“I understand.”
“Do you?” I can’t stand the pain in her eyes. She looks betrayed. Hell, I don’t blame her at all.
“I was going to tell you today, I swear. At lunch, my plan was to tell you everything.”
“Ha!” Lexi’s cackling like a lunatic. “Suuuuuure, hot guy. That was your plan. But then I conveniently showed up, thus getting you out of your planned confession?”
I decide it’s best to ignore her.
“I was going to tell you that I’d looked into your background. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I wanted to know everything about you. I wanted to prepare myself so when I finally had my chance with you, I’d give you what you needed.”
Her voice wavers, and her face tells me she’s halfway between weirded out and intrigued. “Tell me about the wife.”
I take in a deep breath and let it out again, slowly. “As I said in my text, the marriage is invalid. We met ten years ago. We were young and I was naïve. She was a con artist. I thought we fell in love. We got married in France, at my family home, and it wasn’t until she cleared out my bank account and took off with everything that I knew she’d been married four times to four other men.”
Lexi sneers. “Just like what happened to me with Tom? Well, minus the money part. Still, I don’t think so.” She’s written me off, but Miranda holds my gaze, giving me hope. I press on. “Our marriage wasn’t valid even in France, let alone America. I did everything I could to hide it, since I wanted to start fresh in America.”
Miranda’s eyes soften a tiny fraction. “How do I know this to be true?”
“Look it up. It’s on record. Anyone who claims I’m still married is going on hearsay and not documented fact.”
“That’s what they all say,” Lexi mutters, but again I choose to ignore her.
“I’m telling you the truth, baby,” I say, my voice pleading, and I think Lexi sighs a little. “Everything I’ve done was for you.”
Miranda shakes her head from side to side. “I can’t… it’s too much, Gabriel. The intimacy we’ve shared in such a short time.” She bites her lip, her face pained. “It’s so hard for me to go back to that place of trusting you after this.”
“Yessiree,” Lexi mutters.
Right then, my phone rings. I glance quickly at the incoming call, perplexed. A call from California?
“California,” I say to Miranda. Then it dawns on me. “Could be your mom’s place?”
She blinks, then nods. I answer the call. “Hello?”
“May I speak with a Mr. Lord, please?”
“Speaking.”
I turn away from Miranda as I take the call. “Mr. Lord, you’re listed as the primary contact for one of our residents.”
“Yes. That’s correct. Is everything okay?”
“Yes, sir, everything’s okay for now. But we need to alert the daughters of Miss Montague.”
“They’re right here with me.” I have Lexi and Miranda’s eyes on me. I put the phone on speaker so they can hear what she’s saying.
“She’s had an accidental fall, Mr. Lord. It appears she’s had a stroke.”
I take in a deep breath and face the girls. “Is she stable?”
Miranda’s eyes widen, and Lexi covers her mouth with her hand.
“Yes. She’s been moved to the hospital and we’re running some tests now. But she’s lucid and she’s asking for her daughters.”
I nod. “We’ll be there this evening.”
I hang up the phone, and face both of them. “We’ll take my jet. I don’t care what you think about me or how you feel right now. We’re going to check on your mother.” They stare at me as I dial a second number.
“Yeah, boss?”
“We need a ride and the jet, Shane. We’re going back to California.”Chapter EighteenMiranda
As always, Gabriel does everything he can to help us. He brings us to his jet; his jet will take us to California. He’ll bring us to where we need to go, to see Mom, making sure every step of the way we’re taken care of.
But he’s a stalker! I protest internally. He’s obsessed!
But he’s a nice stalker, the other part of me counters. God! Is that a thing?
We’ll be with my mother only hours after we got the call. A totally impossible feat if it weren’t for Mr. Lord.
Mr. Lord, the God of making all my dreams come true.
Then crushing them with his lies. Not lies, my heart reminds me, just not telling the whole truth. But isn’t that the same thing? My brain is less forgiving, arguing back with, anything less than the whole truth is deception.
And deception is a lie.
I sneak a look at Gabriel from the corner of my eye. He sits across the aisle from me, only an arm’s length away, but he couldn’t feel farther. He catches my glimpse and gives me a hope-filled smile.
Gazing at him only reminds me of the things we’ve done on this plane. His hands on my body. His hot, greedy mouth between my thighs. The word daddy falling from my tongue, free and filthy. The afterglow of our lovemaking leaving me satisfied and fulfilled.