ROYAL (15 page)

Royal

“You’re late, Royal.” Pandora folds her arms when I return
from lunch.

“First time for everything.”

“You’re lucky I don’t tell Daddy.”

“I’m staying late tonight to make up for it.” My fingers
hook my belt loops. “Worked ten hours overtime last week. Highly doubt he has a
problem with me grabbing an extra fifteen minutes at lunch.”

She pouts, and I know that look. She’s trying to start shit,
and it’s all because she saw me run off with Demi.

“Who’s the rich bitch that came in here looking for you? New
girlfriend?” Pandora leans over the counter, her tits falling out of her
unbuttoned top. I don’t look, and I’m sure that pisses her off.

“Not new,” I say.

“Old girlfriend?” Pandora huffs through her nose.

“Yep.”

I clock back in at the computer beside her and turn to
leave, only her nails dig into the flesh of my forearm.

Groaning, I face her.

“Does she know?” she asks, one pencil-thin brow arched.
“Does she know what you are?”

A flood of panic courses through me so quickly it stings.
Out of hundreds of scenarios, Demi finding out from someone like Pandora never
crossed my mind. They were never supposed to cross paths in the first place. I
never counted on Demi showing up in South Fork out of the blue.

“She knows everything,” I lie. I have no choice. I’ll be
damned if I let Pandora hold anything over my head, especially my past.

The fact that Demi came to me today tells me we’re making
progress. If Pandora fucks me over . . .

Pandora turns her back to me. “You’re a shitty liar, Royal.”

Demi

“Oh, my God. Where have you been?” Delilah slams the
passenger door of my car and yanks the seatbelt over her lap. “I’ve been
calling you since this morning when I heard.”

“My phone died.” I point to my black-screened phone and the
white cord running into the car charger. It didn’t die at all, but the excuse
works in a pinch. And it’s easier than telling her what I was really doing.

“Have you been at the hospital? How’s Brooks?”

“He’s been with doctors all day. They’re running a bunch of
tests, and I couldn’t really stick around since I’m not legally family, so I
left.”

“You left? Like, you left the hospital.” Delilah cranks my
heater. I turn it down a few notches.

I nod and flick on my right turn signal.

My sister slumps in her seat. “Oh. So did you at least say
bye? Tell him you were coming back? Did he recognize you?”

“It was a little chaotic. There were a lot of doctors and
nurses. I doubt anyone noticed I left.”

Delilah’s lips dance, moving from a frown to a smile and
back. “Wait. So your comatose fiancé wakes up, and the first thing you do is
leave the hospital?”

My hands shake, and I attempt to steady them with a firm
grip on the steering wheel.

“You’re judging me, Delilah.”

“Damn right, I’m judging you. This isn’t like you. Like, who
are
you right now?” She shakes her
head before giving me a sideways glance. “You’re hiding something. This is about
Royal, isn’t it?”

My body tremors from head to toe, and my vision blurs. The
closer we get to the hospital, the sicker I feel. But it’s an emotional kind of
sickness. The kind you can’t fix with modern medicine.

I check my mirrors and veer off to the side of the road,
pulling into a row of empty parallel parking spots in front of the Rixton
County Courthouse.

“Jesus, Demi, what the hell?” Delilah angles her body toward
me and scoots to the edge of the seat. “Are you okay? Tell me what’s going on.
Now.”

My body expands with each breath, and still it acts like it
can’t get enough air. I roll my window down and inhale the cool air like my
life depends on it.

“I knew it,” Delilah says. “This
is
about Royal. He’s the only one who can make you act like a damn
lunatic.”

When I’m finally able to speak, I meet her glaring stare and
clear my throat. “This is about so much more than you know.”

“All right. Fine. Enlighten me.”

“The night of the accident, Brooks left me. He ended the
engagement.”

Delilah’s judgmental expression fades and her eyes soften.
“What? Seriously?”

“His bags were packed when I came home from work. He said he
wanted out. And I didn’t try to stop him.”

She takes my trembling hand and sandwiches it between hers.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Her head tilts, her voice
just a smidgeon whiny.

“I didn’t think anyone would believe me. I mean, look at the
timing.” My throat constricts. “And you love Brooks so much. You’re so excited
about the wedding.”

“
I
believe you,
Demi.”

“You . . . you do?”

Delilah nods. “I know you’d never make something up like
this.”

“Yeah, but you’re my sister. You know me. All those people
who don’t know me—you think they’d believe me?”

She shakes her head. “Probably not. Timing does seem
suspect.”

“See?” I almost start to feel vindicated, like I’m not crazy
for carrying on this little façade this past week. “But that’s not all.”

“Okay.” Delilah squares her shoulders.

“When he left, he was going to
her
.”

“Her?”

“He was seeing someone on the side.” It seems so polite to
say it that way.
Seeing someone on the
side
. Sounds a hell of a lot nicer than saying he was fucking another woman
with his dick while also fucking me with his dick and I had no idea.

Delilah heaves, her hand flying to her lips. “How do you
know?”

“Royal told me.”

Her sympathy fades in an instant. “Seriously? Royal told you
all this? Okay. I see what’s happening here.”

My brows furrow. “I’m not following.”

“Royal’s manipulating you. He wants you back, and what
better way to get you to think Brooks was a cheater?”

I laugh. “No, it’s not like that at all.”

“He’s totally manipulating you, and you don’t even see it.
He won’t tell you what happened until you spend more time with him, right? And
he wants to make sure you won’t ever go back to Brooks, right? Don’t you see?
It’s clear as day, Demi.”

I refuse to believe. And she doesn’t know him like I do.

“Have you been spending more time with him lately?” she
asks.

“Yeah.”

“So he’s getting what he wants from you. And what are you
getting out of all of this?” Delilah’s hands flail when she speaks. She’s
always had a penchant for speaking with her hands when she really wants to get
a point across. “You’re right back in his web, Demi. He set a trap, and you walked
right in.”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“Do you have proof of this alleged affair?”

I glance to my left, thinking. Racking. Remembering.

“No,” I say a moment later. “No proof.”

“So you’re making life decisions based on Royal’s
allegations?”

“What do you mean, life decisions? Brooks ended the
engagement. That was his decision, not mine. Don’t you think there had to have
been someone else, Delilah? Brooks was crazy about me. Everything was fine in
the days leading up to that night. Nothing was out of the ordinary. And then he
left.”

She tugs on her bottom lip, staring at the numbers on the
radio.

“Yeah, obviously he had a reason for calling it off. But you
can’t take Royal’s word for it. You have to find out from Brooks.”

“Royal said he saw Brooks with another woman in Glidden,” I
say. “And he said he went up to him, told him he was a friend of mine, and
threatened to tell me unless Brooks made a choice. And Brooks obviously chose
her, so . . .”

“Okay, assuming Royal’s not full of shit and that really did
happen,” she says. “Who is this mystery woman? Did he describe her to you?”

“I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know at the time.” My chest
deflates, and I sink against the back of the driver’s seat. “All I know is that
she lives in Glidden.”

Delilah rolls her eyes. “Girls from Glidden were always
bitches.”

“I know this sounds completely insane, Delilah, but I just
have this gut feeling that it’s Afton.”

Her eyes narrow and then grow round. “Afton? Like the
reporter from the Herald?”

“Yeah.”

“Why do you think that?”

I rake my fingers through my hair and catch the grease and
metal scent of Royal, quickly remembering how my hands were all over him just a
mere hour ago.

I don’t know why I went there or why I did what I did. The
last place I need to be is on my knees before the only man who broke me. Seeing
Brooks this morning made me so numb that I just wanted to feel something.

“I don’t know.” I sigh. “I guess it’s silly. And random. I
have no proof it’s Afton.”

“That asshole.” Delilah smacks the dash, lips pursed. “If he
really cheated on you, so help me . . .”

“What are you going to do about it, huh?” I half-chuckle. My
car grows silent, each of us lost in our own thoughts or maybe wrapping our
heads around how screwed up this situation is. “We should probably head to the
hospital.”

Delilah buckles up. “Yeah. Guess so.”

Demi

“There’s our girl.” Brenda Abbott’s face lights when I step
into Brooks’s new room. They moved him today, while I was gone. He’s down the
hall from the ICU now, into a larger room better equipped for his recovery. The
windows are bigger, and several bouquets of flowers and balloons line the
ledge.

Brenda rises and takes my hand, and Delilah and I exchange
looks. My sister gives me a reassuring half-smile, a silent promise that the
later’
s going to be okay if I can just
get through the
now
.

“We missed you today, sweetheart.” Brenda’s voice is loud,
and she speaks slowly, enunciating each syllable.

Is Brooks hearing impaired now? Is his mental capacity
diminished?

“Hi.” I stare into Brooks’s familiar eyes when I get to his
bedside. Feels like I’m looking at a stranger. My nerves tingle through to my
fingertips, and my heart trots.

I wish we were alone.

I wish I could ask him my questions and he could give me his
answers.

“Demi.” He says my name, though it comes out like scratched
air. And then he smiles.

“Here, take my seat, dear.” Brenda points before pushing up
a chair to her son’s bedside.

His fingers curl into a half-opened fist, like they’re stuck
that way. And he’s propped up with a half-dozen pillows. His hair has been
washed since this morning. I can tell, because it’s shiny and blond and neatly
combed. With the exception of the fading bruises on his face, he looks more
like himself now than he did this morning.

Brooks’s fingers twitch, and he uses all of his strength to
reach for me.

I oblige, our gazes locked.

“I’m . . . sorry.” His apology is breathy and slow. Brooks’s
green eyes search mine, blinking slowly.

I’m not exactly sure what he’s apologizing for. For leaving
me? For the accident? For the credit cards? For the cheating?

I pat his hand the way a friend might, and I bite my tongue
when the urge to tell him not to worry about it floats through my mind. It’s
like an auto-response. Someone apologizes, and I tell them not to worry about
it.

But it’s not like that now.

What Brooks did was beyond . . .

And I won’t brush it off, even if he does look helpless and
remorseful and like he’s two seconds from crying.

I’ve never seen Brooks cry before. Four years together, and
I never saw a single tear. He came close once, after an intense golf game with
my brother.

He blinks, and a fat tear slides from the corner of his eye.

“I’m . . . sorry,” he breathes again.

Brenda doesn’t see any of this. She’s talking to Delilah in
the corner, and they seem to be chatting about this weekend’s fundraiser—which
I completely forgot about until now.

They stop chatting when Brenda turns to watch us and sees me
looking at her.

“Everything okay over there?” she smiles and strides back
over. Placing her hand on her son’s knee, she leans down. “Guess what, Brooks?
Demi’s quitting her job so she can take care of you full-time. How wonderful is
that? I always knew you were marrying a keeper. She’s a good girl, Brooks.
Never left your side once. Except today.”

I see Delilah cock her head out of the corner of my eye.

Why Brenda would lie to him to make me look good is beyond
me, but her little dig was one hundred percent intentional.

Brooks looks my way and mouths, “Thank you.”

Heat creeps up my neck.

Really?

He’s just going to pretend like we never broke up?

The weight of a warm palm on my back and Delilah’s chin on
my shoulder grounds me for a moment.

“Hey, Brooks,” she says. “How’re you feeling?”

We all laugh, and I know exactly what she’s doing. She’s
taking the heat off me, lightening the mood, and putting on a good face. But I
know my sister, and inside she’s cursing his name.

He smiles, his face pained, and gives her a thumbs-up.

“Delilah, what do you say we grab ourselves some coffee and
give our love birds some time alone together?” Brenda slicks a palm over her
black bob.

My sister looks at me, and I give her my blessing. The
second they’re gone, I shut the door and return to his bedside, perching on the
edge of the mattress. His hand lifts, falling in my lap, his fingers touching
mine.

He wants me to hold his hand.

I place mine on top of his, but I don’t hold it. I don’t
interlace our fingers or give him any kind of indication that the past is water
under the bridge.

“Demi.” He says my name again, like he’s starving and it’s
nourishment. His other hand goes to his chest, slowly, and then points to me.
No, to my heart. He’s saying he loves me.

“You . . . you love me?” I ask.

He nods, his eyes slowly closing and reopening.

“Brooks.” I pat his hand. “You left me. Remember?”

Brooks’s green eyes furrow. He’s confused.

“The night of your accident, you ended our engagement.”

He shakes his head from side to side in silent disagreement.

“Yes,” I say. “You did. You left me. Your bags were packed,
you said you didn’t want to marry me, and you got in your car and drove away.”

He squints, glancing to the right and back, and then shakes
his head again.

The doctors warned this could happen. Short-term memory loss
is a highly common occurrence among victims of brain trauma.

“Do you remember anything about that night?” I ask.
“Anything at all?”

Brooks’s eyes study mine, and his fingers twitch and attempt
to uncurl beneath mine. He moves them enough to hook his pinky into mine.

And then he shakes his head no.