by Angel Payne
Cassian drops his head. Drags it back up—with his jaw defined by a full clench. “Because she had to stop drinking.”
His bitter bite on the last word has the same effect on my psyche. “Oh,” I stammer. “I—I see.” In reality, I am not certain I do—perhaps I have overplayed his vehemence?—though the tension through every muscle of his body is unlike any I have seen before, even when he confronted the thugs in Bryant Park who tried assaulting me. In the park, he was furious, clenched…empowered. Right now, he is helpless, tight…
Haunted.
He labors through another dark huff. “Wasn’t long after that, I gave in to an epiphany of my own.” Presses his lips into that murder confession grimace again. “I wasn’t sure I could handle her…or even knew her…without all of it.”
“Without all of…” I feel my features tighten. “Without the drinking?”
He flinches as if I’ve stabbed him—though his eyes, instead of thick with pain, are hollow with loss. He has been to this space before, at least in his soul. But if this is the first time he has ever done it verbally…
I flinch now too.
Suddenly, the locked door at the bottom of the stairs makes total sense. He did not want to do this. Hated even thinking about it. But he is doing it now…for me. With me.
I reach toward him, filled with gratitude.
He whirls from me, shrinking in shame.
Though it tears me apart, I respect his move. Let him hold on to it.
For now.
“I…hadn’t realized.” He grunts it with barely any volume. “How much booze she’d been getting down every day. Sneaking it in…even on days when I was with her all the time. I just thought she had shifting moods…” His hand digs raggedly through his hair. “Dammit. I was such an idiot.”
“No,” I rasp. “No, Cassian. She was probably just that dev—” Devious is definitely not the best word choice right now. “Just that smooth.”
His hand fists against his nape. “When her ‘morning sickness’ developed into a fever and strange visions, I insisted we go to the doctor. He was the one who told me she was going through alcohol DTs. Nash helped me get her into a confidential rehab program, specific for pregnant women…but she checked herself out after two weeks. She said she was better. Focused. That the only thing that mattered to her was the baby.”
“What did you do?”
“The only thing I could.” He releases the fist, though the hard ropes of his shoulders still strain against his shirt. “I believed her. Trusted that she’d really hit her bottom in that facility, and was ready to climb back up for the sake of our family.”
“Hit her…bottom.” Once more I echo him in a stutter, but it seems the only sane way to properly process this. Like the night I first learned about Lily and her significance in his life, my gut has been hollowed out then kicked in—by a horse named shock.
He was going to be a father.
Sweet Creator.
What if he still is one?
“Everyone in recovery has a different bottom. And regrettably, nobody knows what theirs is…until they’ve hit it.”
He turns back around, stiffly and slowly, though his gaze sharpens once seeing me again. I cannot even think about hiding all my feelings. There are too many now, clamoring on top of each other.
“And you thought Lily had gotten to hers,” I finally rasp. “But she started drinking again?”
Something passes over his face. Not a shadow. Something darker. “No.”
Double take. “No?”
“That was when she started taking the drugs.”
*
Cassian
“By the Creator.”
I re-steel my nerves as the words practically gasp from her—because I know what’s going to come next. After the astonishment, there’ll be the sap and the sympathy. The fucking pity. The look I have hated on anyone’s face who knows this story. The expression I haven’t even thought of on hers—because just thinking of it there is enough to set off a nuclear bomb in my blood.
I can’t let it happen.
I refuse.
“Stop.” I dictate it as her posture surges forward, already writing me an advance check of the shit. “Just stop the fucking cart right there.”
For one exhilarating second, a furious scowl replaces her sorrow. Then she’s all mush again. “Stop…what?”
“The cart full of your pity.” I fold my arms. “The weeping wagon, feeling ‘awful’ for the poor husband of the drug addict.” My teeth clench hard enough to hurt. “It takes two to make a baby. I was not a goddamn victim in the situation.”
“Hmm.” It’s her base coat expression, used when she wants to start with neutrality but color the meaning into something else. This time, it’s a reprise of her anger, given in a swift jump of her brows—to which I respond by crunching my own.
“I watch over my own, dammit.”
“I am well aware of that.” Her posture straightens, fused with the same fusion of strength and serenity that bowled me over when meeting her the first time, back on Arcadia. Just like then, I’m flooded by gratitude—but unlike then, it’s for a different reason. In that reception hall in the Palais Arcadia, my soul knew she was different…remarkable. This time, my mind confirms it too.
Which should scare me.
And does.
For a disgusting ton of reasons. But right now, I can only address the first.
She deserves the rest of this story.
Every damn, ugly detail.
I glance upward. Hey big guy…could use a little help in the fortitude department. But the Almighty isn’t fond of my endearment right now, even if I did borrow it from Mom…
Until He drives me to my knees again.
Using the one weapon He knows I won’t refuse.
My sweet little Arcadian.
“Come here, Cassian.” When she gestures to the floor next to the chaise, I drop down without second thought. Let her twine our hands together in the middle of her lap. I gaze at the union of our fingers, her slender tapers wrapped against my long logs, and soak in every fortifying drop of the sight.
Thanks. This time, I know the “big guy” has heard. I’ve found my strength. Now I’ll find the words. Somehow.
“To this day, I have no idea what the shit even was,” I begin. “Even the coroner said it was a designer mix…a pharmaceutical cocktail intended to make her feel pretty damn good. Well…her idea of good.” I stare across the room—and swear I can still see Lily there, a smile finally lighting her face, the day she walked into this little room for the first time. I would have done anything to keep that look on her face forever—and I sure as hell tried. “For a while, the bubble had finally returned,” I rasp. “And it was more breathtaking than before…probably more so, since I actually thought she’d gotten her shit together after just two weeks in rehab.”
Her fingers twist tighter around mine. “You believed the best in her,” she murmurs. “Because that is what you do when you love someone.”
Dammit. Her words are as good as a tether—in the exact moment I long to break away. Not. Happening. “Yeah,” I snap, letting the frustration speak. “That’s why they call love blind.”
She yanks my hand harder—forcing me to whip my head up, directly impaled by the conviction of her huge blue stare. “Being blind just means you get sharper in other ways.” I bark out a scoff, but she uses her other hand to snare fingers into my hair. “How do you explain all the ways you know me? All the ways you can simply read me, anticipate me?”
I lower my head. Lean in until our gazes are just inches apart, and I’m lost in the perfect warmth of her touch, her closeness. “Magic is easy to see when it’s just there, sorceress.”
Her face dissolves with emotion. She’s so breathtaking, I’m almost glad I decided to finally do this. Almost.
“So what finally happened?” Her prod is suffused with a conflict of tenderness and toughness. She’s beginning to see the quicksand, in all its vil
e shades—and realize that the “storage space” I originally passed this room off as holds a larger chunk of chaos. But her gaze is still steady. She’s determined to cross the bog with me—no matter how dirty she gets in the process.
I haul in a long breath. This isn’t the time to dwell on the thousand layers of my gratitude for her, though that’s exactly what I long to do.
Instead, I simply show her—with the only thing she still wants. The truth.
“For a while, as I said, things got better.” So far so good—but I’m still at the easy part. “We started making plans for a real wedding, to take place as soon as the baby came. Continued looking for a place we could call our own, with a nursery for the baby.” A laugh escapes. “Hell. We must have looked at a thousand apartments in two weeks.”
“Instead you found a mansion named Temptation.”
My humor mellows into a smile. “For which we had Prim to thank. Or blame. I’m still debating which.”
My sarcasm finds an appreciative target. She stops stroking my knuckles long enough for a delicate snort. “You said she was Lily’s best friend?”
“Since prep school,” I supply. “Yes. In case you can’t tell, Prim’s not one of those heiresses who likes coloring inside the lines.”
Second target hit. As I expected, the “heiress” bombshell detonates, turning Ella’s gaze into the expanse of summer skies. She’s always had the color; now she has the size. “Prim?” she challenges. “Prim Smith, with the dreadlocks and the pierced nose and the no-bra policy? That Prim…is…”
“The daughter of Houston Smith, owner and CEO of Starstruck Entertainment, Five-Star Foods, and Starbright Tech. She and her brother, Houston the Second, are currently worth close to fifteen billion apiece.”
I lift a finger, nudging her jaw closed. As soon as I pull it away, her mouth drops again. “But she is—she is—”
“My cook?” I hitch a shoulder up and down. “Not exactly. Well, not officially.”
“What does that mean?”
I feel my smile disappear. “She likes it here, Ella.”
She has no trouble slamming her lips back together now. “I wonder why.”
“Because she just does,” I growl. “You think she can be herself, in all that Bohemian glory, in a crowd of billionaires’ daughters in Dallas?”
Her eyes close as she exhales, betraying some inner command she levels for composure. “If Dallas is anything like the court of Arcadia, I imagine not.” When she looks at me again, her features return to open serenity. “So…she helped you pick this place out?”
“Helped Lily,” I clarify. “By the time I was able to get away from the office and come look, she was pretty passionate about wanting it.” My lips lift again, just at the corners, at the memory of how excited Lily had been that day. “I bid on it at once.” Then paid cash, at a price significantly higher than the realtor’s ask—desperately hoping it would keep Lily that happy forever.
Dumbshit.
As if life hadn’t taught me in heaping piles already, hope and happy and forever didn’t belong in the same sentence together.
“We closed on the sale and were moved in by the following week.” I push to keep the words coming, hoping it’ll help the difficult part, like warming up during a workout. But sometimes, workouts just feel like shit. “It wasn’t until a few weeks later, when Lily suddenly couldn’t find her ‘prenatal vitamins’, that Prim and I suspected something was up.”
“Why?”
“She freaked about it as if the jar were plated in gold and all the pills were diamonds.” I shake my head slowly, remembering that surreal night—well, early morning. “It was about two a.m. She woke everyone up, including the newly hired housekeeping staff—whom she immediately accused of stealing the pills for themselves. When Prim pointed out that both women were already grandmothers and had no need for prenatal vitamins, Lily swung the accusation her way.”
“Oh, my.” A burst of air leaves Ella, as if she’s been holding it in on my account. Her gaze probes across my face. “What did Prim do? What did you do?”
“The only thing we could. Made her some hot cocoa, rubbed her feet…somehow got her calmed enough to fall asleep. Then we compared notes—and weren’t surprised to learn we shared the same suspicion.”
Everything about her goes still. “That Lily’s vitamins were not really vitamins.”
“Yeah.” I grimace. Hard. It’s the first time in at least three years that I’ve heard it put into words, and it feels like running full-speed onto a splintered lance. “But we still couldn’t be sure. Those suspicions felt like more than suspicions—but accusing my pregnant wife of disguising her designer drugs as prenatal vitamins…” I drag a hand through my hair. “I’m a driven man, especially when it comes to finding the truth, but…”
But what?
The words hang in the air, unspoken but damning. Just like their answer.
But even I draw the line between being a bastard and an asshole.
No. That’s not it. I’ve had no trouble embracing my inner asshole since I was a kid—on the day Damon decided to embrace his.
“This time, I wasn’t ready for the truth.”
Yeah. There it is.
Fuck.
Fuck.
“And was it?” And dammit, why does her voice have to be the silk in this filth, towing despite the quicksand calling as a perfect escape? “The truth?” she persists. “Was that what was happening? What Lily was really doing?”
I should nod. Get it over with—slog through this sludge, face the crap on the other side—but my neck is too busy helping my spine stay straight. “Prim and I compared notes, confirmed our instincts matched—but neither of us had the stomach for the dirty work, so I found someone. Hired him to keep tabs on Lily for a week.”
“‘Tabs’.” Her eyes bug a little. “You mean to follow her? Everywhere?”
I nod. “Interesting fellow…by the name of Conchobar Hodgkins.”
Her gaze jumps wider. “Hodge?” Resettles at once, as the logic takes hold. Though he’s now one of the steadiest fixtures in my life, I know virtually nothing about his before he arrived that day. Probably a good thing.
Looks like the same thought hits Ella before she presses, “So what did he find out?”
My hand tightens into hers. “That our intuitions were all correct.”
“By the powers.” Her free hand, threading into my hair, shakes almost as hard as her whisper. “But…why? How could she have—”
“Endangered her life, as well as that of our unborn child?” I shirk from her touch. It feels too good, and I have no fucking right to feel good right now. “Because that wasn’t how she saw it.” I rise. Turn around. Order myself to peer at every jagged edge jutting from the window frame—to let it gouge me open, along with everything I’ve confessed—to finally let in the pain too. Doesn’t work. My psyche clings to the safety of distance. “Her depression sucked the control from her,” I grate. “And the only times she ever was in control were when she drank.”
“And when you took the liquor away—”
“She turned to something else.”
“Oh, Cassian.” It’s rough with emotion as she gains her feet too—though feels my need for distance, and keeps hers. “What…did you do next?”
“At first? Nothing.” My shoulders drop. “Not the best choice, I know…but I was tired, Ella. So fucking tired of it all. The rehab she ran from. The chemicals she ran to. The secrets she kept. The lies she told.” Another step closer to the window…as another confession burns at my lips. The most hideous one of all. “I spent a few days just wallowing. Wondering if her ‘love’ for me was just another one of those lies. If she’d ever meant, even remembered, any feeling she’d professed for me. If our child and I were even worth fighting for.”
Rasped words in Arcadian from the woman behind me—sounding like a prayer—before she murmurs, “And you confronted her with all that?”
“Damn straight.” I don’t r
ein any of my growl back. Replaying the story has brought all the ugliness back, but crossing the mire is my only hope of ever reaching the other side. I let it all in. The fury. The hurt. The digging, despairing, is-this-what-crazy-feels-like confusion.
“And…she was not amenable to listening.”
“When she got home, she was already wasted.” I jam my hands into the pockets of my track pants. Burn every inch of the window with my glare. “And wasn’t really ‘amenable’ to anything, except keeping her high. Her roll. Whatever the fuck it was.”
“So she ran up here…and you followed.”
The dread eats me from the floorboards themselves. Mows up my body, ravenous and ruthless, before tearing into my brain. “She never allowed anyone up here, even me. This room was her sanctuary. But that afternoon, I only assumed it was where she was hiding more drugs.”
“Was she?”
“I don’t know.” I throw a glance around, feeling the corners of my eyes tighten. “But it wasn’t for lack of trying.” Burning memories. Heavy breaths. “I…went ballistic. Started tearing the room apart. It was either that or rip the walls out. She fought me. Screamed that the baby—our child—was sucking the life from her, and that I—” My throat clenches on the words. Tries to shove them down to my gut, where they’re fried in bile before surging back as a sparse croak. “She said that I was Lucifer. A demon for planting my spawn inside her.”
Another rasped Arcadian prayer. Determined steps, once more stopping far enough back to give me space…a blast zone for my memories. I hate it, that she knows such a thing is even necessary. I hate that she must stay away from me by even one fucking inch.
And yet—right now—I need it.
“And then she ran toward the window.”
The pokers flare me wide open now. Scorch away the layers of time, bringing images to life in my head—razing me all over again with their horror.
“Yeah,” I hear myself croak. “She ran toward the window.”
A threadbare sigh. A hurting gasp. “And she did not stop.”
Thundering blood. Hammering chest.
Fuck. Fuck.
“No. She did not stop.”