Chapter Forty
“T his woman is the baddest bitch I’ve ever known,” Dylan announced ten days later, bursting into Mum’s room with coffees and cider donuts.
I sat at my mother’s side, stroking her hair. It had been over a week since they removed the G-tube and IV hydration, and she was still very much alive and even urinated yesterday. Dr. Fields was puzzled but assured me she wasn’t suffering.
“Ten days without a feeding tube. I mean…wow.” Cal plucked the coffees from their holder, squinting at the names on them and handing me my oat milk cinnamon latte. “It’s gotta be some kind of record, right?”
“It’s surreal to actively wait for your parent to pass away.” I took a sip of my coffee. “I’ll need to extend my leave from work.”
“You don’t owe anyone an explanation.” Dylan plopped on a small blue couch in the corner of the room, pulling her legs into a crisscross. “You are fucking your boss.”
Enzo stood by the door, reading a K-drama on his phone. Well, he claimed it was a book. To me, it looked like straight-up manga porn. “Tsk. Always a lady.”
“You got a problem with my language?” Dylan whirled sideways, pointing at him. “Keep your judgment to yourself, and fuck the patriarchy.”
“What a coincidence. My middle name is Patriarchy.” Enzo smirked. “Wanna go somewhere private?”
“She’s happily married.” I wagged a finger at him. “Don’t flirt.”
“He can flirt, but he’s not getting any,” Dylan announced. “I did get him coffee, though.”
“You don’t know how I take my coffee.” Enzo’s grin broadened. He was letting more of his personality slip past the exterior.
“Okay, guys? We’re in the presence of a spirit who’s currently transitioning to a higher place.” Cal rubbed my back in circles, glaring between them accusingly.
“Her spirit ain’t going nowhere.” Dylan took a pull of her coffee. “This woman is stronger than all of us combined.”
I fluffed Mum’s pillow behind her, checked that her fuzzy socks were pulled up, and put another coat of lip balm on her dry lips. “This can’t be comfortable for her.”
I’d already spoken to a funeral home in Wimbledon. Everything was ready. And as horrible as it sounded, so was I. I had barely left my mother’s side since Dr. Fields took out her tubes. Only briefly to sleep at home. I slept in Tate’s room but didn’t share her condition with him. He didn’t ask.
“Is there any way to accelerate the procedure?” Cal asked softly.
Dylan threw Enzo a sassy look. “Why don’t we ask him? He’s the expert.”
“Stop picking a fight with my bodyguard,” I reprimanded my friend. “And no, unfortunately, there isn’t much we can do. She wasn’t supposed to…last this long.”
Dylan chewed on her lower lip, contemplating.
I turned to them. “This can’t go for much longer, can it? I mean, how long can you last without any food or liquids?”
Cal checked on her phone. “Eight to twelve weeks, according to Google.”
“Jesus Christ.” I massaged my temples. “Mum is stubborn. I’m sure she’ll wait until the very last minute.”
“What’s her full name?” Dylan’s thumbs flew over her phone screen. “I’ll ask my mother to pray. She’s a devout Catholic. Super tight with God.”
“How do you know?” I smiled.
“She prayed I’d find a man who’d love me exactly the way I am, and I did. That must be higher intervention.”
I gave her my mother’s full name.
“That’s not a bad idea.” Cal flashed a tender smile. “We do need a miracle.”
I dug the bases of my palms into my eye sockets. “What we need is an exorcist.”
“That’s unnecessarily harsh. I just got here.” Tate’s voice made me jump out of my skin. He strode through the door, holding bags of takeout.
Blasé and draped in his Kiton work suit, no one would guess the same man had taken five lives over the past four months.
“I was talking about my mother.” Heat spread across my cheeks. “She is comatose.”
Dylan and Cal exchanged confused looks, surprised he didn’t already know.
He put the takeout down on a credenza. It was Cuban; I could tell by the smell of ropa vieja, lechon asado, and yuca con mojo. Some of Mum’s favorites. He walked over to me and placed a kiss on my forehead. “Why an exorcist?”
Worming out of his embrace, I cleared my throat. “We disconnected her from her feeding tubes ten days ago, but she’s still hanging on.”
Tate’s gaze dragged along my mother’s ashen face. Anger sizzled in my veins. Couldn’t he at least fake concern? I was his wife. The least he could do was pretend to give a crap.
Tate jerked his chin once. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“I haven’t asked for your help,” I bit out. “Trust me, I know you wouldn’t mind relieving her of her existence.”
I immediately regretted my words. Did I just out my husband as a murderer?
“I mean…because you’re a first-rate arsehole,” I mumbled.
Not a muscle in Tate’s face moved. “Clearly.”
“Okay, I know this is bad timing but…” Dylan picked up her bag, checking her wristwatch. “I have to go study.” She walked over to give me a hug. “Call me if you need anything.”
“Thank you.”
“I need to pick Serafina and Gravity up from preschool.” Cal embraced me quickly, suddenly eager to leave too. “Please let me know if there are any updates. Row will drop by again with food for you and the staff.”
“That’s so generous of you both, Cal.”
“Enzo.” My husband turned to my bodyguard. “Get out.”
“Can’t. I’m on the job.” Enzo shrugged.
“You’ll have no job if you don’t obey me,” Tate clarified. “I am perfectly capable of protecting my wife.”
“She’s not the one in need of protection. You, on the other hand, look like you’re about to get ripped a new one.”
Tate gave him a stare that’d make Satan shrivel under a rock.
“Whatever. I still need to catch up on episode four hundred and twelve on my totally-not-porn manga story.” Enzo shrugged, fishing for the phone in his pocket. “I’m wearing green to your funeral, by the way.”
“That’s my least favorite color.”
“I know.” He left the room.
Just the three of us remained in the room: Tate, my mother, and me. I refluffed her pillow for the hundredth time. Tate’s gaze seared the back of my neck.
“You didn’t tell me your mother was comatose.”
“You didn’t ask.” I picked up my coffee. Anger bubbled up in my stomach like bile. “In fact, you’ve never once asked about my mother since we got married.”
“Not because I don’t care.”
“Oh no?” I turned to look at him skeptically.
“No.” His eyes bore into mine.
“Then why?”
“Because I was too fucking terrified what the answer meant for us . I’ve shared my deepest, darkest secrets with you,” Tate said slowly. “And you didn’t even tell me how dire your mother’s condition is?”
For the first time since I’d known him, he looked genuinely hurt. Not irritated. Not inconvenienced. Hurt . It gave me a glimpse of Tate as a child. Gray, glittering eyes that refused to blink from fear of shedding a tear. And lips pressed together from fear a scream would escape.
“What do you want me to say, Tate?” I sighed. “I told you I was falling in love with you, and in return, you wagged your finger at me, gave me the silent treatment, and then fucked me in the ass.”
Tate glanced at my mother, elevating an eyebrow.
I rolled my eyes. “She can’t hear us.”
“ I can,” he countered. “And what you just said was total bullshit.”
“Excuse me?”
“ You ran away.” Tate pointed at me. “As usual. And I chased, also as usual. I have spent the better half of this decade following you like a lovesick puppy. Yes, you told me you were falling for me, but those are just words .”
“Just words?” I spluttered, eyes nearly bugging out of their sockets.
“Just words.” His nostrils flared, a thick vein pulsating in his temple. “I chased you. I sheltered you. I moved fucking oceans and continents to get your mother a spot in the experimental program. I visited her. Often. I read to her, because I knew it was important to you.”
The memory of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland assaulted my mind. He was telling the truth.
“I killed for you.” His lips twisted around the confession. “And I’d do it all over again without a second thought. Killing. Dying. Stealing. Torturing. There is not a red line in this world I wouldn’t cross for you.”
The confessions were ripped from his mouth and thrown at my feet like a sacrifice at an altar.
“You are so fixated with love as a concept.” He shook his head. “You have completely forgotten what it looks like.”
“If you love me,” I said quietly, “stop the war with Callaghan. Put me first.”
“Just because you said those fucking words doesn’t mean I care any less than you do. By the way.” He ignored my words, rummaging through his front pocket, producing something small and shiny. He tossed it to me. I caught it between my palms, uncurling my fingers.
I stopped breathing altogether. Something lodged inside my throat, and I was pretty sure it was my heart.
“But how…why…”
“I found this shell the week I finished off Moore.”
A perfect Scaphella junonia shell bracelet was in my palm The same one I thought I’d lost. Only shinier, prettier, the bracelet now studded with tiny, glittery pink diamonds.
“Flew to Jamaica—same beach you and your family went to—to find an identical shell.”
My eyes snapped up to his face. “This is not the original bracelet?”
He shook his head. “It was lost on the way to the coroner’s office. I checked.”
“So how did you—”
“I knelt down in the sand like a fucking toddler and looked for a similar seashell. Took seven hours.”
“How did you remember exactly what it looked like?” The shell was a dead ringer to the one I’d had.
“Because I remember every fucking thing about you, Gia.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, draping the bracelet over my wrist. He stepped forward to help me clasp it.
I wasn’t quite ready to apologize for not keeping him updated on my mother’s condition, but I wasn’t livid with him anymore.
The man flew to Jamaica and searched its beaches to find me a seashell.
To imagine him crouching in his suit on the loose white sand, burying his fingers in it to fish for one of the rarest shells in the world, made me feel fuzzy.
As though reading my mind, Tate grumbled, “And yes, I wore a suit.”
“God.” I placed a hand on his cheek, biting down on a smile. “Now Cal and Dylan think our marriage is a mess.”
“Our marriage is a mess.” He stared at me incredulously.
“I know.” I laughed tiredly. “But…it’s not bad all the time. It’s just that their relationships are so… normal . They’re perfectly in tune with their husbands.”
“It hasn’t always been like this.” Tate brushed my cheeks with his thumbs, cupping my face.
“I remember when Calla ran away from Row five hundred times because she was scared of her own shadow. Rhyland and Dylan alternated between boning and trying to kill one another publicly. Relationships are messy. It takes time to find your groove.”
“What a profound observation.” I curled my arms around his waist, drawing him close.
“Thanks. I stole it from a Hallmark movie.”
“Tatum Blackthorn, I’d bet every penny to my name you’ve never watched a Hallmark film.”
“Please don’t do that. We have a joint account, and you’d lose.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “I did, once, while flying commercial. Only one channel was available due to a technical problem. Everyone on the plane had to watch it. It’s what drove me to make enough money to buy my own plane.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. It was the first smile I had on my face since we took Mum off her tubes.
“Also, to set the record straight, you were the one to suggest anal.” He stole another peck, this time on my lips.
“You literally asked me!” I swatted his chest.
“Because you literally pushed that sweet little asshole onto my dick,” he retorted. “I was being polite. Contrary to popular belief, I take social cues well.”
Nothing was right between us. Nothing but the notion we needed each other in this fucked-up, toxic way. And Tate was right—the blame didn’t sit squarely on him. I’d been dodging, avoiding, and omitting too.
“Oh yeah?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah.”
“Then shut up and kiss me.”