Chapter 19 Confession
NINETEEN
CONFESSION
LUCY
He takes a step toward me. I scoot back, hitting the couch in my hurry to get away from him. His jaw tightens, but he stops his approach.
“Luce… Lucy.” He keeps his tone gentled, though there’s a torrent of emotion going on behind his gaze.
“You have to understand. In another life, in another time… I would’ve been your husband.
You would never have left with Julian to protect me.
You would’ve stayed, and I could’ve protected you from him. ”
Him.
It’s in the way that he says that that answers the suspicion I’ve had from the moment I looked up Julian Fairchild’s photo online. “Dark hair. Dark eyes… maybe I’m reaching, but is he the man that was with me at the Stanton?”
Dallas’s eyes dart to the side, and I know I’m right.
“He was, wasn’t he? My husband was the man I was with the night before. And then, the next morning—”
“He pushed you,” Dallas bites out. “Is that what you want to hear, baby? That the man you married instead of me decided you were a liability and, just like every cruel fucker in the Order, he wasn’t going to do divorce.
Oh, no. Lucy was going to have an accident, and when she jumped, everyone would call it a suicide.
Only you didn’t die. Thank fucking God, you didn’t, but you forgot everything, and maybe that was a blessing because then…
I could be your husband. The one you need. The one you deserve.”
He never moved. He never rose his voice as he broke. He just stood in place, staring at me, his eyes pleading while his hands form fists at his side.
And I sit there, stunned, staring back at him.
Well, Dr. Brannigan was right in one regard. Don’t ask questions unless you want the answer…
In an instant, my mind flashes—
There’s an open window, a cool morning breeze, and a silhouette. A rough voice in my ear. An even rougher hand on my arm. A feeling of disgust warring with determination as I hold my phone in my hand, telling him that I’m not waiting anymore, that I’ve dialed the number, that I’m calling—
I lean forward, blocking out the vision that—like my nightmares—is a memory. “How do you know that? You weren’t there… you couldn’t have been. So how do you know?”
Dallas doesn’t answer. He just looks at me, as though that is the answer.
And, suddenly, I understand. If I couldn’t tell him what happened in that hotel room, and the cops have no fucking clue, there’s only one person who could confess what he’d done.
That doesn’t stop me from asking again, “How do you know that, Dallas?”
Still nothing.
My voice rises. “How do you know?”
His continued silence confirms everything, but he goes one step further as he says in a cold voice: “It doesn’t matter. He can never hurt you again.”
So that’s why he was free to play the part of my husband. Because he got rid of the real one.
“When?”
Dallas cocks his head, a dare in the slight curve to his lips. “When I had to leave you with Haven.”
He said it was a job. I give a hollow laugh, not because the real Julian is dead, but because it was Dallas who killed him. “Is that what you do?”
“What?”
“Tell me, Dallas. Is that what being the King of the Order means?”
Now that? That gets a reaction as he jerks slightly, his eyes flashing. “Where did you—”
“I didn’t just find my wedding announcement in the Order archives,” I confess. “There was a mention of the King and he had the same name as you. Collins. I looked it up and there was your picture, announcing you as the new King the June before last.”
Right after his father died.
I didn’t have time to look up a photo of Jack—not when I was too preoccupied by what I found when I searched Dallas’s name—but now…
I look at Dallas. I mean, really look at him.
I push aside my feelings for him—as conflicted as I am, I love him and I hate him, but I undoubtedly love him more—and pick apart his features.
His green eyes. The sharp edge of his jaw.
The slope of his nose. His sandy brown hair with hints of gold.
Add twenty years, whiten the teeth to a commercial sheen, turn the curls straight and have a little work down—not much, just enough to get rid of the hard lines and soft wrinkles—and that’s the third man in my most recurring nightmare, the one when my dad sits by as the man with the predator’s smile makes arrangements for me to marry…
Julian.
“Your father was King before you. That’s what the website said.
You told me that you inherited everything from him.
” I wave my hand around. “This penthouse. That office. The top dog position in your stupid secret society. Let me ask you, Dallas… did he look like you? Little older, little plastic, with white teeth and green eyes? An attitude like we were all peons and he expected us to do what we were told or else?”
Or else he’ll kill you.
Dallas freezes. “You saw a picture of Jack?”
Jack. That’s right. Jack Collins, the man who ‘blessed’ my marriage to Julian. “No. I didn’t have the chance.”
His brow furrows. “So how do you—”
I let out a short laugh. “I thought they were nightmares. These things I keep seeing up here.” I tap my temple.
“But I knew one of those guys was my dad. Now I know one was my husband. You… I’ve seen you in my mind, but I’ve also seen a man who looks enough like you that I can’t believe I didn’t put two and two together yet.
They’re not nightmares, are they? They’re my memories. ”
“You remember?”
“A little,” I admit. “I remember how he came to my house, told me that, if I didn’t end things with you…” My words trail off. End things with Dallas. That’s right. I married Julian to save Dallas. To protect Dallas.
Because I loved Dallas.
I shake my head. It doesn’t matter. Five years ago, that Lucy Wright loved him enough to sacrifice her freedom and her future for his.
Now I know Jack is dead, Julian has to be, my dad is nowhere to be found, and the one man I was willing to do anything for has been lying to me for a month because he…
He…
He wants to be my husband.
He wants to be mine.
My stomach jolts. Maybe… maybe this is right.
Yeah, I’m pissed that he lied to me, but with my memories a black hole, maybe it was the best thing he could do.
Why would I want to remember the years I spent as another man’s wife?
Especially when he tried to kill me? Despite all of the lies, I have no trouble believing that; my limited memories, plus the evidence of who was there that night, makes it so that I don’t doubt that part at all.
My amnesia shielded me from all of that the same way Dallas immediately slipped into the role he’s wanted all along.
Because he wants me.
“Dallas—”
His name is barely out of my mouth before he moves. There’s that wild look in his eyes again as he quickly closes the gap between us. His hands go to my upper arms, hefting me off of the couch, setting me down easily on my feet.
He’s squeezing me, though, and it hurts.
“What are you—”
“You remember,” he barks out, not quite rattling me, but it’s close. “How much do you remember?”
If this conversation happened this morning, I would’ve thought there would be relief on his end that I was finally recovering. But that was this morning, before I visited his office. Now? There’s an edge of anger to his tone, warring with something else I can’t quite name.
I quail under the weight of his stare. “Not a lot. I get flashes here or there, mostly when I’m sleeping. Like, I remember the day I left. How much I didn’t want to, and how I hated having to say goodbye—”
His composure cracks even further. At first, I think it’s because he’s reliving that day with even more recollection that I can, but then he thins his lips and says, “And my mom? What about her? What did your precious Julian mean when he said you knew what happened to her?”
I have no fucking idea what he’s talking about.
My mom left town after a divorce. Dallas made it clear that the topic of his mother was off-limits.
I only know that, like his dad, she is dead.
And ‘precious Julian’? If he thinks I wanted to be married to that monster, he has another think coming.
I mean, he obviously hated that man enough that he killed him.
Julian tried to kill me. Why would he be my precious anything?
“What? I don’t... I don’t know.”
This time, he does shake my arm, and I yelp.
“Dallas… you’re hurting me.”
For a moment, the look on his face tells me that he just doesn’t give a shit about that. It only lasts a moment, though, before his expression is replaced with one of horror and he releases me so quickly, it’s like his palms burn to touch my skin.
I take a few hurried steps away from him, closer to the door leading out of the living room in case I need to get even further away.
He drags his hand over his face. “Lucy… Luce, baby. I’m sorry.” He should be. “I didn’t mean to lose my shit with you. You know I didn’t.”
See, now, that’s the problem. After that outburst, I’m not so sure I know him at all. Remembering all of his lies… I don’t know if I ever did.
“You lied to me.”
My whisper is soft, but the accusation is loud.
He has the decency to look ashamed. “Because I was protecting you.”
“You pretended to be my husband.”
“I needed you safe. I needed you with me.”
“You killed my husband,” I remind him.
“He tried to murder you.”
Says Dallas, and while I want to believe him, he should’ve told me long before now what was going on. “So? You decided I didn’t deserve to know the truth. You kept me in the dark. Do you know how that feels?”
His voice drops. “You weren’t ready for the truth.”
A bitter laugh escapes me. “It would’ve been better than the lies, I tell you that much.”
Silence fills the room after that. I wrap my arms around myself, seeking the comfort that I would’ve gone to Dallas for before, but that I can’t now. “I don’t even know who you are. Not really.”
His face tightens. “Yes. You do.”