ROYAL (17 page)

Demi

Brooks stares at the mounted TV in the corner of his
hospital room. My heels click against the soft tile, and his head slowly
careens in my direction. His face lights when he sees me, and his arms reach
for me.

I place a palm up, and stop several paces away from him.

“Demi,” he says. “Aren’t you supposed to be downtown?”

His speech is better now. A bit slow and slurred, but it’s
all there, becoming clearer with each passing day.

“You look pretty.” His gaze drinks me from head to toe and
he smiles. “If only I wasn’t nursing a broken pelvis.”

I ignore his comment and take the seat by his bed.

“I wanted to ask you something,” I say.

“Yeah?”

“What do you remember about the week of the accident?”

I watch his face twist, like he’s trying to concentrate
really hard, and he stares into his lap at curled fingers.

“Not a lot, Demi. I’m sorry,” he says, taking his time.

I place my head in my hand, resting my elbow on the arm of
the chair. Crossing my legs toward him, I scoot closer.

“Really try to remember, Brooks. I know it’s hard. But I
need you to try. If there’s anything . . .”

He shakes his head, licking dry lips. “I can’t, Demi. I’ve
tried.”

“Our engagement is over. You ended it, and I really need you
to remember so you can tell your Mom.”

Brooks’s crestfallen expression would break my heart in two
if it wasn’t so focused on all the reasons I needed him to corroborate this.

“I remember us fighting a lot. About the wedding.” His
forehead wrinkles. “I remember having doubts. But I don’t remember calling it
off.”

“Doubts,” I say. “What kind of doubts?”

I’m hoping this will be some kind of portal or wormhole,
something to lead us in the right direction.

Brooks shakes his head slowly, dragging in a long, slow
breath.

“Normal doubts?” he says. “Cold feet? Nothing unusual.”

Defeated, I massage my temple and try again. “There had to
have been a reason, Brooks, that you left me that night. Where were you going?
Were you going to see somebody? You were just outside Glidden. What’s in
Glidden?”

I study his eyes, hoping I can see some hint of something
clicking. Wheels turning. Anything.

“Demi, my head is pounding, and I’m hurting, and I don’t
have the energy,” he says. “I don’t care what happened a week ago. All I know
is I want to marry you.”

This isn’t going to work.

No one’s going to believe me if the man who called off the
wedding doesn’t remember doing it.

“Mom told me you never left my side,” he says, exhaling and
trying to readjust himself. His face winces, and he blows a hard breath. “If
that’s not true love, I don’t know what is.”

Your Mom is lying to you.

“I’m going to marry you, Demi.” He reaches for me, the veins
in his Ivy League rower’s arms bulging as he attempts to flex his tight hand.

“Brooks.” I clear my throat and close my eyes. I didn’t want
to do this while he was still in the hospital, but I’m not sure I have a
choice. “You cheated on me. The night you left, you were going to see
her
. In Glidden.”

His swollen face tightens for a moment, his upper lip
becoming stiff. For a split second, I’m sure he’s about to come clean.

My palms sweat, and I wait, watching him breathe in and out
and focus on the white flannel blanket covering his feet.

“I would never.” His eyes narrow. “I mean, I know I’m not
perfect, and I’ve done some things I’m not proud of, but we can fix that.
Life’s too short to focus on the past, Demi.”

Deny. Deny. Deny.

It’s the coward’s way.

“I get that your short-term memory is shot right now,” I
continue, “but apparently you’ve been seeing this woman for over a year, and
you can’t tell me you recall most of the last year with
me
, but you have no recollection of this woman.”

His hands lift and drop against his thighs.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Demi. I’m not going
to admit to something I have no recollection of doing.” He turns my way, and it
feels like he’s watching for my reaction. “I feel like you’re trying to play
some kind of cruel joke on me. I’ve been out for a week, and I wake up and now
you don’t want to be with me? God, Demi. If you don’t want to marry me, just
say so, but don’t accuse me of cheating.”

I cover my eyes with the heels of my palm and fold over my
knees.

Maybe I’m wrong? Maybe Royal was wrong? Maybe I’m the
biggest piece of shit person in the entirety of Rixton Falls for doubting him?

Sitting up, my mind goes to the credit card statements. I
need to see what was charged. Six figures’ worth of debt and there’s got to be
some kind of clue. Fancy restaurants? Hotels? Flowers?

I rise, grab my satin clutch, and pop it open to retrieve my
keys.

“Where are you going?” Brooks tries to sit up.

“I have to check something.”

He scoffs. “Come on, Demi, you know I hate when you’re vague
with me.”

“There are some things back home that I’d like you to see.
Maybe they’ll jog your memory.”

Brooks rolls his eyes. “No, just stay. You’re acting
ridiculous. Let’s talk. I’m lonely here without any visitors. And I want my
alone time with you.”

This twenty-eight-year-old man is still very much a spoiled,
only child. He doesn’t want me to stay because he loves me. He wants me to stay
because he wants company.

And control.

Everything’s always about him, all the time.

“I have to do this.” My heels make hurried clicks as I strut
toward his door to leave. “Maybe when I come back . . . maybe then you’ll
remember everything.”

“Demi.”

I’m gone, striding down the hallway toward the exit at warp
speed, heading home to grab the statements.

And then I’m coming right back.

I’m going to settle this once and for all.

Demi

I park outside the hospital, a stack of credit card
statements in my lap. I’ve pored over each and every one, expecting to find
damning evidence. Some kind of trail. Irrefutable proof of his affair.

Nothing but cash advances.

Not even so much as a bouquet of roses.

A thousand dollars here, five thousand there.

Each card has hit its max, like he cycled through one after
another, pulling money here and transferring it there.

And none of it makes sense.

Brooks Abbott has money. His family has money. He paid for
our house in cash. His cars too. His essays on financial management and
retirement planning have been published in Forbes and the Wall Street Journal.

I check my phone and find four missed calls from Brenda
Abbott. I’m sure Delilah tried her best, but Brenda probably saw right through
her. I’ll call her later tonight, after the charity gala, and apologize for
running out.

I’ll come clean, hope she believes me, and put an end to
this charade.

But first . . . Brooks.

My lungs fill with stale hospital air as I charge down the
hallway toward the recovery unit, a stack of statements clenched in my fist.
Stopping at the nurse’s station to sign in, I jot my name on a free space and
scribble the date.

And then I stop.

Because it’s not my name filling the last spot under Brooks’s
room number.

The name
Afton Mayfield
is signed clear as day, and today’s date is alongside it. I swear it wasn’t
there before, so I check. Sure enough, my name from earlier is above hers.

Afton was here the morning Brooks woke up. She stopped by
the following day for updates, which Brenda handled, and left again.

But she was never allowed in his room.

Brenda wouldn’t have it.

She wanted Brooks to be damn near “as good as new” before he
made his media debut. She didn’t want photographs of him lying in bed, and she
didn’t want any quotes that might make people mistake his short-term memory
loss for permanent brain damage.

“Excuse me.” I capture the attention of the woman behind the
desk.

She glances up, shoving her glasses up the bridge of her
nose. “Yes?”

“Do you know who’s visiting Brooks Abbott right now? His
mother didn’t want the media in his room without special permission.”

The woman scrunches her face and shakes her head. “Media?
She didn’t say she was here with the media.”

She stands, but I place my hand out to stop her. “It’s okay.
I’ll handle it.”

There’s a dry lump in my throat and a weight on my chest as
I stride toward his room. The door is half-open, but his curtain is pulled far
enough that he can’t see to the doorway.

Two voices. His and hers. Slightly louder than a whisper.

I crane my neck and prepare for shameless eavesdropping.

The sound of Afton softly sobbing catches my ear, and I have
to look. Peeking in, I see her sitting on the edge of his bed, where I once
sat, holding his hands in hers. She’s dressed down, leggings and a puffy parka
with a fur-trimmed hood. Her shiny blonde locks are swept into a neat bun on
the crown of her head.

She’s definitely not on the job.

“I was so worried, baby.” She lifts his hands to her cheek,
pressing them against her face. “I thought we were going to lose you.”

Um,
we
?

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to give you a scare.”

“To think the baby might grow up without ever knowing you.”
Her shoulders heave as she sobs, and she dabs the corners of her eyes with a
tissue she steals off his bedside table. “It was so hard to stay away, knowing
I couldn’t see you, hearing everything secondhand. It
killed
me.”

“I know, I know,” he comforts her with the soft, cashmere
voice of a loving partner. In four years together, he’s never spoken to me like
that, not even when Grandma Rosewood died and I was inconsolable for weeks.
“Everything’s going to work out, okay? Just be patient.”

“She’s wearing her ring.” Afton speaks with a sick cough in
her tone, like it disgusts her. “I saw it when I interviewed her. Does she
think you’re still getting married?”

My blood boils before turning into ice water. I’m two
seconds from storming in, guns drawn, and calling them out.

But I’m frozen. My feet won’t move. I’m paralyzed as the
truth settles into my core. I wanted validation, but I didn’t know it would
feel like this.

“For now, the wedding’s back on,” Brooks says.

Like
hell
it is.

“I have a few matters I need to tend to. Some loose
strings,” he says.

“You’ve been dragging your feet for the last six months,”
she whines. “This baby’s coming in twenty-five weeks. The clock is ticking.”

I do the math, as if it matters. For someone fifteen weeks
along, she doesn’t even look a tiny bit pregnant.

Skinny bitch.

And I bet Brooks loves the fact that she’s the cutest
pregnant woman ever to grace the face of the earth.

Asshole.

“Baby, I know. I want to be there with you, rubbing your
feet and taking care of you,” he coos. “Treating you like the queen you are.”

I think I’m going to be sick. Bile threatens to rise, but
mind over matter keeps it at bay for the foreseeable future.

“There’s one more thing I need to do, and then I’m all
yours,” Brooks says. “Our finances were . . . intermingled. Just need to make
sure everything’s . . . separated.”

“You didn’t take care of that before you left?” There’s a
pout in her tone.

“I was getting ready to,” he says. “Just need to make some
phone calls and move some money around.”

The credit cards. He remembers.

I hope to God he’s planning to pay them off and not extract
every last dollar he can with cash advances. He should know better than to fuck
with the daughter of one of the most sought-after prosecuting attorneys in the
state of New York.

“Are you two through?” My voice startles me just as much as
it startles them, but I can’t stand here in tortured silence a minute longer.

Afton sucks in a hurried breath, spinning to face me, her
hand clutching the diamond necklace hanging from her neck. It’s in the shape of
an anchor, nearly identical to the one he gave me for my birthday last year. A
limited edition from Tiffany’s, only available that year.

While I was turning twenty-four, Brooks was fucking Afton.
Nice.

“Demi.” Brooks clears his throat, releasing his hand from
her lap.

Afton slides off his bed and stands.

Both of their faces are as pale as the moon shining outside
his hospital window.

Lifting the credit card statements, I shake them and smile.
“A hundred and seventy thousand dollars, Brooks. Really? And I thought you were
some financial planning guru. You sure as hell had better have these paid off
by the time you leave this hospital, or you’ll be hearing from Robert Rosewood.
You can be damn sure I’ll be pressing charges.”

Afton turns to Brooks, her brows contorted. She’s either
confused, or she’s refusing to accept this revelation as truth.

“And as for you,” I say to Afton. Her eyes fall to the
floor. She won’t look at me. “Thank you.”

Her gaze lifts.

“Thank you for saving me from marrying that pathetic fraud,”
I say. “And I mean it, Afton. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I would’ve been
miserable. And no one deserves to dedicate their life to a man who can’t keep
it in his pants.”

They say nothing, and I almost wish they’d speak up. My mind
is going a million miles an hour, and my heart hammers in my ears. I’m ready to
go rounds.

“Congratulations, by the way.” I slap a sarcastic smile on
my face. “A baby. That’s exciting.”

Afton brings her hand to her lower belly with slow
reluctance. Her mouth falls, like she’s seconds from thanking me, and then she
realizes I don’t mean it.

Brooks always said he didn’t want kids until he was
thirty-five. That was his magic number. The age when he was convinced he’d have
gotten “everything” out of his system—whatever that meant. I wonder if he
realizes how prohibitive parenting is? Being a dad is really going to cramp his
lifestyle, and I can almost guarantee that Afton will talk him into listing his
Porsche for sale before the end of the year. It’s not exactly family friendly.

Oh, well. Not my problem anymore.

I’m not sure how to make a graceful exit after all of this,
and their shocked stares and void eyes are starting to freak me out. This
entire exchange is as awkward for me as it is for them, so I do us all a favor
and turn to leave.

The hallway is silent, save for a few nurses making small
talk by the nurse’s station and the sound of monitors beeping when I pass
certain rooms. It’s business as usual out here.

Just another ordinary Saturday night.

By the time I reach the exit, the automatic doors part and a
burst of cool air hits my face. It’s cleansing, and my body shivers as I walk
the snow-tracked parking lot. A few loose snowflakes flurry around me. They’re
giant and wet when they land on my face, but I almost feel like one of them
now.

Weightless.

Free.