Chapter 25
I’m a distant observer in my life, watching it from a distance as Marcus carries me out of the office. He asks me to…maybe not understand why he killed a man in front of me, but to keep it to myself.
Like I’m going to call the cops or get anyone else involved in our mess.
Ours, because I was there. I’m guilty by association.
I didn’t do anything to stop Parker when he pointed the gun at me. Maybe I should have let him kill me.
Marcus brings me to my room on the opposite side of the house and sets me down in the middle of the bathroom. I can’t feel my feet, my fingers. Every part of me is made of chilled iron, and I manage to keep standing long enough for him to flip on the shower and let the water start to heat.
He moves back to me, his eyes trailing over my face and down my torso, but I’m not there. I’m numb, barely moving, barely helping as he slides the straps of my shirt down and starts to tug it over my head. A million miles away, part of me still stuck at the cemetery.
My tank top follows, and his fingers are light, utterly gentle as he shoves my pants down to my ankles. He gets my clothes off and takes them away so I don’t have to look at the blood anymore. I don’t care what he does with them, just as long as I never see them again.
Once I’m naked, he nudges me underneath the shower spray.
There is nothing sexual about the situation.
I stare at my feet and the water around my painted toes. Blood colors every swirl, draining away as though nothing ever happened. As though Marcus didn’t shoot a man right in front of me.
My producer is dead.
I’m too focused on not puking, not panicking, to consider what it means for me and the movie role I’d taken.
What it means for the entire industry.
Parker Heath is no small man in this town. He’s well known with a reputation and dozens of projects to his name. How is Marcus going to cover up the murder? Not even a normal death.
The entire experience in the office felt like it lasted a lifetime but also ended in the blink of an eye. Parker, a thorn in my side and a complete creep, is dead. Just like that. A snap of the fingers, or the pull of a trigger, and he’s out of my life for good.
A permanent departure.
And who is Stanic Maxim? What kind of hold does he have?
What did Marcus mean when he said he made a deal with Stanic to take over Hollywood operations?
The harder I try, the more I realize I’m not capable of putting the pieces together right now. The ragged edges all grind together in my head until I ache behind the eyes and everywhere in between. It feels like there are entire sections of my psyche turned off as Marcus washes me. He runs the bar of soap over my arms and lifts them up like I’m pliant, a child who needs an adult to take care of her.
Let’s face it: the impression is accurate.
Neither one of us says anything, either. I don’t stop him, and he doesn’t try to talk to me, not yet.
He said he’ll tell me everything. How much do I not know about him? About his life? Everything that led us to this point, the plane crash, and beyond.
My eyes close, and the water is hot enough to lull me into something more comfortable than shock.
He takes care of me the way I desperately need him to, without me having to ask. After a time, he flips off the water and gently bundles me in an oversized towel.
“There you go.” It’s the first time he’s spoken to me the entire time. A second towel follows the first, and while I grip the edges of the larger one, he scrubs the top of my head with the other. “As good as new. You’re gonna be fine.”
I let him guide me out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, trailing a line of water on the marble. The carpet absorbs the drips, but I see a line of footprints once he maneuvers me onto the edge of the bed.
“Let’s get you dressed. It seems like you’ve still got a chill, so we’ve got to find your pajamas.”
He’s chatting away like this is any normal day and things haven’t changed between us, trying to keep me from breaking with his tone and his presence alone.
No matter how hard I force myself to say something back to him, my lips refuse to move, and my back molars grit together, jaw clenched against the chatter and the cold. Marcus fumbles around in my walk-in closet until he returns with a pair of fuzzy pajama bottoms and a clean shirt, something he brought back himself on a trip to England. It’s got a picture of the UK flag, and the material is so worn, there are holes near the seams of the arms.
One of my favorite shirts I’d put on too many times to count and hadn’t been able to make myself throw out.
Did he know when he chose it?
“I need you to understand how much I loved your parents,” he continues in his conversational tone. He brushes his calluses over my ankle before he draws the bottoms up my legs and settles them around my hips. “Before I say anything else. Your mother was an amazing woman, and your father was my friend. I’d do anything for them.”
Anything except join them on the plane ride.
Why had he been absent that day?
I couldn’t remember. Everything before and after the crash is a blur.
“I respected them, and it meant the world to me to be a part of their lives. My career only took off once Olivia signed with me. I owe her everything.”
Except he’s the reason they’re dead.
I’m having a hard time reconciling the gentle man kneeling at my feet with the one responsible for their plane crash, whether he knew it or not.
Marcus Ortega is at my feet.
I draw my knees up to my chest. This is all real. We’re still alive. He keeps his fingers looped around my ankle, as though touching me is his only tether to reality, and I take in his face. The dark strands of hair framing those high cheekbones. The stubble on his jaw and above his upper lip.
Something in his eyes glints at the way I study him.
“I had no idea about the crash,” he adds, as though he’s reading my thoughts. “I loved your Mom and Dad. They were great people, and I would have done anything for them. If I’m responsible for what happened to them, then I am so fucking sorry, I can’t even express.” He lifts his eyes to meet mine. “Blame me for all of it, and I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
“Secrets,” I manage to get out.
“I have a lot of them.” He shrugs, simply.
“You said you’d tell me everything.” At least my voice holds steady. There’s no stuttering.
“Are you ready to hear it?”
It seems to me he’s stalling for time, even though he does have a point. I force myself to nod and stare him down until my eyes burn.
“There are a lot of things I’ve wanted to tell you and haven’t been able to bring myself to. I’m not a good person, Empire.” The circles he rubbed along my skin with his thumb stall. “I told you that my past is a mess, and I’ve done what I have to do in order to keep it from you.”
“It caught up,” I whisper.
“It caught up,” he agrees, “and I did what I had to do in order to protect you, believe me or not. I’ve kept a gun in the desk on the off chance someone from Stanic’s family comes calling. And they did.”
I want to argue the point with him out of principle, because there have been good times and bad times between the two of us, not all of them resigned to one camp or the other, but various shades of gray over the years we’ve spent together. The man I’m looking at now seems the least likely to be responsible for a plane crash, in any capacity. He seems sweet and kind, caring.
He seems like a good person, generally speaking.
The way he came to my rescue during shooting the other day. The way he came for Parker today, even while recognizing the repercussions.
“I’m a very bad man,” he says.
I hug my knees tighter to me. “Tell me.”
“I’ve done things in my life that would horrify you, which is why I haven’t shared them with you or your parents. There will always be secrets I have to keep, because the more you know about Stanic, the more danger you’re in, and I’m doing my best to keep you from that life.”
“You said you’d share everything,” I argue.
“I wasn’t going to let Parker hurt you.” Marcus finally moves his hands up to my knees to pry them apart.
He unravels the towel I’ve clutched to my chest, and his gaze lingers on my breasts a short moment before he drags the shirt over my head, helping me get my arms into place.
“He came here today to threaten me and excuse his own bad behavior. Apparently, he saw your increased salary on his picture as a reason to make unforgivable cuts within his budget. When I called him out on it…how much did you hear?” His face hardens as he slides his palms down my arms.
Too much. Everything. Not enough to make full sense of the situation. I feel like I’m drowning, Marcus the one on the other end of the lifeline, and I want so desperately bad to believe he’ll hold on and bring me to safety. The way he’s acting now, it’s all too easy to believe he’s genuine, that he’ll be there to save me.
Without answering his question, I say, “You killed him.”
The words somehow slip through lips that refuse to move. The second Marcus has my shirt in place, he pushes me back against the mountain of pillows, brings the blanket up over my shaking legs and settles in at my side hesitantly. He wraps his arm around me slowly, as though I’d somehow disappear. Or run.
As if I’d be able to move.
Right now, I’m stone. I’m jelly. I’m water dripping away in every direction at once, and the only thing I know is that I want to hear more about what he wants to say.
“I killed him,” he repeats. “I had no other choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
“Not when it comes to you.” His voice hardens into something unbreakable. “He wanted to hurt you. He would have if I hadn”t stepped in.”
I want to ask him what he means, but fear clenches my throat shut.
After my trip to the cemetery, I’d wondered about a way to keep Marcus in my life. He was only obligated to stay with me until I turned twenty-two, and unless I wanted to hire him permanently as a manager, I saw no other way to get him to stay.
I want him to stay.
The thought of him leaving cracked me in two.
Everything else had felt small in comparison. Now, those small things, like the sides of him he refused to show me, are massive. They are insurmountable hurdles. How can I love a man I don’t know? Because he touched me, kissed me? Made me come?
It doesn’t seem like a good enough reason, even with our shared history. I have to face the facts: Marcus is the kind of man who is comfortable with killing. He keeps a gun in his desk. He knows how to use it. He used it today without hesitation.
I’m staring at him and his familiar face, and I have to wonder who is really behind those brown eyes.
Someone wanted Marcus dead badly enough to cause a plane crash, and my parents were the ones who paid the cost. What kind of price will I have to pay? The thought has me shivering, and I wrap my arms tighter around me to try and keep in the heat.
“I don’t want you to be scared of me,” Marcus continues, a note of softness entering his tone. ‘The last thing I want is for you to be afraid of me.”
I open my mouth to tell him I’ll never be scared of him, but the words refuse to come out, because a part of me knows they’re a lie.
“The things we’ve done together…” He trails off. “I couldn’t stop myself, not with you. I want you so badly.”
I swallow over a huge lump in my throat.
He shifts to my side, lining his body up next to me, his heat seeping in through where we connect. “I want you to the point where I can barely breathe. You’re all I think about.”
It’s the same for me. Every waking moment is Marcus. Even when I close my eyes, I get no relief, because his face is right there alongside the nightmares. He’s my salvation and my damnation.
“But if we continue this thing between us,” he says, “then I’ll only ruin the good things in you. We can’t be together. We can never be together.” His grip on my shoulder tightens, and I allow him to pull me further into the safety of his arms.
Does it count for anything? I wonder distantly. How safe I’ve always felt with him? I’m invincible in his arms. Nothing can touch me when I’m with him. It’s as though the outside world doesn’t exist.
“I’ve wanted you for longer than it’s right and decent to want you. I’ve watched you grow from a sweetheart of a kid into a gorgeous and capable woman with the world at her fingertips. I’d ruin you.”
What if I want to be ruined?
Neither one of us is able to look at the other.
“I’ve wanted to tell you everything for the longest time, and I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it. I haven’t wanted to change the way you look at me, because when you smile, it’s everything. You are everything to me, Empire.”
I’m quiet through his words, processing everything that’s happened, what he’s saying.
In my head, I see Parker on the floor. I feel the jerk in his body as the bullet rips through his chest.
“I’ll take care of you no matter what. If you trust me on nothing else, trust me on that,” Marcus says. “Do you understand?”
I’m not sure I understand anything anymore. I do know one thing for certain: the image of a man getting shot will play on my nightmares alongside the image of the plane crash. The one Marcus should have been in too.