13. Bad Case of Loving You
Bad Case of Loving You
Arden
Ten Months of Emails Later
O ctober 15, 1997
I tug my ball cap lower and adjust my sunglasses. The beard I’ve let grow for three days itches and rasps under my fingertips.
Reese grins as he opens my door. “You look fine.”
“Five-and-a-half-hour drive one way to watch her for fifteen minutes. Then five and a half hours back.” If everything goes well.
He laughs. “The things you do for love.”
I snort, pretending his words don’t feel like Truth. Legs encased in denim and my feet stuffed into work boots intended to make me look like I belong here, I step onto the asphalt of Blackwater Hospital’s parking lot.
Reese scans the lot. “She’ll be all right. Little kids get tubes in their ears all the time.”
“When we get in there—”
“Don’t draw attention. I know the drill. I already cased it out. You’ll be out of sight as long as you stay around the corner.”
I reach for the gift bag with the balloon attached to it and the bouquet of Stargazer lilies. No one stops us as we make our way inside. No one even seems to look our way beyond the seventy-something, iron-haired Black woman at the front desk.
Her hospital ID indicates her name is Alba Johnson. Alba gives me a slow up and down and a wink when I make my request and pass her Bronnie’s gifts and the bouquet for Charlotte.
Then Reese and I head for the surgical waiting room. The building is so small they don’t have separate inpatient and outpatient waiting rooms. Instead, they have one large room, shaped like an L, dividing the two. I’m counting on Charlotte staying on the outpatient side.
When we reach the double doors, I lift my chin and Reese enters first.
He’s back within twenty seconds. “She and her mother are in the back left corner. As long as you don’t draw attention and stay behind the dividing wall, she won’t notice you.”
I nod, but before I can step forward, he shakes his head. “You could say ‘hello’ and sit with her.”
“If someone takes a photo of us together like this, it could turn into a nightmare for her. I’m not exposing her to the press so I can sit beside her. ”
Reese frowns. “Maybe it wouldn’t bother her.”
“She’s already told me how she feels about it.”
He watches me, seemingly weighing his words. “She could change her mind if you ask. She’s a different person than Ariana was.”
“Reese, I love you like a brother, but I don’t have time for one of your therapy sessions right now.”
He scrubs blunt fingertips across his forehead. “It wasn’t bad press that broke Ariana.”
“It was being married to me.”
“Arden—”
“Drop it.” I nod at the doorway. “Let’s go.”
His lips tighten, but he doesn’t move.
“Do you expect her to swim with the sharks?” I scoff.
We both know it would be cruel to bring her into my world. The social politics alone are vicious, and she’s a woman who craves privacy and peace.
I’m pretty sure Charlotte thinks Steve worked for me as a law clerk. If he’d trusted her not to be upset, he’d have told her he joined my security team. How much worse would it be to subject Charlotte and Bronnie to the protocols Steve was protecting her from?
“I’ve changed,” I say.
He nods. “We all have.”
I was never soft, but the Vinucci family pushed me to a place I’d never thought possible. I came close to abandoning legal means of dealing with them. What we did was a muddy line, setting them up to believe they’d betrayed each other, then watching them destroy themselves.
If I’d had fewer principles and gone in guns blazing, more of my people would be alive today. “Their deaths were noble. They knew the risks.” It’s something I tell myself over and over.
It doesn’t lessen the guilt, despite knowing I did the right thing.
“Hollow comfort,” Reese says.
“It’s all we have.” The danger to my boys, my parents, and my people turned the key in a lock I hadn’t known I had. None of my peers has anything like the army I employ. Not even Marcus Harcourt goes as far as I do. But I can’t unsee the reality of potential enemies around us.
Charlotte once asked me what it’s like to have a job that shows me the worst of humanity. Some people burn out. Some go numb. Then there are those who lose their fucking minds. I have no illusions about which category I fit into.
Charlotte reminded me I have a heart. Now I feel everything. The good, but also every ounce of pain, rage, and regret.
I enter the inpatient family lounge, then move into position across the room at a ninety-degree angle from Charlotte, where she sits with her legs crossed and one ankle bobbing nervously. With the dividing wall partially hiding me from view, she’d have to look closely to notice me.
Seated, I unzip my black ski jacket, lean forward to make myself look smaller, choose a magazine at random from the nearby table, and lift it high enough to cover my lower face. Reese, wearing casual clothing of his own, sits next to me and affects a similar posture. The sunglasses aren’t working in here. They’ll attract more attention, not less. I slide them into my pocket, then lower the brim of my hat to shield my eyes.
We look goddamn ridiculous, sneaking around a small, rural hospital trying to be stealthy. This is entering full-on Scooby Doo territory.
On the outpatient side, Charlotte uncrosses her jean-covered legs and leans forward, her hands clasped between her knees. Her mother rubs her shoulder. Charlotte nods and chews her bottom lip. When a volunteer in a candy-striped uniform enters, gift bag and bouquet in hand, and calls her name, Charlotte’s eyes widen before she lifts her hand in acknowledgment.
A smile spreads across her face as she accepts the gifts. Mrs. Miller peeks inside the bag and sniffs the flowers. She says something to Charlotte that I can’t hear. Charlotte nods, then leans back in her chair and reads the card I addressed to her.
“What did you write? She looks ready to blow,” Reese mutters.
I keep my gaze on Charlotte. “I said I’m here for her if she needs me and that Bronnie’s surgery would go well,” I whisper.
“Then why is she crying ?”
I frown and rise from my chair. “She could have gotten bad news before we got here. We weren’t late, but they could have started early. If Bronnie needs—”
Reese tugs on my arm in an attempt to drag me back into my seat, but I don’t budge. Charlotte is smiling now, but she’s still crying.
“Women are strange,” Reese says.
Mrs. Miller gives Charlotte a grin and a shoulder shimmy.
Charlotte uses a knuckle to wipe away a tear and laughs.
The sound sears into my chest like it’s a tangible thing forging a path straight into my soul and filling every broken, empty place with light. I want to hear that laugh every day. I want to hold her in my arms and taste it on my tongue. Without planning to do so, I take a step toward her, no longer hidden from view.
Charlotte lifts her head and glances my way. The moment her eyes meet mine, she freezes solid, every bit of nervous energy she’s been showing, suddenly trapped in stasis. Waiting . . . waiting.
She jumps to her feet with a smile. I shouldn’t be here at all, but if she wants me—
“Maggie Miller? I thought I recognized you! Is something wrong with Bob?”
Charlotte jolts, then turns startled eyes to the middle-aged white woman dressed in maroon scrubs who has barreled her way into the waiting room. The woman’s short wispy hair is dyed a startling matte black, and her sharp eyes rake over both Charlotte and her mother in rampant curiosity.
Charlotte’s blue gaze burns all the way to my soul when she looks my way, the line of her throat moving with a swallow of agitation. I can see the argument going on inside her head as she weighs what she wants against her fear.
I ’ m here, Charlotte.
Reese put my feelings for her into words and made me face them. But she's safe, secure, and content with the life she has.
Knowing it doesn’t mean I can stop wanting her. No more than I can will my heart to stop beating.
I shouldn't have put her at risk of exposure this way, but the ball is in her court now. Acknowledge me or turn away.
I’m a selfish man. The words pounding in my head are proof of it. Choose me.
I step back, sit down, and look away, my chest tight as I wait for her to come to me or pretend I’m not here.