by Selena Kitt
“Why did she kill him?” Tilly asked, incredulous.
“She was aiming for my grandmother,” Beast replied simply. “My grandfather got in the way.”
“Oh my God.” Tilly tried to digest this information, but Beast wasn’t done.
“My grandmother was a very vindictive woman, to hear my father tell it.” He paused, looking up at the ceiling. “In the end, she spent or sold or gave away every last dime. Our entire family fortune. It wasn’t much, compared to yours, but… well, it was enough. She died in a nursing home before I was born. She left nothing behind. All my father had was his name. My grandfather’s name. The name he passed on to me.”
“No pressure,” she teased and the smile that came over Beast’s face was slow and bitter.
“Right. No pressure. Can you imagine?” His gaze narrowed at the ceiling. “I think he really felt like he had to redeem the family name. He had to somehow make it all back, and he wasn’t going to stop until he did.”
“But he did,” Tilly protested. How had she never heard this? Even Beast hadn’t told her, until now. Although she shouldn’t have been surprised, she supposed, given the level of secrecy she’d lived with in her whole life. “He built his own business. I mean, before the crash happened, he was really successful. And… happy. I mean, wasn’t he happy, with us?”
“My grandmother cursed him. He actually said that—she cursed him.” Beast shook his head, like he couldn’t quite believe it, but she wondered if maybe, some part of him did. “She said he’d never amount to anything. That no Beeston man ever would.”
Tilly wanted to tell him it was crazy—just the jealous, angry ramblings of a woman who had been scorned and could never swallow all that bitterness. But the way his jaw worked, his teeth grinding, stopped her.
“So, anyway… I figured, if I was going to die—what better place to do it than defending my country?”
“You really thought you were going to die?”
“I don’t know.” The expression on his face broke her heart. “I think part of me wanted to die. Just like my father. I didn’t really think there was much in this world worth living for, and Afghanistan didn’t do much to change that.”
“Oh, Beast…” She touched his cheek, his stubble thick and prickly under her stroking fingers.
“Then I came home that summer.” He’d been looking up at the ceiling, at some distant point, and now his gaze shifted back to her. “And suddenly, you were there.”
She remembered it that way, too. It was like walking outside, thinking it was raining, and discovering sunshine, the air was charged with electricity, and everything felt suddenly so alive and green and new.
“You made me forget everything else,” he told her softly. “And I didn’t want anyone or anything but you.”
So why did you leave me?
Tilly wanted to ask, but she didn’t. Instead she just snuggled closer, telling herself to be content that he was here, now. He was talking to her again, opening up in ways he hadn’t since the summer they were now both remembering.
“I lied to you.” He met her eyes when she lifted her head to look at him. “It wasn’t the worst summer of my life. It was the best.”
Oh Beast. She wanted to kiss him for saying it, but she was afraid to break whatever spell they were under. She didn’t want him to stop talking, telling her how he really felt.
“I wanted to take you away.” His mouth turned down at the corners, his fingers moving through her hair. “But Tilly… for your sake… I know I should have stayed in the fucking desert.”
“No.” She shook her head, denying it. She wasn’t going to tell him how much it hurt to hear him say that. The regret in his voice cut her into little pieces. “When you left, a part of me died. It sounds stupid, but it’s true. I never stopped thinking about you. I never stopped wanting you. I wrote you so many letters…”
“Tilly.” He winced at that. “I was a bastard. I’m so sorry. If I’d known…”
She turned her head when a chiming sounded from the other room. “Is that my phone?”
Mother.
She couldn’t handle one more awful thing today. Tilly bolted to the bathroom, finding her ripped, dirty jeans still in a ball on the floor and dug her phone out. Sitting on the toilet, she glanced up to see Beast standing in the doorway. He was worried, too, she realized.
“It’s Frankie.” Tilly sighed in relief as she read the text. She was just checking in, said she was home from the hospital, making sure Tilly was okay, asking about Liv. Tilly had told her, while they were stuck together in the darkness, about what had happened, what the doctor said about her mother’s prognosis.
Beast leaned against the door frame, watching Tilly text back.
Everything’s fine. With Beast at his apt. Liv’s still in the hospital. Maybe home tomorrow. How are you? Do you need company?
Tilly honestly wanted to spend the night alone with Beast—but she didn’t like to think of Frankie home, alone. And she knew Beast would understand, considering.
I’m alive, thanks to you—and Beast. Tell him I said hi. I’ll call you tomorrow.
Frankie knew—she was being a good friend, letting Tilly have time alone with him. Torn, Tilly worried her lower lip, then texted back.
Sure you don’t want to come over? Or we could come there?
“Is she all right?” Beast asked softly.
Tilly nodded, reading Frankie’s text.
Me and tequila are doing just fine. Really. Daniel asked for my number. Think he’ll call?
Tilly snorted a little laugh, texting back.
You could pick up guys in a women’s prison.
“That paramedic asked for her number.” Tilly rolled her eyes.
“And she gave it to him?” Beast raised his eyebrows.
Frankie texted. Love you, Tills. Good night.
Love you, too.
“Well, you did shoot her boyfriend,” Tilly reminded him sarcastically. “She’s got a bottle of tequila and she’s trying to forget. She’s not really okay. But she’s okay for now.”
“How about you?” Beast held his hand out and Tilly went to him, letting him fold her in his arms. She didn’t know any safer place in the world. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she assured him.
For now.
Beast took her back to bed, and Tilly made sure her phone was on before they turned off the light and twined themselves together under the covers.
There was plenty more to talk about, she knew, but feeling his breath in her ear—no pills, no nightmares, he fell straight to sleep tonight—she was content to close her eyes. His hand rested protectively, heavy on her hip as they spooned, his bulk making her feel small and safe beside him.
It was crazy, but even after everything that had happened, she’d never felt more okay than she did in this moment. She had no idea what tomorrow would bring, what the future held, but here, now, she was more than okay.
She was happy.
Chapter 21
Tilly woke up to paradise—Beast’s arms wrapped completely around her, leaving her unable to move, her bladder aching—and then descended into hell.
“Beast,” she mumbled, hearing her phone ringing on the night stand. “My phone.”
He came awake much quicker than she, grabbing her phone—it was on his side—handing it over. “Fuck. It’s Meg.”
Tilly saw her Aunt Meg’s name on her phone screen and answered it. She didn’t want to—she knew whatever Meg had to say wasn’t going to be good.
And it wasn’t.
Liv was at home—hospice had been called in. And she wasn’t doing well at all.
“Where are you?” Meg asked. She sounded distraught, almost panicked. What were they all going to do without Liv to steer their ship? Tilly didn’t know either, and she didn’t want to think about it.
“I’m coming,” Tilly assured her, sitting up and pushing the covers off. “I’m on my way.”
There was no time to tell Meg wh
ere she was or why. How would she even begin?
“Have you seen your brother?”
Tilly flushed, glancing back at Beast. “He’s with me. We’re on our way.”
She hung up the phone, putting it on the night table, staring at it.
“What is it?” He sat up, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Tilly, what is it?”
“She’s dying.” A chill went straight to her heart and she shuddered at the words. Meg hadn’t said so, but Tilly could read between the lines. Could tell what Meg didn’t want to say.
The tears began and she tried to blink them back. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“I know you can.” Beast turned her to him, pulling her into his lap and rocking her in his arms. “You’re the bravest woman I’ve ever known. Look what you just got through.”
“I was so scared,” she tearfully confessed. “I’m so scared.”
“I know.” He kissed her forehead softly. “I’m here, baby. I won’t leave you. I promise.”
I promise. She’d heard that before.
And just as before, she was desperate to believe him.
“We have to go,” she said, a sudden sense of urgency filling her.
She was worried her mother would die before she even got home, and nothing Beast said would assuage her fear. Beast gave her a pair of boxers and one of his t-shirts to wear—her clothes were ruined—and they went down to the car.
“Hurry,” she told him, buckling her seatbelt.
Beast practically broke the sound barrier getting her back to the house.
Meg met them at the door—not the staff—and Miles was right behind her. Meg looked at Tilly’s strange attire, but didn’t comment on it.
The first thing Tilly did was get down on her knees to hug Miles in the foyer. His chubby arms around her neck, his breathy, “Hi Tiwwy,” in her ear, brought on the tears she told herself she couldn’t shed. Not yet. She blinked them back and kissed his cheek, picking him up and putting him on her hip. He wanted to talk to her about dinosaurs again and show her a new book about them he had in the living room, but Meg stopped them.
“Liv’s been asking for you,” Meg said, and Tilly looked up expectantly, but Meg was talking to Beast. “She keeps calling your name, over and over.”
“Is she… lucid?” Tilly asked. Miles was making two dinosaurs fight on her shoulder and she wondered how much he knew, what he understood.
“You’ll see for yourself.” Meg pressed Beast toward the stairs. “Go on.”
“Tilly.” Beast turned, holding a hand out for her.
“No,” Meg protested. “She wants to see you, Conrad. Alone.”
Beast wasn’t swayed, even when she used his full name. He took a step toward Tilly, taking her hand.
“No more secrets,” he said, his gaze settling on Miles, still on Tilly’s hip. “There’ve been far too many secrets in this family.”
Meg took Miles, who protested, but she carried him down the long hallway in the other direction while Beast and Tilly went upstairs.
Tilly felt cold and afraid. She didn’t want to do this.
A strange woman stood outside Liv’s room, a small table set up there with medical supplies and pill bottles. She looked up as they approached.
“Hi, I’m Gina,” the woman introduced herself. “I’m the hospice nurse. You must be Conrad?”
Gina smiled up at Beast and he nodded.
“And Mathilda?” Gina inquired and Tilly nodded, too. If Gina knew their full names, that meant Liv had been talking. That had to be a good sign.
“How is she?” Tilly asked, feeling Beast’s hand tighten in hers.
“She’s resting.” Gina spoke softly and Tilly saw her mother’s bedroom door was open just a crack. “Comfortably. She’s on pain medication. Most of her organ systems are going into failure.”
“Her kidneys?” Tilly remembered what Dr. Fleming had told her.
“Yes,” Gina agreed with a nod. “The swelling’s getting worse. But she’s been asking for you. Both of you, actually.”
Tilly frowned, wondering why her Aunt Meg hadn’t told her Liv had been asking for her, too.
“Do you know…?” Tilly took a deep breath. “Can you say how long you think she has?”
Part of her didn’t want to know. And she had a feeling she knew what Gina was going to say. She liked Gina already. It was clear she’d done this before. She had a sort of calming air about her, but instead of having that sort of effect, her kindness made Tilly feel like crying.
“At this point, I’d say a week, at most,” Gina said honestly. “But, it could be as little as a few hours.”
At this, Tilly’s tears began to fall. Now she knew why her Aunt Meg had been so insistent and frightened on the phone. She’d clearly heard this news, either from Dr. Fleming or perhaps from this kind-eyed hospice nurse with the short, curly dark hair and soft, cool hands.
“I’m sorry, Tilly.” Gina put one of those little hands on Tilly’s shoulder. “If it helps at all—I do know what it’s like. I went through this with my own mother. It’s hard, when it comes time to say goodbye.”
Tilly nodded, sure that no one on the planet had ever felt this sort of crushing weight sitting on their chest. Of course, other people had lost their parents before—even mothers as young as Liv. But the pain felt very singular, and in spite of Beast’s hand in hers, she felt very alone.
Time felt like a dog sled running away ahead of her. She wanted to hold on and slow it down, but no matter what she wanted, she was being dragged along.
“Can we see her?” Beast asked.
Gina nodded, taking them in to see Liv.
Tilly was shocked at how much had changed, overnight. The first thing she noticed was a hospital bed, tucked next to the 19th century king-sized canopy her mother usually slept in. And her mother was in the little bed, wires and tubes stretching from her body to bags of liquid hanging on hooks and a machine like Tilly had seen at the hospital that recorded her heart’s rhythm.
And her mother looked like death.
She had been pale and sallow yesterday—my God, had it just been yesterday that Liv had collapsed in the living room? The world had changed infinitely and instantly since then—but today, it was like her body had finally just decided to give up.
Liv’s usually thin, narrow face had become round, like a baby’s. Her cheeks were full, puffy. And Tilly noticed her fingers, too, were swollen—her wedding ring glinted from the night stand. Tilly had felt strange, entering her mother’s room wearing a pair of Beast’s boxers and his t-shirt, which practically hung to her knees, but her mother clearly wasn’t paying much attention to appearances anymore.
“You okay?” Beast asked, letting go of Tilly’s hand and sliding an arm around her waist. She just nodded, glad for his presence, the solid feel of his body to lean against as they approached Liv’s new hospital bed.
“Conrad?” Liv’s voice was low, hoarse, her lips barely moving. She didn’t open her eyes. “Is that you?”
“It’s me, Liv.”
Tilly had seen her without her wig before, but rarely. To Liv, appearance wasn’t just about vanity—it was about self-respect and control. Her eyes opened to see them both, standing at her bedside, and Tilly saw how yellow the whites of her eyes had become. And there was something else there she’d never seen before. A resignation. An acceptance, maybe? It shocked Tilly even more than her mother’s appearance.
“How are you feeling, mother?” Tilly asked, her voice sounding small, childlike, even to herself.
“Conrad.” Liv managed as much of a smile as she could, sat up a little, and held out her hand to him. She’d been asking for him, Meg had said. Calling for Conrad. It always sounded so odd for anyone to call Beast anything but Beast, but his name, when Liv spoke it, was both peculiarly formal and deeply affectionate.
Beast took her hand and leaned in to kiss Liv’s cheek while Tilly took a step back, watching them together. She sensed Gina behind her, moving around
in the hallway, arranging things on the table outside the door. Tilly wondered what the hospice nurse was thinking about them, this strangely disconnected, wealthy family whose matriarch was fading before their very eyes.
“You look so much like your father,” Liv said to Beast. Her eyes drooped closed but she didn’t stop talking. “I’m glad he isn’t here to see me like this.”