parents invited her to stay, and Selene enthusiastically sought her
permission, though Amelia suspected there was some strategy involved on all
their parts and wondered just how obvious it had been to Dan and Reese that she
couldn’t wait to get her hands and lips on their daughter.

Braced on one arm, Amelia pulled
Caton’s hips in tighter, feeling the pulse of Caton against her as they
climaxed together, a culmination that wasn’t worth the time spent apart, but
did take the edge off the prior months. The modern furnishings of the hotel
room disappearing around them, time ceased, until panting and depleted she fell
atop Caton, hearing the breath expel from Caton’s body in a rush. Hands
tightening against her skin, they drew her closer, and, head resting against
Caton’s shoulder, Amelia felt a heart pounding between them, though she
couldn’t tell whose.

With nowhere else to be, and no
fear of intrusion, they remained as they fell. Everything the same. Everything
different. All the times before, any potential future felt heavily burdened by
forces beyond them. Lying there, the road stretched open before them, their
route entirely within their control. That was the path down which Amelia’s
thoughts were wandering, at least.

No matter how intimately entangled,
though, in silence she couldn’t know Caton’s mind, and it was jarring to
suddenly pass Caton going the opposite direction.

“I could come back with you,” Caton
stated quietly. “Things could go back to the way they were.”

Words an arctic blast against her
over-heated skin, Amelia raised her head, but, Caton’s face cast mostly in
shadow, she couldn’t see beyond the statement itself. “Why would we do that?”
she asked carefully.

“Because it worked.” Caton’s shrug
brushed against Amelia’s chest.

“You said you would never be happy
being someone’s mistress,” she whispered.

“I lied,” Caton returned instantly.

There was some honesty to it,
Amelia could hear it, but it wasn’t wholly sincere. Wondering why Caton was
promoting a life with restrictions neither of them wanted, she braced herself
on her forearm, settling in for debate.

“I don’t want to be with him,”
Amelia declared, though she thought she’d made the fact clear.

“You wouldn’t be with him,” Caton
returned. “You would be with me. You said he’s being accommodating. Who knows,
maybe he’ll even let me move into the guesthouse with you.”

Said in jest, there was a touch of
wistfulness to the hypothetical suggestion that Amelia couldn’t ignore. “Is
that what you want?” she asked, and the real truth was in the hesitation, in
the way Caton’s eyes trailed past her shoulder to the gap in the curtains. The
light streaming through them finally illuminating Caton’s entire face, Amelia
could see the incongruity between what she felt and what she said.

“I don’t want anyone to suffer,”
Caton admitted.

“Caton...” Amelia hoped to derail
the train of thought before it could pick up momentum.

“If we go back,” Caton’s gaze
returned to Amelia’s, “you can have everything.”

“I don’t need everything,” Amelia
insisted, but the remainder of her argument was cut short by Caton’s hand on
her cheek, compelling her into silence.

“I want you to have everything,”
Caton whispered.

The admission hovering between them,
Amelia had never felt more deserving, and had also never been more sure there
was only one thing she needed that wasn’t hers through biology.

If Caton’s concerns began and ended
with the privilege she would be giving up, though, they might easily be assuaged.
Glancing in the vague direction of her purse, unable to make it out in the
darkness, Amelia didn’t particularly want to rise, but she knew the moment of
courage was fleeting, as every moment before it had been. If she didn’t do it
immediately, she might never do it. Then, they would never know.

Determination already wavering, she
slid off Caton, pulling Caton’s hands from her hips when they tried to keep her
in place. “I’m coming right back,” she promised, dropping a kiss against
Caton’s lips before throwing the covers off and meeting the chilled room head
on.

Finding the zipper of the purse in
the darkness, Amelia scavenged the interior until her hand closed around the
silver compact buried in her makeup bag. Flicking the clasp open, the locket inside
it fell into her hand.

“What is that?” Caton asked, gaze
following Amelia back to the bed, and, with a shiver, Amelia turned the light
on and climbed back beneath the covers.

“Maybe nothing,” she answered.
“Maybe everything we don’t already have.”

Eyes shifting to Caton, she knew it
wasn’t a deal breaker. Whatever happened, they would figure it out, they would
make do, and Amelia’s faith in that fueled her nerve. Popping the locket open,
she glanced down at the black-and-white photos, seeing only what lie beneath.

“Who are they?” Caton questioned,
hair tickling Amelia’s bicep as she slid closer.

“No clue,” Amelia replied, grinning
as she recalled the look on Marcus Slater’s face when he’d opened it, his naive
acceptance that the strangers inside were her grandparents. Though, it was
admittedly unexpected. Until that moment, Slater had seemed all but gullible.
“But your Agent Slater believed it belonged to me.”

“He let you keep it?” Caton asked.

“Well, look at it?” Amelia
countered. “Wouldn’t you?”

Watching the small grin slide over
Caton’s face, Amelia was seized by the desire to put possibilities aside and
focus on the one thing of which she had no doubts. All the deliberate fitness
choices she had made in her life, and she had never truly known how much energy
she possessed until Caton had provided her a worthwhile place to exhaust it.

“Then why did you want it?” Caton’s
breast brushed against Amelia’s forearm as she shifted again, and Amelia tried
to keep her thoughts on the subject at hand.

In lieu of response, she pressed
her thumb against the edge of a photo, watching it pop free and flutter to the
mattress along with the slip of paper behind it. Plucking the paper from the
sheet, she held it up before them, staring at the string of numbers. “If I were
to make an educated guess, it would be that this is a nameless bank account in
Antigua.”

“Those still exist?” Caton
questioned doubtfully.

“For the general public, or for
people like Jack?” Amelia returned.

“Good point,” Caton conceded,
staring at the paper with the same combination of mistrust and curiosity with
which Amelia had regarded it since it came into her possession.

“He has it memorized, I’m certain,”
Amelia went on. “But Jack is frozen. He can’t make a move without them seeing
it.”

“So, what are you going to do with
it?”

Eyes scanning Caton’s features,
Amelia wasn’t sure she should do anything. For the first time in months, maybe
even years, she was exactly where she wanted to be, Caton was exactly where she
wanted her, and anything that jeopardized that seemed unnecessarily risky.

Then again, maybe she was just
trying to psyche herself out of it for the hundredth time.

“There is only one photo of Jack
and I up at the house,” Amelia answered slowly.

“I know,” Caton uttered. “I’ve
ignored it on many occasions.”

“The picture frame says ‘Antigua’.”

“So?” Caton replied.

“So, I’ve never been to Antigua,”
Amelia uttered, already reaching across Caton to pull the phone on the bedside
table closer. “Under that photo, I found another number.”

Hitting the button for the speaker
phone, she began pressing the digits before she could again talk herself out of
it, reminding herself it was, after all, only a phone call. Midway through,
Caton’s teeth scraped across her nipple and Amelia nearly lost her place. Glancing
down with a look meant to be scolding, Amelia assumed it came off as
encouraging when Caton smiled and sucked the nipple into her mouth.

Mind bent on one desire, body on
another, Amelia entered the remainder of the numbers before she lost her nerve,
hesitating on the last one long enough that Caton ceased what she was doing to
grab her hand. “Are you sure about this?” she questioned.

“There’s only one way to find out,”
Amelia responded, gently caressing Caton’s palm with her thumb when a touch of
fear entered her eyes, before breaking free to enter the final number.

Ridiculously tense, Amelia considered
the worst that could logically happen. It wasn’t like a swat team was going to
swoop down on them for dialing a random island number. She didn’t think. Still,
when the line picked up, she stopped herself just short of hanging up.

The voice that came on was
automated, offering no indication as to where or what they had reached, just a
request for her to enter a valid number. With a shaking hand, Amelia did as
instructed, knowing she had managed to input the numbers correctly when the
automated voice requested a password.

Taking a deep breath, she knew she
had only one shot. As far as she knew, Jack had only made the one mistake he
didn’t know about, the only mistake he wouldn’t have known to clean up.
“Vespasian,” she stated clearly.

In the next instant, the line went
silent, and Amelia was sure she had figured everything wrong, that Jack’s
intoxicated ramblings had been nothing more than that, and all that she had
gotten out of Marcus Slater was the ungodliest piece of jewelry ever crafted.

“Yes. How may I help you?” A
heavily-accented voice interrupted her runaway musings, and Amelia startled
back to reality.

“I need my account balance,” she
rushed into her predetermined script, cringing at how anxious she sounded.

“Yes, ma’am,” the young man didn’t
seem to notice. “Your current balance is sixteen million, three-hundred and
forty-two thousand, one-hundred and eleven dollars.”

Despite the fact that she had spent
her entire adult life dealing with such staggering wealth, the number still
jolted her and Amelia’s thoughts scattered. Feeling Caton move beneath her, she
glanced down, the shock in bright green eyes somehow quashing her own, so that,
wisely or foolishly, she felt invincible.

“My financial information was
seized three months ago.” She found her footing, and a flourish of typing at
the other end of the line indicated the news was taken with as much importance
as she anticipated.

“I see no activity on the account
since then,” the man responded. “Would you like to cash out or move the funds
to another account?”

Not knowing what either of those
things entailed, and with no clue as to what to do with that kind of cash in
hand, Amelia told him to move the money, telling him the line was secure enough
when he asked if she was on a secure line, and crawling back out of bed to grab
the notepad and pen from the corner desk when he wanted to give her a new
account number.

Relative to the warmth of the bed
and Caton’s body, the air was biting as Amelia stopped by the nightstand and lifted
the phone’s receiver from its cradle. She could feel the sting on her skin, but
felt strangely warm at the same time, a heady combination of power and Caton’s
eyes, which had followed her every move.

The mystery voice on the other end
of the line gave her the new account number, requested a new password, and told
her to call back when she was ready to collect her funds. Thanking him
automatically, the civility sounded unsuited to the situation and she wondered
if she had given herself away.

“You are very welcome, Ma’am,” the
man responded without pause. “Thank you for calling.”

Replying to his goodbye with her
own, Amelia watched her hand drop the phone back into its cradle and sank down
on the bed next to Caton, feeling Caton press tightly against her back. The
welcome sensation made it feel more like a dream, and Amelia worried the entire
day had been nothing but a long, incredible hallucination.

When Caton reached out for her, though,
hand curving around her hip, Amelia had experienced both the fantasy and
reality enough to distinguish the touch as real. “Okay,” she breathed. “The
money is gone as far as anyone else can see. It’s ours.”

Holding the note pad up by her
shoulder, her hand tingled as she turned to look at Caton. Meeting eyes shiny
and curious in the dim light, she worried what those eyes saw.

“I don’t want it all,” she quickly
declared. “I just want enough. To live on. To take care of Selene. To make sure
my parents are okay. To keep Sole. The rest, we can give back, we should give
back. You can help me with that, right?” She knew she was rambling, but Caton’s
nod encouraged her to go on. “I just want enough,” she reiterated. “I think
I’ve earned that.”

It was too much to want. She had
Caton, and she had Selene, and that was more than many people had. Maybe she
had no right to more.