She was the designer she longed to be. She’d put her unique stamp on King’s, earning the right to call herself a King. And she was cared for, maybe even loved, just for being herself. Griffin’s pixie.
It was too bad he’d done the unthinkable; he’d stolen her heart and manipulated her into giving up her freedom. Somehow he didn’t even know how much like her mother he’d become. Deceptive.
The end justifies the means.
“No, Griff, it doesn’t.” Because breaking someone’s heart didn’t justify a damn thing.
Chapter 21
Griffin eased the back door open. Darkness greeted him.
“She’s gone,” he said, sensing it. He didn’t bother to turn on the light. Closing and locking the door, he turned back to his empty future.
The house had never been this cold or hollow. It seeped into him, nearly choking him.
He focused on getting to his study, and then holing up there. Once he got to the room, Griff reached for the light. Something seemed different. He flicked it on.
Sucking in a sharp breath, he glanced around at the changes she made. “Pixie,” he murmured, coming into the room and taking note of the same shade of aqua blue on the walls. Her pink chair remained, but held a colorful pillow with pinks and blues against a white background to tie in the colors to the rest of the room. A new rug graced the floor in front of the fireplace. The bookshelves behind his desk held something that caught his eye.
Slowly, he walked toward it, frowning at the glare on the glass container there. When he realized what it held, his chest tightened. He could barely take another breath. His medals were there on display. Beside them, a picture of him and his buddies in fatigues she’d found in the box stood in a frame.
Next to that, she’d discovered and framed a grainy picture of a little boy holding his father’s hand. Him. His father. The only thing that had survived the long, lonely years without his dad.
Griffin swallowed hard. No matter what he’d done to her, no matter how much he’d hurt her, she still loved him. Because she’d never do this for someone she despised. Or so he hoped.
***
Screwing up all the courage she could muster, Priscilla pressed the doorbell. It hardly ended ringing when the door swung open.
She looked at her mother, perfectly made-up and with every hair in place.
“Priscilla, dear, I knew you’d come to your senses. That hair.” She tsked, “It will grow. That outfit must go. Where are your bags?” She peered out the door and around the front step.
“I’m here to talk.”
Her face fell, and then she pasted on a serene smile. Her dark eyes were shadowed, though. “Come in. You are alone, aren’t you?”
Priscilla stepped over the threshold of her former home. It felt like another world, faded and smaller than she recalled. Her trepidation siphoned out of her.
In moments, she entered the parlor behind her mother who darted to the drinks cabinet. “I won’t offer any to you. I know you don’t drink.”
The things she doesn’t know, Priscilla thought, would turn her hair permanently gray. She suppressed a giggle. Taking a seat on the old-fashioned sofa, she watched her mother fill a glass, and then take a long swallow and top it off again. Her mother sashayed to her then, gingerly sitting in the chair across from her. “Do you have a drinking problem?”
Her mother lost her color. “Of course not.” She scowled. “I know my limits.”
“Do you? Not with your daughters, you don’t.” Priscilla couldn’t drag the words back even if she’d wanted to.
“You’re here, aren’t you?” she asked sweetly.
“You pushed us away. You hurt us.” In the back of her mind, she thought, she could say the same to Griff. Dawning hit. “You can’t let go of the past. You’re so fixated on what was that you can’t even see what’s in front of you. Where’s your dog? Where’s the Colonel?” She noticed the house was so silent.
“The butler took the dog for a walk.” She waved a hand. “And the Colonel no longer…”
“He left you.” She knew it, but hoped he’d changed his mind and come back.
Looking around now, Priscilla discovered something she herself had never realized before. “Nothing’s changed. It’s all the same since Daddy was here.” She stared at her mother now, saying softly, “He’s not coming back.”
Gazing down into her drink, her mother cried. “He said he’d always take care of us. He lied. He left me.”
Tears smarted Priscilla’s eyes. She went to her mother. Sitting on the arm of her chair, she hugged her. Sobs racked her mother’s body. For a long time, they stayed that way. Suddenly, her mother jerked away, pushing her hands off her. “I don’t want your pity.”