Page 47

“Thanks for meeting me. I didn’t want to do this at The Orchid.” Too many people I know are there, and I don’t want to answer any questions.

I stare at the glass facade of Manhattan Memorial Hospital, watching staff and visitors strolling through the quiet courtyard at seven in the morning. “We have to make this quick, because Taylor is meeting me here in half an hour.”

We are going to visit Firefly because I want the woman who’s stolen my heart to meet my sister.

I wonder if Firefly already knows. I look up at the dark clouds hanging low, watching a crow soar past us. The air is humid and cold this April morning—the skies gray after an overnight drizzle. Much like my gloomy mood as I prepare myself to open a can of worms that may change everything forever.

The last month has been bliss—after some much deserved ribbing from Maxwell and his siblings, everyone has accepted Taylor and me with open arms. The press has been a different issue.

The market ultimately decided they didn’t like our clandestine relationship even though she’s an Anderson. Our stock plummeted five percent since the photos of Taylor and me in Russia blasted through all the major networks and gossip sites. My PR manager had been working overtime, with Lana lending her services even though she had a full workload with her Chief of PR position at Fleur.

Our teams scheduled strategic date nights and public appearances for us. Lana somehow even got the minx to wear lighter colors and makeup, claiming it’d make her look more like a woman in love, and a happy woman would do wonders for these scandals.

It’s bullshit—what Taylor wears shouldn’t affect how people see us—but appearances are important, as I was taught growing up.

A lump forms in my throat. Despite all these changes, there has been good news. Patterson was convicted of his crimes. He’ll spend the next several decades rotting away in jail, and I know prisoners are not kind to rapists.

My relationship with Taylor has never been better. She has been so happy—her nose piercing is a rotation of red hearts and sunflowers these days. We haven’t talked about her dreaded night again and it seems like she’s finally moving past it.

With every single day that passes by, I fall deeper and deeper into what used to be that dreaded emotion with her.

Love.

Except, it no longer seems so terrifying. Not when it’s with her.

But I know I need to find out the truth, not only because I want to punish the bastards who hurt her that night, but also because she deserves closure. She deserves justice.

Even if the truth may cost me my relationship with her.

Because Uncle Ian. Hotel Renegade. Seven and a half years ago. The potential outcome I don’t want to face. The roiling nausea in my gut whenever I look at the photo I kept from Elias. The denial I’m clinging on to because the alternative is unbearable.

The man himself takes a seat on the bench next to me, his fingers fiddling with his lighter attached to its usual gold chain. He snaps it open and stares at the open flame, a spark of warmth on this dreary morning. “I was wondering when you’d contact me. It’s been a month since you’ve been back.”

Of course, he has been keeping tabs on me.

“Elias, tell me. What would you do if someone brutalized the woman you love?”

He snaps shut his lighter. “I’d kill them. But before that, I’d make sure their last hours on earth were misery, and death would be a mercy they’d be begging for.”

Elias’s voice is cold and apathetic, but when I look at him, I find his green eyes burning with anger.

Like he’s imagining this happening to him.

“Even if the woman you love might leave you afterward?” I lock my jaw as a suffocating weight settles on my chest.

Elias stays silent for a few seconds before he replies, “Yes.”

“I thought so,” I murmur and take a sip of the coffee in my hand. “What I’m telling you here cannot be repeated. But I can trust you, right?”

“You wouldn’t have called me if you had doubts.”

I nod and force out the next words, “I need to know if Ian and Taylor were at Hotel Renegade at the same time.” And I can’t ask Uncle Ian because that’d alert him to my investigation.

He draws in a quick breath, no doubt connecting the dots on everything I’m not saying. “I should’ve known. I always wondered why you were looking into your uncle. It makes sense now. And you think—”

“I just need to know. I could ask Taylor, but she…she…” Her words flit through my mind and I know the reality of that night was much worse than what she described. Fury chars my insides and I crumble the paper cup, barely noticing the hot liquid scorching my hand and splashing onto my trousers.

“You don’t want to re-traumatize her.” He finishes my sentence, his voice a low rasp.

A few seconds pass by, heavy with tension. He turns toward me. “Charles?”

Gritting my teeth, I face him. The harsh morning light makes the scar on his face seem more menacing than usual.

“This one is on the house.” His hands are white knuckled around his metal lighter. “I’m not a good man. But there is one line I wouldn’t cross. Hurting women. And I despise monsters who cross that line. I’ll get you your answers for free.”

I heave out an exhale even as dark dread swirls inside me. But I can’t run from the truth. I need to know. “Thanks. And one more thing.”

He cocks his brow.

“Taylor had a best friend who quit ballet around the time of her trauma. She also had a boyfriend back then. I only know his first name. Camden. Can you find these two people for me? This could come after Ian. But there is some unfinished business.”

I’ll bury them too, for abandoning Taylor at the worst time of her life.

Elias gives me a curt nod. Without another word, he gets up and slips through the morning crowds. It’s personal for him and if my senses are right, this extends beyond him knowing Taylor or Taylor being Maxwell and Ryland’s youngest sister. I can’t help but wonder if this last line of moral defense is why the Andersons work with him on running the Rose floors inside The Orchid. Those floors sell sex, lust, and would be ripe for abuse if it were any other establishment. But with Elias Kent at the helm, no one dares to step out of bounds.

A stiff wind blows by and I tug the lapels of my coat tighter against me, my mind spinning with scenarios about how this could turn out; all endings I have a solution for except one.

The ending I fear the most.

What if it is Ian? What if I don’t really know him at all? What if the man who’s practically a father to me is the monster who did unspeakable acts to the woman I love?

My tie restricts my airway and suddenly I can’t breathe.

Ten minutes later, I’m walking down the busy corridor of the long-term care unit inside the hospital. My mind is still swirling from my conversation with Elias earlier. I loosen the collar of my dress shirt, my tie long stuffed into my coat pocket.

I have fifteen minutes to get my shit together before Taylor comes and joins me in Firefly’s room. I don’t want her to see me like this. She’ll take one look at me and call me out on my bullshit.

I won’t be able to lie to her if she asks me.

I vaguely notice people waving at me—nurses, custodial staff, admin personnel—but I don’t have the strength to do what I usually do well.

To fake a smile and pretend everything is okay.

Instead, I ignore them as I stride toward Firefly’s room, wanting to tell her what’s going on in my life, hoping I can unload my worries before Taylor arrives. Maybe I’d feel better if I told someone everything, even if that person is my comatose sister.

“I’d never thought I’d see you like this,” a deep voice says from in front of me. “Unkempt, troubled. Finally looking like a human.”

My head snaps up and I see him, the other person I’ve failed—other than Firefly. My pulse ratchets up and I swallow my shock as I stare at my brother, my body not knowing how to react—anger at him for being MIA, relief at him being alive and well?

Liam looks so much older than when I last saw him. Gone is the lanky boy with piercings and tattoos who holed himself in his room, blaring punk rock music at two in the morning. In front of me is a man—cold, hardened, muscular, with more tattoos covering his forearms, which are showcased in the thin black T-shirt he has on. His dirty blond hair is mussed, his nostrils flaring as he stares at me.

“It’s been six years. I thought you forgot about us,” I mutter. “Couldn’t bother to return a call or a text?”

His eyes flash with fury. “Fuck you. I wasn’t the one who forgot about his family. You were. And I’ve visited Firefly all these years, just not when you were there, asshole.”

“Are you going to hold this over my head for the rest of my life? You think I want her to be in there?”

Shocked gasps echo in the hallway and I belatedly realize how loud my voice is, but I can’t find it in me to care.

I’m tired. Exhausted. Pissed off.

It’s not healthy to bottle everything up. That’s what Taylor always tells me.

Liam gets in my face and in this second, I’m hit with how my younger brother, the little kid who used to follow me around the gardens when we were growing up, who’d come to me when the girl he asked out in high school rejected him, is now a complete stranger.

It tears me up inside.

“No, I don’t think you’d want our sister to be in a coma. Even you aren’t that cold. But how much money did you spend to cover that up?” He shoves me back a few steps. “Tell me this, how many people in your circle even know you have a sister in a coma?”

I ball up my hands at my sides. He knows nothing. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be the crown fucking prince of an old money dynasty. And would telling everyone about the accident, having the press get up in our business and parked outside the hospital building help Firefly?

It wouldn’t. She wouldn’t have wanted that.

He barks out a laugh at my silence. “Because that’d be bad press for your precious company, right?”

“Fuck you!” I shove him back. “I served, so you guys didn’t have to!”

“Bullshit! You liked the power and prestige of being the fucking CEO of the Bank of Columbia.”

More shocked whispers and murmurs surround us. Chairs squeak. Footsteps pound toward us. I look around, finding Julie and the other nurses wide-eyed and aghast, security striding down the halls toward us.

“Are you happy now? Causing a commotion? You wanted emotions, right? Now you got them.” I grab his T-shirt, torn between the urge to hit him for abandoning me all these years and the desperate need to beg for his forgiveness because I miss our days in the Hamptons.

“Go ahead, you asshole. Hit me! I don’t fucking care!” Liam spits on my face.

My vision clouds in red as I haul him closer and raise my fist, letting the rage from this morning and the guilt I’ve carried for most of this past decade burn through me.

“Stop it! You guys, break it up!” A scent of vanilla fills the air.

Her.

Taylor.

She pulls me apart as Ethan steps up from nowhere and drags Liam back a few steps.

Liam fights and claws at his best friend’s grip, and I wipe the spit off my face.

“I don’t care what beef you have with your brother.” Taylor stomps up to him and jabs her finger into his chest. Liam stares at her, his mouth dropping open.

She looks around, clearly taking in our audience, and steps back. “I don’t know what happened with your sister but I’m a woman and I’m also someone’s sister and I can tell you, the last thing I’d want if I were laying on the bed in a coma is to see the people I love going at it like enemies outside my door!”

Her words are a blow across my face and shame fills me. Liam’s nostrils flare and a muscle tics in his jaw, but he remains silent.

Taylor points to me, then glares at Liam. “This man has so much heart inside him. He loves you guys so fucking much. You don’t know how lucky you are. He’s the best man I know.” She swallows, her voice trembling. “Trust me. I know. So, I won’t have you hurt him like this. If you want to go at him, you’ll have to go through me.”

A rush of emotions slams through me—the sticky shame from moments ago, the sweltering warmth of appreciation, the burst of pride, and so much fucking love singeing my chest I almost forget how to breathe.

My minx is fierce. The black swan ruffling her feathers under the spotlight, owning the attention of everyone in the room.

And she claimed me as her prince.

“Understand?” she asks Liam.

My brother swallows as he shrugs himself out of Ethan’s clasp. His voice is thick and rusty as he rasps, “For your sake, I hope you’re right.”

He spins around and walks back into Firefly’s room. Ethan holds my gaze for a second and mouths, “I got this. Come back another day. Go cool down. ”

Taylor steps in front of me and cradles my face. Her brows are pinched, lips pursed. She swipes the wetness on my face with her thumb, her big eyes wide with concern.

“You okay?” she whispers.

I stare at her beautiful eyes, my heart pounding a resounding beat and without another word, I clasp her nape and crush my lips with hers, wanting to tell her everything I’m feeling without words.

To thank her for seeing me, for standing up for me, for fighting on the same side as me.

Our kiss deepens as she relaxes in my arms, but soon a few pointed coughs break through the haze of my emotions.

I release a deep exhale and dip my forehead toward her. My past is catching up to my present. This is bound to happen. “Yes. I will be okay…because you’re here. I’m sorry you had to witness that.”

She pulls me into her arms and places her head on my chest. I relish her warmth and reassuring weight as I close my eyes. “That was Liam…but you already figured that out.”

She nods. “I bumped into Ethan on the way up. He told me he was meeting your brother.”

“They are best friends,” I explain before pulling back to look at her beautiful face again.

Thick black hair piled up in a bun, barefaced without a stitch of makeup, a glittering red gem on her nose. She’s wearing one of her black loose-fitting sweaters and leggings today.

She goddamn takes my breath away.

And her startling eyes are staring at me with such warmth and concern.

I wonder if that’ll change after this.

“Come,” I pull her to a seating area in the corner, devoid of people, “I want to tell you what happened. Liam’s not wrong, you know.”

Looking into her eyes once more, I take a breath, then utter the next words.

“It is my fault. I put her in a coma.”