“He would have to be.” Noah settled back down. Butch put his head in his master’s lap as though he was watching the show, too.
Christian had been spectacular. And Hope had been dazzled. “Elaine offered me a place to stay. I went with her because I didn’t have any place to go. I worked on the farm for two weeks for room and board and a small salary. I liked it. I liked the fresh air and the work. I liked the people. I had lived in the city all my life. I had no siblings. I had spent my whole life coming home to an empty, colorless apartment, and suddenly I had space and people who were interested in me. And then I met Christian. He was beautiful, and listening to him talk was a revelation. He talked about the work we were doing and how it was helping all these people.”
“You were idealistic, and he was a combination of attractive man and authority figure. It’s easy to see why you would fall, Hope. You were alone and looking for a father figure.” Noah summed it all up in a neat bundle.
Hope continued. “He gave this speech, and afterward, he invited me to have dinner at the main house. He kissed me that night. I hadn’t been kissed before. I had been very studious. All A’s. I wasn’t exactly a beauty queen, and I was easy to ignore.”
“Never,” Noah said.
But he hadn’t known her then. “So I was completely innocent. I was shocked when he tried to put his hand on my breast. I was scared. And then I was terrified that I had pulled away because I was certain he would throw me out.”
James’s tone went hard, his quiet words cutting through the room. “He didn’t throw you out. He liked the fact that you were innocent.”
“Oh, yes.” She turned away, unable to look at them. She stared out the window at the dying day. “He became a perfect gentleman. He walked me back to the cottage I shared with three other girls, and then he showed up for dinner the next night and every night after that. He barely kissed me again, but after a month, he asked me to marry him. He told me I was everything he’d wanted in a woman.”
“He wanted a little girl, the bastard,” Noah stated.
“He wanted someone pure,” Hope corrected. “Don’t we all want that? Someone without baggage? Someone whose mistakes don’t follow them around?”
James shook his head. “Our momma told us mistakes were how a person knew they’d lived. And cleaning up after them proved what kind of a person they were.”
Yes. She’d failed at both. “I married him. Toward the end, I was unhappy because he didn’t seem to want me for who I was. He didn’t want me to change and grow. He wanted the innocent girl to be that way forever. But then I didn’t see him for what he was either. I was his wife for almost two years and not once did I suspect that my husband was a con artist, a thief, and finally, a killer.”
She stared into the burgeoning darkness as she told her tale, but her mind saw something different.
Outside of Atlanta, eight years before
Hope walked through the double doors quietly, not wishing to alert Christian to her presence. She needed a few minutes alone before she started performing for her husband. That was how she had started to think about the time she spent with him. A performance.
The two times she’d argued with him, tried to stand up for what she’d wanted, he’d scared her. Once she’d been sure he was going to hit her, but he’d stopped himself and taken her into his arms, murmuring that everything was fine, that she was still his angel.
She didn’t want to be Christian’s angel anymore.
How was she going to tell him that she didn’t want to be married anymore? Her stomach churned. She didn’t love him, but she also had no idea where she would go, what she would do. She had a GED, but no college because Christian didn’t think she needed it. He’d said he would educate her, but he seemed to like to keep her in the dark.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Elaine.”
She heard Christian speaking, his low tone prowling down the hallway. The main house was a lush temple to nature. There was green along the walls and a small fountain in the foyer. The fountain bubbled, but she could still hear him. There was a thin line of light from where his office door stood barely cracked open.
“I think it’s a brilliant idea, Christian. I’m sick of this shit. I’m going to tell her, and then we’ll see where your perfect little princess’s loyalty lies.”
Elaine’s voice was shrill, on the edge of something manic. Hope walked cautiously down the hallway, careful not to make a sound. She had slipped out of her shoes on entering the house so she could feel the coolness of the floor beneath her feet. Someone had left a window open. A slightly chilly breeze rode through the house, carrying the words to her.
“She will always side with me. Hope is my wife. She’s not a little slut like you. She’s a true lady. She came to me as a virgin and will remain by my side no matter what. I haven’t allowed her feminine weaknesses to have sway.”
Hope felt sick. Once Christian had found her reading a romance novel. He’d tossed it in the fireplace and chastised her for reading anything so idiotic. He’d said her mind was too good to waste on such drivel and handed her a treatise on communal living.
What if he just didn’t want her to know what she was missing?
“And what about your masculine weakness? Does the perfect princess know you fuck me every chance you get?”
Hope stood stock-still outside the door, Elaine’s words cutting her in ways she couldn’t have imagined. She could see them standing there through the opening in the door. They were close, intimate even. After all the lectures on marital fidelity, Christian was sleeping with her best friend?
“Well, I’m certainly not going to fuck my wife’s ass, and I’m not going to ask her to blow me. She’s not a whore. Let’s stop the bullshit, dear. Neither one of us believes in any of the crap we push, but Hope is different. Hope is innocent.”
Her hands shook. Innocent. It was a word he used a lot. He treated her like a child half the time, like an idiot child who couldn’t be trusted with anything like responsibility. She’d tried to become more involved in the organization, but the most he let her do was talk to potential investors.
And what did he mean he didn’t believe?
“I need Hope.” Christian’s voice softened, cajoling. Through the crack she could see him put a hand out, touching Elaine’s hair. “You have to see that. I love her. I really do. She’s perfect, but you know as well as I do that men are imperfect. I have needs that I could never ask her to meet. It wouldn’t be fair to her.”
“But it’s fine to ask me because I’m just a whore.” Bitterness dripped from Elaine’s mouth. Her eyes narrowed even as Christian caressed her hair. “I like Hope. I actually feel guilty about bringing her here. I should have left her in that bus station.”
Christian’s hands tightened on her hair. “For the vermin of the world to devour?”
Elaine hissed a little as Christian’s hands tightened. “Well, better vermin than a snake. She’s going to find out about you. She’s going to find out about the theft and the scams. What are you going to tell her when we shut everything down in a year or two? We always have to. We’ll get close to getting caught, and we’ll pull up stakes. What are you going to tell Hope when we have to flee the authorities?”
Christian’s lips curved in a humorless smile. “She’s a good girl. She’ll do what I tell her to do.”
Because she always had. Like she’d always obeyed her mother, right up to the moment she’d told her to get out.
Christian wasn’t some white knight.
“What is she going to do when the feds come in? And eventually they are going to come in, Christian. This is a good setup, the best you’ve ever run, but can’t you see you’re skirting disaster? You’re getting too much publicity and you’re buying way too much into your own cover. Hope isn’t good for you. She’s a sweet girl and all, but you’re obsessed with her. It’s going to cost us all.”