41. Lourdes
Lourdes
The next morning, I return to Lakeshore with Sandrine’s favorite almond pastry in a small white box from a bakery two streets over.
I fix her hair and then she digs into the box. She takes a bite of pastry, and her eyes roll in the back of her head. I wait for the ward nurses, who barely look at the patients, to object to the outside food. They’re gazing out the windows or playing on their phone.
We eat the pastries like when we were kids, licking sugary frosting off our fingers and laughing. I feel a spark of hope that we’re on our way to being the sisters she wants to remember.
With a to-do list a mile long, I tell Sandrine I’ll be back the following day.
When she skips off to her art therapy, I head to the administrative director’s office to lay the groundwork to have Sandrine transferred.
But the receptionist tells me the director is busy with a patient brought in last night and that he’s dealing with the family.
She gives me an appointment for the following day, and I leave the office frustrated. I decide to use the time to buy some new clothes. I’m still wearing the sweater dress I left the penthouse in yesterday morning. I could tell Sandrine’s caretakers noticed.
I push through the front entrance doors and head out into a bitter cold that bites my cheeks. The winter sun glints faintly off the lake across the street, blinding me for a moment.
As my eyes adjust, I spot a man down the front walkway. He’s in a long, dark overcoat, the expensive, understated kind, standing next to a limo parked, coat collar turned up against the wind, hands tucked into the pockets. I go still, frozen in fear.
Ares.
Suddenly, I understand that my escape was never as clean as I believed. There was nowhere on earth I could hide from Ares Zervas.
We lock eyes, but his expression is composed. I imagine he’s angry at being duped, that I’ll be made to pay for running.
But he’s not angry. He looks worried.
When I don’t run or scream, he crosses the distance between us in long, deliberate strides. When he reaches me, he doesn’t demand answers, doesn’t accuse me of anything. He just pulls me into his arms and holds me.
He presses me into his large frame, his hands sliding up my back and into my hair like he’s checking if I’m real. Or deciding what to do with me now that I am. Despite my frustration at being found, I melt against him as tears slide down my face.
After a moment, his large hands cradle my face, and he presses kisses on my forehead.
“What are you doing here?” I manage through sniffling tears.
Instead of answering, he puts a gloved finger to my lips and steers me toward the limo. Of course, I go.
The limo door shuts behind us with a heavy, insulated thud, sealing out the wind and the noise from the lake.
I realize it’s a rented limousine and consider how much this must be killing Ares to not have his Bentley.
Still, this ride is unmistakably expensive, with warm leather seats and tinted windows rendering the outside street a distant blur.
He sits across from me, close enough that our knees nearly touch. Ares simply looks at me with that unreadable expression that has always made my pulse stumble.
I was so stupid to think that I could disappear, and Ares would simply let the world swallow me whole. Of course, he would find me. Something flourished between us in Santorini, neither of us could deny.
His silence and composure are in sharp contrast with the sound of David screaming if I worked too late or wandered off in a club he dragged me to.
I fold my hands in my lap to stop them from shaking.
Without breaking eye contact, Ares reaches forward and gathers my hands into his.
Only then do I realize how cold mine are, how numb my fingers feel after just a few seconds in the cold.
He lifts them toward his mouth and breathes warm air over my knuckles before enclosing them between his palms. He rubs them gently and steadily.
“I missed you,” he says at last.
Does that mean he forgives me for leaving?
“I had to come,” I whisper, and the words feel foolish the instant they leave my mouth.
“Who are you visiting here?” he asks quietly, steel beneath the softness. “Who is so important that you would leave me and run to Chicago in December?”
I avoid his eyes, sitting quietly and balling my hands into fists.
“You can tell me anything,” he coaxes.
I raise my gaze to his, but I’m afraid. Sandrine’s been my secret for a very long time, and trusting someone with that secret, especially the head of the Greek Mafia, could endanger her.
“You’ll have to excuse me for not believing that. Especially since until two days ago, I was basically your prisoner.”
“Everything I’ve done has been to protect you. Even now, I’m here to look out for you. I understand whatever, or whoever is in this facility...” He motions out the window. “Is someone important to you. And as your future husband, what is important to you is important to me.”
When I hesitate to talk, he adds, “Tell me or don’t tell me, but I won’t ask again.”
That’s when I feel the walls crumble, the weight of the secret too heavy to keep carrying on my own.
“Her name is Sandrine,” I say, my throat tightening with the admission. “She’s my sister.”
There’s a brief stillness, a recalibration behind Ares’s eyes.
“You didn’t know I had a sister, did you?”
“Not until yesterday.” He shakes his head. “Tell me about her. You’ve indulged me in talking about Alexander.”
He’s so right. It’s time to tell him everything.
“She’s here because she fell down a full flight of stairs when she was nineteen.” My voice starts to shake, but I know if I stop, I won’t finish. So, I keep going. “She doesn’t remember anything before that night.”
The rest comes faster. Messier.
I tell him about her traumatic brain injury and my Dad putting her in a private home under a different name. About my father’s paranoia. The words tumble out over one another, carried by an unfurled dread that has been lodged inside me for years.
“It took so long to convince her that I was her sister. Then the money my father left for her care ran out, and I had to transfer her here.”
“Did you just want to visit her?” Ares asks with careful, gentle curiosity.
I shake my head, and before I can stop myself, the tears come on stronger, hot and humiliating.
“I want her to be treated somewhere better,” I say, sniffing.
“I was stealing from Nathan Craig because I needed money for her. Not me. When I met David, Sandrine was still in the early stages of her recovery and couldn’t have visitors that often.
We’d gotten married quickly. When he wanted to move to New York, I had no choice.
I had to leave Sandrine in these people’s hands.
They said intense therapy without intervention was best. So, I left her.
” I choke on the ugly truth that threatens to break me open. “I left her.”
“Oh, Lourdes,” Ares says, kissing my hands. “I wish you had told me about her sooner.”
His response brings me hope beyond anything I’ve felt before.
I clear my throat to sound tougher. “It’s not that bad, but it’s a state-run facility.
Their resources are limited, and treatment isn’t always consistent.
For the last few years, they’ve just been maintaining her.
She still has no memory of anything before the fall.
From the research I’ve done, she should have had some kind of breakthrough. ”
His jaw tightens, and I see the anger flicker in his eyes. I know enough about this man to know it’s not aimed at me, but rather at the injustice that someone I care about has been left in such a place to rot.
“The facility is clean. The staff tries. It’s just…not enough.” I wipe a tear from my cheek. “And no, I’m not just here for a visit. I’m here to arrange for her to be transferred. Arizona has the only private facilities I’ve found that I can actually afford.”
He studies me for another long beat, and then, without releasing one of my hands, he reaches for his phone with the other and makes a call.
His voice when he speaks is calm, controlled, and lethal. “Lakeshore Rehabilitation in Chicago, the patient is Jessica Parker, an alias. I’ll explain more about that later. Traumatic brain injury, memory loss, long-term placement.”
I listen as he instructs someone on the other end to obtain her full records. To find the best neurological specialist in New York, and to have a comprehensive report in his email by tomorrow.
Tomorrow. She can be accepted into a facility in New York, possibly this week.
I sit there torn between gratitude and an uncomfortable feeling of wounded pride. This was supposed to be my rescue, my solution, my proof that I could fix something on my own. Instead, he swept in and tipped the scales.
Yet he doesn’t look triumphant. He looks focused.
After he ends the call, his hand comes up, warm and steady, cupping my cheek. “You look exhausted,” he murmurs, his thumb brushing beneath my eye. “Where are you staying?”
“A motel,” I admit, suddenly self-conscious.
His mouth tightens in angry displeasure at the thought that I’d be so uncomfortable on top of this.
“I booked a suite at the Fairmont,” he says. “Please stay with me.”
The plea without any pressure means I’m free to choose.
“Okay,” I whisper, because I really want to be close to him again.
He nods once, and the driver pulls away from the curb. We stop at the motel, where he insists on coming inside the room despite my protests.
“I don’t have any clothes with me,” I say, gathering a few things from the bathroom. “I planned to go shopping later today.”
“I packed clothes for you myself,” he replies, almost absently. “I saw you didn’t take anything.”
I halt my steps at his remark. He took the time to consider everything. And the man who does nearly nothing for himself went into my closet and packed for me.
That small act of tenderness crumbles the wall I built up more than any grand gesture could have. Before I second-guess myself, I step into his embrace, wrapping my arms around his waist and pressing my face into the warmth of his coat.
He holds me tight and then lifts my chin. When he kisses me, it’s not possessive or punishing but slow and deliberate.
We leave the sad motel room that he also paid for, and he steers me back to the limo. Inside, he kisses me all the way to his hotel. I realize that he once again, he left behind his responsibilities and sixteen-hour workdays at Zervas & Company, the Aurelian, and Club Wicked for me.
With gray-violet eyes boring into me, he says, “You don’t smell like you used to. Like roses. Like my cologne. Let’s change that.”