Page 58 of Sinful Desires (Sinful #4)

Chapter

Forty-Three

“Stab the body and it heals, but injure the heart and the wound lasts a lifetime.”

― Mineko Iwasaki

Théo

In the military, when I told them I hated noise, they’d thought I was full of shit. Said I was antisocial, arrogant, too serious to hit the bars with them.

But the truth was simpler. Noise triggered something buried so deeply I could barely name it. That low, mechanical rhythm had rewired my brain.

Not just any noise.

This noise.

The kind you heard when someone was trapped between life and death. The ticking. The beeping. The pulse of machines tracking a body’s last threads.

I’d taken bullets. Four times. Pulled the metal out with my own hands. Gotten stitched up on floors, in basements, in submarines, in the back of a moving car.

Never set foot in a fucking hospital. Not once.

Not because I was brave. On the fucking contrary.

Because I couldn’t bear this sound, the one drilling into my skull right now. This sterile, shallow beeping that didn’t mean life. It meant waiting for death with clean sheets and fluorescent lights.

Fourth floor.

Intermediate ward .

The place where time stretched too long and hope turned sour.

It was very early morning now, the sun rising slowly. The nurses let us in after one of them recognized my face from years ago.

Scarlett’s hand slid into mine as we stepped into his room.

The air reeked of antiseptic and synthetic lemon, hospital-grade cleaner clinging to the walls.

Medicine leaked out of plastic tubes. A fresh bouquet of white peonies sat on the nightstand, still dripping from their wrapping. My father’s favorite. My mother must’ve brought them.

Next to it, a family photo in a silver frame: The three of us on my sixteenth birthday in Hawaii, standing barefoot in front of the ocean, each wearing those floral necklaces they hand you at check-in.

My parents were hugging, sunburnt and smiling. I stood beside them, grinning so widely it hurt to look at.

That day, he’d taught me how to surf. We’d spent half the day in the water, and had come back burnt to hell. Couldn’t sleep on our backs for days.

My mom had asked the hotel for a surfboard-shaped cake. And they’d made it. Lopsided. Stupid-looking. Perfect. We tore into it on the beach with our fingers, laughing with mouths full of sugar and happiness.

Growing up, my birthday traditions were always the best time of the year. Every one of them had felt more special than the last.

More love. More warmth.

But after what I’d done, birthdays had turned sour, and I couldn’t stomach the thought of mine.

I never celebrated again.

Every year, that day had come with the same curse, the flames creeping closer, licking at my neck, burning through whatever was left of my soul.

We stepped closer, Scarlett’s thumb tracing slow circles over the back of my hand. We stopped by his bed.

He was freshly shaved, eyes forever shut, breathing steadily.

“ Bonjour, Monsieur LeRoy .”

Scarlett’s voice slipped into the silence as she rested her hand gently over his, both lying still on the bed.

“His name’s Marc,” I said, my voice hoarse.

She looked up at me, but I didn’t look back. My eyes were fixed on him, on what remained of the man I once believed to be untouchable. Now he looked small and weak, lying still on his deathbed.

With a heavy breath, I let go of her hand and sat down in the chair beside him.

“ Salut, Papa .”

His chest rose and fell in that steady, mechanical rhythm. The kind that wasn’t life, but something pretending to be.

“You look just like him,” she whispered.

My mouth lifted into a shape that almost resembled a smile, but the pain in it betrayed me.

“I do. I’ve got the LeRoy eyes too. Grey.”

She hummed softly, her gaze drifting over his face, as if memorizing it.

“Your son saved my life, Monsieur LeRoy . Again and again, in ways words will never hold. He reached into the darkest parts of me and pulled me back when I was already halfway gone. I wouldn’t be breathing if it weren’t for him.”

Her voice wavered, then steadied.

“And wherever you are?…?I know you can hear us. I know you must feel proud of him. Of who he’s become. Even though the weight of hurting you has nearly destroyed him.”

A tear slipped down my face, burning the skin it touched.

“When I was little,” she went on, softer now, “I had that same kind of love. The kind you gave your son. Unconditional. Overwhelming. Until it turned. Until kisses and hugs became slaps and screaming. And I still mourn it.”

A small sigh left her lips.

“I still grieve the version that once felt safe. I wish I could go back in time and appreciate what I thought was universal, but was actually something rare. Something most people never even get to experience. Love.”

She paused, eyes meeting mine.

“I think Théo does too.”

I nodded, my hand reaching for his. His skin was cold against mine.

“So, I wanted to thank you, Monsieur LeRoy . For the love you poured into your son. Because now, that same love is pouring into me. And if it weren’t for you, I would’ve never known what it felt like to be held by something that deep.

To be filled until even the broken parts of me stopped feeling so empty. ”

Tears slipped from her eyes, her gaze turning toward me, voice breaking.

“Thank you for being the star that guided me through my darkest nights, Théo.”

My throat closed.

I stood, reaching for her, needing her closer, needing her against me. My mouth found hers, desperate, carved out of grief and something stronger than it.

Devotion .

She melted into me, arms circling my neck.

“ Je t’aime , Théo.”

I didn’t get the chance to answer.

A knock echoed against the door, cutting through the moment, and she slipped from my arms just as it creaked open.

Then a familiar face appeared through the gap.

“ Salut, Maman .”

Her eyes widened, mouth parting in disbelief before she slipped through the door and shut it behind her.

Then she ran straight into my arms.

“I thought the nurses were hallucinating when they said you were here.” Her voice cracked with joy as she clutched my back. “Oh, Théo?…?this is the best Mother’s Day gift I could have ever dreamed of.”

My arms locked around her before I could think. She was smaller than I remembered. Softer. Her shoulders trembled against mine.

“I didn’t think you’d ever come back here,” she whispered into my chest.

I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Maman .”

She pulled back, cupping my face. “It’s okay, you’re here now.”

Her gaze flicked past me, landing on Scarlett. Her eyes softened, smile trembling.

“And who do we have here?”

“That’s—”

The love of my life .

The woman who’d been haunting my sleep for three years .

The girl who had wrecked me and saved me all in the same breath .

My soulmate .

Scarlett stepped in before I could fumble through any of that.

“Scarlett Harper, ma’am,” she said, extending her hand with a slight smile. “Théo’s my bodyguard.”

My mother blinked. She looked at me, then back at Scarlett.Her lips twitched.

“Oh, the superstar! I watched you sing for the Olympic Games in Japan, four years ago.”

Just two months before the Dawsons’ party. Two months before I had seen her for the first time.

Before I’d dragged her out of that fountain and let her ruin every quiet part of me.

Scarlett smiled. “I’m so sorry if my presence is intrusive. Théo told me all about you and?—”

My mother cut in gently. “You have the most angelic voice, Scarlett. You did a cover of ‘Let It Be’ that night, didn’t you?”

Scarlett blinked, surprised. “Yes. I did.”

“My husband loved that song. He used to hum it in the kitchen every Sunday morning.”

A beat passed, quiet and aching.

It was true. I remembered him saying it once, maybe twice.That “Let It Be” was one of the best songs ever written.

Scarlett’s voice softened. “My mother used to sing it to me when I couldn’t sleep.”

My mom reached for her hand. “Then maybe that song lives in you both.”

She dropped Scarlett’s hand gently and made her way to the bed, her movements slower now, quieter, like the years had finally caught up to her. She sat down beside him, brushing a crease from the blanket before taking his hand in hers.

“Marc loved singing too,” she whispered, her voice threading the silence. “Said it was the only way to free yourself from this world without dying.”

Her thumb moved over his knuckles, soft and reverent.

“He used to sing to me when I couldn’t sleep. When I was pregnant with Théo. When he would brush my hair at night.” Her voice caught, eyes fixed on my dad. “Now I sing to him. Every morning. Just in case.”

She pressed a kiss to the back of his hand.

“In case some piece of him is still listening.”

A harsh sob tore out of my throat before I could stop it. My knees gave in, hitting the cold floor as my hands found the edge of the bed, gripping it.

“ Maman ?…? je suis désolé .”

The words came strangled, barely there. I didn’t dare look up. One parent breathing, the other floating somewhere between this world and the next.

My body folded between them, caught in a space where no apology could ever reach far enough.

“I’m so sorry. For every fucking thing.”

My shoulders shook as I pressed my forehead to the mattress.

“I would never forgive myself either. So, I won’t ask you to.”

Tears soaked the cotton as my chest heaved.

I wanted to fucking rewind time.

I wanted to bleed out every sin, one by one, until I was clean enough to deserve the man in the bed and the woman still holding his hand.

But I fucking knew better.

There was no forgiveness left for me.

Only this. This moment.

“Théo!” Her voice cracked. “Stop it.”

Her hand landed on my shoulder, firm and trembling.

“We forgave you a long time ago, baby.”

I blinked, the word hitting somewhere deep and bruised.

“You were still so young,” she whispered, kneeling beside me. “We saw it, we did. I know our expectations must’ve felt like chains around your throat. It breaks my heart to know you were in so much pain that you tried to end your life.”

She brushed my hair back, her fingers gentle, eyes wet.

“We would’ve given anything to carry it for you.”

Her voice cracked again, softer this time, barely louder than the pulse of the machines.

“Sometimes things happen in life?…?things we can’t plan, things we can’t undo. But there’s a French saying I always loved.”

She lifted her eyes to the ceiling, as if reciting it to the heavens.

“ Nous idéalisons les étoiles, mais nous oublions que c’est l’obscurité qui les a rendues visibles .”

I swallowed hard, still folded over the edge of the bed, my mother’s hand warm on my back.

“It means,” she went on gently, “we worship the stars, but forget it’s the darkness that makes them shine. Without the darkest moments, mon coeur , we’d never know how to cherish the light. The beautiful things.”

I felt her words crawl inside me.

She had always believed in light. Even when I hadn’t. Even when I’d spit in its face.

I lifted my head slowly, eyes raw, throat a battlefield. “I didn’t want to be your darkness.”

She cupped my cheek and kissed my temple. “You weren’t. You were just lost in it.”

And for the first time in two decades, I let myself cry in her arms.

“You have to forgive yourself, Théo. Otherwise, you’re the one who’s really dying.”