Oracle Seeing (The Phoenix Files Book 2) (41 page)

She wanted to cry.

“You don’t get it. The job doesn’t matter. You did. I would have left with you, Lucian. If you asked me to run away with you, I would have gone. I would have quit my job to run into the unknown with you. That’s how much I loved you.”

He got that now.

Again, the past tense made him ill.

“I was scared, Bishop. Then I had company.”

She didn’t know where he was taking this.

“I’m sure you and Wendy had fun.” Who else would he be talking about? Who else could make him turn against her like this?

She prayed he didn’t tell her they’d hooked up. She’d start vomiting there and then.

“Wendy doesn’t have access to my home, Bishop. It wasn’t her who visited. Silas showed up, and he told me that if I loved you, I’d leave.”

“He did not!” she said, sitting up.

The room spun.

She wanted to throw up.

Her head was pounding.

“You don’t have to believe me, but it’s true. You can ask the FBI. They were there. Silas told me to leave you alone. He told me if I loved you, I’d let you go. You may not believe it, but I was so worried about you, and how I’ve already hurt you, I thought it was best. I was wrong.”

She stared at him.

“I did this for you.”

Yeah, like he’d done it before too.

“Get out.”

“Bishop. I swear.”

“Get out! You’re not going to make me hate him when you’re the one who destroyed me.”

He got it.

She never wanted to see him again.

“You lost your final shot, Lucian. You can’t hurt people like this and expect that they’ll be here when you come to your senses.”

Oh, he was aware.

Still…

“I’ll fight for you, Bishop. I’ll keep fighting. You may hate me, but I’m going to come here every day for the next two years. I’ll knock on your damn door, and I’ll sit there until you talk to me.”

She wanted to cry.

“I’ll do it because you do matter. I’ll do it because I screwed up. I’m going to do it because you came back for me, even when I didn’t deserve it. You do deserve someone who will fight for you. I’m going to be that man.”

She wanted to believe him, but he was missing the point. He’d told her he didn’t love her, want, or need her.

How did you recover from that?

You didn’t.

She couldn’t.

“You should go. Like I said, Lucian—you said things to me that I don’t think anyone could forgive.”

He moved toward her, and she flinched back away from him like a wounded animal.

He deserved that, and he knew it.

“Don’t worry, Bishop. I won’t ever force myself on you. I won’t hurt you ever again. I just want to give this to you. Here.”

In his hand, he held the note he’d written her. It was sealed in the envelope.

“I was going to go away for a few weeks, giving you time to get free of this, and then I was going to mail it. It explains it all.”

She didn’t want it.

She didn’t want him.

“Go away, Lucian.”

He knew she needed that grand gesture to prove it, and he’d give it to her. If it took the rest of his life, he’d find a way to prove it to her.

“I’ll go, but I’ll be back in the morning, and the next morning, and the next seven hundred and thirty mornings. I’ll not stop at two years. I’ll keep coming back until you take me back, forgive me, or end my life. I’m not giving up. You’re worth the fight, Bishop. When I thought you died, I wanted to follow you. My heart couldn’t go on without you. While you may not love me any longer, I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

Tears filled her eyes.

God!

Why couldn’t he have told her this hours ago?

Why couldn’t he have said these words instead of the ones he lobbed at her?

She had to be honest.

“It’s too late, Lucian. You can’t take back what you said to me. You drove that knife into my heart. You told me you were going back to a woman who loved tormenting me. If you wanted to hurt, damage, or break me, you did it.”

Oh, he was aware.

He’d been a fool.

“You said them. You put them out there. I have to carry them with me for the rest of my life.”

She was right.

Well, he’d make sure he put the right words out there for her and the world to see.

Starting now.

He went to touch her, and she moved away. He didn’t care. He still tried, like she had all those days. He lowered his mouth to hers and gently kissed her on the lips.

“Watch the news. I’ll make you see, Bishop. This isn’t over yet. I’m not living the rest of my life without you. I’ve given up too much. I love you, and I’m going to prove it.”

With that, he dropped the letter and headed out.

She didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Bishop could hear him walking down the stairs, the slamming of her door, and then the shout of the reporters below her window.

She grabbed the remote and turned on the TV just as Roxy entered the room.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “He had his Marine baboon keep me in the kitchen. I tried to get past him. Oh, I kind of got your frying pan embedded in the wall. Don’t ask.”

She stared at her. “Uh, okay.”

“Did he hurt you?” Roxy asked.

“No, but he’s up to something,” Bishop offered, just as the media outside went silent.

That freaked her out. Before she could say anything, the live feed came on her TV.

There was her house.

Her yard.

Lucian.

Only he wasn’t wearing his eyepatch. He wasn’t hiding from the media attention. He stood there, arms crossed, back straight, and he began answering questions.

For her.

Oh God!

He was facing the world, his soul and damage bared for all to see. How could she hate him now?

She listened to the reporters throwing all kinds of questions at him.

“How is she?” one shouted.

“My fiancée is fine. We’re asking right now that you give her time to heal, and we’ll discuss more with the media as we can.”

At the word fiancée, the reporters went wild. Only they weren’t the only ones.

Roxy stared at her. “You’re marrying that asshole? After all of this, you’re going to saddle yourself with that dickwad?”

Bishop didn’t have words.

She must have hit her head that damn hard.

She knew he’d never asked, and at that point, she wouldn’t have married him if…

Who was she kidding?

Already, the wall was crumbling.

“I’m here to report that that the woman I love had a terrible accident tonight, and thanks to this killer, he nearly took her life. She’s not giving up, and she’s going to fight. In fact, we all are. I’m going back to my law practice, I’m going to be helping the FBI, and my services will be pro bono for the sheriff’s department from today forward. I’ve decided to come out of retirement and make the criminals pay for their crimes. Ravenswood needs to be cleaned up all over again.”

There were questions about a wedding.

Gasps from the crowd, and even one from inside in her bedroom.

Bishop couldn’t think straight.

What the hell was he doing?

“We haven’t picked a date, but I like the summer. I think I’ll have her marry me at Graymoor under the night sky. Bishop will look gorgeous under the stars.”

She stared at the TV with her mouth open.

What the hell?

“Bishop! Are you marrying him?”

“What is he thinking?” she kept saying over and over again. He’d caught her off guard. Never, in all her life, would she have seen this one coming.

Lucian had just pulled a full three-sixty, and had come all the way out of his shell.

Introvert had become extrovert.

Holy shit!

The reporters asked more questions.

He picked the ones he wanted to answer, but first, he did something unexpected.

“I love you, Bishop!” he yelled, facing the house. “I don’t deserve you as a wife, but I swear I’ll make you happy every single day. I can’t ever remember loving anyone like I love you!”

Her hand covered her mouth.

Roxy stared at her. “He’s insane. He’s finally flipped his wig. He needs a psych evaluation!”

She couldn’t believe it.

It was hard not to be touched by his gesture.

They asked him about his first fiancée, Wendy.

His reply?

“Wendy who?”

Tears filled Bishop’s eyes. He was sacrificing himself, knowing the woman would tear him apart. Lucian wasn’t hiding. He was wearing the bull’s-eye and standing in front of her.

Jesus!

How could she hate him now?

“Furthermore,” he said, continuing to address them, “I’ll be reopening the case where I was nearly killed. That’s going to be my focus. I’m going to find the person who did this to me, and then I’m going to marry the woman I love. We’re going to have lots of kids. My Bishop wants to fill Graymoor and live happily ever after, and she’s getting that. Beauty has tamed her beast.”

Bishop gasped again.

OH.

My.

God.

Roxy hit the mute button. “Jesus, he’s insane. We have to get you out of here. I’ll take a vacation, and we’ll go somewhere warm where we can drink, screw strangers like bunnies, and forget about him.”

She wanted to cry and laugh at the same time.

Lucian Monroe was certifiably insane.

As her phone rang, she picked it up.

It was the mayor.

“What the hell is going on?” Silas bellowed into the phone. “I told him to go away. This isn’t going away. You can’t possibly be marrying him. That damn man is doing the exact opposite of what I told him to do!”

Her heart skipped.

Lucian hadn’t lied.

She put it on speaker. “Silas, you told him to go away? Why would you do that to me?” she asked.

Roxy shook her head. She wasn’t shocked. Her grandfather was a nosy man who thought he knew best.

This had sealed Lucian’s fate, and she knew it. Now Bishop would take him back.

Damn!

Roxy didn’t want her friend to be hurt by that man any more than she already had been damaged.

“Someone had to protect you. He’s not good for you, Bish. I was trying to keep you safe. Wendy is gunning for you, and it’s all because of him.”

Yeah, and the people she loved weren’t in her corner.

“You had no right, Silas. I love him. You caused a horrible mess by interfering. You almost made me hate him.”

“He’s a mess, sweetheart. You need someone more stable. He’s on the news telling everyone you’re getting married. Are you?”

She didn’t have an answer.

“I have to go.”

She hung up.

“Jesus H. Christ, you just hung up on Hurricane Silas. He’s going to flip his shit all over you. In fact, he’s on his way here right now. I can hear him cursing from his home.”

She didn’t care.

Lucian hadn’t lied.

Someone else had planted the seeds of fear. He didn’t push her away on his own. He was trying to protect her.

“Is Lucian still out there?” she asked.

Roxy looked out the window.

He was gone, most of the media was gone, and so was that infuriating Marine who manhandled her.

“No.”

She tore open the letter on her bed.

“He wrote me this before he told me to leave.”

Roxy looked skeptical. “How do you know he didn’t just do that after the fact? He could be covering his tracks.”

She held it up in the light, looking for the proof. The lips didn’t lie.

Those were her lip gloss marks, and the envelope wasn’t open.

He’d not doctored it.

She could tell.

Besides, he hadn’t lied about Silas. He’d been telling the truth. Why would he start now?

She tore into it and began reading.

‘My dearest Bishop,

I hope when you read this, you’ve stopped hating me. I know that I can’t say the same for me. I loathe the man I’ve become on so many levels that it haunts every second of my day. I had so many hopes and dreams at the beginning, and I let them go to hide from everything that terrified me. I quit on me, and that was my first biggest mistake.

This isn’t who I am.

I’m not proud of my choices.

It gets worse, Bishop.