Secrets and Sins: Raphael: A Secrets and Sins novel (Entangled Ignite)

by Naima Simone

  Last night it’d felt as though the door had slammed against her skull. She’d woken with a migraine splitting her head open. Her brother had been in a panic as he’d carried her from the house to the car and then into the hospital emergency room. Headaches had been frequent in the past couple of weeks, but that one had edged into brain aneurysm territory. The pain had almost cleaved her in half.

  The doctor had thrown around PTSD, stress. Emotional strain. He couldn’t give her a definite diagnosis for the reason behind the debilitating migraine. Yet he stated that it—and the previous milder headaches—weren’t unheard of after a head injury. They were mostly likely due to a combination of the head injury, possible residual brain swelling, stress, and emotional strain from the amnesia. Amnesia. Police investigation. Dodging voracious and insatiable reporters. Unplanned pregnancy. Take a pick which contributed to her stress and emotional strain.

  He’d written a prescription for a very mild sedative, but she hadn’t filled it yet. Hadn’t decided if she would. Not only did she cringe from taking anything while just out of her first trimester, but she needed the nightmares. Not wanted, but needed. As crazy as it sounded, they were the only signal that her memories of that night were returning. She had to know what happened with Gavin.

  “There was no need to stay overnight.” She offered him a reassuring smile. “Ethan, I’m fine. Really. After a few hours the pain was more than bearable. As long as the baby was okay. That’s what—who—I was most worried about.” Unconsciously, she lifted her hand over her stomach. Once the shock had worn off, the wonder had crept in. Then the joy. No, the pregnancy hadn’t been planned, but she wanted this baby with a fierceness that surprised even her.

  Ethan set his mug down in the sink and turned to her, smoothing a hand down his already-immaculate tie. She narrowed her eyes on the gesture—his tell. Something was up, and he wasn’t saying.

  “What’s wrong?”

  His head snapped up, guilt flashing through his eyes before he hid the emotion behind an unreadable mask. Just like their father. “Greer,” he said, then sighed when she crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow. “Fine,” he muttered. “Last night. I was so worried something was seriously wrong I—” He hesitated, and his gaze flickered to the ceiling—a dead giveaway she wouldn’t like his next words. “I called Mom and let her know you were in the hospital. And…about the baby.”

  The air whooshed from her lungs. She sagged against the kitchen wall. “Ethan,” she breathed, the sour tang of betrayal washing out the tepid flavor of the tea.

  “Please, honey,” he pleaded softly, approaching her with his arms outstretched. He tugged her into his embrace, and she allowed it only because she was too stunned to fight him. How could he? “I’ve never seen you like that before. It was different—so much worse than the other headaches. I believed she’d want to know if you were in trouble. And that she was going to be a grandmother.”

  “Why?” she snarled, the hurt and bitterness that always accompanied thoughts of her parents barreling into her. “When I actually was in trouble, they abandoned me, threw me to the wolves. What makes you assume they would give a damn now?”

  “Greer,” Ethan whispered. “You know Mom is just weak. She doesn’t really agree with Dad.”

  “But she did nothing while he denounced me. And she didn’t privately reach out to me.” She wriggled, hoisting her arms up between their bodies and shoving out of his embrace. “Even now that I’ve been somewhat cleared, neither one of them has apologized or supported me. They don’t deserve to know what’s going on in my life, with me, and especially this baby. You had no right.”

  He sighed, dragged his palms down his face. “I know. Now. And let me just get all of it out. I gave her your new number. She’ll probably call you, and I didn’t want you to be caught unaware. Honey, I’m sorry,” he hurriedly apologized. “I was just…scared.” And he’d reached for the woman who should’ve offered him comfort when he’d faced the possibility of losing his baby sister. His mother. Damn. She couldn’t blame Ethan for his need to connect with Celeste Addison. Too bad she didn’t possess the maternal instinct that made the word more than a title or circumstance of birth.

  “It’s okay, Ethan.” She patted his arm before leaving the kitchen, leaving her half-finished tea on the counter. “I understand.”

  In some ways Greer was tougher than her brother—she’d had to be. Unlike his sexuality, her imperfection hadn’t been as easy to hide from their father and his ridicule. Diagnosed with dyslexia as a child, she’d been the family secret and embarrassment until Ethan had announced his homosexuality. And whenever he’d lashed out at them for their fatal flaws, their mother had silently stood by, wringing her jeweled fingers as Ethan II verbally abused her children.

  A quick knock rapped against the front door. Ethan brushed a hand over her shoulder as he strode down the hallway toward the foyer.

  “Hey, Noah.” She shook her head, smiling as Noah Granger’s voice reached her. Between her brother and her best friend, she was mother-henned to death.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, arching a brow as Noah walked down the hall, Ethan behind him.

  “You have a doctor’s appointment this morning. You didn’t really think I’d let you go by yourself, did you?” Exaggerated outrage colored his voice. She grinned, probably as he’d intended.

  Noah had been her best friend since third grade when he’d accidently knocked her down on the playground, and she’d sliced her chin open on a sharp rock. She absently rubbed the old scar on her chin in memory. Blood had poured from the cut, his eyes had rolled in the back of his head, and he’d fainted. From that day forward, they’d been inseparable. He used to help her memorize spelling words to pass tests and spent hours working with her on her homework. He’d pumped his fist with her when she’d made the A-B Honor Roll for the first time. He’d supported her—albeit reluctantly—when she’d become engaged to Gavin. And he’d held her while she cried when she’d discovered his betrayal.

  Every important moment in her life, Noah had been right there, advising and encouraging. He hadn’t been thrilled when she’d told him about the pregnancy, but in true Noah fashion, he’d shrugged and said he always wanted to be an uncle. She loved him.

  “You didn’t have to come all the way over here,” she scolded. His Charlestown apartment was about twenty minutes away from Ethan’s South End brownstone. “Ethan offered to go with me.”

  Noah scoffed. “What does that mean? He doesn’t know the important things to ask. Like when will you feel the baby move? Can the baby really hear music through your womb? When can you have the epidural?”

  She laughed. “Damn right.”

  Ethan smirked. “He’s got me there. I definitely wouldn’t have thought of the epidural question. But.” He glared at Noah. “Forget it. I’m still going. You ready, Greer?”

  “Let me get my coat.”

  Moments later, Ethan locked up, and they descended the steps of his duplex together. She and Noah headed up the sidewalk toward her car, and Ethan climbed in his since he would leave for his office after the appointment. As they walked, she scanned the street for anyone who didn’t belong. For months, she’d hated leaving the house because of reporters swarming around her as soon as she stepped out of the door. Cameras shoved in her face for an accidental sound bite. In just the last three weeks or so, the frenzy had abated. The police had finally received the DNA evidence back. Her blood hadn’t been found at the scene. And neither her nor Gavin’s blood had been detected on her clothes. Yes, her fingerprints had been on the knife, but the head injury had supported her claim of entering the apartment and being knocked out. Add in her Raphael alibi—which thanks to a police leak to the press had caused another sensational flurry—and she’d been removed from prime suspect status.

  She sucked in a hard breath.

  Raphael.

  He’d been on her mind ever since discovering she was pregnant—well, that made it seem as if he’d n
ever left. Which he hadn’t. If she had a wish for every time she’d started to dial his office number, she would be as tall as Naomi Campbell and have Scarlett Johansson’s body and Oprah Winfrey’s money. And that would’ve just been the first day since she’d seen him last.

  After her hospital stay, she’d hated dragging him into the mess her life had suddenly become. In the months that followed, her reasons for not contacting him hadn’t changed. Her life hadn’t become less tangled, but more. Pulling him into it more than necessary? No. So not happening.

  But as of last week, it appeared she didn’t have a choice. This baby belonged to him as much as he or she did to Greer. To keep a child from him… No, she had to tell him. Her stomach rolled, tightened. It had nothing to do with morning sickness. And everything to do with the idea of having to see him again after months. Especially considering the last time had been in the police station as he saved her ass, and she’d said…nothing. Done nothing. Now she would show up on his doorstep—or office—and announce that he was her baby’s daddy.

  She was so damn afraid.

  Don’t go there. Don’t. You. Dare. Go. There…

  “What’s wrong?” Noah glanced at her. “Are you okay? Any aftereffects from last night?” he asked, looping an arm around her shoulders. After Ethan had taken her to the hospital, he’d called Noah, and her friend had arrived soon after they did.

  “Nope. I’m good to go.”

  He nodded. “Good. Damn, Greer. You scared the hell out of me.”

  “Me, too,” she murmured.

  She inhaled a deep breath, slowly let it go. She didn’t want to dwell on her impending conversation with Raphael right now. Not when in thirty minutes she would be listening to her baby’s heartbeat. A warm glow pulsed in her chest and radiated outward. Anticipation and delight for the moment lent her feet speed. The newly green branches of a nearby tree cast shade over the front end and windshield. When the baby came in September, the leaves would be gold, red, and orange. She smiled. Her child would come during her favorite season…

  “What the hell?” Noah barked, drawing to a hard stop, his arm dragging her close.

  “Noah, what’s—”

  She gasped. Cried out.

  Her car. A dense web of cracks and lines spun out from jagged holes in her windshield and the driver’s side window. Several shards of glass clung to the frame like diamond teardrops. The violence in the shattered windows seemed to vibrate in the morning air, staining the pretty day with its ugliness.

  Who would—?

  But even as the question formed in her head, she answered it.

  She didn’t know a name. Or a face. Still, she knew with a certainty who had committed the cruel act.

  She edged toward the car.

  “Greer, wait. I don’t think…”

  She didn’t heed his warning. Moments later she wished she had.

  Fear—stark, heavy, and malicious—knocked her back from the car several steps. The horror tunneled into her chest, invaded her body until she breathed the oily, putrid stink of terror. Another cry ripped past her lips. She closed her eyes, sinking to the ground, heedless of the cold sidewalk.

  Yet the image remained in her brain like a parasite she couldn’t purge.

  A letter-sized envelope sat on the driver’s seat. The plain white color, her name in block letters on the outside, no return address—most likely containing the same vicious insults and accusations as the others she’d received over the months.

  But the doll…

  The doll with the eyes gouged out, lips blackened, and soft body torn apart…

  That was new.

  Chapter Six

  On Raphael Marcel’s fourteenth birthday, his Uncle Salvatore had pulled him outside on his aunt’s front porch and passed along two pieces of sage advice.

  One: Never become involved with a girl or woman with bigger tits than brains. Perky knockers were temporary; good conversation was forever.

  Two: Always wear your jimmy hat. Or else you’ll become chained for life to a woman with more tits than brains.

  Since he intimately remembered the small but perfect handful of Greer Addison’s breasts with HD clarity, he could state with definite certainty that her intelligence exceeded her bust size. But according to the words she’d just uttered, it appeared he had somehow slipped up with Salvatore’s second pearl of wisdom.

  Again.

  “What did you just say?” he rasped, hoping against desperate hope that maybe he’d heard wrong or gone spontaneously deaf.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Nope. His hearing was perfect. And he was fucked.

  Anger. Hurt. Bitterness. Damnable hope. It all converged on him at once. In seconds he was transported back to his old apartment seven years earlier opening a manila envelope and a wound in his heart that had never fully healed. A wound that was being ripped open all over again by Greer Addison.

  His fingers curled into the arms of his office chair, and his feet were glued to the floor beneath his desk. Something. He should do something, say something. Kick something. But nope. It appeared that remaining planted on his ass was all he could manage as he blinked at Greer like a damn owl. Greer—still lovely, still composed, still all lady-of-the-manor-ish.

  And apparently very knocked up.

  As if her showing up in his office at Liberty Security Services, the security and information systems firm he owned with one of his best friends, Chayot Grey, wasn’t shocking enough. It’d been almost four months since he’d last seen her in the police station. The familiar flicker of anger kindled to life in his gut and chest. Shit. He hated that just the memory of her rejection still retained the power to make him angry. Hated that just recalling her aversion caused the ghostly fingers of shame and unworthiness to scratch down his spine. Hated that he’d allowed another pampered socialite to make him feel like shit beneath her expensive shoe.

  Hell yeah, he was angry—angry, not hurt. Hurt feelings were for pussies…damn it.

  And yet, even after she’d avoided his touch as though he’d contracted the clap, he’d tried to contact her. To say what, he’d had no idea. How’s it going? Are you okay? What the hell?

  All of those opening lines had sounded stupid and lame even in his own head. But he’d still located her cell phone number off the consultation information sheet she and her ex had completed when they’d visited the office back in December, and he’d called. She hadn’t answered. So he’d called her parents’ home only to be informed she no longer lived there. He’d even phoned her brother’s office and was turned away again. At that point, he’d realized she probably didn’t want to be contacted. Especially by him, since what was supposed to have been a discreet one-night stand had become part of an official police report…and leaked to the press. Socialite’s Scandalous Sleepover Is Alibi for Murder! That had been one of the more creative headlines slung across one of those shitty tabloids. He figured he wouldn’t see or hear from her again.

  Until she strolled into his office bringing the news of his supposedly impending fatherhood.

  A band constricted his chest, steadily squeezing tighter and tighter. He’d been here—a woman announcing he was going to be a father—before. And it was like a bad sitcom rerun. Or a jacked-up case of déjà vu. Except this time he knew how it ended. In lies, betrayal, and heartbreak. In debilitating grief and loss.

  Well, no fucking way. Turning the channel.

  God, Mondays sucked.

  “Since you’re telling me this, I assume I’m the nominee for the father.” Maury Povich, where the hell are you? He half expected the talk show host to appear in his office. His grasp on the chair’s arms tightened until his fingers could’ve been talons.

  Greer didn’t reply immediately. Instead, she nodded, but not before something flashed in her eyes. The—whatever it was—was there and gone before he could analyze its presence, but a hollowed-out crater took up residence in his chest. For some reason he felt as if he’d just kicked her dog or stolen he
r Gucci purse. Asshole. He’d pretty much just insinuated she slept around.

  Memories of their night together in the backseat of his SUV still haunted him like Casper the Nymphomaniac Ghost. With crystal-clear, slightly obsessive clarity, he remembered the fresh apple scent of her hair, the silken softness of her skin, the not-quite-a-handful perfection of her breasts, and the wet, shrink-wrap fit of her sex. Goddamn, she’d been tight as a fist. Sweat prickled on his palms just thinking about it. Getting into her that first time had been slow going. And hot as hell.

  She’d been engaged, and he wasn’t the village idiot, so sex with her fiancé was pretty much a given. But either dearly departed Gavin had possessed a dick the size of a cocktail wiener or he and Greer hadn’t been tearing up the sheets on a regular basis. Probably both. Guys like the son of a bitch who’d been her fiancé usually wrapped themselves in arrogance and self-entitlement to compensate for lack of other things—confidence, personality, class, penis.

  Still didn’t mean he was the father of her baby. They’d had sex once—well, technically three times—but she’d been lovers with Gavin for years. He would have to be the world’s biggest hypocrite to point fingers at her or call her a whore for being confused about the dates and which man could’ve fathered her child. But the odds… He didn’t sit in judgment over her, but he damn sure wasn’t going through this You-My-Baby-Daddy circus again either. Nope, sorry. Been there, done that. Bought—and burned—the T-shirt.

  “Sit,” he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Please,” he added, envisioning his mother, Sharon Marcel, smacking him on the back of the head over his lack of manners.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, and lowered to the visitor chair in front of his desk. She didn’t say anything, just stared at the top of his desk as if it were a crystal ball. Hell, if it were, he would be perched over, trying to figure out when his life had taken a turn from Pretty Normal, USA, to Baby Daddy-ville. “I’m sorry about showing up unannounced. I didn’t think this was something I could tell you over the phone. I know it’s…surprising.”