Arranged love

EMILEE

I SIT AT my father’s desk. Leaning back in the chair, I have my Jimmy Choo ombre Tartini Swarovski Crystal heels up on the surface. They’re my favorite. My mother gave them to me for my birthday a couple of years back. I felt they were fitting to wear to her funeral today. Their divorce papers and my mother’s marriage license to George in my hands.

They were fucking married! I can’t comprehend it. I can’t figure out what I missed. I never saw them flirt or even speak. George was over a lot-in this very room-but my mother never ventured in here. This was my father’s space. We spent holidays, birthdays, and vacations with him when I was growing up.

She never smiled at George. Never even looked his way. So why marry him? When did they fall in love? And why the urgency to move so fast? Maybe because of her diagnosis?

I’ll never get those answers. Not now. She’s dead. George is gone. The house is hauntingly silent. It mocks me. Memories I had inside of these walls were nothing but lies. But it makes me think … Did my father have someone? Was he seeing someone behind my mother’s back too? Maybe he was married to someone else. I had gone online and checked. Nevada has public records, but I couldn’t find anything regarding his remarrying. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t go to another state to do it.

I throw the papers onto the desk and grab the fifty-year-old scotch my father kept in his office. He would only drink from it on special occasions. Removing the glass top, I pour it into a tumbler and throw it back. Opening my mouth, I suck in a breath, my mouth burning from the alcohol. Seconds later, I take another.

“Emilee?” I hear Haven call out my name.

I don’t respond. Instead, I take another one and remind myself it’ll all be over soon. I bought a ticket back to Chicago. I leave at three p. m. tomorrow. And all this shit will be behind me.

It all started with one person-George Wilton. A sorry son of a bitch. A fucking coward. He won’t come after me. I have nothing to give him. He ended up with everything. He won.

“Emilee, I’ve been looking for you,” Haven announces as she enters the room.

I look over at her. She has her dark hair up in a tight twist. She wears a black dress that falls to her knees and black Jimmy Choos as well. It’s the dress she wore to my mother’s funeral earlier. Her amber eyes soften as she exhales and sits across from the desk.

“Why don’t you come home with me?” she continues. “Spend a few nights at my house? It’ll be like old times.”

My eyes drop to her wedding ring. “Nothing will ever be like it was,” I find myself saying.

She sighs. “Luca works a lot. All hours of the night. We can have a girls’ night. I’ll call up Jasmine, and we can-”

“No thanks,” I interrupt her, standing.

She stands as well. “You can’t do this to yourself.”

“Do what?”

“Close yourself off. It’s okay to need your friends, Em. I’m here for you. And so is Jasmine. And the Kings …”

I throw my head back, laughing. “Fuck the Kings.” They didn’t want to help me in the beginning, not like I wanted. Maybe if they had, my mother would still be alive. Maybe I’d have those three extra months the doctors promised me.Content property of NôvelDra/ma.Org.

“Emilee, please let me help you,” she begs, and her phone starts to ring in her Hermes clutch. Cursing, she digs through it and sighs when she looks down at the number. “Hello?” She turns her back to me. “I’m at Emilee’s,” she whispers. “I’ll be home soon.” She hangs up and turns back to face me. She opens her mouth to speak, but I continue.

“Go home to your husband, Haven. I don’t need you here.” Her face falls, and I look around the study aimlessly. “I see you’re here without your security detail. I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble.”

She lets out a huff, and she lifts her chin. “Now you’re just being a bitch.”

“Well, it’s not hard to do.” I lift the bottle and take a drink of it.

“You’re just trying to push me away, Emilee. I won’t …”

“Fucking leave!” I yell. “Jesus! Why can’t you all understand that I want to be left the fuck alone?”

She licks her bottom lip, and I see tears build in her eyes. Without saying another word, she walks out of the study, leaving me alone.

God, Titan was right. I’m a bitch. Grabbing the bottle, I throw it across the room. The glass shatters, and the scotch covers the wall, floor, and bookshelf. I fall into the chair and look at the papers one last time.

I want them gone. I’m leaving all this shit behind me tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean I have to leave it how I found it.

TITAN

My phone ringing has me waking up in the middle of the night. I blink, trying to adjust my eyes to the screen. “Hello?” I ask roughly and clear my throat.

“Titan. We have a problem.”

“What is it?” I sit, rubbing a hand down my face.

“It’s Emilee.”

“Is she okay?” I ask, jumping out of bed, now fully awake and picking up a pair of jeans off my floor.

“She’s fine.” He sighs. “But you need to come get her. And get in touch with Dr. Lane.” They hang up.

I can see the lights flashing from a mile away. The closer I get, the faster my heart beats. Cop cars line the street, along with fire trucks and ambulances. Flames roar into the dark night.

Pulling into the driveway, I slam it in park and yank on the emergency brake.

“Em?” I shout, running over to the back of the ambulance where she sits on a gurney. A black blanket is wrapped around her shoulders, and she has a mask over her mouth and nose.

What the fuck?

I go to jump up into the ambulance, but a hand grabs my upper arm, holding me up. “I need to speak to you for a second,” Jeffrey informs me. Nite stands beside him.

I look up at her and see the medics are still checking her out. Nodding, I turn and follow them both off to the side, out of earshot. “What in the fuck happened?” I ask Jeffrey. I know Nite isn’t going to answer me.

“I received a text from Nite. He informed me that my assistance was needed,” he begins. “He had removed her from the house, but he couldn’t put out the fire.”

“Jesus …”

“I guess when he found her, she was refusing to leave, but he didn’t give her a choice. He picked her up and carried her out.”

“Fuck!” I look at Nite. “Thank you.” I knew placing him as her detail was a good idea. Bones put two guys on the house, but I used him for her personally. Nite is the only guy I trust with this. We wanted to keep this as quiet as possible. The break-in. Her mother’s death. We don’t want it public knowledge.

Jeffrey steps closer to me and lowers his voice to a whisper, “I need to know what you want me to do here.”

My brows pull together at his words before I understand. He thinks the fire was intentional. And if so, she was the one who started it.

This is what she asked Bones and me to do, right? Start a fire and let George burn to death. Was George here?

I have to protect her. No matter what. “It was an accident,” I say.

He nods once. “I’ll be in touch.”

He goes to walk away, but I ask, “Was there anyone else in the house?”

Nite is the one who answers by shaking his head.

I run a hand through my hair and walk back over to the ambulance. She still sits in the same position. She has ash on her face and black marks on her arms and legs that the blanket isn’t covering. “I’m taking her home,” I state to the paramedics.

“Sir?”

“I’m taking her home,” I repeat with a growl.

“She needs medical attention,” the female says to me.

“And she will get it.” Dr. Lane is meeting me back at Kingdom. I called him the moment I got off the phone with Jeffrey.

“You want her to sign a waiver stating that she understands she is refusing medical attention?” she asks, verifying.

Emilee shrugs off the blanket and holds out her hand, silently complying to my demands.

Shaking her head in disbelief, the paramedic hands Em a clipboard that she signs and then starts to exit the ambulance. I hold out my hand, and she takes it. I help her over to my car and into the passenger seat.

By the time I’m over in the driver’s seat, she has her head back, eyes closed, and is softly snoring.