Crouching down in front of the five siblings, I gave Damien a tight smile. “Hey, little dude.” I bumped fists with the eight-year-old. “Maybe you can sit on Arella’s lap for a little while so I can take your sister for a walk?”
He nodded and jumped down. The movement didn’t even budge Nevaeh. She still sat there, staring at nothing, her eyes unblinking behind her glasses. Heavenleigh and Bliss shook their heads at me.
“It’s like she’s a statue,” Bliss murmured quietly. “She’s seriously starting to freak me out.”
I took both of Nevaeh’s hands in mine. Feeling how cold her fingers were, I started rubbing them. “Hey there, Kitten.”
She jerked at my special name for her. Her head moved, and she finally blinked, focusing on her surroundings. Shifting her gaze from left to right, she took in the room and all her relatives. Then she looked down at me, and heat filled those blue-gray depths.
“No,” she bit out between clenched teeth, and my heart dropped into my stomach. “I don’t want you here.”
It was my turn to jerk, her words like a physical blow directly to my solar plexus. When she tried to pull her hands from mine, I tightened my hold. “Kitten—”
“I said no!” she screamed and jumped to her feet, forcing her hands from mine. “Get the hell out of here. I don’t want to see your lying face. Not now, not ever.”
Everyone in the room seemed to move in around us, but they didn’t intervene. I stood, trying to reach for her, but she slapped my hands away as two huge tears fell from her eyes. Seeing her tears, I felt my own eyes begin to sting. “Baby, I’m so sorry you had to fly here on your own. If I’d known what was going on, I would have been with you, I swear.”
“I’m glad you weren’t with me,” she spat, pure venom in her words. “Why would I want a cheater like you anywhere near me?”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded, reaching for her again. “You’re out of it, Nev. Baby, you’re just in shock. Come here. Let me hold you.”
“Stay the hell away from me,” she raged. “Don’t touch me. Don’t even speak to me. Ever.”
She shoved me, and I was so surprised, I actually took a step back just as she moved away from me and ran toward the door. But before she could open it, a man in sweat-soaked scrubs and a surgical cap walked in. She stopped when he glanced around the room. Her eyes were huge and full of fear when she looked at him, as if she thought he was the grim reaper or something.
“Mrs. Stevenson?” the doctor called out, and Lana practically sprinted to him.
He took her hands in both of his and gave her a reassuring smile. “Everything went beautifully. I couldn’t have asked for a better surgery. He came through it with no complications. And as long as he remains stable, you can see him in about an hour.”
Everyone in the room collectively released their held breaths. I saw Nevaeh begin to sway, and I rushed toward her, my arms going around her as her eyes completely lost focus and she fell against me, unconscious. I lifted her into my arms easily.
Lana and Emmie appeared on either side of me while the doctor checked the pulse at her wrist. “She’s okay,” he said after a tense moment. “I think the relief of getting good news just messed with her blood pressure a bit.”
Even as he spoke, Nevaeh moaned in my arms. I kissed her brow, and she opened her eyes. For a fraction of a second, she frowned. “What happened?” she whispered.
“Honey, you passed out.” Lana tenderly brushed her daughter’s hair back from her face. “But we got good news. Daddy is going to be okay.”
Her face lit up, then crumpled when she looked at me. “Let go of me,” she seethed.
“Not happening,” I told her calmly.
“Wanna bet?” She lifted her head and looked for someone over my shoulder. “Luca. Lyric. Make him put me down.”
The two identical beast-like eighteen-year-olds stood without question and marched toward me. I only tightened my hold on Nevaeh. I didn’t want to fight anyone during this emotional family moment, but I would kick both their asses if they tried to take her from me.
“Whoa there, killers,” Emmie said, cutting off the twins before they could get to me. I wasn’t surprised they stopped in their tracks. I was pretty sure she could have told a charging bull to stop and it would listen to her. “Back to your seats,” she commanded. “And, Luca? Try to get Violet to drink something. She hasn’t had anything since Harper went to sit with Shane.”
He nodded as the two of them both returned to their seats. Picking up Violet’s hand, he murmured something to her, and she gave a weak nod. He passed her a bottle of water, which she put to her lips and took a small sip.
Emmie turned her focus on Nevaeh next. “Sweetheart, you have been like a zombie from the moment you got here. We all understand that, but you aren’t making any sense right now. If something is wrong, you have to tell me so I can make it all better. Okay?”
“What’s there not to make sense of?” she demanded, her beautiful face a mask of anger and hurt, making it impossible for me to draw a deep enough breath. When she hurt, I hurt. I wanted to make it all go away, but she was pissed as hell at me. “Braxton’s fiancée showed up at the house with their wedding invitation. An invitation your daughter helped him pick out.”
Ah fuck.
I didn’t know how or when she’d found out about the invitation, but I knew I needed to start explaining. If she would listen. My promise not to keep anything from her was broken, but I had to get her to hear me out.
“Kitten,” I began. “It’s not what you think. I’m not marrying her.”
She snorted and struggled in my arms, but I held on to her easily, refusing to let her go, terrified if she did get out of my arms somehow, I would never get her back into them. “Maybe you should tell that to Darcy, then.”
“He isn’t,” Emmie tried to tell her. “I’ve been helping him sort out the publicity side of everything for the past few weeks. I promise you, Nevaeh, he is not marrying Darcy Hamilton.”
The fight suddenly drained out of her, and that scared me more than when she was struggling to get away. She was giving up, blocking me out. I could practically feel the walls slamming down between us, blocking me from her and her heart. “Whatever. I don’t even care right now. I just want to be away from him.”
Chapter 19
Nevaeh
T he numbness I’d felt since getting on the plane earlier was gone now. I wanted it back. All the emotions that were running riot through me were causing the mother of all headaches, and I wanted to turn them off.
I wanted to feel nothing, think nothing…be nothing.
It was too much. Daddy’s emergency surgery and finding out my boyfriend planned on marrying someone else, that he’d even picked out their damn wedding invitations, broke something in me. I lost Braxton, and then there was the very large possibility that I could lose my dad…and it hurt so damn badly that I couldn’t think. The moment Darcy handed me that wedding invitation, part of me shattered.
I blocked out everything. My senses shut off, and for a while, I couldn’t hear, see, feel, taste, or even smell anything. I was just floating somewhere in my head. It was dark there, but quiet and oddly peaceful. There was no lying, cheating boyfriend. My dad wasn’t sick or possibly dying. Nothing could touch or hurt me.
Then I heard it.
Kitten.
So tenderly spoken, with love and kindness. The complete opposite of the man he’d been hiding from me—along with his fiancée and all the other lies he’d fed me. How could I have been so wrong about him? How could I have been so stupid as to trust him?
Whatever spell I’d cast over myself broke, and it all came flooding back with a vengeance.
Feeling someone shift beside me, I slowly turned my head. It was only Arella readjusting Damien on her lap. He was eight and already getting tall, but we all babied him and he didn’t mind letting us. On the other side of Arella sat Jordan Moreitti, and I honestly didn’t know when he’d arrived. I didn’t know when anyone had shown up or if they had been there already when I’d gotten there. I didn’t remember anything after taking my seat on the plane earlier.
On my other side, sat Bliss and Heavenleigh. I was thankful they surrounded me. That meant Braxton couldn’t get close.
He hadn’t left. I could feel his eyes on me, and despite refusing to look his way, I knew exactly where he was in the room. He was sitting in a chair in a corner, Mia’s brother Jagger beside him. That was where he’d been since Aunt Emmie had told him to put me down. Something he hadn’t done right away. It took her using her fire-breather voice before he carried me to the chair I was in presently and then took his current seat on the opposite side of the room from me.
That had been over an hour ago. Mom had been escorted back to see Daddy just a few minutes before, promising us all that she would tell him we loved him. I understood why only one person was allowed back to see him for now, but I wanted to go with her. Needed to see with my own eyes that the doctor hadn’t been lying. That he was really okay. Breathing.