Page 106 of Jane Deyre
The grandfather clock strikes midnight. I’m struck by a stab of sadness.
This Cinderella will never become a princess.
CHAPTER 54
Ward
“What are you doing in here?” Soaking in my deep claw-foot tub in the rose petal–filled bath I’ve drawn, Jane snaps her head at me. Her eyes are cold, murky pools of green.
“I wanted to make sure you’re okay.” I’m telling her the truth. Though I don’t know if I believe in God, I’ve silently thanked the Lord she’s alive. My beautiful Jane. How close I came to losing her. Again, life proving timing is everything.
Jane narrows her eyes. Two icicles. “Please leave me be.”
“No. I owe you an explanation.”
“I don’t want to talk abouther.”
I blow out a breath. “Jesus, Jane. Why can’t you believe me that my wife is dead?”
Turning away from me, she slides down the tub and buries herself beneath the water. Her hair fanned out, she looks so tiny to me. So thin. So fragile. She stays under a beat too long and panic seizes me. She’s drowning herself!
I’m about to pull her out when her head shoots up from the water.
“Christ, Jane. What’s wrong with you? I almost lost you once tonight.”
Wordlessly, she pulls her knees to her chest and stares straight ahead, her profile bathed in the glow of the scented candles I’ve scattered around the bathroom. My eyes stay on my love, not much older than a child, yet all beautiful woman. Without looking at me, she says, her voice flat and devoid of emotion, “Tell me about Céline.”
I peel a red rose petal off her wet hair and rub it between my fingers. It’s one of the many dried ones from the jar I keep, all collected from my godmother’s garden. When I was a child, she taught me about their healing powers. Their ability to cleanse and purify. If only they could erase all the abuse Jane’s endured. All the burn marks. All the scars. At least, there won’t be any more. The bastard is dead.
Stripping off my clothes, I join Jane in the tub. I’m relieved she doesn’t protest or attempt to leave.
“How did you find out about her?” I ask, facing her, my long legs curled up to my chest like hers.
She rubs the bandage on her neck. She shouldn’t have gotten it wet. “Ms. Fairfax told me.”
Goddamn Alice Fairfax. Maybe I should plunge a knife in her chest too. Rose petals settle on my arms as I draw Jane closer to me. She lets me hold on to her slender shoulders. It’s time for me to cleanse myself. Tell her the truth about my past. With the hope it’ll heal us, I launch into my story.
“I was a fuckup. After my mother committed suicide, I fell into a funk. A depression of sorts. I turned to drugs. And fell into a fast crowd at Yale. My roommate, Rowland Richmond, was the spoiled scion to a steel fortune and had access to every designer drug under the sun—from cocaine to ecstasy—and to every girl—and asshole—on the Yale campus who didn’t mind pulling their pants down for a fuck and some coke. If you had a hole he could stick his dick into, you were fair game.”
Jane listens quietly, her face impassive as I go on.
“I was better looking and smarter than he was. The perfect pawn. He used me to get girls and to write his papers and in exchange introduced me to his best friend from prep school—Blanche Ingram, a then blond goddess who reminded me of my mother. Except she was cunning, ambitious, and manipulative. We were a triumvirate. Together, we could rule the world.”
Still no reaction from Jane.
“Following our senior year, we all moved to New York City. Blanche to pursue a literary career, me to pursue journalism, and Rowland to pursue getting anything or anyone he wanted. With his ten-million-dollar trust fund and more on the way when he turned twenty-five, he didn’t need to work. Blanche, who came from wealth too, had no choice as her parents threatened to cut off her trust fund if she didn’t get a job. Plus, she was ambitious. Blanche and I became more than fast friends. We became fuck buddies. Codependent on sex, drugs, and booze.”
Her arms folded around her knees, Jane keeps her gaze on me. Intent, unblinking. Her expression still unreadable, she says not a word and lets me continue.
“After a few freelance gigs, I ended up getting a job withVanity Fair,where I regularly wrote about high-profile, controversial celebrities. People like Harvey Weinstein, Kim Kardashian, and Lindsay Lohan. Still addicted to drugs and booze, I immersed myself in writing profiles of fucked-up people so I didn’t have to deal with my own fucked-upness. It was an escape, though I was always hoping to find a kernel of virtue that would make me a better person.”
Taking a short break, I breathe in through my nose and exhale. Rake my fingers through my hair.
“I never did. I sank further and further into a life of debauchery, bullshit, and greed. The lives of the rich and famous fed my iPad. And they fed my habits. It’s amazing how a little coke can make you ask audacious questions no one else has dared to ask and get answers the whole world wants to hear. My no-holds-barred profiles sold magazines and I grew a following on social media. Blanche encouraged me to turn one of my most talked about profiles into a book, and after six months of being glued to my computer, writing twenty-four seven, she sold it to a major publisher. Getting me an almost unheard of high six-figure advance. I was no longer a journalist, but a biographer. And an instantNew York Timesbestseller likened to William F. Buckley and Truman Capote. The twenty-five-year-old darling of the literary world. The esteemed, charismatic, dashing author, who everyone who was anything in New York wanted at their dinner parties. Or in their beds. The money was flowing; the champagne was flowing; the sex was flowing, and so was the coke.”
My mind flashes back briefly to that period in my life, now a psychedelic blur, before I go on.
“Richie Rich, as we teasingly called him, got busted for dealing. An embarrassment to his well-heeled Park Avenue parents, he was sent off to Paris. I, in the meantime, was getting sick of New York, of the entire bogus scene, and being pressured by Blanche to marry her. Her parents told her she couldn’t get the first part of her trust fund unless she was married. I was perfect marriage material. Handsome, successful, and respected.”