Page 37 of Sinful Seduction
I bring my eyes up. “What thing?”
“My daughter’s friend, Sophia? She’s been calling every day for the last month, demanding I speak to you. And you, too.” He casts his focus to Aubree. “Something about poison? A mutual case you’ve been working on? She wants details and says your office has been withholding.”
I choke out a guffawing laugh, hysteria bubbling in my blood and out to make me look like a fool. But I wave toward Aubree, passing the buck to my second-in-charge and leaving her to defend herself. “That’s Doctor Emeri’s thing. Not mine.”Withholding information, my ass. She just wants to know if she’s dying in October. “I’m going for a walk. Gonna see if I can find a surgeon.”
“I’ll come with you.” Archer bounds off his chair, wrapping me up closely and taking a little of my weight to relieve the ache in the arches of my feet. “I’ll walk with you, Minnnka.”
“Actually…” I bring my gaze across to Cato, because we’re not done. I owe him more. “Can you come with me?”
Cato’s eyes widen with terror. With hurt. With the deep-seated trauma of abandonment his shitty father ensured would stay with him long after his passing. “M-me?”
“Do you mind?” I peek around at Archer. “Just for a minute.”
He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he releases me again and takes a step back. “It’s alright.”
I drag him closer and drop a gentle kiss on his lips. A promise that the ridiculous fear pulsing behind his eyes—that I choose Cato over him—is not real. Then I release him and turn to the youngest Malone, offering my arm and breathing a little easier when he scoops it up and takes my weight.
Though a half dozen sets of eyes burn my back and leave me with the distinct desire to curl into a ball and hide out of sight, I walk anyway, my gown sweeping across the linoleum and the scent of Cato’s cologne tickling my lungs.
“You wanted privacy to tell me I fucking suck?” He leads me around the closest corner, moving slowly to make it easier for me and my limp. “To tell me I screwed up.”
“To tell youIscrewed up.” I nibble on my bottom lip and peek up at his terrified eyes. “The fact you think I’ve led you away from the crowd, just so I can say shitty things, proves how horrible I’ve been. I’m not a very nice person, Cato.”
“No, you?—”
“Let me finish.” I draw us to a stop, barely thirty yards from the others. But we’re out of sight, and for as long as I don’t have them staring at the side of my face, warming my skin with their curiosity, I summon my courage and inhale a shuddering breath. “I’m prickly and annoying and intolerant. I don’t like noise, and I hate changes in my routine. You saw all this already.” Gently, I tug my arm from his grip and stand on my own two feet. Then, bringing my hand up, I run my fingers through my hair, oily and sweaty from a long day. “In that Podunk town in the middle of nowhere, you saw how I didn’t—couldn’t—adapt, and then you saw me make a dick of myself. That’s who I am.”
I drop my hand, exhaling until my chest shrinks. “The medical examiner everyone else sees, the boss, the chick in a professional outfit with a fancy white coat and an extravagant job title… It’s all a show. A front I want the world to see. But the idiot who cries over changed plans, the psycho who shouts because it’s hot and her living room is messy… That’s me,masks off. God knows, I have no clue why Archer tolerates me. For reasons I’ll never understand, he makes my faults seem… pretty.”
“I know why.” He’s so cute. So handsome. So forgiving, even before I’ve finished stumbling through my apologies. “He loves you. That’s how he does it.”
“You’re just a kid who wants to be with his brothers. You want the family you were deprived of. And dammit, you deserve that. But the best I ever seem to offer are critical words, constant bitchiness, and when I’m feeling extra horrible, I tell you you’re unwanted.”
I drop my gaze and pick up a section of tulle… a destroyed piece of my dress. But it creates the perfect sensory distraction as I rub the fabric between my fingers. “I won’t bore you with my weird brain and the ways I could try to justify my behavior. I won’t explain how my words are projections, and my unkindness is a defense mechanism.”
“You won’t?”
I bring my eyes up again. “No. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. And to say—to hope—that my poor behavior doesn’t leave lasting scars on a heart that never deserved to be hurt. That during your lowest moments, because I know you have them, I sincerely hope my words are not the words you hear. I don’t want to be the reason you’re in pain.”
“So you’re just…” His thick, dark brows pull closer until theyalmostform a single, long line. “Could be my own trauma and weird brain, but I don’t want you to stop being who you are, Doc.”
“You—”
“I have my low moments, and I hear you during them. Every single time.”
My heart aches, stuttering in my chest and bruising my soul. “I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head, pushing his lips into a smug side smirk. “I pick at you, ‘cos it’s fun. But I hear you and him…” He jerks a thumb back the way we came. “I hear your love when I’m down, and it kinda gives me hope.”
“What?”
“I was born with a role. Told who I would be, and flogged if I colored outside the lines. I figured my destiny was set, and I was mad at Archer and Tim for ditching, because it felt, to my kid brain, like they knew what my future was, and they didn’t care enough to help me choose something else. I was pissed at Lix and Micah for staying behind, and I was furious at Tim and Archer fornot. So when I came to Copeland, I fully intended to be the biggest pain in the ass they’ve ever known, hoping they’d pick afight and, who knows, maybe weapons would be drawn and I could feel justified in wiping another Malone off this planet.”
“You came here to hurt them?” My pulse thunders faster. Wilder. “You… I…” I stop and shake my head. “Not what I expected you to say.”
He chuckles. “I wouldn’t have been a coward about it. Not shooting them in the back, or slitting their throats while they slept. I wanted to look into their eyes and fight, and if they took me out as payback, then I would’ve considered it time well spent and a nice way to cheat destiny. But they hardly argue with me. They mostly nod and smile andgentlytry to explain how I could be a better man when you’re not listening.”
“They do?”