Chapter 22 #3
“I’m never going to marry you.” I move off the last step and hate how his face drops, how my words break his heart just a little more than it already was, but then I do as I did with Harrison, wrap my arms around his stomach, and squeeze extra tight.
“But someday you’ll find someone even cooler than me.
You’ll bring her home and act like a fool, because you don’t know any other way.
” I pull back and search his emerald eyes.
“I promise, when she’s here, I’ll tell her how lucky she is.
How she better not screw it up, because your heart is special.
Your soul is pure. You walked through hell itself, and here you are anyway, so friggin’ perfect, it’s hard to even imagine someone could be good enough. ”
“You’re not gonna tell Arch I saw you in your panties, are you?”
I bark out a cathartic laugh and shake my head. But then I stop and shrug. “Probably. Eventually. But first, I need to punch him in his face and work through some other stuff.” Releasing him, I turn and continue my hunt. “Archer Malone!? I swear to God, you better come out here and face me.”
I trudge through the hall and burst into the kitchen, gulping at the sight of Steve and Mary at the counter. Instead of Steve being relegated to a wheelchair, he and Mary stand side by side, dealing with breakfast dishes and coffee mugs, while across from them, a Malone sits.
But not the Malone I want.
Not the one I need.
“Where is he?” My bravado wanes, and the enthusiasm I came charging out of our room with recedes.
Aubree’s words bolstered my confidence, her hand in mine healed a little of the hurt in my heart, but now I’m out here, she’s not touching me anymore, and the memories of my pain this week come crashing back to the forefront of my mind.
Maybe Aubree lied just to make me feel better.
Maybe she was using her magical foo-foo powers to take away some of the pain.
My heart stutters and stalls, thumping in my chest and crushing my lungs within the confines of rejection and loneliness.
“I thought he would be here.” I meet Steve’s eyes, my brows knitted, then Mary’s and her flat, unsmiling lips. I bring my focus back to Tim and stop barely short of whimpering. “Aubree said he was wherever I am, but I’m here, and he’s not. And—”
He tilts his head toward the back door, a small, forced smile curling up at the side.
I turn from the oldest Malone and lurch toward the door, my knees knocking with every step.
My stomach whooshing. Moving onto hot patio tiles, I peek left and study the long glass table, chairs surrounding it to become a uniform line of four on each side.
The umbrella, not even open to shield anyone from the sun.
No Archer.
I scour the pool and find the surface completely still. Water glitters in the sunlight like diamonds bouncing into the sky.
Still, no Archer.
“Say Jamaica.” I stumble forward on a pained exhale and close the door at my back.
Keep them inside, keep them away, so when I’m slammed with my worst fears a second time in one week, I can experience that alone.
The way it was always meant to be. “Archer?” A single, treacherous tear wells up and sizzles over my cheek, trailing to the edge of my jaw.
But it doesn’t fall. It would rather dangle and shove me another step toward madness. “Archer?”
A shadow falls across the grass about thirty feet beyond the patio tiles, the movement sending my heart into a sprinting, stuttering panic, but when another man—a guard—steps into view, my moment of nerves and the dash of hope playing with my heart turns to sadness.
“Is Archer over there?” I shield my eyes with my hand, raising my voice and searching the guard’s hard expression. “Did you see Archer during your lap around the house?”
“Uh… N-no, Doctor Mayet. I didn’t. Would you like me to find him for you?”
I shake my head, dropping my hand and turning back the way I came.
I shuffle toward the pool, loathing the swell of past traumas as they blossom in my belly.
Except now, they’re twice as cruel. The weight, twice as heavy.
Lowering to the edge, I dip my feet into the chilled water and close my eyes.
Even then, the diamond-like spires dance across my face and flash through my vision.
How callous is the universe to allow me a moment of hope, only to slam me with this?
How mean and heartless must the world be?
I know there’s probably a points system within our existence, one where good deeds earn points, and bad deeds take them away.
My deeds long ago landed me in the negatives, but I thought…
I hoped… for a moment, anyway, that I might receive a little mercy.
“It kills me when you cry.”
I startle, my spine snapping straight and my breath catching in my throat.
But I don’t open my eyes. I don’t dare, not even when Archer’s aftershave slides into my lungs.
Not even when warmth prickles all along my left side, or when his shoulder brushes mine, or when his feet drop into the water so small waves kiss my calf muscles.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” His voice is husky and sad, crackling and rough. “I know you like the water, so if this is just for you and I’m not welcome, I could—”
I reach for him, even without looking. I set my hand over his and lock his palm to the pool’s edge. “Please stay. I need you to just…” I feel a second, torturous tear slip onto my cheek. “Just for a minute.”
“Will you open your eyes?” His voice changes direction, so I see him in my mind, leaning forward and looking back at me. “I haven’t seen them in a really, really long time. I can’t sleep when we’re apart, because not being able to see your face or tell you goodnight makes it impossible.”
“I think our marriage is dysfunctional.” I draw a shuddering breath, filling my lungs with the one scent in the world that helps me sleep. “What we have is codependency. It’s dangerous, Archer. It’s soul-destroying, and—”
“The reason for everything I do,” he murmurs. “Loving you is the only reason I’m still here. It’s why I wake up each morning and try so fucking hard to make the world a better place.”
I open my eyes and search for him through the blur of my tears.
“You’re the bravest, surest, most sincere person I’ve ever met in my life.
” His voice rasps and crackles, breaking as it peels a strip from my soul.
“You know who you are, and you’re not sorry for it.
You’re selfless and courageous, and even when you could lose everything—your career, your marriage, your life—you would choose loss, for yourself, over ignoring the cries of literally anyone else. ”
“I’m sorry I brought this into our relationship.” I drop my gaze and stare down at the rippling water, timing my breath with every small wave rolling away from our legs. “I’m sorry I can’t just be boring and dependable and able to walk away from these things like a normal human being.”
“Cordoza choreographed this whole mess. He dropped Agosti in your lap intentionally.”
I nod, soft and silent, and when tears trickle to the edge of my jaw, I swipe them away with the heel of my palm. “I heard. A smarter person wouldn’t have fallen for it.”
Reaching across, he cups my chin and draws my eyes up to his. “I don’t want a boring, annoying, regular wife, Minnnka. I don’t want any version of you that isn’t completely and wholly authentic.”
“But you get so mad when I—”
“I get so mad when I’m scared,” he presses.
“Unfortunately for us, I’m a Malone, which means my first response will always be rage, even when, inside, I’m scared to my fucking bones.
This is my DNA. It’s a nasty, cold throwback to the man who forced his sperm on an unwilling victim.
I’m allowed to be mad sometimes, but there is no level of mad in existence that would make me not love you. ”
I choke out a sobbing whimper, my chest bouncing with the horrifying exhale.
“You say you’re sorry for being tricked by Cordoza?” He tilts my head back and suckles a tear straight off my cheekbone. “Babe, he played me, too. You’ve known this world for a year; I’ve known it my whole life. Only one of us should have known better, and that person isn’t you.”
“What the hell are we supposed to do?” I curl my face into his hand and brush my lips over the pounding pulse in his wrist. “I thought Estefan was our friend.”
He drags the pad of his thumb along my trembling jaw.
“We’ll call a family meeting. Bring everyone together and discuss our options.
I don’t relish the idea of declaring war with the fucking Godfather.
” He emphasizes the word, emptying his lungs on the three syllables.
“But whatever we do, we’ll decide as a family. ”
Family.
He has such a beautiful, humorously dysfunctional family, despite the swamplands of Timothy Malone they came from. And until this week, I never considered a time when I wouldn’t feel like one of them.
I was the first wife.
I was the first one to step in and love a Malone for his heart, and not for business.
“We sure fucked this up, didn’t we?” Archer wipes my cheek with his palm, his grin penetrating my blurry, aching vision. “You meet Anthony Agosti for two fucking minutes, and my entire universe comes collapsing down.”
“I’m the problem, Archer. If I didn’t—”
He places two fingers over my lips, shaking his head. “I knew you’d figure him out. I knew there was no world where you and he could peacefully coexist.”
“Archer—”