The Perfect Wrong, page 23
My heart leaps into my throat as I watch him jump into a huge tree with a panther’s grace, sliding into the sprawling garden below.
“Honey?” Dad calls again. Whoa, is his voice cracking? “Please.”
Oof. I’m not even dressed.
“Just a second!” I call back, pretending to sound groggy as I scramble for my clothes.
The more I move, the deeper my worries.
Whatever he wants, it can’t be good if he’s showing up in the middle of the night.
I’m straightening my pj’s when I hear footsteps, like he’s anxiously pacing the hall.
Enough. I have to know.
I run over and tear the door open. Dad reaches through the frame and pulls me into the hall, throwing his arms around me.
“Dad! What’s wrong? What happened?”
He looks like hell, even in the dim orange night-lights that switch on after midnight.
He’s clammy, panicked, way too pale.
Dark circles surround his eyes like sickly halos.
I’ve never seen my father like this, and it’s scary as hell.
“It’s Evie, Delia. Thompson, he found her downstairs on the floor a few minutes ago,” he gasps out, his voice ringing with confusion.
My brows knit together. Thompson is our main security guy who patrols the house on graveyard shift.
“Dad?” I reach for his hand and try to squeeze it reassuringly. “What do you mean 'found her?' Did you call 9-1-1?”
“They’re on their way and she’s—she’s not breathing!” He spins angrily, slamming his fist on the wall.
Holy shit!
I grab his shoulder, trying to calm him down. My brain skips back to all the emergency training you get in high school, but never pay much attention to because you don’t expect you’ll ever need it.
“Let’s go back downstairs! And start at the beginning,” I urge, trying to pull him by the hand.
“If they don’t get here in time... If...if anything happens to her, I swear to God...” A sob chokes him as he lurches along, barely keeping up with me.
This time we’re moving, marching to the end of the hall and piling into the elevator in a blinding storm of fury and terror.
“Jesus, Delia, it’s bad. I don’t know, I don’t know what happened. She was passed out before I ran down for the alert. They just found her, passed out, barely breathing. I nodded off in the library earlier... I thought she was upstairs in our room, doing her yoga routine or taking a bath. I came upstairs a little while ago and I heard these odd noises, but...” He sighs so sadly it makes my heart hurt. “Her lungs aren’t working. Something’s very wrong.”
My belly tightens, wanting to crawl up my throat when he talks about the noises in the night. He’s probably too shocked by what’s happening to realize it was coming from my room.
Stop it, I tell myself. This is no time to be selfish.
We need to make sure this woman doesn’t die.
Yeah.
The thought of having Evie as a ghost, haunting us forever, makes me want to move into the crappiest high-rent apartment in the city.
But I can’t worry about stupid things like that right now.
Dad tears out of the elevator the instant the doors open, skittering over to the small, slim shape on the floor. Two security guys are bent over her, elevating her legs, checking her vitals.
She’s not her usual high-class put together self.
Evie looks like a rumpled mess—more like a fragile doll than a human being—half dressed in her open, wrinkled robe.
“Come on, dammit. Come the fuck on!” Dad snaps, pushing through the guards.
He drops to the floor, banging his knees so loudly they click. He goes to work, trying his best at CPR.
I’m frozen, hurting, unsure what to do.
There’s nothing in the good daughter’s playbook for what happens when your wicked stepmother blacks out cold.
Dad rarely swears, and he never lets such harsh, bright tears brim in his eyes, overflowing down his red, panicked cheeks.
He’s covering her mouth with his now, pouring every molecule of oxygen in his lungs into her, pumping his hands on her chest so hard I worry he’ll accidentally break ribs.
It won’t take much.
Jesus, I think she’s lost more weight during the time I’ve been away. She looks like a mummy with one too many plastic surgeries.
“Dad, get her down flat!” I suggest, walking up but keeping a comfortable distance from the nightmare scene.
He stands and waves at me angrily.
I grab her feet and we lift her—and she’s just as light as I feared.
Her head rolls like she’s nothing but hollowed-out bone.
That’s when I notice the crap coming out of her mouth, something foamy, unnatural.
Oh my God.
I don’t know what a drug overdose looks like, but I have an awful feeling I might be staring at one now.
Dad hits the floor again, banging his knees loudly for the second time.
He throws himself back into another round of chest compressions, blinded by his tears, shaking her tiny body as he pounds her chest again and again.
I’m so busy gawking at the despair in front of me that I don’t see Chris until he’s a blur in front of me.
His footsteps hammer the floor as he runs in, pushing Dad aside without a word.
He takes over where my father left off, working with precision to save a woman he despises, eerie lines of calm engraved on his face.
Dad stumbles back and stares, his jaw clenched so hard it looks like his teeth might break as he staggers back.
“Hey, Dad, stay here. Let him help,” I whisper, holding his hand, trying to keep him away from crowding Chris while he plays hero.
Out of everyone here, he’s easily the most qualified to fix this.
“You sure you know what you’re doing, son?” Dad growls, his brow pulled low. “Where the hell are those paramedics?”
“Pulling up now, sir!” Thompson yells back, swinging the front door open.
Dad looks at me helplessly.
I give him my best sympathetic smile, trying to stay positive. I hate that I have to pray Evie hangs on for a love with my father I’ll never understand.
But I actually have no clue what happens next and it’s terrifying.
Chris doesn’t say a word.
He just works on his mother in stony silence, shirtless and brave. He’s more like a force of nature than a son who’s trying his damnedest to save his emotionally estranged mother.
Evie’s face is a white mask as the EMTs roll in, but she’s breathing.
I think.
I hope.
I swallow thickly.
Honestly, she’s downright ghostly, and her ankles look oddly swollen too.
If she lives, will she even be the same? How long can a person go without oxygen before it gets really dire?
“Dad? Why don’t you come with me. Let Chris talk to them,” I venture.
I try to guide him away, but his grip is so limp, so far gone, and his bulk is too heavy.
He’s not even angry or scared anymore.
He looks...like he’s a million miles away.
A haunted man watching his wife die in front of him.
Anger stabs through me, fiery and unexpected. It’s too early to judge, but if I find out this was some kind of overdose, I swear to God.
Dad doesn’t deserve this.
And she hasn’t deserved him since the day they met.
He won’t move away from the grisly scene as we stand there, watching the medics as they load her onto a stretcher.
Chris stands in the corner, talking to the police officer who just showed up. The muscles on his back ripple like a mountain face catching light, masculine and powerful and conflicted.
If anyone saved her tonight, it’s definitely the son she’s treated like absolute crap.
Irony of ironies, I think bitterly.
And just before they wheel her to the ambulance, Evie lurches up so suddenly I almost go through the ceiling.
Dad rushes forward while she’s coughing.
“Oh, Evie. Oh, thank Christ! You’re going to be okay, honey. Remember, deep, slow breaths.” Dad follows them to the ambulance, holding her hand so tenderly it makes me sad and angry all over again.
He cares so flipping much—and I have an ugly feeling she almost killed herself with barely a second thought.
I sigh, wondering what the lab reports will say.
I turn to talk to Chris, but he’s backing away alone. He keeps his distance, his green eyes guarded.
I want to call out to him, but I can’t find the words.
And before I do, he’s walking up the stairs with heavy, plodding steps that kick at my heart until it spins.
* * *
Sleep? What’s that?
I can’t remember the last time I felt rested.
Sometime before Vegas for sure.
Hell, maybe before Mr. Badass Enigma walked into my life, dragging his psycho mother behind him.
It’s a grey summer morning with fog fading over the ocean, and I’m already exhausted.
Dad texted me a couple hours after they arrived at the hospital. Evie was pretty well stabilized by the time the medics hauled her away.
I know a big part of that is thanks to Chris.
I can’t even imagine what state he’s in.
After dragging through the kitchen, I take my breakfast by the pool and nod off. But I wake up about half an hour later to find him dozing in the chair next to me.
I sit up, gently brushing my fingers against his.
“Chris? Everything okay?” I hold my breath until he stirs.
He looks at me once before he says, “Over here, Delia.”
There’s no mistaking the way he pats his lap, gesturing.
Looking around, I walk over and curl up with him, tucking my head under his chin. I relish that heat and almost spicy scent that wafts off him.
I’m becoming too obsessed.
When some of the morning help arrives to start cleaning the grounds, I know they could notice us and blab something back to my father, but I can’t make myself care right now.
I need his arms around me.
I need to know he’s okay.
I need him to make me feel safe—and hope I can do the same for him.
His bearish embrace lends one more shred of sanity to my crumbling world—even though it reminds me it’s anything but normal.
I’m not sure I’ll ever have that again for too many reasons.
“Did you hear anything new about Evie?” I ask carefully.
“Probably nothing you don’t know.” Chris shrugs, his eyes gazing past me at the slowly rising sun.
“Do you think it was an accident? Did she fall back into...um, something she shouldn’t?” I can’t fathom how I’m supposed to politely ask if his mother relapsed into a full-blown drug addiction.
Chris shrugs again. “She’s acting out, princess. We’ve been through this shit before ad nauseam. Ma stopped thinking things through and letting her impulses lead when I was knee-high to a cricket.”
A harrowing image of Chris as a scared little boy flashes in my mind.
He’s afraid and alone, showering the only love he understands on that mess of a woman.
God, it makes me angry and so, so sad.
“You saved her life. At least we can say one good thing came out of this,” I tell him.
“Whatever. I’ll put air in her lungs anytime—she’s a human being, after all—but I’m not gonna be around to sweet-talk her again and tell her everything’s gumdrops. I’m not her crutch. I was done with that bullshit years ago.”
I swallow hard.
I’m so worried about Dad.
Even though they’re both gone, I can taste the sour tension descending over this house, more stifling than the ocean dampness in the air. It’s a humid morning, and this coffee I sip from the thermos I carried out with me isn’t helping.
Part of me wants to bury my face in Chris’ inked glory and never come back. I’d love to just hide in this man without needing to face the rest of my life.
I want to cry all over him until I can’t.
The rest of me—desperate, loveless me—wants to reach between his legs and reignite what we started last night before everything blew up.
I’m getting used to finding peace when I’m joined to his flesh, and that’s hella dangerous.
“He really loves her, you know.” I slide my hand up Chris’ neck to his jaw, tracing it with my fingers, staring into his bright-green eyes.
I’m talking about Dad and Evie, of course.
But I think he can tell I’m hinting at us, too.
“Yeah, your father’s a good guy, even if he needs a balls transplant.” Chris smiles bitterly. “It’ll be a real damn shame when she rips his heart out. Your old man’s not the first nice guy she’s fucked over, sad to say. It always happens.”
I frown. “It doesn’t have to, though...right? I mean, maybe this’ll be the wake-up call she needs. I don’t like her either, but there has to be a heart in there somewhere behind all the ice.”
“You’re twenty-one and you still believe in fairy tales?” He snorts, his eyes beaming pity.
“I’m serious, Chris. It’s not right. I don’t want to believe he fell for a total illusion—Dad must’ve seen something in her nobody else does. He wouldn’t marry a woman who’s a hundred and eighty degrees away from everything he ever wanted. I just can’t believe he’d—”
Chris cuts me off, laughing. My frown deepens.
But he puts a possessive hand on my thigh and squeezes, hard enough to make me squirm.
“Come on, princess. You believe in roses and rings and all that till death do us part sales talk? I stopped believing in Cinderella-Sleeping Beauty shit when I was five.”
I look away.
I don’t know why it’s so hurtful.
Maybe it’s one more reminder of how insanely impossible this is. As if we could ever work even if we didn’t have the parentals and diverging futures forming a gaping chasm between us.
“Hey, now. I’m not trying to be a jackass,” he says softly.
“Try harder,” I throw back.
“Delia, fuck. Consider it tough love. I wish your dad was more guarded, too. He wouldn’t have to go through this shit. And you’ll never know how much I wish my mother was a better person.” His eyes fall and he slumps back in the chair.
That subtle shift in his weight kills me.
I look up, running my hand down his face, gingerly soothing him.
“If you believe it’s all BS, I don’t think you’d have come back last night. You’d have stayed away after Vegas like we said. But you didn’t. You broke your promise for a reason...”
It’s his turn to caress my face.
He reaches up, dominant as ever, running his hand along my cheek.
“Don’t get too excited, sis. Truth is, I couldn’t have stayed away from your tight little pussy if you chained me to the wall.” Growling, he slides his hand up my thigh, shifts my panties aside, and shoves two fingers deep inside me.
I gasp, arching against him, feeling his raging hard-on rising through his jeans.
“Don’t ruin a good thing with too much wishing, Delia. You’re not my girlfriend. You can’t be, and you know that’s for your own good. But you’ll always be the best fuck of my life, baby.”
His words are like knives, but his fingers...
I’m dead.
I should slap him across the face and run back inside.
If only he didn’t stroke me so good, tethering my body to this mad pleasure I can only get from him.
He’s a bastard thief.
A relentless charmer.
But more than anything, I hate him because he’s right.
I just won’t admit it to myself. It hurts too much having this spark and knowing he’s incapable of ever feeling love, much less acting on it.
My body drowns out the ache in my heart as he works his hands deeper, stamping his hot lips down my neck.
His hips push greedily against my ass, making me feel his bulge.
He fists my hair and holds me closer as he tugs down his pants, stroking my clit with an anger that still turns me on.
When he sinks into me, I’m ruined.
It doesn’t take much, not when he’s pumping with fury in his blood and both of us so desperate, so needy, so wrecked with confusion.
I’m flying over the edge in no time, emotionally short-circuited by this bewildering man.
The scalding tears building since last night burst out of me.
Still, I come so hard I can’t breathe, riding his cock, adoring the way he touches me, works me, owns me.
If only he could keep me, too.
If only he believed in miracles.
If only we—
“Delia, keep going. Don’t stop till I tell you,” he orders, all sultry breath in my ear.
I slide down his length in fits, his thumb adding more pressure to my clit, sending a new wave of sweet, indecent butterflies tearing through me.
I’m scared now.
Because I know nothing will ever compare as long as I live.
The hurt.
The passion.
This twisted, unspeakable heart pact between us.
The constant quiet mourning of a future that’ll never be.
When we come together, the intensity chokes me.
The entire world fades into a gasp of ecstasy and his low, guttural release.
Sex almighty, I’m so flipping confused.
But he pulls me in close when it’s finally over, sheltering me from my own torn feelings in his powerful arms. His lips meet mine in a rough, searching kiss.
“Stop crying, Delia. We still have summer. We can buy ourselves more time.” He reaches up with a wounded look in his eyes, gently clasping my chin. “Why the fuck should we stop before you’re back in school? Let’s make that the real goodbye.”
My lips twitch, so many sharp words on my tongue.
Because I’m falling in love, you magnificent prick.
But I don’t dare say it.
I just dive into the lush jade tranquility of his eyes, where there’s no worry about broken hearts or forbidden crushes.
