Nightshade: An Enemies to Lovers, Dark Academic Romance (Sorrowsong University Book 1)
Nightshade: Chapter 23

I do exceptionally well at not abusing my father’s fleet of planes.

But Ophelia sounded so cold last night while I talked her to sleep that I’d had enough. My sisters understood; they’re about as desperate for me to make it work with Ophelia as I am.

The wheels of the Gulfstream touch down at Inverness late on Boxing Day morning. A bitter chill sinks under my jacket as I descend the steps onto the tarmac. I bring up the details of the hire car as I walk into the airport, checking they match. Can’t be too careful, not if Ophelia is going to be in it.

The one good thing about Inverness is there’s no paparazzi as I walk through the empty arrivals lounge to the Land Rover waiting outside. I tracked Ophelia’s phone to get her address. Stalkerish? Probably. But romantic? Maybe?

I’ve had girlfriends before, but I’m clueless with Ophelia. I don’t want to ruin what we have.

I put her house into the GPS of the dark green Defender, peeling out onto the roads outside. They’re surprisingly busy, full of Boxing Day shoppers looking for a bargain. I dial Fleur on Speaker as I leave the city and head into the green and white countryside beyond.

“Lovesick Fool’s Hotline.”

“Ha ha,” I say, dryly. “Landed safe. All okay at home?”

“Yeah. Charlotte has made a keyring for Ophelia.”

A wolfish grin spreads across my face as I turn left. “You know, I could still mess this up with her.”

“Get her a Birkin. Can she drive? Get her an Audi.”

“She can’t drive, and she won’t know what a Birkin is.” I’m out of my league with Ophelia. She keeps herself so guarded that I don’t know what she likes. Rich as we may be, I’m very wary of throwing money at her. It’s the way all my father’s rich friends are with women, but I’m not sure it’s particularly flattering or romantic. “Better ideas?”

“Umm…food? Fluffy socks?”

Fluffy socks might work. “That’d probably be more effective. Ingrid and Emily are with you guys, yeah?” The new nanny seems really good with the little ones, granting me a bit more freedom.

“Yeah, yeah. And Maman is baking with Élé and Mia. Dad is home, too, working upstairs. Jeez, do you ever relax?”

I relax just fine when my head is being crushed between Ophelia’s muscular thighs, but that’s not a sister conversation. Maybe it’s a therapy conversation. Hey, Dr. Harwood, I have Daddy issues and I want legs as earmuffs, help.

Jesus Christ, Ophelia’s body. Thick, strong thighs and arms just as toned. Red hair that spills down to the small of her back. And freckles everywhere over her pale skin. Her addictive, charmingly miserable personality aside, no one’s made my body react like hers does.

“Maybe I’ll get her some lingerie.”

Fleur squeals. Shit. I’d forgotten she was on the line. “Oh my god, yes.”

“No. Okay, I better go. Call me if anything happens at all.”

“Things are happening all the time. I just ate a cracker. That just happened. Oh, and I’ve just taken a step forward and picked up the empty box. The box is in the recycling, so that just happened.”

God, give me the patience to cope with the eight women in my life. “If you actually put the box in the recycling, it’d be a first. Call me if there’s any trouble.”

“Will do, big bro. Love you.”

“And you.” I hit End and sigh. Christmas break has been exhausting. I have no idea how my mother coped with the six of them before she was sick and we got help. Dad being at home today doesn’t relax me at all. I’m the only one he’s turned physical on, but it’s only a matter of time. I undo the top button of my shirt and grit my teeth.

Maybe I shouldn’t have left them all.

The sad fact is, no matter how much I love Ophelia, I have to put my sisters first. It’s not what Ophelia deserves, but it’s the truth. I’m the closest they have to a parent at the moment, while mom is so bad and dad is so absent.

Once he’s out of the picture, I can stabilise our home life, stabilise Green; give my whole self to Ophelia.

The drive to her small town isn’t far, but the icy roads slow me down a little. I’m kind of nervous that she’ll be mad. She doesn’t seem excited about the prospect of me seeing her life outside of university. I wonder if her parents are not very involved, or not involved at all. Whatever it is, I’ve seen messy, I know messy; I’d never judge.

When I park the car where the GPS tells me to, I’m not sure I’ve got the right address. A man hobbles by, a thin plastic bag with a bottle of whisky hanging from his frail hand. He narrows his eyes at me like this part of town doesn’t get a lot of visitors.

I check the door of the house to confirm that yes, it is number eighty-eight. It’s a small house on a crumbling terrace, white paint chipping off the facade. The lights are off, the garden is so overgrown that weeds cover the bottom window. A small path has been trampled through the brush leading up to the front door, but otherwise it looks completely deserted.

I dial her number, watching for any sign of her in the windows. Her voice is quiet and croaky when it comes. “Hey.”

“Hey. Eighty-eight Summerlea Terrace, right?”

I hear her breath hitch.

“Ophelia?”

Her voice has an unnerving edge to it. Fuck. Maybe this was a mistake. “Why are you asking?”

“I’m outside.”

Even her breathing on the other end of the line stops. I’ve fucked this up. “Ophelia, I⁠—”

“Drive away, Alex. I’ll see you in a week and a half at university, anyway.”

“Just let me⁠—”

I know her voice well enough now to know that she’s fighting tears. “Drive. Away.”

“Are you home alone?”

“What part of drive away can’t you understand?”

“Whatever it is, Ophelia, I won’t judge.”

“You will.”

I hate that I’ve given that impression. “I promise, baby.”

The call drops, and I sit in the car and wait for what feels like forever, until I’m wondering if I really should just drive back to the airport. Finally, I see a shadow behind the frosted glass of the rotting front door. She tugs it open, peering around with wide eyes.

She’s beautiful.

I step outside the car, but she doesn’t let me come to her, instead rushing out onto the icy road in bare feet and my joggers that mysteriously went missing. “Please go home.”

Her eyes are so wide, so full of agony. I hate that the world has put it there, hate that she doesn’t feel like she can show me her world. My sadness, I can manage, but hers? Hers makes me want to let the world burn. “Ophelia, I just want to see you. I’ll sit in the car and book us a hotel somewhere while you pack a bag, if that’s what will make you happy.”

“I should’ve told you about them,” she whispers, the words bursting out like they’ve been sitting on her tongue for weeks. Every muscle in her body pulled tight like she’s terrified of what I’ll do. The guilt in her eyes almost brings me to my knees.

“Let’s go inside, baby. Then we can talk, if that’s what you’d like to do.” I lock the car behind me, following her over the weeds and between two wheelie bins that almost block the door. She doesn’t say a word, looks like she can’t say a word, as she leads me into an entryway so small that we both barely fit in it. The cheap vinyl floor bubbles under my feet, the unmistakable smell of damp filling my nostrils.

There’s a family photo on the wall. Ophelia looks like she’s fifteen or so, sandwiched between a grinning bald man in his forties and a red-haired woman who looks exactly like her. Her face is a little pinker, a little more happy than it is nowadays.

So she’s an only child. I’d gathered as much.

Does she think I’ll judge her because her house is small?

She shuts the door behind us and I’m struck by how cold it is in here. It sinks deep beneath my skin, raising the hairs on my arms. The thought of her shivering here every day is so depressing. I should’ve come sooner. Should’ve come when she first gave me an evasive answer about who was with her. The guilt makes it hard to inhale.

We walk past a completely empty bookshelf, which seems odd, and into a small kitchen. The windows are decaying in their frames, mold creeping up the wall. It’s even colder in here than it was in the entryway. Her head is hung in embarrassment, and it makes me want to hunt down everyone who ever made her feel that her life was something to be ashamed about.

I’d stop at nothing to see her happy.

She still doesn’t say a word, eyes on the ground like she can’t bear to see my reaction to her house. I shrug my black jacket off my shoulders, opening a small door. It’s a shoe and coat cupboard.

My coat hits the floor at my feet.

There are three pairs of shoes in the cupboard and three jackets. I recognize each of them as hers. I turn back around to the kitchen. No books, no food in the open cupboard. I open the final door downstairs to see a small living room. Empty shelves, a sofa covered in a thick film of dust. A TV stand with no TV. It’s as devoid of possessions as the rest of the house.

Realization sinks into me like a knife. “Ophelia⁠—”

She fits so much emotion in four tiny letters. “Don’t.”

“How long ago?”

I can’t see her face through her hair. “Four years.”

Four years. She was sixteen or seventeen. A giant lump of emotion clogs my throat. “Fuck, Ophelia.”

She turns away, filling a plastic kettle and putting it on to boil. “Please just don’t.”

“Have you been alone here for twenty-four days?”

“I’ve been alone here for four years,” she whispers, putting two teabags in two mugs. “Sorrowsong was the first time I’d left this town since…since it happened.”

My hands shake slightly at my sides. I place one on her shoulder, but the muscle bunches beneath my fingers as soon as I make contact. “Please don’t.”

There’s another question on my lips but now isn’t the time. Not while I can see she’s reached breaking point and gone beyond it. Why did she lie? What was the point? Maybe to make her life seem less messy, but I can’t believe that’s it. She’s not like that.

Her chest shudders with a sob, and I’m aching to touch her, but she won’t let me. I run my hands through my hair to keep them busy. “Just don’t,” she whispers. “Don’t touch me, don’t say anything. Just leave me alone.”

“I get you’re independent. And now more than ever, I see why. But there’s nothing you could say that would put me off you. I’m serious about this, Ophelia. Serious about us.”

“Well, I don’t know if I am,” she says, hand shaking as she pours the tea.

I don’t know why she’s saying this, not when she’s told me otherwise multiple times this week alone. It feels like she’s preparing me for something. Holding me from a distance so it’ll be easier when I leave.

I’m not going to leave.

It’s painful how much her own mind refuses to let her be happy. How she lets the bully inside her head tell her she doesn’t deserve good things.

“How did they die?”

She shudders, boiling water spilling onto her hand. She doesn’t react, doesn’t even flinch. When she puts the kettle down and turns to face me, there’s a haunting look in her eyes that sends my blood running cold. She looks half dead, half alive. “They died in a helicopter crash.”

Somewhere, puzzle pieces start to clip together. Her fear of helicopters, her refusal to fly anywhere, her avoidance of all questions related to her family.

Her hatred of me from day one.

Oh my god.

I don’t know how I know, but I just do. I feel like I could vomit into the sink. “It was a Green helicopter, wasn’t it? The one that crashed into the valley?”

“I hate you,” she whispers, tears running over her lips. The tinge of colour that was in her face fades to white. “You know about it already. You knew people died and you let him cover it up. I hate you and I love you, but I hate you more.”

“Ophelia. Fuck.” Oh my god. Every cold interaction, every time she’s tried and failed to let herself get close to me, gets shifted into a new light. This sensation I’ve had, like pulling Ophelia close to me is being made harder by a giant weight attached to her, suddenly checks out.

How hard it must’ve been for her to grow to like me despite what she knew. All the while I thought she was less interested in me; how hard she must’ve been working to put her past aside and give me a chance.

And my father let her parents die.

I keep my tone careful, like I’m trying to talk down a wolf. “Ophelia, I am so sorry.”

“You’re sorry,” she echoes, turning away. The skin on her hand is raised and red from the burn, but she doesn’t seem to have noticed. Her voice is shaking, brimming with untethered rage. I deserve every ounce. I’ll take each ounce and hold it in my heart.

Finally, a quiet, disbelieving laugh cracks the silence. “You’re sorry? I was supposed to be there for them, Alex. I was supposed to hold their wrinkled hands and remind them what day it is and watch them succumb to age. I was supposed to come here for Christmas and watch them fight over the vegetables and fall asleep on the sofa, and your father took that from me. And you knew. And your mother knew. And all the people around him knew what he was doing, and you all looked away.”

“That’s not—I didn’t know about it until after it had happened.” I don’t know why I bother defending myself. She’s right. I know what my father does and continues to do, working with Vincenzo’s father and others like them to erase whoever they want to from the planet for the right price.

I place my elbows on the countertop and interlace my fingers at the back of my neck. There’s nothing I can say to fix this. Nothing that will bring them back for her. The only thing I can do for her is get my father out of his seat as CEO and behind bars, because the latter will not happen until the former does. He’s too powerful to be arrested for anything right now.

I could kill Carmichael. He must have known about this, and he didn’t think I’d care to know that the woman I was seeing was tangled up in my father’s mess.

“There’s nothing I can say to make this right,” I say, straightening out. “And if you want me to fly home, I’ll do it now. No questions asked. But I promise I hate him as much as you do. I’m working around the clock with the members of the board I can trust. I’ll have him out within the year, I swear to you.”

I pull open the freezer to get some peas for her burnt hand, but it’s empty save for a few frozen fries and a bag of ice. The fridge is empty, too, hollow like the space between my ribs. Instead, I cover the hand towel in cold water and drape it over the reddened skin as she sinks down at the small dining table.

There’s a faraway look in her eye, like she’s not really here.

I can see why she said we can’t be together now. I can see why she struggles to look at me sometimes, why she said we would never work. Why she shuts down whenever I talk about Green. Why the helicopter sends her running for her headphones. I’m flooded with a new appreciation for her I never had before.

I can’t lose her. I can’t not be with her, and I know how much I’m asking of her by saying that.

More than anything, I can’t leave her in this house again.

“Ophelia,” I whisper, sinking down opposite her. “Do you want me to leave now?”

She shakes her head, taking me by surprise. Thank fuck.

“Do you want me to run you a bath? Or book us a room somewhere?”

“A bath would be good,” she croaks. She can’t even look at me.

The monster inside me is laughing in delight. This is what happens to people like you and Cain, it says, pounding on its cage to be let out. I desperately keep it locked up, because the day it escapes is the day I’ll lose the battle against myself.

I have so much to fight for.

It strikes me that Ophelia doesn’t. She’s a stronger person than I am. It’s my family that makes me put the gun back in the drawer on my darkest days.

Every breath she takes is an achievement.

My only way of dealing with anything is looking after people, so the bath is a lifeline I grab onto with both hands. I retrieve my bags from the car and carry them up the narrow stairs, into the small room I recognize from our FaceTime calls. The bed is tiny, but I’m not banking on getting close to her anytime soon. I’ll be lucky if she lets me stay the night.

The bathroom is small but clean. A short, narrow, white bathtub sits below a showerhead at the far end. The tap stutters as I turn it on, waiting for the water to run hot.

It’s fucking freezing in here.

With Ophelia downstairs, it gives me a chance to sink to the floor, letting my legs outstretch before me with my back to the wall. I bury my head in my hands.

I’ve never felt as gray as I do now. Hollow and empty, devoid of anything. Even now, I can’t summon red anger or blue grief. Only gray. I’m messed up.

In the absence of my father here in this house, all of Ophelia’s anger and all of my hatred are going to the next best person: me. I could’ve done better. If I’d have started my plan earlier, never gone to Yale, maybe her parents would still be here.

My chest splinters into two, agonizing and numb all at once.

Two gentle hands lift my chin, a pair of small feet stepping either side of my knees. She looks like an angel. My angel. “I didn’t mean to blame you,” she whispers. “I know the blame lies with one person and one person alone.”

That she would replace the space in her heart to comfort me in this situation makes the hole inside me even bigger. “I could’ve done more. I’ll ruin him for you, Ophelia. I swear, I’ll break him. When his blood runs into the earth beneath my feet, it’ll be your name on my lips.”

A soft smile ghosts across her tear-stained face. “That would be a good Christmas present.”

I stand up and gently tug her brown jeans down, removing the coat, knitted jumper, and thermal base layer beneath. Gently, I lower her into the hot water, keeping her burnt hand above the surface. She looks a little thinner than she did a few weeks ago, her muscles more defined as she turns to face away from me.

“My life stopped four years ago,” she says, breaking the fragile silence. “I used to read. I used to bake cakes and make pottery. I used to have a friendship group. I gave up on it all the day they died. I only swam because the lake was so cold, I couldn’t think about anything else. Your father buried their deaths. Erased all trace of them, sent out a hundred NDAs to a hundred of the right people.”

Her next breath is a shudder. “I didn’t get support from anyone. Didn’t get financial support, or council support, because there was no record they’d died. The house was bought out by your father’s company and gifted to me, but I was completely alone. No newspaper wanted to hear about it, no journalist would risk crossing your father. I couldn’t bring myself to go to school, didn’t sit my exams. I wanted to be a psychologist, but no universities had a place for a girl who didn’t finish school.”

“I’m so fucking sorry. I’ll do everything to make it right.” She’s the strongest person I’ve ever met. I’ve given up trying to rationalize the strength of my feelings for her. Dr. Harwood says I get too emotionally committed to things, too fast, and maybe that’s true. But I have this feeling about Ophelia. Like she’s all my future Christmases and everything in between.

“You have enough on your mind already,” she says, resting her head on her knees. Her free hand draws small circles in the bubbles, like I do in my sketchbook. “Everything about my life is just silent. Stagnant.”

I run the bristles of a hairbrush down the wet skin of her back, just how she likes. “You won’t know silence like this again. I’ll fill each second until our last.”

“You are my worst enemy,” she whispers. It sounds like a lie. It tastes like a lie, smells like a lie. But if it’s what she needs right now, I’ll accept it.

I brush the tangles from her waist-length hair. Steam rises from her pale skin in the poorly lit bathroom. “Then I’ll love you with the same intensity that you hate me. I’ll hold on to you just as hard as you push me away. I’ll fix you like you’re fixing me. I’ll always be here, Ophelia, I’ll sit at the bottom of valleys and stand on the top of mountains with you. We’re too good not to work.”

She turns to face me, droplets of water running over her collarbones and between her naked breasts. Her whisky-brown eyes are red-rimmed and glossy. She looks like a Renaissance painting, achingly beautiful. “I don’t know myself anymore. I don’t know what I like, I don’t know what makes me happy. I don’t know how to be a girlfriend.”

I squirt some of the nice shampoo I brought her from Paris into my hand and set it on the side of her bath. “I know you, love. I see you and I know you.” I lather the impossibly long, ginger strands with the soap. “I know you get so mad when you can’t get one across in your crosswords. I know your favorite book is The Great Gatsby. I know you’re quiet because it’s easier than putting yourself out on the line. I know that time spent with Colette and the other girls makes you happy in a way I could never fulfill. I now know you turn your mirrors around because you remind yourself of your mother. I know you, Ophelia, and it’s a privilege.”

“It’s scary to be known,” she mumbles. I get that. I feel it too. Ophelia has me in her hands, and that’s terrifying. “Don’t break my heart. It’s fragile.”

“I promise not to,” I vow. “All this shit I do, all this effort I put in to make sure my sisters know they’re loved and supported and capable, I do it all in the desperate hope that they’ll grow up to be someone like you.”

“Really?” she asks, meeting my gaze. Fresh tears pool in her eyes, but she looks more alive than she did before.

I can’t quash my grin. “And I know you have an obsessive need for validation.”

She threads her fingers through mine. I wonder if she knows that every time she does that, the darkness inside me shrinks slightly. “I really do.”

I condition her hair only at the ends how she likes, rinsing it off and draining the bath. Pulling a towel off the rack, I wrap her up in it. She’s the perfect gift.

“Do you and your psychiatrist talk about your obsessive need to look after people?”

I laugh as I usher her into her bedroom. “It’s probably most of what we talk about.” I pull my clean sweatpants from my duffel and help her into them. “He says I had to grow up too fast and now I’m emotionally underdeveloped.”

Her eyebrows raise, perhaps at my honesty. “He said that?”

“Yup. Says I need to not get so frustrated when you don’t want to accept my love.”

Her face falls. “You think I don’t want your love?” She presses her cheek to the center of my chest. “I do. I just…it’s complicated.”

“I see that now. Complicated was probably an understatement.”

She pulls away and kisses me, and I’m almost embarrassed about how quickly she turns me on. A man’s right hand can only do so much, and Ophelia’s phone camera and Wi-Fi fucking suck. I had to make it work to a frozen screen of her eyebrows last week.

I’m feral for her. A strangled moan leaves her sweet, sweet mouth as I hitch her legs around my waist and bite the exposed skin of her breast. Her back hits the wall, fingernails raking over my back as I lavish my attention on her nipples.

“Please,” she moans, head tipped back. “Please.”

A satisfied rumble sounds in my throat. I may only be a distraction, but I’ll take it. “Good girl, begging for me.”

Her hips jolt slightly, my grin hot against her skin. Ophelia comes alive when I praise her. I toss her onto the tiny bed, delighting in her squeak as she bounces over the mattress. I let the starving monster inside me creep out a little, let him take control.

I grip Ophelia’s neck as I kiss her, so in tune with every moan that leaves her mouth. What she lacks the confidence to say aloud, I’ve learned to read from her body. The subtle cues: the heavier breaths, the fluttering lashes, the tensing in her stomach. I’m fluent in her. Her hands grip my face as she kisses me with equal ferocity, hot and wet and feverish.

Her cheeks are flushed, hips bucking of their own accord. I’m unraveling at the edges. Only when my hand reaches the hem of my joggers does she sit up, breaking the spell around us. “No. Not here. Not in this house.”

I pull away completely, not trusting the animal that lives in my soul. Her chest heaves up and down, lips swollen.

Forget dying for her. I’d live for her. I feel like I could overcome all the darkness inside if only it meant I’d get a life in her company in return.

“I was worried you’d leave me,” she whispers. “When you realized I’d hidden it from you all this time.”

Fuck it. Maybe it’s too soon, maybe I am emotionally underdeveloped, but I don’t care. “I’m not going to leave you, Ophelia. I love you. And I know you’re not ready to say it back, and I understand why. But I love you in ways I’ve never loved anyone before. My mind has been this shitty shade of gray for so long, and now there’s this little thread of auburn copper.” I wrap a lock of hair around my finger. “This little orange strand runs through the gray like a ray of hope. I love every piece of you, especially the parts that you’ve convinced yourself aren’t worthy of my love.”

Her bottom lip wobbles, the back of her wrist furiously brushes the tears away. “Thank you.” She pulls me down to her and wraps her body around me so tight. “Thank you, thank you. For loving me.”

“It’s a pleasure.” I pull away, meaning business. “Okay, I’m giving you a proper Christmas. I just need to get some food.”

She checks my watch. “The food shop will be closed. They close early on Boxing Day.”

“Shit. Is there a restaurant around?”

“Not really. Not one that’ll be open.”

I hum, bringing up a search engine on my phone. “Have you got Christmas lights?”

“Um…maybe?” She pulls my hoodie on and pads out onto the upstairs landing. I fight my smile. She’s not that much shorter than me, but she looks ridiculous in my clothes. We head into the other bedroom, a larger, empty room with a double bed. I don’t need to ask why she doesn’t use it.

She squats down beside a pile of neatly packed boxes. Each one has a small note in her neat handwriting. Mum’s clothes. Dad’s clothes. Board games.

I have a new respect for Ophelia. In fact, it goes beyond respect and into reverence. I imagine a seventeen-year-old girl boxing up all of her parents’ possessions alone. It’s a miracle she’s still here and breathing.

She pulls out a string of battery-operated lights from one box, flicking the switch. Her face lights up in childlike joy. “They still work!”

I’m so far gone for her.

“Okay, stay right here and wait for further instructions.”

“You’re obsessed with control.”

I pull her to me with a rough grip on her jaw, planting a kiss on that smart mouth. “You have no idea. But this is about wholesome, nice things. Stop making me horny.”