Chapter 33
TRUTH AND ITS HURTS
LANEY
It was nearly dinnertime. And I still had no idea what to do.
Dad and I had spent the day packing up anything personal from the shop.
People from Blackguard would be coming tomorrow to take the remaining inventory, books, and anything else related to Meráki back to Boston.
After that, Dad had decided to rent the retail space out to another owner until I decided whether to sell the building.
He had just left for an evening pickleball game (you really couldn’t take the Arizona out of the boys, apparently), and since then, I’d been sitting on the couch, staring at Detective Rodriguez’s number while my stomach growled.
I had three options, plain and simple.
One: Talk to the detective and give him the truth that would also condemn a man I was pretty sure I still loved like crazy, even if I was also crazy mad at him.
Two: Lie and possibly condemn myself while covering for said man, who had potentially done something truly terrible.
Three: Talk to Ronan and figure this out together.
If I could trust him, that is.
“Oh, God,” I groaned. “I’m going to be divorced before I’m twenty-eight, aren’t I?”
As if in answer, my phone buzzed in my lap.
I answered it immediately. “Hey, Megs.”
“So, I’ve been thinking about your situation,” she said without so much as a greeting.
I slumped against a cushion. I’d called her immediately after speaking with the detective, but we hadn’t been able to talk since. I didn’t want to tell my dad what was going on until I’d figured it out for myself. Maybe things were on a good path now, but that had only been for a few hours.
Processing was what best friends were for, anyway.
“You need to do three things. First, call that detective back and tell him you need a lawyer present before answering any questions—”
“Already did that.”
“Okay, good. Second, I actually do think you should call Ronan, if just to get his side of the story. It’s super weird that he asked you for an alibi—”
“Which he took back,” I found myself adding. “Don’t forget that.”
“Which he took back. But it’s worth exploring. Also, I don’t think you should tell him the cops called.”
I rubbed my chest. I didn’t like that. I didn’t like that at all. To start, I wasn’t sure I could lie to Ronan that way.
“I don’t think I can do that,” I told her. “I don’t think I can face him at all.”
“Yes, you can. I’ll give you a script. You just need to hype yourself up first.”
There it was again—the familiar flutter in my chest, and just at the thought of lying to Ronan. I closed my eyes, willing it to stop, but it didn’t. Not with three rounds of box breathing or another vagal maneuver.
I fought dizziness as I stood, keeping my phone close while Megan jabbered on about inner strength and retribution.
“Uh-huh,” I said as I managed to get into the bathroom and locate my pills in my clutch.
There was one pill left in the little container. I’d left the rest of my pills in Boston.
Crap.
I ran the faucet and took a pill with water cupped in my hands.
“So you see,” Megan was finishing. “You don’t have to face him, babe. There are three thousand miles between you, and he doesn’t know where you went.”
“I mean, he probably does now that I turned my phone back on. Location services are off now, but I didn’t do it until this morning.”
Yes, I could have done it last night on the plane. No, I didn’t bother, nor was I interested in figuring out why.
“Well, even if he does, it would take him six hours to get here. It’s just a conversation. You’ll have to have it eventually, so you might as well figure out what you’re going to say.”
I collapsed onto the toilet seat and set my forehead to the cool ledge of the sink, willing my heart to regulate. “Ronan knows me. I know it’s quick, but he does. He would know I’m lying. I think.”
She hummed—the sound of her thinking that she’d done since she was a kid. “Fine. Put a pin in that. We’ll figure out another way to infiltrate his lair.”
I relaxed a bit. “So, what’s the third?”
There was a brisk knock at my door. The call ended, and then the sound of Megan’s voice shouted through the wood: “Open up, bitch!”
I took several more deep breaths, then got up to answer the door with a pasted-on smile.
“The third,” Megan announced as she flounced in with a large bag of takeout, “is dinner. I brought Thai—holy shit, you look awful. Laney, what’s wrong?”
I flapped my hand. I wasn’t as bad as before, but I still felt light-headed. “My heart, you know. I just took my last pill, but you know. It takes some time.”
Megan abandoned the takeout on a shelf near the door and proceeded to guide me back to the couch. “Okay, where’s the prescription? I’ll go pick up your refill now.”
I shook my head. “I—Dr. Palmer said he wouldn’t refill them until I came in to discuss surgery.”
“And when was that?” Megan wanted to know. She was still holding my hand, like that might calm the now-non-existent attack.
I muttered something unintelligible.
“In English, this time.”
I sighed. “Right after Vegas.”
“Excuse me?” Her voice rose about an octave. “Laney Harmonia Fisher, please tell me you have that appointment scheduled. And please tell me you did the right thing and scheduled the surgery you should have had years ago.”
“Please stop talking in italics,” I said. “And you know I can’t do that.”
“Can’t do what? Lie to me or have life-saving surgery?”
“Both.”
I sounded petulant. I knew that. Really, I sounded like a scared little girl, and maybe that wasn’t so far from the truth. No one, not even Megan, knew how terrified I was of going into that hospital and not waking up again.
No one except Ronan.
My heart skipped again at the thought of him, and not in a good way.
No. Not now.
“It will be fine,” I started. “The medication will start working within an hour. I’ll call tomorrow and convince him to refill my prescription, and—what are you doing?”
She was already on her phone. “Dr. Palmer, you said?”
“Yes, but—”
Megan silenced me with a finger. “Hi, I’m calling on behalf of Delaney Fisher. She’s a patient of Dr. Palmer’s and needs to schedule her pre-op appointment for her cardiac ablation. And she needs a prescription refill. Immediately.”
“Megs, stop,” I hissed. “You don’t need to do this.”
“That’s right,” Megan went on as she turned to the side and steadfastly ignored me. “She just ran out today, actually, so I’m sure Dr. Palmer wouldn’t want her to wait—yes, I’ll hold.”
Before I could protest anymore, there was another knock at the door.
Megan and I both frowned at each other.
“Are you expecting someone else?” she asked with her hand over the phone’s speaker.
I shook my head. “No.” It couldn’t be Dad—he had a key.
She was still on hold while I got up to look through the peephole.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered.
“Who is it?” Megan asked.
I turned. “Let’s just say when it rains around here, it really pours.”
“Laney! I hear you. Please open the door.”
Megan’s eyes popped open. “Oh my God, what is he doing here?”
With a sigh, I opened the door. “Derek.”
My ex-boyfriend was standing on my threshold, looking like he had just gotten off work, but also looking a bit out of breath, like he’d jogged here from South Lake Union in his tech pants and polo shirt.
As I looked him over, I couldn’t help wondering how I’d ever been attracted to him. In Seattle, sure, he was considered a relatively stylish man. If you owned footwear that wasn’t a running shoe or Birkenstocks with tube socks, you were fancy.
But after I had spent the last two weeks with Ronan and his sophisticated, if simple style, Derek just looked cheap to me.
Cheap and sweaty.
“Good,” he said. “Your dad said you were home.”
I scowled. “Why were you talking to my dad?”
“Because I tried to call you, and your phone was off.” He held out his own phone. “I saw this.”
BLACK WEDDING DRAMA LLAMAS!
Ronan Black’s Reception Ends as Bride Flees
By Ivy Ink
Below was a short article detailing the events of the evening with unerring detail, right down to a description of Dad’s hair in the video.
Under the byline were two photos, side by side.
The first was of Ronan and me sharing one of many conversations that night, like we were the only two people in the room.
We looked ensconced in our own world.
We looked in love.
And then there was the second photo, which only showed me from the back as I ran for the door, but caught Ronan’s face, devastated with guilt. And heartbreak.
Something inside me cracked.
“Laney?” Derek edged into the apartment, though he left the door open. “Baby, are you okay?”
“She is not your baby, Derek,” Megan snapped, still on hold with the doctor. “Laney, seriously, though. Are you all right?”
“No,” I mumbled, still staring at Derek’s phone. He caught it just before it dropped from my fingers.
Two seconds later, he was pulling me into his arms like he had always done. “Hey, I have you. I’m here, Laney. I have you.”
For some reason, that was the veritable straw that broke the camel’s back. Not the fact that my husband had lied to me. Not the fact that he was obviously hiding something much worse than his plans for my company.
No, it was the fact that another man was comforting me, a man I had somehow thought I had ever loved, and it was just wrong because he wasn’t him. He wasn’t Ronan.
The tears fell like a current, intent and furious, while the rest of the room lost its focus.
“Do you see what you’ve done?” Megan screeched, now abandoning her phone. “Just go, Derek, honestly! You’re making everything worse.”
“I didn’t do anything.” Derek wrapped his arms around me that much tighter. It only made me cry more. “See, she needs me.”
I didn’t need him. I needed Ronan. I needed my mother. I needed my marriage to be real, for a man who didn’t know the meaning of love to love me back. I needed the impossible.
Instead, I had my cheating ex-boyfriend’s floppy hair and utterly inadequate arms.
The sobs began to hurt.