CHAPTER FIFTEEN – LILY #2
I smirk at the image, but then I’m grinning as the real thing hurtles down the stairs and throws himself into my arms. It’s a tighter hug than usual, and when he finally pulls away, I realize why. “Where’s your sling, Leo? Dr. Burns said you need to wear it over the weekend.”
“But I don’t need it anymore,” he whines, flapping his arm with convincing vigor. “Besides, Ellis said he’s taking me fishing today, and I can’t do that with only one arm!”
“You definitely can,” Ellis chides before I get a chance to argue. “You’ll sit back and relax while I row, and then when we’re set up, I’ll keep watch in case you hook a big one and need a hand pulling it in.”
“Ugh!” Leo’s entire body collapses in defeat, but then his eyes light up, bouncing between Ellis and Logan. “Okay, but it’s gonna be a huge fish, so both my dads should come and help.”
Now it’s the guys exchanging glances, and then Logan chuckles as he reaches out to ruffle Leo’s hair. “Sounds like fun, bud.”
“Woo-hoo!” Leo zips back up the stairs - hopefully to retrieve his sling - while the guys watch with nearly identical expressions of affection. It makes my heart skip with happiness, especially when Logan turns to Ellis with a cocked brow. “I’m cool. Are you cool?”
“Very cool,” Ellis confirms, and they fist bump as they head into the kitchen, already debating the best way to make blueberry pancakes.
When their bickering over the merits of melted butter versus maple syrup doesn’t escalate, I leave them to it, heading up the stairs with a new spring in my step.
I’m still smiling as I enter the bathroom, only to find Otley standing by the tub with a wicker basket hanging over his arm.
He’s in the process of unloading bath products on the little ledge above the tub, and it’s such an incongruous sight, I’m tempted to rub my eyes to make sure I’m not dreaming.
“Can I help you, Mr. James?”
I’m mostly teasing, but he turns so abruptly, he knocks a bottle of bath wash on the floor. When I bend down to grab it, I note that its label is in French and the packaging is glossy and expensive. It’s definitely not something he picked up at the grocery store in town.
“I was just leaving you a few things that are recommended as healing aids. Tris swears by that one.” He nods to the bottle in my hand, his brow furrowing as he pushes his glasses up his nose. “Not that he has a lot of injuries, but he’s fussy about what he puts on his skin.”
I bite my lip, amused to see Otley so flustered.
Cool, calm, and collected might as well be monogrammed on his expensive suit pockets.
“Well, he says you’re fussy about what you put in your stomach.
You know, you really don’t need to get food flown in, Otley.
Tell me what you like and as long as it’s hearty country cooking that uses a lot of root vegetables, we’re all set. ”
“You’re teasing me,” he murmurs, his lips curling up a notch.
“A little. I don’t want to get in the way of your plans to transform the Knotty Falls dining scene, but we probably know more about Michelin tires than stars.”
“Why can’t you have both?”
“Well, the risotto was definitely worth those air miles you used to get it here,” I tell him as I peek into his basket.
“Ooh, is that the Silky Vanilla Honey Soak from House of Omega? I read about it in Omega Fair.” I lift the jar reverently from the basket, but as I glance up at Otley, I find his pupils blown and his nostrils flared.
His gaze drifts over my face, but as he brushes my hair back over my shoulder, his scent is more sour cherries than sweet.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. “You smell sad or something.”
“Not sad,” he counters, his eyes shadowed as he studies the bite mark on my throat. “Regretful.”
“That’s a shame,” I tell him softly, then tilt my head towards the basket. “But the good thing about regrets is that you can soak them away in expensive bath products.”
I expect him to flash me another of those rare Otley smiles, but his lips tighten. “Not this one,” he says grimly. “I’m sorry I misled you back in LA. I never should’ve let my trust issues get in the way.”
He told me as much before, but his voice is now tinged with shame, and I take a step back, placing the bath soak on the counter so I can give him my full attention. “Why did you? I was completely honest with you about who I was.”
“I know.” He curses softly, pushing his glasses up his nose in a move I’m starting to realize is a nervous habit, just like Ellis always cups the back of his neck.
It’s surprisingly endearing to see this glimpse of vulnerability, but I don’t let myself soften towards him as he says, “At first, I told myself I was protecting Ellis. In less than one weekend, he was completely swept off his feet. He was talking about claiming bites and having your kids when a week before he was obsessed with skydiving in S?o Paulo and bull running in Pamplona.”
I nod, but there’s no denying the lump that’s growing in my throat. “We were young,” I tell him. “Before we met, I wasn’t thinking beyond enjoying my vacation and then going home to get ready for college.”
He gives me a soft nod. “I know. It’s just that I’ve always been Ellis’ voice of reason. I convinced myself that we needed to maintain some distance, at least until after your heat.”
“I suppose that’s fair,” I say with a sigh. There’s no denying the events of that weekend left me with trust issues of my own, but for most of my heat, I was only one version of myself. A horny, needy omega who would do anything to keep her scent matches in her thrall.
“It wasn’t fair,” he says grimly, rubbing at his face and knocking his glasses askew.
“I rewarded your honesty with distrust. I could blame it on the way I was raised – my family drummed it into me that I always needed to be on guard, and that no motive was ever as pure as people wanted you to believe it was. But this is all on me. Distrust and paranoia are choices, and I should have listened to my heart instead of my head.”
I take a moment just to breathe through the feelings coursing through me.
I’ve waited a long time for an explanation from the guys, but I never thought it would pull at my heartstrings like this.
“That’s sometimes hard to do.” I might not have had a traditional childhood, but I never doubted that Rosie wanted what was best for me.
“I’m sorry they didn’t support you more. ”
“It was a long time ago, but it’s still…
frustrating. I don’t speak with them anymore, but for years I could still hear their warnings in my head.
” He taps his temple, and for a moment he looks like he’s lost in bad memories, but then he lists his head, his eyes searing into mine.
“The thing is, when we met you, I knew it was going to change everything. I looked at Ellis, and that’s how I felt – completely, totally swept up in the possibilities.
It was so different to my parents’ bleak view of the world, I panicked.
I told myself I just needed a little more time to make sure. ..”
“That I wasn’t a gold-digging hick?”
He lurches back, his eyes wide behind his glasses. “What? No! Why would you think that?” If he sounded ashamed before, now his voice is wrecked, his hands gripping my shoulders. “Lily, if I made you feel that way, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Not you,” I mutter, staring at the frown lines around his mouth.
Half-buried memories are surging back to the surface, and I don’t want him to see their reflection in my eyes.
“When I came out of the bedroom looking for you, Crest was waiting in the suite. He said some things, and when I tried to defend myself, he accused me of targeting you at the party. I think he planted some accelerants in my purse, so he had proof that I tried to trap you in a heat. I was one of many desperate girls, he claimed, all trying to shoot their shot.” I grimace at how his accusations make me feel, even after all these years.
“He told me that you’d called him to smooth things over and get me on a plane without any fuss… ”
“Stop.” Otley grips my shoulders so tightly, I wince, and he steps back with a groan. He rakes one hand through his hair, the other balled into a fist at his side. “I’m sorry, but I can’t listen to that without wanting to punch a hole in something.”
I give a tight nod, because I know exactly how he feels. “It was pretty hard to hear when I still had your scent on my skin.”
“Jesus. But you have to know it’s all lies.
Every fucking word of it.” His hands are still balled into fists, but now they rest on either side of me, pressing down on the bathroom counter.
He’s so close I can see the dark flecks in his gray eyes, his chest rising and falling like he can’t get enough air into his lungs.
“Crest wanted you to believe that bullshit because he knew the same thing I did. He knew that we were yours, Lily, and nothing would ever have the same hold over us as you did. You owned us - body and soul.”
I can’t stop my heart from racing as his words wash over me.
They’re so much more than what I hoped for when I finally found the courage to write to Crest and beg for their contact details.
For months I’d waited for an answering letter, butterflies beating in my chest every time the phone rang.
In the depths of my heart, I wanted to believe every word they’d whispered to me, and that Crest was just a nightmare I’d dreamed up.
But as the months turned into years, I eventually had to accept I was on my own.
Despite my girlish dreams, not all beds are made of roses, even if I never could quite get the memory of their scent off my skin.
“I accept that you’ve moved on,” Otley says quietly. “But I want you to know that you still smell like ours. Even with Logan’s mark on your throat, and Tristan’s bond in my heart, every instinct says that we belong together.”