Stolen Hearts (Hearts 1)

“The house looks amazing, darling,” she said, taking off her wrap and putting it over the edge of the island and pulling up a stool. She was a beautiful woman. Ageless and elegant. Inspiring really. The head of the Constantine family and the Chairwoman of the Board.

An absolute queen.

“Thank you. It’s been a labor of love.”

“How is Jim?” she asked.

Different, I wanted to say. He doesn’t sleep. Rarely eats with me anymore. His temper – always mercurial – was completely unpredictable. The other night after waking up alone just after midnight, I actually went looking for him. Not something I ever did before. Only to find him talking to himself in the kitchen. Muttering and swearing. I left without saying a word, but lay in bed staring at the ceiling, a sick dread in my stomach.

“Fine,” I said, because I didn’t know how to talk about Jim. Not with Caroline, not with anyone.

“How are things at the foundation?”

I took a deep breath. “On hold for the moment.” My job at the foundation had been a sham, though it took me a while to realize it. I’d thought, stupidly, Jim was giving me a chance to actually do some good. But he’d taken it away as quickly as he’d given it to me.

Embarrassed, I hadn’t told Caroline that. I’d lied, pretending I still worked there.

Pride and all.

“Really?” she asked. “You had such plans.”

“After the miscarriage, we thought it best if I did less.”

“Of course,” Caroline said quickly. She didn’t like talking about my miscarriages. And she had made it clear that she was not a shoulder for me to lean on when it came to my marriage. The first time I’d gone to her house, crying and bloody, in shock from Jim’s violence, Caroline cleaned me up and told me it was my job to make it work. That I needed to make it work. For my own sake. For Zilla’s sake.

And she sent me back to Jim.

Zilla would have told her to fuck off and taken a match to Jim’s house. But, again, I was not Zilla, and I had dried my eyes and did what Caroline told me.

Somehow, making it work, meant me becoming smaller and smaller inside my body and life. I was unnoticeable and forgettable and passive and meek, all so I could survive. So my sister could survive.

“And Zilla? How is she?” Caroline asked.

“Belhaven.”

“She checked herself back in?”

I nodded and didn’t tell her about the seven days my sister had been gone. Caroline had already done so much for us, and there was nothing she could do that would change Zilla’s circumstances.

And maybe I was embarrassed. Or maybe I was just exhausted.

“Good.”

I lied and she smiled like all was well, and that too was a comfort. Pretending everything was fine was simply a way of making things fine.

I poured the boiling water into the teapot and tossed in three scoops of my special English Breakfast blend, got out some milk for the small milk pitcher, and sugar cubes. “Lemon?”

“No, thank you. Sit down.” She pulled me down onto the stool next to her.

“You’re very thin,” she said, eyeing me up and down.

“The miscarriage—”

“Was months ago. Have you seen your doctor?”

“Of course.”

“And you’re okay?”

“Who is that man?” I asked. Blurted, really. “Ronan?”

“Are you changing the subject?” Caroline asked with a smile.

“I am,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about the miscarriage.”

“Well, he’s a man I hired a few years ago. He works on sensitive issues for the family.”

“Why is he talking to Jim?”

“Just clarifying his position on the trade deal with China before the Senate vote.”

“But what—”

“Darling,” she said and began to pour us tea, “this conversation is why I hired Ronan. So I wouldn’t have to have it.”

“Of course,” I said.

Caroline’s smile was very pretty. I mean, she was a beautiful woman, who paid a lot of money to look twenty years younger than she was. I had seen her smile with her teeth and the recipients of those smiles shirked away, wondering what they’d done wrong.

But the smiles she gave me always seemed different. Softer. Kinder.

“I have something for you.” She reached into her purse and pulled out an envelope. When Dad first died there’d been lots of these envelopes filled with cash to help with Zilla, to get me an apartment after the banks took what was left of the house. To buy me clothes when the bank took my clothes. But when it was clear what Dad had really done, the envelopes stopped, and Jim was mentioned.

“I don’t need that,” I said. Though I thought a little of the envelope of my own in my underwear drawer where I’d been squirreling away cash. Not a lot. I didn’t get a lot of cash in my life. But some of the trades wanted cash, and I told Jim they asked for a couple hundred dollars more, and I pocketed the rest.