Beautiful Nightmare (Dark Dream 2)

A moment after he spoke, Sarah fainted.

Luckily, I was close enough to lunge forward and catch her before she hit her head on the edge of the bar cart. Still, her shoulder hit the corner, sending two martini glasses shattering to the floor beside us.

“Fucking hell,” Lucian growled. “Get her under control, Tiernan.”

I lifted our mother into my arms and deposited her on a pink tufted chair. There was a vial of smelling salts on the sideboard I retrieved to wave under her nose until she slowly blinked back into consciousness.

“What was that?” I demanded as soon as she was cognizant. “Why did you react so poorly to Beckett Fairchild?”

I watched her throat move with a painful swallow, her hand fluttering to cover it from my gaze. “Be a darling and fetch me my pills. I need them.”

“No. Tell me why the fuck you fainted at the sound of his voice?”

Something was building inside me, sucking everything I was back into a looming wall of water that seemed to threaten my very existence. That tingle of premonition sparked down my spine and urged me to shake Sarah’s shoulders lightly as if I could rattle the answer loose.

“Tell me!” I demanded when she only blinked into the distant.

Her grey eyes cut to mine, wide and opaque as stone. “I-I’m just scared for you. What if Bryant discovers you’re here?”

“Lie to me again, Mother,” I growled, my teeth set on edge. “You’ll be reminded why you call me your monster.”

“You would never hurt your mother,” she gasped.

I arched a brow in cold challenge. Of course, I would never hurt my mother, but I wasn’t above making her sweat in order to get my long awaited answers. “I’m here today to hurt my father. What makes you think I’d hesitate with you?”

Of course, I had no intention of hurting her, but I was done, that wall of water curling high over my sense of self. There was no hope of reining it in. At this point, I could only hope it was crash down soon, ridding me of this poisonous anxiety.

Bryant’s voice came again. “So sensitive, Beckett. I expected bigger balls on a man with your reputation.”

His rough laughter echoed through Sarah’s parlor.

“Please,” she breathed as if she was asphyxiating. “Get me a drink, Tiernan.”

I took mercy on her, pouring a large tumbler of straight vodka. She took it gratefully, her hand trembling so badly as she raised the glass to her lips that alcohol spilled down her chin into the collar of her cashmere hoodie.

“I met your wife once,” Beckett said. “She was a lovely woman.”

Sarah whimpered, clutching the empty glass in both hands like a life preserver.

“Ha!” Bryant snorted. “That must have been a very long time ago.”

“Enough with the misogyny, Dad,” Carter protested mildly. “I don’t think Santo Belcante needs to hear about the dynamics of our family, hmm?”

“Who is Beckett to you?” I demanded of Sarah. “You have three seconds to tell me.”

“Tiernan,” she protested.

“Three.”

“Tiernan, sweetheart, you don’t understand––“

“Two.”

“Tiernan!”

“One.” I warned. “You owe me the truth, Sarah. Tell me now or I swear to fucking God that I will never visit you again. You’ll waste away in this suite, unloved, unwitnessed and when you die, one of the servants will discover you and no one will go to your funeral.”

“Stop!” she said, dissolving to tears. “No good was ever going to come of it, Tiernan. Don’t you understand? It was a mistake. A stupid, vengeful mistake I made because your father could never love me. Do you understand what that’s like?”

“How dare you ask me that?” I murmured darkly.

She ignored me, hysteria settled so deeply inside her that I wasn’t sure she could even see me anymore.

“Beckett, he was so beautiful, so kind. And he was close with the Constantines, basically one of them. He liked me and I was lonely, aching to stick it to Bryant for neglecting me for so long.”

“You slept with him,” I said the words aloud even though they’d been sitting inside me since the moment she reacted to Beckett’s name.

Sarah blinked at me, fresh tears raining down her cheeks into the vodka-soaked neck of her shirt.

“He’s my father.” Something was wrong with my voice, the words fell dead between us, thunking to the floor. “Does he know?”

When she didn’t respond immediately, I surged forward, looming over her like that tsunami wave inside my chest, caging her in. “Does he know?” I roared.

“Yes.” The word exploded from her lips. “Yes, h-he started hounding me about it about six years ago. Said he’d run into you and seen your eyes. Fairchild eyes. He cornered me in Bergdorf’s one day and I confessed. He made me!”

The wave crashed into me, obliterating everything inside my chest, drowning my heart, my sense of identity, everything I’d ever known. I tumbled under the driving wave, cycling in the churning water unable to draw breath.