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“Stella Rose Mitchell.” Grams used her authoritative voice. “Go ground yourself right now.”
I knew what she meant. Whenever I felt overwhelmed as a child, Grams sent me to the water. I’d wash away my anxiety while reconnecting with the earth, with myself. It was a habit I’d held on to since childhood, but it felt a bit ridiculous to do it right then and there.
“I don’t have time for that right now,” I explained.
Grams shook her head, a few of her silver locks falling from her high bun. “If you don’t have time for yourself, then you don’t have time for anything. Now go, child.” She took my hands in hers and squeezed them lightly. “Go find your peace. The world will still be here when you return.”
3
Damian
* * *
Fuck me sideways, and call me Kevin Michaels’s little bitch because that was exactly what I’d become. A dead man’s little bitch. That ghost had me wrapped around his finger, and I hated him for it. I had a list of reasons I hated that man, but the latest reasons were loud in my mind.
When Joe pulled me to the side to talk, he gave me the one piece of knowledge that shifted my interest to take part in the absurd arrangement Kevin left in his will: my charity.
If I had millions of dollars, that meant that I could help millions of children growing up in the foster system. I could make a difference. I could help change the corrupt laws that often harmed more than helped the children in the foster programs.
I could open mental health clinics for those kids who struggled.
I could help make sure struggling teenagers never had to get as close to the darkness as I had grown.
That money meant shit to me, but it meant a whole lot to a lot of other people who I might have never met.
“Why do I feel like I missed a chapter of this story somehow? What do you mean you might be playing house with a stranger?” Connor asked over the phone line. After I stormed out of the house, I had to wait for my driver to show up to the property to take me home. So, of course, the first thing I did was call my best friend, Connor, to fill him in on the oddities of my life.
“What I mean is, next week, I’m supposed to get married to a woman I don’t even know in order to get answers about my past and to get a shit ton of money. Kevin wrote it that way in his will. It’s the only way I get the answers I need, and for Stella to get half of the inheritance. If we don’t get married for at least six months’ time, all of his wealth will be divided up between his ex-wives.”
“Jeez.” Connor sighed through the receiver. “I’m not easily thrown off by things, but this is insane.”
“You’re telling me.”
“And the family, this woman—what’s her name again?”
“Stella.”
“Stella’s okay with this?”
“Who knows? It’s a mess. The whole ceremony is set to take place at the property.”
“The place you’re supposed to live?”
“Yep. That’s right. I’m supposed to move in with a stranger by next Friday.”
“This is crazy, Damian. The whole situation is odd, but then again… maybe this can turn into something magical. Like, look at Aaliyah and me. We lived together, and now we are married with a kid on the way.”
“This isn’t a Connor and Aaliyah situation.”
“Right, but it could be a Stella and Damian situation.”
Oh, Connor. The hopeless romantic.
“Stop it,” I ordered.
“Stop what?”
“Making up some fairy-tale romance in your head, you weirdo.”
“I’m not doing that,” he said in a tone that was the complete opposite of convincing.
“You are!”
“I’m not!” he cried out. There was a moment’s pause before he said, “But I mean, what if she is the one, Damian?”
“She’s not. You know I don’t believe in that shit. I get it—you’re a believer in all of that love mumbo jumbo, but that shit’s not for me. I’m here to get my information, get the money, and get out. That’s all there is to it. All right?”
“Yeah, yeah, all right.”
“Connor.”
“Yes?”
“Stop falling in love with the idea of me falling in love.”
“But Damian!” he cried, dramatically whimpering. “What if she’s your happily ever after?”
“You get a woman to fall in love with you, marry you, and now have a child on the way, and you think that makes you a love expert?”
“Just call me Dr. Romance,” he joked. “But since we are on the subject of Aaliyah being pregnant, I think I’m suffering from morning sickness.”
“I’m no doctor, Connor, but I don’t think that’s how pregnancy works.”
It’d only been about a week or two since Connor and Aaliyah tied the knot, and the whole time at their wedding, Aaliyah passed up every drink offered to her. No one else seemed to notice, but me, being me, I took note right away. Plus, Connor had no chill to his excitement about their soon-to-be kid and kept touching her stomach that evening whenever he could sneak a chance. They informed me about the pregnancy the day I left for Los Angeles.
