God, I’m such an idiot!
“I need to get him back, Marty,” I say to the hissing cat, laughing at my own foolishness as I rip off my clothes and scramble into the closet. “Do you think he’ll listen?”
That’s when doubt sets in. What if it’s too late? I mean, I love him, but what if I’ve let things go so far that Vincent no longer wants the love I have to offer?
“I’ll call Bee. She’ll know what to do.”
When I get through to my old friend it’s to the happy news that she’s already in the city, visiting her parents before they fly back to Chicago. She arrives twenty minutes later bearing a huge box of assorted donuts and a bottle of wine.
“Let’s hear it then, asshole,” she drawls, grabbing two glasses and shoving me down onto the sofa. “So you’ve finally realized—”
“Oh shut up! Like you have any room to judge me, Miss Pot. You almost killed yourself loving a man.”
Yeah, and I’d gone in the opposite direction, almost killing my heart in the hopes of not loving.
“Tell me everything,” she says quietly, taking my hand in hers and waiting in that same, patient way she’s always had with me, reminding me why I’d never been able to fully let her go.
I tell her everything, right from the beginning, to the very end of this morning when I’d found out that he’d bought the building I now live in, and by the time I’m done, even she’s wiping at her eyes.
“I’m gonna go to the bathroom while you go change and get ready to get your man back,” she says, rising with a grimace. “Swear to God, this kid your brother put in here is either growing like a giant or he’s an alien plant. I pee more than someone on Depends.”
I look down at what I’m wearing and flinch to see that in my excitement I’ve thrown on pink yoga pants and an orange tunic my mama had given me as a Christmas gag gift, a tradition in our family that means my closet is full of weird clothes and ugly shoes that even Gaga wouldn’t wear.
“You go pee. I’ll go burn these and get changed. Be careful if Marty’s in the bathroom. The little bastard scratches,” I warn, laughing when she clenches and gives the bathroom a hesitant look.
When I’m dressed, having dug out the same red skirt I’d been wearing the day I’d first met Vincent at the Met, I feel light and bubbly despite the nerves.
“Lord have mercy, girl, come on and get off the pot. Just think, this time next year we could both be married and giving my parents grandbabies,” I yell at the silent bathroom, fluffing my hair one last time.
“Oooor, you could both be dead and rotting in an unmarked grave where no one will ever find you.”
Chapter Thirty Eight
At the sound of that snidely amused voice I whip around, my blood freezing in pure terror when I see Eric Brennan standing in my doorway, his right hand pointing a gun straight at my heart.
My brain stutters out a belated alarm, urging instant flight when I see his cold smile and the slightly manic sheen lighting his eyes. He’s gonna kill me, has been waiting months, probably planning his next move for months, and—
The pause in my heart’s stuttering rhythm almost brings on hysteria when the total silence in the apartment finally penetrates the fog of fear gripping me and I realize that Bee, my pregnant soon-to-be sister-in-law, hasn’t made a sound.
I want to attack him in that moment, my terror forgotten, but I freeze, looking anywhere but the bathroom. Is it possible she’s hiding in there and he hasn’t seen her yet?
Probably not, given his lunacy, but if there’s even the smallest hope, I can’t betray her position—
“I already got to that whore, so you can start breathing again bitch.”
“Bee—”
“Is carrying your brother’s bastard. Yeah, I know,” he sneers, leveling those dead eyes at me. “I knocked her out in the bathroom before she could warn you. Now you and I are gonna play a little game. Move, bitch. I want you in the living room,” he snarls, stepping away from the door and waving the gun at me to get me moving.
Every step I take rattles my fear-soaked mind, making it impossible to think past the need to give in to the urge to bolt and just run for dear life before he goes totally nuts and just shoots me.
But I can’t, not if he’s telling the truth and Bee is indeed knocked out in my tiny bathroom.
“Eric—”
“Shut up! Just move.”
Okay. There’s no way to play this that can possibly get me out of this alive. I’m just hoping to get Bee out of this before he realizes that she’s still alive in the bathroom.