“Okay. And you, too, sweetie.”
We hug and Anne leaves to go to work.
Once I reach my car, I unload my 15 bags and turn my phone on. I have four missed calls from Michael and three text messages. Shit. Something’s not right. I read the first text message.
Where are you? I’ve been trying to get a hold of you. Please call back ASAP, Michael
I read the second one.
You really need to get back to me. My mother is in the hospital again. She’s taken a turn for the worse. Call me. Michael.
When I get to the third one, I’m totally stressed out and feeling like such a jerk for being so selfish having turned my phone off.
I’m at the Providence Portland Medical Center with my mother. Please come as soon as you can, Michael.
I try to call Michael back, but he doesn’t pick up. I get in my car and drive as fast as I can to the Medical Center. The Valet takes care of my car and I head to the information desk.
“I’m here to see Mrs. Manning,” I say.
The thin African American lady behind the counter searches her screen. “Fifth floor, room 529. You can catch the elevator over there.” She points.
Once I get to Mrs. Manning’s room, I see Michael through the window in the door. There is no one else here, so I’m assuming it’s not that bad. When Michael sees me, he comes out.
“Where the hell have you been, Scarlett?” he says, his eyebrows creasing tightly.
I feel about two inches tall. “I, uh—I went shopping with a friend, like you told me to, remember?”
“Yes, but why didn’t you answer your goddamn phone?” he says. “I called you like ten times.”
“I turned it off so that I could have some uninterrupted time with my friend.” I see now, that it was not a good idea. “So…is your mother alright?”
“My mother doesn’t know this yet, but the doctor doesn’t think she’ll make it through the night.” He gets this look on his face like he’s utterly heartbroken.
“Oh, Michael. I’m so sorry.” I reach for his arm. Is it welcome? He doesn’t pull back.
“I hadn’t expected it to happen so suddenly,” he says, letting his guard down just long enough that I can see the real Michael again.
“What can I do?” I ask.
He looks back at me again, and his eyes grow angry. “Nothing. This is our deal, remember? I don’t want you meddling in my family’s life.”
His words cut like a knife. But although I want to be, I can’t be mad at him right now. “I feel really bad.” He needs some kind of support, and I’m the only one he’s got at the moment.
“Well, don’t. Let’s go talk with her. She wanted to see us together before the others come back again,” he says.
“Okay,” I say.
He knits his fingers through mine like we never even broke everything off, and offers me a gentle smile. “I appreciate you being here. I’m sorry I’m so…” He shakes his head, and his expression falls. “This isn’t easy for me. She’s all I have, Scarlett.” He closes his eyes and it almost looks as if he’s about to cry.
What do I do? Should I wrap my arms around him? Would it make him even more upset? I want to comfort him, so I do. Ever so slowly, I stroke him on the back. He breathes heavily a few times, and then his eyes open.
“I’m sorry you have to see this, Scarlett. I didn’t realize it would be so…difficult.”
“It’s okay,” I say. I want to be there for him, and want to help support him through this difficult time. When my mother died, I had Anne, and I don’t know if I would ever have managed to get through it without her. Does he have anyone else? Probably not.
“Whatever you need, just know I’m right here. I won’t judge you. I’ll just be here.” I look into his eyes, and see the hardness melting away like ice on a hot day.
“Thank you.” He leads me in to her room.
Diane looks nearly as white as the sheets on her hospital bed. Her lips are pale, her eyes sunken, and I hardly recognize the woman before me.
“Hello,” I say, walking over to her bedside. “It’s me, Scarlett.” She looks so frail and drugged up, I don’t know if she recognizes me.
“Hi, dear,” Diane croaks.
“I hope you’re not in any pain.” I take her hand. It feels so cold, and the sight of her makes me think of my own father lying in a bed wasting away to this horrible disease.
“No, dear. They’ve got me heavily medicated.” She laughs a little and then a coughing attack hits her.
I look up at Michael and he has tears in his eyes. Oh, how I wish I could comfort him right now. He looks like a lost little boy who doesn’t know what to do. I take his hand, and his eyes are filled with unspeakable sorrow.
“I wanted to see you both before I die,” Diane says.
“Mother, please don’t,” Michael says softly.
“Oh hush, Michael. Let your poor, old, dying mother say what she wants,” she says, but the she has to take several deep breaths.
“There’s something fishy going on with you two. I can smell it, but I don’t know what it is,” she says.
Crap, she’s on to us. My heart starts to race.
“What do you mean, Mother?” Michael says.
“I can see that you two love each other very much. That is clear. But there’s something you’re not telling me. Now would be the time to confess it,” Diane says.
I look at Michael for direction. The last thing I want to do is lie to a dying woman.
“It’s true. We love each other very much, but we are dealing with some issues of trust in our relationship,” Michael says.
That’s the understatement of the century. Where is he going with this?
Michael continues. “We are considering separating because of these trust issues.”
Everything he’s said up until this point is true. He’s great at leaving out information.
“I see,” Diane says. “Anything else?”
Should I tell her? I think about my own father. If I speak up, the deal is off and my father will surely die. If I don’t speak up, I’m a liar. I don’t want to be a liar. What is the right thing to do? I close my eyes and follow my gut instinct. The one I haven’t been listening to for years. The one that would probably have saved me all this pain and trouble had I listened to it in the first place. I open my eyes.
“Mother,” Michael says. “There’s something we have to tell you.” He looks at me, and I immediately know that he’s about to come clean about everything.
“Yes,” I say as relief washes over me. Finally. Finally it’s over. Finally the truth will be divulged.
13
“I’m sorry Mother. I can’t live like this anymore. I have to be honest with myself and with everyone else,” Michael says. “It was all like you suspected. I married Scarlett so I wouldn’t lose my inheritance money.”
“Is this true?” Diane asks me.
“Unfortunately, yes,” I say. I thought this moment would be so terrifying and that I’d feel horrible inside, but instead, I feel nothing but peace and calm, and suddenly I know everything will work out on the end. No matter the outcome, it will be as it is supposed to be. With my father. With Michael. With me.
Michael seems at a loss for words so I take over.
“I am a stripper, it’s true. Well, was…I was until just this last week. I first kind of met Michael at the club. He asked for my information, but I refused him. You see, I had decided to never date anyone I met at the club.”
Diane’s face has frozen, but her eyes are relentlessly drilling into me.
“She only took the job so she could save up for her father’s chemo,” Michael says.
I continue. “The next day, my friend dragged me to church and I met Michael again. It was a total freak coincidence meeting him two days in a row. He, of course didn’t recognize me because I always wear a mask when I perform at the strip club. But after church, he asked me out.” I pause.
“Go on,” Diane says em
otionless.
“First we went to coffee, but that was a complete fiasco,” I say.
Michael chuckles. “She forgot her scarf I my car and I held it hostage until she went out with me.”
“And he finally gave it back,” I say. On the plane. Michael and I exchange glances. Oh, he definitely remembers that ride.
“I chose Scarlett because I thought she was a good girl, and that you would approve of her,” he says.
“Taking advantage of the innocent,” Diane says. “Have I taught you nothing, boy?”
“Well, she’s not that innocent,” Michael says, the side of his lip twitching.
Pervert. “But he did offer me a great deal of money,” I say. “He wasn’t solely trying to take advantage.”
“And I honestly felt really bad for her,” he says, his hand reaching behind his neck. “She told me she had tons of debt, an ill father, and a mortgage she couldn’t afford. I thought maybe with this deal, I could do some good, too.”
“Thought that might ease your guilt about what you were doing?” Diane asks.
His eyebrows crinkle, and he looks ashamed. “Yes.”
“On our first real date, he proposed this ridiculous deal that if I’d marry him within a few weeks and divorce him after you—” I gulp. “—died, he’d split this inheritance with me fifty-fifty.”
“And you agreed to this?” Diane asks. She is frowning heavily.
“Yes,” I say. “It was…a way out.”
“Michael,” she curses under her breath and shoots him a killer glare. How does she do that? It’s like she can kill someone with just one glance. “In your own words, Scarlett, why did you accept this ridiculous deal?” Her eyes two golden flames.
“Because I desperately needed the money for my father, and I saw this as a way out of all my financial problems. And then I—fell in love with Michael in the process.” I hang my head is shame.
Diane nods slowly. “So you did it all out of love?”
I’m surprised by her question. “I suppose. But it doesn’t excuse the fact that I lied.”
“Michael, you greedy scoundrel.” Diane stares at him.
Michael doesn’t say a word, but his jaw is clenched shut.
“Don’t be so hard on him,” I say. “He just wanted to keep the money in the family. I do feel sorry for him that his ex-fiancé had just broken up with him. I mean, that’s not his fault.”
“Bah, she was no good for him anyway,” Diane says. “Michael, I’d like to speak with your wife alone, if you don’t mind.”
He looks at her, and then at me, and then walks out.
Once the door shuts, she says, “I’m sorry for your involvement in this. My son, apparently, has no boundaries when it comes to getting his hands on the family money.” Diane looks at me, completely sober. “Let me ask you this. Do you still love him?”
“Honestly?” I say.
Her brow furrows. “Just tell me the truth, Scarlett. No more lies.”
I look down at the floor. “Yes,” I say, barely a whisper. My eyes are brimming with tears now. “I’m really sorry I lied to everyone. I should have been truthful from the beginning.”
“Well, I think you’ve suffered enough, dear girl. Michael isn’t anywhere close to being a saint, though he is a good man. He needs a strong woman to keep him in line, and I believe you are that woman. I think he loves you still, but his pride is too bruised to see it,” she says.
“No, I think he hates me. Especially after he found out I deceived him, too.”
Diane flicks her hand toward me. “Oh, he’ll get over it.”
“No, I really don’t think so,” I say.
“If he doesn’t, it will be his loss.” She takes a moment to inhale some oxygen through the mask next to her bed. “I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me for what I did. I understand it has caused quite a stir in the community.”
“Well, thanks to Michael’s quick thinking now everyone thinks we’re madly in love. So it wasn’t as embarrassing as it could have been,” I say.
She pats my hand. “Will you send Michael in? I’d like to have a word with him alone.”
I nod and give her a long hug. “I’m sorry it has to be this way,” I say. What do I say to a woman who is dying, knowing that this will probably be one of the last times, if not the last time I see her? “You did a good job with him. He is a good man.”
Pride gleams from her tired eyes, and then I see moisture gather in the corners.
“He’s my finest achievement,” she says.
I head out to the hallway and fetch Michael.
“Meet me at home,” he says. “We need to talk.” And then he steps into Diane’s room.
14
I eat dinner alone at Michael’s house and just kind of wait around for him to come home. When he finally arrives, it’s just after nine o’clock, and I’m sitting in the library, reading a book on how to clean almost anything. Not that I’m really interested in that, but I need something to distract me from what I know is about to happen. This is the end of the line for Michael and me.
The only uncertainty left is how it will all go down. And from the look he gave me earlier at the hospital, I’m pretty sure he’ll ask me to leave as soon as possible. And if he doesn’t, I’ll want to leave.
“She says she’s changed the will,” Michael says, standing in the doorway. His eyes are red and swollen, and his lips a pale pink. He brings a hand to his face and rubs his eyes.
I stand up, my heart immediately in my throat. “To what?”
“She didn’t say. Says it depends on us,” he mumbles, letting his hand drag down his face until it falls limp to his side.
“On us? What does that…mean?” I ask.
“Your guess is as good as mine. But, from now on, I’m going to consider my inheritance money lost.” He walks into the room and sits down in the leather chair directly across from me.
“You look exhausted,” I say, sitting back down, my breath suspended.
His eyes lift to mine.
“How are you holding up?” I ask.
“I’m just fine.”
Yeah, right. “You can’t possibly be fine. I know what it’s like to lose a parent. You’re not a heartless snake, I saw it in your eyes, so don’t tell me you’re fucking just fine.”
He stares at me, impassively, slumped in his chair, and we sit in silence for a long while. What is going on in his mind? Does he hate me? Want me to leave him alone? Want to open up to someone, just not me? He stands up, goes over to the bar and pours himself a scotch.
“Would you like one?” he asks.
“Sure.”
He pours one for me, too, and hands it to me before sinking back in his chair. He drinks the entire glass in one swig and sets it on the table.
I take a sip of my drink, feeling it burn my throat as I swallow.
“I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I won’t ask you to get further involved,” he says.
“I don’t mind…”
“I should never have…done any of the things I did. It was…it wasn’t right by you. We’ve had our family issues for generations, and to ask you to lie for me like that, it was a despicable thing to do. I’ll pay you for your troubles.”
Pay me for my troubles? Is he trying to buy me off? Hasn’t he learned anything? We’re just back to the beginning again where he thinks it’s all about money, where he can just by signing a check make everything his way.
“I don’t want your money,” I say. “I’m not a prostitute to be paid off.”
He sighs at length. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not paying you for the sex. It’s just for the time you spent. For your job loss. Your troubles.”
I rise to my feet, a sickening feeling rising in my gut. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out. I’ll move out today. No use in keeping up our façade.” I head for the door, but Michael stands up and sneaks in front of me, preventing me from leaving.
My heart starts beating hard.
&nb
sp; “I’m so mad at you right now, Michael. How could you think it was just about the money for me?” I say.
“I know I’m fucked up, okay. I’m no good for you. I never was good enough for you. It’s time to put an end to all of it.” He wraps one arm around my waist, with the other, he caresses my cheek, wiping away my tears. His gaze is intense and troubled, a deep sorrow that has no end.
I can’t help but become helpless in his arms.
He leans his forehead against mine, his eyes closed, and I feel his breath flutter on my face. Then he kisses me gently, but only once.
“Good-bye, Scarlett.”
Oh, God. This is really it. It’s over. “Good-bye, Michael.”
But he doesn’t move out of my way yet. Instead, he rests a hand on my hip. “I’ll send your clothes to your house.”
“I wouldn’t know where to fit them all,” I say. “Donate them to charity.”
His face is so close, his chest pressing against mine, nothing but feeble breaths between us.
I start to pull away, but he holds onto me.
“Please stay with me tonight,” he whispers. “I just want to hold you one last time.”
Oh… “I…” I’m about to say I can’t, but he looks so utterly lost, and I miss him so much already that I can’t do anything but nod. Whatever he needs, I’ll give him. Tonight I won’t hold back anything. Tonight will just be about him and me. Not about anything else.
He laces his warm fingers through mine and leads me down the hallway. I feel as if we’re two teenagers stealing away to be alone, to make out or explore each other in ways we shouldn’t be.
We reach the foyer, and soon we’re climbing the stairs to the second floor, and before I know it we’re in his room. He positions me right next to the door against the wall, and then he closes and locks the door behind him.
He moves in my direction, and presses his hand to the wall behind me, caging me, staring me down with a glare I feel all the way between my legs.
The White Chapel: Book 2 in the Steamy New Adult Contemporary Romance Series (The Chapel Series) Page 10