Chapter 40
40
LINCOLN
I slam the car door of my black Porsche and look up at my father’s house. Darkness. No life to be seen, no cars, just one big nine-bedroom mansion looming over me.
I walk down the drive to my house at the back of the estate.
With every crunchy footstep closer down the gravel drive to my house, I start to feel better. I needed fresh air, that was all.
This afternoon was a hallucination. A momentary glitch.
And between seeing purple everywhere, smelling her, and then imagining she was in the ballroom earlier, I know I have to make an appointment to see the doctor again tomorrow. He can give me something to help me sleep. That’s all that’s wrong with me.
I just need to sleep.
Approaching my house, I realize I must have left the lights on this morning. My modest three-bedroom house is lit up like a lighthouse.
I go to put my key in the door, but it’s already unlocked.
Shit, I must have forgotten to put the alarm on this morning too .
I really should start paying more attention.
I push the door open and I can hear a scratching noise and the soft thrum of someone in my house.
Have I caught the thief red-handed, taking all my worldly goods? They’d better not be taking my new gaming console. I queued for hours to get my hands on that fucking thing.
And that seems to be how I spend most nights now, shouting down my headset at sad fuckers like me to cover me and get first aid .
A faint hum of music hits my ears, then a tiny clicking noise alerts me to a little white fluffy ball scuttling across the gray wooden flooring of my hall in my direction.
I get the fright of my life and jump when it looks up at me cutely, then barks.
Pom-pom?
I shake my head, my mouth dropping open.
“Oh, sorry. I should have put him in his cage before you came home.” Violet appears in the living-room doorway, still in her black Sanctuary dress with no shoes on. She scoops Pom-pom into her arms, then disappears into my kitchen.
I didn’t make it up. I’m not going mad. She is here.
“What…” I hold my hands up, frozen to the spot, and discover I can’t make words.
Violet reappears. “Your dinner is in the oven. Your yaya dropped off a moussaka for us. I’ve poured you a glass of wine and I am off to take a shower. It’s been a long day.” She jumps onto the first step of my stairs. “I smashed a glass in the kitchen earlier and I think I found all the shards, but just be careful in case I missed any.” She pops her finger in the air. “Oh, I forgot.” She jumps off the bottom step and skips across the hall toward me.
When she kisses me on the lips, she takes me by surprise. “ Welcome home.” As quick as a flash, she disappears up the stairs.
I hear the bathroom door click shut and then a snick indicating she’s locked it behind her.
The pitter-patter of water is what I hear next, and then she starts humming.
Fucking humming like everything is normal.
When in fact, since four o’clock this afternoon, nothing has been normal. Actually, since I left Santa Monica, nothing has been normal.
I appear to have walked into another dimension and I look back at my front door and then all around to confirm this is, in fact, my house.
Slowly making my way across the hall, I look inside the kitchen and sure enough, the warm glow from the oven confirms my dinner is in it. My glass dining table has one place set with a glass of wine poured and Pom-pom is rolled into a tight ball, already fast asleep.
Dazed, I walk up the stairs, the faint sound of Violet showering in the background.
Stepping into my bedroom, I discover a wall of bottles filled with perfume, potions, and lotions lining the top of my chest of drawers. Next to it, a new dresser that wasn’t here this morning or ever , is littered with tiny black makeup pots, lipsticks, a small lilac leather jewelry box, and a vase full of fresh purple flowers.
She fucking moved herself in. When?
I’m so flabbergasted I can’t do anything else but look around. I rub my hands down my face, as if to wake me up and open my eyes.
Nope, her stuff is still here.
On the nightstand is a thick rainbow design planner and resting on top is her pink vibrating wand .
Is this for real?
Double-checking her moving-in status, I fling open the double doors to my walk-in closet. Half of my suits have been replaced with an array of purple dresses. Leather handbags line the back wall that used to house my collection of designer sneakers.
I fall onto the black leather chair in the middle of the closet and look around.
I’m having a Sliding Doors moment and sit here for a while staring at all her things.
There’s even a stack of multicolored planners lined up in one of the storage cubes.
Eventually, I get up and check a few drawers. When I pull out one of my underwear drawers, I’m startled when instead of picking up a pair of my boxers, I pull out a pair of the tiniest pink lace panties and hold them up to my face.
Motherfucker.
“Oh, thanks. I’ll put them on.” Violet grabs them out of my hand.
My mouth turns dry as she drops her towel in front of me and proceeds to lotion her naked sun-kissed skin with that fresh-as-fuck scent she wears.
I groan when she rubs the cream across her tits, making her nipples pebble. Her hands dip lower over her stomach, over her hips, and I know she’s teasing me when she moisturizes her bare pussy lips, making them wet, inviting me to touch them.
“Enjoying the show?” she says seductively with that fucking sweet-as-honey California accent.
I swear someone stuffed my head full of cotton candy and for the first time in weeks my dick bounces in my boxers as he finally wakens up from his hibernation period.
Violet exits my closet, wiggling her plump ass into my bedroom. My cock goes rock-hard in an instant as she jiggles about my bedroom.
Unable to move or take my eyes off her, I need something to prop me up and I lean against the doorjamb as I’m unable to comprehend what is happening.
She pulls on her lace panties, a pair of booty shorts, then slips a giant white tee shirt over her head.
“I’m going to watch some Netflix. Are you joining me?” She piles her long, wet locks up on the top of her head, making it look like a wild nest.
My confusion is beginning to fucking annoy me, as is Violet.
This is a fucking ambush.
I run my hands through my hair and pull it. “Sorry. Let me get this straight. You are in my house, using my shower, making yourself at home in my home, and you are asking me if I am joining you to watch Netflix? Using my login details and my password?” I’m feeling something other than confusion. It’s more like mild irritation mixed with uneasiness. “Sorry. But what the fuck is going on?”
“Oh, I moved to Scotland and moved in with you,” she says matter-of-factly.
No shit, Sherlock .
She moves out of the bedroom and skips back down the stairs.
It’s then I notice, styled neatly in some sort of weird display, several decorative cushions now decorate my bed.
Unbelievable .
I run down after her and she’s already got her ass parked on my black leather sofa, her feet up on my glass coffee table, and she’s pointing the remote control at the television as she flicks through the menu.
“Are you joining me?” She pats the cushion beside her but doesn’t look my way. “There is supposed to be a new series of Vikings started. I know how much you love it.”
Right, that’s it. I’m done pussy-footing about. I storm across to the television and unplug it.
With my hands on my hips, I stand in front of the giant screen.
“Everything okay?” A soft smirk of mischief softens her owlish eyes.
“What?” I bellow. “Is everything okay? I haven’t seen you in almost a month?—”
“Because you left me,” she interrupts me.
“Because I left you,” I parrot. Christ, no. I correct myself. “Nope. That’s not what happened.” I draw a line through the air. “Because I didn’t know how to say goodbye and tell you it was a terrible idea for us to have a long-distance relationship. It was easier to make a clean break.”
“Oh, did I miss the memo? Did we break up? You never officially broke it off. Nice touch trying to lay that burden on your dad, by the way.” She winks.
Fucking winks at me like she’s fucking high-fiving the worst decision I ever made, but I see the pain in her eyes.
She keeps assaulting me with her words. “I get it. Your long-lost, emotionally detached, and messed-up mother broke your heart, and it was a huge shock for you meeting her the way you did, and then you didn’t get the outcome you wanted. That night turned into possibly one of the shittiest days of your life, and instead of seeing the beautiful parts of your life you already had, you decided to mess all those other great parts up. You left because you felt like that was the right thing to do. For us. And I get it; having a long-distance relationship sounded horrible. I didn’t want to do it either. But I was willing to give it a try and do it for us to see how it went. Because what we have is unique and special and so beautiful. But you didn’t even let us test it out to see. So you left the girl you supposedly love. The only girl you’ve ever loved because you thought she would be better off without your fucked-up, rejected heart. When, in fact, she was the one who could heal it and make it better. But how would you know because you didn’t stick around to find out.”
I feel a stab of remorse as she assaults me with truth bombs I wasn’t ready to face.
She keeps going. “And since then, you’ve been moping around. Feeling like shit. Dragging your body around like a zombie. And now you feel worse. But if you had chosen to speak to me before you left, you wouldn’t feel this pain.”
She’s been speaking to my grandmother.
She sighs. “And now you feel blue. Pathetic. Lonely. Have a painful heart and the worst case of sadness you’ve ever felt, but you’ve been too stubborn to call or text me. Fearful I would reject you. Because everyone rejects you. You pigeonholed me into the same category as your mother. But newsflash, asshole, we aren’t all the same.”
She’s pissed and has every right to be, but she’s got me pegged and she’s here. Even with me fucking up as I did, she still showed up for me.
“But I’m here for you now.” She folds her arms across her body.
“You’re staying?” After all the shit she’s just said about me being an asshole.
“Oh, I’m staying.” She’s defiant.
“Here?”
“Yes. Here.”
“In my house? With me?”
“In our house. Together. Isn’t that what couples do?”
Couples ?
She shakes her head, her brows pinching together. “You never broke up with me. We’re still together unless you tell me otherwise.” She rises to her feet. “I changed my mind. It’s been a long day; I’m super jet-lagged. I think I’m going to go to bed. Are you coming?” She doesn’t wait for my answer and toddles off up the stairs. “Can you let Pom-pom out before you come up? Eat something too. You look like shit,” she shouts from the top floor.
I blink with bafflement.
She’s a fucking firecracker—small, but she packs a punch.
But I’m that one who’s about to explode with annoyance.
In complete dismay, I head back into the kitchen, unlock Pom-pom’s cage, and take him outside for a pee.
What the hell am I doing? She’s already bossing me about.
I head out to the garden shared with my father and follow closely behind Pom-pom to make sure he doesn’t get lost in the huge grounds. The lights in my dad’s kitchen flick on, signaling his return.
I grab Pom-pom and run across the grass.
Pom-pom’s identity tag jingles around, alerting me to his new black leather collar.
I check out the metal tag. On one side it says Pom-pom and on the other, my home address.
“Holy shit,” I hiss.
How long have they been planning this?