Page 83 of Lavender and Lightning

Lex nods. “My parents had trouble conceiving, and my birth was hard on my mother. They were warned to never have another child. So, to his eternal shame, I was to be the heir to the St. Clair fortune. I was pushed to be the best in all things, to be smarter, more ruthless than my classmates. Other children were competition, and there was no room for friendship when I was constantly being taught how to analyze them, pick out their weaknesses and exploit them to my own advantage.”

“Birthday parties must have been a bloodbath,” Lucas huffs with an ironic chuckle.

“Bold of you to assume I was allowed to celebrate simply surviving another circuit around the sun,” Lex retorts before taking a long sip of her coffee.

“At least my parents tried to use religion as an excuse. Birthdays were too secular, too indulgent of worldly pursuits,” I grumble, rubbing my palms on my jeans.

“I learned very early not to share anything with my parents, good or bad, because even things I thought were said in confidence would get thrown back in my face. My successes were critiqued and dismissed, my failures tallied. To this day, I swear my father has a ledger book with each mistake documented.”

Lex breaks off with a low, humorless chuckle, shaking her head as she drifts off in thought. The sadness in her eyes reflects off the glass window, and my heart twists in my chest. Rhett shifts behind me, taking a few steps closer but not speaking.

“I knew I didn’t want to get sucked into the soulless world of corporate real estate, of just trying to climb to the top of the pile by any means necessary. After convincing my father to let me do something on my own, I founded the St. Clair Foundation. I traveled as much as I could until I stumbled upon Everton, a town so close to desolation but with so much potential. I knew I could make a difference here, but I couldn’t do it alone.

“Meeting Rhett and Mateo at that conference felt like fate. Two dreamers, crazy enough to see the same potential I did in a city on the brink of ruin. We had that same drive to prove the world wrong, to show everyone that nothing is impossible.”

“Still do, Lex,” Mateo adds, with a small, private smile.

“We brought Bright Hills back to life and rode that high through the Valencia restoration. But then…”

“Then we met Seth,” Lucas finishes, spitting the name like it would poison him to keep it in his mouth too long.

“Being with Seth was… indescribable at first. He was one of the first people to treat me like a person, not a means to an end. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never felt that any of you treated me that way, but with Seth… it was different. He worshipped me, treated me like I was the center of his entire existence. He told me things he swore he’d never told anyone else, and in turn, I told him my secrets. How my father would pay off my girlfriends to break up with me. How I was tricked into taking birth control that was too strong for me so my father could keep me ‘focused’ and not chasing after omegas. Seth seemed to care, to truly understand me in a way I’d never experienced up to that point. For the first time, I felt like someone loved me for me.”

Lex’s hand brushes a loose lock of her dark hair back, but I catch the glimmer on her face before she subtly wipes it away. I shift in my seat, wanting to go to her, but not wanting her to shut down either. Mateo’s hand falls on my shoulder, thumb brushing gently, acknowledging my struggle without condemnation. I know what’s coming next in the story, but only because I’ve lived it. First, it’s love-bombing, when the abuser showers their supply with affection and love, making them feel like they’re on top of the world. Once the victim is hooked…

“Do you remember when we first heard rumors that the city was taking bids for Wickland House? I’ve loved that building since I first saw it, and I knew that I had to win the contract. But at the time, we didn’t have the capital to fund the project, and we were still too new to the game for any bank to take that big of a risk. I remember all the nights we spent trying to figure out how we could do it, and when I found the Federal Urban Historical Conservation grant, I thought I’d found our golden ticket,” Lex goes on.

“What do you mean? We got the grant, so–”

Lex shakes her head, looking through the reflection at Mateo behind me, her smile sad. He stops mid-sentence, as confused by that look as I am.

“In order to qualify, construction on the building being restored had to have been completed prior to 1930. Originally, Wickland House would have been completed in 1929, but with the stock market crash, the project was delayed, and the official completion date was May 1932.”

It takes a moment for my brain to wrap itself around that information, but Rhett gets there faster. He takes several steps forward, leaning with straight arms on the back of one of the dining room chairs as he stares in shock at the back of Lex’s head.

“Lex, you didn’t–”

“Oh, I did. I lied, claiming that all the records were lost, and the best evidence we had showed 1929. And we got the grant, so it was worth it, right? What did a couple of years matter, as long as I got what I wanted?” Lex asks rhetorically.

“That’s not you talking, that’s Leopold,” Lucas interjects.

He gets to his feet and sets his mug down on the counter, but I can’t look away from Lex’s reflection in the window. The shame, the guilt, the resignation. Leopold St. Clair, her father, is famous for his ruthless business dealings, his take-no-prisoners style. The Lex I know couldn’t be more different, but I know what it’s like to have the voices of my parents in my head, criticizing my every move. In my weaker moments, I’ve listened and fallen back into those bad habits. Could we blame Lex for doing what she was taught, what she was raised to believe was the right thing?

“What happens if someone finds out about it?” I ask gently.

“I’d be forced to pay back the grant money, on top of whatever fines and jail time the judge would deem appropriate. We might be able to recover from the financial hit, but it would mean selling all of our assets and basically starting over from scratch. And even then, the blow to the foundation’s reputation may not be something we could come back from,” Lex drones, not looking at us.

“Why didn’t you tell us about this before you took that risk? We could have found another way,” Rhett presses, his words not angry but still heavy with emotion.

“Because I knew you’d talk me out of it. You are so good, and I didn’t want you to think less of me for wanting to get my hands dirty to get ahead. I could take the guilt, the burden of that choice. But if I saw you or Matty look at me with the same… disgust I saw in your eyes when you looked at my father, I–I couldn’t bear that,” she replies, voice cracking.

I can’t stand it another moment, so I spring to my feet and cross to the window. When I wrap my arms around Lex’s shoulders and pull her to my chest, she goes stiff. I hum, trying to swallow the sound and push the vibrations deeper into my throat and chest. Lex’s sadness calls to the primal part of my mind, the instinct to comfort and soothe an alpha in distress too loud to ignore. I can only manage the omega purr for a few moments, but I feel Lex relax into me, resting her forehead on my shoulder. She’s a few inches taller than me, but I still try to gather as much of her in my arms as I can.

“That’s not the end of the story, though, is it?” I ask carefully, rubbing slow strokes up and down her back.

She shakes her head. “For a while, I let the guilt eat at me, but then I couldn’t take it. I had to tell someone, so I turned to the person I thought I could trust.”

“You told Seth,” Lucas says, more of a statement than a question.

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