Page 34 of Once a Villain
“Butmore importantly—” Jamie prompted Ruth.
“Oh yeah,” Ruth said. “And what the hell is going on? Why did that guy call AaronLord Oliver? And why were you talking toEleanor?”
Twelve
“Ihaveto ask again.” Ruth gestured at Joan’s clothes.
Joan tugged at her shirt. It couldn’t have been more clearly Aaron’s—with its embroidered mermaid and storm-gray silk, the same color as his eyes. “I don’t know what it looks like, but—”
“Itlookslike you’re wearing Aaron’s shirt,” Ruth said. She surveyed the massive bedroom, the rumpled bed, Nick’s bare chest. Her mouth opened and closed over a dozen questions. She settled with: “What the hell are you even doing here?”
Nick flushed. “Aaron’s the head of the family in this timeline. The Olivers thought he hired me and Joan as prostitutes, so we went along with it.”
“You wentalongwith it?” Ruth said.
“Well, notactually,” Joan said. “Fakely went along with it.”
“I didn’t get the impression that I was paying you,” Aaron interjected to Nick. He’d fallen into his most lord-like posture, the one that seemed to irritate everyone when they first met him: hands behind his back, as if he were inspecting substandard property. More and more, Joan thought he dropped into that posture when he was feeling defensive.
Nick scowled at him. “Why would we be here for free?”
Aaron lifted his chin.Have youseenme?
Nick’s expression answered him:Ihaveseen you, and I don’t like what I see.
His counterpart’s poster was still on the desk, bloodied face staring up at the ceiling, and Joan felt almost as sick as she had when she’d first seen Aaron’s signature on it. Some bone-deep part of herself kept expecting Aaron and Nick to get along; kept telling her that it wasn’t supposed to be like this between them. Her instinct couldn’t have been more wrong, though. In Eleanor’s timeline, their counterparts had been at war.
“Seems like we need to get our stories straight,” Nick told Aaron tightly.
“Right,” Aaron said. His gaze flicked to the poster, and his mouth twisted. An arrogant note crept into his voice. “Because the obvious possibility is that I saw you on the street and ordered you to come home with me.”
“Ordered?” Nick’s northern accent was coming out again.
“I don’t know how this world works, but it seems heads of family have a great deal of power here,” Aaron said. “I imagine thatsomeone in my position could do just about anything they wanttoanyone they want here. People might assume I plucked you from the gutter and ordered you to entertain me until I tired of you. They might assume I had the right. Maybethatshould be our story. Maybethatwould be more realistic here.”
Nick’s jaw worked as he took that in. Joan had seen him vengeful and full of righteous fury, but she’d never really seen anyone get under his skin like this.
Aaron lifted his chin higher. “In fact—”
“Aaron,” Joan said. This conversation was too much. The poster was too much.
Aaron’s mouth shut with a clack, and he blinked at her as if he’d forgotten for just a second that there was anyone herebut him and Nick. He looked a little sick suddenly—he hadn’t intended to take it that far. Joan saw his hands rise slightly as if he wanted to reach for her, and then he caught sight of the poster again, and looked even more sick.
Jamie cleared his throat awkwardly. “Not to interrupt, but can wepleasetalk about Eleanor? What did she say to you?”
Joan turned to him and saw that he was even paler than usual. They were all exhausted, she knew. They couldn’t rest quite yet, though. “Why don’t you sit down?” she said. There was a lot more to talk about than just Eleanor.
And they had a recording to watch.
After Joan had filled in Ruth and Jamie on the main points, Jamie examined the plastic tag she’d found. He beckoned them over to the clearing between the bed and the windows. The cliff-like edge of the bed blocked the rest of the room, making the space feel almost small.
“You found it with the poster?” he said to Joan.
“It dropped out of the hollow.”
“Could be unrelated,” Ruth said. “There’s a lot of junk on that desk. Maybe the tag fell in.”
“Right,” Joan said. “The recording could be anything. Could be a movie.” She felt weirdly uneasy, though. She scooped Frankie’s heavy body into her lap. Ruth had decanted the meat from a veal pie, and Joan balanced the plate on her knee so that Frankie could eat from it at her leisure.
