Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
Eirini livedat an institution called The Rose, which should have had at least one rose bush on the grounds. But the building we parked in front of didn’t have a single bloom in sight. The building was a harsh, Brutalist style, with swaying mulberries now bereft of their leaves. Privacy hedges grew in front of the lower windows, which I knew to be juniper, but although they were free from cobwebs, they didn’t exactly inspire thoughts of gardens or even tranquility with their bristly fronds.
“Well,” I said, shifting from foot to foot. “This is nice.” I tried to sound bright, though I was now wondering whether Eirini would become more agitated upon seeing me, her supposed successor. When—if—the wedding had been explained to her, it would have been done without my presence.
We walked through the front entrance, where an orderly wheeled an older man in a wheelchair. In concession to the cold air, a blanket covered his lap. The orderly smiled at us, but the man did not.
We tailed them through the automatic doors into a place that smelled like floor polish and antiseptic. To our left was a hand sanitizer dispenser, and to our right, there was an emergency telephone. In front of us, the gray tile extended down the endless hallway like a pallid tongue.
There was a carpet in front of the desk and two fake potted plants. When I saw the painting of a swan beyond the receptionist’s head, I wanted to groan.
This doesn’t look very welcoming, I thought wearily as we headed down to reception. It was a sick reminder of my court-mandated institution—a place I swore I’d never return to.
I mentally shuddered at the memory. These horrific institutions were all the same. No matter how much cash you had in your pocket, these places were packed with cynical nurses who stopped caring after the first time a patient tried something disturbing. Most of these patients never got better, and the healthcare providers eventually stopped trying.
Xander had no expression on his face when he cleared his throat.
“Oh, hello,” the receptionist said, looking up at him. She was an older woman with salt-and-pepper hair and horn-rimmed glasses. I was sure I didn’t imagine the flicker of interest in her watery blue eyes.
I rolled my eyes. I spent the day watching girls half my age throw themselves at Xander. I hadn’t expected to spend my night watching women twice my age throw themselves at him, too.
“What can I do for you?” she asked him sweetly.
“I spoke with someone earlier about Eirini Maxwell,” said Xander.
“Oh, yes, her.” The woman’s voice turned professional. The gravity of the situation must be dire for her to stop flirting. “We had her sent to her room. You can see her there, but she’ll have to be supervised.”
Xander frowned, and I felt my lips turning down at the other woman’s lack of compassion. Having witnessed firsthand what the orderlies had to endure, I never blamed the nurses for becoming desensitized, but her dispassionate comments were still difficult to swallow.
“Who was watching her when this all happened?” he asked. “She’s supposed to have around-the-clock supervision.”
“There were two orderlies in the room,” the receptionist replied in a cool tone. “But they have a roomful of patients to monitor and can’t be everywhere all at once.”
“I wasn’t blaming you,” he said diplomatically. “I’m trying to understand how a vulnerable woman was allowed to hurt someone else before hurting herself.”
“You’ll have to speak to the orderly on call,” said the receptionist, her voice flat now. “I don’t know the details.”
She didn’t tell us what room Eirini was in, but apparently, she didn’t need to. Xander strode confidently down the halls as if he’d done it hundreds of times before, taking us to a rear elevator just around the corner from a weathered couch and a cluster of vending machines.
We could hear Eirini before we came to her room. I could hear high-pitched keening in a foreign language, harsh and shrilled by fury. The unmistakable sound of something shattering followed it.
Another orderly—a man—stood outside her door like a guard, arms folded. “She’s been waiting for you,” he said, his tone unhappy. “She won’t let anyone else touch her.”
“I can understand why,” Xander said.
When he opened the door, with the orderly at his back, we were faced with Eirini Maxwell. I had only ever seen her wedding picture and a handful of other photos in dusty albums relegated to the attic with everything else Henry had wanted to hide away.
She was still a beautiful woman, but her illness had ravaged her face. The aristocratic cheekbones were now barren hollows, and her eyes were red-rimmed and restless. Someone had wrapped a bandage around her head, but nobody had washed her hair, and the lank black strands hung heavily around her shoulders in long, stringy tangles like kelp.
The room was in no better condition. A blanket was thrown haphazardly on the floor, and other personal items were strewn on the bed. Broken pieces of glass were being swept up by an orderly, which must’ve been the noise I’d heard.
When she grabbed another personal item to chuck at the door, Xander grabbed me and ducked, engulfing my smaller body with his larger one. It was a photo frame that hit him on the back before it dropped to the floor and shattered. The orderly sighed heavily and moved to clean up the glass.
Had I not been to an institution, perhaps this scene would’ve fazed me.
Xander held up a palm so I’d remain by the door at a safe distance. He carefully sidestepped the broken glass, then switched to Greek to say something to his mother that I didn’t understand.
I blinked at him in surprise, not having expected it. I knew Eirini was Greek, but I had no idea Xander picked up the language from her. Neither Jasper nor he had spoken a lick of Greek in front of me before. It was a complete surprise.
His mother heard him and replied, her voice sullen.
Xander knelt at her side. “Mamá, irémise. Tha se narkósoun.”
“Den me noiázei pia,”she responded. “Den me noiázei típota.”
Xander sighed, bowing his head against her leg. I felt the orderly tense behind me when Eirini lifted her clawlike hand, but all she did was put her hand in his hair and sift through it with an absent affection that seemed instinctive.
“Den me noiázei pia,”she said again, in a slightly calmer voice. Then her eyes went to me, and her hand stilled. “Who is this?”
“This is Jordan,” Xander said softly.
“Hello,” I said, giving what I hoped was a genuine-looking smile.
Eirini nodded slowly before dismissing me. Xander sat with her for several moments, speaking to her soothingly until she curled under the blanket.
Xander stood, giving his mother’s hand another squeeze. “How come no one was watching her?” he asked the orderly. “They know she has fits.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Maxwell,” the man replied. “I don’t have an explanation for you.”
“These kinds of mistakes are unacceptable.” He ran his fingers over his mother’s knuckles, who was watching their exchange blankly. “Someone needs to watch her when she leaves her room.”
“Yes, Mr. Maxwell,” the orderly said.
They debated for a few minutes longer.
“Look, I’ll pay to hire someone who speaks Greek,” Xander said. “I’m worried about her ability to communicate. When she’s too upset, she can’t speak English.”
“We’ll have to discuss that with the senior supervisor for their approval.”
Xander bit back a response and nodded tersely, clearly not liking this. Without another word, he turned on his heel and left the room. I waved at Eirini, who picked at the threads of her sheets, before turning to follow him out.
Our footsteps echoed sinisterly on the tiles of those sterile halls, and I found myself thinking of a nightmare I used to have while in the institution where I’d be trapped in a maze with no way out. How terrifying it would be to find yourself in a place so completely unlike a home. A place like this—so cold and unwelcoming.
It made me so, so sad for Eirini… and for Xander.
The years I spent hiding in Henry’s cocoon had stunted my growth, while Xander had been forced to grow up too soon. He was a celebrity and should be enjoying his twenties at parties, philandering, and blowing his hard-earned cash. Instead, he was the steady hand of what remained of his family. In many ways, he was now the adult between us with more life experience, and I was following him around, lost and unsure about my direction in life.
“I’m sorry,” I said to him as we walked out of the building. “This is awful.”
He was quiet for so long that I didn’t think he’d respond. “It’s been a shit day.”
Something about how he spoke nagged at me. I remembered how, instead of celebrating his win, he barely said a word on the drive back from the stadium. He had already seemed distressed prior to receiving the news of his mother.
“What happened today?” I asked carefully.
Xander blew out a long sigh. I had a feeling he had been struggling with something all day but no longer had the energy to hide it. “Henry published an article about what happened at the party.”
My back immediately went stiff. Henry wouldn’t just publish an article, he’d make himself out to be the victim of an unsolicited attack.
He picked up on my reaction. “It’s just some online third-tier magazine that no one reads. I don’t think anyone’s seen it. I’m more worried about bigger magazines picking up the story.”
I opened my mouth, mind reeling with a hundred ways of spinning this, but Xander raised a hand. He appeared mentally exhausted and no longer cared about Henry’s antics. I snapped my mouth shut, a silent agreement passing between us that we’d no longer talk about this. There were more pressing matters at hand, like his mom’s deteriorating health.
We didn’t speak again until we got inside the car. It was parked in the small lot, which was deserted this late at night.
I slipped into the passenger side of his Bentley. He got behind the wheel, fired up the ignition, and blasted the heat, though he didn’t shift the gear to drive.
Instead, he stared out into the distance through the windshield. He had the same vacant expression as Jasper had earlier.
“Are you okay?” I asked stupidly. Obviously, he wasn’t okay.
I waited for an answer, which never came. His head leaned back against the headrest, and his face tipped toward the ceiling. He closed his eyes as if taking refuge inside his mind.
“It’s the second time this month,” he said, apropos of nothing. “She used to be worse. They put her on a new medication. It was supposed to stabilize her more. But she woke up in the middle of the night, telling the nurses that she wanted to die.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
“Traumatic head injuries are fucking hard.” He opened his eyes with a brief flutter. “Nobody ever tells you that a single blow to the skull can turn you into an entirely different person.”
I lifted my eyes to regard him. “You’re a good son to her. I think she knows that.”
Xander nodded sharply without responding.
“She doesn’t have a lot of time,” he said hoarsely. “Her health has been on the decline for a while. She is suffering from chronic pain and soon?—”
He stopped, swallowing hard enough that his Adam’s apple jerked.
My heart clenched so tightly I thought it’d give out. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
I snuck a glance at him, noticing the tension in his jaw as he struggled to contain his emotions. My own were bubbling to the surface, with a tear forming in the corner of my eye as I watched him. Hearing a big, muscular man like him deal with grief tore something inside me.
I released my seat belt to move closer, taking his hand in mine. He stared at our adjoined fingers, then placed his hand on top of mine, grasping it tightly.
“You’ll get through this,” I managed to say.
“You sound so sure.”
“You’re a survivor,” I told him because it was true. He was the only man who could survive Henry without blinking an eye.
In the face of impending death, Henry’s threats suddenly seemed so unimportant. What held significance was Xander’s pain. Life was fucking short, and the only thing to do was live it to the best of your ability. All other worries about money, clients, where to go, and how to escape Henry vanished into the air against the threat of imminent death.
I had no idea how long we stayed like that.
After what seemed like an eternity, he lifted my hand to his lips.
“Xander?”
His lips brushed against my knuckles. I stopped breathing but didn’t retract my hand. Outside, the wind blew through the empty parking lot, and one of the floodlights flickered.
He trailed my knuckles with his lips.
“What are you doing?” I choked out. I could feel the panic rising in my chest because I knew the direction of our conversation had shifted. I knew what he wanted.
His eyes glinted with a primal need. “I can’t do this without you,” he said roughly, his voice a mix of desire and desperation. “I need you,” he added, his voice vibrating with urgency.
Another bolt of fear shot through me, but before I could protest, he pulled me closer until I was almost over the console. A yelp tore from my throat as I collided with his hard body, but before I could push him away, his mouth crashed onto mine.
“Xander,” I whispered against his lips, trying to find the strength to resist.
“Don’t fight me tonight, Jordan. You’re the only one who can fix everything that’s fucked up in my life.” He pressed one kiss at a time on my bottom lip, cheek, neck, breast, over my hardened nipple… “Everything’s okay when you’re with me. I can do anything if you’re by my side.”
His pleading kisses twisted my heart, the words cutting through me like a knife. I didn’t want to fight him tonight. I only wanted to take away his pain.
I closed my eyes, yielding. He froze, shocked, and then he moved at a manic speed. Xander dragged me over the console, banging my hip on the stick shift in his haste, and maneuvered me until I was straddling him on the driver’s side seat with the steering wheel pressing into my back.
I gazed into his emerald-green eyes. They’d always had a jewel-like quality, but now, they were practically glowing. Desire bloomed inside me at the lust-crazed expression he wore. No man had ever looked at me the way he did, always watching me like he couldn’t look away.
He grabbed the seam of my leggings between my thighs, pinched at the cloth, and pulled it away from my skin. Before I could figure out what he was doing, he ripped my leggings to make a hole in the center.
“Xander, what the?—”
His lips returned to mine, cutting me off, as his fingers ripped more of the material for access to my sex. His fingers bypassed my panties and pressed against my clit. He wasn’t gentle in trying to arouse me, it was a rough forewarning of what was to come. I was barely prepared to take him when he fumbled with his sweatpants, pulling them down enough to release himself.
He tore through the hole to make it wider and aligned himself against me. I screamed in his mouth when his fingers dug into my waist as he pulled me down on his length in one brutal thrust.
Right there, in a parking lot, where anyone could see us.
My heart pounded in my chest as he pulled my hair and kissed me savagely. With his fingers biting into my flesh, he bounced me on his cock at a sadistic speed to fulfill an urgent need rather than for my pleasure.
Unlike the times before, he was fast and rough with a singular intent to take for his pleasure only. He clamped his hands on my shoulders and forced me further down onto him, then thrust up until I was so full of him that tears trickled down my cheeks. He held me there and pumped into me feverishly until he climaxed with a roar that echoed through the car.
“Fuck,” he groaned, and I felt the rumble from his chest against mine. His head fell back against the headrest, arm circling my waist possessively. I was forced to collapse on his chest when his hand moved up and pressed between my shoulder blades to bring me closer.
As we rested against the seat, entwined, the light in the parking lot that was flickering went out completely, casting us in utter darkness. He didn’t seem bothered by it and sifted his fingers through my hair, not saying much more.
He tilted his head to kiss my neck as my hands found their way to his large biceps. The hard planes felt inhumanely strong under my fingertips, making me feel dainty and precious against him.
When I tried to lift off him, he stopped me with a hand on my waist. “Wait. Let’s stay here for a second.”
I didn’t argue, resting my cheek against his broad chest. His scent was so familiar, so uniquely Xander, that it felt like the right place to be.
The fingers that were running through my hair closed into a fist so he could gently pry my exhausted head off his chest. I thought it meant it was time to leave, but Xander didn’t seem to be in a rush. He tipped my head back, and when I looked at him questioningly, he answered me by kissing me so deeply that he nearly stole my next breath.
His tongue explored every crevice of my mouth as if he had a hankering after this very opportunity. Thoughts slipped away when his fingers returned to my sex through the hole of my leggings.
My mouth dropped open when his digits started rubbing against my clit. He was still hard inside me, but he wasn’t moving, focused solely on me. I surrendered to him completely, not caring how I looked with my head tipped back, my body arched against the steering wheel.
He kept up a slow pace, circling my clit, driving me mad. With his other hand, he undid the buttons of my flannel shirt. He moved the cups of my bra down, exposing my breasts, and started worshipping them with his mouth, sucking on my nipples until I screamed and thought I really might lose my mind.
His pace remained painfully controlled even as my nails dug into his biceps. I hissed when he edged me to the brink of a climax before finally shattering in his arms.
Lethargy pulled me into the depths of an abyss, but I smiled upon realizing Xander was fixing my bra and buttoning my shirt. It was probably a part of his possessive streak, and he didn’t want to risk others seeing me in this state despite fucking me outside. The aftercare was still endearing.
I didn’t know what was happening to me, only that it shouldn’t feel this right to be in someone’s arms inside a dark car in an empty parking lot. I felt consumed by him like I had never been by a man.
The feeling lasted until he brushed back some of my hair and whispered the last thing I expected to hear. “I love you.”
I lifted my head and stared at him in the dark. There was not a thought in my mind, no way to process the declaration.
What finally broke the moment was the flash from a camera. I glanced out the window to be met with the gaze of a short man documenting our private moment from his car. As soon as the flash went off, he sped away before I could scramble out of the seat so Xander could chase him.
It seemed we had just been bumped from a third-tier magazine to the headline of tomorrow’s major publication.
I backed into my seat as if it might protect me from what just happened. My lips felt scraped raw from the stubble around Xander’s mouth while purplish blotches danced before my eyes from the flash.
“Was that paparazzi?” I asked, shaking.
Xander opened the door and got out of the car tensely, his physique seeming impossibly broad from a seated position. I saw his eyes tracking the lot, but the car was long gone. He had taken us by surprise and fled the scene. There was no catching him now.
“Shit,” I said, shaking my head. “Shit. This is not good. If he publishes that photo?—”
“Don’t worry about it.” Xander returned to his seat and shut the door, finally shifting the gear to drive. “It’s dark, and it was just one photograph. He probably didn’t even get our faces.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He was tempting fate. “Plenty of people’s careers have been undone by just one photograph.” I folded my arms, painfully conscious of my erect nipples. “I work in this industry, Xander. Even if they don’t run an article, a photo like that is going to require an explanation that I’m not sure you’re ready to give.”
“You think I’m the one scared to tell the world about us?” His eyes flashed dangerously. “Really? Because you act like you’ll die of embarrassment if someone finds out about us.”
I slapped my thigh. “Christ. I’m not ashamed of you. I’m worried about your career. Every brand will drop you if they find out you’re sleeping with your stepmother.”
His eyes somewhat softened at my concern. Reaching over, he stroked my lip with his thumb. “I can take care of myself.”
That’s what I’m afraid of.