“Hey, thanks,” she said, entering the room. Bishop was shocked he was still there.
At least it was progress.
When he turned, he stared at her.
“What?” she asked, looking down.
“I didn’t expect sweats and a t-shirt.” And he hadn’t. With Wendy, she was always uptight, dressed to impress, and didn’t like to be messed up.
Bishop looked comfortable—in so many ways.
“Well, I hope you weren’t expecting a prom gown. To get that, you best be here with a corsage, the promise of cheesy dance music, and making out in the back seat of your car.”
He stared at her.
She tripped him up. Lucian couldn’t figure out how to outmaneuver her. It was as if she was in his head. He could picture them making out, and it nearly fried his circuits.
Jesus!
What the hell was he doing there? There was no way he was ready for her.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He opted to go with the truth. From this moment forward, when it came to her, he wasn’t lying.
Not to her.
Not to him.
“I feel like leaving.”
“Okay. If you can’t stay, I won’t force you.”
Again, that wasn’t what he expected. With Wendy, she’d whine and beg. She’d use any mean necessary to win.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked. “Why are you acting like this is normal? I’m here in your home. I hurt you all those years ago. Why are you being nice to me?”
Bishop hopped up and onto the counter. There were a million ways to answer that, but there was only one way to do it so Lucian wouldn’t freak out.
“Why can’t this be normal?” she asked. “You’re here. We have food, so the logical decision is to eat it.”
He pulled his hoodie on.
Her heart sank.
She was losing him.
Desperate times called for desperate measures. While the food was heating up, she needed to pull a miracle out of this one. It was the only chance she’d have. If he left, Lucian wouldn’t risk it again.
“Before you leave, I just want to know one thing,” she said. “This is a no lie zone. I expect the truth.”
He didn’t face her.
“Okay.”
“Why did you come here?” she asked. “Why did you show up, Lucian? I need to know. I think I deserve to know why after ten years of hating me, you finally came to my home?”
She was right.
Bishop did deserve this. It was a long time coming.
“I felt like I had to say some things to you.”
Well, he was at least talking to her.
“Like?”
“Did you mean what you said to me earlier?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“Yes.”
“Even the part about…?”
God!
This was uncomfortable. When had he lost his ability to talk to people? That had been his gift.
Oh, yeah.
When he locked himself away.
She saw him genuinely struggling, so she helped him out. “I meant all of it.”
He turned really fast.
“I wanted to really hate you. I wanted to make someone pay for my pain. I wanted never to see you again. I needed never to see you again.”
She listened.
Yeah, what he was going to say was going to hurt, but if she wanted to reach him, he had to get it off his chest.
“Every day for the first two years, when you showed up at my gate, I couldn’t stand thinking about you. Having you near me was painful.”
She didn’t speak.
It hurt, but she got it.
She wasn’t the only one who had that emotional connection. Lucian felt it, too, or this conversation wouldn’t be happening.
It gave her hope.
“Then you stopped coming to my gate. Why?”
“Well, you told me you’d see me in Hell before you’d ever look at me again. That was pretty nerve crushing. I couldn’t force you to talk to me. I figured when you were ready, you would, or you’d hate me forever. I had to wait for you. This wasn’t about my schedule. It was about yours.”
“I’m sorry.”
She was surprised. “Why?”
“The very next day, when you didn’t show up, I realized something, and it’s haunted me the last eight years.”
“What’s that, Lucian?”
“I missed you. You were my only human contact. No one else cared to show up. For two years, you came, you got rejected, and you still came. I hurt you, but you never gave up on me. Then one day, you did.”
What he didn’t know was that was her penance. She let Wendy walk in and blow his heart to bits. He’d had a bad enough time with nearly dying, but she failed him.
“I waited for you that day, and the next day.”
“And?”
“When you didn’t show, I finally wondered if I’d finally made you leave. I was glad I’d finally got you to stay away from me.”
“You did chase me away. I really believed me showing up hurt you more than helped. I didn’t want to stop. I would have kept coming if I thought you wanted me to be there, Lucian.”
“Why did you really stop, Bishop?”
“You hate me. Even now, you can’t look at me. How do you think I feel knowing that I tried? I made a judgment call, and it blew up in my face. I screwed up.”
No, she really didn’t. He’d forced her away, and she didn’t deserve that at all. This woman was more than he’d ever deserved in his life.
He saw that now.
“I live every day knowing that I had to walk away, Lucian. You hated me. How was I supposed to overcome that?”
He heard her pain.
Lucian wanted to weep, and then tell her the truth. Only he was afraid she’d really walk away—this time, never coming back. He wasn’t sure he could handle that.
So, he chickened out. He’d tell her the truth, but it couldn’t be then. He wasn’t sure she’d still care about him if the ugly truth were set free.
A man only got so many chances.
He was running out of luck.
“I saw the news today.”
She wasn’t surprised. Her whole station saw it. Silas had called twice, and she’d creatively dodged his calls. Eventually, he’d chew her ass over it.
For Lucian, she’d suck it up.
“For the record, the door got away, counselor, and she stumbled all on her own. No one can prove I shoved her, or at least that’s what I hope the video shows.”
“I’ve been miserable the last eight years.”
Yeah, so had she.
Only he wasn’t ready to hear that. The guilt she carried was far less painful than the horrors he was putting himself through.
“Would you have come back?”
“Had you called, yes. I would have showed up at the drop of a hat.”
“I don’t understand that. Maybe that’s why I’m a mess over this. Help me understand why, Bishop. Why did you even care? I was the job. Your father put you at that bedside.”
“He told me to watch over you, Lucian. I didn’t have to sit there all night for four days. I didn’t have to be there. I wanted to be there. I wanted to be with you. I always have.”
He turned to face her. “WHY?”
“I watched you in court, and for some reason, apparently, I like being kicked around. I was drawn to you. There was this lure, and I wanted to watch over you. There are things you have to do in life, and then there are things you want to do. You were never a ‘have to’, but a ‘want to’.”
He watched her.
He was good with lies.
People wielded them like weapons, but Bishop was being honest. He could see it in her eyes.
“I fell in love with you. Not the man you were, but the man you’d become. Before you found out what Wendy said, you were yourself. You weren’t pretentious, arrogant, or a dick. You were Lucian Mo
nroe, and I was finally on your level.”
He listened to her. The reason she saw the real him was because he wanted her. When he woke up, it was like being reborn. Lucian knew that she was the one.
Then he knew it couldn’t happen.
Bishop, in all her sweetness, deserved better. He wasn’t able to give her anything. He was broken, damaged, and destroyed.
“I was out of your league. Look at the…” She’d nearly called Wendy a trash bag. Instead, she tried to be nice. It wasn’t easy. “Look at the woman you were with. I’m a cop. I’m betting you never even noticed me in the courtroom.”
He said nothing.
He couldn’t.
Lucian was too surprised to hear any of this. Had he noticed her?
Yes, yes he had.
“I was young, I was wearing a hideous brown uniform, and I wasn’t worthy of your time.”
Had she really seen him like that?
Was he that cold?
Cruel?
It wasn’t the real him. He wasn’t like that, and he wished he could prove it.
“I tried to talk to you one day, and Wendy shoved herself between us. You had a lunch with the governor. You were being courted for something bigger than I’d ever be. So, instead of trying, I simply admired you from afar.”
“Some might call that stalking,” he offered, trying to laugh.
“That’s priceless since one of us has B & E on our resume, and it’s not me.”
They both stared at each other.
“I didn’t know,” he offered.
Jesus!
Had he? He would have chased her down, married her, and then…
Again, he had to put those kinds of thoughts out of his head. It was too late.
“You weren’t supposed to know. When you were hurt, I wanted to help you. You fought to put killers away. You were a good man. I could see it. Staying by your side was my way of giving you what you’d given the victims.”
“So you pitied me.”
“No. Never. I was paying you back for using your gift to save people. I don’t pity you, Lucian. I think you’re a dick for the way you treated me. I think you’re a douchebag for the way you treated yourself. I don’t pity you in the least. I think someone should kick the shit out of you for wasting ten years of a perfectly good life.”
He ran his fingers over his face.
She saw it in his eyes.
“Want more truth or have you had enough?”
He wasn’t sure his heart could take it. His whole life was upside down. Bishop had wanted him all those years ago. When he’d planned to find her, talking to her, she’d already wanted to be with him.
Their lives…they could have been different.
Bishop hopped down and held out her hand. Then she waited for him to move. At first, she didn’t think he’d do it.
“Where are we going?” he asked, taking her hand.
“I want to show you something.”
She led him upstairs and toward her bedroom.
His heart began pounding in his chest. When he saw where she was taking him, he wanted to panic and celebrate at the same time. It was going to be a matter of what emotion won that battle.
There, sitting in the room, was a vanity with a mirror.
“Have a seat.”
“I can’t.”
“Sit, Lucian. You owe me this. You wanted the truth, so you’ll get it. You’ve called the shots for ten years. You’ve held my heart captive, frozen in this block of ice. I deserve a chance to tell you what lives in me. If I make you mad, I’ll let you walk. I won’t bother you again.”
He didn’t want that.
This was the only place he felt calm. With Bishop, he didn’t feel like a monster.
She calmed his demons.
She calmed him.
When he was with her the static was manageable, much like with Oracle.
The idea that she’d walk away again scared him. He was more than willing to give her a shot.
He sat and was forced to stare into the mirror.
Bishop placed her chin on his shoulder until they were both staring at the same thing.
“What do you see, Lucian?”
He didn’t have to think about it.
“I see a beautiful woman and a monstrous beast. Before, where you thought I was out of your league, Bishop, I know the truth. I will never be in yours.”
That hurt her heart.
Those words were so untrue.
“I don’t see that, Lucian.”
“What do you see?”
He was curious.
“I see an incredibly handsome man.”
He tried to move away.
She wouldn’t let him. Her arms were around his shoulder as she spoke softly into his ear. “What you don’t know is that when you were in the coma, I brushed this hair. I gently fixed you so when you woke, you’d be orderly.”
He listened as her fingers ran through his hair. He couldn’t remember, other than with her, the last time he’d had human contact.
It was amazing.
“It felt like silk then and it still does.”
Lucian didn’t move as her fingers moved down the good side of his face and across his jaw. He was memorizing her touch, so he would never forget it.
“What you also didn’t know, Lucian, was that when your five o’clock shadow grew in, I shaved you. I didn’t want you to wake up and feel out of sorts.”
He appreciated that.
“You’re always neat, well dressed, and you’d want to feel that. I needed to give you that.”
He felt his heart skip.
“When my fingers moved over your skin, I didn’t see the bandages, the scar, or what could have happened. I was thinking about how your skin felt amazing beneath my fingers. I never thought I’d get to do that, and I was able to finally touch you.”
He didn’t know what to say. Her words were so honest, candid, and frankly…shocking.
How could she want him?
He didn’t want himself.
Gently, her fingers moved across the scar on his cheek. They didn’t rush, they didn’t offer anything but calm. While he wanted to bolt, he wanted to hear what she was thinking.
Her green eyes were windows into her soul.
He was curious.
“I didn’t see this scar that day. What I saw was that dimple in your cheek. When you’d smile in court, it made my heart skip. Tonight, while you were reading, you smiled again. It stole my breath.”
He didn’t know what to say.
“I would watch you smirk when you knew you were going to win. You were a ferocious lawyer. You would set up your prey, and then you would go in for the kill. That dimple, this one, was the only clue that you were taking them down.”
She had studied him.
Why hadn’t he noticed?
Her fingers touched his lips, and it forced his focus back on her.
“You see this scar as the end, Lucian. I see it as the beginning. Before that day, you wouldn’t have ever even looked twice at me—the lowly civil servant. So, you ask me why I stayed. Here’s the truth. I wasn’t worth the man you were, but I had a chance to prove that I could make you happy. That scar gave me a shot. It gave me a chance to be seen.”
He stared at her.
God!
She didn’t see what he saw. The day he first saw her, he’d wanted her too. It grew in him. That day, he was leaving to find her. He had to find the woman who changed everything.
It was always her.
He just didn’t know if he could get the truth to come out. It was cement in his chest. It was that weight that weighed him down in the mire of his own pity and self-loathing.
“You needed to hate someone, and I was willing to be your target.”
“Why, Bishop?”
“Because you have more to offer now than you ever did. Before, you wanted power and to rule the world. You didn’t see that people wanted you for what you could do. Wendy wanted you for the pr
estige, the city wanted you to lock the criminals away. I never wanted your fame or your fortune. I wanted your heart.”
His kicked.
“Bishop.”
She turned his face toward hers. Gently, she ran her lips down the scar. Then she set him free.
“Now you know. If you want to join me for dinner, I’ll be happy to share a meal and my home with you. If you want to run, I’ll watch your back and keep you safe. You owe me nothing, Lucian, but you owe yourself a chance. The choice is yours.”
With that, she walked away.
He watched her leave her bedroom, head down the stairs, and to her kitchen. He could hear dishes, the salad bowl, and her walking around.
It hurt that he’d never noticed her watching him. It created this void that he’d made her feel like she wasn’t worthy of him. Bishop was a dream. She was the one thing that offered him peace, and he had to make this right.
Somehow, he had to fix the damage.
Lucian stared into the mirror at the scar. It still staggered him that his face really didn’t bother her. To him, that was astounding.
This felt like a defining moment.
He could run and hide or he could go downstairs, have some dinner, and try to pick up the pieces of his life.
Lucian made the choice, and now he’d have to live with it.
No matter what.
Second chances were rare.
No one knew that better than him.
Chapter Eleven
When they’d arrived back at Lucian’s home, the place was lit up. They’d yet to find Jagger, but he was a big boy. If he was out, getting into trouble, he would find a way out.
They had other issues.
There were files to go through, and they had hours of work ahead of them.
When they parked the car, they knocked on the door.
Nate was surprised when Avalon was the one who opened it.
“Where’s Lucian?” he asked.
“He’s off with the sheriff.”
He headed in. “Really?”
She smiled in triumph. “Yes, really. I don’t think he’s coming home, either.”
Maura came up behind her. “He gave her coffee. So be ready for questions. She’s been making me crazy the entire afternoon.”
“She’s right here,” Avalon stated, making Maura laugh. “I’m caffeinated—not deaf.”
“Oh, I’m well aware of your state.”
Oracle Seeing (The Phoenix Files Book 2) Page 21