Ruin Me (47 page)

“Don’t get me wrong,” he says, “I’m all for worrying about Mandy Black. I was born to worry about Mandy Black. I’m more worried about you.”

“What about me?”

He sighs and leans forward in the booth. “You’re a little…
obsessed
.”

“I’ve come this far, Shawn,” I say. “I can’t drop the bet now.”

“I’m not talking about the bet, man.”

I blink. “Then what are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Piper Lynch.”

“Piper Lynch?” I roll my eyes. “I’m not obsessed with Piper Lynch. I’m obsessed with what’s between her legs, but I’m not obsessed with her.”

“I honestly don’t see a difference at this point,” he says, shaking his head. “We should just drop the bet. I’ll even let you keep your car. Twenty-two out of twenty-three ain’t bad.”

“Shawn…” I rest my elbows on the table and interlock my fingers together in front of my face. “I need this.”

“No, what you
need
is therapy.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Are you
sure
this is just about the bet, Kai?” he asks. “Are you
sure
this has nothing to do with Piper Lynch?”

“Of course, Shawn. I have a legacy and a reputation to uphold.”

“I’m literally the only person that knows about this bet,” he chuckles. “Trust me, your reputation will be fine.”

I sigh. “Come on, man…”

“Okay. Admit that you have a thing for your stepsister and we’ll go.” Shawn grins and sits back in his seat.

I stare across the table at him with a flexed jaw. “No,” I say. “I do not have a
thing
for Piper.”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “Dude…”

“I don’t!”

“Fine.” He crosses his arms. “I hear Stewart Ryan is having an end of summer party this weekend. Wanna go?”

I exhale through my nose and bite into my lip. “Okay,” I say.

“Okay, what?”

“Okay,”
I say it again.

He smiles. “Was that so hard?”

***

“Excuse me—” I wave at the nurse behind the counter. “I’m looking for Piper Lynch. She was just brought here—”

“Je serai avec vous, monsieur.”

I growl with frustration. “Fuck.” I look at Mandy. “You don’t speak any French, do you?”

“Umm…” she thinks.
“Voulez vous coucher avec moi—”

“That’s a
no
.”

My instincts scream at me, telling me to ask Piper, but I can’t because she’s already here. She’s not standing next to me like she should be. No, she’s lying in a bed somewhere in this fucking place, connected to machines for all I know. I’d give anything to hear her voice right now. Her deep, femme fatale voice sounds ridiculously sexy when she speaks French.

“Kai!”

I turn around and see Shawn at the end of the hall. Mandy and I bolt away from the counter and rush towards him, ignoring the foreign cries of the nurse behind the desk.

Shawn appears distraught and panicked, a look I’ve never in my life seen on him in the decade or so we’ve been friends. “She’s in there,” Shawn says, pointing to a doorway down the hall. “A doctor is with her now.”

I swallow hard, frozen in place. “Is she okay?” I ask him.

“Yeah, I think so. It happened so fast…” His voice tapers off and he takes a breath.

“You were with her?” Mandy asks him.

He nods. “We were on our way to a hotel when she suddenly just passed out.”

“A
hotel
?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, she wasn’t bunking up with either of
you
tonight,” he says, his eyes silently judging both of us.

Oddly, the blow up on the train seems so distant now in my memory, like it never even happened. “I’m happy you were with her, Shawn,” I say.

“Me, too,” he says.

“Thank you.”

“Yeah…” Mandy steps a little closer, her eyes soft on him. “Thank you, Shawn.”

His face turns red.

I glance over his shoulder to see a doctor exiting her room. I step around Shawn and stop in front of him. “Excuse me, doctor—”

He looks up from his chart. “Hello,” he answers, his voice thick with accent.

“Oh, good. You speak English…”

He nods. “One of the only physicians here today that does.” He pulls a pen from his coat and scribbles a few notes onto the chart.

I point to the doorway. “I’m with her — Piper Lynch.”

“Are you family?” he asks.

“Yes, she’s my sister. What happened? Is she okay?”

“Stress and exhaustion, mostly,” he explains. “Little bump on the head from when she fell, but she’s fine.”

I peek around him, but I can’t bring myself to look into the room. “Is the…” I hesitate. “She was…”

“Pregnant?” he asks.

I nod. “Yeah…” I understand now why the P-word made Piper feel so uncomfortable. It’s surreal to hear it so bluntly, especially from a total stranger.

“Fortunately, mother and baby are both fine,” he says, “but she should take it easy for a while.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. “Okay.”

Mother and baby.

“Is he the father?” he asks, gesturing behind me at Shawn.

“No, I am.” He raises an eyebrow at me and I stumble over my tongue. “She’s my
step
sister,” I explain.

The doctor nods with an awkward smile. “All right, then.”

“Come on, dude,” I say. “You’re
French.
”

He stuffs his pen back inside his coat, his lips curling to the side. “You can go on in. She just signed her discharge form, so you can take her home whenever she’s ready.”

“Thanks, doc.” He walks away and I turn back around to the others. Shawn stands with his arm wrapped around Mandy’s shoulders and she clings to him with a nervous face. “He says she’s fine,” I say to them.

Mandy sighs. “
Completely
fine?” she hints.

“Completely fine. She can go home.”

“If she even wants to,” Shawn says. “I’m just saying, she wasn’t too happy.”

I run my fingers through my hair as a nervous dread plagues my guts.

“Do you want me to talk to her?” Mandy asks.

I shake my head. “No, I’ll go first.” My eyes fall back to the open doorway. “I just need a minute…”

No, I am,
I told the doctor.

I’m the father.

I said it without a second thought. It felt like that same instinctual urge I felt before. Suddenly, my own shoes feel strange, like I just took them out of the box and haven’t worn them in yet. Or maybe I have it backwards. Maybe the shoes are the same, but it’s me that’s changed.

I step towards the doorway and look inside. Piper lies on the bed in a hospital gown, thin and white as her own skin. Her black hair sits bunched up on her right side, falling down along her shoulder while a small bandage rests on the left side of her forehead. She stares at her hands in her lap, oblivious to the world around her. For a blissful second, I’m happy she doesn’t see me watching her. I could stand in this moment forever if I could.

I reach out and knock on the open door.

Chapter 45

Piper

The old mattress quakes beneath us, squeaking with each thrust Kai gives me. The moonlight floods through the window and I fill my lungs with the sweet scent of the Spanish countryside. His rhythm is slow and smooth, unlike anything we’ve done before. It’s intense and wild. The bewitching pleasure radiates throughout my body, rolling me ever so close to that perfect edge. I look into his eyes, dark and brown, and he smiles before giving me a soft kiss.

Kai Casablancas isn’t fucking me right now.

He’s making love to me.

It’s a sudden thought, molded together by cosmic dust and maybe a little bit of dark matter. I embrace it at first, clinging to the eternal comfort of it all, but I can’t keep hold of it for very long.

I should never have let him follow me to London.

A cold shiver travels throughout my body until it finally settles in my brain. This isn’t right. This shouldn’t be happening right now. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I was supposed to be alone, enjoying my freedom for the first time in my life. I was supposed to be hooking up with random strangers, having the time of my life, not caring about anything that I was forced to care about back home.

Instead, it’s Kai Casablancas in my bed.

What the fuck am I doing?

“Piper?”

I snap out of the trance. “Kai?”

“What’s wrong?” His lips curl into a delicious smile.

I want so much to ignore my thoughts and kiss his sweet lips, but I can’t do that anymore.

Kai, I’m so sorry.

***

My breath catches in my throat. “Hey…” I look up at Kai’s eyes across the small room. They’re so full of concern and worry, it throws me off guard a little. “You got here fast…” I chuckle.

He steps forward. “Of course, I did,” he says. He grabs a chair and pulls it closer to the bed.

I run a few fingers through my hair, suddenly very nervous about my appearance. I’ve never felt quite as self-conscious before in my life. It’s embarrassing to wake up in the hospital and make everyone rush to your side. I can’t stop thinking about how ugly I must look.

“You feeling okay?” he asks as he sits down. He begins to reach out to me, but he quickly changes his mind and forces his hands into his lap.

“Yeah,” I nod. “Little nauseous, though.”

“I guess it wasn’t the best idea to bring you here immediately after finals week,” he jokes. “Probably should have waited a little while…”

“Maybe,” I shrug. Silence falls between us, but his eyes speak volumes. He stares at me like a frail porcelain doll, as if I’m about to topple over at any moment and shatter the rest of my face.

“How’s your head?” he asks, pointing to his own left temple.

“Oh—” I reach for the bandage and touch the forgotten bruise a little too hard. I wince in fresh pain. “Ouch…” I say.

“Careful,” he says with a short smile.

“It’s fine — just stings a little.”

It’s frustrating to feel so weak. I’m Piper
fucking
Lynch, for god’s sake. I take care of myself. I lay down to no one. I’ve been called many things, but
weak
isn’t one of them. And yet, here I am, lying in a hospital bed after passing out on the street like a damned damsel in distress. Exhaustion? Stress? They’ve never given me any issue before, but all of a sudden—

“Piper,” he finally whispers. “I am so sorry.”

I look at my pale hands, my eyes locked on my chipped thumbnail. “Kai, you don’t have to do this right now—”

“I want to.” He leans forward in the chair. “If I don’t, it’ll eat me up inside.”

I nod. “Okay.”

“I’m an asshole,” he says. “I said some pretty shitty things to you.”

“You meant every word of it, Kai,” I say. “You were just being honest—”

“I did. I’ll admit, there was a whole lot of truth to it,” he says, “but that doesn’t give me the right to say it out loud. Especially when you’ve done nothing to deserve it.”

“But you weren’t wrong…” I say. “I should have come to you first, but… I was so worried about your reaction that I just didn’t think.”

“You were right to worry.” He pauses and sits back. “It was pretty obvious how I’d react.”

“I wasn’t reacting to it very well either,” I say. “I guess I’ve been in denial about it. I didn’t want it to be true.”

He nods. “I’m really sorry, Piper.”

“So am I,” I say. I look into his big brown eyes. I wish the old Kai would look back at me. I want that laid back, carefree kid that made me fall in love with him all those years ago, but I know he’s outgrown it. “But I think,” I continue, “maybe we really shouldn’t be together anymore.”