Chapter 25
FLYNN
“I need you to say that one more time, only slower.” I stared down at the phone and waited to hear my sister tell me about how our father arranged a marriage for our youngest sister.
“You heard me right the first time,” Bea groused.
“Dad knew I couldn’t get that money until I’d been married for at least six months.”
“My best guess is that he couldn’t wait. Maybe marrying her off was always his plan. I don’t know.”
“What does Mina have to say about it?”
“She agreed to do it. I don’t know why, but Flynn, something has been going on with her for a while now and I’m worried. I think she’s using this marriage as a way to hide from everyone.”
“I’ll find the time to go talk to her.”
“How do you think Courtney will feel when she finds out that Mina saved Dad’s business and your marriage wasn’t necessary.”
“Fuck, Bea. My marriage to Courtney was for nothing then.”
“That’s an awful thing to say.”
“I wasn’t done, asshole. I meant that she had to give up her life for me. Her whole relationship crashed hard all because Beckett convinced her to help me save my dad’s business.”
“Yeah well, if you ask me, she got the better end of the deal anyway.”
“No doubt. I’m a definite upgrade to Beckett.”
I heard a crash and Courtney screamed. “Gotta go.” I called out as I ran from my office. “Courtney?”
“Flynn, what’s going on?” Bea called through the phone. Dammit, I needed her to hang up in case I had to call 9-1-1. “Hang up, Bea!” I ordered as I found Courtney lying on her side, curled up in a ball at the top of the steps.
“Courtney!” I yelled. I dialed the fucking number I dreaded having to use and tried to check my wife over but she curled deeper into a ball when I did.
“Court, I need you to tell me where it hurts, so I can tell the dispatcher.”
“Go away, Flynn.”
“No can do.”
It only took a few minutes for the ambulance to arrive, and I had to go downstairs to let them in. Once they got Court loaded up, I was told I had to take my own car because there was no room, but I didn’t think that was why. The way the ambulance crew looked at me, it was clear that they wanted to get my wife alone to see if I had abused her. I understood even as I resented the implication.
It didn’t look good, especially since Courtney kept flinching away from me for some reason.
When I got to the hospital, the woman at the front desk informed me that I wasn’t welcome to join my wife. “What do you mean, I’m not welcome? I’m her fucking husband!” I shouted.
“And she requested that you not be allowed back.”
“She’s pregnant with twins. I need to know that they’re all okay. Her and the babies.”
“I’ll check to see if she will allow us to share that information, but you’re still not allowed to go back.”
Bea made it in time to hear what the woman had to say to me and she pulled me aside. “Oh God, Flynn, what if she overheard our conversation?”
“So? I would have told her anyway.”
“No, what if she only heard part of it?”
“I don’t get why that would be upsetting.”
“Imagine you’re pregnant with twins, and deeply in love with your husband and their father.” I smiled at the thought. Up until about an hour ago, that was exactly what I thought. “Now imagine you overhear your husband telling someone on the phone that your marriage to her was for nothing.”
“Fuck, are you serious?”
Bea shrugged. “Unless you did something else that was incredibly stupid, it makes sense.”
“Can you go back and talk to her?”
“I can try,” My sister agreed.
It took three hours before my sister made her way back out to the waiting room. I put in the call to Courtney’s dad but he was out of the country and said he would catch the first flight back. I didn’t bother to call Jill because I thought she might make matters worse, not better.
“Hey,” Bea called out to me. I jumped up to meet her, but she shook her head and hustled my way instead. “They’re keeping her overnight for observation to make sure she and the twins are okay. She ran from the exact conversation I told you was the problem.”
“Okay, but you explained the situation right?”
“I did, but she got hurt, so as a result of what she overheard, so I don’t think it quite sunk in that it wasn’t what she thought. Either that or she thinks I’m lying for you.” Bea shrugged her shoulders. “The good news is, she doesn’t have a concussion and the doctor thinks she only has a bit of superficial bruising and a spot or two of deep tissue bruising. It’s near her hip and radiating out toward her belly, which is why they want to monitor her. The doctor assured us that it looks worse than it is.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Bea. I can’t lose her. I can’t lose any of them. How the hell am I supposed to convince her that she’s the love of my life when she’s laying there, alone, thinking I regret marrying her?”
“I’m going to head back in, but you might as well go home to wait because she hasn’t changed her mind.”
“I’m not leaving until she does.”
“Okay, I’ll let her know.”
“Bea, tell her how much I love her. Please, make her believe it.” As my sister walked away, I had to swipe the tears away that blurred my vision. How was it possible that my wife was hurt, in the hospital, and I couldn’t even see her, check on her, or be there for her?
My sister never came back out and eventually I fell asleep, curled up in a ball, on a series of three very uncomfortable plastic chairs. If I was smart, I would have gone out to the car to sleep, but I didn’t want to take the chance that my sister would come out to the waiting room to get me if my wife changed her mind about seeing me.
Someone tapped on my shoulder. I felt it again before I managed to come fully awake. I groaned as my body shifted on the hard chairs in an attempt to get up. “Fuck, that hurts,” I grunted.
“Flynn?”
Her voice woke me the rest of the way up immediately. “Court? My Nemesis?” I asked as I took her in. She stood in front of me looking beautiful as ever, even if her face was puffy from crying about overhearing the wrong fucking thing, and probably the pain from her fall as well.
“Bea was going to take me home, but since you’re here, you can save her the trip.”
“I told you it wasn’t a bother,” My sister admonished.
“Go home, Bea.” She rolled her eyes at me and mumbled something about gratitude. “Thank you for staying with her,” I called out. My sister waved her hand and continued out the door as Courtney stood there staring at me. “Right, sorry.” I jumped up and immediately landed back down on my ass in the chair as my dead leg gave out on me. The minute I thought about it being asleep, the pins and needles sensation started.
“Ow! Ow! Ow! Fuck the blood flow.” I heard a giggle and looked up to see my wife laughing at me. “You think it’s funny?”
“It’s not - not funny,” She insisted.
“Give me a minute to get the blood flow back and I’ll help you out of here.”
She was seated in a wheelchair that my sister had been pushing. “Did you guys steal the wheels?”
“No. It’s hospital policy to be wheeled out, but we were already in the hallway on the way to the elevator when some alarms started to go off in one of the rooms. The nurse told me to wait, but Bea took off with me as soon as my nurse ran into that room.”
“Nice, my sister jail-breaked you from the hospital.” It felt good to be able to joke around with my wife after a night of wondering if we were over. “Court, you know you didn’t hear everything-”
She cut me off with a shake of her head. “Let’s wait for that conversation until we’re home.”
Once we got to the car, I helped Courtney in and then pushed the wheelchair up on the sidewalk. We were nearly home before my wife spoke again.
“Bea told me that you’ve been in love with me since we first met.”
“That’s true.”
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“Because you were with Beckett, and I thought you were happy.”
“There were times when we broke up,” She reminded me. “That one time…”
“I would have taken you from him then, but he showed up and you followed him off into the sunset again. I loved you. I fucking loved you enough to go along with whatever made you happy, even if it was my fucknut cousin.”
“I wish you wouldn’t have.”
“No use looking back, Court. We can’t change any of it.”
“I know. There are just moments when I wonder what it would have been like to not waste all that time on a man who never deserved it.”
“Can we talk about the real elephant in the car now?” I asked and she gave me a lopsided, goofy grin.
“Are you talking about me,” She pointed down to her burgeoning belly, “or the fact that I overreacted after eavesdropping?”
“You are a gorgeous Goddess, Nemesis. No elephant could ever compare. I was talking about the fact that those words ever came out of my mouth. I know you thought I meant it like I was saying it for myself, but I just meant that you would have probably made a different choice if it wasn’t for my family’s circumstances. Honestly, you might have never even known I needed to marry to gain access to my inheritance.”
“That’s true, and I already know all that, Flynn. I’m sorry. I heard what you said and my heart broke. I shouldn’t have ran. I should have stayed and faced it, because then I would have heard the rest of what you said. The consequences were that I almost harmed our babies. If I had slid a little bit further…”
“No use dwelling on things that never happened, sweetheart. We can’t change what went down, and we won’t dwell on what never was. Okay?”
“Okay. I’m not sure it’s going to be so easy to turn those thoughts off, but I’ll try.”
“I love you, Courtney. So fucking much. Don’t ever doubt that.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I won’t”
“We talk things out. Running doesn’t work, obviously, because you can’t stay upright on your feet.” She laughed at my dumb joke and then her eyes went really wide and her cheeks and ears turned pink.
“Damn you, Flynn!”
“What did I do?”
“You made me pee my pants a little.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed and then my wife hit me in the gut, but she laughed too and the sound made everything okay again.