The Love He Craves (The Love She Craves: Selling Her Soul to Declan Book 2) (42 page)

Dorothea caught up with her as she waited for the next available conveyance. Nyxie neither spoke nor looked at her as they waited for the car to arrive. She prayed the elevator would be filled with people so she could delay whatever Dorothea felt she needed to say.

No such luck.

As soon as the doors cocooned them inside the escapeless and possibly shrinking box, Dorothea opened her mouth.

"You know you don't have to eat what Declan tells you to."

Nyxie cast a quick sideways glance at her. "I know."

"He won't know the difference. I'm sure as heck not going to tell him."

Nyxie stared at the display above the door, watching as the digital numbers descended in value.

"If I can’t get what he told me to eat,
I
will tell him."

Dorothea made a tsk of disapproval. "Or you could fib.”

"Of course I could, but I won't. Declan is trying to teach me to eat healthier. He wants me to consume the eggs for protein and the spinach and watermelon because my iron is low. He asks me to eat whole eggs and drink whole milk because he knows I'm underweight and I need the calories. I appreciate that he cares about my health and wants me to learn something I should probably already know."

Although it was partially true, Nyxie suspected his mother could probably detect the BS in her statement.

Nyxie refused to look at her, but suspected the woman's lips were pursed as tightly as a cat's asshole. That thought made Nyxie fight a little smile.

"In your first year or two of marriage, you are setting the groundwork for how you will treat each other the rest of your lives. You need to stand up for yourself and let him know you are an equal partner in your marriage."

"I'm happier than I've been in my whole life. Why would I risk that by making demands that don't matter to me? You're not the one married to him, I am."

Out of the corner of her eye, Nyxie could see her shaking her head as she made a closed-mouth huff.

Nyxie’s arms crossed over her rib cage and she took a small step closer to the doors. The elevator stopped one story too early and people stepped on, keeping Dorothea from saying more.

Declan had to have known when his mother wanted her to go to the cafeteria with her, that she intended to confront her. Telling her what she should eat only made matters worse.

Stupid jerk.

As soon as the elevator landed on the correct floor, Nyxie stepped out and began following the signs to the cafeteria. Major made no effort to keep up. Nyxie had the urge to try to lose her and head back to the RV alone, but decided running from her problems wouldn't solve anything. Declan wouldn't like it if she didn't stand up for herself. She stopped and waited for Dorothea to catch up.

"I don't like confrontations," Nyxie said. "I'm stressed enough with Declan being in the hospital without you adding to it."

"I'm just trying to understand what the heck is going on. Declan wasn't raised to hit women or to be the kind of man who would be so controlling."

Nyxie thought about demanding to know what she knew about the way he was raised since she left his formative years to her parents. But she knew that would just add to the conflict.

"I can't explain to you something I don't understand myself. But Declan and I love each other and this is the dynamic that works for us."

"That's what works for you, him bullying and beating you and you kowtowing to his every whim?"

"It's not like that," Nyxie protested as they arrived at the open double doors to the cafeteria. With the sweep of her hand, Nyxie allowed the older woman to enter first. By tacit agreement, they fell into silence as they lined up behind others.

As the line progressed, Dorothea selected dried wheat toast and coffee from the prepared food. Nyxie asked the first employee she saw if she could have an omelet made. They didn't do that since the budget cuts, the woman said. Nyxie asked if they had a salad bar, thinking if she could get spinach greens with boiled eggs there, it would practically be the same thing. The woman said, it would not be stocked until 10:30.

Nyxie pulled out her phone and googled high iron foods and began looking for anything on the list of foods. Were pork products considered red meats? She didn’t think so and people were in line behind her, compelling her to keep moving. She was so intent on finding something on her list, she walked right by the eggs. They had no nuts or seeds, no dark green leafy veggies, no dried apricots or raisins, no watermelon. God. She ended up with a glass of milk, a bottle of veggie juice, and a bowl of granola, hoping it was fortified like kids' cereal. Had she not been so distracted by her lack of food choices, she might have had the presence of mind to offer to pay for Dorothea's breakfast, but Dorothea pulled out a twenty and told the cashier she'd pay for both meals.

Dorothea led Nyxie to an empty table in the corner away from the other diners.

Nyxie couldn't help but frown at her food. She had no idea if anything besides the milk had proteins and doubted if she had gotten more than a microbe of iron. Declan better not give her hell about it, or in her present mood, she'd give him hell back.

"Are you going to be in trouble for not eating what he told you?"

Nyxie looked up and met her mother-in-law's critical expression.

"No, I don't think so," she answered, shaking her head. "It's not as if I intentionally defied him."

"But he'll ask?"

"Probably."

"Why don't you just lie. It's not as if he'd know."

Although Dorothea was not smiling, Nyxie sensed a smugness in her tone and realized Declan's mother was pleased that Nyxie could not comply with his wishes.

"I've promised to be honest."

Dorothea rolled her eyes reflexively, but Nyxie saw it. "Are you trying to see what he would do if I defy him? Are you trying to figure out if he'll punish me for it?"

"
Punish you
? Is that what you call it? Beat you is what they called it in my day. You don't have to worry. He won't be laying a hand on you in front of us."

Nyxie almost smiled at the prospect of Major or Coach getting between Declan and her.

"It's not like that. Trust me, I may not have my head wrapped around what it is, but I have witnessed spousal abuse and this ain't it. Everything he does to me is consensual. If I tell him to stop, he will."

Milk dribbled down the side of the glass onto the table as Nyxie poured half of it into her granola and began mixing it with her spoon. She took her napkin and dried the table and the side of the wavy-sided glass.

"I don't know if you're lying to me or to yourself. Your backside tells a different story. Those bruises were in different stages of healing so I know this wasn't a one-time thing."

Dorothea bit off the corner of her toast and chewed it a few times before washing it down with a sip of black coffee.

"Frankly, Mrs. Stryker, it's none of your business."

The alarm on Nyxie's phone went off, reminding her to take her vitamins. She pulled the sizable plastic bottle out of her purse, and swallowed the large pill with a swig of V-8. When the juice made her mouth burn, she took a longer look at the label. Her brows knitted as she realized she had accidentally grabbed the spicy variety. She put the lid back on it and set it aside, hoping it didn't upset her stomach. This conversation was enough to make her stomach roil with acid without the added heat.

As Nyxie reached for the vitamin bottle to put it back in her purse, Dorothea's hand shot out and turned the bottle so she could read the label, making the older woman gasp.

"Prenatal vitamins? Are you trying to get pregnant?"

"That's not why I'm taking them. Emily did my blood work and gave it to me before I ever slept with Declan."

Dorothea relaxed back into her seat. "So you're definitely not trying to have a baby?"

"Maybe you should talk to Declan about that," Nyxie said evasively, making Dorothea look angry.

As she put the plastic bottle back in her purse, the rattle of pills reminded her that she was almost out. She picked up her phone and sent off a text to Emily to ask if she needed a prescription to get more.

"I'm sorry," she said when she noticed the look of irritation on Dorothea's face. "I know that was rude but I'm almost out, and if I don't take care of these things when I think of them, I'll forget."

Nyxie took a bite of her cereal, hoping to get breakfast over with, so she could return to the room where Declan would be a barrier between his mother and her.

Her phone rang and Nyxie thought about sending it to voicemail, but saw it was Emily calling. With a mumbled apology to her eating companion, Nyxie answered the call.

"Hey, you didn't have to call me back," she said.

"I wanted to get an update on Declan. I heard he had an accident and Dr. Patel was calling in favors to make sure he had the best care. What happened?"

"He took me mountain climbing. While he was getting the equipment ready, I decided to climb up a little ways. I was only going to go up fifteen or twenty feet. It was so stupid. I should've listened. He told me to slow down. He told me to be careful, but I stepped on a rock and it came loose and hit him right in the face."

Nyxie's voice cracked several times as the memory brought out all the fear and guilt she had been going through.

"But he's okay, right?"

"Yeah, the doctor doesn't think he'll lose his sight but when I think what I could have done."

Nyxie closed her eyes and shifted her weight so she could feel the bruises on her bottom. She needed the pain as much to punish herself as to feel Declan's love.

"Some honeymoon," Emily said.

"And if that wasn't bad enough, my period started yesterday."

Nyxie felt a blush spread across her face as she remembered his mother was sitting across from her. It wasn’t as if she didn’t already know after she had grabbed her purse on the way to the bathroom earlier. "Emily, may I ask you a question? I kind of feel dumb asking you this, but I don't really have anyone else to ask. My mother was gone before I got my period. And since you're a doctor, I didn't figure you would laugh at me."

"Even if I weren’t a doctor, I wouldn't laugh."

Nyxie's face burned even hotter and she looked down at her hands. She lowered her voice and turned her head toward the wall. "How do you use a tampon? I've looked on the back of the box of every brand and none of them say. I probably could've figured it out, but I didn't want to waste money if I couldn't," she said quickly in one breath.

"Not a stupid question at all, Nyxie, but they have instructions inside if I don't explain it well enough."

Nyxie's free hand came up and shielded her eyes as she listened to Emily's explanation, trying to picture what she was saying. Her face burned so hot with embarrassment, that she could feel sweat prickling at her pores.

With a word of thanks, Nyxie hung up with Emily and put her phone away.

"You could've asked me," Dorothea said.

"It's not really the kind of thing one asks her mother-in-law."

Dorothea's eyebrows strained against the Botox to lift slightly.

"No, I suppose it's not," she said. "May I ask you about what happened to your mother?"

Pressing back into the chair's cushions, Nyxie tried to figure out how to avoid answering but couldn't think of anything to say other than a whitewashed version of the truth.

"My father said she ran off with a truck driver."

"By the way you phrased that, I take it you don't believe it."

Nyxie realized Declan must've inherited his intelligence from his mother. Most people would not have had the intuition to realize she did not believe her father's version of the events.

"No."

Nyxie crossed her arms over her ribcage, not elaborating on what she believed. Dorothea seemed like the type of person who would store the information away and use it against her sometime in the future. But if Major hoped to use it to end her marriage to Declan, Nyxie didn't think she would be effective. Declan already knew.

"Why would he lie…? Unless…. Do you think your father killed her?"

Nyxie could not open her mouth to answer and only nodded her head in response.

"Was your father abusive?" Nyxie’s head bobbed in the tiniest of nods. "Did they fight before she disappeared?" She nodded again. "Maybe they fought because she was leaving him," Dorothea speculated.

Not knowing how small their home was, Dorothea could not fathom that unless she had slept through it, Nyxie could not escape from hearing every word—even if she had remained cloistered away in the safety of the closet.

"No, they fought over Momma getting the electricity turned back on. He wanted to know where she had gotten the money. Why would she waste that kind of money on us if she planned on leaving?"

"Maybe that was her way of taking care of you before she left."

Nyxie thought on that for a moment. If her mother had left of her own accord, it was not planned. She would have left in fear for her life. "She would've taken Cody."