Chapter 19
WILLOW
Jamie has been a caring, perhaps overly concerned, friend since he moved in with me. It’s supposed to be a temporary agreement until the cops resolve their investigation into the poisoning and the road incident, but I’m becoming more and more certain that Jamie likes looking after me.
He carries the groceries through the door, then leaves them on the kitchen counter before he comes over. “Will, you don’t look so good.”
“I’m okay,” I say, but we both know I’m lying.
I’ve been puking my guts out over the past few days and eating like a linebacker until late at night. Even coffee doesn’t go down as well as it used to. Coffee, my favorite thing in the world. I feel weak and deprived of what little joy I had left.
“Girl, you are anything but okay,” Jamie scoffs, then presses the back of his hand against my forehead for a temperature check. “Well, you’re not burning up.”
“I’m telling you it’s just a seasonal flu or something.” I groan and lean back against the sofa, eager to huddle under the plush, creamy white blanket.
Jamie sighs and goes back to the front door first, making sure it’s locked. He looks through the peephole, too, for good measure, making me chuckle softly.
“We’re safe, Jamie. The building manager is liaising with the police. Security staff is on the premises. There are cameras in all the public areas. The concierge knows what’s what, too,” I tell him. “Relax.”
“You can never be too careful, Will.”
I can’t blame him. He’s the one who almost died from a poison meant for me. I take a deep breath and try another sip of coffee, but as soon as the taste meets my tongue, I shudder and set the mug down.
“Are you hungry? I’m gonna whip us up a nice breakfast,” Jamie says as he takes the groceries out of their paper bags.
“Right now, I feel like I’m about to explode.”
“Bloated?”
“That’s an ugly word, but yes. It’s like I’m retaining water. I just have to look at a croissant, and I get puffy and heavy,” I grumble. “And everything pisses me off. The silence of the holidays. You know that lovely quiet period between Christmas and New Year’s Eve?”
Jamie gives me a confused look. “You used to love that. Your favorite time of the year. No emails or phone calls.”
“I know, right?” I’m just as befuddled.
But now, after the whole Christmas fallout, I could use some agitation, some last-minute engagement party or wedding to plan. We’ve got a few events in the pipeline for January and February, though the arrangements are already taken care of.
Jamie starts whisking the eggs first, occasionally throwing a curious glance my way. “Have you heard from them?”
“From whom?”
“Seriously?” He’s got that eyebrow up again.
I reply with an apologetic smile. “They tried calling again,” I tell him. “I let it go to voicemail.”
“Again. Will, come on, you should talk to them.”
“I’m mad.”
“And puffy. And pukey. I get it. But you were also the happiest I’ve ever seen you when you were with the Morgan brothers. Why let old history with Sheila, of all people on this wretched planet, ruin that for you?”
I take another deep breath. Nausea threatens to drag me back to the bathroom, but I honestly don’t think I have anything left to expel at this point. I pull my hair into a loose bun and secure it with a scrunchie, then haul my ass up from the sofa and join Jamie in the kitchen.
“Come on, let me help you,” I say and get busy unpacking the flour.
“Will.”
“You’re right,” I concede. “But it hurts, okay? They kept it from me. What kind of relationship was it if they kept secrets from me? Besides, what are we building together? How would it ever work in the long term? Me and three guys. Maybe it’s better it ended the way it did.”
Jamie laughs. “The way you keep trying to convince yourself that you did the right thing is almost endearing.”
“You don’t think I did the right thing?”
“I think you had every reason to get mad over the whole Sheila and Cole sitting in a tree a long, long time ago. But it’s the past. I think you’re so afraid this thing with the Morgan brothers could actually be real and beautiful and precisely what you need that you picked the very first chance you could to walk away from it. ”
I stare at him in disbelief as he gingerly takes the flour bag out of my hands and adds some to his whisking bowl. Slowly but surely, the composition comes together, thickening under his care. A whiff of vanilla tickles my nose as he adds some along with a few other seasonal spices.
“Wow, Jamie, thanks for the free therapy.”
“It’s the truth, isn’t it? You’re used to fighting tooth and nail for everything you have,” he says with a shrug. “You’re used to getting your heart broken by men who never deserved you in the first place. Heartache of any kind is familiar territory for you.”
“What should I have done, then? Just forgive them?”
“Give them a chance to apologize, first and foremost,” he replies.
“Then give them a chance to prove it was a one-time mistake. If they had any other skeletons in their closet, that would’ve been their opportunity to air them all out.
You would’ve started fresh in a way. They’re human, Will. They’re not perfect.”
“Perfection is unattainable, anyway,” I mutter.
He does make a point, though. I’ve had the same thought running through my head. I let my emotions get the better of me, but I’ve yet to find much fault in my reaction.
“But can you blame me?” I ask Jamie. “It’s Sheila. Of all the women in the world, it had to be her.”
“It could’ve been anyone,” he says. “And frankly, with the rumors I’ve heard about that woman since we’ve been organizing weddings for the upper class of this city, I’m not that surprised either.”
“What do you mean?”
He adds cranberries into the mix while I turn the stove on and drizzle a bit of oil in a frying pan.
“Sheila Madison married young. She had Terrence when she was like nineteen or something,” Jamie says.
“I knew that.”
“Well, she didn’t grow up in society,” he replies. “She grew up in the Bronx. It’s a mystery as to how she and Mr. Madison got together in the first place.”
“What do the rumors say?”
“They supposedly met at an exotic dance club, though the locations vary. Some said the Bowery, others Upper East Side. It’s a little blurry, but apparently, she wooed him with her sexy dance moves.”
I feel green around the gills all of a sudden. “As if I wasn’t nauseated enough.”
“Point is,” Jamie laughs, “the woman was a gold digger. Still is. I’ll bet she got it on with Cole, thinking he was going to make a Morgan out of her: young widow, easy on the eyes, preteen son. She squandered the money she got from her dead hubby, that much I know for sure.”
“But Cole wouldn’t marry her.”
“Exactly, so what does the woman do?”
“She goes for the dad. He’s older and vulnerable, a widower himself,” I mutter. It tracks. Sheila did everything she could to keep her lavish lifestyle.
Jamie nods in agreement, then gives me another worried glance.
“Cole would’ve been a steppingstone, at most. He turned her away.
And given the hell Sheila gave you before and after your broken engagement with Terrence, honestly, I can’t blame the guy for not wanting to tell you about his past with her. She’s the devil.”
“But here’s the thing. I don’t think less of him because of her.”
“You just need to let it go. You’re in love with him, with all three of them. That much is obvious.” He pauses and guides me back to the sofa. “What’s also obvious is that you’re in no condition to be standing up right now. I’ll handle breakfast.”
“Okay, but… I don’t think I’m hungry.”
He takes a pregnancy test out of the coffee table drawer and drops it into my lap. “I don’t think it’s a hunger issue.”
I stare at it. Jamie’s back by the stove, flipping pancakes in the most awkward silence ever.
“It can’t be,” I mutter after a few minutes, but my mind is already doing the math.
“When was your last period?” he asks.
My cheeks turn red. “Oh, God, it’s late.”
“Ergo, you might wanna pee on that stick and see what it says.”
Half an hour later, we’re both on the sofa, staring at the plus sign on the pregnancy test. A plate loaded with pancakes that smell like wintry heaven is on the table, along with a bowl of fresh fruits just waiting to be devoured, but my stomach is furled into a tight little ball.
“No way,” I exhale sharply.
“What are you going to do about it?” Jamie asks. “The guys keep texting me. They’re worried about you. They care, Will, they really do.”
“I… I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t even know which one of them is the father. Oh, God…”
“Hey, you’re not alone in this.”
I shake my head slowly. “It’s not that. It’s everything. We weren’t careful. We didn’t give a damn about the possibility of this,” I point at the plus sign again. “I didn’t consider it. Everything was so intense, so out of control and so wonderful at the same time.”
“Are you going to tell them?”
“I’m not sure. I’m not even sure what’s left of this relationship, if I can even call it that. I need some time to think things through, to process it.”
Jamie’s phone pings. He checks it, and I notice the frown darkening his face.
“What is it?” I ask, almost in a panic. “Not another event cancellation, I hope.”
“No, no, it’s Asher.”
“What does he want?”
“He just wanted to check up on you, actually. He’s letting me know that he and his brothers might not be able to answer any calls and texts for the next few hours. They’re at the hospital. Their dad had a heart attack. It’s bad.”
My throat tightens. I don’t have to imagine what they’re going through because I know.
“You lost your parents when you were just a kid, didn’t you?” Jamie asks, his voice low and soft as he gives me a concerned look.
“Then my aunt, yes.”
“Maybe now is a good time to put the whole Sheila nonsense to rest, at least for a while and—”
“Go there, yes,” I reply, already up and headed for the bathroom.