Chapter 20 – Mortician
Mortician owed the Harringtons. With the help of Knox’s mother, they’d gotten Bailey a spot in a very exclusive rehab center. Across the goddamn country, in a picturesque Maine town on Penobscot Bay.
Hal, Knox’s father, lent Mortician the company jet. Within hours of Bailey’s release from Hortensia General, they were airborne.
Roxanne wanted to come, but Mortician asked her to stay in Hortensia to help with his children.
Bailey’s intake would be first thing in the morning, so Mortician checked them into a luxury hotel surrounded by trees and overlooking the harbor.
He rented a suite, always wanting the best for Bailey. She’d sobered up on the plane, repeating the same goddamn ramblings when she wasn’t sleeping through most of the six-hour flight. A car awaited them at the airport, located ten miles outside of the city.
Just thinking about the amount of money he’d spent sent him to the window to enjoy the view, hoping to calm his racing heart and praying for the strength to do what needed doing.
Most of all, he prayed he’d be able to leave Bailey all alone while returning to the other side of the country because of his children and his club duties.
The bathroom door squeaked open, and Mortician turned, smiling at his wife. Her hair was still damp from her shower, her skin smooth and perfect.
Remembering their last trip, he laughed nervously. They were either arguing or making love, neither of which Bailey needed now. It was part of the reason he’d allowed her to ramble, unchecked, on the plane between her naps. She needed kindness, patience, and understanding. “How you feeling, baby?”
“Better,” she said coolly. “Thank you.”
“It’s going to be so fucking hard on me with you so far away. And I don’t—”
“It won’t be hard on me, Lucas,” she interrupted, stalking to the plush rose-beige sofa on the other side of the suite and dropping onto it. “I can’t wait to see the back of you.”
Mortician swallowed. Bailey saying that type of shit while she was fucked up was one thing, but she was mostly sober now.
“I love you, pretty girl,” he reminded her. He couldn’t get all up in his feelings while she was so vulnerable. He’d promised her in sickness and in health, for better or for worse. “So fucking much.”
Her chin wobbled and she glanced away.
“You not being home going to devastate the boys. Not to mention Harley. I don’t even want to think—”
“Then don’t,” she said flatly. “Because you put your daughter before me, too. You never demanded she apologize. You put Kendall before me. I don’t care if what Johnnie said isn’t true. And I don’t even want to talk about that fucking bitch Meggie.”
Mortician heaved in a breath and raised his hands in supplication. He’d heard it at home. He’d heard it on their overnight trip and at Roxanne’s. Most recently, he’d heard it on the plane. “I promise you going to look back on this and realize—”
“How you deserted me. I’ll never think differently. You gave Harley right every time.”
She’d fucking rewritten the entire situation, but he wouldn’t remind her of that truth when there were more important ones that she kept forgetting.
“Bailey, I’m Harley’s daddy. She never asked to be born.
We supposed to put her first. She been through a lot.
You not this cold bitch. I know you not. You have grace and beauty and poise.”
“All wasted on you.”
“You love me.” He overlooked yet another emotional wound she inflicted on him. “You told me when you was three sheets to the wind. The drunk mind speak what the sober mind can’t.”
Instead of reaffirming his words, she lifted her chin.
Her delicate nostrils flared. “I’m empty, with nothing left to give as a wife and nothing left for Harley as a mother.
I definitely don’t have anything to give to that cunt who calls you if she breaks a nail.
She isn’t my cousin. Thank God for small miracles. ”
“Bailey, baby, I know you hurt and upset for so many different reasons, but leave Meggie girl alone. She never did shit to you.”
“Except survive and thrive. Fucking bitch. The next time somebody holds that twat underwater, she’ll die and then we’ll see if Meggie is as strong as she pretends.”
Irritation flashed through Mortician, but they were on shaky ground, and Bailey was both physically injured and alcohol dependent so he swallowed it.
He felt a little guilty that he didn’t defend Meggie and Rebel, but Bailey would repeat her bullshit again before he left. He’d straighten her out eventually.
He stepped forward, but she raised a hand before he made it halfway across the room.
“Don’t come near me. When I wanted you to make love to me, you refused. Until you took me away and emptied your balls. After, you returned to the club without checking on me. Now you want me again? Fuck you. You’ve kept your cum to yourself for two weeks, so choke on it. I don’t want you.”
“Don’t do this, pretty girl. Don’t say shit you don’t mean deep down. You’re lashing out because of what Johnnie keep putting in your head.”
“He has the decency to look out for me.”
“You can’t be that fucking stupid. That motherfucker don’t have a decent bone in his body.”
“And you do?” she sneered. “He doesn’t call me stupid.”
Mortician refused to respond to her bitterness, so he retreated for now.
“I’m going to take a shower. We have an early start tomorrow.
I’ll stay until the end of the week, then go home.
School will be out in about seven weeks.
I’m calling a real estate agent. On the ride from the airport, I saw a house for sale that I liked for us.
I looked it up online. Nine bedrooms. Eight bathrooms. A beautiful view. ”
“What house has more bedrooms than bathrooms?”
Most motherfuckers didn’t. Until he talked to someone about it, he wouldn’t know the whys and wherefores. “Maybe, Roxanne and Knox can come for a few weeks, too,” he continued, ignoring Bailey’s question. “I’m taking a leave of absence from the club.”
“I don’t want you to stay here. I don’t want you to buy a house here. I want you gone. Didn’t you hear me? Shut up and get out.”
“You don’t love me anymore?”
“I don’t know what I feel anymore,” she gritted. “When I see you, all I think about is how I begged you for another baby and you refused because of Meggie and CJ.”
“It wasn’t that. It was us. The state of our relationship. I love you,” he stressed again. “There’s nothing I’d want more than for us to have another baby if our marriage was on solid ground.”
“Get out.”
“Bailey—”
“Get out!” she screamed. “Get out. You left me. You weren’t there to h-hold me and c-comfort me.”
“That was an oversight. I’m so fucking sorry, pretty girl.”
“Leave, Lucas.”
“I’ll see if another room’s available—”
“Please don’t. I can’t stand to look at you.”
“You want a divorce?”
“Probably.”
“Because of the baby you wanted and I didn’t give you or because of your new friendship with Johnnie?”
“The only reason it matters now is because Johnnie has kept me up-to-date. If it was Kendall or Megan, you wouldn’t give a fuck.”
“They wouldn’t fucking lie.”
Her laugh was ugly. “Fuck you. That’s old news anyway. I don’t want you here because you used me the last time we went away.”
Mortician ignored that. “Let me spend the night in another room and make sure you get situated. I’ll leave tomorrow.”
“No,” she said stubbornly. “Leave before I call the PD and tell them you assaulted me. Because you did. Emotionally this time, if not physically.”
“You don’t have no fucking bruises,” he snarled, unable to believe she’d have him arrested.
She opened her robe and revealed that nasty bruise on her thigh, then pointed to her bandaged hand. “I fell down two stairs, but they won’t know. You could’ve kicked me and forced your cock in me, then made me swallow your cum.”
She had his downfall planned.
Except… “My DNA nowhere on you, you fucking bitch.”
“Just go! Go, go, go! I don’t want you with me. I don’t want you here. I don’t want to look at you. I fucking hate you.”
Fuck it all, but a tear or two leaked from his eyes. He shouldered them away. “When you come home, if you want a divorce, we can file, but I’m not abandoning you until you’re stable.”
“Because you love me?”
At the moment he hated her, but she was his children’s mother, so he’d always be responsible for her.
He was footing the entire two hundred fifty thousand bill.
If she stayed beyond ninety days, he’d fork over another 250Gs.
His children deserved a mother who didn’t need alcohol to get through the day.
“Do you love me, Lucas?”
“Do it fucking matter?”
“Not in the least. My love for you doesn’t matter, so why should I care if you drop to your knees and beg me to let you stay with me? When you look at me, you see a pathetic, inferior, weak-willed alcoholic.”
“Stop fucking projecting, Bailey. I don’t see that, but it sound like you do. When you look in the mirror, you can’t see the beautiful, sexy woman you are. It’s what I see.” What he saw. Currently, she was a bitter, mean cunt.
She smirked at him. “I suggest you fuck Kendall. When I get back, I’m fucking Johnnie.”
Back to that. Fuck her. “We going round and round in this motherfucker.”
“I don’t care,” she said petulantly.
“If I leave, how can I be sure you checking in? You need help.”
She made a face at him. “I’m checking in,” she snapped. “I just want to be alone.”
“Bailey, when I took my vows to you, I promised to love and protect you. If I leave you alone—”
“You’ll be doing what I want. You call me pathetic.
Are you listening to your pathetic ass? You couldn’t get your fucking story straight to defend yourself if I called the cops on you.
” She swept him with a look. “They’d take you quick.
Look at me compared to you. You’re nothing but a big gangbanger.
I’m a poor defenseless woman, shaking in her boots. ”
Out of options, he walked out, wondering when, if ever, he’d see his wife again and leaving his heart with her.