Scorch (Virtues & Lies Book 2)

by Alexandra Silva

  Everything comes down to that fucking night. It’s like everything before it has been burned to ash and swept away in the wind.

  We head through the turnstiles, out to our cars, and stop outside the revolving door of the all glass and steel edifice.

  “We need to figure out what’s going on and why the fuck your dad is shutting us out.”

  The way he keeps coming back to Dad is making me feel uneasy. Dad, Benedict, and Charles. I don’t know why, but Leo has his sights on whatever theory he’s got going in his head.

  Normally I’d shrug it off. But maybe he’s got a point. It’s more than something that isn’t right.

  They messed with my family and my marriage. And I have no idea why, because he’s right—their actions and the public persona they’re trying to build are at odds with one another.

  “I need to go check on Arabella.”

  “Cassie and I are heading south tomorrow. You should come.” We stop by his Maserati, the Range waiting for me coming to life in front of it.

  “I don’t know. I think we need some time alone.”

  Getting into his car, he looks back at me, a small smile lighting his face. “I get it.” He closes the door, the window winding down. “Invitation will still stand tomorrow, if you change your mind.”

  “Thanks, mate.”

  “There’s something else I want to talk to you about.” He bites down on his smile. “Outside all this fucked-up shit.”

  “What is it?”

  “We’ll talk about it soon,” he says as his phone rings. Answering in the first few rings, he says, “Francis.”

  “What time will you be here?”

  My chest tightens at my father’s question because during our entire conversation, Leo said nothing of going to see him.

  “Be there in twenty.”

  The call ends without much fanfare, and he looks flustered like he’s been rumbled.

  “What was that about?”

  “Like I said, I have something to talk about with you. Nothing to worry about, just something.” Although he smiles contentedly, I can’t shake off the strain in my chest. “If you and Bella decide to come down…let me know.”

  “Will do.”

  The tightness around my heart and lungs increases as I get in the Range and watch Leo drive off.

  With the light traffic it takes under fifteen minutes to get back to the hotel. The driver parks the car, and racing past all the security dotted around the wide staircase, I fly up the steps to the suite. It’s only when I almost get to the top of the first flight that it strikes me as I glance back down.

  Murphy didn’t say anything about upping the security from last night.

  These men don’t look like the entourage he put together with my father’s guidance. We’d agreed on less intrusive and formal-looking attire here. We don’t want more attention than necessary driven our way.

  As I reach the landing, the loud voices coming from our room have me running to the already open door.

  Not a single one of them sees me as I stand in the doorway watching Murphy stand between Arabella and her dad like he’s protecting her from the enemy.

  Something isn’t right.

  “You don’t get to fire me this time,” Murphy spits at Benedict with more venom than I’ve ever seen anyone address him. “I don’t work for you.”

  “You shouldn’t work for anyone. You’re as much to blame.”

  What the fuck is going on?

  “I am. You are. Mrs. Sinclair is not.” Stepping closer to my father-in-law, Murphy straightens to his full height. His shoulders seem to broaden, and his chest puffs up. The way he’s looking at Benedict is filled with threat.

  “Ryan…” Arabella steps around him, squeezing his shoulder with a light smile before turning to her dad and telling him, “I think you should leave now.”

  “I can always escort you out, Mr. Deputy Prime Minister.”

  Welcome to the fucking twilight zone.

  “It’s only going to get worse. They’ll keep coming for him, and if they get what they want…well, you’re going to have to live with yourself, knowing that you could’ve stopped them. Just like you could’ve saved your child had you been smarter.”

  My limbs act before my brain has a chance to catch up with itself and register his words properly. But my gut feels the hit he delivers to my wife’s—his daughter’s—heart.

  I’m so fucking furious that although I know what he’s just said to Arabella, it’s still having a hard time sinking in. Even if I’m on him faster than it takes him to realise what’s happening.

  “How dare you,” I spit in his face, too angry to say any of the other shit that’s going through my head because disgust swells in my throat and makes it impossible for me to get any words out coherently.

  “Christopher!” Arabella tries to pry my hands from the collar of his shirt.

  “How dare you use our child to hurt her. How fucking dare you…”

  “Christopher!”

  I give her what she wants, because I need her to tell me what I want to know. Seems like a fair trade of sorts.

  His fucking neck for the motherfucking truth. But that’s not to say that it’ll stay this way.

  “Fine.” Letting go of Benedict, I push him down onto one of the sofas. From the scowl on his face as he fixes his collar, tugging on the cuffs of his shirt to straighten himself out, it’s obvious he wants to retaliate.

  He won’t though. Temper is a distasteful thing to Benedict Gladstone. He prefers cool aloofness and a good grind of teeth, but I don’t plan on dentures until I’m well and truly old. So I’d rather show who I am. Because if you’re going to fuck with me, you need to know I’m not going to spread my hands and take it like a fucking imbecile. Or worse, a motherfucking doormat.

  It’s not me. We both know it, and he hates it.

  “He doesn’t leave.” I point the order at Murphy without deviating my gaze from Benedict.

  Murphy moves to the suite door, shutting it before he situates himself in front of it, facing the suite, his eyes firmly on my father-in-law with a scowl that makes his distaste for him well and truly known.

  I don’t have to say anything when I start for the bedroom. Arabella follows behind me quietly. The way her silent footsteps follow me, it feels like I’m the one who was just chastising her for something she didn’t do. I feel like the cunt that was preying on her emotional vulnerability.

  Fuck, I should’ve done more than crease his collar.

  The bed is still unmade and the curtains drawn. The steam coming from the bathroom is so thick that it makes it difficult to breathe with the humid heat. It’s like a motherfucking steam room in here, and I’m already feeling on edge, so the uncomfortable heat…

  “Shit! I completely forgot about the shower.” Running past me as I hold the door for her, she heads straight into the bathroom.

  Closing the door, I follow her, and as she shuts off the water, I open the windows to let some of the fog out.

  It’s only then I actually realise that she’s still wearing the shirt from last night. Her short hair is a tangled mess around her jaw. The shorter layers framing her face are frizzy with the humidity in the air, and despite all my anger, all I can think is how fucking gorgeous she looks.

  For once she looks her twenty-seven years, younger actually. Without all the make-up, a soft heated blush filters through her olive skin. Her curls are beginning to coil through her short lengths, and as she sits on the toilet, all I can think is how much I want to hold her.

  It seems like a silly task, but I go about pouring her another bath, like the one from last night. One she might actually enjoy while I take care of the situation I walked into.

  “What are you doing?” she asks as I pour some of the bath shit the hotel has lying around.

  “Making you a bath.” I’m not exactly an expert on this pampering stuff, but I figure if there are bubbles it’s all good. “I’m taking care of my wife, because she’s clearl
y been neglected, and she needs to understand that she is important. And loved.”

  “You don’t need to do that.” She nods at the bath.

  Sitting on the edge, I focus on her and all the things I feel for her. Love, hate, disappointment, awe, guilt…so many feelings. Good and bad and ugly, they all culminate to one thing—adoration. This woman is my religion.

  I would go to war for Arabella. I would nuke this goddamn fucking world for her.

  “I do,” I tell her as she continues to watch me. “It’s the only thing that’s stopping me from going out there and killing your dad. He’s wrong. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Any other time, I would’ve undressed her and helped her into the bath, but whatever’s happened today has left her open and raw. She might not be crying, but she has that lost look on her face.

  Closing off the tap, I turn my back to her. “Get naked and get in.”

  The shuffle of her undressing and then the sloshing of the water as she follows my instruction tells me when it’s okay for me to turn back to her.

  Her shoulders only just rise out of the bubbles, and the way in which she keeps brushing at her hair tells me how restless she is.

  I’m going to fucking kill Benedict. I don’t care who he is. The fact that he put his goals ahead of his daughter’s welfare…I can’t comprehend it.

  “They came for me. They got me. I’m still here.” Standing with my arms spread wide, I allow her to take a good look at me before I pull off my jacket, hanging it on the towel rail. I roll my sleeves to my elbows as I continue watching her huddle in on herself. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  The breeze from the open windows blusters through with the end of November chill cooling the air around us.

  I would close them, but Arabella is one of those people that has to balance the hot with cold. She sleeps with her legs outside the duvet even though she tucks herself in up to her chin. She heats up the car but cracks the window open to let the fresh air in.

  So I don’t close them. I leave them open, and instead, I dip into my suit jacket and take out the Lucky Strikes that she prefers to the Marlboro Reds I normally smoke. They’re milder.

  Handing her a cigarette, I light it for her as I brush my free hand through her hair. I’ve always loved her hair. It’s thick and unruly; even when it’s tamed, all it takes is a drop of moisture for it to rebel. It’s a bit like her—hard to contain and impossible to subdue.

  When she relaxes, sitting back into the bath, I take off the earrings she still has on. They’re nothing over the top. A simple thread of small cascading diamonds, but they’re heavy enough that her ears must be somewhat sore.

  I know I shouldn’t take advantage of her fragile state, but my gut tells me that if I don’t ask now, she might never tell me. And I need to know. I can’t carry her through something I don’t entirely understand. And I really can’t wrap my head around why she left me. How she could do it.

  Sitting on the floor beside the bathtub, I light up my own smoke before I take the hand holding the side of the bath and twine our fingers.

  “You didn’t answer my question earlier.”

  “We can’t keep my dad waiting out there.”

  “Yes we can. He’s not going anywhere until I know what the fuck is going on. Until I get my answers, he doesn’t get to leave.”

  “Fuck.” A dry laugh rumbles from her, and I have to suck in a lungful of my cigarette so I don’t lose it.

  I ask people questions every day. I get answers every fucking day. But figuring this shit out with my wife…

  Fuck.

  “You really are hell-bent on hating me, aren’t you?” Contrary to her caustic words, her fingers tighten around mine as she snuffs her cigarette in the empty soap dish on the wall.

  “No, baby.” I kiss the back of her hand, trying to alleviate some of the frustration inside me. “I’m hell-bent on loving you through all of this, Arabella, and more. So much fucking more…”

  Leaning over the edge of the tub, she wraps her arms around my shoulders. Her action gives me warning of where this conversation is going. The severity of it.

  “I love you, Christopher. I don’t know what else to do but love you. My life is all about that one thing—loving you more than I love myself.”

  “Then why did you leave? I don’t understand. You were there, and then you were gone. I wanted to see you and…I didn’t know you were okay. Do you know what that felt like?”

  Her hold on me is desperate, and the tighter it becomes, the more I want to kick myself for putting us in the situation we’re in right now.

  “Yes. I do.”

  “Then—”

  “I made a mistake. I fucked up and I need to make it as right as I can. I need to try and fix this. I wanted her so much, and I was selfish and everything a good mother shouldn’t be. I put myself above you and our baby. I forgot my place and my role.”

  Letting go, she slips back into the bath. Her arms hug her legs to her chest as she rests her head on her knees.

  Broken doesn’t do her justice. What they’ve done to her…

  No.

  What we’ve done to her goes beyond annihilation.

  “Your place and your role are with me. Beside me.”

  “Oh Christopher, you’re good at these games…tactics and strategies—”

  “Don’t start with that power game bullshit. We’re not a fucking game!”

  “It’s not a game though, it’s a strategy. You risk the most valuable piece for the one that will win the game. The one that will get you the goal.”

  “It’s bullshit! This isn’t chess, and you’re not a queen. You’re my existence.”

  “That’s our life. This. I forgot it and it cost us everything. It cost us the most important thing.”

  Our baby.

  “It wasn’t you. You did nothing wrong, morena.” I sit on the edge of the bath beside her, my hands instantly going through her hair. Dipping one into the water, I cup some and pour it on her crown, then repeat the process as I continue our conversation. “Wanting to be normal isn’t selfish. It’s called normal for a reason—it’s the standard.”

  “But that’s not who we are, is it?” Looking up expectantly, like she’s hoping that somehow I’ll contradict her and that it’ll be the truth because I’ve spoken it, she waits for my reply.

  “No.”

  “You see?” Laying her head back on her knees, she sighs. “That was my mistake. I forgot that.”

  “Why did you lock me out? You wouldn’t let me see you…”

  “Because I couldn’t bear to see your pain. Your disappointment. The way you looked at me whenever you walked into the room…you didn’t say anything. You looked at me with your world broken in your eyes, and all I could hear was what my dad had said.”

  “What did he say?” Tension and frustration coil through my muscles, my hand fisting too tightly in her hair.

  “Nothing I hadn’t told myself already.”

  “I want to know.” Crouching so we’re facing one another, I hold her gaze.

  “Stupid, selfish, and short-sighted. That’s what he said right after he told me she was gone.”

  “And you left me because of that?”

  “No. Me leaving was a distraction…to protect you.”

  “To protect me?” Grasping her jaw, I make sure she doesn’t look away.

  “Yes. Because if you were focusing on me, you wouldn’t be looking for anything or anyone else. But then Leo and Freddie showed up, and I knew you weren’t far.”

  “Through all our faults and mistakes…through all the sins we’ve committed, and we are about to commit, the blame does not touch you. They killed our baby. They hurt you. And they will all pay.”

  “You don’t understand, cariño.” Turning her body to face me, her hands go to my knees, her chin resting on hers.

  “I do, Arabella. I understand it all clearer than you know. You could’ve both been gone for good. Did you really think I’d chase you and
forget everything else?”

  “I hoped you would, because the moment you touch Tomasz, all the others behind him will come for you. And it doesn’t matter who you have on your side, Christopher, because the way I’ve seen Tomasz operate…he believes he’s untouchable.”

  More the fool him.

  “There’s one very obvious flaw with your plan. You knew the moment I saw you with him, I’d be gunning for him. You must’ve known.”

  “I did, but I thought if I could push you enough away that you would hate me so much that you wouldn’t care what he did to me.”

  Her shudder alleviates the repulsion and tightness within me. The fact that she finds that idea as repugnant as I do makes it easier to stomach. Not much, but enough that I’m not jumping to my feet and shoving my fist down her father’s throat or shaking sense into her.

  “This doesn’t happen again, do you understand?”

  Her eyes flit down to the water, and I know beyond a doubt that her father was working her again.

  “You will never shut me out again. You will never leave me again. Is that clear?”

  Thank heavens for Murphy. I make a mental note to thank him for protecting her from her own flesh and blood.

  “Answer me, Arabella.” Lifting her chin so her sight squares on mine, I squeeze her chin hard enough that she grits her teeth and winces. “Do you understand?”

  She nods.

  “Speak. I want your verbal acquiescence.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “I understand, Christopher.”

  “Good, because you are my winning piece.”

  “To you maybe.”

  “There’s no if, but, or maybe about it. You are the most magnificent thing I’ve ever known. The most precious thing I will ever own. And nothing will ever change that.”

  “How can you say that when I failed to—”

  “Don’t you dare.” My rebuke comes sharper than I intend, her gasp and recoil evidence of it sinking in. But I know there’s only one way to show her how amazing she is. What an incredible thing she did with our daughter.

  Standing, I grab my suit jacket and find my phone in one of the inside pockets. I close every app open, except for the photos. Tapping on it, I swallow down the nervous lump in my throat. I have no idea how she’s going to take this; a part of me wants to hide it forever to spare her the pain of truly knowing what we lost, but unless she realises it, sees our little girl for herself…she will never understand how fucking amazing she is for making and carrying something so perfect. So special.