Chapter 34
Cormac
Scarlett sits in my kitchen like she’s always lived here. She’s comfortable barefoot, no makeup, and hair piled up on her head. And I can’t stop thinking about the nightgown she wore last night.
None of this should affect me, but it does.
“We need to get used to this so you can focus on finishing this semester and get a jump on Spring. You’ll need a hospital rotation.”
God, I wouldn’t want to go through medical student rotations, even if someone paid me with blowjobs. And it’s looking like those are out of my future.
Or…are they?
I’ll be sleeping next to her every night. I want her so badly, I dream about it. I might as well be sleeping next to a needle filled with drugs or a bottle of pills.
Scarlett sips her coffee. “Funny how this marriage is keeping me in school, and now I’ll have all this work.”
“I hate that you were forced into this,” I grumble.
She smiles. “But look what I’m getting?”
When I glance up, the way her eyes hold mine makes me think she means me. And I guess she does. She got me. My commitment to her. Just not my body. Or my love, because I’ve never felt that for a woman before.
“You’re getting what you deserve,” I say to deflect. “A chance to finish school and be a doctor.”
“I know, I know.” Scarlett crumbles up the wax paper from the breakfast sandwich after she devoured it. “Hey, we didn’t celebrate yesterday. We got married!”
“Yeah, I was there.” I watch her rush off to the bedroom.
Lost in my thoughts, I see her come back to the kitchen with a bottle of champagne.
“Where did you get that?” I ask, horrified.
“From my apartment.” She twists the wire from the cork. “I wasn’t going to leave it there.”
I stare at her, my heart pounding.
Pop!
“Whoa,” she says and brings it to the sink. “Where are your flutes?”
I wince. She doesn’t know I’m in recovery.
“Oh, I get it.” She puts down the bottle.
Does she get it? Just like that? That I don’t drink?
“You’re a guy. You don’t have flutes.” She puts her hands on her curvy hips. “A wine glass? A beer glass?”
Throat vibrating, I turn and amble into the living room. Telling her about my drug and alcohol problem was part of this. I didn’t think about how long it would take. Or if I should have mentioned that on the way to see her father yesterday.
“Cormac?” She’s there in the living room, looking up at me with hooded, tired eyes full of want and something that feels dangerously like trust.
I lean in close enough to feel her breath on my mouth. But I don’t kiss her.
I can’t.
“Did I do something wrong?” she squeaks. “If I got too comfortable here too soon—”
“Not at all. I did all of this to help you. And not just because I’m a nice guy, because I’m not. I have a lot to make up for.” I look down, shaking, hoping I can get the words out without bawling like an infant.
“What do you mean?” She strokes my jaw and lifts my head until our eyes are locked.
In that moment, I’m grounded like I’ve never felt before.
“I’m an addict, Scarlett.” The words just come out easily.
She freezes.
“I got clean about a year ago. But before that, I was living in Las Vegas using anything I could get my hands on to get high,” I go on quietly.
“Booze. Pills. Pot. Whatever I could get cheap because I went broke. Darragh took control of my trust and cut me off. I started selling and working cons on the strip. I—” My jaw locks.
I force myself to keep talking. “I didn’t ask for help from my family.
Not because I didn’t think they’d step in.
I didn’t want them to see what I’d become. ”
Her breath catches. “Cormac…”
“Then I got into a car accident. The cops found drugs. I was arrested.” A bitter laugh slips out. “Darragh got a call, and next, a fancy L.A. lawyer flew in and got me remanded to rehab in California.”
She stares, hungry for more of the story. “Remanded? You didn’t go willingly?”
“No. And none of what I told you is the worst part. Scarlett, I had a girlfriend at the time.” I look away, throat tight.
“It started casually. She was running from something. And I was her port in the storm. The fun didn’t last long.
The drugs we were doing took hold of us.
I didn’t treat her well. We lived like bums. But we didn’t have any choice.
I wasn’t talking to my brother. We were trapped. ”
“Cornered,” Scarlett whispers.
I’m slightly grateful that she didn’t guess this was my hidden past. That I don’t wear any of this on my skin anymore.
“The hardest part of my recovery, and I don’t just mean getting clean from drugs, was dealing with the guilt of what I did to…her. That’s not how I was raised. That’s not who I was. Deep inside.”
“You’re not the person now,” she says, defending me.
“I spiraled. Maybe because she needed me and I couldn’t take the pressure.” I scrub a hand down the back of my neck.
“I hear what you’re saying.” She keeps stroking my arm. “You’ll just have to figure out that I don’t feel trapped. Or cornered. You’re helping me out, so I can finish medical school. We’re not two junkies fighting over a can of cat food.”
I grimace, grateful it never got to that with Ana. “You make a good point. I want everything I told you to sink in.”
We’re at an impasse right now, and I don’t know if I said too much.
I can’t tell her that my pregnant girlfriend at the time is now my sister-in-law. Or that Darragh bailed her out and let me rot in a cell for a while to teach me a lesson.
I also can’t tell Scarlett I broke out of rehab to warn Ana that her father’s enemies were coming for her. To the place I told them she was. The biggest miscalculation of my life.
And I also don’t tell my new wife that two weeks later, Ana gave birth to my son. While I was in a motel, dirty and going through painful withdrawal symptoms. That’s all too dark and too much to handle for day one of marriage.
“You need to focus on school,” I stress to Scarlett. “On your future. I won’t be the thing that takes you down.”
Then she leans in and kisses me. God help me, I let her. It’s gentle and sweet. But I’m detonating inside, a thousand alarms going off at once.
I pull back, my hands grasping hers so she can’t touch me anymore. “No,” I breathe. “We can’t. I can’t. Not like this.”
“Okay.” She nods, her throat trembling. “Will I meet your family?”
I snort. “I have six brothers and one sister. And most of them have kids. Do you even have the space in your memory to remember their names? You had to label my kitchen cabinets.”
She groans. “Okay, fair.”
I lean in and kiss her forehead.
She blinks up. “Why do you do that?”
“It’s all I can give you,” I say quietly. “But it’s to remind you that I care. And that you’re mine. Make no mistake—” I lower my voice. “You are mine, little Ford.”
She bites her lip, grinning. “I like that.”
Of course she does.
We stare for a moment, and then she steps back. “I’m going to go see my father. Alone.”
I immediately think that’s a bad idea. Ford can pull a fast one if I’m not there. But I have to trust that she can’t be bullied into an annulment.
Nodding, I say, “Let me call you a car. That man in your apartment last night is a snake. I have no idea what Pierce or his father is planning for you. Please, I need you to not fight me when I want to keep you safe.”
She gives a visible swallow. “I understand. What about school?”
“I’ll go with you every day.” I reach out and hold her hand. “I’ll also figure out who gave Pierce the codes and get them changed so he can’t get back on the property.”
“His name alone will get him access.”
“Hey, my name has some power, too.”
She blinks. “Is that my name now, too? How does that work?”
I take a breath. “When we get the license, we’ll see if that officiant changed your name. If he did…and you want to keep your name, I’ll have it changed back.”
A stare stretches between us.
“Really?” she says, quietly.
“Yes. If you want to keep Ford, I respect that.”
“I’ll think about it.” She rocks on her heels.
Later in the afternoon, I’m still hungover from the earthquake my life took yesterday, and I’m ready for the aftershocks of telling Darragh the news.
I pay him a surprise visit at his medical practice, where Ana told me he was spending a Saturday afternoon catching up on paperwork.
“Hey.” He looks up from a patient file on his desk. “This is a surprise.”
“I need to tell you something,” I say and take a seat across from him.
“Nothing good ever follows that sentence,” he answers, shaking his head.
“This time it is.” I tap his nameplate with nervous fingers. “I’m married.”
He stares at me, jaw dropped. “What? To who? You didn’t mention any dates you’ve been on.”
“Because I haven’t been on any dates.” I hesitate for only half a second. “I married Scarlett.”
His brows furrow. “Scarlett who?”
Oh, how I wanted him to figure it out.
“Scarlett Ford.”
Darragh stares again, wondering if he heard right.
“Bradley Ford’s daughter?” he chokes out through clenched teeth.
“That’s the one. She’s a third year in my class.”
“She’s your student?”
I nod.
Darragh presses fingers into his temples. “Cormac. Jesus Christ, you can’t marry a student.”
“I already did. And it’s not what you think,” I snap to stop him from whatever horrific accusations he’ll start shooting my way.
“It’s a marriage of convenience. Paper only.
She used to date Pierce Langston. That little prick torpedoed her life yesterday.
Got her loan called in and kicked out of her apartment.
All so she can run back to him and be his trophy wife.
He doesn’t want her to be a doctor. This protects her from that scumbag.
And it gives me the relationship Ford requires of his professors. ”
Darragh lets out a humorless laugh. “You want to explain to me how marrying Bradley Ford’s daughter, a student, will get you anything other than a termination letter? And possibly two broken legs when he runs you over with his car?”
“Bradley conspired with Pierce behind Scarlett’s back,” I fill him in more on the events of yesterday. “When I shamed Ford, he called an officiant himself.”
Darragh blinks. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I’m not. Either way, I had him cornered. Brad never said I couldn’t marry his daughter. I read that employment agreement carefully. It didn’t say I couldn’t marry a student.” I sit back. “Besides, the semester is almost over.”
“You trapped Ford with a technicality?”
“Exactly.”
“I hoped if you were actually going to do this, it would be with someone you at least wanted.” Darragh’s voice comes out low. “Not out of obligation or guilt.”
We make harsh eye contact, and I know what he means by that.
“It isn’t guilt.” My temper flares. “I… I care about her.”
“How?”
“I actually met her before I got the job. We spent one night together.”
That stops my brother’s breathing. “Oh my God. Then it’s not just for convenience.”
I lean on the desk. “The marriage helps us both. She’s got years of school ahead of her. And I’m still…getting my shit together. We both agreed the marriage would be temporary and platonic.”
“Do you know how many muscles in your face twitched saying all that?” He narrows his eyes at me. “And what do you mean by temporary?”
“You let me worry about that part.” Saying more might set something in motion I’m not prepared to confront.
Darragh studies me with softer eyes. “Does she even know about J.P.?”
I swallow hard. “No.”
He inhales sharply. “Cormac…that’s not sustainable.”
“One thing at a time,” I mutter. “After the semester, and when things are quiet, I’ll tell her.”
Darragh nods slowly. The savior twin mask is coming down.
“Okay,” he finally says. “I appreciate you being a hero for her. But this isn’t the arrangement I imagined if you were going to be an active father to my son.”
“My son,” I correct quietly before I can stop myself.
“Fine,” he mutters. “Our son.”
We stare, our fragile truce on thin ice.
“You could have told Brad to wait so I could be there for your wedding,” Darragh scoffs.
I fold my arms. “You didn’t wait for me when you married Ana.”
“Alexei Koslov doesn’t like waiting.” Darragh lowers his glasses, reminding me that he and Lachlan had to talk Ana’s father out of killing me.
Darragh stone-faced lied and told the Bratva pakhan that he got Ana pregnant. But Koslov already knew the child was mine.
I wasn’t too upset to be locked up in Dunbar that day.