“Are you okay?” He lifts his head from the curve of my neck, looking down at me over the ridge of his nose.
I pat the side of his arm and force myself to smile. “Yep.”
Dr. Herring doesn’t stretch me out or fill me up the way Wilder did. He’s only big enough to irritate how well Wilder worshiped my body yesterday. Every thrust is not only a reminder that I asked for this, but that the man breathing in my ear isn’t him.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Lewis buttons up his shirt as I clean myself up. “I don’t mean to offend you, Megan, but you seem kind of off. Were you in a car accident or something? Those bruises on your thighs are bad.”
Pushing my skirt down my thighs, I smile. “No offense taken, and I’m sorry if you’re less than pleased with my performance today.” I rub at a kink in my neck. And I know I shouldn’t blur the fantasy with reality, but I admit, “I had a really strange weekend, and I’m not quite over it yet.”
He motions toward the just-desecrated massage table. “Do you want an alignment? It might help with any pain you’re feeling.”
I part my lips to decline, but my shoulders slump in surrender. “I would love that.”
We’re two blocks from the Ridge & Sons building when my cell phone rings. Something has come up and our plans have changed. “When you get here,” Lydia says. “Don’t get out of the truck. I’m coming to you.”
The sun has disappeared behind a thick sheet of cloud cover, and rain pours over the city. My driver has the radio volume on low. A quiet hum of guitar strings and piano keys plays under the pelting atop the roof. The windshield wipers swing from side to side, clearing away the rainwater only long enough for the wipers to come through again.
Talent opens the vehicle door, and the noises of the storm and the city wash away the sounds of music. He holds the umbrella over Lydia, leaving his suit at the mercy of the rainstorm. Tiny drops of water bead on top of his shoulders and a curl falls loose across his forehead.
Lydia slides into the seat next to me, insisting that Talent take the umbrella back to the office. But he shakes it out, folds it up, and throws it at her feet. She leans out to kiss him, unbothered by the downpour ruining her hair and makeup.
“Be careful,” he says against her lips. Talent holds his thumb to his ear and his pinky finger to his mouth like a phone as we drive away. He stands in the rain until we turn the corner.
Still buzzing from my spinal adjustment, I lean my head back and close my eyes, hypnotized by the vibrations of the rain. Lydia doesn’t tell me where we’re going or what we’re doing, but after the weekend we suffered through, I don’t care. I trust her.
“Wilder wasn’t in the office today,” Lydia says. My heart jumps at the sound of his name, and I open my eyes, keeping them straight ahead. “I assume he’s the reason why you weren’t going to come by the office today. He has business to handle for the firm and will be back before Thanksgiving.”
Thanksgiving is in a week.
It may as well be a decade.
“I wanted to have this conversation with you in my office.” Lydia retrieves a makeup compact from her clutch and flips it open to check her eye makeup. “You’re not a stupid girl, Camilla. I wish I had it in me to let you down softly, because if anyone deserves that, it’s you. But I’m not like Talent. I’m not the one to talk you off of the ledge like he did this morning.” She snaps the compact closed. “I’m a realist, and we’re fucked.”
I push myself up to sit straight. The city moves past the windows in streaks of blues and grays, blurred by the rain. Our driver watches the road, seemingly oblivious to our conversation. But he’s listening to every word, which leads me to believe he’s already been briefed.
“I didn’t want Hush, Camilla,” Lydia continues with a bite in her tone. “But it’s mine, and it’s my responsibility to protect it, like Inez protected me with her dying breath. So, this is me asking you to choose. God knows I’ve spent months trying to push you away, but now that you’ve seen what we’re up against, maybe you’re ready to listen. This doesn’t have to be your life. If you decide to go, we’ll do everything we can to make sure you have a wonderful, safe existence away from Grand Haven.”
“Why are you saying this?” I ask in a small voice.
“Because if you don’t try, you’ll never know what you can become. Away from your family. Away from us.” She doesn’t look at me directly, but her hazel eyes shift to my hands. “Because you’re lighting yourself on fire to keep out the dark, but you are the light. You’ve become this amazing bright spot in all of our lives. And I have no idea why the journey here has been so hard for all of us, but I believe now that everything happens for a reason. Someone or something brought us together.”
“I don’t choose to go, Lydia.” My chin quivers and my eyes fill with tears. “Please, don’t make me.”
With the half-smile reserved just for me, Lydia turns to me and says, “I won’t, but I had to try.”
The SUV comes to a slow stop in front of Golden Gate Glass, one of a few locations from the one-stop custom glass expert and glass repair chain in the Bay Area. The owner isn’t on my client roster, but he pays for dates with some of Lydia’s girls from time to time. Lydia unbuckles her seat belt and steps into the storm.
“Did you break a window?” I scoot out the door to follow.
“Nope.” She turns her face toward the sky, smiling as the rain smears her mascara and soaks her hair. “But if I’m going to be the queen of everything, there’s no better time to start than now.”
Lydia reaches into her coat pocket, and with a quick flick of her wrist, an expandable baton retracts into formation like a sword. She carries it at her side, tucked against her body until we enter the glass shop. Different size windows, sliding glass doors, and car windshields hang in display around the showroom like a glass castle. A fifty-something-year-old man sits on a stool behind a glass counter, and he stands to his feet upon our arrival.
Pointing the baton at him from across the room, Lydia says, “Did you think you could put your hands on one of my girls and get away with it?”
He holds his arms up in surrender like this is a stickup. “I can explain.”
“No explanation necessary.” Lydia steps up to a display of kitchen windows and swings the baton like a bat, shattering them one at a time.
