Double Trouble: 55
by Cariad  
 

Double Trouble
~Fifty Five~
Holly shut the door to Adele’s room before she let loose her temper on Jonathan. “Why didn’t you tell her!” she demanded of him. “She has a right to know. She has a right to know her family isn’t all dead!”

“MacPhearson,” Jonathan murmured under his breath, reading the chart. “Elizabeth MacPhearson was my mother.”

Holly crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you ignoring me now?” she huffed. “I swear I’ll never understand you!”

Jonathan gently replaced the chart. “Thank you Holly,” he said quietly, facing the wall. “You have no idea what this means to me.”

Holly quieted her own tone to match his. “I have an idea what it means to Adele,” she told him. “Why didn’t you tell her?”

Jonathan caught her in his arms, swinging her around to face him. “This is the greatest give anyone could have given me,” he whispered, drawing a finger across her hairline and down her jaw, sending tremors through Holly’s body. Suddenly terrified, she saw him lean down to kiss her. She wrenched herself away.

“Don’t,” she whispered, her voice trembling. Holly stiffened her spine. She would not show him fear.

Jonathan sighed.

“Don’t ever think your lips will touch mine!” she continued, pressing her advantage, showing him she was not afraid.

He laughed at her bravado. “You are doing your utmost to make our eventual marriage very difficult. But nothing that can’t be overcome,” he added with a knowing glance. He laughed again as Holly realized what he was implying.

“You…” she started. “Your lips will touch no part of my body,” she declared firmly, lifting her chin.

Jonathan sighed again, this time dramatically. “That can be overcome as well, but you’ll be missing out.”

Holly stormed past him to the elevator. “If we get married, and that is a very large IF, there will be absolutely no sex involved.”

The doors opened and the two joined the other occupants going down. “You’ve obviously learned nothing from those books you read,” Jonathan observed. “The more they resist, the harder they fall.”

Holly rolled her eyes. “Pfft! The fact of the matter is that I cannot see you and I doing… those things,” she hissed. She refused to think about him doing… those things.

Jonathan chuckled again and pulled her off the elevator as they reached the ICU floor.
 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Julia watched her sister storm towards them. “Where’s Johnny?” Julia asked as soon as Holly was in range.
“I don’t know,” Holly replied. “I don’t care. Someplace behind me,” she continued. “Jules, you will not believe the audacity he has. He propositioned me in the elevator. TWICE!”

Snuggled up next to Noah, Julia could feel his smothered laughter. She elbowed him in the gut.

“Hollis,” Julia cautioned. “Calm down. Or at least quiet down.”

Holly paced before Julia. “Like he has some sort of god-like charm, that I’m supposed to fall at his feet and find him irresistible? I don’t think so!” She rubbed her temples. “I need some air,” Holly declared, and whirled on her heel to find the nearest exit.

“What was that?” Noah whispered in Julia’s ear.

“Something disrupted Holly’s world. I should go talk to her. She needs to scream at someone.”

“Victims one and two have already gone to see her.”

Julia looked up to see Reese and Kay gone, presumably to talk to Holly. Well, Reese definitely had something to talk to Holly about.

“And Victim three is on his way,” Noah continued, extending a hand to Jonathan. “Hotchkiss, how are you?”

Julia examined her sister’s fiancé. He seemed entirely nonplussed by whatever had gotten Holly so hyper.

“Fine,” Jonathan replied with a grin. “Holly didn’t just come through here, did she?” he asked.

“What did you do to my sister?” Julia demanded. “You look like the cat that swallowed the canary.”

“I’m sorry,” Jonathan apologized. “She’s just too easy to provoke at the moment.

“Just stop it then!” Julia snapped.

“Not until that ice-wall of hers is melted,” Jonathan countered. “I take it she did come flying through here.”

“Yes,” Julia replied sullenly. “And all worked up no thanks to you!”

“She has some amusing notions about marriage,” Jonathan observed. “I should go find her and put her mind at rest.”

“Hotchkiss,” Noah said, stopping Jonathan from leaving. “We’ve got a favor to ask of you.”

Jonathan turned. “Go on. Anything to help out a friend.”

Noah quickly explained his and Julia’s ideas to exchange letters without her father from finding out.

Jonathan’s grin turned sly. “Count me in,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper.

“That’s wonderful!” Julia said, throwing her arms around Jonathan’s neck, and planting a kiss on his cheek. “You know what we can accomplish when we conspire!” Julia curled back into Noah’s arms and sighed against his strong chest. “I wish we could stay like this forever!” she whispered to Noah with a smile as she gazed into his eyes.

“I do too, Juliet. It’s like you were made to fit right here in my arms.”
 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Reese found Holly sitting on a stone bench outside the hospital. An ashtray half-filled with cigarette butts stood at one end. A nurse was just finishing her cigarette as Holly saw her former crush. “Ironic, isn’t it,” she observed, her eyes following the nurse back inside.
“What?” he asked. “Oh, that,” he said, seeing the nurse. “Can I sit?” he asked.

“It’s a free world.”

“I’m sorry?” Reese asked.

Tears burst from Holly’s eyes. “It’s not your fault, Reese,” she blurted. “It’s my own stupid fault. I mean, you were just being you, and I knew all along that Kay was your girlfriend, but she didn’t seem to want to be your girlfriend…”

“Well, Kay and I talked about that,” Reese said, bringing a fresh onslaught of tears from Holly. “Don’t cry!” he said, bringing an arm around her shoulder.

“It’s not your fault you were so wonderful and nice and smart!”

“But you’re engaged now and I have my Kay and everyone’s happy,” Reese declared, wiping tears from Holly’s eyes.

“Not everyone’s happy,” Holly said.

“You didn’t want to get engaged?” he asked, rather confused.

Holly shook her head. “It was a farce. It still is.”

“But I saw him when he carried you upstairs on New Year’s Eve. He was looking at you like he really loved you.”

“A show for my grandfather’s benefit,” Holly sniffled.

“I don’t think so,” Reese contradicted. “It didn’t look that way to me.”

“Forgive me for not believing you,” Holly said, her voice heavy with sarcasm, “but you can’t even tell when a girl is throwing herself at your feet!”

Reese held her at arms’ length. “What do you mean?” he asked.

They heard a cough and both looked up. Kay was standing there, looking at them.

“It’s not what it looks like!” Holly said quickly.

Kay easily sat herself between Holly and Reese. “No, it’s exactly what it looks like,” Kay said with a small smile. “And Reese, what she means is that someone had a crush on you and you were oblivious.”

“Oh,” Reese said. “Who?”

Kay took Holly’s hand. “I really have to thank you,” the Bennett girl said. “I never realized what a ‘catch’ Reese was until you came along.”

“Who had a crush on me?” Reese asked.

“Shut up, Reese,” both girls replied.

“He is a catch, isn’t he?” Holly said, drying her eyes with the palms of her hands.

“I still have some improvements to make,” Kay observed, “but overall, he’s a pretty good catch. So now it’s my turn to dish out some advice that was told to me over and over, only I was too blind and stupid to realize it.”

“What?” Holly asked warily.
“You’ve got a good ‘catch’ of your own. Don’t squander him.”

The girls looked up and saw Holly’s catch in the doorway. Kay stood up and pulled Reese up after her. “Do you know who had a crush on me?” Reese asked Kay as she dragged him inside.

Holly examined her fiancé. He was dressed in somber tones, bringing out the highlights in his dark auburn hair and steely gray eyes, which when he laughed turned silver—and he always seemed to find an excuse to laugh around her. Usually, he laughed at her, Holly noted with a trace of bitterness. She couldn’t help but remember him earlier in the day, as he came out of the bathroom clad only in a towel. With them both in flat feet, she fit perfectly up under his chin, and he certainly had not strained as he carried her upstairs at the Ball. Still, he was arrogant and commanding, but she could out-stubborn him sometimes.

He sat down next to her, a warm body in the chill January air. “I didn’t tell her because I’ve got to preserve the secret until after my father dies. If Adele outlasts my father by even a single day, I’ll be right there to let her know her grandson is alive. But…” he held up a hand to forestall any further protests from Holly. “She knows enough to be content. She knows her daughter was loved.”

“I suppose,” Holly sighed.

“There’s something more you should know about the murders,” he said. “I think your grandfather got Aidan out of the hospital to come and murder Rebecca to get her out of the way. She knew too much.”

Holly looked up at him, her face pale. “I don’t want to know anymore.”

“Please,” Jonathan nearly begged. “I have to tell you. He was only supposed to get Rebecca, but he wanted a little bit of pleasure first. They hooked up almost as soon as Aidan arrived—something to pass the time until New Year’s, I suppose.”

“Wait,” Holly said, stopping him. “You said that Gwen wasn’t your sister. She was Rebecca’s by another man. Is she my sister?”

“No,” Jonathan replied immediately. Holly gave a sigh of relief. Jonathan continued. “She’s your aunt.”

“My what?” Holly said, feeling her face pale as she put the relationships together.

“That’s right. Rebecca had three generations of Cranes. Lovely maternal role-model I had.”

“So when you went to jail, and Grandfather was going to let you rot, and he said the Crane-Hotchkiss merger was going to proceed as planned, and he was going to use Gwen, there was no Aidan in the picture, was there?”

“I’m getting to why your Grandfather was going to let me rot. But, no, there was no Aidan in the picture. Alistair knows that Aidan could never run Crane industries. We copped a deal, Alistair and I. I was going to take the blame as long as he let Gwen have both Hotchkiss Enterprises and her birthright as a Crane. Gwen was going to be the key again and Alistair, I suppose, would hook her up with some other man he knew and get a third company in the process.”

“I don’t understand,” Holly said.

“Well, as part of our betrothal agreement, if something should happen to me, the merger would go on as planned. Of course, if something happened to you, the merger would be off unless I decided to take a fancy to Julia.”

“I don’t understand why you were going to take the blame.”

Jonathan sighed. “I told Alistair I wouldn’t have you unwilling. He’s got this presence, you know…”

“I know,” Holly replied ruefully.

“Well, I slipped about your escape clause.”

“What?”

“Naturally he was livid.”

“Naturally,” Holly agreed.

“Well, he gave me the option after Aidan had started on his killing spree. He told me that if I really wanted to give you an escape, I had the option of spending the rest of my life in jail, and you could have out of the engagement, and the merger would go ahead.” Jonathan stood and began to pace. “And Gwen could have everything, and I know Gwen. She’d be fair to you girls. She already loves you two like sisters. And she wouldn’t be cowed by whomever Alistair would choose for her. I mean, my father raised her, after all.” He stopped in front of Holly. “But I did it for you, mostly. So you could choose to leave. Why do you think I hired Ethan as my lawyer?”

Holly’s mind whirled once more. Her mind always whirled around Jonathan. He made everything so confused. “I hate you!” she declared, feeling tears threaten, but she would not cry again. Cranes did not cry. “I hate you. You took my choice away. You made it for me! And I will never forgive you for that!”

“But I thought you didn’t want this,” he roared back.

“The point was that I was forced into it!” Holly snarled. “I hate you! The point is you gave me a choice and then you took it away. You’re no better than my grandfather. And to think, I almost thought you were human.”

Jonathan’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You mean we had a chance?”

“Not anymore,” Holly replied flatly. She walked with a stiff back past Jonathan as he pounded the walls. She did not change her position until she was in the bathroom. Sinking down the wall, she balled her hands into fists and did not cry. Kay was wrong. Jonathan was not a catch. He did not love her. Who was she kidding? Her kind—her kind and Jonathan’s kind—they did not love. She did not cry. She would not cry over Jonathan. She would not give him that kind of power over her—ever. Dusting herself off and rising, she knew she had only one option left open to her. She turned on some water and splashed it on her face, looking into her own haunted eyes. She only had one option. She would find someone—anyone—and get away from Jonathan forever.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~