The Cruelest Stranger Read online

  “Sweetheart, listen to yourself.” She places her hand on my shoulder. “I’m going to say something and I don’t want you to take it the wrong way, okay?”

  I brace myself and nod.

  “That man can have any woman he wants. Any. Woman. And you’re an intelligent, beautiful, twenty-something blonde who loves kids. Do you seriously think you’re the only intelligent, beautiful, twenty-something blonde who loves kids in the world? I bet I could look around this bar and find at least five others who fit that profile. Schoenbach could do that too. But he chose you. He wants you.”

  Exhaling, I finish my drink, more dizzied with thoughts than when I first walked in.

  50

  Bennett

  The bottom of my laptop burns hot as the fan whirs to life Friday night. Honor finishes her third puzzle of the evening and I re-read the email I’m about to send for the thirtieth and final time.

  TO: AnonStranger@Rockmail

  FROM: Bennett.Schoenbach@SchoenbachCorp

  SUBJECT: None

  Astaire,

  It’s Friday night. Snow falls quietly outside. The fireplace fills the room with a warm glow. Honor is working on her third puzzle of the night. And you should be here. With us.

  I’m sorry you heard that conversation.

  But I’m even sorrier you believed it.

  I said what I said, Astaire. And you’re right—I am a liar.

  I told my brother I didn’t care about you because you are my weakness. And if he knew how I truly felt about you, he would destroy it the way he’s destroyed everything I’ve ever cared about in the past.

  So that’s the explanation.

  You can choose to believe it or not.

  Nietzsche says, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process, he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

  In fighting my brother, I became a monster myself … lying, manipulating, and blackmailing him to get what I wanted.

  I don’t regret protecting the ones I love.

  I do regret hurting you.

  Please, Astaire. Come back to me.

  You’re the only person in the world I want to do life with.

  Yours (and always will be)—

  Bennett

  51

  Astaire

  I arrive at Starwood extra early Monday morning, my car one of three others at the parking lot.

  I couldn’t take another minute in the confines of my apartment. I spent most of the weekend in a haze, consumed with thoughts dragging me from one direction to the next. I must have talked myself into calling him a hundred times, then I talked myself out of it a hundred more.

  I tried to fill my hours with meaningless, menial tasks.

  Laundry.

  Cleaning.

  Organizing.

  I put on a half a dozen movies but couldn’t bring myself to finish a single one. Every time I glanced outside, I was reminded of the snowman we were going to build last week … and then the thoughts spiraled all over again.

  Sunday afternoon, I bundled up and ventured out for a walk despite the twenty-two degree temps and the brutal wind. I got all the way to the Elmhurst, only to be met with changed locks and an “under new ownership” sign.

  They’d mentioned selling the place, but it was never on the market as far as I knew. The least they could’ve done was send an email …

  On my way back, I stopped for a hot tea at my favorite café, and then sat by the crackling wood fire to get warm and kill some more time before heading home.

  Bennett’s filled my phone with messages, texts, and missed calls the last several days. I haven’t listened to a single one, but not because I don’t want to hear him out, but because I’d like a clear head before I dive back into … all of this.

  I’m too emotional to think straight.

  I don’t trust myself to make the right decision—whatever that may be.

  I check my mailbox in the teacher’s lounge.

  Make a coffee.

  Ambling down the hallway, I spot the light on in Mrs. Angelino’s room. When I pass, she glances up from her desk—then glances down before I have a chance to say hi.

  Nothing new.

  I’m five strides away when I stop in my tracks and contemplate heading back, fixing myself in her doorway, and explaining the situation to the best of my ability.

  But then I talk myself out of it.

  What would I even say? I met this stranger in a bar, he saw me on a date with your nephew and scared him away? I can only imagine what Bennett told him—if I had to guess, it was something along the lines of me being a con-artist or gold-digger.

  If all it takes is some third-hand false information to make her gaze avert every time we pass one another, then she isn’t worth the oxygen I’d breathe trying to explain this convoluted situation.

  Besides, it’s neither here nor there.

  Water under the bridge—all of it.

  A strange blip on the never-ending timeline that is my life.

  I unlock my classroom, flip the light on, and hang my jacket on the hook behind the closet door—same routine, only it feels different, like I’ve stepped into a parallel universe where everything’s a bit askew.

  The sky outside has lightened since I got here, the sunrise painting the sky in shades of creamy oranges and purples with a section of pale blue the color of Bennett’s eyes.

  They’re saying the snow’s going to melt over the next couple of days, which will make for several slushy, muddy several recesses, but I don’t mind. We’re that much closer to spring, and with spring comes rain.

  I used to find it depressing until Trevor said he loved the way it washed everything clean and left things a shade greener than they were before.

  I haven’t looked at the rain the same way since.

  Trevor was good that way—seeing the bright side in the darkest moments.

  I mark an ‘x’ through yesterday’s date on my calendar. The class Valentine’s Day party is coming up, which always makes me think of the first Valentine’s Day I spent with Trevor. We were freshmen at Indiana State, broke as a joke. We cooked a three-dollar frozen pizza and watched P.S. I Love You from a friend’s borrowed Netflix account. It was the first time since Linda’s diagnosis that I spent a couple hours free from the burdens of life. When I wasn’t working part-time at the campus copy shop and taking sixteen hours’ worth of credits per week, I was driving back and forth to Linda’s treatments and tests and appointments.

  Trevor went to each and every one.

  He never left my side.

  Never complained.

  He’d bring his laptop and his homework and he’d simply … be there.

  Sometimes I think half of love is just showing up.

  A cleared throat by the doorway pulls me out of my melancholic reverie.

  Standing in the doorway, Honor by his side, is Bennett.

  52

  Bennett

  “Honor, hi. Bennett, you realize class doesn’t start for another forty-five minutes …” She rises from behind her desk, tugging on the hem of her pink cardigan.

  Honor skips past us, hangs her jacket and bag in her cubby, and makes herself at home in the reading corner.

  “Was hoping I’d catch you.” I take my time approaching her. “Did you get my email?”

  Her gaze narrows. “Email? No. I didn’t realize we were back to that.”

  “We weren’t. But you weren’t taking my calls or texting me, and I wasn’t going to come to your place like a psychotic ex-boyfriend.” I sniff a chuckle, trying to keep this light. “I’d really love a chance to explain everything—in painstaking detail if you wish.”

  “Not here. Not now.”

  “Obviously.”

  “I need to get my room prepped for today, so if we could—”

  “Eulalia is picking Honor up today. She said she could stay as late as I need,” I say. “Why don’t I pick you up aroun
d four? There’s something I want to show you, and we can talk on the way.”

  There’s less tension in her shoulders than there’s been the last couple of times I’ve seen her, and she isn’t crossing her arms, trembling, or avoiding my gaze.

  It’s a good start.

  Perhaps she needed some time to calm down and think this through.

  That or she’s exhausted every emotional nerve and is immune to the way my presence makes her feel.

  “Okay,” she says.

  “Okay?” I want to make sure I’m hearing this correctly …

  “Okay.”

  53

  Astaire

  “Where are we going?” I fasten my seatbelt in the front passenger seat of Bennett’s SUV Monday after work.

  He’s driving.

  I’ve never seen him drive.

  The onyx leather beneath me is soft and warm and flitters of snowflakes land on the hood, melting on impact.

  I’m prepared to hear him out.

  I’m not prepared for what comes after that.

  “You’ll see in about twenty minutes.” He pulls out of my apartment’s guest parking lot and heads toward the southwest quadrant of town.

  Classical music plays softly. I dial down the passenger heat and unbutton my jacket.

  Clearing my throat, I say, “I read your email …”

  He glances at me from the corner of his eye. “And?”

  “It was … convincing.”

  “Just convincing?”

  “You have a way with words, Bennett. You can be persuasive when you need to be.” The houses we pass grow bigger by the block. I don’t know that I’ve been to this part of Worthington Heights, but I’ve heard about it. “I guess I’d like to understand the dynamic between you and Errol better. I don’t understand why you couldn’t have just told him the truth? Or why you had to discuss me at all …”

  “My brother and I have a complicated history, one rooted in jealousy and competition from a young age—mostly due to my father always pushing us to out-best one another. I was always the stronger one, the naturally athletic and agile one. He was always better at anything requiring attention to detail … drawing, sculpting, building computers, anything to do with his hands. Academically we were neck and neck until we got older and he became less focused on his studies and more focused on his extracurriculars …” Bennett flicks on his left turn signal and checks his rearview. “Anyway, when it came to choosing majors and colleges, my father pushed us both to attend Harvard and study business. It was expected that we were going to take over the corporation when we were older. My brother refused. He wanted to study art. My father didn’t like that, so he began shoveling all of his attention and affection—if you can even call it that—in my direction and more or less pretending my brother didn’t exist. After that, it was war. Anything my father gave me, any girl I was seeing, anything he remotely believed meant anything to me—he’d destroy it anyway he could.”

  “Okay, he was a juvenile and petulant young adult. That was a lifetime ago. I don’t know what this has to do with me.”

  “Five years ago, our father died. Massive stroke. Came out of nowhere. At the reading of the will, we discovered that he left half of his estate to our mother—and the other half to me. Errol got nothing.” Bennett crawls to a stop outside a set of iron gates, and then he rolls down his window, punching in a six-digit code. The gates part and he pulls in, curving around a circle drive and coming to a complete stop in front of a massive limestone estate with deep-pitched roofing and intricate cast-iron crests. Double doors, glossy and black, with stainless steel lion’s head knockers, adorn the center of it all. A black marble fountain rests lifeless and winterized in the center of the drive.

  Everything about this presentation is as cold as it is beautiful.

  None of it feels like home.

  “This is where I grew up,” he says. “Seventeen thousand square feet and eight acres of pure unadulterated hell.” Bennett takes another moment. “This is where I learned what family was. What family wasn’t. At least by Schoenbach standards. This is where my mother brought Larissa home for the first time and quickly realized she’d bitten off more than she could chew.”

  I imagine being a young child, being told you’d been adopted by your forever family, driving up to this beautiful estate … only to realize you’d been placed with the worst kind of people.

  “My entire life was one giant chess game. Everything was a move. Strategic. Manipulative. Sometimes I was the rook. Sometimes I was the king. Other times I was a pawn. We all had our turns.”

  Without thinking, I reach for him, sliding my hand into his.

  “Remember last week when I told you what my brother was planning to do once he got custody of Honor?” he asks.

  “Yes?”

  “Wednesday I got a call from my lawyer. Turns out the idiot filed the paternity suit. I called Errol, invited him over, showed him the transcripts of the text messages. I told him if he intended to continue with the suit, I’d ensure that everyone he knows would get a copy of those.” Bennett’s thumb grazes the top of my hand. “He knew he’d been backed into a corner, so then he started asking questions about you. He was trying to sniff out how I felt about you. I couldn’t let him think I cared about you because he would’ve found a way to exploit that, to leverage it against me.”

  “Yeah, but he doesn’t know me. And I’ve got nothing to hide …” I haven’t a single skeleton in my closet, and I’ve never been embroiled in anything remotely scandalous. There’s nothing his brother could dig up on me.

  “You don’t know Errol or what he’s capable of. He’s a sociopath. He has no moral compass. A skilled manipulator who feels he’s one step above the law. And my mother’s twice as bad. They make an awful team. There’s no telling what they’d do if it meant getting what they want—and they want Honor out of the picture.”

  I glance at the house once more, and a chill runs through me. “Can we get out of here?”

  “Of course.” He releases my hand and shifts into drive.

  We’re a solid mile away before either of us speaks again.

  “Do you understand why I had to say what I said?” he asks. “I had to protect Honor. I had to protect you.”

  I nod. If what he’s saying is true … and my gut feeling is that it is … then it makes perfect sense.

  “I’m sorry you had to hear that. And I’m sorry that you’ve spent the last several days doubting if what we have is real, but I swear to you, Astaire. It’s the realest thing I’ve ever felt. I can’t tell you how to feel, but it’s real for me.” We stop at a red light when he retrieves a large white envelope, folded in half, from the visor above. “This is for you.”

  The envelope is blank on the outside. I peel it open and slide out a stack of papers, all of them with an attorney’s logo on top.

  The first line says PURCHASE AGREEMENT.

  “What is this?” I ask.

  The light turns green, and we coast ahead.

  “Just read it,” he says.

  The paperwork is dated from this past Saturday.

  I scan the legalese until I get to the line that clearly states the ELMHURST THEATRE is henceforth owned by ASTAIRE CARRARO.

  “Oh my God.” I let the papers fall in my lap.

  “You love that place,” he says. “You’d mentioned during the tour that the owners were thinking of selling, so I did some checking around with all my free time the last couple of weeks. Turns out they had a pocket listing on it with one interested buyer who had every intention of tearing it down and replacing it with condos.”

  “You saved the Elmhurst …” I swipe away a single happy tear before interlacing my fingers with his. “You’re a saint. Really. You have no idea how much this means to me. But I don’t have the means to refurbish it … I don’t have the—”

  “—I’ve set aside a trust that should generate enough in interest to cover the ongoing maintenance. I’ve also set aside an account to
cover the refurbishments, current and unanticipated.”

  It makes sense now why the owners didn’t send out an email. I bet Bennett asked them to keep it quiet because he wanted to be the one to tell me.

  “Also, were you aware that the three floors above the theatre had been used as storage space for the past twenty years?” he asks.

  “I guess? We never had any reason to go up there.”

  “Honor and I toured the place last weekend, and we think it would make a wonderful place to live.”

  “What …?”

  “That neighborhood is in an up-and-coming area, family friendly, close to her school, plenty of parks …” he says. “She doesn’t need to grow up in a penthouse. She needs to grow up in a home. So we’re going to make it a home, and we’d be honored if you would join us in that process.”

  “Are you asking me to move in with you?”

  “I am.” He turns to me.

  “Wow.” I lean back in my warm seat, watching the gray world blur past.

  “I know it’s a lot to take in at once. And I want you to know that I don’t expect an answer right away,” he says. “And regardless of what you choose, the theatre and everything that comes with it … is my gift to you.”

  I think back to my conversation with Ophelia last Friday, when she called him a rich, lonely man with a Batman complex.

  I also think back to what she said about how he could have any blonde, twenty-something, kid-friendly woman in the world—and yet he wants me.

  We ride back to my apartment in silence, together but alone with our thoughts.

  “I’ll walk you in,” he says.

  “Thank you for showing me where you grew up today. I imagine it wasn’t easy for you to go back there.”

  He offers a pained smile. “That’s the first time I’ve set foot on my mother’s property in years.”

  “I …” my words get caught. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you a chance to explain.”

  “Astaire, please. Don’t apologize. What you heard was terribly upsetting. You had every right to take some time to cool off before hearing me out.”