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“I understand.”
“I’m flying into New York right now—we’re supposed to land in half an hour. I’ll see if we can detour to Boston instead. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t get to see him one last time.”
Shit.
I simply wanted to talk to her about Burke—I didn’t expect her to be making a surprise appearance.
I’m about to tell her that I should check with the family first when the shower handle squeaks on the other side of the wall, and the water stops running.
Burke will be stepping out any second.
“I’ll call you when I land,” she says between sniffs.
“Okay,” I say because it’s not like I can tell her not to come. She’s beside herself.
“Can you text me the hospital room number when we hang up?”
“Sure. I need your number, though.”
“I’ll text it to you when we hang up. But one more thing before I let you go.” She pauses for a few beats. “Is . . . Dorian . . . there?”
The silence lingering between us spans an entire ocean, literally and figuratively.
“Of course,” I say, wondering why she’d ask such a thing. “Nicola and Dash are here too.”
She’s quiet once again before exhaling into the receiver.
“All right,” she says. “I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
I remember Nicola’s words last night about Rothwell men having a tendency to rewrite their histories.
She was referring to Redmond at first and then Burke.
But Dorian’s a Rothwell man too.
What other details have been omitted from this entire thing?
Why would Audrina specifically ask if Dorian would be there?
“You’re up. Finally.” Burke emerges from the bathroom, a white towel cinched low on his hips. “I’m ordering room service. You hungry?”
I can’t possibly think about food at a time like this, not when it feels like the world is about to blow up in all our faces the second Audrina’s flight touches down.
They say no good deed goes unpunished.
“Sure.” I climb out of my bed, the soles of my feet pressing against the cool, short-pile carpet. My appetite is gone, but if I don’t have something to settle my stomach now, I’ll be dry heaving later when shit hits the fan. “Eggs and toast, please. Coffee.”
He cradles the landline receiver on his shoulder, whistling to himself as he scans the room service menu. I’d ask him how he’s doing, but he seems unusually chipper given the situation with his father.
I’m beginning to realize that maybe I had him all wrong from the start.
He intentionally misled me about his father’s condition.
And his emotional distance and detachment were never about his broken heart or his ailing father—he was nothing more than annoyed about having to go through some dog and pony show to collect his inheritance.
I don’t want to believe it, but the past ten hours have shown me he’s not who I thought he was—not even close.
All the things I want to say to him dance on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow them down. This isn’t the time or the place. Even if he’s a horribly self-centered excuse for a human being, he’s about to lose his father, and the last thing I want to do to anyone in this family is insert myself more than I already have.
That aside, Audrina’s question about Dorian stands out in a sea of bitter thoughts.
Why would she specifically ask about him?
What else don’t I know?
What other details did Burke leave out when it came to his broken engagement?
I lock myself in the bathroom, change out of yesterday’s clothes, and pray I didn’t ruin everything for everyone.
Especially Dorian.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
DORIAN
Present Day
“That was bleak,” I say to my sister after the doctor briefs us. It’s barely past 8:00 a.m. The stale stench of yesterday’s clothes and coffee breath fills the air. My back throbs from sleeping in a chair all night.
But I’m not leaving.
“Just because they’re giving up hope doesn’t mean we have to.” Nicola exhales, sinking back in the seat she placed beside Dad’s bed. Dr. Calloway all but told us to start making funeral arrangements, but leave it to my sister to plant her feet firmly in the soil of denial. “Mind if I use your charger?”
At some point in the middle of the night, a staff member from the house dropped off a few essentials for each of us: phones, charging cords, changes of clothes, toiletries, even some boxed meals—though who can eat at a time like this?
I tug the cord from the socket and hand it to Nic before returning to my post and burying my face in my hands. Inhaling through my fingers, I gather a long, hard breath of bleach-scented air and let it go.
Staring at the man isn’t going to prolong his life.
Wishing and hoping and praying he’ll pull through won’t either.
“Dash is supposed to bring the kids by around nine o’clock,” Nicola says after checking her phone, though I suspect she’s talking to herself. “I’m debating on whether I should just send them all back to the island.”
