The taste of forbidden

4. Lies.

4. Lies.

Becket.

If I'm honest with myself, I stopped that video for one reason only… and it wasn’t because of my brother.

It was because of her.

Her, goddammit.

Seeing her laugh, the sparkle in her eyes, the ease with which she shared moments with Lucas… it’s completely opposite to the broken woman I have in front of me now.

It’s… painful to see.

And that changes a bit of the concept I had of her.

Weak?

Lia Callahan can’t be weak. Not when she’s still standing after a loss like that—one that seems to have destroyed her from the inside.

I loved my brother. And still, every f*****g second of every day is hard to accept he’s gone. But for Lia… for her, everything seems deeper. Two years, and it still looks like Lucas died yesterday? Because for me it’s barely been a few days, but in her world, two years don’t seem to have made a difference. The pain hasn’t lessened. On the contrary, it seems to have become denser. Heavier.

How does she endure so much without losing her mind?

But the question that weighs on me the most is… what the hell am I going to do with her?

I’ve tried to ignore her, too wrapped up in my own grief to face hers. I’ve wanted to forget she lives under my roof. I’ve even wished not to see her car in the driveway, because that would mean she’s gone. But she hasn’t left. She’s here. As real as my brother’s death.

"You were different," I say.

She avoids my gaze, wiping away another lonely tear with her hand.

When she doesn’t say anything, I continue, "With Lucas… you looked different. You almost seemed like someone else."

"He died of a heart attack," she blurts out suddenly, and I force myself to take a deep breath. "He died right next to me… and I didn’t even know it, not until I woke up. My husband had a heart condition. He knew. But I didn’t. He never told me. He never told me… anything."

I curse under my breath, trying to process what she just told me.

Fuck, Lucas…

Why didn’t he ever tell her?

I look at her for long seconds, trying to understand, trying to understand his decisions. And although I have a pretty clear idea of why my brother kept those truths from her, I can’t see what I think he saw. And I’m almost sure keeping her in the dark was Lucas’s way of protecting her. He kept her ignorant to spare her the weight of the pain, so she wouldn’t have to carry his shadows. But… I can’t see what he saw.

Because I don’t see her as fragile.

She might look like a porcelain doll on the outside, but beneath that appearance, there’s something more. Not a hint of weakness in her capricious silences, or in her steady gaze, or in her stubbornness. Not in the way she returns every one of my blows with a precision that stings.

Not in how she traveled alone for hours with her husband’s remains to fulfill his last wish. Alone. Facing the unknown, in a place where she knows she’s not welcome.

Or maybe he did know about the strength beneath her appearance, but he loved her so much he preferred to carry it all himself.

"He must’ve loved you a lot," I say at last.

I don’t pretend to understand the magnitude of what he felt for her, but I know this: she is not weak.

And no one on this ranch has been fooled by her fragile appearance. Everyone sees her as a harpy. As a threat to what’s ours. The workers have been nervous since she arrived. Even Rose is uneasy. I’m uneasy.

Lia has half of this ranch in her hands. She can sell it if she wants. And I… I don’t have the capital to buy it from her, not after investing in new cattle and machinery.

She is a threat. To everyone. To me.

And her mere presence throws me off in a way I can’t explain.

Lia holds in her hands half of a lifetime of work. The livelihood of many families. And that’s the reason everyone sees her as a danger.

It’s the reason I see her as a danger.

To be honest, I’m afraid that the longer she stays at the ranch, the more she’ll notice how profitable this business is, and then want more and more control over the land. I’m even afraid she’ll want to get involved in decisions she could legally make.

Lucas, once he left, didn’t want a single penny from the ranch. And since then, I’ve been running it alone. That Lia has the power to interfere in the decisions of what is my home fills me with uncertainty and discomfort.

So even though I understand and empathize with her pain, I want her gone.

We all want her gone.

So what the hell am I going to do with her?

I fix my gaze on my interlaced fingers, mostly because part of me feels like an asshole for already looking for a way to make her leave. She’s Lucas’s wife, she deserves to be here as much as he did, but at the same time, she’s a stranger. No matter how much she loved Lucas and how strongly her pain is felt, Lia is still a threat to all of us.

I just need her to leave and completely forget about this ranch.

"What did my brother have?" I dare to ask.

"Myocarditis." I hear in her voice that it’s hard to talk about this, but still, she makes the effort. "They say he didn’t suffer when he died, that it was quick and painless."

Fuck.

"That’s good, right?"

I know I sound like a f*****g insensitive prick, but I don’t know what else to say.

"It’s not a hereditary disease, so you’re fine."

"It didn’t even cross my mind to think about that," I admit.

"You won’t have to anymore."

"Look, Lia…" I begin, lifting my gaze to hers. When she sees the seriousness in my tone, she also finds my eyes. "I… I’m really sorry about this situation, I truly am. And I think I understand a little why you’re here. You came for my brother’s ashes?"

"Yes." She nods, her eyes narrowing a bit in suspicion.

I take a deep breath before continuing.

"But you’ve been here a week and still haven’t shown any signs of leaving or doing something with Lucas’s ashes. I don’t know you and I’m not proud of this, but I have to look out for mine first, for my people, you understand?"

"What do you mean?"

"I’m going to contest Lucas’s will."

That’s when I see her shut down emotionally.

Lia looks away and stares out the window. In just a few hours the sun will begin to set on the horizon, but between us, night has already fallen. Dark and tense.

"There’s nothing here for you, Lia Slade." She shudders at the way I say her maiden name. And she understands. I’m not accepting her as a Callahan, I’m not accepting her as part of my family.

I wait for her to say something, but like that first day, silence is all I get. I almost feel the loss of her words, but I shake my head, because whether she talks to me or not, it’s not something that matters.

She’s going to leave… soon.

"You must be aware that you’re not welcome." I harden my words and speak a little louder, making sure she understands. "My workers are nervous with your presence, I’m nervous with your presence, and honestly, I don’t think Lucas believed someone like you could handle the weight of being part of this."

Lie.

Lie.

Fucking liar.

"I don’t know or care about the relationship you had with my brother, but I can’t pretend I’m blind. Lucas didn’t want anything to do with this ranch, so why would he leave half of it to you? I’m going to claim undue influence…" those words make her look at me and the betrayal in her eyes makes me shudder. I look away and go on, "And it can’t be just a coincidence that my brother changed his will months before he died."

Her shaky inhale tells me she didn’t know that fact.

"Besides," I continue, "how do I know that everything you’re telling me is true? Did you really not know Lucas was sick? Did you really not know he could die at any moment? You have to see that there are too many things that don’t make sense in this story, in you."

"You’re saying I took advantage of Lucas." She finally speaks, very softly, and it doesn’t escape me that it’s not a question.

It’s hard, but I look her in the eyes when I say, "Yes, that’s what I’m saying."

Lie.

Fucking liar.

She holds my gaze for long, endless seconds. And I can feel her opening me up and inspecting me, reading me with a magnifying glass. And she doesn’t seem to like what she sees.

A bitter smile creeps onto her lips.

"I just wanted to let you know before my lawyer begins legal proceedings." I get up from the chair, having had enough of this conversation. "You have until tomorrow to leave my house. I think you’ve stayed long enough."

"I'm ashamed of you..."

Her words stop me at the door, my hand grabs the frame and I feel how the force I exert hurts my skin.

"And it’s not because you want to fight for what’s yours…" her voice is still soft and calm, which makes the power of her words even stronger. "What makes me sick is that you know, you know I’m not lying, and still you’re stooping so low as to use lies in your favor. You knew Lucas, you know he wasn’t the kind of man who’d be fooled, but still you’re going to contest what he wanted."

"Is this what he wanted?"

"Yes," she nods with determination, "so go ahead, send your horde of lawyers, I’ve got mine too and… Becket?"

Slowly, I turn to look at her. I find her pulling a couple of bills from her back pockets and extending them to me with a cold expression on her face.

Slowly, I turn to look at her. I find her pulling a couple of bills from her back pockets, extending them to me with a cold expression on her face. There’s no trace of fragility in her. She doesn’t look weak, much less vulnerable. Lia looks like she came straight out of my worst nightmares.

Looking me straight in the eye, she lets the bills fall one by one. Each one hits the floor with a soft thud, but the gesture keeps us both tense.

"Since money matters so much to you," she points at the bills lying between us, "there's my payment for the week."

She walks past me and disappears upstairs, but her scent—just like it’s been all f*****g week—lingers in the study, clinging to the air around me.

It’s as if the house already knows... that all of this already belongs to her.