by E. K. Blair
“Declan,” I call out in a panic, my heart beginning to race when it suddenly hits me. “What about me?”
He turns to look at me, becoming aware when he sees the anxiety in my eyes.
“They’ll dig into my history and Nina only goes back so far. They’ll know I’m a fraud,” I blurt out in a pitchy voice. “I’ll be charged with identity theft and embezzlement, along with any other crime they can pin on me.”
“Fuck,” he grits under his breath.
I guess it was inevitable that my con would eventually catch up with me. My mind goes into overdrive, thinking about how I could possibly finagle my way out of this, how I could possibly explain this away, but I can’t hone in on anything.
“What do we do?”
“I’ll put a call in to my attorney,” he tells me. “I don’t want you to worry; we have time. It could take up to a year for this to even go to trial.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
I slip out of bed and walk over to him. “It’s you that tells me that I shouldn’t hide from the things that hurt me.”
“He doesn’t hurt me,” he immediately defends, but I call his bluff, saying, “He didn’t even try to stop the murder of your mom. He stepped aside and just let it happen. So don’t tell me that doesn’t hurt you, Declan. I know it does.” I reach out to him and place my hand over his heart. “You and I share the same soft spot, the same wound—the death of a parent.”
He covers my hand with his, and it’s full of tension, squeezing me much too hard.
He’s in pain.
Her bones are fragile in my grip as I fight against the agony that marks my soul in wounds that refuse to heal.
And she’s right.
My mum has always been the weak link in my armor. She’s the softest part of my heart and anything that comes close to touching it pains me. But that pain is tainted by the fury I hold for my dad now that I know the part he played.
I look down into Elizabeth’s eyes and see the sorrow in them. She’s called me on my shit, so there’s only one option unless I want her to see me as a hypocrite.
“Let’s go to New York then.”
“You’re going to see him?” she asks in surprise.
“Yes. And then I’m done with him.”
I leave Elizabeth to drink her tea while I make the call to arrange the flight, and I’m told that we can make it out later tonight. When I return to the bedroom, I see her with that damn notepad. She thinks she’s being sneaky and that I don’t notice when she leaves my bed at night, but I do. The moment I lose the heat of her body, I wake up. I’ve chosen not to say anything and to give her the time she feels she needs.
Truth be told, Lachlan and I are hitting roadblock after roadblock. This man clearly doesn’t want to be found, but one way or another, I will find him—for her.
She sets the notepad and pencil on the bedside table when she sees me.
“The plane will be ready at seven.”
I sit and wait, looking around the white cinderblock room filled with the city’s disgraced and their loved ones. Guards stand and watch the interactions, making sure the rules that were explained in detail are being abided by.
The metal door in the corner of the room opens, and this time it’s my father who walks through. Donned in orange, he’s escorted into the room, and the guard that’s with him removes the shackles as my father’s eyes find mine.
He’s expressionless.
Once freed from the chains, he makes his way across the room. He looks hard, unshaven, and thinned out.
“Son,” he remarks evenly when he approaches the table.
Animosity sparks as I look at this man who sits across from me. Memories of all the disdain he’s spit my way throughout my life, only to evade his own wrongdoings, ignites rage inside me.
“How did you find out?”
“You haven’t heard?” I respond and he shakes his head. “Your boss?”
“My boss?”
“Keep playing dumb with me,” I taunt. “I know everything. I just want to hear you tell the truth for once in your life.”
“Stop with the riddles, kid, and just tell me what you think you know.”
My hands fist; it’s a futile attempt to control my fury, and I glare at him. “I know about Mum. I know she died because of you.”
“I loved that woman—”
His words—his flagrant lie—set me off, and I punch the table, losing control. “You fucking bastard!”
“Hey!” one guard yells, calling me into check.
“She died because of you,” I seethe, lowering my voice. “Because of your greed, she had to pay the consequences.”
“You don’t know shit, kid.”
“Admit it,” I say.
He shrugs his shoulders as if he’s clueless and guiltless, and I can’t stand to look at his smug face any longer, so I speed this up. “You knew Richard was going to kill her. That’s why you left the country, because you didn’t want to be there when it happened. You were running from the guilt, weren’t you?”
“How do you know about Richard?”
“You know he’s dead, right?” I ask and he nods. “I killed him.” His eyes widen when I tell him this, and I smile proudly. “Don’t worry, Dad. Cops already know I did it.”
He doesn’t respond to what I’ve just admitted to him. He simply stares at me, dumbfounded.
“Because of him, I know everything you’ve been hiding from me. Everything.”
He takes a hard swallow and hangs his head, succumbing to the truth because he has no other choice at this point. He can’t bullshit me any longer.
“I know it all, Dad,” I whisper harshly, digging the knife into him even deeper, and when he finally gets the balls to lift his head to look me in the eye, he says, “Then you know what I’m facing.”
“It’s all over the news.”
His demeaning voice shifts to that of neediness. “I need your help, son.”
“Admit it first. Admit that you were the one responsible for Mum dying.”
“I need your help,” he deflects, talking quickly in a hushed tone. “Camilla is my only line to the outside, aside from my lawyer, but I haven’t talked to her in a week. I need your help to get in touch with Lachlan.”
“Why?”
“I can’t tell you why, but I need to talk to him.”
“About Camilla?”
“Camilla? Why would I talk to him about her?” he questions in utter confusion. “What do you know?”
“Only that your girlfriend has conflicting fidelities.”
“I’m getting the feeling he does too,” he murmurs, jaw clenched in anger.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Ask him.”
“I’m asking you,” I say as my irritation grows in sync with suspicions that I’m missing some important details about Lachlan.
“I needed to keep an eye on you when you left Chicago,” he says cryptically. “Tell me, because I need to know, who’s Elizabeth Archer and what the fuck is she doing at The Water Lily?”
That fucking bastard. I will kill Lachlan when I get back to London, because it’s now apparent that whatever involvement he told me he has with my father is a lie. The only way my dad could get that information would be from him. But it’s his mention of The Water Lily that has me curious when I think of the photo that Elizabeth found there.
“I’ll tell you what you want to know,” I say. “But first, tell me what I should know about The Water Lily.”
He looks at me suspiciously, saying nothing.
“Why is there a picture of me there?” I ask, giving him a bit of information to try to spur him into an answer.
“Because,” he sighs, leaning forward.
“Tell me the truth.”
He looks at me for a moment before revealing, “The woman who runs it . . .”
“Isla.”
“Yes,” he says. “She’s your grandmother.”
“Isla is your mother’s mum.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I mutter. “Why was she never around?”
“Because she never approved of me dating her daughter. It was years of ups and downs, and when I married your mum, that’s what finally severed them—the fact that your mother chose me.”
“And even when Mum died, you never told me.”
“What was there to tell?”
I stand, unable to continue this conversation or look at this man who has filled my life with countless lies.
“Son . . .”
“Stop avoiding and just tell me.”
He remains seated, staring up at me. For a beat, I don’t think he’s going to answer, and my anger burns. Then, he opens his mouth to speak. “Yes, I knew your mother would die, and I did nothing to stop it.”
And that’s the dagger that spears into what Elizabeth calls “the softest part of me.” Blood from the wound that was created the day I watched her die pours out, drowning me, numbing me, debilitating me.
My hands shake when I brace them on the edge of the table and tell him, “You’ll never see me again.”
“Declan—”
“You’re going to die in this shithole all alone, you motherfucker.”
I don’t look back at him when I walk to the guard who stands at the exit, and I swear I leave a trail of blood in my wake from the wound he ripped wide open. When the guard pulls his keys to unlock the door, I hear my father call out, “Declan, come on. Come back,” and then commotion before a guard yells, “Sit down, McKinnon!”
“Declan!”
More commotion.
“Get the fuck off me!”
“Get your ass on the ground, inmate!”
“Declan!”
“Another,” I tell the bartender in the lounge of the hotel, and he pours me a shot of whiskey.
I can’t go back to the room just yet, I’m much too volatile. I’ve spent my whole life trying to measure up to my father’s standards and prove to him that I’m man enough to persevere on my own in this world. And for what? It was all a lie. A lie that claimed my mother’s life and mine. I lost a huge part of myself when she died and was left with scars that no man should ever have to bear.
The moment she died, I was blamed. It was me that wasn’t man enough to save her, and my father spent his whole life making sure I knew I was the pussy he saw me for. He destroyed everything and has left me in this nightmare of realized deceit.
“How did it go?” Elizabeth asks when I eventually walk through the door of the hotel room.
I’m nothing but knotted up rage and anger and agony that alcohol can’t even cure. I’m broken bones and bleeding wounds, empty and missing my mum like never before. My cold stone exterior masks the pansy I feel like. It shields the insecure man in me that wants to fall to his knees and have his girl hold on to him as he cries for all the years he’s hidden behind strict control. And at the same time, I want to lash out, punch my fists through the walls, and spew the venom in my veins for all that son of a bitch has done to my life.
“Are you okay?” I hear her say through the static of vehemence rushing under my skin. “Declan?”
I bore my eyes into her, silently pleading to use her to expel my wrath onto. My hands fist, and I feel the vibrations in my flexed muscles when it all becomes too much to hold in.
Her hands touch my clenched jaw and she runs them down my trembling arms, all the while looking up at me so lovingly when I’m pouring out pure fury. She’s a goddamn godsend when she perceives my reticence and gives me the permission I’m needing so badly.
“Touch me.”
“I’ll hurt you.”
“It’s okay,” she says so fucking sweetly. “Give me your pain so you don’t have to feel it.”
I kiss her with binding brutality, and she allows it. I’m a wolf, devouring her, clawing her, ripping her clothes off in a storm of violence. She stumbles back as I force my body against hers, pushing her to the ground. I stand above her naked body and breathe in broken pants.
She’s so small, milky white flesh, and ruby red-hair, and she must be crazy to submit to me right now, but she does, saying, “Don’t hold back.”
I strip, and she watches, inviting the beast to come out and play. I’m already rock hard, and when she sits up and wraps her delicate hand around my dick, it pulses and leaps in her grip. I slap her arm away. She lies back, and I reach down and flip her over. Kneeling above her, I grab a handful of her hair, yank it back, and strike her ass with my hand. She cries out, eliciting a heady arousal of power in me.
Reaching for my pants, I rip the belt out from the loops and fasten it tightly around her arms, above the elbows. She squirms and emits little ragged gasps, and I raise my hand, letting it drop in a sharp slap across her ass again. It immediately welts as the blood rushes to the surface, making my dick even more thick and hot with need.
She doesn’t resist when I reach under her waist and jerk her ass up in the air and shove her knees under her so she’s propped up like a fucking beauty. Tangling my hands into her hair, I shove the side of her face into the floor, and when I run the tip of my cock through her slick warmth, I realize she’s ready for me, dripping wet.
I slam my dick inside of her with raging force, and without any restraint, I fuck her licentiously hard. I grab ahold of the belt to use for leverage, and with each pounding thrust, I drive her body into the floor.
My skin is covered in a sheen of sweat as I thrust my hips sharply, barraged by a million sensations all at once, blurring the edges of pain and pleasure. Elizabeth’s yelps are muffled by the floor as I grunt freely into the air.
I pull out and shove her over onto her back, watching her wince against the pain of lying on top of her arms, but I see her hidden mirth. She then lances her nails into my heart, making me love her even more when her lips lift in a faint smile and she spreads her legs wider for me, inviting me to take more.
I can’t not be one with her.
I hold my dick and slide into her swollen, ripe pussy. I still myself, and her needy body begins to clench around my shaft. Drawing back, I growl as I fuck her frantically and the room fills with a requiem of moans, gasps, and grunts. Elizabeth bows her lithe body up to mine in an attempt to fuck me back.
She’s a fucking paradigm.
My cock begins to swell in her, building in a vigor of ecstasy at the same time I sense Elizabeth’s body tensing up, faltering in rhythm. She stares up at me, and I reach underneath her and find her hand. I hold it tightly in mine, needing her to know that she’s safe to allow herself to fall apart with me, that we’re in this together in our most vulnerable states. Her eyes swim out of focus, and she draws in a tight breath before releasing an intoxicating moan, carnal and raw. Her pussy clamps in spasms around my dick; I buck into her, exploding, shooting my cum deep inside her, groaning in sync with her pleasure. Her hand squeezes mine as we ride out our orgasms together. She writhes under my body, drawing as much pleasure as she can from me, and I love how greedy she gets with me in these moments.
When we’re sweaty, sated, and completely out of breath, I roll us onto our sides and unbuckle the belt, and like all the times before, she clings her arms around my neck. My cock twitches as I keep it buried in her and band my arms around her body as she holds on to me.
I’m sure she’s unaware that I need her embrace more than she needs mine in this moment. She soothes me in a way no one has been able to, taking the toxins out of my bones and replacing them with her love. She fills me entirely, handing herself over so willingly for me to take whatever it is that I need, and she does it so perfectly.
I pull my head back to look at her, and she nuzzles her forehead against mine, keeping her eyes closed. When I lean in and kiss her, open and deep, I gather her completely in my arms. She becomes desperate, and I meet her urgency to be closer. I bruise her, crashing my lips with hers, and we bleed. Like cannibals, we feed off each other, sharing the
blood from our hearts, uniting us even more.
DECLAN SITS IN quiet despair as we fly back to Chicago. I knew better than to push him to talk when he returned to the hotel last night. I could see the torment in his eyes, so I kept my mouth shut and handed myself over to him so he could use me for comfort. We spent the whole night on the floor together, naked and wrapped in each other’s arms.
He’s been quiet all morning, and I’ve followed suit, returning the silence. I don’t know what was said between him and Cal or how it ended, but I doubt it ended well. When I look over to him as he sits next to me, I find him staring at me intently. I want to ask him if he’s okay, but I don’t. Instead, I simply give him a subtle smile and squeeze his hand that’s holding mine. He kisses the top of my head, and I close my eyes, using his shoulder for a pillow for the remainder of the flight.
Declan has been down in his office on the ground floor of Lotus since we returned from New York while I’ve stayed up in the penthouse. He’s yet to speak to me, and I’ve been busying myself with the passenger manifest.
Michael Ross
William Baxter
Clint Noor
Ben Wexler
I’ve spent a couple hours on those names and have come up empty. Deciding to give myself a break, I call down to the kitchen and order some food and then mindlessly flip through a few magazines. Minutes dissolve into hours, and when the sun begins its descent, I sit on the edge of the bed and watch.
When the sun kisses the horizon, the bed dips beside me. We sit together in silence until the day shifts into night.
“She’s my grandmother.”
His slack voice cuts through the darkness, and when I turn my head to look at him, his eyes are focused on the sky.
“Who?” I gently ask.
“Isla,” he reveals. “She’s my mum’s mother.”
“He told you that?”
Declan nods. “I’ve had a piece of my mum here all along and he never told me.”
There’s longing in his voice, a feeling I’m no stranger to.
“I’ll never speak to that man again,” he tells me when he finally looks my way.