Chapter 24 - Sunshine
Chapter twenty-four
As upsetting as lunch was, I’m relaxed now that I’m home.
I can tell Sasha about why I really moved here and about the threats that Lawrence made today.
He’ll know exactly how to handle the situation, and he might even have an idea of how to approach Blanche for more information about my father.
The sun begins to set as I make a cup of tea, enjoying the summer breeze through the open kitchen window.
It smells like rain, and as if I’ve conjured it, a low rumble of thunder sounds from the west. Maybe I can convince Sasha to curl up with me when he gets back to listen to the storm roll through.
I feel foolish, trusting Lawrence when I was brand new to the city without knowing anything about him.
The idea that someone would be so willing to take advantage of another person baffles me, which I guess makes me the most naive person in the world.
Still, I’d rather think the best of people and be naive than be a pessimist and never trust anyone.
I don’t think I’ll have to worry about anyone taking advantage of me ever again with how protective Sasha is these days.
I pull out my phone to call him and see when he might be home from Kat’s when I hear a crash of thunder and his car screeching to a halt outside the cottage.
My glass smashes on the floor as I jump up and rush to the door to see what’s wrong.
He never drives like that on Blanche’s property, and I immediately worry that something went wrong with his sister.
Or maybe with Henry. Based on what Sasha has said, they get along well, so I don’t know what could have possibly…
The front door bangs into the wall of the entryway, knocking picture frames to the floor, before Sasha slams it shut behind him.
His chest heaves with every breath, and his hair looks as wrecked as I’ve ever seen it.
Blood crusts on the knuckles of his hands as if he’s punched the hell out of something, or someone, and I gasp when I finally bring my gaze to his.
Hatred. Pure, undiluted, terrifying hatred is all I see.
The man before me is my Sasha only in the strictest physical sense.
The playfulness, the love that I’m accustomed to seeing when those hazel eyes land upon me…
they’re gone. All I see behind his eyes now is darkness.
I have a feeling that I’m looking at the not a good man that he warned me about. But I don’t understand why.
“Sasha?” I whisper, afraid to approach or speak louder.
I’m not sure what could have happened to make him so mad.
Whatever it is, I’m sure we can figure it out.
He doesn’t respond, just stares at me like I disgust him.
I take one step toward him, but an accusatory finger lifted in my direction stops me in my tracks.
His hand shakes as he points at me. “You,” he growls.
“Me?”
Instead of an answer, he laughs, a low, dark, menacing sound that I’d prefer to never hear again.
“Yeah, you. You had me fooled. You almost got me.”
“Sasha, I don’t understand what—”
He laughs again, waving his hand at me dismissively and moving to the kitchen. Rummaging through a cabinet, he grabs a garbage bag and starts throwing away anything he sees of mine.
“Hey! What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t throw my stuff away like that!” I snap, losing my patience at his bullshit tantrum.
My tone stops him from throwing things into the bag, but as he trains his gaze back onto me, I wish I had never said anything.
“I’m helping you, sweetheart. The sooner we can get your shit packed up, the sooner you can get the fuck out of all of our lives.”
“I’m not going anywhere—”
“I saw you with Lawrence!” His face reddens with rage as he screams. “You were laughing and having a grand time with that scum, and God knows how long you’ve been working with him to get to me. You almost had me, but I found you out just in time. So it’s time for you to go.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. Okay, he’s super mad, but he just doesn’t understand. Clearly, he knows Lawrence as the asshole who emerged in the second half of our meeting, which makes sense given how Lawrence seemed to hate him. I can’t blame him for being mad if their history is as bad as it seems.
“Sash—”
“Don’t!” he yells, holding his hand out to silence me.
“I don’t want to hear any more lies. Lawrence has been trying to fuck my family over for years, and I stop to get you dinner just to find you having lunch with him like an old friend?
There’s zero reason for you to even know him, Lucy.
So don’t feed me some bullshit answer. Everything you own is going into these trash bags, and you’re getting the fuck out of my life. ”
He’s slowly stalked toward me during his diatribe, and by the time he finishes, I’m against the living room wall.
Only an inch of space separates us, and now that he’s close, I can see the hurt in his eyes.
The pain. Oh, my poor Sasha. I’m reminded of volunteering at the animal shelter in high school and how dogs that were injured would lash out defensively to protect themselves from further harm.
I take a deep breath, smelling him underneath the blood and sweat he’s soaking in, and soften my voice again to whisper the truth.
“You know I never knew my dad. A lawyer contacted me a few months ago about a trust established in my name, but he couldn’t tell me who had initiated it.
The only information I had led me to the city, and Lawrence told me he could get me a job working for your mom to find out more.
I used one of the twins’ bows to test. It’s been on the back burner since, well…
Since you and I got so close. The results came in, though, and it’s a match, Sasha.
I’m related to the Sinclairs…” He clenches but doesn’t pull back when I gently reach for his hand, rubbing little circles on his palm and avoiding his raw knuckles.
“I was going to tell you tonight because the Lawrence I had lunch with today was so different from the man I thought wanted to help me. He was pushy, and mean, and he scared me. I promise, Sasha, I was going to tell you everything. I’m sorry I haven’t already.”
His breathing has slowed, and although his eyes are distrustful, they’re softer than before. I can work with this. He was upset, and without knowing the extent of what Lawrence had done—or tried to do—to Sasha’s family, it was clearly bad.
“Let’s take a shower, okay?” Pulling him behind me slowly, I move toward the bathroom. “I can tell you more about how he acted at lunch, and you can tell me—”
Sasha wrenches his hand from mine, and I turn to find him even more upset than before.
“No! I don’t want to hear another fucking thing from you, Lucy.
I won’t ever believe another thing you say.
You’ve come in here with your acting background and used me to spy on and get close to the Sinclairs.
No wonder you opened your legs so easily when Blanche suggested it, not even just for me, but for all those other men, too.
What have you learned? There’s no way it was just the stupid DNA test that kept you here.
I’ll bet you’ve used your time more wisely than that.
Nobody would have been around to see you go into Blanche’s office, and you’ve known my phone password for weeks now.
What have you found out?” He hasn’t approached me again, but he’s raised his voice at me over something I didn’t do for the last time.
Hurt or not, this guy is way out of line.
“You need to leave,” I say quietly, mortified by the tears forming in my eyes. Don’t cry over a man, Lucy. Come on. You’re better than this. “I’m telling you the truth, and I don’t deserve to be yelled at like this. Leave.”
He listens to me for some reason, dropping the garbage bag he was still holding and stomping out the front door as quickly as he entered. His engine roars as he speeds back down the driveway, and I feel the adrenaline fading from my veins, replaced with cold, nauseating dread.
A sniffle turns into a sob as I fall to the floor where I stand, the draining pain of the past twenty minutes hitting me at once.
It washes over me, the feeling of rejection that I know all too well at this point in my life.
Have I ever felt this discarded by someone who I thought loved me?
I’ve certainly never felt so unseen or unheard as when he strode out of our home, not even looking back to see me in pain.
I thought he was giving me a chance to explain things, then he snapped again out of nowhere.
Breathing through my erratic thoughts, I pick myself up from the floor and try to stop shaking. He was right about one thing. I need to get out of here. I can go home, call Amanda, and…
Shit. I can’t call Amanda. She’s still on her trip halfway around the world.
And with Mom gone…I’m alone. Nobody is waiting for me in California, and although I could call any of my less-close friends for a place to crash for a while, I doubt any of them would be interested in me taking up more space in their lives.
I can’t stop my laughter from bubbling out of my throat.
It’s so typical for me to feel at peace here, in this cottage that we made a home in such a short time, only to have it ripped away.
And now I have to leave…Or do I? Who says I have to leave?
Not Blanche, who owns the place. I’ll be damned if I’m going to get scared out of here because Sasha decided to let his true colors show.
That asshole made an entire speech about me being a liar, but he’s the one who acted like a toddler, storming out over a misunderstanding after he made me think we had something real. He told me he was no good, though. Clearly, I should have listened.
My tears dry as I feel my spine steel. Fuck that guy.
I’m not crying over another goddamn man, and I’m not leaving.
Blanche has been lovely to me, and I came here with a mission to find out about my dad.
Now that I know I have a family, I’m not fucking leaving.
He can leave. Or he can stay here and deal with me ignoring him, except for scenes.
Sasha was a coworker and nothing more once, and he can go back to that again.
I’ll leave when I’m ready and not a second before.
I’m still standing in the living room, no longer shaking, but with my fists clenched and fingernails digging into my palms. Forcing myself to relax, I head to the kitchen to brew a fresh cup of tea and keep trying to center myself.
Before it cools enough to drink, I hear Sasha’s car approach the cottage at a more normal speed, and he enters without slamming the door behind him.
“Why the fuck are you still here?” The malice in his voice is still there, but his tone is deadly cool instead of fiery heat.
I give him my most saccharine smile. “Why would I go anywhere? I live here. Pretty sure I’ll have scenes to film next week for Blanche. Whether it’s with you or the next guy she hires.”
His head tilts slowly to the side as he appraises me, and I sip my tea, unbothered by his assessment. Finally, his gaze meets mine again, and I can’t help but shiver at the sinister twinkle in his eye.
“You really want to stay, Sunshine?”
My nickname sounds like poison as it drips from his lips. I nod.
He brushes past me into the bathroom, knocking my shoulder with his and sloshing my tea onto the floor.
“It’s not going to be pleasant for you to stay. I told you I wasn’t a nice guy. You should reconsider.” He slams the bathroom door, and I hear the shower running.
Whatever. Not a nice guy, won’t be easy for me to live here, blah blah.
What’s he going to do? Prank me? Replace the sugar with salt?
Repaint the living room black? Bring home random women to fuck in our, my, bed?
I guess that option would actually suck, but who cares?
I’m sure I’ll be fucking other guys for Blanche soon anyway, and he can sit back and watch.
Not that he would care, based on how he treated me tonight.
There’s no sign the bathroom will be available anytime soon, so I opt to just go to sleep.
I’m anxious from the evening but exhausted from being emotionally drained, so I fall asleep quickly.
Rather than being awakened by my alarm clock, I’m jolted by the covers being pulled off, exposing me to the frigid bedroom. What the hell?
“Sorry, Sunshine,” Sasha says, again spitting my name like it’s a curse. “This is my favorite blanket, and I’m cold.”
He’s standing naked, with two oscillating fans behind him that weren’t there before. He tracks my gaze, then clicks the ceiling fan to its highest setting.
“I’ve been getting so hot at night, and sleeping in the cold is healthy. You understand.”
“You can’t just make it like Antarctica in here! I’ll freeze. And put some fucking clothes on!” I’m shivering already, but he just laughs.
Gesturing to the living room, he wraps himself in the blanket but makes sure I have a view of his flaccid cock swinging as he approaches the bed. “You’re welcome to the living room. I hear the couch is very comfy to sleep on.”
With that, the lights are off, and he’s in the middle of the bed, taking up way more space than necessary and acting like a child.
I sit up, ready to reach and unplug the damn fans, when his hand on my wrist stills me. He speaks so lowly I can hardly hear him, and his words are so icy it feels like the room drops another ten degrees.
“If you turn any of these fans off, I’ll burn everything you own in a bonfire so big you’ll be sweating and wishing you had a fan.”
His eyes are unreadable in the dark, and I’m thankful.
I’m not sure I want to see what’s in them.
The less interaction I have with Sasha now, the better.
Moving to the living room, I grab a blanket from the back of the couch and try to get comfy.
He never complained when he slept out here, but it’s not where I would choose to sleep.
I’ll have to talk to Blanche about a twin bed for the living room, or at least a comfier pullout couch for the space.
Maybe Sasha can fuck off and live in one of his houses somewhere far away, and we can forget this bullshit ever happened.
I’m considering the grim reality that I’ll never forget him when exhaustion wins again, and I drift into sleep.