40. Christian
CHRISTIAN
I sit at my father’s desk in the main house office, watching the cameras of home playing on the screen in front of me, when a soft knock sounds at the door.
“Come in.”
I cut the screen off, getting one last fleeting look of Mila baking something in the kitchen and swaying along to the sound of music I can’t hear when the door opens.
The sound of heels on the marble floor is loud when Talia saunters into the room, shutting the door behind her.
“Christian, it’s been too long since we’ve gotten to catch up,” she says, slipping gracefully into the chair in front of me. She’s got her hair down and a Burberry coat unbuttoned at the top to show off her cleavage. She presses her chest out, her eyes flashing mischievously with a grin.
“After you practically ran out the other night, I thought it wise not to approach you when your partner was with you. I could see the effect seeing us together had on her.
“Wife.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Wife,” I correct her. “Mila is my wife.”
“Yes, well. Semantics,” she waves a manicured hand. “I must say, I was quite surprised you called and asked to see me. I was sure you weren’t allowed. She knows about us, you know?”
I ignore the subtle dig at my wife for now, choosing to move on to why I called her here instead.
Standing from my chair, I cross to the window on the far side, looking out over the grounds to where the faint glow of Mila and I’s house can be seen through the trees. It’s not yet dark, but it will be soon, and I’m eager to get home to see what she’s made for dinner tonight.
I swear the girl laces everything with cocaine.
Reaching into my pocket, I grab what I want and pull it out, turning back to Talia.
“Do you have something you’d like to tell me?”
Her brows furrow, a subtle smirk pulling on her lips.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about?”
“No?”
I place the phone down on the desk in front of her, and the smile falls from her lips.
She looks back up at me, her eyes widening with fear before she licks her lips and shakes her head.
“I don’t know what that is.”
“I must say, you always were a convincing liar.”
Her eyes darken, her face growing red. She hoists her bag higher on her shoulder and stands, nearly sending the chair toppling.
“I didn’t come here to be accused, Christian.”
“Who’s accused you of anything?” I reply calmly.
She scoffs and turns on her expensive heel, heading towards the door.
Only the moment she opens it she freezes.
“Not leaving so soon, are you?” Levi asks, stepping forward into the room. It forces Talia to fall back until she collapses into her chair.
She looks between the two of us, fear in her eyes hidden beneath the air of superiority she’s always tried to flaunt.
“I found this in my room,” I tell her, waving the phone in her face. “Seemed odd that my wife would happen upon it the day you arrived.”
I don’t want to outright tell her I know she planted it. I want to see what information she’s willing to offer up on her own first.
Talia looks like she could vomit at my feet.
“Don’t make me ask again.”
“I just wanted to help her,” she rushes out, her gaze ping-ponging back and forth between Levi and me. “She was so lonely and sad. I felt bad for the poor girl.”
She dissolves into tears. Big, fake alligator tears that have her makeup running down her cheeks. Levi steps back, leaning against the wall and watching while I step around my desk.
“I’m sorry,” she sobs. “I didn’t know she wasn’t allowed to have a phone.”
I step behind her, and a sob wracks her shoulders, her head falling forward until my lips are close to her ear. The scent of her perfume is all wrong. It’s not vanilla and honey, but lavender.
“Very good,” I murmur, and a shiver rolls through her. “But I don’t believe you.”
Her head snaps up, tears instantly shutting off when I step back around to her front.
“Christian.” She reaches for me, and I step away, putting some distance between us. “You have to believe me. I didn’t have a choice.”
I cock a brow, staring down at her tear-streaked face, and wait for her to continue. If she thinks the tears are going to work, it’s just more proof of how little she knows me.
“You made sure Mila had this. Why?”
“You don’t understand—”
“I understand that you put her in danger,” I reply cooly. “I don’t take lightly to that.”
“Someone . . . threatened me . . .” she trails off, lowering her eyes to her hands. She twists them together in her lap. Levi’s eyes meet mine over her head.
“Who?” She doesn’t respond. “Who?” I bark, and she jumps at my voice.
“I don’t know!” She scrubs a hand over her teary face. “I never saw them. They wore a mask.”
“What kind of mask?” Levi asks, staring at the back of her head.
She sucks in a shaky breath, letting it out on a shiver.
“It was of a clown. An evil one.” Her watery blue eyes meet mine. “He came to me the week before the wedding and gave it to me. He had pictures of my family. He told me he would hurt them.”
“And yet, you didn’t come to me. You took matters into your own hands and put my wife in danger.”
She glowers back and forth between Levi and I. Levi nods at me only once.
“Get out. Don’t ever let me see you in Seattle again.” I dismiss her, stepping back behind my desk. Lighting up the screen, Mila’s still in our kitchen, washing the dishes now, and my body aches to go to her.
“This isn’t you.”
Talia shoves to her feet, rushing around the side of the desk. She reaches for me, her fingers fisting in the material of my shirt.
“I know you. You still care for me; otherwise, you wouldn’t have left.”
That makes absolutely zero sense, but I don’t care what she thinks. Not anymore.
“Christian, you wouldn’t throw our friendship away. I know this is her . She’s jealous. Please—”
Stepping into her, she falls back against the wall, her eyes wide with fear.
“What you fail to realize is there’s nothing for her to be jealous of. You and I were over the moment she stepped into my life.” She flinches as if I’m causing her physical pain. “What you think we had was fake. A ruse because of a lie you created. There will never be another but her.”
“I hate you,” she whispers, blinking back the tears clinging to her lashes.
She’s not sorry she did it. She’s only sorry she got caught.
I’m sorry I didn’t see her for what she was before Mila got put in the middle of it.
“Stay away from my wife,” I mutter. “This is your only warning.”
Tears once again slip down her cheeks, but it does nothing for me. Not anymore. In fact, all I can think about is getting back home and spending the night buried in my wife. When night falls, no one needs me, and I’m free to take my time memorizing her.
“Get out.”
Talia stares at me with hatred and hurt in her gaze, but I’m past caring.
I stopped the moment she put Mila’s life in danger. No one may understand it, but my sanity hinges on her soft smiles and sweet voice. The way she laughs and how peaceful she is when she nestles into my side in her sleep.
That’s my life, and Talia fucked with it. I don’t take that lightly.
“If you do this, I’ll never forgive you, Christian,” Talia breathes.
I step back from her; any ounce of care I had for her gone in the blink of an eye.
“So be it.”
Walking through the front door of our house, I find Mila taking dinner out of the oven, singing along softly to a song on the radio. She can’t carry a tune to save her life, and I didn’t even know the old built-in stereo under the cabinet still worked, but I know one thing for sure.
I’d sell my soul if it meant coming home to her like this for the rest of my life. My gaze rakes over her. Perfect ass in her leggings. Pretty curls piled messily on top of her head.
Striking gray eyes when she turns and finds me leaning against the kitchen doorway and lets out a slight squeak, nearly dropping the glass dish to the floor at her feet.
“How long have you been standing there?” she snaps, her cheeks flaming red when I step across the kitchen. She places the dish down, full of what I know is going to be the best fucking lasagna I’ve ever eaten.
“Not long.” I take her face in my hands, pressing a kiss to her forehead, then her lips. She relaxes in my touch, her hands coming up to rest over mine. “Just long enough to know you won’t be leaving me to become a famous pop star.”
She gawks at me, her eyes shining with amusement when I pull back from her, and I know I made the right decision to cut Talia off.
She always was more trouble than she was worth.
“Ass,” Mila grumbles, reaching for the two plates she’s got set out on the counter.
I swat her ass on my way to the wine fridge to get a bottle for us.
“Brat.”
I’m pouring our glasses when her question catches me off guard.
“Why is your father locked in a room by himself?”
She says it so nonchalantly that I have to wonder if I imagined it. She locks eyes with me, waiting, and I run through every person I need to fire so that doesn’t happen again.
“Why were you in my father’s room?”
She lets out a huff and sets the spatula in her hand down.
“Because he was crying for help, and he was all alone.”
I grit my teeth, a sickening feeling in my gut.
“Stay away from him, Mila.”
“Why?” she asks, rounding the corner of the island. “Levi made it seem like he murders kittens for fun.”
“Levi knew you went in his room?”
She blushes, clearly realizing she wasn’t supposed to say that.
“Well, he heard your father laughing at me and came to help. He’d grabbed ahold of my wrist and wouldn’t let go.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
I scrub a hand over my face, downing a good portion of the whiskey in my glass.
“What did he do, Christian?” she asks softly, using that fucking look that gets her whatever she wants.
I hate that fucking look.
“Stay away from him, Mila. I promise you, he’s well taken care of. He has two nurses that come stay with him round the clock. He doesn’t need your help.”
“Well, he must need some better nurses,” she grumbles. “He was alone.”
“And that’s how it will stay.”
She goes to walk away, but I catch her hand, tugging her back.
“Promise me you won’t go in there.”
Her gaze softens when she looks up at me.
“I promise, though, I wasn’t planning on it anyway. The whole experience was creepy. Not to be rude about your father’s situation.”
“Why?”
Her eyes dart away before coming back to mine.
“He just said something weird.”
“Like?”
She lets out a deep breath, a tremor moving through her.
“Well . . . he laughed. One of those loud, cackling laughs, like some kind of creature of hell,” she says. “Then . . . he told me you were going to kill me?”
Interesting . . .
“What else did he say?”
She shrugs. “Just that his son was going to kill me.”
“And do you believe him?”
She rolls her eyes with a chuckle. “I think if you were going to kill me, you would have done it by now.”
Reaching up, I take her chin in my hand, tilting her face up to force her to look at me.
“Don’t go in there again.”
“You aren’t the boss of me.”
“Please?”
She’s so surprised at my request that she falls silent, her cheeks flaming for an entirely different reason. I remember she had a similar reaction when I asked her to lower the gun from her head nearly two months ago.
“Fine,” she concedes. “But you better find a better nurse. Yours suck.”