Page 28 of Enchantra (Wicked Games #2)

27

LONG STORY

After half an hour of checking every loose stone across the bridge, they had discovered that each one released a group of the gilded fish—with the exception of three or four of the stones that released white fish amongst the golden swimmers as well.

At first Rowin had thought they needed to catch one of the white fish to locate the token, but after managing to snag three, even with his half-mended injuries, there were still no obvious clues. Now, they were lying back on the sloped bank, feet dangling in the running water. Rowin was still shirtless from diving into the river, and Genevieve was trying to focus as hard as she possibly could on the stars and not on his glistening abs. So far, she’d invented thirty-five new constellations.

“What happened the night you stopped drinking whiskey?”

His first question.

She turned to look at him, ignoring the scratchy grass on her cheek. “You’re still stuck on that?”

“I’m nosy,” he murmured.

Well, we certainly have that in common.

She took a deep breath. There were exactly four people in the world who knew this story. Herself, Farrow, Basile, and Salem. Five if Salem had divulged it to her sister despite Genevieve asking him not to.

“This story might make you think differently of me,” she warned.

He gave her a sidelong glance. “You have no idea what I think of you now, trouble.”

That was very true.

“It’s a long story,” she tried again.

“I think we’ve got the time.”

“ Fine ,” she gave in. “I suppose this means I’ll have to explain to you who Farrow is, after all.”

He smirked. Exactly what he had been hoping for, clearly. It only proved what she’d always known—men loved gossip and drama as much as women.

“I first met Farrow Henry when I was fifteen years old. I’d snuck into this charity gala at the Hotel Monteleone, off Royal Street. At the time it was my second favorite place in New Orleans. So many elegant people to watch.”

She thought of all the women she’d seen at those types of parties, how many of them had informed her own personal style, her taste for opulent things…her distaste for the paranormal.

“I’d spotted him almost immediately that night,” she continued. “Mainly because he was the only other person even close to my age, but also because he was in the middle of a very poor heist—trying to steal an entire bottle of bourbon from behind the bar. So, I decided to intervene.”

“Shocking,” Rowin murmured.

She kicked him with her good foot as she continued: “The bartender had caught him, and was getting ready to have someone throw him out, but luckily I’m rather good at pretending to faint.”

Rowin snorted. “And how does one become good at pretending to faint?”

“Wearing corsets.”

“Mmm,” he allowed. “Continue.”

“Anyway, I created a distraction. The bartender rushed over, and Farrow got away with his bottle. Once I magically recovered, I looked for him, but I couldn’t find him.”

If only that had been the case. She blinked up at the stars and steeled her nerves to tell the rest of this story. Despite seeing Farrow in her nightmares almost every night, talking about him aloud felt so much more torturous.

Something brushed the back of her hand: Rowin’s fingertips.

Gentle. Comforting.

She took a deep breath. “On my way home, I decided to stop on the Riverwalk. That’s my favorite place in New Orleans. Under the stars and the glow of the gas lamps, looking out at the water, I could pretend I was at the edge of something bigger instead of stuck where I was. Where I had always been. And as fate would have it—the cruel bitch—that’s where I found Farrow with a group of his friends. And of course the bourbon. It was the first time I ever got drunk outside of Grimm Manor. He brought me back to his house—this extravagant mansion in the Garden District. The type of glamour I’d always dreamed of. When his friends left, it was the first time I’d ever been alone with a boy. The first time I’d ever…”

Her words became thick with emotion. Her first sexual encounter had not been painful or awkward or wrought with shame. Farrow had been kind, and passionate, and everything she’d ever dreamed of for herself. At that delicate age, anyway.

He hadn’t kicked her out of his bed the moment it was over. He hadn’t refused to cuddle. And for a very long time she’d kept the memory of that first night of them together close to her heart.

Rowin waited patiently for her to find her next words, but she could tell she had his full attention.

“After that night, he promised to see me again,” she whispered. “And he did. He courted me for the entire summer, taking me places I’d never been, giving me experiences I never thought I’d have. His family is enormously wealthy. The kind of wealthy that has a different set of dishes for every occasion you can think of. The kind that has their name on historic buildings and street signs. The kind that sends their sons off to prestigious out-of-state boarding schools for the best possible education.”

“Ah,” Rowin murmured.

She nodded at the sky. “I was devastated. Didn’t leave my bed for a month. My mother hardly even noticed. Ophelia did, but I had never told her about him, or how far things had gone, so I lied and learned how to hide the truth from her. Farrow promised to write until he came back for me. The letters came weekly at first. Then a couple times a month. Then one last letter on my sixteenth birthday before…nothing. I spent years getting over him. Tried to use others to get him out of my system. And eventually it worked. I’d finally stopped thinking about him.” She ripped out a handful of grass at her side. “And then that bastard came back.”

She sat up in frustration now, sifting through the blades of grass in her hand and tearing them into tiny pieces. Rowin also sat, bending his knees up to his chest and propping his cheek on his fist as he looked at her.

“I assume this story takes a turn for the worse?”

She gave a bitter laugh of confirmation. “He came back and acted like nothing happened. Like he hadn’t ripped my heart out when he left, and I hadn’t spent years trying to get clean of him. I told him the moment he arrived to leave me alone. I’d made other friends—Luci, Iris, Basile—and I’d been just fine without him. It was the first group I’d ever really been a part of. And he had to poison that for me, too. He and Basile became inseparable. He’d introduced Iris to his brother, and she was smitten . She constantly begged me to go on outings with them. Luci was the only one on my side, but her family fell on hard times, and she grew distant for a while.”

“Don’t tell me you just gave in,” Rowin drawled.

“Of course not,” she scoffed. “I made him work for it. Grovel. For three whole months before I finally agreed to see him again.”

“Three months? That’s practically an eternity,” Rowin agreed, tone dripping with sarcasm.

“Without any good sex it is,” she muttered.

The corners of his lips curled up. “Try five years and get back to me.”

She balked. “Five years ?”

He looked away from her. “I’ve had more important matters on my mind, remember. Now, back to your story.”

She had almost forgotten she was in the middle of her own sordid tale.

“Right. I agreed to see him again, and this time he swore he was there to stay. He had begun shadowing his grandfather’s business and claimed he was ready for commitment. For months, I slept by his side, listening to his promises. How he was going to propose to me and build me the house of my dreams. Help me take care of my family. Because my sister didn’t know it yet, but my mother was on the verge of plunging us into bankruptcy.” Her breaths grew shaky. “And then on February twentieth of last year, he changed his mind.”

She threw the grass in her hand out into the stream, watching as each blade sent tiny, overlapping ripples through the water. She was afraid the conversation she’d had with Farrow that day would not fade from her memories until she was dust in a grave.

“He said his family was too affluent to have someone with paranormal blood in their pristine family line. That I was delusional for ever thinking otherwise. He told me he was engaged to be married to some girl in London and that we could have two more nights together.” Her face burned with shame as she focused on a spot far ahead. “Anyway, I sent Farrow a note saying I wanted one last hurrah before he left—asked him to meet me inside one of the Mardi Gras parade floats at six o’clock sharp. And then I got very, very drunk.”

“On whiskey,” he guessed.

“Yes.” Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. “He found Basile and me in a very compromising position. I wanted to make him feel as horrible as he’d made me feel. To show him that I had moved on first.”

Rowin’s eyes narrowed, his jaw clenching as he asked, “What did he do?”

Genevieve swallowed her tears as she recited, “Called me every derogatory name in the book. Whore. Slut. Demon . Whatever. The names didn’t matter.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I’d embarrassed him. And in response he set the float on fire with me and Basile locked inside.”

Rowin’s lips parted in disbelief. “Genevieve.”

“I was too drunk to use my magic. I think maybe that’s why I fainted the first night here—having my magic taken brought back that helpless feeling. I hate it.”

A brief flash of guilt flitted over his face.

“By the time we were rescued, Basile had burns on over half his body. I, of course, recovered. Though it took weeks . But Farrow’s father paid off the police department, and then a check arrived at Grimm Manor as well.”

She took a deep breath and continued: “Basile asked me to help him use his own hush money to get a very expensive elixir for his scars, and while the elixir worked well enough, it didn’t do much for my guilt.”

“And Farrow? You just let him get away with that?”

“Fortunately, I’ve recently gained the sort of connections that I needed to enact the lasting sort of revenge Farrow deserved.”

“I hope that revenge included lighting him on fire,” Rowin told her firmly.

“Close enough,” she murmured.

Salem had been a little too eager to burn down the Henry family’s estate, honestly. Even with Genevieve’s provision that there could be no one inside when it happened. She never made Salem swear on that provision, however, and there was a tiny part of her that hoped maybe he hadn’t listened.

“Which part of that story was supposed to make me think differently of you?” he wondered.

“Is that one of your questions?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m not proud of any of it,” she admitted. “I desperately want to forget, but I don’t think I deserve to. Not when Basile has to remember. Since then I’ve been trying to find some kind of light in the darkness of what happened. But I think maybe the light will never be in my reach, and I need to accept that.”

“The light isn’t something you need to chase, Genevieve. The light is wherever you are,” he told her.

A rush of surprise at the sincerity of those words went through her, and she had to look away from him.

“You do know that none of the blame is on your shoulders, don’t you?” Rowin demanded. “It’s that bastard’s fault. Farrow. What a ridiculous fucking name.”

“Pots and kettles, Rowington ,” she joked half-heartedly.

“I’m serious,” he insisted, reaching over to tap a finger beneath her chin to make her look him right in the eyes, the gold of his irises earnest. “You know that you are not to blame for any of it, right?”

“Is that your final question?” she whispered.

“Genevieve.”

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

He shook his head, expression darkening. “That better be your fucking lie.”