CHAPTER EIGHT

 

Luca

 

I LAST FOR A WEEK AND a half. Ten days I went without seeing Jules, because it wasn’t my right to want to. Ten fucking days that nearly drove me insane. Nine nights lying in bed, wishing for her to come to me in my dreams, although it made me a bastard of the worst kind to want that, but selfishly not caring. If I couldn’t see her in person, I at least wanted some form of her, even if she did always look scared or in pain and begged me for something I still didn’t understand.

Ten days I went to work and tried to keep my mind off her. Ten days I left work and had to force myself to turn right down Tenth Street toward home instead of left toward the hospital. Only two of the nine nights she visited my dreams, but the ones she didn’t, I still woke up feeling drained and exhausted. I slept restlessly and couldn’t help but feel disappointed for the rest of the day, which put me in a piss-poor mood. People noticed, especially Ella.

“What in the fuck is your problem?” she yelled at me on the eighth day, after stepping in my office and slamming the door closed.

“Leave me alone, Ella,” I rumbled, as I stood behind my desk and pushed shit around looking for a specific drawing pen.

She put her hands on the hardwood surface and leaned over it, her voice dropping, but no less abrasive. “You’ve been a dick for days, Luca. Either fix what’s bothering you or stay in your fucking office and let Jazz and me take your clients. I’m tired of seeing people walk on eggshells around you.”

I stand to my full height and glower at her. “I said, leave me alone.”

Baring her teeth, she gritted out, “Too fucking bad. You’re my brother and I work for you, so when something bothers you, it bothers me. Either get over it or tell me what in the hell is going on.”

Before I was given a chance to reply, she stormed from the room, the door banging against the wall behind her. She was right. I was being an asshole, and that shit needed to stop.

I tried to push away the need to see Jules, but nothing fucking worked.

So, now, two days later, I’m walking down the hall to her room, not caring anymore if I should be here or not. The way I see it, Theo doesn’t visit as often as he should, something that still pisses me off, and a person shouldn’t be alone all the time, even if they don’t realize they are. It also piques my anger that Theo still hasn’t told anyone about Jules, something I plan to confront him about soon.

When I enter her room, the scent of wildflowers soothes something deep inside me. The desolate feeling that’s been plaguing me instantly vanishes. My muscles relax for the first time in days. As fucked up as it sounds, I feel like this is where I belong.

I walk to the bed, take a seat, and just stare at the woman who’s been haunting my dreams for years and consuming my thoughts for weeks. She’s beautiful, just as she always is. Her hair is once again braided and lying on the pillow beside her head. She’s on her back, but her head is tilted sideways, so I’ve got a good look at her gorgeous face. I reach up and finger the end of her braid.

“Theo told me about you.” I talk softly. I no longer worry about being kicked out if I’m caught. Theo’s my brother, and I shouldn’t be here, but he damn well will give permission if he’s not willing to be here himself.

“I have no right to be here, but I feel like I should.” I pull in a deep breath before letting it out slowly. Most people would feel strange talking to someone who probably can’t hear them, but I don’t with Jules. It feels right to talk to her. “Theo’s an asshole for leaving you here alone all the time. I doubt you can hear me, but if somehow you can, I apologize on his behalf.”

I release her hair and lean back in my seat, lacing my fingers over my stomach. My legs stretch out in front of me, my knees falling to the sides, getting comfortable. I’m tired and hungry, but getting up and walking away isn’t an option at the moment. I drop my chin to my chest, deciding to close my eyes for a few minutes.

 

 

MY EYES FLICKER OPEN when I hear a thump. The first thing I see are my hands still laced together over my stomach. When I lift my head, a dull pain resonates in my neck from staying in the same position for so long. Closing my eyes, I tilt my head back and twist it from side to side, loosening the muscles.

When I scoot my ass back in the seat, I notice the nurse call remote has fallen to the floor. I pick it up, then stand to wind it around one of the rails to keep it from slipping off again.

My body locks in place and my jaw damn near falls to the floor when I look at Jules. She’s lying there with her eyes wide fucking open looking at the ceiling. The first thing I notice is the brilliant color of her eyes. Just like in my dreams, they’re a bright golden amber. She blinks slowly a couple times. She must not see me, because she keeps looking at the ceiling like it’s the most fascinating thing she’s ever seen.

I hold still, not wanting to startle her, but also desperately wanting her eyes directed at me.

Swallowing to wet my suddenly dry throat, I murmur softly, “Jules.”

Her lips part. She blinks a couple more times before her head slowly turns in my direction. The minute her eyes lock on mine, a rush of air leaves my lungs. Fuck, but they are striking.

I don’t get a chance to enjoy her eyes being on me before they fill with fear. I frown, confused at the stark terror forming on her face. I reach out a hand to her to try to quell the fear but drop it when her lips tremble. Her hands clutch the sides of her head as her mouth opens and she lets out a god-awful scream. I stumble back a step and knock into the chair, stunned at her hysterical behavior. She starts thrashing on the bed, her legs kicking the blanket off her as she presses herself as close to the railing as she can to get away from me. The whole time, her wide eyes stay connected with my astonished ones, like she’s accusing me of something.

A nurse rushes in, and I numbly step to the side to give her room. Another rushes in seconds later with a doctor following closely behind. They both go to the other side of the bed.

“NO!” Jules screams over and over again, clutching her head. “NONONO!”

The ache in my chest that’s always present in my dreams is back, except it’s ten times worse. The pain I feel seeing her suffer in the flesh makes the pain of seeing her suffer in my dreams feel like a fucking paper cut. It’s agonizing and all-consuming and takes my damn breath away.

I want nothing more than to go to her, to hold her against me, and make all her fears go away, but it’s me she fears, and that thought tears me apart.

“Mr. Hendrix, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

I ignore the nurse trying to usher me out of the room. I can’t take my eyes off Jules as she fights the doctor and nurses. They yell back and forth to each other as they try to calm her down. I grow angry when they hold her down and stick a needle into her IV. I force my legs to hold still, instead of rushing over and yanking them away. I know they’re professionals and only trying to help her, but I still don’t fucking like it.

“Mr. Hendrix.” The nurse tries again, grabbing my arm. “Theo!”

It’s the use of my brother’s name that has me ripping my eyes away from the distraught girl in the bed. I stare down at the nurse, and her eyes soften in sympathy. “Please, just wait outside until the doctor calms down your wife and assesses her. He’ll come talk to you as soon as he can.”

I don’t correct her on her mistake of thinking I’m my brother. I just give her a stiff nod before looking back at Jules one more time. She’s no longer screaming due to the medicine now running through her veins, but her eyes are still on me. Tears fall from them, soaking the pillow beneath her head, and it makes me want to fall to my knees and scream.

Instead, with one final look and my chest feeling hollow, I turn on my heel and leave the room.

 

 

ME: WHERE ARE YOU?

Theo: At Mom’s. Why? What’s going on?

Instead of answering, I throw my phone in the cup holder, start my truck, and peel out of the hospital parking lot.

I have no idea what I plan to do once I see Theo; all I know is Jules doesn’t know me, so her reaction to me could only mean she thought I was Theo. Which means it’s him she’s afraid of. While that thought soothes something in my soul, it still sends a slow burn of anger in my veins.

Why in the fuck would Jules be afraid of Theo? What could he have done to cause the terror I saw in her eyes?

My knuckles ache around the steering wheel as I navigate the streets to my parents’ house. I force my fingers to loosen and try to calm my ire. As much as it pisses me off, I need to give Theo the chance to explain first.

A few minutes later, I pull up behind Theo’s car parked at the curb in front of our parents’ house. I take a moment to pull in a couple of deep breaths until I feel in control again. Getting out of my truck, I walk up the driveway, and without bothering to knock, go inside. Mom’s always insisted that her house is open to her kids, and if she hears us knocking, she’ll kick our asses.

I find Mom, Dad, Theo, and Aria in the kitchen sitting at the table finishing up dinner. The minute my eyes meet Theo’s, the anger I pushed away on my drive over comes back.

“Heya, Uncle Luca!” Aria says loudly, waving a hand that’s holding a biscuit.

“Hey, boo.” Through my anger, I manage to give her a genuine smile. Aria brings the good out in people.

“Luca, honey, pull up a chair, and I’ll make you a plate.”

When Mom stands from the table, I hold up my hand.

“I’m not here for dinner, Mom,” I tell her, keeping my voice even. She still senses my turmoil and turns to walk over to me.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.” I keep my voice quiet, so Aria doesn’t hear. “Do me a favor and take Aria in the backyard.”

She frowns; looks at Dad, then Theo, before bringing her eyes back to me.

“What’s going on?”

I grab the hand she placed on my arm and give it a gentle squeeze. “Please, Mom. We’ll talk later. I need to speak with Theo.”

After searching my eyes for a moment, she gives me a silent nod and walks around the table to Aria.

“Hey, munchkin. Come help Gamma pick some flowers for the table. These are looking a bit old.”

She holds her hand out for Aria to take. After stuffing the last bite of her biscuit in her mouth, she grabs Mom’s hand, hops down from the chair, and they both walk out the back door to the fenced-in backyard.

The minute the door is closed, Dad demands, “What’s wrong?”

I don’t look at him; my eyes are pinned on Theo as he watches me with tight lips and a frown.

“She’s awake,” I say bluntly.

He jumps from his chair, hitting the table with his thigh and jostling the dishes. “What?” he shouts.

“Who’s awake?” Dad asks, sounding confused and coming to his feet slower than Theo.

“Keep your voice down,” I growl at Theo.

“She can’t be awake.” His voice is quieter, but no less astonished.

“Will someone tell me what in the hell is going on?”

Dad’s irritated tone has me looking at him. He’s tall, not skinny, but not bulky either. In his late fifties, half his body covered in tattoos, full beard and mustache, he can be intimidating. As kids, he was our hero, the smartest man we knew, and scary as hell when he was riled up. Not that he ever lifted a hand to us, but he was strict, demanding the respect that was due to him and our mom, and never putting up with any bullshit from us kids.

I respect the hell out of him, and he and Mom have a right to know they have a daughter-in-law they’ve missed for seven years.

I bring my eyes back to Theo. “Either you tell him, or I will.”

His eyes narrow into slits, and for a minute I think he’s going to push my hand. Theo may be the fun-loving, carefree one of the family, but he’s also a little shit at times and can be just as stubborn as Ella.

Indignation darkens his eyes before he turns to Dad. “I’m married.” Dad sucks in a sharp breath, but before he can say anything, Theo continues. “I met her years ago, we fell in love, got married, and were going to leave town because of our different backgrounds. Before we could, she was attacked. She’s been in a coma ever since.”

“Wait,” Dad barks. “Slow the hell down, Theo. How in the fuck do your mother and I not know this?”

Shame flickers on his face before his jaw tightens. “We were going to tell you all before we left. You know how things are around here, Dad. I didn’t want Jules part of that. I didn’t want that staining her life.”

“So, just fuck your family? What in the hell do you think that would have done to your mom?”

“I wouldn’t have been able to give her everything she deserved if we stayed here.” Theo says quietly. He turns to me, his eyes turning wary. “She’s really awake?”

I jerk my head in an affirmative.

“Did she… uh…,” he starts nervously, looking fearful all of a sudden. “Did she say anything?”

“Yes.”

His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “What’d she say?”

“No.” He takes a step back, jumping when he hits the chair behind him. I take a step forward. “When she saw me, she screamed no over and over again. She was fucking scared out of her mind. Tell me, Theo.” I move closer to him and tilt my head as he moves back another step. “If she has no idea who I am, she had to have thought I was you. Why in the hell was she scared of a face that you and I share?”

He stops, and the scared look on his face morphs into something sinister. Lines appear beside his eyes as he glowers at me. His lips form a firm line and the pulse in his temple throbs. His anger stops me short, surprised at the sudden change.

“She does know you,” he says menacingly.

I rock back on my heel. “What?”

It’s now him who’s coming toward me. “It was you.” He spews the last word.

“Make fucking sense, Theo,” I grind out.

His lip curls with a sneer.

“You were the person that attacked her,” he growls, his eyes looking crazed.

“What in the hell are you talking about?” I throw back at him, my knuckles itching to land against the fucker’s face. I really don’t like what he’s insinuating.

“Motherfucker.” Muttering the word, he spins and scrubs his face with his hands before turning back. “You saw her one day a couple of weeks before we got married. You saw her, and you wanted her for yourself. You went so far as tracking her down to try and seduce her away from me. Your own fucking brother. It didn’t work. She came to me and told me what happened. I confronted you, and we fought. I have no clue what was going through your head, but the day we got married, you found out and it flipped some dark switch inside you. You went ballistic.”

I hold up my hand to stop him, because he’s still not making a damn bit of sense.

“I’ve never seen that girl a day in my life, except for some weird fucking dreams I’ve had for years and the few times I’ve visited her recently.”

“Wait,” he interrupts, frowning. “You’re still visiting her?”

“Later,” I snarl. “Now explain to me how I could try to take a girl from you when I’ve never even met her before. And I’ll add that there’s no fucking way I’d do that to you in the first place.”

His hands grab the top of his hair and he tugs at it as he looks to the ceiling, a guttural growl leaving his lips. He’s hiding something, and it’s putting my temper precariously close to the edge.

His eyes flicker to Dad before coming back to me.

“Remember the car accident you had seven years ago?” At my nod, he continues. “Jules was at home that day packing because we were leaving that night after we told the family about us. I was at work getting some shit together. You came by, and I told you we got married. You tore the office apart and stormed out, but I didn’t realize you had completely fucking lost it and went straight to Jules’s house. I got there an hour later and found Jules on the floor, blood seeping from her temple. I knew it was fucking you that did it. I took Jules to the hospital and went looking for you. A couple of hours later, Mom called and said you were in a car accident.”

“What in the fuck, Theo!” Dad booms. “Wait a—”

“You’ve lost your goddamn mind!” I lean toward him, raising my voice. “There’s no way that shit happened, because I would have remembered it!”

“You lost six weeks of your memory, remember? Incidentally, five weeks before was when I met Jules, and three weeks before, you met her. You were out for two days before you woke up. She still hasn’t yet. Or not until today.”

I stagger back a step, something sharp and hot lancing my chest. He’s lying. He has to be lying. There’s no way I did the things he said I did. I recall back to when I woke up in the hospital and the lapse in my memory. It’s been seven years, so it’s fuzzy, but I remember being disoriented from the memory loss. I remember the pain in my skull and a dull ache in my chest. I remember feeling like some part of me was missing and accounted it to losing six weeks’ worth of memories. I remember the worried look on my parents’ faces, and the rage in Theo’s eyes. Theo wasn’t around a lot those first few weeks, and when I did see him, he seemed angry. Eventually, he went back to his laid-back self.

I drop to a kitchen chair, my head falling into my hands to grip my hair. I hear Dad saying something to me, but I’m so focused on trying to remember Jules’s face that I can’t comprehend what he’s saying. I try to remember her from seven years ago, or anything that happened in those six weeks. I’ve tried before to pull up that short time frame, but never worked too hard at it. It was only six weeks, and I didn’t really see the point in exhausting myself over it. It’s a jumbled fucking mess, but all I can see are my dreams and the times I visited her in the hospital. Nothing from the past. Not even a fucking hint.

I lift my head, and I know my eyes must look wild or some shit. I feel like I’m going crazy.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I croak through a dry throat. Water. I need some goddamn water. Seeing dad’s beer bottle on the table, I snatch it and tip it to my lips until there’s nothing left to drink.

“Mom and Dad didn’t know about Jules. No one did except me and you. I figured it would only hurt them if they knew, and it’s not like Jules was really there anymore anyway.” I flinch at his hard words, but he continues. “When you woke up and didn’t remember her, I didn’t see the point of telling you. Your memory loss solved the problem of your fixation on her. I purposely took her to Memorial so you weren’t close to her. I preferred you forgot about her.”

My eyes fly to Dad’s, needing him to confirm what Theo’s saying is true. At least the part he knew about. Guilt mars his face, and I have my answer.

“We had no fucking clue, Luca,” Dad croaks.

“Why in the fuck didn’t you call the cops and have me arrested?” I grate to Theo.

His eyes flare and his jaw tenses. “Because I wanted to confront you first. I wanted to look in your fucking eyes when you told me you attacked her. You know the cops don’t give a shit around here, so the chances of you paying for what you did were only fifty-fifty. I had planned to exact my own form of punishment. There was no point when you woke up and didn’t remember.”

I feel sick to my stomach, but I push the need to vomit away. The hatred in his eyes is astounding and unmistakable. I don’t blame him. He has every right to hate me and want to nail my ass to the wall.

It’s still hard to believe what he’s telling me is true, but something deep inside me knows it has to be. There would be no reason for him to lie. I’ve always had a volatile temper. It’s saved me numerous times, but it’s also caused a lot of trouble. Even so, the thought of hurting a woman, Theo’s woman, is too much for my mind to grasp. It’s just not something I can comprehend.

An image of Cora with my hand wrapped around her throat comes to mind, and bile rises again. Am I really capable of harming a woman? As far as I can remember, I’ve never been tempted to until Cora pulled the shit she did. But even then, it was easy to push that urge aside because she was a woman, and I wasn’t that type of man. Or so I thought.

I run my hands over my face and dig the heels into my eyes. My vision is blurry when I look back at him.

“Theo.” I stop, because I don’t know what to say. How in the hell do I apologize to my twin brother for doing something so heinous, whether I remember it or not? There are no words to make up for what I did. “I’m sorry,” I finish, my voice raw.

“Just stay away from her,” he rumbles heatedly.

It physically hurts to think about not seeing Jules anymore, but I nod anyway. I’ve got no right to be anywhere near her. I’m fucking a danger to her. Hell, Theo has every right to beat the living shit out of me, and if he were to try, I’d stand there and take every punch. It still wouldn’t be enough. I’m actually surprised he hasn’t already. I know if the situation were reversed, there’s nothing that would hold me back from slaying his ass.

Theo watches me with leery eyes as I get up from the chair. I say nothing as I walk toward the kitchen doorway.

“Son,” Dad calls, and I stop to look back at him. His eyes look pained. “Don’t leave. Stay and talk to your mom and me.”

I shake my head. “I need time. Tell Mom I’ll call her in a few days.”

I can tell he wants to insist, but he gives me a slight nod in understanding. I have a hard time holding Theo’s eyes when I look at him.

“I have no idea what would make me do what I did to you and her, but it fucking guts me that I did. I don’t know what I was thinking at the time, but right now, I’m so fucking sorry, Theo. It makes it worse because I can’t remember it. I deserve for those memories to haunt me forever. I deserve the pain I know they would cause.”

And with that, I walk through the house, closing the front door quietly behind me, get in my truck, and leave.