Chapter 22 Remy #2
“If I’ve played my cards right, he won’t be coming back.”
“What about Cash?”
“No one can enter the room, Remy.”
“So, I’m trapped in here with you?” My pulse quickens. I don’t have the energy to hide a second time.
“Please just hear me out, and then you’re free to go.”
Maybe I’ll regret this, but I say, “Okay. But can we sit down?”
“Sure.” Another smile.
“And is there any food through there?”
Isabella pops a can of soda from the mini-bar and hands me a packet of salted peanuts.
While I devour the snack and guzzle the drink, she explains how the engagement to George Quinn came about.
She talks about arranged marriages as if this isn’t the twenty-first century, talks about her father’s reluctance to hand over the family business to her, and finally recounts the conversation she had with the Murrays in Cash’s boardroom.
When she’s finished, I’ve already licked the salt from my fingers and drained the last of the soda. It’s a lot to take in, and I can’t explain why, but I believe her.
“So… you don’t want to marry him?”
“No.” She shakes her head and slants her eyes at me. “Would you?”
“Fuck no!” But I still don’t understand why she’s telling me this. “Will the Murrays help you?”
She didn’t elaborate on how she wanted them to get rid of George. I can’t think about Cash or Bash murdering anyone in cold blood, so instead I picture them putting him in a rowboat and leaving him in the middle of the ocean without any oars.
“I don’t know if I can rely on them.” She shrugs. “Do you trust them?”
I squeeze my eyes shut and picture the woman Cash is going to marry. “I thought I could trust them.” My voice cracks. “But that was before I met Cash’s fiancée.”
Thin lines appear between Isabella’s brows. “His fiancée? Remy, I have a confession to make. Cash isn’t engaged to someone else.”
I swallow, but the lump in my throat won’t go down. “What do you mean? I saw her. I saw the ring he gave her. She told me… they’re getting married…”
“It was a set-up, Remy. I needed to get you away from Cash long enough to get him on board with my proposal.”
“You set me up…?” My voice sounds tiny, swallowed up by denial and misbelief.
“I’m so sorry, Remy. I know it doesn’t count for much, but… I was desperate.”
“Desperate?” I whisper. “You let me believe… I thought that he… they… how could you do that to me?”
“Remy.” There are tears in her eyes. Crocodile tears, no doubt. People like Isabella and George feel no compassion towards anyone else. They’re self-serving. They’re… “It’s the toughest decision I’ve ever had to make.”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”
I try to stand up and think better of it. The room is still swaying. My head is still banging away at its own concert. And I’m wasting time here with this woman when I should be with Cash and Bash.
Cash isn’t engaged. My heart is skipping even though I’m holding out on relief until I hear the words from his own mouth. Until I can get away from Isabella Leone and erase her and George Quinn from my life.
“A few hours. That was all I needed to get away from George and state my proposition to Cassius Murray. You were not drugged, Remy. I wouldn’t do that to you.
” She sounds sincere, but then again, I bet a Great White shark smiles when it approaches the surfer in deep water.
“It was an antihistamine. Prescribed by my doctor to help me sleep.”
She doesn’t even flinch when she says this.
As if that will make it all better. As if I’ll forgive her for slipping antihistamines into my drink to knock me out…
and oh my God… I’ve figured out how she did it.
Tom. He brought a soda to the booth after Cash left.
He was in on this whole crazy scheme too.
A few deep breaths to regulate my heartbeat. “I’m pregnant.”
Isabella nods. “I know.”
I freeze. Wide-eyed and certain I misheard her. “You knew, and you still made that choice.”
Isabella stands as if she can sense that I need some space between us and is aware that standing is difficult for me right now. I’m not giving her any bonus points for sympathy now after her recent confession.
She talks while she’s pacing. “Do you love Cash?”
“I…” Why should I even answer this? “I don’t think that’s any of your business?” I sound like a teenager keeping a secret from the mean girls in school.
“You’re right, it isn’t. But the next question is. What would you do for the man you love? Would you die for him? Would you kill for him?” She speaks slowly, pausing between questions to let them sink in. “Could you walk away from Cash Murray right now and pretend that you never cared about him?”
Could I?
I don’t even need to consider my answer.
My heart beats frantically to stop me from saying the words out loud, because once they’re out there, I have to own them. “No, I couldn’t.”
Isabella stops pacing and nods. Her face is pale, her eyes huge and dark, but there’s a faint flush on her cheeks now that wasn’t there a moment ago. “Neither can I, Remy. I can’t walk away from the man I love and pretend that I never cared about him.”
I frown. “But you’re trying to get George out of your life?”
“I’m not in love with George Quinn.” She shrugs. “I’m in love with a man called Alessandro Bonetti. I have been since I was sixteen years old.”
“But… Why did you agree to marry George? Do your parents know about Alessandro?”
“Yes, they know about him, and they gave me no choice.”
I try to think of a suitable argument, one that she could present to her parents to change her mind about her arranged marriage to my ex-boyfriend, and I can’t think of one.
How would I feel if my mom forced me to marry a man that she and my father chose for me? Even before I met Cash and Bash, I would’ve rebelled, cried, yelled, packed a bag and run away before I was in too deep. But now… The thought makes me feel sick.
I can’t choose between the twins, and plenty of people will find that notion repulsive, but it is nowhere near as repulsive as the thought of sleeping with another man. Another man I’ve been forced to marry. A man I must pretend to care about in public to keep up appearances for my family’s sake.
“What are you going to do?” I ask.
“I’m going to get George Quinn out of my life, and I’m going to marry the man I love.” She smiles.
“But what if Cash refuses to help you?”
She promised him me, in return for his assistance. And here I am. I can walk out of this room right now and her leverage is gone.
“He won’t help me.” She sucks her bottom lip and swallows.
“It’s only a matter of time before he finds you here, and I realize now that he was never going to help me.
He has a reputation to uphold too. I was relying on him having some compassion, and he does, but you’re his priority, and that’s exactly how it should be. ”
My chest swells with love for Cash and Bash. I don’t know what to say, so I keep quiet.
Isabella comes back to the couch and sits down beside me. “I understand that what I did was abhorrent, and that you owe me nothing, but… well… will you help me? Please?”
“Me?”
Bizarrely, I’m not even thinking about what she did to me.
Persuading Tom to slip antihistamines into my soda, sending a fake-fiancée to humiliate me, abducting me and leaving me trapped here with George while she presented her case to the Murrays.
Instead, I can’t think of a single way in which I can be useful to her.
“I don’t know… What can I do to help?”
She releases a breath. “You’re still here, and that’s more than I deserve already.” Pause. “You know him better than I do.”
“Ha! I thought I did.” I’m recalling the conversation about his sexuality. “I don’t think either of us knows who he really is.”
“But two heads are better than one, right?”
She has no idea. I blush thinking about the last night I spent in the company of the twins.
I can’t believe I’m saying this but, “What do you want me to do?”
“Speak to him. He’ll listen to you, Remy. He still thinks of you fondly.”
I shake my head, and my jaw howls with pain in response. “I-I can’t.” I touch my swollen face gingerly.
“I know it’s a lot to ask, and I don’t expect you to be alone with him, but—”
“I’m sorry.” I’m breathing erratically at the thought of being in close contact with him again. Even if I’m not alone. “What if he… Hitting me is one thing, but I’m pregnant. I can’t risk him hurting my babies.”
“I’m pregnant too, Remy.” She instinctively places a hand over her abdomen, smoothing her immaculate dress across the roundness I never noticed before.
“You’re pregnant?” I whisper. “Is it… Is George the father?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “Alessandro is the father. Now, do you understand my predicament? I can’t bring up my child in a marriage that’s a sham. I can’t pretend that George Quinn is their daddy. I can’t.”
Do I believe her?
After everything she did, do I trust her to tell me the truth? This could be another trick. George wore a mask to fool me into believing that Cash beat him up. Isabella Leone has already proved that she’s capable of doing terrible things.
As if she can read my mind, she takes my hand and places it over her belly. I feel a tiny flutter like bubbles floating to the surface.
“Is that…?”
“I’ve been trying to hide it from George and my parents. But that’s my baby kicking, Remy.”
I must be crazy.
I must’ve lost my mind when George hit me, or else I’m still hiding behind the bathroom panel, and this is all a smoke-induced dream.
But the baby in her tummy kicking my hand has filled me with wonder, and magic, and I would want her to help me if I were in her shoes.
“Okay, I’ll do it,” I say before I can stop myself.