“Actually,” he said. “There’s something else that I’d like to talk to you about first.”
“What is it?”
“I read the note that you left me.”
His voice sounded wounded even just mentioning that note, and I felt sick with guilt and regret. I could have only imagined what kind of anguish I had put him through when he found and read that note. I was getting ready to say something along the lines of an apology again, but he kept talking.
“You said in your note that you wouldn’t have chosen Julian, and that I would know why,” he said as he carefully spaced out his words so as not to get ahead of himself. “Do you remember that part?”
“Yes,” I answered. “I remember.”
“I want to know why.”
I looked up at him, with our faces so close together that our noses nearly touched. My lips parted and I tried to breathe as our chests heaved with the burden of holding in too many emotions. We stared into each other’s eyes as the moment hung in the air with pregnant anticipation.
“You already know,” I said in a volume that was just barely above a whisper.
His eyes danced between mine. “Tell me.”
The slow breath behind Michael’s two words brushed against my lips. My heart was beating wildly out of control.
“Because I choose you,” I whispered.
There, the words were out. I’d said it and I’d made my choice. I think that we both already knew it; it had always been there since the beginning. It had been there since the moment on the rooftop where Michael grabbed me in a movement that I thought was hate but was quickly revealed to be something else. It had been there since the night in the greenhouse. It had been there since the minute we saw each other when Adam brought me into their apartment at Lineage. It was always going to end up being me and Michael. Even though we both knew it, there was something powerful behind saying it aloud.
“I choose you too,” Michael whispered back as his mouth hovered just above mine. “I know that might not mean the same thing, but I want you to know that even if you were just one star in a sky of thousands, that I would always only choose you.”
It did mean something that he said that; it meant everything.
I tilted my head up to kiss him and he gently pushed his tongue between my lips as he reached his hand to hold the side of my face. That kiss, whether it was in a hospital bed or on vast mountainside beneath a starry sky, was everything that I could ever want. Everything I could have ever needed from someone. And the next set of words dripped effortlessly from my lips, like morning dew off a blade of grass.
“I love you,” I said when our lips slowly pulled apart.
Michael tilted his head downward so that our foreheads rested against each other.
“I love you too,” he said. “Lisette, please don’t ever leave like that again. No matter what happens. Promise me.”
“I won’t,” I said. “I promise.”
We snuggled up against the extremely uncomfortable hard plastic headboard of the hospital bed. Our twobodies barely fit on the narrow mattress, but it didn’t matter; we would have been squeezed together regardless, simply because we didn’t want to let each other go. Our shoulders pressed together, and our hands were clasped between us. Even our heads were tilted to touch as we talked about what kind of plan we should have in place for when we arrived in Maine.
“What was the condition for the inheritance money?” Michael asked.
“It’s kind of cryptic,” I said. “Which is why I’m hoping my uncle will be able to explain it more. It has something to do with fulfilling my mother’s legacy in order to lay claim to the inheritance, which is probably why Naomi was so hell-bent on me being headmistress. I’m assuming that this mysterious legacy is the condition being referred to, so Naomi knew that the money wouldn’t be released unless I fulfilled that obligation.”
“But the money would be yours, not hers,” he said.
“Yes, but I’m sure that Naomi thought once I had the money that she could just come and steal it from me. She knows my weaknesses and she would know that money isn’t what matters most to me.”
Michael nodded. “Of course,” he said. “She would bribe you by threatening us in exchange for you handing the money over to her. That’s why you were trying to keep the three of us out of it.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But it doesn’t matter now. You’re here and that’s all that matters. As soon as I can get out of this hospital, you and I can go see Mark and figure out the rest of this mess. And if Naomi is already there, then we’ll deal with her too. I’m sure my uncle has some insight about how to handle her. She is his crazy younger sister after all.”
“It won’t just be us,” Michael reminded me. “Rob and Adam will be here in a few hours. Then we’ll all go together.”
“Even better,” I said. “Five of us against my Aunt Naomi should even the odds out a bit this time. Besides, she’ll be out of her element, so I doubt she’ll be quite as dangerous.”
“You’re not going to be ready to face anyone for a while,” he said. “Even when we get you discharged from here, we’ll likely need to find a place to stay and take care of you until you’re fully recovered.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said stubbornly.
Michael tenderly lifted my arm up from where it had been resting on his lap. There was an IV stuck into the vein that ran down the inside of my elbow.
“See this?” he asked as he pointed at the thin tube running from my arm to a bag of liquid that hung on a hook next to the bed. “This is the reason you think you’re fine. Your veins are being pumped full of pain killers right now and I’m honestly surprised you’re as lucid as you are. When we get out of here, you’re probably going to feel like shit.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said as I laid my head back down on his shoulder to rest. “Because you’re here now.”
2
In the morning, it wasn’t the nurse who was the first one in the room. When I opened my eyes, I felt groggy (probably from all those pain meds Michael had been talking about) and I tried to rub my eyes but had too many tubes still poking out of my veins to do it comfortably. I didn’t need to be able to see clearly to hear that Rob and Adam were here.
When I finally got my eyes open, I leaned up against Michael’s shoulder in the bed and saw the two of them, standing eagerly at the bedside and looking exceedingly worried. Adam reached right over and gave me a hug.
“Careful,” Michael scolded him. “She’s got IV’s and things poking out and attached to her all over.”
“I am being careful,” Adam said to Michael before he turned his face back to me and gave me a small kiss on the forehead.
I could feel Michael’s shoulder muscles tighten behind my head. I don’t think he liked the fact that Adam was trying to hold onto me, too. Rob walked up and gave me a kiss on the top of my head but didn’t try to hug me since I looked like a mess of tangled cords.
“How are you feeling?” Rob asked.
“Okay,” I said, but the head nod that I gave caused me to wince, and I knew they all saw it.
Still, it was an honest answer. Kind of, at least.
Last night I was feeling great; high on pain meds and high on the proclamations of love between Michael and me. Today I simply felt okay. Michael was right; I wasn’t quite as “healed” as I thought I was. Regardless, though, I still wanted to get the hell out of here, and we needed to get going so that I could get back on track to Maine.
As if he could read my mind, Michael carefully slid his arm out from under me. “I’m going to go find the nurse and see when we can get you out of here,” he said.
I smiled at him, and our eyes lingered on each other longer than usual. I wasn’t ready to tell Adam and Rob about making my choice yet. For now, I just wanted things to stay the way they were so that we could focus on taking care of the inheritance and Naomi. Once things settled down, I would talk to the guys about Michael and me.
Besides,
I chose Michael as the man I wanted to be with forever, but that didn’t mean that I still couldn’t be with them all for right now.
“You really scared us,” Adam said as he sat down in a chair next to the bed.
He looked exhausted like he hadn’t slept in days. Actually, they both looked like that. And it made me sick to my stomach.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have left the way that I did. It was stupid and I won’t do it again.”
Rob laughed and I wondered what was so funny.
“It looks like Michael already gave you a lecture about it, huh?” he asked.
I giggled, but even the hopping of my shoulders along with those giggles ached my body.
“Not necessarily a lecture,” I said with a sigh. “But yes, we did talk about it. And he is right. I never should have left you guys like that. It wasn’t fair of me to do. It was hurtful and broke our trust. And it absolutely killed me to leave.”
“Technically, it almost did actually kill you,” Adam said.
There was no laughing this time, though.
“Where were you going anyway, Lisette?” Rob asked. “What was all of this about?”
I started in on the story to tell Rob and Adam all about everything. All about Naomi, the inheritance, and why I left them behind out of fear that Naomi would use my affections for them as a weapon. Just as I got to the juicy parts, Michael came back and sat down beside me on the bed while the other two guys listened until I was done explaining it all.
“The nurse said that you have to spend another day,” Michael said once I had finished talking.
“But Naomi—”
I groaned. “Will still be a force to be reckoned with after you get out of the hospital, I’m sure,” Michael interrupted me. “You need to heal and then we’ll deal with her.”
“Michael is right,” Adam agreed. “We’ll all stay here with you until you’re released.”
I got the feeling that Michael wasn’t too thrilled with that. I think he liked it when it was just the two of us here alone together. Regardless, it gave us all time to talk and rest, which all four of us needed desperately. When I was able to leave, we would all take one car together. Rob had driven a rental and already called the rental company to come and pick it up. We made a plan to go to Maine together and get the inheritance from my uncle. Hopefully, we could talk to Mark a bit while we were there; and hopefully, he would have some insight or information that might help us deal with Naomi. The only thing that the four of us were divided about, was what to do with the inheritance money.
“I think we should just offer it to your Aunt Naomi,” Adam said. “If that’s what she’s after and it will buy you your freedom from her and let us all get back to living in peace, then why wouldn’t we just give it to her? It’s not like money has ever been a priority for any of us.”
“Agreed,” Rob said as he crossed his arms over his chest, which also oddly enhanced his biceps in the process. “I can tell you that from years’ worth of police force experience dealing with criminals, sometimes it’s just worth paying someone to leave you the hell alone. I hate to say that because it goes against everything that I morally believe in, but there are some people out there who will never stop until they get what they want. They’ll manipulate and evade the system, and half the time the system is corrupt enough to let them do it. Sometimes all it takes to make them disappear from your life is to give them the money or whatever prize it is that they are seeking, cut your losses, and move on.”
“No,” Michael said. “That inheritance belongs to Lisette, and with a huge amount of money like that she could run far away. It’s enough money that we could all get far enough away from here that Naomi would never find us. Why would we hand over exactly what that woman wants after all that she’s done to us, and give her even more power? If the choice is there to take the money and get the hell out of here, I say we do it. What do you think, Lisette?”
I didn’t know what I thought, if I wanted to be real with myself. The guys seemed divided by it, and honestly, I could see the valid points in both options. I just wanted to do whatever would get Naomi out of our lives for good, and it was possible that either of those things would work or that neither of them would.
“I don’t know,” I said listlessly. “I guess I need to think about it some more. Besides, I think we should wait to make a decision on that until we can talk to my uncle. There may be other conditions to the inheritance that we don’t know about yet. Or maybe the amount is different than what we think. I think we should go and get all of the information first and then make a decision about what to do.”
Everyone was at least on board with the idea; a nice compromise between all of us. Besides, it was always smart not to react without having all the information you needed. I’d learned that lesson countless times and I was hoping that I was actually going to stop making the same mistake of reacting instinctively and then regretting it.
When we got ready to leave the hospital, I was still a bit sore and still tired, but overall, I felt good because we were all back together again. The drive from New York to Maine wasn’t that long now and the guys would take shifts driving there. I didn’t really know what to expect when we got there, but as long as I had Michael, Adam, and Rob with me. I felt as though everything would be fine.
However, the tension and discord between the guys on the ride there should have been my first clue that everything was indeed not going to be fine.
The guys were feeling at odds about what the best course of action was, but there was also another tension that was adding to that unstable dynamic. Michael seemed put-off that they were even here with us now, and I had a feeling it was because he knew that in the end, it would just be he and I together.
I also think he wanted to fast forward to that part now.
Even though Adam and Rob didn’t even know that I had chosen Michael yet, I think they could tell that something was up because everyone seemed on edge with each other. I honestly didn’t have the strength to deal with that whole dynamic yet.
I still wasn’t quite back to feeling a hundred percent, and I needed to focus on the matter at hand with Mark and Naomi. After we had dealt with the inheritance money and made a plan, then I would figure out how to talk to the guys about things and get us all in a less awkward and less uncomfortable mindset.
But for now, we just needed to make it to Maine.
3
When we got to my uncle’s house and knocked on the door, it may as well have been a stranger answering it because I didn’t recognize the man who opened it.
He looked like he knew who I was, but the look on his face wasn’t one of close familiarity, which made me think that he just recognized me from a picture that he had seen or something like that.
“Lisette?” he asked. “What are you doing here?”
He looked around at the three guys standing with me, and then looked over their shoulders to see if anyone else was behind them. He looked nervous and I imagined that was probably the way his life had been most of the time since he was holding onto the inheritance that his crazy sister was after. I wondered why he had gone through so much trouble for all this time, and why he hadn’t just given it to her and went on with his life unfettered. It wasn’t like he and I were close.
I didn’t even know who this man was.
“I’ve come to talk to you about the inheritance,” I said as I tried to sound matter-of-fact, and not freaked out and exhausted.
“Come in,” Mark said as he stepped to the side.
He seemed uneasy, but I guess that was to be expected considering we were essentially a group of strangers showing up at his door and asking about an inheritance that his sister was willing to murder people over. I would have been uneasy, too; in fact, I was uneasy. We walked inside and Mark quickly closed and locked the door behind us. When we got all the way inside the house, he offered us something to drink and we all sat down around a round wooden table in the kitchen.
“Sorry,” Mark said when he realized that he had been staring for a moment longer than was comfortable. “It’s just that I haven’t actually seen you in person since the day you were born. I was there at the hospital with your mother. After Paula died, I figured that you would come looking for me one day.”
I wasn’t trying to be rude or overstep by hitting my uncle with accusatory questions within the first five minutes of meeting him. However, I simply wanted to cut to the chase.
“Why didn’t you come looking for me?” I asked. “If my mother had left behind an inheritance for me when she died, then why didn’t you come to find me? Why didn’t you reach out to tell me about it? Why have you held on to it for so long in silence and waited for me to figure it out and come find you?”
I guess that I already knew the answer to that question, and when Mark answered me with a single word, I knew that I had been right.
“Naomi.”
Michael furrowed his brow. “You knew your sister would go after Lisette’s inheritance?” he asked.
“Yes, of course,” Mark answered, as if we were all supposed to know that. “Naomi is crazy, and dangerous. Paula was the eldest sister and, therefore, her share of the inheritance was the largest. Naomi wanted that money, and I knew that if it had immediately fallen to Lisette, Naomi would have killed her for it. I’ve kept it out of her reach all this time, until you were ready to claim it and deal with Naomi yourself.”
“Well, unfortunately, we’ve already had to deal with Naomi,” I said bitterly. “And it nearly cost a few of us our lives.”
Mark looked sincerely troubled by that as he shook his head and frowned.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “If there was anything that I could have done to prevent her from reaching you, I would have.”
“You could have at least reached out to tell me about her,” I said. “Then at least we might have been prepared.”
Vicious: A Dark Bully Reverse Harem Romance (Beautiful Tyrants Book 3) Page 2
