by Brook Wilder
Despite not being the one she called for, he went to the hospital to relieve her of her watch. She didn’t look happy to see him there when he showed up. Her eyes flickered across his just long enough to recognize him and scowl before they moved away from him, not meeting his eyes again for the duration of the time.
“The nurse has already come through and checked his vitals,” Hanna said, getting her bag together. “She won’t be back until she comes through with dinner. They’re going to start lowering his pain med dosages as well.”
“Noted,” he said, staring at his dirty fingernails. “Anything else?”
“Nope.”
Then she was gone. Out the door. Not a word. He wanted to throw a punch through the wall, but wasn’t about to do that with an audience watching him. He also wanted to work on that anger. It was the same anger that got him into a lot of trouble thus far and likely pushed Hanna farther and farther away from him.
“Have a seat, kid,” he said. “We need to talk.”
“Talk?” Roarke asked, crossing his arms across his chest.
“Don’t give me that shit,” James coughed out. “You like to play the tough guy and that’s great, it works for your friends, but I don’t take shit from bratty kids, whether they’re twelve or thirty-two. Sit your ass down.”
There was nothing James could physically do to force him to sit down. And yet Roarke found himself dropping into his seat on command, arms coming undone and staying pinned at his sides like a kid getting lectured in front of the whole class.
“You need to get your act together,” he said, quiet plainly. “Isabelle had a chat with Hanna.”
“What? When?” He was on his feet again, hands clenched, muscles shaking. James gave him a look and he lowered himself back down.
“Doesn’t matter, the point is Isabelle got inside her head a bit with some unfortunate truths that you need to shed some light on fast if you’re going to keep Hanna in your life.”
Roarke swallowed.
“Isabelle painted a very coldhearted, abusive version of you. I’m not asking you to comment on that or defend yourself to me. I’m telling you that you need to tell Hanna the truth about that, no matter what it is, no matter how it makes you look, or what you did. She’s always been smart, she’ll find the truth out one way or another and then you’ll be really fucked if she finds out you kept something from her,” he said.
Roarke felt his neck grow tight with agitation. He twisted it about, cracking it, trying to pop some of the knots forming there. He didn’t want to show his guilt there. None of them had been given a choice in the life they had, that was just a fact of being born into the Withers family. You did what you did for family and that meant the Pharaohs, the dynasty. He didn’t force her to do anything, he didn’t threaten her, he didn’t keep her locked away or anything like that.
He didn’t think he did any of those things, anyway. Had he been cruel to her? Was it cruel to give her everything she could want, the protection she needed, the chance to live out the potential of that good brain inside her head? Was it cruel to ask only that she be loyal to the family in return?
“I know you’ve got a baby on the way,” James said with a heaviness that could have made Roarke’s heart stop right then and there. “And you’re going to lose that baby and the wonderful woman who will be its mother if you don’t clear things up, get control of yourself.”
“How do you know about the baby?”
“I’m closer to Hanna that you’ll ever be, even if things work out and you end up happily ever after,” he said.
“You know who she really is then?” Roarke asked.
“There isn’t anything to know from asking ‘who is she really?’” he said. “Her name, her story, those have some hidden truth underneath them. I will tell you that you don’t know the full story there and you need to earn her trust back enough for her to share that with you. That being said, the choices she’s made, what she feels, that’s who she really is. And I know for all that muscle and showmanship, you know in your heart all you need to about her.”
Roarke and James didn’t talk the rest of the night, James giving into his morphine drip and Roarke lost in a maze of thought. His guesses were correct, there was something false about Hanna. But he thought about what James had said. There was a truth in everything she did, everything she chose. He’d read once that true character was defined by choices, not facts about a person. If he applied that to Hanna he knew that she was fierce, she was brave, she was loyal to the people she cared about and expected that loyalty in return. She had a hunger for adventure, or danger.
The riddle of her name, of the truth, it didn’t seem so important when he thought about how honest she looked coming apart underneath him in the nights they spent together.
Chapter 27
When Rick showed up to take the hospital shift, Roarke left and went straight for Hanna’s apartment. He didn’t even really mean to drive in that direction, but once he realized where he was heading, he didn’t want to stop. He needed to grow a pair and get it over with. Whatever the truth was, he needed to hear it, and she deserved to know the full story, instead of the one Isabelle spun for her that scared her enough that she was now turning on the people she trusted. That wasn’t her, he knew that much.
The night air was thick and dark, dawn was far away but he felt more awake than ever. His sleep schedule had been completely destroyed but it was serving a good purpose now as he moved through the streets and headed in the direction of her apartment. This was something he had to do, something he had to fix. He’d never felt like this before. He didn’t grovel, he didn’t ask forgiveness. Hell, he’d never been with a woman long enough to care if she forgave him for jack shit. But here he was, in the middle of the night, losing his mind because one woman was angry at him, might be leaving him. He’d actually gotten close enough to someone to push them away.
If she left, if she took that child with her, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to breath. And that was an uncomfortable feeling for him too.
He pulled into the parking lot, killed the engine, and took the steps two at a time as he rushed up and banged his fist against her front door. He didn’t mean for it to be so aggressive, but he also couldn’t contain all the nervous energy inside him, like waiting to see if you won the lottery or your final grades in a class you were sure you were going to fail. He banged his fist on the door again, keeping it up until it opened just enough for a sliver of her face to appear, the chain still on the latch.
“That’s a good way to get yourself shot,” she hissed.
“You were always the questions first type,” he said. “Can I come in?”
She glared. “Why?”
“We need to talk. We both know that.”
“Have you come to grovel?”
“Among other things.” That seemed to take her back.
He watched her debate, run the calculations in her head, decide how dangerous it was for her emotions, her mentality, to let him in and start this all over again for them both. He wasn’t going to quit though. He’d stand out there all night and wait for her to leave in the morning if he had to. She’d call the police or get a restraining order or forbid him from ever seeing his child but he had to try and talk to her. He wasn’t going to let her slip away so easy over a misunderstanding and him acting like an idiot for a few days.
“Please,” he said, a little softer. “I want to talk. Actually talk. No yelling, no arguing, no avoiding eye contact and huffing so the other one knows we’re pissed. Just talk. We both know this has been a really fucked way of getting our issues out there. We need to talk stuff out. For real. Yeah?”
She shut the door long enough to remove the chain and pin and open it the whole way. In the hand that had been behind the door her gun was there waiting, safety off. She wasn’t messing around. Something had her spooked. He couldn’t blame her and he wouldn’t want her any other why while she was carrying something so precious to them both inside her. He was
glad it was women who carried the babies because men would be awful at it.
He wasn’t sure where to start. He’d never done something like this. Did he start with his questions? Did he start with what he knew? Maybe he should just start out with an apology. She wasn’t totally innocent either but he knew he was more at fault than her. He was man enough to admit that. The trick, of course, was admitting that out loud to her as well. The swallowing of pride, the realizing that some things were more important than ego and keeping face.
It wasn’t about facing himself in the mirror. The guys always said they’d never be able to drink with their fellow men if they let some woman castrate them to the point of groveling apologies but he could never sit with himself if he let her go for pride that didn’t matter. Nobody was here, nobody knew what was happening in their world. It was doing this to protect no one but himself. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he let her go for something so stupid.
“I talked to James, I guess you did too,” he said. “He knows about the baby.”
It wasn’t the best start, but it was probably the most pressing and neutral issue. James knew she was pregnant, he knew that Roarke was the father. That was something they had to get on the table too because it had been their shared secret until now. This made it very real. Not that the doctor’s visits and the sex and the pregnancy tests made it not real. But someone outside their world knowing meant that it was really going to happen, someone else was involved now.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. It wasn’t bad, he knew that much. If anything, it was probably excitement. But it was buried underneath all the guilt and confusion, hard to find in the muddle of his emotions that didn’t seem to want to sort themselves out or make sense of them.
She didn’t look guilty or apologetic and he couldn’t blame her. It was her body. She could tell whoever she wanted about it. He wasn’t going to get angry about that, in fact it gave him kind of a selfish glee to be able to claim fatherhood over the child, let others know the extent of their relationship, even if it was turbulent at the moment.
She told James. That much was obvious. He wasn’t sure if the man found out some other way or coaxed it out of her. But it was clear now she’d told him willingly, and without coercion. She stood firm on that. He wondered who James really was to her. He was not just some police station contact, as she’d claimed. Had that even been real? Did she have police station contacts? Everything was in flux and his doubt for every word she said about herself. But he remembered what James had said: trust her choices and actions. And those choices and actions told him that James was someone very important to her, he’d have to be if she told him about the baby.
“Anything else?” she asked.
She was short, snappy. He couldn’t blame her. He took a breath and thought some more. What was the most pressing issue? The lack of trust. That much was obvious. The small talk over James hadn’t lasted as long as he hoped. It didn’t really last any amount of time at all. She was forcing this along. He wondered if it was because she was truly frustrated with him, done with his antics, or if she was trying to protect herself from falling back in too deep with him. She got him at arm’s length, she would try to keep him there if it meant that she protected her inner world.
The problem was what she thought she knew about him. She assumed a great deal now about him before she even met him. He was sure of that in the way that she had acted when they first met, the coldness there, the aloofness. Now she was assuming even more awful things about him. She was spun tales that, while not necessarily not true, were probably painted in a light that made everything look far more awful than it truly was.
“He told me Isabelle whispered in your ear about some pretty awful things. I want to tell you my version,” he said, feeling bare. He was completely at her mercy. No matter what he said, the ball was always in her court, she was driving. He was learning to be okay with not being in control when it came to her, however.
“It’s been my experience that the man’s version of things like this is always very far from the truth,” she said.
“Your experience?”
She waited. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. Tell me about Isabelle, about growing up.”
So there it was. Truth was waiting there, she was offering him exactly what he wanted since the day they met: answers. She came into his life like whirlwind. She came from nowhere with a shaky story at best and he trusted her far sooner than he should have. But he did now. He trusted her enough to be the woman who carried his child. He trusted her enough to be sitting with her now. They’d come so far, completely turned their own worlds inside out and upside down. She had to feel it too. He didn’t know who she was before they met but he knew whoever that was didn’t matter anymore.
He dropped down to sit on her couch, watching her do the same in the loveseat across the room. The air between them was a no man’s land, waiting to light up with landmines or be the place where they brokered a truce, depending on how the next few minutes went. He needed to choose his words carefully, mind his tone. He could not blame her for however she felt about things after all this was over. If she still wanted to leave him, then that would be that. He wouldn’t fight harder, against her will.
So now it was down to where to begin. He once told her about the sob story of his upbringing, the way he learned to hate everything that wasn’t the Pharaohs because that was his escape, his way to freedom in his own mind. It was a home for him. She understood that, it seemed. She hadn’t judged him, she’d looked at him with pity. He hoped she remembered that, the story of the sad, scared boy before he became the muscular, bulky man.
“You know my dad was a fuck-hole, that’s not news,” he said, letting out a sigh and a breath he didn’t realize he was holding until his lungs relaxed. “And he was the main reason Isabelle had a shitty childhood. I’m not saying what she does or doesn’t remember is invalid. Because she’s hurting and I get that now. I’m trying to let go of my anger and think of ways I can help. But my dad was the one who forced this on all of us, expected us to do the work, put the time in, be loyal to the family. It’s not that hard to mix us up since, in a lot of ways I don’t like to admit, I ended up a lot like him.
“But I wanted the best for her. You have to know that. Or at least I hope you believe me. No one ever realizes that people want what’s best for them, you know? It’s how we are with our parents when we don’t get why they made us join band or do chores or stuff. Nothing good ever came from easy stuff. I thought he best chance was with us, with the family. I realize now, obviously, I was wrong. I can admit that. But I swear, I never wanted to hurt her. I never tried to turn her into something I didn’t think was for her best interests.”
She looked at him, waiting for more. She wasn’t going to let her guard down for him easy at all. She wasn't going to make this enjoyable or bearable. Again, he couldn’t blame her. He didn’t expect anything less. She was fierce and powerful and all the things that drew him to her were the reasons she wasn’t going to let this conversation go easy or quick. That’s what they needed, he realized. Sometimes shit had to be dirty and gritty and unbearable for it to work out in the end.
So maybe there was more there. What else was he guilty for? What else made him feel like shit when he thought about it? He needed to grow a pair, stop being such a child, not with her. She was the mother of his legacy and future. To be the best man he could be for her, he had to try harder to be brave in a way he never had before. This wasn’t about guns or riding off into the night and feeling like a big man when people quaked as he walked past. This was the moment when he had to be courageous in a completely different way. It would take a lot more strength.
“I didn’t help the situation,” he sighed and dropped the last of his defenses. “I knew she was unhappy, I think. But it was just the way we all were right? Nobody likes growing up and nobody does it super smoothly or anything like that. I didn’t think it would turn her into...this.”
That’s all he had to say. He wouldn’t take credit for what became of Isabelle because her choices were her own. He had a hand in it, they all did, but at the end of the day you choose how you want to make your world work for you, and she chose an incredibly destructive path. She threw away all that promise for the sake of revenge. Maybe the pair of them had more in common than he realized.
She waited to see if he would say anything else. She wasn’t daring him to speak more or trying to force it out of him. She was just waiting to say if he’d say anything more. Her face was unreadable, but possibly because she didn’t want to be his judge and jury as she had been in the past few months. Perhaps this was a place of no judgement, or at least they both hoped that it could be.