Chapter 49
Chapter Forty-Nine
My mind is a mess. The only thing I know for sure is that I love Emmanuel.
It hurts, knowing that he watched me, collected photos of me.
That he lived in some alternate reality where his girlfriend didn’t die at sixteen.
I honestly don’t know how to process it.
I do know that I can’t make any rash decisions based on being hurt.
I knew that he loved her. I knew he grieved her loss. And I also knew I look like her.
I thought we had similarities. But I didn’t think we looked exactly alike.
Emmanuel keeps eyeing me, as if I’m going to break down or run. Either is a possibility, but I’m not going to. Once I decided I was going to visit my mother, I went and got dressed. Did my hair and makeup to perfection and straightened my crown, so to speak.
I’ve spent all of my adult life pretending to be okay, when I was far from it.
I can do it now too. He knows, though. When Emmanuel looks at me with concern, it’s because he knows I’m not okay.
He’s literally the only person who has ever seen through my facade.
The only person who stops and looks hard enough to see all the broken pieces inside.
It’s not that my friends don’t care. It’s just that I don’t like showing them the ugly parts of me. I don’t want to be a burden. I glance back at Emmanuel and give him a smile. The kind that usually eases people’s worries.
“Don’t do that,” he says.
“Do what?”
“Don’t give me fake-ass smiles, Evie. I don’t want them,” he grunts. “I know you’re upset. I want the real you. Give me whatever emotion you’re feeling, because that’s what I deserve.”
“I’m fine,” I tell him.
“You will be, but right now, you’re confused and you’re hurting. And you have every right to be. But don’t sit here and lie to me,” he says. “I never lie to you.”
“No, you just keep truths from me, like the fact you were stalking me when I was sixteen, pretending I was your dead girlfriend,” I spit out in frustration.
“I did.” He nods. It’s odd. He doesn’t try to weasel his way out of this shit. He hasn’t told some bullshit story. He told me the truth. Which is the only reason I believe him when he says he’s in love with me. Not her.
Or it could just be me believing the truth I want. I don’t want to lose him.
“Just so you know, I let myself fall for you because I thought… here is a guy who will never do anything to hurt me. Here is the guy I look for when I wake up, the one I want holding me when I go to sleep and the only person in the world who has ever been able to quiet the nightmares,” I say.
“I fell in love with you because you saw all of me and loved me anyway. You are so in tune with me that it’s like you’re in my head half the time.
I love that. I do. But right now, it’s just pissing me off.
Get out of my fucking head, Emmanuel. Let me live in a fantasy bubble where everything is fine.
Where I am fine. Where I’m not falling apart on the inside because I’m about to go and face my biggest demon. ”
“Okay.” Emmanuel’s arm wraps around my shoulders, and he pulls me against his side. “We will pretend everything is fine.” He kisses my forehead. “I love you.”
“I love you,” I tell him.
“No.” He shakes his head. “I love you,” he repeats.
“I know.”
“That’s better.” He smiles down at me and then presses his lips to mine. “I need you to never forget that.”
“How many jets do you own, E?” I ask, looking around the luxurious plane.
“Two. Well, one now. We lost one,” he says.
“How do you lose a jet?”
“When Paz was taken in, he was about to board the jet. No one has seen it since. So either the fed hid it somewhere or found a way to confiscate it.”
“That’s a lot of money to just lose.” I frown. “Can’t you find it. Like don’t these things have GPS on them? Or an air tag or something.”
“They do, but it was switched off. And it’s not worth the hassle. I can buy another one,” Emmanuel says, like buying a jet is no different from going to the store and buying a pair of shoes.
“That’s insane,” I tell him. “Maybe you should get a pink one.”
“A pink one?” He laughs.
“Yeah, put everyone off the scent. What big scary cartel boss would be flying around in a pink jet?”
“None,” he says. “Neither will I.”
“Never say never,” I tell him.
I look up at my childhood home. “It’s exactly the same,” I tell Emmanuel. My hand is gripping his tight. I haven’t faced my mother in years.
“You don’t have to do this, Evie. We can turn around right now,” Emmanuel says.
“No, I do. I need to know,” I tell him. “We can’t start our marriage with unanswered questions.”
“We can, because we don’t need answers. We have each other. That’s all I care about,” he says.
“I know, but I want to know. Just… don’t kill her.”
“I’m not going to kill your mother, Evie,” he grumbles.
“You killed your own mother, E,” I remind him.
“She had a gun pointed at you,” he says. “I will kill anyone who points a gun at you.”
My mother doesn’t have guns. She’d also never point one at me. I know it’s fucked up, what she did. But in her mind, she does love me. That mind just isn’t healthy.
With each step we take towards the house, my heart beats faster and faster. When we get to the door, I raise my fist and knock.
I hear the sound of heels clicking, and the door opens. My mother’s smile falls when she sees me. “Evie?” Then that well-practiced pageant smile is back on her face. “Sweetheart, you look beautiful.”
“Can I come in?” I ask her.
My mother frowns. “This is your home. Of course, you can come in,” she says, stepping out of the way. She holds the door open and I walk through, pulling Emmanuel behind me. “This is Emmanuel, my fiancé.”
“Oh.” My mother gives me a once-over. “You look beautiful, Evie. Wait… Let me get the camera. I need to capture this moment.”
“No,” I say, my voice firm. “Not right now, Mom. Maybe after,” I suggest, because I know my mother. Her pictures of me are more important than the actual me.
She nods. “Okay, come on in. Can I get you anything?”
“No,” I say, following her into the living room. The space hasn’t changed at all.
I sit on the two-seater sofa. Emmanuel sits next to me.
I know the moment he spots the picture. It’s in a frame on the table beside the chair my mother is sitting on.
The entire room is filled with photos of me.
Or at least I was always led to believe they were of me.
I had such bad memory issues back then that I believed I just didn’t remember having certain pictures taken.
“Who is she?” I ask my mother.
“Who is who, sweetheart?”
I stand and pick up the photo. “Her. Who is she and why do you have a picture of her?”
“It’s you, Evie,” my mother says without missing a beat.
I sit back down, the photo still in my grip. Emmanuel takes it from me. He undoes the back of the frame and pulls the picture out. “Laura, eternally beautiful,” is written on the back of the image.
He hands it to me. “This was her copy of the picture,” he says. “I wrote that.”
I suck in a lungful of air. I will not let words he said to someone when he was sixteen hurt me. I will not let this hurt us. “Why do you have this, Mom?” I ask.
“How do you know Laura? Do you know where she is now?” My mom is looking at Emmanuel.
“The question is how did you know her?” Emmanuel counters, his voice hard.
“She’s my daughter,” Mom says.
“What?” both Emmanuel and I ask at the same time.
“She’s your sister, Evie.”
“I don’t have a sister. I would remember having a sister, Mom. What are you talking about?” I’m so confused.
“There were two of you… when you were born. But your father wouldn’t let me keep you both.
So he took one. He took Laura, and let me have you,” she says.
“Then I found her, in Las Vegas, but she didn’t want to know us.
” A sadness covers my mom’s face. “She was so beautiful, just like you, Evie. She could have been a queen too. Together, you could have owned that stage. Two crowns.”
Emmanuel squeezes my hand. “Mom, how did you get this picture?” I question.
“I followed her to an apartment, and I took it. She wouldn’t come home with us. But I brought her here anyway.” My mom looks at Emmanuel. “Do you know where she is? Is she still beautiful?”
Emmanuel looks at me before answering. “I know where she is. She is still beautiful, Miss Carter. Laura will always be this version of herself.” He passes the picture back to my mother.
“Oh, good. That’s good. It’s important to be beautiful,” Mom says.
“We have to go.” I stand and Emmanuel follows my lead.
Neither of us speaks until we get to the car. “Thank you.” I turn to him. “For lying to her.”
“Your mother needs help, Evie,” he says.
“That’s not my problem. I can’t… It’s not…” I don’t know how to explain it to him.
“I know. It’s okay.” He grabs my hand. “Ready to pick up Rachel and head to Milan?”
“Emmanuel, you just found out I’m the twin sister of your dead girlfriend. You can’t seriously want to marry me still,” I say.
“No, what I found out is that you got stuck being raised by a sick woman. You had a sister who really didn’t fare any better in the parent department.
I love you, Evie. I am in love with you.
Not Laura. You,” he says. “I love your kindness. I love your loyalty, your strength. I love the way you look at me as if I can solve the world’s problems. I love you.
I love the way you love me. I love you.”
“I know,” I say.
“So, Milan?” he asks.
“Let’s do it. Let’s get married.” I smile.
I’m actually going to marry this man. I’m going to move on and live my life for the future and leave the past behind me.
Those monsters can’t hurt me anymore, and that’s because of Emmanuel.
He killed them all. He showed me that I can be loved, even the worst parts of me can be loved.
“You want to talk about it?”
“Not right now. But one day, I’m going to want you to tell me everything you know about my sister,” I say.
“When that day comes, I need you to promise me one thing.”
“What’s that.”
“That you remember that I love you. Don’t forget that, Evie. It’s important to me that you never forget,” he says.
“I won’t forget. How can I when you tell me every other minute? And you show me that you love me all the minutes you aren’t saying it.” I smile. “You know, we can always just go to Vegas and elope. It will be much quicker and cheaper.”
“You are not having a wedding in Vegas. You are having a wedding fit for a queen,” Emmanuel says.
“I think I’m going to like being your wife.”
“Good, because you’re going to be my wife, in this life and the next,” he says. “You are mi alma. I will always find you.”