Instead, she raced through her bedroom, throwing her scrubs, her reference books, and as many of her toiletries as she could think of into a black duffle bag. She zipped it shut with trembling fingers and slung it on her shoulder before bolting to her patio door.
Opening it as quietly as she could, allowing the chirp of birds and the smell of oak to sneak in, she stepped outside and closed the door gingerly behind her.
It was the first time since she’d moved back to Shadow Rock that she hadn’t regretted renting a downstairs unit.
It made it a hell of a lot easier to escape.
—
Gage shut his eyes tight as a sopping wet thumb swept over his cheek. He’d seen her lick her finger from the corner of his eye, so he’d known it was coming. Still, there was nothing in the world more emasculating.
“Celeste, my God.” David Blackwater cringed across the round patio dining table. “Will you stop coddling him like an infant?”
Celeste Blackwater finished cleaning whatever it was she’d spotted on Gage’s cheek, allowing the backs of her fingers to linger on his jawline as they shared a secret smile.
Ignoring her husband, Celeste stroked the edge of Gage’s jaw with her thumb, her long black hair wafting with the soft breeze. “You look so troubled tonight, darling.”
“I’m fine, Mother,” Gage said, taking another bite of his dinner. He shot the family cook a smile as he refilled Gage’s champagne from behind. He always knew when a fresh glass was in order without having to be asked.
“Celeste, would you give him some room to breathe?”
Celeste didn’t break her eyes from Gage, smiling. “Did you hear something, darling?”
Gage grinned, and he felt her trace his dimples before she finally left him, straightening in her own seat while picking up her fork.
“You’re right, David,” she said. “Why on Earth would I show Gage love and affection? You’d almost think I carried him for nine months and gave birth to him. How silly of me.” The smile she sent across the table appeared frozen on her face.
David Blackwater abandoned his meal, leaning back in the white wicker seat of their outdoor dining table with his hands resting on the arms. The family’s infinity pool trickled away behind him. Beyond that, the jagged ebony cliffs that gave Shadow Rock its name seemed to spill into the starry sky and vanish against the black sea. The Blackwater Cruises ship scheduled to set sail the following evening hovered in the distance.
Feeling his father’s gray eyes burning into the top of his head, Gage looked up from his plate and locked eyes with David. He lifted his champagne glass to his lips, drinking in David’s shock-white hair and the smile lines that had stayed around long after he’d last showed teeth. Gage tried to remember the last time he’d seen his father smile, and found himself staring off into space. For the first time in his life, he understood what it must feel like to not want to smile anymore.
“When did you guys know you loved each other?” Gage asked.
Both David’s and Celeste’s eyes widened.
Gage set his glass down, leaned back in his chair, and looked back and forth between them.
Celeste stared across the table with her big green eyes, her trimmed nails brushing a bosom that begged for freedom in the tight neckline of her Calvin Klein wrap dress. Her lithe fingers trickled down the leopard print fabric, settling in her lap.
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “David.”
“Celeste.” David lifted his brows, his voice just as bored as his eyes.
“Your son just asked you a question.”
“Do you love each other at all?” Gage asked, putting an end to the passive-aggressive exchange he could already feel brewing.
“Of course we love each other, darling.”
“When did you know? I mean, Dad is twice your age. You guys have nothing in common. You don’t even talk to each other, unless you have no other choice. What was it? What made you two look at each other one day and think… yes. This is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
Reading between Gage’s unspoken lines, David jumped in. “It’s normal to be nervous, son. I was nervous too. It doesn’t mean I didn’t love your mother as much the day I married her as I do right now.”
Celeste met David’s eyes across the table. Her smile didn’t grow. It didn’t vanish either.
“What if I don’t love Scarlett?” Gage whispered.
David shifted. He let a healthy silence pass. “You’ll learn how.”
“Is this what our lives really are?” Gage asked. “Marriage, not out of love or… or fervor… but out of necessity? Marriage as a business contract, and not a love contract?”
“A love contract.” David motioned to him, looking exasperated. “This is what happens, Celeste, when you insist on wiping your twenty-six-year-old son’s cheek with a thumb drenched in your saliva. He’ll never be the man we need him to be until you stop treating him like a child.”
Celeste cupped Gage’s shoulder.
Gage looked to her, seeing her smile move to a warmer, more genuine place.
“Darling, where is this coming from?”
Gage took a deep breath. “I just wanted to know how you two fell in love. I wanted to know if there was more… more out there. More depth. More connection. More to life than….” He motioned to the silver utensils and fine china gleaming up from the white tablecloth, unable to finish.
David yanked his napkin from his lap, wiped his downturned lips, and threw it on the table. “You’re not pulling out of this wedding.”
“I didn’t say I was pulling out. I’m asking a simple question.”
“The biggest business deal of our lives, a deal that will secure this family’s future for centuries to come, hinges on the execution of this marriage. The future of our family’s most lucrative business depends on it.”
“Yes. The branch of our family business that I have never been fully vested in, or even a part of. A branch of our family business that my friend is more involved in than I am.”
David’s nostrils flared. “You sit across this table, implying you’re having second thoughts about a wedding that is three months away, and wonder why you’re not fully vested? Why Todd continues to hold more powerful titles than you? It’s because he continues to outperform you. He continues to do what it takes where you refuse.”
“Maybe he should marry her, then,” Gage said.
“If only—”
“I think that’s quite enough,” Celeste cut David off, ever-smiling.
“No, Mother, let him finish.” Gage shot fire across the table, finishing for him. “If only you could go back and trade me in for a better model, right? If only he were your son, and not me.” He felt Celeste’s grip on his shoulder tighten.
David licked the edge of his teeth. “I didn’t say that.”
“Yeah, you didn’t have to.” Gage went to stand.
Celeste clutched his shoulder and put her weight on it, prodding him back down to his seat.
Gage didn’t know when his breath had grown short, or his heart had gone into overdrive, but he felt his nostrils flaring, blowing hot air across the table. “I agreed to marry Scarlett, and I’m a man of my word,” he said through clenched teeth. “I would never sully our family name by pulling out. If only my own father had enough faith in me to believe it.”
David’s eyes softened. “I apologize. I overreacted. You know how hot-blooded I can be when it comes to the business. I just want what’s best for you. What’s best for your mother. We both want her to have the most beautiful things, live in the most beautiful home, and be the envy of all her halfwit friends, don’t we?”
Celeste went from holding her fork to bearing it like a weapon, but her smile never wavered.
Gage watched his mother’s reaction, fighting a slow smile of his own. “Yes.”
David sighed. “Real winners make sacrifices, son. They don’t sit around waiting for the sun and moon to align. They wake up
earlier, they stay up later, they push until their fingers bleed. They do the things that others refuse, even when they don’t feel like it, so they can have the things that others can’t. If you want to be fully vested, you need to show me. You need to prove to me that you’re worthy. That you’re ready. Frankly… I don’t see it. Not yet.”
Gage felt the blood in his veins go to a boil, and he couldn’t tell if it was because he was enduring one of his father’s many self-indulgent speeches…
Or because Veda Vandyke’s face had just blasted into his mind for the millionth time that evening.
When he spoke again and his voice was hoarse, he knew it was because of her. “I’m willing.” He swallowed the lump in his throat, feeling his mother massaging his shoulder as he searched his father’s eyes. “You’ll see.”
—
What a pain in the ass that morning at work had become. When Veda found herself leaping behind parked gurneys into empty hospital rooms, or behind whatever heavyset nurse happened to be in the vicinity, jamming her eyes shut and praying she wasn’t noticed, she was amazed at how difficult it was to hide from one person.
She peeked around the corner of the dark hospital room she’d just huddled in, nearly inhaling the grape sucker between her lips, catching sight of Coco. The sun shining through the hospital’s hallway windows was no match for the blinding smile of Coco’s face as she greeted everyone she saw. People who’d been frowning before catching sight of her couldn’t help but smile back as she, quite literally, lit up everyone’s day.
When Coco swung her head to the right, her long ponytail flying, Veda shrunk back into the darkness with a gasp, her head falling back against the wall as she slammed her eyes shut. She reached into her pocket and seized the bronze medallion, clutching it in a tight fist.
Even with her eyes closed, she felt the light in the room come on. Heard the click of the switch that illuminated it.
“Oh my God, I’ve been looking all over for you!”
Veda peeked one eye open, caught sight of Coco’s smiling face, and then stood tall.
Coco clapped her arms around Veda’s shoulders, pulling her into a hug.
“Yeah.” Veda’s eyes fluttered involuntarily. She always forgot how good it felt, being hugged. Still, she stepped back, smoothing her bun. “I was just taking a minute of alone time before my next surgery.”
Coco pointed to her mouth. “Man, you really love suckers, huh?”
Veda snatched the sucker she’d forgotten was lodged in her cheek out of her mouth. “They help me relax.” And she’d already blasted through half a bag that morning alone.
“Cool.” Coco crossed the room to the empty hospital bed and plopped down on it, wiggling her eyebrows. “So… tell me everything.”
“Everything?”
Coco sighed, exasperated. “The other night? After Dante’s? How did it go?”
A tsunami spun in Veda’s stomach. “How did what go?” Before Coco could reiterate, her voice hitched. “He took me home and dropped me off. That’s it. He’s engaged, and I would never do anything unsavory with an engaged man. What kind of woman do you think I am?” A despicable one? A murderous one? Maybe a little of both? She pondered her thoughts.
Coco cradled her palms on the edge of the bed, swinging her legs while fighting a coy smile. “Yeah… no. Engaged men are yellow lights. Married men are stop signs. Gage isn’t married yet, so you better go get yours.”
Veda cocked her head back. “A seventeen-year-old advocate for adultery. What a way to start my Monday morning.”
“I saw the way he was looking at you.” Coco peered from the corner of her eye. “And when I came in this morning, he asked if you were here yet.”
Veda’s face fell. “Gage is here.” It wasn’t even a question, but a horrifying realization.
Coco nodded, biting her bottom lip. “And his light is still very yellow, by the way—”
“I thought you said he only came to the hospital every once in a while?”
“Well, usually. But the chief of staff got fired out of the blue, something about stealing pills from the pharmacy. Anyway, Gage is filling in for him until they find a replacement.”
Veda pointed at the floor, her finger shaking. “So he’s going to be here…” Her throat went dry. “Every day?”
“Yep.”
“Every. Single. Day?”
Coco’s smile slowly vanished, and her words began to drag. “Yeah….” She surveyed Veda’s face, and her grin was back in an instant. “You like him back.” She waggled her body back and forth. “I can totally tell.”
“I don’t like him. I don’t like anyone.”
Coco laughed.
“And I’ve got a patient in five minutes, so I’m leaving now.” Veda left without another word, her wide eyes flying the busy hall of the hospital as she tried to get her breathing under control.
She hadn’t been back to her apartment since the morning after she and Gage had slept together, opting to sleep in the on-call room just in case he decided to wait around for her to come back.
She cursed under her breath. Her bones felt like they were dislocating from her body, her heart like it was trying to come unhinged. She traveled the halls as it raced, just waiting for the horrifying moment when he turned one of those corners.
She clutched her next patient’s chart to her chest. It had been hard enough hiding from Coco—who’d still spotted her. Now she had to hide from him too?
She wondered why she felt the need to hide. Why she hadn’t been able to muster the courage to join him in her kitchen the morning before and, at the very least, enjoy the breakfast he’d been selflessly preparing.
Her next patient’s exam room came in view. Just as she sighed in relief, knowing she’d be safe there for the next few hours, Gage came breezing around the corner.
Veda froze in her tracks.
The heather-gray suit fit him like a dream, and the turquoise shirt underneath gave it the perfect amount of pop.
Holding his navy tie to his chest, his eyes traveled the hallway, looking somewhat distracted. When he locked eyes with Veda, his chest puffed like a balloon.
Veda swiveled on her heel and hurried in the opposite direction.
God, how old was she?
Peeking over her shoulder, she was relieved to find him moving down the hallway in the opposite direction, dragging a hand through his hair. A nurse approached him and stole his attention, which eased her mind even more.
She took the long way to her patient’s room, the route that forced her to cut through the main lobby, but it was worth it.
Speed walking through the bustling welcome area, she continued looking over her shoulder, eyes frantic, bottom lip trapped between her teeth.
Nope, he wasn’t behind her. Just the anxious patients in the waiting area and her fellow hospital personnel, some of them walking to their next patients and some running.
When she slammed into someone in front of her, a gasp tore from her throat, and she faced forward with wide eyes. “God, I’m so sorry! I should really watch where I’m… going….”
“You know…” Gage’s eyes narrowed, his hands hidden in the pockets of his slacks. “I’ve had girls kick me out before. I’ve had girls sneak out on me before. But I’ve never had a girl sneak out of her own apartment on me before. That was an interesting first.”
Her heart leapt up her throat and nearly flew out of her mouth. The chart in her hand almost went soaring through the air when her arms involuntarily spasmed. She glued them tight to her sides in an attempt to appear composed.
“I, uh….” She patted her bun, avoiding his eyes as she shuffled her feet. “Yeah. I had to leave that morning because I had to, uh… I had to get to work a little early.”
“At 5 a.m.” He paused. “On your day off.”
“Yes. It’s very important to me to be prepared. I over-prepare. My patients are nervous enough as it is, and I want them to know I take their healthcare very seriously. I come in ear
ly. I come in on my days off. I give one hundred and ten percent every single day.” She realized she was rambling, and it took everything to force herself to stop. Then she lowered her voice. “And we talked about this.”
Gage searched her eyes, lips pressed together. Veda noticed him trying to control what his face was doing. When he turned his head away from her, hiding the eyes that were speaking words he couldn’t—or maybe wouldn’t—she struggled to speak past her pummeling heartbeat.
She tried to keep her voice level. “We agreed it was a one-time thing. A nice night where we both submitted to the moment to get it out of our systems.”
He reclaimed her eyes with a whisper. “Am I out of your system?”
Her gaze fell to his lips. She swallowed. “Yes.”
His face hardened.
“You’re out. Completely out. And now…” Was her voice seriously shaking? She stopped herself in midsentence, taking a moment to regroup under his unwavering gaze. She tightened her grip on the bronze coin still in her hand. “And now, we’re back to reality. You’re engaged, and I’m….” Focused on murdering your good friend? No, that wouldn’t fly. Here to avenge my body and my womanhood? Nope, too intense. She found herself sputtering, cursing her body as the warm throb in her center grew more powerful by the second, flaming over her skin, lining it with goose bumps. “And I’m… I’m also your subordinate. A resident with enough student loan debt to bankrupt an oil tycoon. A resident who can’t afford to lose her job over something as ridiculous as…” She lowered her voice. “As a couple of fleeting orgasms.”
“Four orgasms, to be exact, and there was nothing fleeting about them.”
“Gage Blackwater….”
Something moved in his eyes when she said his name, as if he’d gone to another place. Probably rocketed back to the night before, when she’d moaned, screamed, and whimpered that name. Begged for more on the tail end of that name.
A gentle smile broke on his face.
Veda wondered when her breathing had turned to panting. “You’re engaged.”
Quiver (Revenge Book 1) Page 8