“No, you don’t.” I tugged on his arm as I stood, and he finally pushed to his feet. “You just don’t want to talk about your nightmare. That’s fine. We don’t have to talk. We can just sit together at the table, and you can watch me drink tea. You know how riveting that is.”
He took a seat at the scarred wooden table. “I’m fine now.”
“Of course you are. But now that I’m here, I might as well stay a while.” I grabbed the kettle, filled it with water from the tap, set it down on the—
There was a bang behind me, like the chair had hit the wall.
“Who the hell are you?” demanded Simon.
I whirled. Dane stood in the kitchen doorway. Shit. How had he gotten inside the house?
I slipped between them. “It’s okay, Dad. This is Dane. My boss. I told you about him on the phone, remember?” He didn’t look at me. He kept staring at Dane, his eyes wide, his breaths coming fast. “Dad?”
“You must be Simon,” said Dane, all politeness. “I’ve heard much about you from Vienna.”
Ha, lie.
Simon’s eyes flickered, pain flashed across his face, and his head twitched slightly. Then the alarm slid from his expression and was replaced by pure arrogance. His posture changed in an instant. He held himself taller, steadier, like the world and everything in it was beneath him. He looked down at me, and my stomach sank.
I swallowed. “Hello, Deacon.”
Chapter Seven
“Hello, princess,” said Deacon, his mouth curling ever so slightly. His smile often held a mocking tint, but fortunately not when he looked at me.
As a child, I’d automatically accepted the presence of my father’s other personalities—or alters, as they were referred to. I’d played games with young Freddie. I’d baked cookies with the very maternal Maggie. I’d hidden behind Deacon while he yelled at whoever had upset Simon or me, which was often my mother. And I hadn’t thought anything of it—it had been the norm to me. Until I went to live with Melinda and Wyatt.
They’d educated me on Dissociative Identity Disorder—or DID—so I knew enough about it to understand that I had no need to be afraid. Simon’s alters weren’t varying degrees of Mr. Hyde. They were his protectors, in a sense. They’d developed to help him deal with the horrific abuse he’d suffered as a child when he’d tried dissociating from it, and they’d made it possible for him to survive it.
There were three “people” inside Simon’s system—Freddie, who was eight, Maggie, who was forty, and Deacon, who was thirty-five. Unlike with some cases of DID, they internally interacted with each other. They even had a sort of co-consciousness, which meant that although only one alter would be dominant at a time, the others would be aware of what was going on. It seemed to make things less confusing for them.
Deacon tipped his chin toward Dane. “So this is the guy you talked about, huh?”
I nodded. “This is the guy.”
Deacon studied his face. “She didn’t tell you about me,” he correctly guessed. He sliced his gaze back to me. “What about Freddie? Maggie? You kept us all a secret?” He tutted. “That’s not nice.”
“Yeah, well, neither are you a lot of the time.”
He snickered. “I’m never nice, princess.”
Deacon wasn’t cruel or evil, but he had a “don’t fuck with me” attitude and was aggressively protective. He could be violent to those he considered a threat—I’d witnessed it firsthand.
I turned to Dane. “You should go.” Deacon could be weird if he felt he had to compete for my attention. Perhaps because he didn’t surface often, and I was the only person he liked to interact with.
A mocking smile curved Deacon’s mouth as he stared at my boss, who hadn’t moved an inch. “Aw, he doesn’t want to go. He’s worried I’ll hurt you. How sweet.” Deacon sank into the dining chair and stretched out his legs, utterly relaxed.
“I’ll be fine,” I told Dane.
“I believe you.” He leaned against the doorjamb, making it clear he wasn’t going anywhere.
For fuck’s sake. “You really should go.” But he didn’t.
Deacon laughed. “Looks like you won’t be able to push this one around.”
Annoyance fluttered through me. The thing was … I had to veil that annoyance, otherwise Deacon would jump to my defense and toss Dane out. Oh, sure, he found Dane amusing for now. That could change in an instant. Deacon was a mercurial character.