Page 7 of Embracing Darkness

Letting out a heavy sigh, I made my way to the open kitchen, the one I had grown up in for the first 25 years of my life. It was large enough to house me, my two older siblings, and my parents, and now, more than accommodated their spouses and my niece. It was a masterpiece, hand-designed by my father, one of the few things he was proud of.

Liam gave me a friendly jab as I passed him, Joey acknowledging my presence with a nod. Sometimes I wondered how Liam and I ever fit into this family—what with Liam being a lawyer and me turning out to love numbers. Everyone else in our family was in business or fine arts and while I knew Ada did something, I had no idea what it actually was.

Mom snagged my hand and pulled me to the island. “I need the vegetables chopped. You’re rather good with a knife, much better than your sister who always seems to cut off a limb.” Everyone shared a laugh, Ada clapping back.

“That wasonetime and now Ernest won’t let me touch sharp objects. Not that I mind. It’s quite nice not having to lift much of anything at home.” She grinned up at her husband, Ernest laying a quick kiss on her lips. It was sickening watching them together because even after meeting Ernest Fraser, the businessman from California, they were still so in love after fifteen years. The honeymoon period had never passed, even after Tia was born.

The strangest part wasn’t the overdone PDA but the fact that it seemed just as practiced as my smiles when I had brought Owen over.

They were both just as well manicured as Mom, Ernest in a suit and tie, his dark hair and blank expression everything that was wrong with him in my opinion. Ada’s attire was a little less subtle than mom’s, her curls pulled back into a tight bun, showing off the sharp edges of her face. A simple black dress adorned her form but the heavy addition of diamonds on her neck, arms, and belt told me that she was wearing thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars.

It sickened me.

Small footsteps raced down the stairs, a little body speeding through the kitchen before stopping just short of me. At some point, there had been an understanding that while touch was my love language, there were times when it was also overstimulating. My six-year-old niece had picked that little tidbit up, something more than Mom or Ada ever had. Her fingers itched as she held out her hands and I gladly fell into her hug, picking her up and twirling around. Her squeals pierced the air, a genuine smile spreading across my face at her happiness.

“Where have you been all this time?” I asked, poking her cheek as she giggled again.

“Homework!”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at the fact that a six-year-old was willingly doing her homework. “You’re only in first grade, Tia.”

“I have to be as smart as Uncle Rhys.” She leaned in and placed a kiss on my cheek before I put her down, Tia pointing to the counter. “Uncle Rhys, I want to help.” She held her hands out again, waiting for my answer. God, I fucking loved this kid.

“No!” Ada yelled, a little too loudly. “No. Sweetheart, why don’t you-”

Hating the way that Ada has always controlled her kid, I stepped in. I rarely butted heads with anyone, mostly because I avoided conflict like the plague but when it came to Tia, I’d do anything for her. Ada thought homeschooling her was the way to go—even though all of us had gone through several years of private school and elite universities. So, I chose to be Tia’s little piece of the world to make sure she didn’t turn out to be one of those strange kids with no street smarts. Or her mother.

“She’sfine. She can help peel the onions.” I drew out some gloves from the middle drawer and handed them to Tia, smiling as she shoved them on. They were a little too big, the rubber tips bending over and I couldn’t help but smile at how cute she was as she held up her hands and wiggled her fingers. God, she was so fucking precious. “Now, what don’t we do in the kitchen?” I asked. I knew she wasn’t a toddler anymore, but it was what I had done with her since she was two and probably would continue to do until she was my age.

A wild smile spread across her chubby cheeks. “No hands in our face!” Giggles peeled from her lips as she held out her gloved hands for the onions and then ran off to the trashcan to start peeling. Ada frowned at me, but I didn’t care. Tia was going to be able to do the things she wanted around me, even if it was just peeling onions.

Mom came up by my side, Liam leaning against the island across from me as I grabbed a pepper, slicing into it. The crunch rang through the kitchen, the silence making me realize that everyone’s focus was on me including Dad who was sitting on the chairs along the back wall of the kitchen. I wanted to chop through it, pretend that I wasn’t the center of attention but that wouldn’t get rid of the situation. Mentally, I picked through my favorite sequence but it just made me more aware of how uncomfortable this moment was.

“What?” I hissed.

Mom placed a hand between my shoulder blades, rubbing softly. It was supposed to be comforting but it came off as coddling, preparation for whatever rude or harmful thing she was about to say. “We’re just worried about you.” I looked up at her, wondering why in the hellIwas the problem child when I was the smartest of my siblings. Not that I had a plan after school, but I did have the highest degree. It probably had more to do with my coping tactics than my academics but I wasn’t prepared to face that nugget of truth right now.

“You stopped bringing Owen, just stopped talking about him. You were so happy with him. Then you stopped coming to family dinners. What happened?”

I took several breaths, trying to distill the rising panic in my chest. I should have never brought that man into this house—Owen, a biochem professor I had met overseas at a conference in France. Returning home and finding that he lived a few cities over had seemed like a dream come true but he became anything but. What happened in France should have stayed over there. Despite all the issues I was dealing with now, there had been a pocket of time when things were good.

But the rose-colored glasses soon slipped away, and he was no longer the gorgeous man I once knew. There was a much darker side to him that had only been revealed when shady characters started gracing my doorstep and when Owen started showing up at all hours of the night. The rational thought would have been that he was cheating but the bruises and lingering fear in his eyes told me otherwise.

The fights, the screams, the fucking terror I experienced still haunted me—just like it had earlier this morning before Gianni saved me from myself. And yet, no matter what I said or did, Mom still believed that Owen was the best thing that had ever happened to me. As did Ada.

At this point, the only thing I wanted was to curl back up in my office, preferably in the safety of Gianni’s arms.Never gonna happen.

“Rhys?” Mom was still rubbing my back, my head snapping up to realize I had zoned out.Well, shit.

Everyone was looking at me with different levels of concern, only Liam and Joey trying to give me comfort with their understanding smiles, silently asking if I wanted them to step in.

I shook my head and shifted away from Mom, trying to find the best way to explain the horrors I had been through the last few months and then realizing that it wasn’t worth it. Mom and Ada would never understand because they had never seen that side of Owen. “We broke up.” Simple and to the point.

Mom chuckled, the worry thickening in her expression, “But he was good for you. To you. You couldn’t stop smiling around him.”

I remembered those times and each one had been fake. I plastered on those smiles because I didn’t want anyone to know what was truly going on. Owen was supposed to be perfect and I was supposed to be the kid who walked away from the family money andstill made it.“Things didn’t work out. Can we drop it?” I didn’t want to rehash those unwanted memories and as fragile as my mind was right now, I might very well end up in another heap on the floor.

Ada sighed from her perch at the edge of the kitchen, Ernest still standing behind her. Tia and Joey had miraculously disappeared in the last few seconds, probably courtesy of Liam who knew that our niece doesn’t need to be part of this discussion.

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