Chapter Four #2
“In... inside?” My sluggish brain sputtered and stopped, and started up again—focusing on my surroundings long enough for me to put together the picture. “Oh, no...”
The manor—
My home for eighteen years. Once photographed for the cover of Lantana Lifestyle Magazine. The pride of my mother’s eye.
—looked terrible.
Gone was the manicured lawn. Grass and weeds hip-high grew with abandon, defiantly raising a million middle fingers to the riding mower that clipped their growth.
The night I left the manor behind forever, I shot down the circular gravel path—blowing past our marble fountain, the centerpiece of our landscape.
Beautiful, dancing women in flowing hanboks posed, smiled, and beckoned to the coming guests—streams of crystal-clear water dancing from their palms.
Not anymore.
The marble cracked in a dozen places—splitting their smiles, stealing their noses, dismembering their fingers and limbs.
No water was running, which was just as well. The fountain basin held nothing but dirt, leaves, and trash. Running water would only gift us a feature as muddy as the path surrounding it. Clearly, the gravel had blown away long ago, and nobody bothered to have it redone.
And still, all of that was a better sight than the manor itself.
The flower garden that used to circle the mansion, once my mother’s pride and joy, was now nothing but weeds and dead bushes. The plaster was peeling. The roof was missing shingles. And a few of the windows were boarded up like an abandoned asylum, instead of a lived-in home.
Twisting around, I realized the screeching was a gift from the gate.
Now unmanned, it seemed it was replaced by an automatic gate sometime after I left.
And that replacement was the only upgrade that gate has gotten since, because I was now looking at a rusted, wheezing thing that wanted to be put out of its misery.
“Ms. Kim?” He stopped the car and killed the engine. “Would you mind?”
It took me a second to remember his question. “Oh, uh— Yes. That would be fine.”
Climbing out, he came around to my side, opened the door, and guided me out. I leaned on him, letting him prop me up more than I needed him to. Coming across weak and fluttery would dissuade him from asking any more questions. How could I deal with his questions when I couldn’t handle my own?
How did the manor get this bad? Where were the staff? The groundspeople? The gardeners? The housekeepers? Anyone?
Davis led me up the brick staircase.
Loose stones wobbled beneath our feet, welcoming us officially into the house of disrepair.
If it looks this bad on the outside, how bad is it on the inside? Another, harsher, thought occurred to me. It must be falling apart inside too. That’s why Sue didn’t care that Omma left me all her furniture and the manor’s contents.
The real wealth is in the building and in the land. Why would she be jealous when she knew when it came to the inheritance game, she still won?
The thought crossed my mind, then I shoved it out. What did it matter now? Any games she may or may not have been trying to win? Any manipulations she thought she was running on me? None of that mattered.
Sue was gone.
She was more than gone. Because of me, she was a battered corpse on the ocean floor. I robbed her of a proper burial. I was erasing her from her own life. The least I could do was think more charitably of her now, and let the past finally be the past.
“Ms. Kim?” Davis looked at me like he’d been trying to get my attention for a while. “Your key?”
“Oh, right.” I fumbled in my bag, fishing out Sue’s housekey.
Passing it over, he pushed inside and helped me in.
Our eyes locked immediately.
Time slowed, then ground to a screeching halt—trapping me in this single moment. With a single thought.
I know you...
The man paused on the staircase, clearly in the middle of descending them when we burst inside.
Curly hair that was a cheek-tickling, dusky brown. Glinting, melty hazel eyes, and that tight, muscled body that somehow got tighter and musclier. His handsome, angular face crumpled in a frown—stealing the breath from my lungs before he, or I, even got a chance to speak.
“Sue?” He fixed on Davis. “What’s going on?”
“Excuse me, sir,” Davis said. “May I ask who you are?”
His frown deepened. He came the rest of the way down the stairs, stepping from the shadows into the light of the early morning. “Who am I?”
“No...” I whispered. “Please, no...”
“Who do you think I am? I’m her—”
Don’t say it.
“Husband,” Alexander finished, pulverizing my heart into dust. “What happened to her—? Sue, what happened to you?”
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.
“—in a car accident...” Davis’s voice reached me from far away. “...hit a deer... wanted to come home instead of the hospital—”
“What? And that didn’t seem like a bad idea to you?” Alex rushed me, taking me stiff and unmoving into his arms. “Sue, are you okay? Why would you refuse to go to the hospital? You know how serious head injuries are.” He twisted around. “Guys? Guys, get in here!”
Sounds muted—smothered under the roaring in my ears. The thundering of rushing footfalls tried to penetrate, but it did not do so as successfully as the sight of two other handsome, dazzling men rushing into the front room.
Long, raven hair, and razor-sharp cheekbones. Eyes that weren’t laughing at the moment but were still tantalizing lady-trappers.
“Sue, you okay, baby?” Micah dropped a kiss on my lips before I could squeak. “What happened to your head?”
Coiled, tight brown curls rose over Micah’s head like an umber-drenched sunrise. Dark, almost black ink stole all the color from his iris, but not the concern in his eyes.
I did get out a squeak when he reached around Micah and kissed me too.
“Is this why you didn’t come home last night?” Rhodes asked. “Are you hurt?”
My lips parted—to say what, I wasn’t sure—
—until I heard her voice.
“Mommy?”
The world stopped.
A tiny purple torpedo shot down the stairs and barreled through the crowd forming around me. Throwing her arms around my waist, she looked right up into my eyes—tearing a cry from my lips.
My baby...
In front of me. In my arms. Drowning me in her calla lily eyes.
She was mine.
My angular face. My full lips. My button nose. Even my thick, bushy brows. The only features stolen from me by her father were her thick, curly hair and round, blinking eyes. But everything else was me. Mine. She was—
Sue’s.
Not my baby. Sue’s baby. Her daughter. That she lived with in a house with Micah, Rhodes, and Alex—all of whom touched and kissed the woman they thought was Sue without a trace of jealousy between them. And in that moment... I knew.
I knew why Sue spent eight fucking hours in the car talking about herself but didn’t once mention she was in a relationship, or three, and that she had a daughter.
I knew she didn’t tell me, because she wanted this. She wanted this exact moment where I stood there—eyes blown and mouth gaping like a fish—shocked down to my very soul that Sue went out and landed the only three guys on the planet I truly fell head over heels for.
She wanted to see the look on my face when I realized just how much she stole from me—just how much she won.
The mother’s love I lost. The baby I couldn’t have. The home I never really had. And the men who made my heart skip three beats even then—no matter all the time that passed.
She took it all. And for all her bullshit about wanting to bring me home and make things right with Omma, she still couldn’t resist another opportunity to laugh at my pain as she twisted the knife in.
My promise and resolution to forgive her burned away in an eruption of white-hot hatred.
Looking into Micah’s, Rhodes’s, and Alex’s eyes, I had only three words to say to their worries and concerns.
“That fucking bitch.”
Pitching to the side, my head rushed to meet the floor. Darkness took me before it finished the trip.