Off Her Rockers (Loving All Wrong #3.5) (33 page)

Without waiting for a response, I turned and continued out the door, climbed right into Mel’s waiting Range.

I dug out my cell phone and dialed one of the most powerful people I knew. Cousin. Chadrick Niiveux.

“You never, ever call,” were his first words. “Are you in trouble?”

“No. But I need a favor.”

“You don’t
ask
for anything, Alina. You demand. You have power. Your blood has power. It’s time you start using it.”

“Well, in that case, I need a jet.”

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

“W
E HAVE EXCLUSIVE CONFIRMATION THAT
X
AVIER
X
ANDER
, lead guitarist of the number one reigning rock band, Ninety Miles, has officially resigned. Disheartened fans have been camping outside A-Care Rehabilitation Center for the past thirty-six hours since the rumor hit the mill, in the hope that the world’s favorite guitarist will renege his decision to leave the band.

“This unexpected announcement came mere days after it was reported Xander had regained his memory. Several months ago, Xander was a victim in a horrific three-vehicle accident, along with L.A.’s sweetheart, Jessica Stucco. While Stucco walked away unscathed, this unfortunate accident rendered Xander an amputated leg, a six-day coma, and post-traumatic amnesia.

“Worldwide, no one is happy about Xander’s decision. Some fans are outraged while some are in tears, voicing that they can’t ever imagine Ninety Miles being the same without their favorite guitarist, Xavier Xander…
”

I stepped out of the SUV rental and swung the door shut. Rubbing my glove-covered hands together, I looked up at the familiar stone-faced house. Planted in its foundation. Unmovable and boastful in its quaintness.

Flamboyant plants beautified its façade, dancing as a chilling wind swept over the land.

Shivering, I tugged the lapels of my coat together. It was the beginning of November, and although it might be sweltering in Los Angeles regardless of the approaching winter, on this side of the world, you
felt
it. The approaching year-end biting in your skin. Prodding you to get things right before a new year found you still stuck in last year’s shit.

At the feel of a drop of wetness on my cheek, I tilted my face to the sky. Out of nowhere it started drizzling, the drops growing fatter by the second. I stowed my car keys in my handbag and began making headway toward the house, escaping the drizzle.

At the low, wooden door, I curled my fingers around the heavy knocker and rapped it twice. Adjusting my bag strap, I hugged myself to fight off the cold.

A full minute later, the door clanged open and Chloe was standing on the other side, in all her stunning gorgeousness, wearing surprise and confusion. “Alina?”

I smiled. We weren’t friends, or anything of the sort. Several months ago, Xavier invited me here. We spent a couple of depressing days together before I returned home. Chloe was the live-in maid. A ridiculously gorgeous live-in maid whom I’d been insanely jealous of. I was surprised she even remembered my name.

“Hi, Chloe,” I greeted. “So nice to see you again. You’re even more beautiful than I remembered.”

Her cheeks flushed, as I expected they would, remembering how shy she was.

Handing out compliments wasn’t my style, but seeing as the Los Angeles clan thought I was the devil’s bride, I needed to get the France clan on my team before the others got to them. In order to do that, I had to play nice.

“Zu here for Mick? Xavier is with you, yes? He has not, eh, ring us in long, long time.”

“No. He’s not able to make it yet. He’s a bit…indisposed,” I told her. “I’m here to see Mick on his behalf.”

Frowning, she looked past me down to the garden where my rental was parked. As her frown deepened, I thought for sure she would question Xavier’s absence further, but she instead stepped aside and welcomed me in. “Mick is reading in ze library. Follow me.”

I shrugged out of my coat and hooked it on the coat-rack by the door, then tugged off my gloves before following her through the stone house I’d fallen in love with the first time I saw it. Rustic furniture, long halls, high ceilings, and low doors.

Chloe opened a wooden door at the back of the house and I followed her in.

Mick was sitting in an armchair with his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, reading a thick, tattered book that had no text on the covers. In a burgundy sweater and thick-rimmed reading glasses, he looked hale, sane, and downright handsome. Healthier than he’d looked the last time I saw him.

“Mick.” He glanced up when Chloe said his name. “Alina here for zu.”

Mick’s gaze swept over me, but the antiquated glasses hindered me from reading his eyes.

“Zu remember Alina, yes?”

Closing his book and setting it aside, Mick removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I wasn’t expecting Xena. But I wasn’t expecting you, either.”

My eyebrows drew in. “I’m sorry?”

Mick shook his head. Slow, incredulous. “Well, dangit, but I wouldn’t have believed it if he told me himself. You chose him, huh?”

I bit my lip, understanding. Xavier had said Mick told him he wouldn’t win me, that I would choose ‘the other guy’. Well, he’d been wrong. “He’s the man I want to spend the rest of my life with.”

“Love, young girl, is the most cruelly frustrating and unpredictable emotion inflicted on us,” Mick said, half-smiling. “We think we know what we want, think we have it all figured out, think we’re happy, but in one split second our heart jerks us in a completely different route. Unplanned, unexpected, unprepared for. But dammit if that route isn’t the sweetest ride of our life.” He looked to Chloe. “Get us two mugs of cocoa, will you?”

As Chloe nodded and backed out of the library, I walked over to an armchair across from Mick and sat down. “Mick—”

“I know why you’re here.”

For a second, I just stared, unsure how to proceed. “You do?”

He pressed his lips together, watching me under his brows. “My daughter is afraid of me for whatever reason. Maybe she thinks I will eat her alive? I don’t know, but she never visits and she only calls on special holidays. She’s my blood and I love her, but my son is my mine. He takes care of his old man. No matter how much of a handful I become. And I have enough sane days to know I’m more than a handful in the days I’m…gone.”

Setting his glasses down on top of the book on the side table, he then picked up a Blackberry phone that had been resting beside it. “See this phone? My son got it for me, and only he has the number. Every Wednesday it rings anywhere between twelve and one-thirty. If that Wednesday call doesn’t come in, I can expect it early Thursday morning.”

He set the phone back down and folded his hands in his lap. “See, the second Wednesday that went on by without that phone ringing, I knew something was wrong. My boy
never
forgets to check in on his old man. I wept until his mother visited me in the night. I told her, ‘Love, something’s wrong with our boy. Something’s gravely wrong’. She promised me she wouldn’t let me lose another one. She promised me she’d find him and send him home.”

“And did she?” I asked, rubbing my hands together, feeling chills that had nothing to do with the weather outside.

Mick gave me a look that read ‘
what do you think
?’ “Want to guess where he was?”

Goosebumps washed all over me. “Where?”

“His favorite spot.” He tilted his head, indicating the backyard. Which had a beauteous, breathtaking rose garden. “On the cliff. With his brother.”

“Xhett? His twin?”

Mick nodded. “He didn’t want leave. His mother begged him to come back to me, but he wanted to stay with them. So did Xhett. So he stayed. He chose
them.”

By now my eyes were overflowing with tears, and I felt as insane as the man telling this ridiculous story.

“He didn’t want to come back to us,” I mused. “He didn’t choose us.”

“But he did,” Mick corrected.

I wiped my eyes so I could see Mick better. “How would you know?”

“Because he’s not out there anymore,” he stated simply. “His mother said he picked a rose and told her there was someone he needed to see right before he walked off the cliff. They haven’t seen him since. Aline believes he came back. Though, the phone still hasn’t rung.” On a long, pregnant pause, he arched a brow at me. “Hasn’t he? Is that not why you are here?”

I stared at him. Unbelievable. How was it possible that this man could’ve known everything going down through his
dead
wife? How did that work, really? How could Aline have seen Xavier if he was never dead in the first place? Was being in a coma some faint level of death or something? I was flabbergasted.

I had half-expected him to say something along the lines of “
My son is famous, I follow the media, of course, I know what happened
!” Then I remembered Mick was a solitary man who lived in the past. There wasn’t so much as a desktop in this house. The fact that not even Chloe had an inkling of the accident was somewhat alarming.

“Uh…” I cleared my clogged throat. “Yeah. He’s back.”

“How bad was it? What really happened to him?” He sat upright in his chair, and for the first time since I walked in he appeared agitated, terrified even, that his son had almost died. “And why isn’t he here?”

“It was horrific,” I told him. “A truck crashed another car into his Hummer and drove them both into a post.” Mick winced at this. “He underwent a brain surgery. Lost his left leg. Slipped into a coma. When he woke up his memory was screwed. He’s been in rehab for the past six months getting therapy and a specialized recovery treatment. ”

Mick gripped the handles of the armchair, and his lower lip trembled as he watched me with glazed eyes. “He lost…a leg?”

Chloe walked in just then carrying a tray with two hot mugs of cocoa and giant muffins. It was the reprieve both Mick and I needed at that juncture as she shuffled around setting the items on both our side tables.

I tried to keep it together. I did. But there was a burning my throat. A burning in my eyes. A burning in my stomach.

The second Chloe departed, Mick asked bluntly, “Why are you
really
here?”

“Because I messed up,” I fessed up, deciding honesty was the smartest route to take.

“How?”

“I cheated with my ex.”

A long pause. A blank expression. “While he was recovering?”

“Yes.”

A longer pause. Maintaining the same expression. “Why did you do it?”

“Because…because he didn’t remember me and Xena stood by and allowed his ex to shut me out. He only wanted her to be around, and I wasn’t allowed. He wasn’t coming back. I couldn’t get to see him. To touch him. To look into his eyes and
know
that everything was going be alright. I was denied. I was ostracized. I was falling apart. I wanted to be with someone who
wanted
me, who
knows
who I am. Just for one night. Just to make the pain go away.”

“And did you feel better afterward?”

“I did.”

“How about your love for him? How was it afterward? Stronger or adulterated?”

“Stronger.”
So much stronger than it’s ever been
.

“Are you sorry you did it?”

Honest. Be honest
. Expelling a breath, I shook my head. “I’m sorry he found out the way he did. I’m sorry I hurt him.”
But I’m not sorry I did it.

“And how is he taking it?”

“He wants nothing to do with me. Plus he’s left the band.”

Mick nodded as if this pleased him, picked up his cocoa and sipped. Twice. All the while I sat erect, fingers twisting in my lap as I awaited the verdict.