Hush (Black Lotus #3) (13 page)

“Excuse me,” I say, getting up and rushing off to the kitchen.

I take in a deep breath, sick and tired of all the questions. I’ve lived so many years pretending to be Nina that she feels like a part of me, and when asked questions, I forget that I’m just Elizabeth and I can’t be crossing the two lives.

“Are you okay?” Declan asks in a quiet voice when he joins me in the kitchen.

“She knows we’re lying. Did you see the look on her face?”

“She doesn’t. It’s fine,” he says. “Stop worrying.”

“Here.” I hand him the French press. “Take this to the table please.”

He does, and I follow with my tea. The evening winds down as we finish our drinks, and when Davina announces she must be going, I pacify her with a few empty pleasantries before thanking her for coming over, and she reminds me to give her a call.

“We’ll go shopping or meet up for a nice lunch,” she says, and I respond by lying, “That sounds really nice.”

“You can get my number from Declan.”

We say our goodbyes, and when she’s out the door, Declan says, “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“No,” I fib. “She’s very lovely.”

He eyes me suspiciously.

“What?” I question.

“You’re not still jealous, are you?”

“No, I’m not still jealous,” I fib again. “You’re awfully full of yourself.”

“I like it when you’re jealous.” He reaches for me, but I dodge his touch. “Get your ass back here.”

“You wish, McKinnon. You want to touch me?”

“Always.”

“Payback’s a bitch,” I taunt. “You shouldn’t have teased me so much earlier.”

“You’re sadly mistaken if you think you call the shots around here.”

He moves towards me again, but with each step forward, I take one step back, keeping the distance between us. He wears a smile almost as big as mine as I try to contain my laughter. I love this side of us together, a side we’ve yet to explore with one another. It’s young and free-spirited and a rare look inside Declan’s boyish charm. There’s a joyful glint in his eyes that makes me want to run to him.

But where’s the fun in that?

Let him catch me!

“I HAVE THE
plane scheduled to leave tomorrow afternoon,” Declan tells me when he walks into the living room. “What are you doing?”

I lift my pencil from the paper and look at the jumbled letters, realizing how crazy it must look to him. “I have to keep trying.”

“I’m not accusing, darling. I’m just curious what all those letters mean.”

“I don’t know,” I admit with a shrug of my shoulders. “I guess I wanted to see if there was something to the names. That maybe if I took the letters and rearranged them I would be . . .” I let my words fade when I’m aware of how nutty I sound. “I just . . . I can’t give up.”

“I would never ask you to give up, but—”

“Let me exhaust this avenue before you tell me I’m wasting my time.”

“Okay.” Stepping back from the topic he continues, “So tomorrow afternoon . . .”

“I’ll be ready. I don’t have much to pack, so it shouldn’t take me long.”

“I was thinking maybe you could get out of here for a while. Go shopping. You have hardly any clothes.”

“You mean spend your money?”

“
Our
money,” he disputes. “But if you feel awkward spending it, let Davina spend it. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“What does that mean?”

“She once stole my piggy bank to buy herself a rickety pair of roller skates.”

I laugh at his farcical outrage. “So, she robbed you?”

“Pretty much, that unforgiveable twit. I’d been saving that money for a long time.”

My smile dissolves as envy creeps in.

“What’s wrong?”

I take a moment, not sure of what to say when I finally speak. “You really had a happy childhood, didn’t you?”

His face levels out in emotion when he sees the harbored sadness in my eyes. He doesn’t answer me right away until I push him to.

“Yes. I was a happy kid.”

There’s resentment that festers within me, but not for Declan. It’s for all the people who betrayed me and my dad and Pike. I don’t hate Declan because he had a good life, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t jealous, because I am—because it isn’t fair.

“You have all these wonderful stories to share with me, and I have none to share with you.”

“Come on, you must have some good memories with your brother.”

“Honestly,” I start and then pause to grip tightly to the sting of tears that threaten, “it hurts too much to think about.”

“It’s only been a few months since you lost him. Give it time.”

I think of the words he chose:
lost him
. As if Pike were a set of keys I misplaced. My gut sinks when I think of the ugly reality.

I didn’t lose him.

I killed him.

I doubt that any amount of time will fade away the agony that torments me because of what I did.

“Hey,” he says quietly. “This is why you should get out of the house. You need a break from everything. Fresh air and a little distraction will do you well.”

“Are you going to let me go by myself?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.” I let out a faint laugh. “I’ll call Lachlan.”

“Why don’t you call Davina?”

I set my pencil and notepad down on the coffee table and exhale heavily. “Can I just call Lachlan?”

“Why are you so afraid to make friends?”

“First off, I’m not afraid. And second, why do I need friends when I have you? I’m not one of those girls who has this incessant need to gossip and chit chat about things I find no importance in,” I explain with a shard of annoyance. “Women are vicious and catty, everyone knows that.”

“If that were true, what does that say about you?”

I squint my eyes at him, but he just smirks.

“I’m vicious, but I’m not catty.”

He shakes his head at me. “Do me a favor. Humor me.”

“Why should I?”

“Because she’s practically the only family I have,” he tells me. “She’s a good person. A tad on the bubbly side, but she means well and is trustworthy. I also think it would be good for you to start venturing out—make a friend.”

“I’ve never had friends.”

“What about when you were a child and in school?”

“All the girls were too busy making fun of me. I was teased every day.” I shrug my shoulders as I remember the shame and embarrassment. “I wouldn’t even know how to be a friend to someone.”

He takes my hands in his, saying, “Just be yourself.”

“Well, there’s an idea.” My voice edges on soreness. “Too bad I don’t have a clue who I am.”

“You may not see it, but I can. I see parts of you that are brand new and nothing like the girl I met in Chicago. Your laughter, the youthful playfulness that comes out every once in a while, those belong to
you
—
Elizabeth
.” He’s sure of his words. “Nina would have never run around this apartment, laughing and making me chase her the way you did the other night. As more time passes, more of who you are will unfold. But if you need to know who you are because you can’t find it within you, then come to me and I’ll tell you.”

I nod, unable to speak around thick emotion. Staring into his eyes, I’m bewildered by the love he has for me. His patience and reassurance have started to form a solid ground for me. I trust him, but I still suppress so many insecurities, some of which I’ve yet to share with him. His intentions are good though; he only wants me to thrive and be happy. He’d never intentionally put me in a harmful or unsafe situation.

“So will you give her a call?”

For him, I’ll try it his way.

He gives me her number, and when I call, she’s thrilled at the mention of shopping and agrees to swing by to pick me up.

After I hang up with Davina, I walk into the office where Declan is. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Did you get ahold of her?”

“Yes. She’s on her way to pick me up.”

“What do you want to talk about?” he asks as he gets up from his desk and motions me over to join him on the leather couch that sits in the corner of the room next to the large windows.

“The penthouse in Chicago. I want to sell it,” I tell him. “I’ll never live there again. I wish I could erase all of its memories, but I can’t, so let’s just get rid of it.”

“I’ll take care it. All of it,” he assures without any question.

“I need to go back though. There are a few things I need that were gifts from Pike.”

“Okay. I’ll put a call into Sotheby’s to see what needs to be done to get it on the market,” he says, taking all the pressure of having to deal with this off my back. “We can go straight there when we land to get it over with so it won’t be weighing on you.”

“Are you sure? I mean, you don’t have to come with me.”

“That place is filled with awful memories for me as well. Memories I too wish I could erase, but I’m not having you go there alone to face it all by yourself.”

I sling my arms around him, so thankful because he’s right—I know how painful it’s going to be to walk through those doors again. It’s the tainted sanctuary of ghosts from the past few years. It’s Bennett, it’s purple roses, it’s all the disgusting moments I gave that piece of shit my body, it’s where I saw the monster in my brother’s eyes for the first time, it’s where my baby died, and it’s where Declan’s spirit forever changed when he murdered Bennett in cold-blooded rage. It’s the coffin that holds so many skeletons. I’d burn it to ashes if I could.

“It’s one chapter of our past we can close. Just look at it that way.” Once again, he is doing what he can to eliminate the pain we both feel about that place, the place he dreaded to send me back to after our time together, thinking Bennett was violently beating me.

So many lies.

So much bloodshed.

But without it, I never would have found Declan. So I’ll bear its torture that singes my heart.

The day is just warm enough to go without a coat. I tilt my head back, looking up to the brilliant blue sky. The sun’s rays heat my face while I breathe the crisp air deep into my lungs, and I swear I feel its particles cleansing me.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” Davina asks as we stand in the middle of Piccadilly Circus.

Declan was right, I needed out of the confines of One Hyde Place. I needed sunshine and fresh air. I needed to feel this breeze whipping through my hair, to see that even though life seems to pause, it doesn’t ever truly stop.

The streets are a cascade of people walking in every direction. Davina takes a phone call and I walk up the steps of the Shaftesbury fountain. A swell of freedom erupts when I reach the top step. I’ve seen grand landmarks in the States, but only with Bennett or because of him. Although he gave me all the freedom I wanted, I wasn’t truly free. I was living in
his
life as
his
wife.

But here I stand.

No longer having to pretend.

No longer a prisoner to my own game.

And even though Declan keeps me safely under his thumb, I’ve never felt more boundless. So much so that if I lifted my arms right now, I bet I could fly.

“It’ll only get better from this point.”

I scan the throngs of people, searching, and then I spot him.

I gasp.

He isn’t thirty-two years old. He’s the twelve-year-old boy from our childhood. He stands beneath the colorful lights of the billboards, staring at me. Acutely aware of Davina’s presence at the bottom of the fountain, I slip on my sunglasses to shield my heart’s ache that puddles in my eyes. Davina’s buried in her phone at the moment. I want to run to him, but everyone would think I was crazy.

My heart jumps to life. I’m giving him this, something we were both deprived of as kids, and because I’ve kept him alive, I can now give him all the joys that come my way. We can share them together.

He looks up at the bright lights, his boyish eyes filled with wonderment, and I smile. Turning to look at me, elation plastered on his face, he waves to me from a distance. In return I give the little boy who did everything he could to save me from the devil in the basement a subtle wave back.

“Sorry about that,” Davina says, drawing my attention away from my brother as she shoves her phone down into her purse.