Page 17 of This Might Hurt

ANDREW

TWO WEEKS LATER

On the helicopter ride from Stewart International to our estate near Rhinebeck, Mom slips her arm through mine and leans against my shoulder.

Colin won’t stop staring at me, so I pull down my black ball cap and adjust my sunglasses, pretending to fall asleep in my sun-warmed seat as I watch the Hudson River unfurl beneath us.

I can’t help enjoying the sight, even though we’re here to bury the corpse of whatever autonomy I have left.

Carrick House is my favorite property we own, with the staff who helped raise me, and my beloved horse Sid waiting for me in the stables.

The humid, lush countryside of upstate New York, steeped in history and character, defined my childhood.

Sturdy green leaves whip and flutter as we start to descend onto a cropped turf landing pad south of the house.

I sit up to catch my favorite view—the slate tile roof, with its gray stone chimneys, then the vast green lawn and rose garden, and at the very furthest point the dark waters of the Hudson with a white sailboat flashing in the sun.

As we touch down, Mother squeezes my hand and gathers up her purse and coat.

Colin can’t see my eyes through my glasses, but he somehow knows when I look at him.

He smiles faintly and tilts his head toward the window.

Two men wait on the steps from the house, talking animatedly.

One of them stands at least six foot six with red-gold curls, the other one only slightly shorter with a closely shaved head.

I’ve been bracing myself for this ever since I got home, but something in my chest collapses at the sight of them.

The last two weeks I’ve kept my head down and my mouth shut as I helped Colin wrap up our business affairs in the western half of the US.

But staying quiet doesn’t work on Archie.

The pilot signals for us to go ahead. I help Mother down while Colin bounds lazily across the wet grass, ignoring the security guard waving us to the safest position.

The thump of rotors behind us slows, the air stilling into a sticky warmth that seems too oppressive for late spring.

Even with fear sitting like a weight in my chest, I can’t help admiring the house—a gorgeous, sprawling mansion of multicolored fieldstone with traditional mullioned windows, draped with ivy and honeysuckle.

My grandfather named it Carrick House after the region of Scotland where he was born.

I study the staff members scattered around the edges of the lawn, hoping to spot Grant, but he’s not here yet. “Welcome home,” Archie booms, loping down the steps to wrap his sister in a hug she doesn’t return. He’s at least two shades more bronze than when he left on vacation.

“Where’s the event coordinator?” she asks crisply, pushing him away. “I need to tell her to ignore whatever shit you came up with.”

He spreads his powerful hands in mock hurt, flashing me a grin. “What? You think I can’t make a seating chart?”

She storms up to the house without another word.

Colin shakes his brother’s hand and follows her, on his way to some conference call with a branding office in London.

He does the most actual work, as Chief Financial Officer of the Innes Group, while Archie thrives as Chief Operating Officer by spewing his overwhelming charisma in every direction.

When I become CEO upon my grandfather’s death, I’ll leave my comforting fake publicity role behind and find myself trapped between them.

I pull off my sunglasses and stare at Archie, too confused to do more than take an instinctive step back as he closes the distance and puts a hand on my shoulder. “What event coordinator?”

“Let me see the war wound,” he teases, ignoring my question.

I drag my right hand out of my pocket and hold it up.

Nothing but the faintest swelling and some faint green-yellow splotches remain to commemorate the strangest, most desperate day of my life.

“Sorry to disappoint. And I’m sorry I didn’t get your car back in time.

” Sometimes he’s better if I bring things up proactively, because it takes the fun out of tormenting me.

I don’t mention the damage, because if Grant said he would make it good as new, I trust him.

“Oh shit.” He pulls back, studying me. My whole family has varying shades of gray eyes, but his are the most striking, bright and tinted almost blue.

“Have you been worrying about that this whole time? I was kidding, man. You take everything so seriously.” Bursting with energy like a little kid, he takes a step toward the house and gestures for me to follow.

“Your groom got here an hour ago. Great guy. We’re gonna go wing shooting this fall. ”

“Archie.” I take another step back in the thick, spongy grass. “I thought Granddad was doing better. What’s going on?”

He cocks his head and examines me with dawning interest. “Oh. Is that what they told you to get you up here without a fight?”

My chest clenches. I spent two weeks convincing myself he would get better, that I would have months to come to terms with the reality of marrying a complete stranger who will take what he wants from me every night and ignore me the rest of the time.

As usual, I was incredibly stupid. “He’s not better, is he? ”

Archie’s laugh can’t quite hide the bitterness of a man who has spent his entire life being denied the only thing he cares about. He steps closer so no one can overhear, his forehead almost touching my temple. “He’s on high flow oxygen, and his numbers keep dropping. So, no.”

I keep my eyes fixed on the rugged but elegant house that looks like it grew out of the landscape. It’s the only place I feel like I understand my grandfather even a little. “They’re planning the wedding.”

This time his chuckle is pure amusement. “Planned, past tense. Your engagement party is tonight, and the wedding is Saturday.”

I cough out an incredulous laugh. “Come on. That’s not…” Catching myself, I bite down on the edge of my tongue. “Three fucking days?” If I could see past the row of trees, I’d probably find hundreds of tables already set up on the lawn, workers bustling everywhere.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Letting go of me, he turns around and shouts at one of the drivers loitering by the garage. “Hey. Get us a car.”

My heart sinks. Everyone’s staring at us now. “I—”

He points at his feet like I’m a dog, holding my panicked stare.

“Come on. We’re going to the hospital to tell Dad that he needs to cancel one of the biggest mergers in the history of our industry because you got cold feet.

” I know this calm, matter-of-fact tone, the look in his cool eyes.

Archie never bluffs. He’ll drive me all the way there, put me in front of the dying man, force me to explain that the boy who has been groomed to lead his company refuses to fulfil his last wishes.

I’m afraid, but I don’t need to be. It’s the fight that hurts. If there’s no friction, the pain goes away. The only thing I have control over in the next forty years is how much this hurts.

“I’m sorry.” I focus on a tuft of grass the lawnmower missed, nudging it with my shoe as I wait for the tension in the air to dissipate. “I didn’t mean it like that. We’re good.”

“Great.” He sounds bored, like waiting for me to give up my entire life is the least interesting part of his day. “Then come meet Dax.”

As I follow him toward the steps, my fingers skim the edge of the scratched-up lighter resting against my thigh. Every morning for the past two weeks I’ve gone to throw it in the trash, along with my memories of Jude. But just like that day, I can’t stand to see him go.

The man with buzzed hair, dressed head to toe in ultra-luxury black athleisure, glances at me as I approach.

His eyes flick over my body like I’m a not very interesting museum exhibit.

I suppose many people would say it’s medieval to arrange a marriage between two complete strangers solely as part of a business deal.

But our world is pretty fucking medieval, more than anyone realizes.

I gather my breath, because if I’m going to fucking do this, I suppose I should at least try. “Good morning.”

“Hi.” He seems vaguely annoyed that I made him go to the effort of speaking to me. When Archie bounds up the stairs to clap his shoulder, he grins. “Want to see the car?”

I can’t swallow past the fist sized knot in my throat as I watch them saunter away together, laughing.

For the first time, I truly understand what my life is going to become three days from now.

I tell myself no friction, over and over, but I can’t manage it.

My panicked heart keeps snagging on the edges of my fear until it’s in tatters.

If someone told me right now that they could free me from this mess, I might ignore twenty-five years of my family’s conditioning and say yes.

But I’m not sure there’s anyone on earth who can.

I just stand on the edge of the lawn, the lighter curled in my fingers, until I look around and realize everyone else has gone inside.

JUDE

The first time Ramona coaxed me from the public library into her home, she fed me a dozen scrambled eggs, an entire package of sausages, and a whole potato field’s worth of hash browns.

She let me, a filthy stranger, sleep in her spare bedroom.

She taught me how to make homemade treats for Buckley and showed off how she had trained him to spin around and sit.

I dozed on her couch while she read and listened to Leonard Cohen vinyls.

She looked at me like she loved me somehow, even after I’d only been there a week.

The first time I strayed back to the truck stops to make some money, I cried for like an hour after I left and counted the days until I could come back. So I never thought staying would become the hard part, that stillness and quiet would feel like a slow death.