Flash Burned

by Calista Fox

  I very carefully rolled my head on the pillow to look back at the nurse. She nodded in confirmation.

  “I’m Claudia,” she introduced herself. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do. For now, I’m sorry about the pain. But you can speak with Dr. Lindsey about it.”

  Claudia jotted down my vitals on a chart while I fought my way through emotions that were nearly impossible to dissect.

  I was pregnant?

  For God’s sake, I was on the pill. So how on earth…?

  I groaned inwardly. “Of course,” I muttered.

  “What?” Kyle asked.

  I fought the natural compulsion to shake my head. It’d only cause more pain. But I did roll my eyes at my own irresponsibility. “I’ve been so absorbed with everything happening at the Lux that I forgot about routine appointments, skipped taking my allergy pills from time to time, and…”

  “And what?” my dad demanded, a deeply concerned edge to his voice. “Skipped your birth control pills, too?”

  “Not skipped,” I assured him. Then cringed. Really, this was something I had to discuss with my father? It was bad enough that Kyle glared at me as though I were the biggest fool on the planet. Now I had to admit the truth to my dad?

  Ugh.

  The agony of my injuries didn’t eclipse my humiliation. “Okay, yes,” I simply said.

  What else was there to tell them? I hadn’t been cognizant of missing my nightly doses … but now that I seriously thought about it … I couldn’t remember taking a pill the night of the Thanksgiving dinner at the Lux or on Thanksgiving Day when Dane had proposed. The night of our wedding … nope. A few nights when I’d been so wrapped around the schematics of Christmas decoration placement at the hotel that I’d fallen asleep without having the slightest bit of energy left over for taking off my makeup—or even popping a pill.

  Holy Christ.

  Honestly, birth control and allergy medicine had been the last things on my mind!

  But I had even bigger concerns to work through.

  My gaze slid back to my dad. “Dane…?”

  The expression on his face said it all. My heart wrenched and I let out a small cry. “It can’t be true!” A fresh batch of tears flooded my eyes. “It can’t be true!”

  “Sweets,” he said. “Dane did everything he could to get his staff out of the hotel. He saved a lot of lives. In fact, you were the only one who was significantly hurt. The rest were released from the ER. Like, ten or twelve of them. Mostly injuries caused from the inertia of the explosion, and some struck by debris because they were still too close to the building.”

  “And Kyle’s burns?” I quietly demanded.

  My best friend returned to my side. In a solemn voice, he said, “They’re not bad at all. I couldn’t get into the lobby. The fire was too intense. Those of us who got out … we were all really lucky, Ari. It could have been so much worse. But I’m—I am sorry. About Dane. Him and Amano,” he amended. “They saved everyone, Ari.”

  I choked on a sob. Couldn’t stop myself from crying.

  “Maybe you gentlemen should take a break,” Claudia suggested. “You’ve been here the majority of the time. Ari needs her rest. And I really can’t have her blood pressure and pulse elevated higher. It’s not good for her or the baby.”

  I wept harder, burying my face in the side of the pillow. My body shook, but I tried not to thrash on the bed, to not disturb the IV they’d obviously had to put in the crook of my arm, since my hands were wrapped. I surmised they’d detected my pregnancy when they’d drawn blood for labs.

  I was completely torn, lost without Dane. Shredded to the core.

  Looping over and over was the harrowing reality that everything in my life had been destroyed.

  Dane—my husband.

  My wedding band—because I had no idea how I’d ever get my bracelet back. The symbol of our marriage might be lost forever … along with the only person I would ever love.

  10,000 Lux was gone as well—decimated.

  It’d all been stripped away from me, so quickly. Like that entire chapter of my life had been erased in one horrific nightmare. As though it never existed.

  Yet there was a voice inside my head screaming at me to pull myself together, to concentrate on the fact that I carried Dane’s child. That a part of him lived on … inside me.

  All that did was make me cry more, perhaps because there wasn’t tangible proof. In my mind, it was still hearsay. People telling me I was pregnant.

  And me still in denial because I hadn’t missed too many pills.…

  I winced. Fuck, what did I know about how many were conceivably acceptable to miss? And if this was all true and not some deranged nightmare … exactly how pregnant was I?

  The guys left, but Claudia stayed, pulling up a chair and very gingerly rubbing my shoulder, stroking my arm. Compassionately saying how sorry she was, but that everything would be okay. Dr. Lindsey had ordered an ultrasound. They closely monitored my recovery. On and on Claudia went, trying to soothe me while I gaped and couldn’t even form words to get my endless questions answered.

  I couldn’t separate the good news from the ghastly. Especially with the terrified voice gaining strength and volume in my head. I’d tried surviving, existing, without Dane once before. It hadn’t worked.

  How would it this time?

  * * *

  The days passed with investigators stopping by to quiz me, though I couldn’t tell them anything more than Kyle and my father had at this point. I didn’t mention the suspicions I had about the axed investors being involved in the blast. I had to speak with Ethan Evans first, and I waited anxiously for him to visit me.

  In the meantime, I succumbed to follow-up tests, some poking and prodding, lengthy discussions with medical professionals, a determination that my exposure to and the inhalation of the ammonium nitrate didn’t pose a health threat to the baby.

  A peculiar numbness settled in when Dr. Lindsey confirmed all was well on that front. Without the fetus to worry so much about at the moment, the dark cloud of utter devastation consumed me.

  I cooperated fully, of course. I’d never do anything to harm Dane’s child. But I really just reacted to circumstances, my environment, instructions given. It was easier than thinking on my own, since that led to more despair.

  Especially since my deepest concerns currently lay elsewhere. I continually asked about Dane.

  Had the search and rescue team started their work? Was there anything they’d found, any evidence Dane didn’t escape—or that possibly he did?

  The questions were tolerated with a lot of sympathetic smiles and commiseration. Until frustration set in because of lack of information and one day I demanded of Kyle, “Have they found anything?”

  “Like what?” he shot back, tormented on my behalf. “Teeth? Is that what you want to hear?”

  “Ari.” My dad tried to reason with me. “It was an explosion. That means…”

  I crooked a brow at him. It was completely masochistic of me, but I wanted him to say the words I simply couldn’t form in my own mind.

  His lips pressed together and he shook his head.

  Kyle spoke up again, because he never sugarcoated things for me. Something I’d always appreciated and admired. He simply said, “Body parts.”

  My eyes squeezed shut.

  My father added, “Everything burned, Ari. The lobby, the vast majority of the main building. Right down to the ground. Including some of the grounds.”

  Likely those body parts Kyle had mentioned as well.

  I couldn’t fathom any of it. I’d seen the flames, the destruction. Yet it seemed surreal to believe the Lux had been blown to bits. That stunning lobby, all that opulence, Dane’s hard work.

  Naturally, I still couldn’t latch on to him being dead. But if he were alive … he would have tracked me down. It would have been the first thing he’d do, and I was easy to find in the hospital.

  Even my mother found me.

  I let
out a hearty sigh of frustration as she swept into the room the next afternoon, filling it with such an overwhelming citrusy scent it puckered my cheeks.

  “Aria Lynne,” she said in a feigned maternal tone. “Oh, darling. I have been so worried. Ever since I heard about the explosion at the hotel.”

  “That was several days ago, Mother.” And she was only now showing up, when she lived just an hour and a half away, in Scottsdale?

  “Yes, well, I’ve had my hands full. This time of year is always so busy with fund-raisers to attend and—oh, but what I am saying. Of course I came as soon as I could.”

  My stomach roiled. I didn’t want her anywhere near me, especially when I was so vulnerable, so emotionally and physically wrecked. I knew everything my mother did was anchored to some sort of demonic need to better her own situation. Whatever she was doing in my hospital room had nothing to do with the fact that I’d been injured in a hellish bombing.

  That reality—because I knew it wasn’t me she ever worried over but how everything under the sun impacted her—made all my aches and pains worse.

  It was incredibly unfortunate that I had plenty of evidence to prove how distressingly right I was about her devious intentions.

  “I thought we agreed to not see or speak to each other ever again,” I reminded her.

  Actually, she’d called me in a dither one day to say she’d kill the tell-all book she’d threatened to write about her affairs while my dad was on PGA tours—and would leave me alone. That had come after Dane had paid her off and, I suspected, though he’d never confirmed, had threatened her. He’d said he’d handled it. I didn’t doubt that meant he’d put the fear of God into her.

  But Dane was dead now.

  That torment stole my breath. Except …

  Damn it. Was that why she’d come back?

  He’d scared her off. But now that he was gone…?

  “What do you want?” I asked in as steady a voice as I could manage. Which really was a crock. I sounded hideous. Pathetic, weak, and hideous, to be exact. Particularly as I fought back tears.

  “Aria Lynne,” she breathed in her refined, pseudo-socialite tone. “I read all the news stories, saw all the footage on TV. Why, you could have died, darling. And I just … well…” She sank into the chair beside me and gripped my hand. Which I immediately yanked away.

  “Mother, I have stitches in my palms.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize.” She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Anyway, Aria Lynne, I spoke with a lawyer and he says there’s a valid lawsuit to pursue on your behalf, and I—”

  My mouth opened and I was fairly sure some incredibly scathing words were about to spew forth. But Kyle had come into the room at the same time and he stared at my mother with murder in his eyes.

  “You have got to be kidding me!” he blurted. He knew all about her extortion attempt, including the five grand I’d given her initially.

  “Meet Kathryn DeMille,” I reluctantly said. “Mother, this is my friend Kyle.”

  “Pleasure.” She barely gazed at him. Dismissed him promptly, likely because he didn’t wear designer clothes, just a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that strained against all of his rock-hard muscles. “Now, Aria Lynne, as I was saying, my lawyer—”

  “Stop,” I said.

  She was here to file a lawsuit against Dane and the Lux?

  My mind reeled. My stomach churned.

  Granted, she had no idea she’d be filing a lawsuit against me, since I was married to Dane. Something else I wanted her to have no clue about.

  But above all of that … Jesus. Just … ugh!

  My eyes squeezed shut briefly. I did a mental rewind from the moment she’d entered the room. She hadn’t even asked how I was doing. She didn’t even care about that. I knew it. I knew her.

  She’d found a self-serving angle because of a horrific tragedy. A way to get her hands on more money.

  I was instantly sick to my stomach.

  Before I could even react, though, Kyle grabbed the handles of the Louis Vuitton bag my mother had placed at her feet and hefted it up. “Get out,” he simply said, his tone tight, his gaze unwavering, as he glared at her.

  “I—what? Who are you?”

  “A very close friend of Ari’s. Weren’t you listening? She’s hurt, laid up in the hospital, and you’re here to try to collect on the fact that she could have died?”

  I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him so furious. Not even the night I’d told him I was marrying Dane.

  “Get. The. Hell. Out.” He thrust the handbag at my mother. I almost chastised him for being so brash—that wasn’t Kyle’s nature. But … he was right. And I was grateful he’d come so immediately and vehemently to my defense.

  Obviously, I didn’t currently possess the wherewithal to deal with Mommie Dearest. I appreciated that he was there to come to my rescue. Again.

  My mother, however, wasn’t the least bit thrilled. She glared at him a moment, attempting to stare him down with her high-society, snooty gaze.

  It didn’t work. Kyle couldn’t be deterred.

  Finally, she dragged her gaze away and glanced at me.

  I bucked up. Because I knew giving an inch with this woman could be detrimental. She wasn’t my mother, not in any other way than by notation on my birth certificate. A painful admission but the truth nonetheless.

  “You heard him,” I said. “All you want is some way to use me for money. Something insidious happened at 10,000 Lux, Mother. I was hurt. So were others. Kyle could have—” My breath caught. “Two people died.” Tears stung my eyes. “It’s tragic and sinister and here you are … not giving a damn about anything or anyone but yourself. You should be ashamed. But you’re not, are you?”

  My mother shot to her feet and ripped her bag from Kyle’s hand. “I do not understand who you’ve become, Aria Lynne.”

  “It’s Ari,” I ground out, hating how haughtily she said my name. “Just Ari, Mother.”

  “And remember me,” Kyle told her. “I’m the guy who’s going to be hanging out here making sure you don’t come back. Making sure you get nowhere near her.”

  My mother’s jaw fell slack. My new bodyguard crossed his thick arms over his expansive chest and stared her down.

  A flicker of fear flashed in Kathryn DeMille’s eyes. She tore her gaze from Kyle once more and demanded of me, “Where do you find these people that you associate with?”

  “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the people in my life,” I told her, forcing my voice not to crack as I thought of the two who were no longer alive. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of seeing me crumble. “The only reason you can’t identify with them is because they genuinely care about me.”

  Her attention returned to Kyle. “Don’t ever touch my purse again.”

  I could see he fought to contain his fury yet still said, “Take your goddamn designer bag out of here and don’t come back. I won’t let you near her.”

  My mother huffed, her expensive surgically enhanced chest heaving. Then she spun around on her dainty shoes and stalked out.

  I slumped back against the pile of pillows, every ounce of false bravado quickly draining. I was exhausted by the standoff.

  But I said to Kyle, “Thank you. Like so, so, so much. Perfect timing and—” Tears suddenly flowed down my cheeks. The ones I’d held in check so my mother couldn’t see them.

  “Ari, just … don’t think about it. Forget her. That is absolute bullshit and, holy crap, were you right about her.”

  “I know.” I started to cry. Violently. Kyle sank carefully onto the edge of the mattress and very gingerly comforted me. “Hey, it’s okay. Don’t sweat it, Ari. We all have family drama. Or in your case, trauma. I’ll keep her away from you. I promise.”

  If only he knew how persistent Maleficent could be. And she wasn’t the only reason for the painful wails.

  I didn’t have the heart or energy to say more. Just gave in to my sobfest, so grateful my tears didn’t run Kyle off.<
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  * * *

  Ethan visited the next day, with Qadir Hakim and Nikolai Vasil.

  Dane’s legitimate society and business partners came bearing an enormous bouquet to accompany the others that had been delivered—note, my mother hadn’t even bothered with flowers. This one took up the most space in my private room. My dad and Kyle stepped out.

  Ethan gave me a compassionate smile. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Ari.”

  My eyes burned with more tears. Would this never end? “For yours, too. I know how close the two of you were—how long you knew each other.”

  “Yes. It’s all a bit shocking.”

  I cut right to the chase, because I couldn’t dwell on Dane’s death. “How are the police or FBI going to figure out who’s behind the bomb? Did you tell them?”

  With a slight shake of his head, Ethan said, “It’s complicated at the moment, Ari. As it stands…” He blew out a long breath. Tension oozed from him, as it did the others. “We’re even. It’s over. There’s no more 10,000 Lux to want to be a part of, and—”

  “No more Dane.” A fresh batch of fat drops spilled down my cheeks.

  “Miss DeMille,” Qadir said in his rich Arabic accent—his use of my maiden name made me question whether he knew I’d married Dane or if Ethan had kept the secret. Qadir and Nikolai knew me from the Lux and Dane’s house. But did they know the full extent of our association? “You have my deepest condolences. If there is anything I can do, I would be more than honored to assist in any way.”

  I resisted the urge to ask for another search and rescue team. But it’d been days since the explosion. If Ethan had given up hope that Dane was alive, I’d simply—foolishly—be postponing the inevitable reality. One I needed to accept, despite it being near impossible. I just couldn’t give up the notion that I’d never see Dane again.

  “Thank you, Sultan Hakim.” I mustered a little strength. “That’s very kind.”

  “I share his sentiment,” Nikolai said. “If I can do anything at all … Do not hesitate to contact me. Dane was very special. A vital part of our work.”

  “Your visit is much appreciated,” I assured him. They’d made a hell of a trek to see me, the sultan coming from the Persian Gulf and Nikolai flying in from Russia. They had demonstrated a thousand times more effort in sharing their condolences and concern for me than my own mother had. An extremely painful reality.