Chapter 6
KAIRO
Fiancée just slips out before I can stop it, and the silence that hangs in the air in the wake of my lie is smothering.
I knew Jennifer’s tactic.
Her weak accusation of fraud is simply a scare tactic against Devon, but I saw it working the moment fear lit up in her eyes.
Scaring people with finances in such a way, especially in a hospital, is lower than low, so I said the only thing that would make sense.
“Fiancée?” Jennifer repeats while staring past me at Devon.
I step closer to the bed and block her line of sight. “That’s exactly what I said.”
The wheels turn behind Jennifer’s eyes.
She knows exactly who I am, and it’s part of the reason she’s here.
Anyone unfamiliar ending up on the Sycamore family insurance plan is sure to raise alarm bells up and down the chain, but I never imagined they’d come and confront Devon like this.
I expected a phone call where I’d explain and do everything I had to do to ensure Devon never paid a cent toward these costs.
But I refuse to let some ridiculous paperwork or terrible rules stand in the way of Devon’s recovery.
Her panic at the cost of her treatment and her comment about a small Christmas resonate painfully with me.
This time of year is already hard on people, and an unexpected medical charge is most people’s worst nightmare.
Despite Devon’s reassurances, the responsibility weighs on me, so I dare Jennifer to question me and try to make this into something bigger than it needs to be.
“I had no idea,” Jennifer says, tapping on her tablet. She tries to hide it, but there’s a certain judgmental aura in her next glance at Devon.
I know that glance.
It’s the same glance I get when people find out my father was Japanese, only this time, I suspect Jennifer is judging Devon on her fuller figure, and anger ignites in my chest.
“Get out,” I snap tightly. “And don’t come back. If you have any other ridiculous questions about my own damn insurance, then the hospital can talk to my lawyer, understand?”
Her eyes widen so much that her glasses slip to the end of her nose and she nods quickly. “Understood. I’m sorry for the confusion.”
“I think you mean accusation.” Glaring daggers at her, I sweep my arm toward the door. “Leave.”
She hastily ducks her head and scrambles out of the room like a fire has been lit under her feet.
Then I turn to Devon, who stares up at me like a deer frozen in headlights.
“Fiancée?” she squeaks out at me.
“Too much? I’m sorry. I knew the rule she was talking about and it’s really stupid. An X on a single line buried somewhere in their fifty sheets of paper and this never would have happened. I’m sorry I wasn’t more thorough.”
“Why are you apologizing?” She continues to gape up at me. “I just can’t believe you so casually engaged us.”
Slowly retaking my seat, I smile as warmly as I can. “You can break up with me once your arm is healed. I promise I won’t be offended.”
Devon squints at me and finally closes her mouth.
I miss the bright smile on her face that pinkened her cheeks and lit up her eyes.
Right now, she’s pale with shadows clinging under her eyes and a limpness to her hair that begs for attention.
There’s so much happening behind her golden brown eyes and I want to ask about it, but before I can, she finally smiles slightly.
“I don’t know how to thank you. This isn’t even your fault.” She lifts her broken arm and grimaces. “I can’t repay this much kindness.”
“Kindness doesn’t need repaid,” I assure her. “And think of it as me keeping my conscience clean while in the spirit of the season.”
I want to reach out and touch her, but it’s very clear such an advancement will be unwelcome.
Did something change between now and our night together?
Was it something I did or is there something deeper going on with her?
In the tired fog behind her eyes, there’s sadness.
A deep sadness that I recognize.
It’s the same sadness I glimpse in my own eyes when I look in the mirror.
“Here.” I stand and walk to the table at the end of the bed, where I quickly scribble down my number. “This is my number. Please keep me updated on your recovery, but also if you need anything, then don’t hesitate.”
“Sure,” Devon replies with a heavy tonal implication that she absolutely will hesitate.
I smile at her, and the conversation quickly fades as tiredness overtakes her.
We’re soon joined by her doctor, and as she starts taking Devon through all the details of her arm, I excuse myself with a promise to visit her tomorrow.
Outside, the chill November air forces me to draw my coat tighter around my shoulders.
Martin greets me with a smile and tilts his head toward where he parked the car.
“I can’t leave you alone for five minutes,” he says as we fall into step toward the car.
“I feel terrible.”
“You didn’t push her.”
“No, but I scared her. Or I reminded her of something that scared her. I can’t…” My breath catches in my throat. “I can’t unhear the sound of her body hitting that car. It’s a miracle she’s walking away with just a broken arm.”
Martin watches me quietly before he opens the back door for me. “The board have been calling. They want to know how your meeting went.”
I gaze upward at the stars struggling to peek out through the haze of light pollution that blankets the city.
Thinking it over, I bet that small town gets to see a full sky of stars every single night.
“We’ll reschedule,” I say with a soft sigh. “Take me home.”
Martin drives me silently through the streets of New York.
They’re buzzing with nightlife, and usually I’d, spend the drive home just observing how the people swarm around this city, a thousand lives weaving together like some kind of glorious web.
But I can’t get Devon out of my head.
It’s not just the sound of her body hitting the car.
It’s her smile from the bar.
The taste of her lips against mine.
The abruptness with which she jerked away from me like she truly feared me.
Even in the hospital, she kept herself as far away from me as she could and immediately worried about how to pay me back.
Perhaps that’s the most normal response to this entire situation.
And now she’s my fiancée.
There were a hundred reasons I could have given that would have kept Devon on my insurance.
Why did I resort to marriage?
What possessed me to claim something so absurd about a stranger?
By the time we reach the Sycamore building, I’m no clearer on why my mind is stuck on Devon beyond a quiet understanding that I think she’s wonderful.
Guilt continues to eat at me as I greet the doorman and take the elevator up to my penthouse suite.
Sinking into a hot, steamy bath sounds like heaven and it’s the only thing I desire to close out the day.
A desire that goes up in smoke when the elevator doors slide open and my mother appears in the short hallway between the elevator and the lounge, screeching my name.
“Kairo!” She rushes toward me, tightly pinned curls bouncing and pearl necklace flying. “Don’t you ever answer your phone? I was worried sick!” For a woman wrapped up in a tight, knee-length skirt, she’s fast for her age and she reaches me just as I step out of the elevator.
“I’m sorry, I was—”
“I thought something happened to you! Martin wasn’t answering, then I got a call from our insurance about a charge, and I thought you were dead!”
Before I can speak, her hand flies out and collides with my cheek. “How can you let me worry like that after what happened with your father?”
Her voice cracks at the same time as my heart aches.
I stare at the wall while my cheek burns, then very slowly suck in a deep breath.
“Mom—”
“Don’t you Mom me,” she scolds, her hand raised with the threat of another strike.
“How dare you? I was ill thinking my only son had left me, and then I called the hospital to learn that it’s not you who’s injured but your fiancée?”
She talks a mile a minute and it takes my mind a second to catch up.
This isn’t the first time she’s exploded at me and it won’t be the last.
I’m well practiced at navigating her explosions as painlessly as possible, but I had no intention of her finding out about Devon.
I should have known she would dig and dig.
Some days, I think her possessive nature comes from a protectiveness over the family name and our eye-watering wealth, and other days, I fear that she needs help I can’t provide.
My attempts to get her that help often end with me as the bad guy, so it’s easier to accept her mood swings and go along with her claims.
Sometimes the protectiveness is nice, but mostly, it comes across as judgmental.
Like now as she glares at me with narrowed, tear-stained eyes waiting for an explanation.
“I’m okay,” I say, gently grasping her shoulders to calm her down. “Look at me, Mom. I’m fine. See? Not a scratch.”
Her eyes dart back and forth over me and she grumbles under her breath, then shrugs my touch off and storms away.
“An engagement, Kairo? Did I raise you to be this stupid? What kind of man pops a question without introducing the woman to his own mother, hmm?”
She strides into the kitchen, barefoot, and picks up a half-drunk glass of red wine.
I follow and force a smile.
There’s no point in asking why she’s ever here because that will start an even worse argument.
“You know, most men my age don’t need their mother’s permission to ask a woman for her hand in marriage.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It doesn’t matter what age you are. I am your mother and you…” She tips her wine glass toward me. “You are a Sycamore. You can’t just get engaged to anyone.”
“I’m thirty-nine. I can get engaged to anyone.”
“No, Kairo!” she snaps and slams the glass down so red wine sloshes up the sides and spills onto the dark marble countertop.
“That’s now how the world works and you know it!
Are you trying to hurt me? Is this my punishment for being such a terrible mother?
Is this because of your father? Did I hurt you and this is how you’re getting revenge? ”
Big tears well in her eyes while it feels like her words reach deep past my ribcage and squeeze the life out of my heart.
Moving around her, I grab some paper towels and start soaking up the wine.
Telling her the truth would bring her relief, I know, but in doing so, it would bring an end to this arrangement and Devon would be left with an eyewatering bill.
I can’t let that happen.
“Mom… do you remember when you met Dad?”
She picks up her glass and stomps away from me like a petulant teen. “What kind of stupid question is that?”
“How did you know you wanted to marry him?”
She pauses near the fridge and reaches up, lightly caressing the picture we have of him there. “I just knew,” she says softly. “I knew it as soon as I saw him.”
“Exactly. That’s what happened to me. I found someone and I knew instantly that she was who I wanted to be with. Don’t you see?”
Appealing to her own feelings is often the only way to get through to her, but given how her frown deepens, I don’t think it’s working this time.
“Women are different. Gold-digging cunts, Kairo. You know this. They won’t care about you. They only care about your money.”
“Mom, you’ve had too much to drink.”
“Don’t tell me what I have or have not done!” She spins to face me, her tear-filled eyes ablaze. “If your father were still here, he would set you right! You wouldn’t act like this if he was still around!”
A lump forms in my throat as I toss the soaked paper towels into the trash and approach her.
“You know as well as I do that if he were still here, I wouldn’t be. Let me take you to bed.”
I reach for her, and she jerks away in the same way Devon did, only my mother acts out of anger, not fear.
When I reach for her again, she accepts my hold and allows me to take the wine from her fingers.
“I must meet her, you understand? Nothing is happening until I’ve met her. It’s the least you can do after breaking my heart!”
“Of course,” I say as my heart sinks.
My good deed is rapidly turning into a storm with poor Devon at the eye.
Keeping my mother away from her until her arm heals is going to be a challenge.