House of Scarlett Read online

  “You don’t know that,” I say, even as I try to shove thoughts of Chadwick out of my head.

  Gabriel meets my gaze, and something burns in his blue eyes. “Yeah, I do, because if anyone gets to have you, it’s going to be me. There’s something between us. You felt it. I sure as fuck did too, even if I couldn’t admit it. It goes deeper than you wanting me just as much as I want you. That’s why I fucked up. Because you got to a part of me that I thought was dead and gone forever. It’s not, though. It was just waiting for you.”

  My mouth drops open at his declaration. Static buzzes in my head, and I’m not sure I heard him correctly. But Gabriel keeps going, and I hang on his every word.

  “I’m not what you need, ladybug, but I’ll learn. You were right. We have to see where this goes. I want to make this real.”

  Tears flood my eyes, and no amount of blinking can keep them back.

  “Fuck, don’t cry.”

  “Flynn told you I was dying.”

  “I knew what I wanted before that.”

  “Like when you threw me out of your office as soon as you slid the condom off?”

  He bows his head again. “I fucked up. Bad.”

  All the emotions I felt in that moment come rushing back like a rogue wave. “No, you didn’t just fuck up, Gabriel. I put myself out there. You didn’t have to be on board with it. I get that I was taking a risk. But the least you could’ve done was treat me with an ounce of fucking respect. You’d just been inside me, and you threw me out like trash.”

  The heart rate monitor is going crazy beside me, and Gabriel squeezes his eyes shut like he’s in agony.

  “I wish I could take it all back.” He opens his eyes, and his blue gaze is piercing. “You probably don’t believe me, and you shouldn’t. Words aren’t enough. I know that, but I’ll show you.”

  There’s a knock at the door, and we both turn.

  Flynn pokes her head in. “Oh, good, you didn’t kill each other. The doctors will be happy.” She comes in with Kelsey and Amy behind her. All three of them stare at Gabriel in his ribbed tank.

  “What happened to his shirt?” Kelsey asks, always the one to address the elephant in the room.

  “Her feet were cold,” Amy whispers, holding out the warm blanket she fetched for me.

  “God, that’s too fucking cute,” Flynn says as a nurse also bustles in the door.

  “That’s enough visiting for now. She needs to rest so she can heal. The doctor is hopeful she’ll be discharged tomorrow afternoon.” The nurse looks around the room at Flynn, Kelsey, Amy, and Gabriel. “Who is staying with her? Just one of you, if you please.”

  Fourteen

  Legend

  “I’ll go,” I say as I rise from the chair beside her bed. I don’t want to say the words, but I know I’m the odd man out here. I meet Scarlett’s gray gaze. “For now. I’ll be back.”

  Kelsey, Amy, and Flynn debate who will stay, and Flynn wins. Although, it wasn’t much of a debate. Flynn is impossible to argue with since she’s the only one with the smallest hint of a family connection.

  Scarlett nods at me, and even though it isn’t much, I’ll take it. Fuck, I’ll happily accept scraps for however long it takes me to earn back her trust. I deserve that.

  I make my way around the women, who are saying their good-byes, but Flynn follows me out into the hallway. I’m glad for that, even if her goal is to read me the riot act again.

  Before she can get a word out, I shut the door and ask the question I didn’t want to voice in front of Scarlett, because I’m afraid the answer would crush her. “Is her dad coming?”

  Flynn’s face falls. “I doubt it. He’s got a huge bash this weekend in the Hamptons, and he’d never miss it.”

  Anger, my old friend, ignites in my gut. “Are you fucking serious?”

  “Sadly, yes.” Flynn’s tone is just as disgusted as mine.

  “What a fucking prick. His daughter just had emergency surgery.”

  “Yeah, I know. And even the guy who dicked and dashed on her showed up. Makes dear old daddy look even more like the asshole we all knew he was from day one.”

  I let Flynn’s dig slide. I deserve that too.

  “So you’ll stay with her. All night? I don’t want her waking up alone. If there’s any chance of that, I’m not fucking leaving this building.”

  “I have a race in Jersey. I’ll only be gone for a few hours. Back by four a.m. at the latest. She won’t even know I left.”

  “Race?” I stare at the little brunette in confusion. “What the fuck kind of race?”

  “Street race. For pinks. I assume you’re well aware that’s a thing.”

  She’s right, but she shouldn’t know it’s a thing. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re going to leave your sister after surgery for a walk on the wild side? You’re not fucking going.”

  It’s the wrong thing to say, because Flynn pokers up. “One, you don’t get to have an opinion on my life. Two, I’ve been racing since high school. This is how I’ve paid for college. I might be a trust-fund kid, but not all of us get to cash in on that shit when we want. And just so you know, I’m damn good at it.”

  Not even sure what to say, I mumble, “Jesus Christ, save me from rich girls with no fear.”

  “Whatever. If you don’t want her to wake up alone, then I’ll have Kelsey or Amy come back. I just didn’t think that was fair since they both have to work tomorrow morning.”

  “I’ll come and sit with her. What time?”

  “I need to leave by eleven. The race starts at midnight.”

  “I’ll see you then. Don’t fucking leave before I get here.”

  “Don’t be late.”

  “Not for her.”

  Flynn smiles. “You just might prove all of us wrong, Legend. Your odds are improving by the second. You’re still the underdog, but we’ll see how you do.” She winks at me, and I take that as my cue to get the fuck out of this hospital.

  But as soon as I leave, I’m counting the minutes until I get to come back.

  Fifteen

  Scarlett

  The door closes behind Flynn and Gabriel, and the nurse, whose name tag reads joanna, has no idea that I’m silently freaking out for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with what’s happening with me, and everything to do with the man who just left my hospital room. While she busies herself with checking my vital signs and entering them in my chart, I eyeball Kelsey and wait for her to explain how he ended up here. In my hospital room.

  Thankfully, she doesn’t take too long.

  “It was all Flynn. She told him. He was here before I was. I had no idea, Scar. Seriously. I could kill that kid right now.”

  I give her a shaky wave. “No need. I just . . . it was a surprise, you know? I mean, who expects to come out of surgery and find the guy who kicked her out waiting to see how she’s doing? Why wouldn’t he be here, right?”

  Amy comes toward me and smooths out the blanket over my feet. A corner of Gabriel’s black T-shirt sticks out. She tugs it free and holds it up. “You want me to give him his shirt back before he goes?”

  She takes one step toward the door before I struggle to lean up, but manage to quickly snatch it out of her hands.

  “No, thank you. I’ll keep that.” I lie back on the bed, the black ball of fabric clenched in my fingers, and my entire body protests my sudden movement. “Damn, that didn’t feel good.”

  Joanna whips around to check on me. “No jumping around, men’s clothes at stake or not. You need to take it easy. It might’ve been laparoscopic, but your body has been through a lot, Ms. Priest. No sudden movements would be the smart choice.”

  The waves of pain relent as I lie still on my stack of pillows. “I’ll remember that.”

  She rattles off more instructions and gives me a rundown about how the night will go in the hospital—sleep as much as I can, when I can, because they’ll be checking on me regularly, and it’s going to make resting more difficult than normal. She al
so removes my heart rate monitor, muttering under her breath that they could have removed it in recovery and been just fine.

  That would have been great to know when I was setting it off and leaving no one in any question about how I felt when I saw Gabriel.

  Finally, she mentions that the food leaves something to be desired, and I should have my friends and family bring alternative meals to save me from the hospital kitchen.

  “Thank you for the warning,” I say as one word of that sentence brings back a harsh reminder.

  Family. As in, the only blood relative I have left can’t even bother to show his face. Thanks, Dad. Good to know you’re not concerned about your daughter, even when she has emergency surgery. Thank God for Flynn, Kelsey, and Amy.

  Friends are the family you choose for yourself. I’m lucky I have the amazing people in my life that I do, and I’m thankful my relationship with Flynn is growing stronger than it was when we were stepsiblings. We’re more family now than ever.

  Joanna finishes her tasks and then reminds Amy and Kelsey that only one person can stay.

  “All but one of us will be out of here shortly. We promise, ma’am,” Amy says in her most polite, professional tone.

  Once Joanna opens the door, we all crane our necks to see if Flynn is still out in the hallway talking to Gabriel. Or at least, I do.

  But there’s no sign of him. Flynn nods at Joanna and slips back into the room.

  “She told me we have five minutes to decide, and then she’s throwing us all out. Nurse Hatchett is kind of a downer.”

  “I’m fine, you guys. All of you can head home. I’ll sleep and see you in the morning.”

  Kelsey looks at me with her eyebrows almost reaching her hairline. “You’re clearly high on painkillers. No one is leaving you alone. Someone will be here every minute you are.”

  “She’s right,” Flynn adds with a smile. “And I’m taking the first shift, so everyone else can leave.”

  “You sure you got this?” Kelsey asks her.

  With a pageant-style wave, Flynn says, “’Bye, ladies. See you both in the morning. I’ll let you know if we get any info on when our girl is getting sprung.”

  Amy squeezes my hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow, boss. Everything’s in good hands. I promise.”

  “I know. I’m not worried at all.”

  She smiles and steps away, making room for Kelsey to lean in and hug me. “Love you, babe. Try to get some rest. I won’t even judge you if you plan to cuddle that T-shirt all night.”

  I huff out a laugh, and it causes a pinch in my abdomen near my belly button. “Love you. No more laughing for a while. See you tomorrow,” I say to both of them.

  The two women file out, leaving me alone with Flynn. I give myself enough time to take one breath before I ask the question that I’ve been dying to get out.

  “Why did you tell him? What are you trying to accomplish here, Flynn?”

  “I was terrified. You’d just been taken back into surgery. I needed to tell someone, but my mom is on a flight to Australia, and your dad won’t answer his fucking phone. I panicked.” In that moment, she looks younger than her age.

  “I’m so sorry, Flynn. You didn’t need to call anyone. It’s just my appendix. Not a huge deal.”

  She drops her hands onto her hips. “It is a huge deal. Amy told me they had to bring you in an ambulance, and she’d never seen you like that before. You may not be my blood sister, but you’re the closest thing I have to a sibling, and now that I’ve got you back in my life, I don’t want to lose you again.”

  Her eyes shine in the dim light of the hospital room, and I reach out to snag her fingers.

  “You’re not going to lose me. Thank you for coming and worrying about me.”

  Flynn plops into the chair that Gabriel occupied only a short time earlier. “You want to know the truth? I was scared, and I used that fear like a weapon. I wanted him to feel it too. I wanted him to know that he could lose you. I wanted him to feel that pain. Maybe that makes me a terrible person, but I don’t care.”

  I pat the top of her hand. “You’re a good sister, Flynn. The best one I could ever ask for.”

  She glances up at me from under her lashes. “You don’t want to kill me for letting him think you were dying?”

  Maybe there’s a latent mean streak in me, because I’m not heartbroken over the trick she played. It was clever.

  “Just don’t do it again. Whatever is or isn’t between me and Gabriel will be for him and me to decide.”

  “Oh, there’s a hell of a lot of something there.” Flynn leans back in the chair and crosses one ankle over her knee. “The man is gone for you. I don’t think you’ll be wondering how he feels much longer. If I were a betting woman, which I am,” she says, tossing her hair over her shoulder, “I’d bet that you and Legend are going to be the hottest couple this town never expected to see. You’re going to tame the wild beast.”

  I chuckle carefully this time, so as not to cause a twinge of pain. “We’ll see, Flynn,” I say with a yawn. “We will see.”

  Sixteen

  Legend

  Sitting in the dark, I listen to each even breath and watch the slow rise and fall of Scarlett’s chest. In. Out. In. Out. Each movement reminds me that she’s alive, and that’s enough for me right now.

  Alive is good. Especially when I can’t shake the lingering fear that Flynn drilled into me earlier.

  I can’t even be mad at the kid for what she did. Hell, if anything, I owe her a massive thank-you. I may never recover the couple of years she shaved off my life, but I’ve never been worried about living a real long time, anyway. That’s not something you expect for yourself when you grow up the way I did.

  After my mom got arrested, I ended up in foster care during her trial. She couldn’t make bail and couldn’t afford to bond out, so they held her over, and I got acquainted with a broken system in the up-close and personal way unwanted kids do.

  My first house didn’t last long. Emergency placement, they called it. I was dropped on someone’s doorstep, and they fed me some dinner and sent me to bed like the rest of the kids in the house.

  I never went back to the trailer park. They wouldn’t even let me get my stuff. I wore the same clothes for three days, before a caseworker showed up to take me away again.

  I figured that’s how it would be from then on, but it wasn’t.

  The second family I was placed with was even more chaotic than the first, but in the best way possible. Because that’s where I met Bump and Jorie Billips, the two people who would become the only family I thought I’d ever need.

  Jorie and I were the same age, and Bump was four years younger, but he refused to be left out of anything. Jorie took care of him like he was her kid, and I helped. Together, the three of us made life worth living. And once Jorie and I aged out of the foster care system, she and I both worked every second we could so we’d make enough money for her to get custody of Bump.

  The first night the three of us spent in our shitty little one-bedroom apartment in the projects was one of the best I’d ever had up until that point. We were poor as shit, but we were happy because we were together.

  Until I fucked over Moses and painted targets on all of our backs. Then I lost them both.

  Bump would never grow into the man he was meant to be. Jorie would stay forever young in my memories, and would never sing at the clubs in LA the way she’d dreamed about.

  I lost myself after that. I morphed into a stranger, doing things to survive that were downright criminal. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to numb the pain. I punished myself by taking every fight I could. When I started stashing money away, it was to somehow prove to Jorie that it wasn’t all for nothing. That I could make something of myself. That I could become a man she could be proud of again.

  Two gunshots, ordered by Moses Buford Gaspard, ended life as I knew it. And ever since then, I’ve been going through the motions and picking up the shattered pieces. Slowly but sure
ly, I fought my way out of the dark, but nothing has ever been the same.

  Until the woman in this hospital bed beside me changed life as I knew it one more time.

  Sitting here in the dark, I feel things swirling inside me. They’re not things I should be thinking or feeling. I have no right after what I did, but I can’t stop.

  Scarlett should have thrown me out the minute she saw me. But she didn’t.

  I’m not so naive as to think second chances come around all that often, so I’m not fucking this one up. That is, if it’s really a second chance and not a cosmic joke at my expense.

  Even if I don’t know how to be what she needs, I’m going to learn.

  With that vow burning itself into my brain, the door opens and a nurse shuffles inside. She stops short when she sees me.

  “What are you doing here? Where is her sister?”

  Her hand is inches from the security button near the bed, and I slowly rise with both hands out to my sides.

  “I’m Gabriel. I’m Scarlett’s . . . friend. Flynn had to go and asked me to make sure Scarlett wouldn’t be alone. That’s all. I promise.” My voice is a hushed whisper, since I’m trying not to wake Scarlett.

  “You were here earlier. The other nurse mentioned you. You own that nightclub where there was a shooting.”

  The fact that either of them were able to identify me and connect me with the shooting after seeing me for a short time tells me just how not under the radar my identity is anymore. If Moses remembers even a fraction of what I look like, it won’t be long before he sends someone up north to finish me off. Except this time, I’m going to be ready.

  I glance down at Scarlett. I have to keep her safe. That’s nonnegotiable. I’ll figure out the details with Q, and we’ll put it all in action as soon as possible. I can’t be distracted when her well-being is at stake.

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  The nurse’s gaze flicks between me and Scarlett. “And Ms. Priest was recently photographed at your club . . . I think I see what’s going on.”