Irreplaceable (Underneath it All Series: Book Three) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (5 page)

"Do you know why I named you Sadie?"

I blinked at her in disbelief. "What?"

She winced as she tucked the sheet tighter around her body. "I'm the one with hearing damage, Sadie. Am I going to have to repeat everything I say?"

"Hearing-" I held up a hand, stopping myself because a wave of guilt crashed into me. I'd been stuck on the things I could see. Her face, the side of her head, her neck...how extensive was the damage? And why was she changing the subject and bringing up the past? The present was more than enough. "Why are you avoiding my question?"

"I'm not avoiding anything," she rebutted. "Why are
you
avoiding
my
question?"

I looked down at the floor, counting the colored squares to try and lower my blood pressure. I managed to speak and not yell, even though I was getting dangerously close to leaving the room. "I have no interest in playing games with you." I rested my hands on my knees in an effort to still the trembling, but it just intensified the rattling until I swore I felt it in my bones. "Do you even care that I dropped everything to come and be here for you?" I knew better than to look up, to seek out some form of awareness. Some remorse.

Since we were talking about the past, I begrudgingly trudged backward with her. I didn't paint some happy story where she was there for me. If she wanted to talk about my name, finally, I could play along. "No. I don't know why you named me Sadie." I lifted my eyes from the floor and met her gaze, but I disregarded the excitement that brightened her face, dousing the flare of hope with water. "I remember asking you that question and getting ignored. Should I do the same and ignore you?"

She was the one who did the ignoring, that excitement still flashing in her eye, her lips quivering. "One of my favorite memories of my mother was watching her get ready for a date. She was a huge Beatles fan. But that night was different." She brought a hand to her hair, almost touching the gauze, then remembering and detouring to the other side. She toyed with the red strands like
she
was the one getting ready for a date, or daydreaming. "You remember Grandma. She was far from a flashy woman. Putting on lipstick was a special occasion, and she always did neutral. Respectable colors."

My throat tightened and a sadness filled my heart. It had been years since Grandma had passed away. Her visits were infrequent during those last months, her and Mom locked in their own battle because she got fed up with her daughter's negligence. I remembered that even though I rarely saw her, I felt more love in those short visits than years with my mother. Hugs, Jolly Ranchers, and sloppy kisses rained like manna from heaven.

"That night, ‘Sexy Sadie’ was on the player as she applied this fire engine red lipstick. I watched her look at her reflection like she didn't recognize herself and I knew in that moment, she saw how beautiful she was. She saw herself like I saw her everyday."

I was usually better at shutting down my emotions. It was a skill that the woman on the bed, tears streaming down her battered cheeks, had taught me. And yet...I couldn't keep my own emotions in check. Tears streamed down my cheeks too, hot, liberating and freeing. I could picture Grandma doing her makeup, her fingertips touching her cheeks like she couldn't believe how beautiful she looked. That she finally saw the glow that everyone who encountered her saw.

"I didn't have a name for you. I didn't even care about the sex,” she confessed. “I was so young, so worried that I would screw you up-" She stopped talking and reached for a washcloth, hiding among her white sheets. She dabbed at her lips, but she didn't wipe away her tears. It hit me that I'd never seen my mother cry before. I'd never seen her vulnerable.

"The doctor put you in my arms and you were so damn beautiful," she continued, tears rushing from somewhere deep inside her and spilling out for me to see. "That song rushed to me and I knew it was perfect. A beautiful name for my beautiful baby."

I dropped my head in my hands, sobs racking my body. I didn't have words. All I had was tears. Gratitude. Because all I ever wanted was what she was finally giving me. I wanted to know my mother. I wanted to be seen. I wanted her love. "Don't..." I couldn't even get the words out. "D-Don't play with me. I don't think I can handle it."

"Look at me, Sadie."

I shook my head stubbornly. I wasn't ready. The hospital, her story about Grandma, her story about us, it was all too much. Once I dropped my hands and looked at her, I knew there would be no going back. I clung to the last pieces of that wall. It was all I had. The only thing that I could count on, in the end.

And then I thought about Jackson.

Letting him in, letting him close went against everything I knew. It was a risk that could cost my heart. The what ifs, the reasons I should keep him at a distance, all seemed to fade to dust. And it was more than his words. It was in his eyes. It was in his actions. I was no stranger to being let down and left high and dry—and neither was he.

And neither was my mother.

In the darkness, hiding, there could be no light. There could be no growth. No moving to a better place.

I had nothing but my heart to give. A second chance. Or I could keep the door closed. Only this time, it wasn't my mother who had her shoulder, her dresser, and whatever odds and ends she could get her hands on to keep me out. This time, it was on me.

I dropped my hands, my face still wet with tears. I lifted my chin slowly, a part of me waiting for her to laugh and tell me it was all a joke. We could go back to our respective corners. Stay at each other's throats. Fighting was our thing, and we did it well.

But when I stared at my mother's face, I saw the sorrow and regret I'd been searching for.

I saw love.

"When I said I did this to myself, I didn't mean literally, Sadie," she said softly. She dropped her gaze to her lap. "And don't worry, I've already decided I'm pressing charges against that son of a bitch." That resolve, the McLeod fury, made pride bloom in my chest. It was a gift from my mother that I was damn proud of. And I wanted more; more details, names, addresses, and locations so I could bust some heads myself.

"I know that look, and I want some revenge too, but I'm trying to do things differently." She attempted a smile. "I'm trying to take care of it legally."

"Legally?" I frowned, making a fist, ready to knock out some teeth. "I think in this case, we need to make our own justice. Give karma a push in the right direction."

"Look at my little delinquent," Her eye twinkled mischievously. "It only took a few decades, but I knew you'd come around eventually."

The smile on my face, given in her presence, seemed as foreign as the tears drying on my cheeks. "I prefer Batman over delinquent. There's nothing wrong with a little vigilante justice."

Her twinkle dimmed slightly as she slowly twisted her head towards the window. My heart lurched when I got a better view of the lacerations on her neck.

"I made a promise to you the day you were born,” she murmured. “A promise that I'd do better. Try harder. That I'd protect you from-"

Her voice cracked and I couldn't stay seated. She was putting herself out there, and I could do the same. I walked to her bedside and reached for her hand. My fingers hovered before I rested my hand on hers.

She didn't turn from the window, but I heard the sob in the back of her throat, intensified when she squeezed her eyes shut.

"I never imagined that I would need to protect you from me." She tilted her chin in my direction, glancing at our hands before she raised her eyes to meet mine. "When he was-" Her nostrils flared and her hand jerked slightly, like she was about to bring it up to protect her face from some invisible blow. "It hit me that if I died, I would die without ever telling you something." She paused, licking her lips again, then used more energy than she should have to bring her other hand over, cupping mine. "I have done some awful things in my life. I've been selfish and mean and ungrateful. I am so sorry. And I know you have no reason to believe anything I'm saying. In fact, you'd be wise to think I was lying." Her nostrils flared a second time, and I knew she was right. Not believing her would be easy. The smart thing. But there was something more genuine, more real in her than I'd ever seen, and I knew she spoke the truth.

"You and Rose are the best thing that's ever happened to me, Sadie."

All the years, all the pain, was nearly erased. I almost forgot that she was seriously injured and nearly leapt onto the bed like I'd longed to do a million times when I was younger. In those fantasies, I'd laugh until I cried as she tickled me, her face as bright and carefree as my own. Rose would come toddling down the hall, woken from her nap by the noise and her annoyance would quickly be replaced by joy as we pulled her onto the bed with us.

Catching myself, tears of happiness swarming in my eyes, I settled for doing something else I hadn't done in years. I leaned down and brushed my lips against her cheek.

"Thank you, Mom."

She didn't push me away or shrug off the affection, her usual reaction to anything other than blind obedience. Home was a cold place before, but I had the audacity to hope that we could both change.

I
couldn't take my eyes off her.

When we first met, I was awash with lust. A cocky urge to make her mine. To make her beg for me. For my touch. Looking back, it was hard to believe my desire for Sadie McLeod had ever been so two dimensional. Even in the handful of seconds that we were parked at the red light, I found something new to crave, and it had nothing to do with how badly I wanted to fuck her. When she was nervous, like now, she lassoed her hair around her pointer finger and twirled it like a forkful of spaghetti. And just that word, spaghetti, once so ordinary, was a rocket ship to memories that made me smile. The look of shock, horror, and she'd never admit it to me now, but delight was there too when she saw me at her door.

I had my own delights, my own desire to comb my fingers through her scarlet hair and pull her lips to my lips. In time, I'd wrap her body around my body and thrust my tongue into her mouth as my cock explored her velvet, warm folds. For now, I just wanted to stroke my lips against hers and whisper, "I told you so".

I didn't know what to expect when we walked into Falcon Memorial. Both Sadie and Rose had been pretty hushed about their mother's condition, but Rose's question in the car made it obvious that things were serious. Sadie had marched right up to the charge nurse. The woman had gawked, then glared at her, like she went from surprise at seeing some ghost from the past, then remembered it was a trip down Memory Lane that she had no interest in taking.

When Sadie emerged from the patient rooms, her eyes bloodshot from crying, Rose had gripped my hand so tight that she left fingernail indents in my skin. I could take the pain, and then some. I'd take all their pain if I could. I didn't know their mother, knew nothing of her other than the fact that she'd hurt them, but some sentimental part of me clung to the fact that someone who created Rose and Sadie couldn't be all that bad. My chance to reconcile, to build something with my own mother, had been taken away long ago. I didn't want that for them. They made me want to believe in happily ever after and all the shit I pretended I wanted no part of.

And then Sadie made the most tasteless, inappropriate and adorable joke.

"Tough crowd. Did someone die?"

Rose had hurled the nearest magazine at her sister's head. Before the hit was confirmed, she'd thrown her arms around her sister, spewing profanity. Once they’d stopped trading barbs and the tears had been wiped away, Sadie told us her mother was stable and wanted to see Rose. When we were alone, Sadie laid a kiss on me that made me, and everyone around us forget, that we were in a hospital.

She'd gone quiet in the car, our conversation the rustle of the wind through the trees, the quiet hum of the radio, and the nerves that made me awkwardly drum my hands on the steering wheel. Well, that and my awkward prompting at every stoplight to make sure we were going the right way. I didn't let on that I'd drive all over the state until I didn't have a drop of gas, if she was my co-pilot.
Even if she'd spent the entire commute so far staring out the window.

The light had been green for a few seconds, but I didn't press the gas. I took my foot off the brake, the car inching forward of its own accord. "Straight?"

Considering we were on a one way street, she finally twitched her head in my direction. That devil and angel combination danced over her pretty face. "Actually, you're making a left. Right into Martin's Furniture." She swept a hand through her hair and in the near darkness, her eyes almost glowed. "I've been in Martin's, you'd be classing up the place, trust me."

Smirking, I pushed onward. "Straight it is." When quiet settled around us again, I cautioned a subject change that would either make her smile or ask me to call her a cab. "This has been quite the first date."

"You should see how I celebrate anniversaries," she quipped.

My head told me that despite my cruising speed, we were a runaway train pointed towards nowhere good. I ignored it and reached for her thigh, gliding my fingertips into dangerous territory. "I look forward to it."

When she shifted in her seat, I pulled my hand away, but she stopped me. "Don't stop."

Arousal rushed over me without pause. I felt a little crass and insensitive, but I was a man, after all. Just those two words, her voice low and sweet, was enough to make my cock pulse with want.

She asked you to keep caressing her, not pull over to the side of the road and bend her over the hood.

I drew a breath and shifted in my seat too, trying to mask my growing (and badly timed) erection. "So, you grew up in the bustling town of Falcon."

"Is this is the part where we make awkward small talk?"

I was still learning her in's and out's so even though we weren't at a stoplight, I glanced over to make sure she wasn't scowling and hoping I'd let the radio do the talking.