“And?” Jethro cleared his throat. “Did you find anything, or did you just formulate that abysmal drug you gave my father to shut me down completely?”
I sat back, guilt flaring over that.
Eleanor gave me a quick look, sensing the nasty history and my role in it.
“He lied to me.” I shrugged. “He said you were self-harming because you couldn’t cope anymore. I tried calling you—”
“I was self-harming because I’d fallen in love with Nila and couldn’t unscramble her love for a monster like me and the hate my father had for her. I was being split apart. I couldn’t hear myself think over the evilness of my family and the pureness of the woman I’d fallen for.”
Nila interrupted gently. “Is this really breakfast talk?” Throwing Eleanor an apologetic smile, she added, “Jethro wasn’t, eh, well when we first found each other. He—”
“I hurt her unforgivably,” Jethro snapped, glaring at the diamond collar that sparkled around Nila’s neck. The choker had looked stunning last night with her ball gown, yet here, while she wore a simple cream shirt and jeans, it drenched the table with rainbows full of wealth and yesteryears debts.
“It all worked out in the end,” I said. “You know I didn’t intentionally try to break you guys apart.”
“You what?” Eleanor asked, her eyebrows flaring high. “They broke up because of a drug you made?”
“No.” Jethro shook his head. “I take full blame. I sent her away to protect her. My father threatened me, as per usual, and gave me some pills that he said would help. They drowned out every part of me and only left the son my father wanted. It caused struggles between Nila and me.”
“But I snapped him out of it before it was too late,” Nila said softly. “And he hasn’t taken another drug since.”
“Which is why you’ll have to let me assess you one day,” I muttered. “So I know how to help other HSPs.”
“Tell them to fall in love with someone who has their back.” Jethro ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair. “That’s it.” His tension faded as he brought the conversation back around to me and Eleanor instead of himself and Nila. “And don’t think I’m not aware you changed the subject so I wouldn’t give away details of your busy night. Not very guest-like behaviour, Sullivan.” He narrowed his eyes, studying me, then Eleanor. “Bondage? Something to do with tying your wife—”
“Oh, my God.” Eleanor spluttered. “How on earth could you possibly know that?”
“Ugh, he’s incorrigible.” Nila rolled her eyes, passing Eleanor a plate of roasted portobello mushrooms. “Ignore him. I do.”
“You do not. You indulge my every whim. That’s why I’m far too free with my ‘abilities’ these days.”
“Yes well, Kes is starting to show signs, and if he sees his father acting like some gypsy fortune teller, he’ll believe it’s normal to go around telling people their own thoughts.”
Jethro shrugged. “I hid my entire life and look how fucked up I was. If he’s like me, then I don’t want him to have to hide. I want him to know he doesn’t have to.”
Nila sighed, true love shining in her dark gaze. “I agree. It’s just hard to explain when he runs up to the cook and says she’s overweight because she’s still grieving her cat’s death two years ago.”
Sully cut in. “You’re saying your son has inherited Jethro’s traits?”
Nila sighed, passing around a dish of wilted spinach in olive oil and sea salt. “I’m not sure. Some days, I swear he’s exactly like Jet. Others, I think it was just a lucky guess. He’s a normal boisterous child, but there is a quiet listener inside him too.”
Jethro helped himself to buttery baguette. “We’ll deal with it if he is like me. Least Emma is normal.”
“Normal means nothing these days,” I said, sipping a full-bodied espresso that one of the hall’s staff placed in front of me. “I don’t think there is such a thing as normal. If there is, I haven’t found one in my line of work.”
“How is work going?” Jethro asked. “Any new breakthroughs in modern medicine?”
“Always. Whether or not the population is ready to accept it is another question.”
“How do you sit on drugs you know will work when you can’t get it past all the bureaucratic red tape?” Jethro asked.
I set my coffee cup down. “I have my ways of trickling it into the marketplace.”
A squeal sounded, heralding two little cyclones as they dashed into the drawing room. A boy and a girl—perfect replicas of their aristocratic parents. Their outward appearance was finely dressed, but their screams of joy as they played chase around the table hinted they were wild with energy and freedom.
Growing up in a massive hall like Hawksridge would cultivate fiercely independent and well-rounded offspring.
Emma crashed into her mother’s side, her mouth open for air as she scrambled onto Nila’s lap, kicking at her brother as he tried to tickle her. “No. Safe. Safe!”