LUCI (The Naughty Ones Book 2)

by Kristina Weaver

  “Is this a fucking joke?” he yells so loudly I gasp and scuttle back into the headboard. “I should have known that you were playing me again! You never had amnesia did you? This has all just been one big fucking play from the get-go. Jesus, and to think I…. Have you been playing us all this whole time?”

  My lips tremble when he starts pacing quickly, his shoulders so tense it looks like he’s growing muscle right then. The worst part, he looks ready to strangle me, literally, and I can’t understand why.

  I love him, like a lot, but it seems he doesn’t feel the same way despite the idyllic time we’ve had together. Maybe I was wrong? Maybe…God, I can’t think! My head is starting to pound, and I am truly terrified when Cameron stalks closer to the bed and leans in, his face a mask of spitting fury.

  “You will keep your mouth shut. Understand? I won’t have whatever you’re trying to do upset Mum and Dad. As far as they’re concerned, your memory is gone and you’re their sweet daughter-in-law. Keep it that way, or I swear to everything that is holy, I will fucking kill you.”

  That is so…I swallow and nod, confused but needing him to back away before I do something really stupid like cry or beg him to believe me. I can’t understand any of this and the harder I try, the worse this fucking headache gets.

  And he’s scaring me, which up until a minute ago I would never have thought possible.

  “I don’t understand what’s going on, Cameron. Why don’t you—?”

  “You will do as I say from now on, for everything, or I will have your brother’s life ruined. He’ll be a fucking fry cook, scraping grease from the grill for the rest of his life if you even so much as whisper another word about Rob. Understand?” he hisses into my face, one hand spearing through my hair and pulling me so close I feel the heat of his curled lips a breath away from mine.

  “Answer me, Shaw.”

  “I-I understand?”

  “Good. Now go clean yourself up and get to the car. We have an appointment with the doctor.”

  I sit there, trembling against the bed for long minutes after he leaves, my heart and mind warring against each other. Something, some tiny little spark deep inside is raging against the hurt I feel, screaming at me to button up and not show him weakness.

  On autopilot, I walk on shaky legs to the bathroom and clean myself up, scowling at the red-rimmed, ragged look of my eyes and the fear I can’t seem to shake reflected there.

  One good thing about having a gimp brain? I have a clean slate which means that my analytic noggin starts looking at things from every angle possible to try to figure out what the eff is going on.

  First, Cameron does not like the thought of me recovering my memory. At least he didn’t like the thought. Now he thinks I’ve always had it and that I’ve been fooling everyone.

  God, why would he even think that? And doesn’t that suggest that he doesn’t trust me? If so, I see a lot of shaky ground and all out badness for those fairy tale fantasies I’ve been dream weaving.

  Second, Robert pushed me and Cameron refuses to believe it. I don’t remember the guy, but the fact that I knew him and felt so heartrendingly sad and horrified tells me I do know him.

  Third, something funky is going on and I need to find out what that is. I can’t ask Cameron since he seems to be a step away from offing me and dumping my remains, so I’m going to have to find someone who’ll talk to me about this shit.

  Molly is out since Kent won’t even let me call her. Margery and Victor are off limits since I really don’t want to end up dead and my circle of friends is not exactly bursting at the seams right now.

  But I need to know; I have to try to remember.

  “Hurry up would you.”

  I spin around to see my…Cameron towering over me and step back reflexively, my heartrate doubling at the blank, cold expression in his eyes.

  “I…Angel—”

  “Mum already has her. Come Shaw. We have a pregnancy test to get out of the way before I let myself go and actually throttle you.”

  Pregnancy…?

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Shaw

  Oh God. For the first time in my life, or since I’d lost almost two years and some odd months’ worth of memory, I’m hoping so hard for a negative that I can feel my bones almost calcifying the longer I sit statue-like, trying to ignore the raging asshat beside me.

  Let me just say, a car ride with someone this pissed is not the most comfortable of events, especially when I’m trying not to look at him. Or hyperventilate. Or pee my pants.

  “Another pregnancy scam.”

  He keeps muttering those same words over and over again, casting me murderous looks that leave me feeling like my skin’s being stripped raw. The kicker? I don’t understand one fucking word the guy is saying, and yet, every time he says it, he looks at me thunderously, waiting for me to reply.

  All I can do is nod. Which I’ve done about a dozen times. Or a hundred. He keeps getting more upset with every nod to the point that I finally roll my eyes and start shaking my head.

  Seems to piss him off more, and I cringe, but for some reason, now that I’ve caught a spark of outrage I’m enjoying the view. Every time he grinds his teeth I feel some small measurement of victory.

  “Well, folks, it seems that the almost impossible has occurred. You’re pregnant again Miss Mallory. Congratulations!” the doctor crows, smiling at us both, as if he didn’t just drop the Hiroshima fucking bomb all over my already messed up life.

  At any other time, like say an hour ago, I would be walking on freaking sunshine! Now? Now I get the distinct feeling that Cameron is not too happy, and that he’s going to make me suffer for this.

  “Er, thanks Doc. Uh, where’s the bathroom?”

  When I get there, scampering quickly because Mr. Dark-looks is on my tail like freaking lichen, I give in to the need to start shaking up an earthquake.

  I need answers. I need out. I need to know what the fuck is going on so I can get out of Dodge.

  “Think, Shaw. You’re engaged to a man who is obviously not as in love with you as you wanted to believe.”

  I snort and check my appearance in the mirror, taking in the sickly pallor and the hollows under my eyes. I look like a freaking zombie, and I feel about as attractive and aware as one, but something keeps niggling at me. Cameron knew I was pregnant before this, and I know that he’s been nailing me like a madman for weeks. I have the vaginal bruising to prove it.

  Did he purposefully get me pregnant?

  My noodle brain is leaning way over to the positive side of things, so I have to assume that whatever problem he’s having with me now did not exist before I told him about his brother.

  So what I really need to do is find out about that guy before I proceed to smother my man in his sleep and get packing. As the thought forms, I hit on something that I haven’t thought about in weeks.

  There is one person in this world I trust more than anybody or anything, and I’d bet money on it that he knows more about what’s been going on than I do.

  With that issue resolved and my mind once more settled, I leave the restroom feeling…hopeful.

  Cameron is there waiting, and I only wince slightly when he clamps a hand over my upper arm and steers me out of the building and to his Jag. The pressure is lighter than the grip he’d used to drag me inside, so I can only assume he’s holding back now that he knows I’m pregnant.

  “Seat belt!” he barks, glaring at me until I buckle up before starting the car and accelerating slowly.

  Ice. I may as well be sitting outside in the midst of a Siberian winter snowstorm for all the heat I feel in the car, and yet, I’ve decided to ignore him while I figure out the best way to call Alec without tipping my hand too early.

  Chances are he won’t be able to tell me much, but as I’ve now found after Molly spoke to me, I might remember more if I had a little something for my brain cells to chew on.

  “So, I take it you’re not too thrilled at the prospect
of another baby.”

  Don’t gasp or go all horrified. I’m an amnesiac; I haven’t lost all of my faculties, and right now, I clearly recall having a temper. It’s starting to rear its ugly head since I’m feeling alone and hurt.

  Really, who blames the woman for this shit every time?! I clearly remember being on the receiving end of his rants all those nights he’d decided to go jizz inside me, and it’s not like he didn’t know where that would lead.

  We already have one freaking baby!

  “I was delighted…before I realized that you have once again played me and mine for fools,” he says with a growl, gripping the wheel so tight I hear his knuckles pop. “Why though? I just can’t figure it out. It’s not like you needed to get another baby into the mix to secure your future, it’s already set.”

  I snort and keep my lips sealed, ignoring his glacial looks. Duh! Can he be anymore idiotic? I did not set out to get myself impregnated. I already have one baby, who is a handful by the way, and I’m still serving up breakfast, lunch, and dinner from my chest! Like I need to be fat and tired on top of raising the first!

  “No matter. I’ve resigned myself to a lifetime spent with your scheming, duplicitous hide so I may as well just give in and have the six I want.”

  Six! What the fu—

  “You know what? I was sitting here wondering what the hell is wrong with you all of a sudden, maybe thinking that I inadvertently said something to anger you, something I don’t remember by the way, but I think…you may be the problem here, Cameron. Are you like, bipolar or something?”

  Shut up, now!

  He’s hands are full on white by the time we reach the wrought iron gates of home, and I’m so uncomfortable I’m practically hanging onto the door handle and waiting for him to slow down before trying to make my escape.

  He hasn’t said anything, and I’m just…should it hurt this much to know that I’ve been living in a freaking lie bubble for the last few months? Somehow I don’t think the person I was when I got shoved down the stairs would be this meek and docile in the face of Cameron’s anger.

  Unfortunately, I also suspect that this love I feel is not as old and comfy as I’d fooled myself into believing. This scares me because I’d been so ready to accept what he told me in that hospital, so easy to trust, that I haven’t even considered that there is a reason that Molly had started telling me about the night of the treasure hunt.

  I don’t know much right now, save for two very important things. Cameron does not love, trust, or even like me much—despite the act he’s been putting on. And someone shoved me down those stairs.

  No, not just someone. Robert. I know him. I know that face, and if Cameron doesn’t want to believe that his precious brother would do something that evil, I am alone. In danger. And so is my precious Angel.

  “I don’t want you telling Mum or Dad about the baby yet.”

  That gives me the freaking chills. “Why?”

  “Because they’re still getting over—just keep your fucking trap shut until I make a few arrangements.”

  “What arrangements?”

  It’s paranoid, but that statement makes me go Godfather, and I can’t keep the image of that horse’s head from flashing in my mind’s eye.

  “Never mind.”

  “Cam, please, I don’t understand what’s going on here,” I whisper, pleading for a little warmth and comfort. “I thought that if I told you the truth, you’d be happy. God, I’ve been agonizing about this since the nightmares started.”

  That gets me an even deadlier glare, and I shrink back, retracting the hand I’d been inching toward his arm.

  “Tell me. How do you expect me to believe Rob pushed you?”

  “Why would I lie, Cameron?”

  “Why indeed? One would think that a little con artist like yourself would be more original than to name a dead man as her attacker.”

  He slams out of the car before my befuddled brain can catch up, and I’m left slack jawed and wide eyed.

  Robert’s dead?

  But then that would mean…

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Shaw

  I don’t get to call Alec that day or the next or the next after. Cameron is on my ass like white on rice for the next while, his attitude loving and warm any time we’re not alone before returning to that arctic chill that threatens to give me frostbite when we go to bed.

  Strangely, I wake up with him wrapped around me every morning, as if he can’t help gravitating towards me in his sleep, even when I scoot to the very edge of the bed to try to escape him.

  Hussy that I am, I inevitably relax and allow his arms to cuddle me closer, soothed by the heat of him as he covers me, his face shoved into the nape of my neck, his hands cradling my breasts.

  In the morning though, well, let’s just say he’s none too pleased about being my blanket and waking up to the slow grind of his morning wood on my ass.

  Every time is the same. He vaults out of bed, shaking with rage, yelling at me to keep my hands to myself. As if I was the one grinding all up on that wood!

  Then he stalks to the bathroom and takes a long shower. I’d smirk and feel all smug about that if it weren’t for the fact that he takes so long in there that I’d had to puke into the wastepaper basket.

  Morning sickness waits for no one, not even an enraged, sexually frustrated man, trying to rub one out instead of doing me with that wood.

  This morning had been a shocker because instead of vaulting for the bathroom first chance he’d stood glaring and waited for me to bolt for the toilet for my morning ritual.

  And then he’d tossed a damp washrag in my face and tossed a bottle of water at me. Oh, the gallantry! Siiiiiigh.

  “You look awful. Shouldn’t you start taking those pills the doctor gave you last time?”

  Snarly. Just the way I like my men in the morning. Not.

  I shrug, feeling ten shades of screwed up and embarrassed because he’d growled that same thing at me yesterday, and now I’m too angry to admit to him that I have no idea what he’s talking about.

  Pills? For the nausea? If I knew that shit existed I would have taken them already. Since he so staunchly believes I’m faking my memory loss, he also thinks I know about half the stuff I’d been through while pregnant with Angel.

  Sad truth. I don’t even remember decorating the nursery, or any of the ultrasounds, though I’ve seen every one of them in Margery’s scrapbook.

  “Just”—he sighs and pinches at the bridge of his nose—“take the fucking pills, please. You’re pale and losing weight that you can’t afford to lose right now. And you’re still breastfeeding so you need to keep your milk up.”

  That snaps me out of whatever void I’ve been floating in—yeah, it’s easier to just drift when I feel this unsettled—and I do what I swore I wouldn’t do. I start crying silently and biting at my lips, as he stares, his eyes narrowing.

  “I don’t know about the pills, and I…I can’t remember where they are. And I didn’t want to tell you that because you get mad every time I mention not remembering, but I swear I’m not lying!”

  Great. Yeah. Go high pitched and teary at the end. As if I don’t already look like a total idiot already.

  The worst part about not remembering shit while the guy you dig is hating on you? He doesn’t believe you and….well, he gets meaner every time it happens. Yesterday, I’d been looking through albums and innocently asking Margery about the blonde Adonis in them. It was Robert. Cameron had walked in, his eyes going all molten.

  I’d endured whole minutes of his ranting after he’d dragged me upstairs under the guise of needing some alone time with his girl. Talk about setting myself up for that one.

  For the briefest moment I’d been so happy and hopeful that the old Cameron was back that I had crashed and burned in a major way when he’d thrust me onto the bed and warned me again and again and then again some more that I wasn’t to talk about his hallowed, very dead sibling.

  Now I
’m just feeling crazy about the whole thing because it’s true. He’s dead and was dead for months before I’d been pushed, and I…don’t know what to do with that.

  “Here. Take one of these. The prescription is almost empty so I’ll have them deliver more this afternoon. Take one now and later at lunchtime, and you should be good to go. Now if you’ll excuse me, I want to spend time with my daughter before I leave for the office.”

  Just like that he strides out, leaving me with more questions and uncertainty than I woke with.

  But I am alone, blissfully alone for the first time in days. I practically dive for the bedside drawer and fire up my phone, hitting send before I can change my mind. I’m fully aware that I could be making a huge mistake by roping Alec into this mess, but I feel like I’m going crazy. I need something to start the ball rolling, or I really will lose my shit.

  “Hey, Shawsie. I thought you’d never call.”

  My throat tightens at the affectionate tone, and I swallow a miserable sigh.

  “Hey Alec. Sorry, I just…I’ve been so busy lately with Angel.”

  Lame! What I really should say is that I was so wrapped up in falling for Cameron that I hadn’t given him more than a cursory thought the whole time. That’s about to change because I need him. Desperately.

  “Yeah, gosh I can’t believe you’re a mama. Far cry from the girl who swore never to subject her kid to the ‘tomb’s’ genetic makeup.”

  I snort and chuckle a little, though the sound is sad.

  “Yeah. The worst part is that my memory is still on the fritz and the doctors aren’t of very much help. They just advise not to try too hard and that it’ll come when it comes. Or never. No one will talk to me about anything that happened before and I feel…lost.”

  And hated.

  Margery and Victor are great, but their idea of helping me involves clothes and antique magazines.

  “Cameron told me. That’s why I haven’t pushed you for more contact. I don’t want you stressing more about shit. You doing okay though?”