Uncovering You 8: Redemption

by Scarlett Edwards

  “How long have you known each other for?”

  “A touch under fifteen years.”

  “And what does he think of…” I gesture around the room. “Of this. Of everything you’ve accomplished? Of all that you’ve built for yourself?”

  “I don’t know,” Jeremy says. “He and I do not get along well.”

  “Why?”

  “Jealousy? Perhaps envy? He was raised poor and saw an education as the only way out.” Jeremy chuckles. “Maybe a bit like yourself. When I found out about him, I sought him out. Fifteen years ago, he was fresh out of medical school, while I was already leading Stonehart Industries. So he’d done well for himself, yes, but he had to fight tooth and nail to get there.” Jeremy scoffs. “He assumed because I was raised by our real father, I had everything handed to me on a silver platter. Even though I told him the truth, we never moved past that initial first impression. Not really.”

  “Is he the one who diagnosed Paul?” I ask. “Is that why he calls you Dr. Telfair?”

  Jeremy smiles. “Astute. And a good guess. But no. Paul called me that because it is who I told him I was.”

  “You used your brother’s name?”

  “At the time, it was convenient.” Jeremy shrugs. “It helped me train him, too.”

  There’s that word again: train. It’s as if Jeremy doesn’t see Paul, or his father, as real people. Instead, he sees them as lab rats. Vessels to fulfill his every whim.

  Goosebumps prickle my back. I edge away.

  “I’ve upset you,” he says.

  “I’m fine,” I tell him. I wrap my arms around my body. “Why did you bring me to him, then?”

  “Lilly, that night in Boston…something happened to you. Something that I triggered. You had a panic attack, and you blacked out. At least, that is my understanding.

  “My brother is in charge of a private medical facility in Massachusetts. Purchased, owned, and operated by Stonehart Industries. I bought it for him five years ago.”

  “That’s very generous of you,” I say.

  “You know that I can be generous to the people who matter,” he says. “Even though he and I do not get along well, I don’t hate him. Quite the opposite. I have a great deal of respect for him and what he’s accomplished. So, I helped him reach a position that he’d coveted. It was no problem for me.

  “I brought you there precisely because he was the one in charge. Like me, he has a brilliant mind. Early in life , he and I just set our sights on different things.”

  “Is he just as cocky?” I ask.

  Jeremy fixes me with a penetrating look. “You know my assessment of myself is objectively true.”

  I smirk. “Perhaps.”

  “Fair enough,” Jeremy relents. “I brought you there because he is the only one I could trust with your life. I swallowed my pride and asked him for help. I knew he would not betray my confidence. I knew I could trust you in his hands.”

  “He sedated me,” I point out. “Why? And he didn’t do it well or at least, not fully. I woke up halfway through. I heard you two arguing. What was that about?”

  “That,” Jeremy sighs, “is a heavy topic.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Jeremy goes quiet. I wait for him to speak. Every second that passes fills the air with a suffocating sort of dread.

  I see that familiar change come over him. It washes through him like a slow deluge of black sea water. Something must be wrong. Something must be terribly wrong, or else he wouldn’t react like this.

  “Jeremy?” I say, when the silence becomes too much. “What is it? Tell me, what’s wrong?”

  He turns his head to look at me. There’s pain his eyes. “It’s you, Lilly Flower,” he says softly.

  “Me?” Alarm rips through me. I feel like I’m strapped to a guillotine, waiting for the blade to drop. “What do you mean, me?”

  He takes both my hands. “You’ve been asleep for a very long time.”

  “How long?” I whisper.

  “Weeks,” he says.

  Suddenly, I feel as if I’ve been punched in the gut. Blood is pounding in my ears. I suspected, in the back of my mind, that something was off. But to hear it confirmed snaps all of my worst fears into place: I had been drugged, locked away and snatched from my own life. Again.

  The room spins. My vision blurs. The only thing that keeps me present is Jeremy’s strong voice, the power of his command.

  “Stay with me, Lilly. Don’t fade away!”

  It takes all that I have, but I do it. I fight through the vertigo and return to the room. To reality.

  “What happened?” I ask. I can’t help that my voice sounds weak. “And why?”

  “Do you remember when you fell off the cliff—when you almost drowned?”

  I nod my head numbly. “Yes. But it’s been a while since last I thought of it.”

  “You recovered on your own, remember? But, apparently, not entirely. You suffered undiagnosed brain damage in those few minutes when you couldn’t breathe. It was almost like a stroke.”

  I pull one hand out of Jeremy’s grip and bring it to my forehead. “But I’m fine,” I mutter.

  “That’s not the worst of it,” Jeremy continues.

  I look at him, feeling faint and very shaky. “There’s more?”

  “My brother found it and asked me what happened. I told him all I knew. Almost all. But he said that your symptoms and the results of the tests that he’d performed did not match my explanations. Not completely. He said that the damage to your brain could only have been exacerbated underwater. But it could not have been the cause.”

  “No?” My voice is frail and thin. I can see what Jeremy is building toward. It terrifies me.

  “No,” he says. He brushes my neck with his thumb. “The collar was.”

  I recoil from his touch. “What?” I hiss at him.

  “In my defense,” he says, “I did not anticipate this side effect. Your father withstood those shocks without residual damage. And he’s worn the collar for much longer than you. I presumed it was safe.”

  I stare at him in disgust. Revulsion fills me at his words. I want to get away.

  But I’m trapped here with him.

  “How can you speak of it so clinically?” I question him. “How can you say things like that and show so little emotion?”

  “It is who I am,” Jeremy says simply. He makes no move to close the gap between us.

  He’s isolated me from his feelings like an inanimate object in an experiment gone wrong.

  “The argument,” he continues when I don’t respond, “was about exactly that. My brother wanted to know what else had happened to you. Of course, I told him that I wasn’t aware of anything else. He did not believe me. He suspected abuse and threatened to take you away. To bar me from you, for your safety. He wanted to talk to you first.”

  My head is spinning at his words. All that had happened while I had absolutely no input? All that had occurred—so many things that could have altered my life—while I was unconscious?

  “I don’t know why you awoke at that moment, Lilly. But you did. Somehow, you did. When the machines you were hooked up to showed that you were conscious, my brother relented.”

  “Relented?”

  “You were in a coma, before, more or less.”

  “I was not!” I surge up and stab a finger at him. “I was not, Jeremy, and you know it! I awoke in the room. A nurse checked my vitals. Then the doctor came in—your brother came in. He put something in my IV that knocked me out. It was not a coma. I was drugged!”

  A horrifying realization comes to me. “No, he didn’t,” I gasp. “You drugged me! He wanted to talk to me and you couldn’t allow that! You put me to sleep! You put me to sleep until you could sort things out with him! Didn’t you?”

  I’m starting to hyperventilate. “It happened the first time. The first time we first met at the restaurant. And now… now nothing’s changed, has it?” I’m shaking. “You’re still the same man you alway
s were. You still treat me the same way. You…”

  “No,” Jeremy cuts me off. “I am not the same man I was before.”

  “Lies, Jeremy,” I say, shaking my head and covering my ears. “Lies! All of them! Everything you say is one glorious lie after another!”

  “No.”

  “YES!” I scream.

  I look around the room wildly. There is nowhere to run. Nowhere to escape. I’m trapped. Boxed in, in this remote place with nobody and nothing but Jeremy Stonehart.

  “What day is it?” I demand. I’m border-line frantic, close to a full on panic attack. Jeremy Stonehart kept me in a vegetative state on purpose. “What day is it, Jeremy? And don’t you dare tell another lie!”

  “It’s March 26th,” he says. He’s calm and distant. “Wednesday.”

  “March,” I mutter. I can barely believe it. “It’s the end of March?” I’m not quite sure where my hysteria is coming from or how to stop it. “We’re in the middle of the week?”

  “Yes,” Jeremy says smoothly. He steps forward. “Lilly…”

  “Don’t!” I warn. I spin on him. “Don’t come any closer. Stay away, Jeremy!”

  He holds his hand wide and settles back. “As you wish.”

  I start pacing the room. Back and forth I go. I can feel Jeremy’s eyes on me. He’s watching me, intent and serious. But he’s letting me have my space.

  “Okay,” I say finally. I blow out my cheeks, stop, face him, and run a hand through my hair. “Okay, it’s March. I can…” I suppress a shudder. “…I can deal with that.”

  “You don’t know how hard it’s been to keep you with me.”

  “Oh no!” I warn. “You don’t get to play that card. You won’t get any sympathy from me.”

  “It’s not sympathy I’m after, but understanding,” he says. “You’re not alone in having failed this.”

  “Failed what?” I scream. “You’re fucking with my mind!”

  “Isn’t that what I just told you? It was hard to keep you with me. You’re just spinning my words back at me.”

  I shake my head in disbelief. There’s a lot of new information to cope with. Too much, in fact.

  “Talk to me,” I beg. “Tell me. How is it we’re here in the middle of the week? How is it that you’re here? Don’t you need to be at work?”

  “I can work remotely.”

  “Since when?” I question. “Every other day you’ve had to be at your San Jose office. To keep a pulse on things.”

  “Yes,” he says.

  He starts to approach me again. My glare stops him in place.

  “But I make time for the things that are important to me. You are important to me.”

  “We’ve established that,” I say thinly. “I want to know all I’ve missed. My diagnosis- What is it? The brain damage? Is it permanent? Will it manifest itself again? I want to see your brother!” I demand.

  Oh, God!

  I bring a hand to my head. “Oh God, this is all really real, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Jeremy says. “But you are here, with me. I have access to the best doctors in the world.”

  “You don’t get it! Do you?” I ask. “I don’t want any of your doctors, Jeremy. I just want…” I shake my head. “I just want to understand. Let me talk to your brother. My doctor. Give me access to him. Let me see him.”

  “No.” Jeremy’s voice is stern. “I said I will take care of you.” He moves to my side. “And only I will.”

  With that, he embraces me.

  I don’t fight him. I’m too exhausted to fight. Nothing is ever clear or certain when Jeremy is involved. Things are always a roller coaster between us.

  I don’t melt into him, though. I just sort of stand there, like a statue, like a…

  Like an empty vessel for Stonehart to do with as he wants.

  I stiffen. That thought is a remnant of a time long passed. A memory of my time in the dark.

  Things have changed since then. And yet, have they? Have they really?

  Jeremy might treat me differently. But are any of those differences truly representative of any change? Can he free Paul now? Or, does he still view me in the same light, as a revenge tool, with the only change being how he approaches things?

  That possibility does not frighten me half as much as it should.

  So I try to change the path of my thoughts. I breathe in deeply, taking comfort in the feeling of Jeremy’s arms around me.

  “I just want…” I shake my head. “I just want to be whole again.”

  “You are whole,” Jeremy whispers. “You’re whole and unbroken. You’re here with me. We’re together.”

  He holds me back and stares deeply into my eyes. “You are mine. You are the single most important element in my life, Lilly Ryder. Stonehart Industries has been let go. The IPO is over and done with.”

  I gasp. “The IPO! How did that go?”

  “It was,” he smiles,” a spectacular success. My wealth…” he touches my cheek, “…has nearly doubled. But all I care about—all that concerns me—is you.”

  The sincerity in his voice gives me goosebumps.

  “You do mean that,” I whisper, still reeling, still not quite sure how to react.

  “I do,” he says. “And I know now what I have to do.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “I have to spend every waking moment I have left proving it to you. I have to do it until there’s not a sliver of doubt left in your mind.”

  “Oh, Jeremy,” I whisper.

  Sadness fills me. Sadness for the boy I hear behind the words. “Can’t you see that things will never be that way? Can’t you see that I can never forgive? That I can never forget?”

  “I know that.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll stop fighting. Not for your love or for your understanding. I’ll never stop fighting. I’ll never give up.” He smiles a little. “You know how I can be when I’m determined to get something.”

  “Very single-minded,” I murmur.

  I break away, gently, from his arms. The panic, the paranoia, has passed. I feel more secure. More sure of myself.

  I won’t accomplish anything giving into despair. In fact, now that the shock has worn off, I feel strangely numb.

  I was passed out for weeks. I missed the IPO. I missed the phone launch. I have no clue of what to make of my alleged spot within Stonehart Industries.

  And yet, here I am, mere inches away from the man I promised myself I would get close to. I missed so much. And yet, my position has hardly changed.

  I believe Jeremy when he says I will have the best doctors looking out for me. There is an established precedent - his mother.

  He couldn’t care for her. In some strange way, I’m almost starting to believe that he will try to make up for that, with me.

  Jesus Christ.

  It’s astounding to think how much his mother influenced his life. She was, and has been, at the heart of everything he’s ever done. Of everything he’s accomplished. She was the reason he sought me out. Every cruelty he subjected me to, every malicious action, was prompted by his wanting to avenge her death. Wanting to harm the family who had broken his.

  She was the only woman he’d ever loved…until me. She was the only one to love him back…

  Until me.

  There is no changing that. It’s who I am. I am a woman in love with Jeremy Stonehart. It’s fucked up to the highest degree. But I can’t help it. I am not about to go out and try to change things.

  “I’m not going to ever stop fighting for you,” he whispers.

  “Then don’t.” I melt into him, letting the last of my defenses down, accepting that I am fully and completely his. Don’t stop fighting. It’s not going to be easy, Jeremy, the road we have ahead of us. But, I think, in the end…” I peek up at him. “…it will be worth it.”

  Chapter Twelve

  I find out, over breakfast, the exact chain of events that conspired to bring me here.

&n
bsp; Apparently, the damage I’d suffered from the collar shocks was extensive, but not debilitating. The worst effect is emotional instability. No shit. I’ve experienced that first-hand too many times to count. And I have a new propensity to blackout, given the right reactionary stimulus. No doubt about that, either.

  I’m relieved, in a way, that it is not anything worse. When Jeremy first said, “brain damage,” I imagined all sorts of terrifying possibilities. But now, at least, some things make more sense. The ease with which I’ve found myself giving into emotions, for example. I knew it was a marked shift in my behavior. Now, I know the reason why.

  Of course, not everything makes sense.

  “Jeremy?” I ask. “Tell me about the coma I fell into. Did the tests confirm it?”

  He looks disgruntled for a second. “It was… unexpected,” he admits.

  I wait for him to say more. He does not.

  “I can’t help but feel that you’re hiding something,” I chide gently.

  “No.” He smiles. “Nothing important. I told you how I was called in. Once I arrived, you awoke, in part, to hear the argument with my brother. I wanted to take you home with me.”

  “He didn’t let you?”

  “He wanted to talk to you. Like I said. I promised him he would have his chance later. In the end, he relented. That let me bring you here.”

  Jeremy goes quiet. I know he’s withholding information. Concealment is Jeremy’s second nature.

  For the moment, I let it pass. At least now I understand how I ended up here, with him, at this deserted mountainside retreat.

  So what if I was passed out for weeks? Or missed the IPO? Or the phone launch? I have no clue of what to make of my alleged position with Stonehart Industries anyway. And I don’t give a damn.

  The most important thing is that I got close to Stonehart. I got so close to him that I view him as Jeremy now.

  So close, in fact, that I have fallen in love.

  I feel content. Content and surprisingly satisfied that—despite all the curve balls—I have managed to achieve what I set my mind to in those awful, lonely days by the pillar.

  They say love and hate are two sides of the same coin. I don’t know about that. All I know is that, when I’m around Jeremy, the strongest feelings I have ever known come to life inside of me. If love stirs the deepest passions, then I am helpless in its throes.