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It was all for me. A nagging voice in the back of my mind says he’s not a good guy. Yet, I’m feeling bad for him, feeling kind toward him.
Should I be?
What has he done to me that’s so bad? If you accidentally got into a normal man’s car, he might offer you a ride, safely depositing you wherever you needed to go. Or, more likely, just kick you out. He certainly wouldn’t punish you. Take you with his rough loving. Then lock you in his stone mansion.
Telling you the rest of your life, your entire future, will be controlled by him.
But he’s not normal, is he? How could he be? He was born into this family.
And I know as well as anyone, you don’t get to choose your family. I’ve been hurt by people trying to shape me into something I’m not. For him, the moment he was born, he knew what he would be. A Bachman.
That doesn’t mean he got a choice. Being raised in a powerful mafia family, then losing his mother like that, no wonder he’s got control issues. The trajectory of his life has not been angled by choices he’s made.
Even this, now, having to marry me.
It’s not him taking away my choice, is it?
Maybe I’m the bad guy.
After all, I’m the one who’s forced him to have to marry me.
twenty-two
Damian
I’ve never shared that story with anyone, other than relaying to my father what happened immediately after the accident. I couldn’t verbalize all of it to her. It was too much to speak out loud, that horrible part that keeps flashing back in my dreams.
Couldn’t tell Lindy how my mother hit a current, swinging the front of her kayak into an outcropping of rock. She recovered, but then turned to check on me. A smile on her face to see me upright. Me, panicked, wondering why I came, why I didn’t remind her I can’t swim, wanting to know why there isn’t a damn life vest anywhere on this island. Me yelling for her to watch out as the same current dragged her back into the rock, harder this time.
The back of her head slamming into the rocks.
She became unconscious, fell over, sinking into the water. I threw myself out of my kayak, tried to dive down into the water and save her. I was in the dark, the cold, unable to see, flailing my arms around to feel for something, anything.
Nothing.
Then, I started to sink like a stone, water coming into my lungs. I grabbed the edge of the kayak just before it was too late, before I was too deep in the water. I clung to it.
Like the door in the Titanic. But it was all wrong. Her drowning and me clinging to the kayak.
It should have been the other way around.
Talking to Lindy, sharing the burden with someone else, it was a release. Then, the physical comfort she offered me afterward, it was life-changing. Could this be me, beginning to heal?
The moment we land, two brothers from the security team board the jet. I wake Lindy, letting her know why they’re here. They are polite but quick, getting her fingerprints, taking pictures with a strange camera which scans her face, her irises, things that will identify her as she enters our gates, and later as she goes into our buildings.
They’re off the jet ten minutes later, but the security team needs more time to prepare for her arrival. There’s a massive list of things that must be done on their end before she enters the Village to live amongst us. A deeper dive into her background as well as loading all the information they’ve just collected into our computer systems.
The security team needs another night before we can enter the Village. I’m in no rush. I want to get my father to the hospital, and we could use an evening of rest after our trip.
We need a hotel.
Lindy’s so sweet, so kind, always thinking of others before herself. The other women I’ve dated, so many of them I found out too late were money hungry, wanting to be with a Bachman for the power, the prestige, the labels I can buy them.
I want to do something for her.
What can I do to show her my gratitude? I think of my favorite place in the city when I’m not at the Village. A place for her to rest and be spoiled. I make a few calls, booking the penthouse suite at the Mark Hotel on Madison Avenue. Security sends several teams over to guard the suite I booked, which spans the entire top two floors of the hotel.
My father is being transported to the NYU Langone Hospital. The Bachmans own our own suite of private rooms at the hospital when we need more care than our family doctors can provide. Or when a Beauty has a baby. I want to ride in the van with Dad, but the doctor feels it’s best if he gets him settled in one of the rooms before we visit.
