Page 108 of Knot Just for Show

“No, no—I can’t put this off. I’m not sick. I just didn’t get any sleep last night because my brain simply refused to turn off,” he explains woefully, dragging a hand down his face.

“Are you sure? None of us wants you to push yourself. If your parents try to give you shit about it—I’ll take the heat,” I offer myself up for sacrifice, moving slowly into Lysander’s bubble of personal space to smooth a lock of chocolate curls out of his face.

He nods gravely, leaning in to kiss my mouth before he calls to Leo and Ascher, “Would you have Emily bring the car around?”

“Yes, of course sir.” Leo and Ascher, seeming to appear from thin air—a large bouquet of stargazer lilies, pungent and cloyingly sweet in Ascher’s arms.

“And would you tell Millicent to prepare a light tea service for when we return? We won’t be long, and supper with the Wong family isn’t until quite a bit later.”

I can’t help but shuffle uneasily as Lysander makes his requests. I’ve never seen butlers or maids in real life before—only in movies. Something about the quality of Lysander and the house staff’s interactions is different in a way I can’t quite place.

“Of course,” Leo and Ascher reply in unison, bowing crisply at the waist before disappearing into the grand salon and the rooms beyond.

“Tea? Aren’t we having lunch with your parents?” Teddy stands somewhat awkwardly—his hands in his pockets to keep them from fidgeting with nerves.

“Shall we?” Lysander offers me his arm, handily avoiding Teddy’s question in favor of sweeping me out the front door and toward Emily—her black leather gloved hand poised on the door handle of the limo, ready to sprint into action.

On the fringe of my peripheral vision, I watch the other boys exchange suspicious glances.

Once we’re all seated in the limo, the mood is distinctly more stuffy and uncomfortable than our ride from the airport to Redthorn the day before.

I’m curious to see where we’re off to. I’d have never guessed that Redthorn could have been nestled right here in LA, despite my other run-ins with the town’s rich and famous over the years.

Preston and Harper Ewing must have some pretty serious digs. If we’re about to be walking directly into the lion’s den, we might as well appreciate the trappings of their wealth, the rich furnishings of our final resting place while we can, right?

I’m so deep in thought that I hadn’t even noticed our quick turns from street to street, not even five miles from Redthorn’s front door before the limo takes a sharp turn into a shaded cemetery, the limo rolls slowly along one of the narrow one way access roads until we arrive at a gleaming white stone mausoleum, the name ‘Ewing’ carved into its marble face above a line of ionic columns.

The limo comes to a stop and the engine stills. My mind continues spinning, not yet understanding the scene before me.

Lysander is the first one out of the limo, his hand outstretched to me to help me out of the limo after him.

As soon as Teddy is out of the back, Lysander passes me off to him, placing the bouquet of lilies in my arm; their pink and white spattered petals, and sweet scent feeling stiflingly funereal in this new context.

Lysander marches dutifully to the bright red lacquered wooden doors to the crypt—snatching a small broom from somewhere unseen behind one of the columns; sweeping away leaves and fallen jacaranda blossoms from the white stone steps before he replaces the broom—calling us forth to follow him inside as he swings the crimson portals wide.

“Ursula, Teddy, Mavren, Ronan, Ash—,” he sucks in a pained breath, the whine of a sob at the frayed edges of Lysander’s voice. “Meet Mom and Dad—Harper and Preston Ewing,” he manages to bite out, sweeping a hand toward a pair of framed black and white photographs affixed to a large stone outcropping not unlike a capped shelf just inside the vestibule.

Beneath the distant, not-quite-smiling portraits of the late Mr. And Mrs. Ewing, a brass vase protrudes from the stone, a withered bundle of white roses and crumbled baby’s breath still moldering inside.

“Mom, Dad—meet Pack Gold,” he sobs a cold laugh, pulling the dead flowers from the brass fitting and tossing them out the front door of the crypt.

“Hold on just a second…” Mavren starts slowly—a hand laid flat over his own solar plexus.

Ash’s head swivels wildly—looking from Mavren, to Lysander, to me—and back again; his mouth moving without any sound coming out.

“But—I thought—you never said…” Teddy stammers.

Lysander turns to me, takes the bouquet of lilies from my arms and places them into the vase—arranging them tenderly as tears fall from his eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” I ask quietly, eddying in behind Lysander through the cold stream of his grief.

His shoulders sag as my hands come to rest on his waist, his sobs coming in little jerking bursts.

“The inheritance,” Ronan sighs with pained understanding. “You didn’t want to go into the show having to completely bullshit who you were…but you wanted to make sure you put some potential distance between you and all that money when it came to the optics.”

“My father hated me, he would have denied me every penny if he’d had his way.” Lysander struggles to breath against his hysterical tears. “My mother, though she had wanted me to be an omega like her, still loved me. She didn’t want to punish me for something I wasn’t—even if she was disappointed.”

I can’t help it—the sight of Lysander so deeply wounded brings tears from my own eyes—my hands combing gently back through his hair—his eyes still chained to the portraits of his late parents, even though they overflowed with tears.

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