Chapter 88
CHAPTER 88
BETH
M ere days after returning to Grove Hill, Nolan summoned me by way of Martin and his new woman, a beautiful Latina named Carmen Muertas.
The pain that vibrated through my chest at meeting her was Nolan’s way of punishing me. I know it. If it wasn’t, he wouldn’t have sent Martin with my replacement.
Carmen is new to town and new to this country in general. Like what I’ve heard happens with any girl Martin brings home, his family disapproves, but Carmen has thick skin, and they have me in their corner.
Martin gives genuine smiles when Carmen is there, and with him being my only ally in this family, I genuinely want him to find happiness and an escape from all of his misery.
Even if it’s not with me.
I knew this would happen if I released him and I still did it.
He deserves to have a reason to smile.
Martin announces that he’ll be moving out of the family home in a few weeks to get a place with Carmen, and the way I panic should be embarrassing.
I take a small sip of wine before I look at Carmen. “Your dress is really pretty,” I say politely.
She wears a baby blue strapless number with white lace stitching that falls just below her knees. She has curves for days, filling out the dress in a way I doubt my body ever will.
My boobs are bigger from breastfeeding, the milk has barely dried up, and I had to wrap up my tits so it wouldn’t be noticeable. Now, they look the same size they always did before my pregnancy, a 34B, but in reality, they’re a 36C at this point. If it wasn’t for the shapewear I have on under my ruby red dress, the jig would be up via my postpartum body. I still have a bit to go in my exercise regimen before my belly returns to its previous elasticity.
The journey should be doable as long as I’m not getting married in the next two weeks.
“Thanks.” Carmen smiles, but there’s something dark hidden behind her eyes, a past she’s not ready to confront. I don’t push, though. The worst thing Nolan could be exposed to is someone’s vulnerability. I won’t be the one to show him Carmen’s.
I’ve had a picture sitting in my wallet since I returned to town, and I’ve been juggling the idea of giving it to Martin, but I won’t do it in front of Nolan. He doesn’t have the right to know about what Casey sent me. When Casey said she’d keep in touch, I thought that meant calls or texts, but it seems she meant pictures. A picture is worth a thousand words, after all. Her pictures are worth double that.
“How are you feeling?” Nolan asks out of nowhere, his gaze solely on me. My heart races, but I don’t let it show on my face.
The good thing about leaving Rian behind is that it made the grief look accurate for what Nolan is looking for. My son didn’t die, but I’m grieving him in a different way. I don’t have him in my arms, and that’s a tragedy by itself.
“Fine,” I lie, and it’s clear, but he doesn’t force me to change my answer.
Instead, he changes directions as I aimlessly push the vegetables around my plate. “Cora was able to book the church for four weeks from today, and if there’s anything my wife is good at, it’s pulling things together under pressure. Do you think you’ll be mentally prepared by then?”
Since when has Nolan been worried about my mental health? Not when he made that deal with me. Not when he tried to kill my son. Not when he beat Martin within an inch of his life.
Has he grown some twisted sense of conscience, or maybe it's just the permanent expression of loss across my face that makes him uneasy?
“Mentally prepared? No, but we have a deal. I want to get this over with, so a month is good enough.” My next words taste sour on my tongue, and I only push them out because I have to play this game right, or Rian’s life will be on the line. “Thank you for giving me the sufficient time to grieve.”
“You’ll have to excuse Beth. She recently suffered a horrible miscarriage,” Martin says, and it's almost like he wants to seem unaffected, but the guilt is clear on his face.
It’s not your fault, Martin. None of this was ever your fault.
He knows Rian is alive. I made sure Judy passed the message of his birth along while going with the language I instructed her to use just in case Nolan had a tap on Martin’s phone. Martin is acting as a shield for my son and I’ll always be grateful for that.
“Oh, no!” Carmen gasps before turning to me and snatching my hand, the cutlery clinking against the ceramic plate. “Don’t you worry, bonita. You’ll have another baby. A beautiful little girl with green eyes and curly blonde hair. She looks so much like you.”
Nolan and Martin stare at her like she’s the village freak, but not me. It’s clear from the passion in her eyes that she truly believes what she is saying. The truth, or lack thereof, in her words, matters not. The only thing that ever matters is if you believe the words you speak. If you believe them, others will, too. The fact that she thinks that would soothe a woman craving her child irks me. A new baby cannot replace one that’s been lost.
I force a small smile and nod, letting her know I appreciate the support. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all, right?
“It’s been a pleasure as always, Carmen, but if you excuse us, Miss Mercer and I have some business to attend to,” Nolan mutters as he stands to his feet, buttoning up his blazer effortlessly.
If he were in a bad mood, I would feign exhaustion, but I’m oddly calm as Nolan offers me his hand like an olive branch. On the inside, I recoil from the prospect of him touching me, but I have to play this game and keep him calm. If he’s calm, he won’t hurt me or discover the secret hidden beneath my dress.
“Good night, senor,” Carmen offers.
But, he grumbles under his breath. “I’m not a senior.”
It takes me a moment to grasp what he said, and when I do, I snort out a laugh, strolling out of the dining room with Lucifer incarnate. The fact that he was so ignorant to not know that senor is a term of respect and not “senior” with flair made me laugh. However, I think it makes him a real asshole that he has such disregard for Carmen’s native tongue not to learn a few basic phrases when he lives in an area highly populated by those who only speak Spanish.
Carmen has only been in America for a few weeks and never spoke English before coming here. It takes dedication to learn a new language as quickly as she has. She’s very intelligent.
Nolan must mistake my snicker for something more than just simply laughing at his stupidity because he grins at me, and it brings a light to his eyes I’ve never seen.
It’s confusing and disgusting that he shines it at me. I don’t want it. I’d rather snuff out any light he might have in his life than be the cause of even a flicker.
I turn my gaze away from him as he guides me to his office and shuts the door on his way to his sofa. Maybe I’m only mildly at ease because of the wine flowing in my veins.
“I wanted to discuss the housing issue,” he offers as he leaves me on the couch and heads for his liquor stash.
“In Grove Hill?” I didn’t realize there was a housing issue.
“No, I was referring to you living in a hotel.” Grabbing two short glasses, he drops ice cubes into them before moving onto the decanter full of amber liquid he favors any time we’ve had a private conversation.
“Motel.”
“Huh?”
“Motel. When the rooms face the outside, it’s a motel. When they face the inside of the establishment, it’s a hotel. I live in a motel to avoid sharing space with my mother, who is a recovering alcoholic, and I live there with Ollie.” Crossing my legs, I straighten my posture to show that he can’t rattle me anymore.
His eyes narrow with confusion. “Ollie?”
“Oliver Doyle. He doesn’t want me living there alone, and the last time he left me alone there for more than an hour, you killed our baby. He’s not moving back to the Bastard house until the wedding.”
Then, something I thought was completely impossible happened. Nolan Gray pales. That’s one thing he’s scared of, and that thing is my Ollie.
I grin on the inside like the Cheshire Cat and cackle like the Joker.
Everyone who isn’t completely insane or knows him down to his core fears him, but Nolan has a very different reason for that. He knows Ollie knows about their connection and the fact that he could spill the beans makes him dangerous in Nolan’s eyes.
In a beat, Nolan drains his glass before slamming it down on the hardwood bar. “Does he know?”
A slow grin pulls at my lips before I say, “We have no secrets.”
He tries to hide it by looking away, but I catch the stench of fear coming off him in waves.
Good. He should be afraid. When our deal is over, Ollie and I are going to hunt him down like the beast he is, no matter how many Bastard rules we have to break.
“And…the child was his?”
“Yes. A paternity test confirmed it.”
He nods and stares off into space. I wonder what he’s thinking or what he might be planning, but the room stays silent for so long I wonder if I could slip away unnoticed.
“I’m going to set you and my nephew up in an apartment in a much better area. All bills paid, including groceries. You’ll be comfortable.”
His offer feels like a payoff, like hush money. “Do you seriously think an apartment can repay what you stole from us?” I jump up in anger. Luckily, his walls are soundproof, or he might be just as angry as me. On the contrary, he seems stricken. “My child may not have been planned, but they were mine, not some offspring predetermined by some contract. That baby was my choice to keep growing inside me, not some obligation. How can you be so goddamn heartless?” I laugh, completely lacking the humor in it. “That’s right. You don’t have one.”
He turns to me, barely able to meet my eyes. “You’re right, Miss Mercer. I don’t have a heart. What I have is a stone block in my chest that barely beats at all, but if I did have one, it would’ve broken for what I had to do to you. You left me with no choice. Granted, I could’ve handled the situation with more finesse and less brutality, but the results would’ve been similar. You still would’ve lost your child, and you would still hate me for it. If you want to blame anyone for what happened, blame yourself. You knew you were pregnant when you came here to strike a deal with me to save your precious boyfriend. If you had been honest from the start, I would’ve told you that you would need to choose between your unborn child or the man you loved. Given the incredible amount of maternal instincts you have shown, I bet you would’ve chosen that child, and you and my nephew could’ve walked off into the sunset with your little family intact.” I wince from his words, and his knuckles drag down my cheek in a way that fills my veins with ice. “No good comes from living in the past, Bethany. We can go round and round about this, but the truth remains. Your child is dead, Mr. O’Reilly is free, and you belong to my family for the next twelve years. The apartment isn’t a bribe. It’s a way to make sure you’re safe and can sleep easily in your space. It’s non-negotiable. There’s also a car in the garage with your name on it.” His hand drops, and he adjusts his cufflinks.
I may have joked about Nolan giving me a car in the back of my mind at one point, but I didn’t think he would do it, and the thought of getting behind the wheel makes my stomach flip.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Is this some kind of sick joke?” Why the hell would he give me a car when I haven’t driven since the accident? That’s been by choice. I’m too scared to get behind the wheel. Anytime I think about it, all I can hear is the crunch of metal, and all I can see is the gravel of the creek staring back at me, taunting me to join it like it did that day. Then, I’m brought back by remembering Ollie saving me and his words to me.
This world isn’t worth being in if you’re not here.
Oliver Doyle is the thing that always grounds me. Sometimes, it's just as simple as something he said in passing one time that I remember.
“Not in the slightest. I’ll take you to it,” he offers.
“I’m not driving it.”
“Miss Mercer,” he growls in displeasure.
“No! I’m not driving, period. I haven’t driven since I hung off a bridge in that accident, the same way my father died, so no. I’m not driving whatever car you purchased for me. I can get in one just fine, but I will not drive one.”
The room is dead still for a while before he…concedes. “If it makes you more comfortable, I can arrange for you to have a chauffeur at the apartment so you don’t have to get behind the wheel. Would that be satisfactory?”
A compromise. Nolan is always such a brick wall. He never gives anyone wiggle room, so it’s only right that I meet him halfway.
“Thank you.”
He nods and leans in, but before he can do something repulsive, like try to kiss me, I turn on my heels and head back to the couch.
“Is that all?” I ask, grabbing my clutch from the cushion.
“Cora needs you to go house hunting with her sometime next week,” he offers.
I don’t answer outside of a curt bob of my head. What could I possibly say to that? No? That word usually doesn’t go over well with him. I won one battle, but the war is not over.
“My schedule is wide open. You can have her text me the details,” I mutter after a malignant silence drones on. “Goodnight, Mr. Gray.”
“Bethany, wait.” I stall at the door, facing the thick roadblock to my freedom.
“Yes?”
Next thing I know, he pulls my hair over my shoulder, and I shudder as his finger runs along the column of my neck. “About the future heirs of this family,” he starts, his voice deep and gruff, so unlike him.
“What about them?” I ask, and his other hand grips my waist in his strong fingers.
My stomach rolls when he presses his pelvis against my ass and grinds against me. “Would you be completely against them being mine?”
Barf.
“Unless done via IVF, my answer will be yes. That answer won’t ever change, so get that idea out of your head. I would never fuck the man who killed my baby. Don’t you have a mistress who can fulfill all those unholy desires?” I ask, barely holding in the small amount of food I consumed tonight.
“Yes, I always do. They change constantly, but…I’m not obsessed with them. I’m completely enthralled by you. You’re the only thing I’ve been able to think about since the first time you walked into this office.”
Double barf.
“Sorry to break it to you, Nolan, but the feeling's not mutual. In fact, it’s the complete opposite. I’m utterly disgusted by you. Goodnight.”
Before he can say anything else, I throw open the door and slip out. Without missing a beat, his fist slams into the door, rattling its hinges.
I can only handle one completely unhinged man at a time, and Ollie is waiting for me.