Chapter 6
Elizabeth
Doctors wearing crisp coats and nurses wearing colorful scrubs moved around the ward in efficient silence. Sounds of ringing phones, humming air conditioners, and doctors being paged surrounded me, and, in a weird way, it was soothing.
I stopped at the nurses' station, and asked, "How's he doing?"
Melinda, the nurse who'd been on duty when I'd left the hospital yesterday so I could meet Caden, glanced up from the mountain of paperwork in front of her.
She smiled, her blue eyes calm and kind. "He's asleep, but you're welcome to sit with him. Dr. Bennett's certain he'll make a full recovery. You just missed him."
I smiled and pushed away from the desk. "Thanks for everything you've done and are doing."
"That's what we're here for."
I made my way to room ten and stood by the threshold of the dark room. Surrounded by beeping equipment and shrouded in white sheets, my dad looked smaller, almost fragile. He was usually so much larger than life. Someone who owned a room the minute he walked into it. But overnight, it was as if his body had shriveled and shrunk.
I went into the room, pulled up a chair and sat by his bed, and even though he wasn't awake, I would tell him about my decision and hoped on some level he would hear me.
"Dad, it's me, Elizabeth. I accepted Caden's proposal. We came to an agreement about the club. You're not going to like it, but I did what I had to do." A ball of anger spun inside of me. "Why didn't you tell me about the insurance? What if someone like Caden hadn't come along? What would I have done?"
I sniffed back the tears threatening to fall. Crying wouldn't solve anything, and I could just hear him berating me for showing emotion.
"Yes, I am going to cry, and there's nothing you can say or do to stop me." Talking to my dad like this, when he couldn't answer back and shoot me down, made me braver, stronger.
For years, he'd been miserable and had made my life miserable. He was a broken man who would never heal from the divorce or ever grow up. And I loved him even if I didn't particularly like or agree with his ideas or harebrained schemes.
Time had come for him to move on from my mom and for me to stop defending his crazy behavior. My enabling him and not holding him accountable for his actions had gotten us into this mess.
"When you get out of here, things are going to be different. You're going to retire. You need to step back and allow me to run the club the way it's supposed to be run. Caden said we should build a treatment spa." Even saying the words sent thrills through me. I didn't know if I could trust him, believe him. I wanted to believe him so bad, it hurt, but I wouldn't—couldn't—allow myself to get too excited because the past had shown me huge disappointment always followed expectation.
I leaned over and placed a kiss on dad's papery cheek. "I'll come back later. I love you. I hope you know that."
****
Before Caden left the club yesterday, he'd invited me to dinner so we could discuss our wedding. Ha! Our wedding. The last thing I wanted was to go to some fancy restaurant where anyone could overhear our conversation, so I'd invited him over to my place for dinner. At least that way I would have the advantage of my surroundings if not much else.
I glanced at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and frowned. Blonde roots peaked through the brown dye. If I'd had the time, I would've colored my hair, but only because I looked ridiculous with dark hair and light roots. I tilted my head. What would I look like if I stripped all the color out and went with my natural color? Whatever lurked beneath the years of drugstore dye would be as brittle as a blade of grass during a drought, but maybe it was worth finding out.
I reached for my seldom used contacts, popped them in and blinked furiously to stop my eyes watering at the intrusion. I wasn't making an effort for Caden. I was making an effort for me.
The shackles from my past had to come off, and wearing my contacts instead of glasses and wearing my hair down instead of in a bun, was a step toward breaking free. I hadn't made much of an effort with my clothes and had stuck with my favorite leggings and a floaty t-shirt combination.
The black polish on my toenails was over two months old and chipped to almost nothing. If I put on a new coat to cover the old, that would be making too much of an effort, but really, what was wrong with making myself feel good? After all, my fiancé was on his way over for dinner. I laughed and shook my head at how ridiculous that was. If I was going to have a fake husband, I guess there were worse choices than Caden Gallagher.
He was more than nice to look at, and his accent sent shivers down my spine. My reaction to him was beyond stupid, so was internally swooning every time he called me Lizzie.
This was a business deal. And what a business deal it was—one that could land me in prison. There was nothing romantic or swoony about it, and I needed to forget my silly fantasies.
As soon as Caden got what he needed, I wanted him out of my life, and I was sure he felt the same way. No way would someone who looked like him want someone like me on his arm longer than necessary.
On my way to the kitchen, I stopped by my bedroom for a chunky sweater and grabbed an elastic band from my dresser. I pulled my hair back into a messy bun on top of my head.
He wasn't my real fiancé, and I had to remember that. Before leaving my room, I lifted a small bottle of calming oil and dabbed some on my wrists and over the pulse points on my neck.
The scent of chili bubbling in the crockpot drifted from the kitchen and filled my small apartment with the delicious scent of spices. I wasn't much of a cook, but I could dump anything into a crockpot and not kill anyone. After eight hours on slow, even the crappiest concoction was somewhat edible. If Caden didn't like kitchen cupboard chili, too bad.
When we married what would our living arrangements be? Would he expect us to live together in my apartment or did he expect me to move to Manhattan? Wasn't going to happen. And as for living in my apartment, it was already cramped with no room for Caden or any of his crap.
I wasn't a hoarder, although my sisters would beg to differ. I considered myself a what-if person. What if I needed the birthday cards I'd received when I was nine? What if I had a daughter and wanted to pass my American Girl dolls onto her?
If Caden sometimes had to stay, he could sleep in the guest room. The one I currently used to make products for my Etsy store. There would be no sharing of beds or sharing of anything else for that matter.
At seven precisely, the doorbell chimed, and I stopped pacing around my apartment, fixing and tidying things that didn't need to be fixed or tidied.
I sucked in a deep breath, and with one last chant of my new mantra, "Caden Gallagher is not your real fiancé," I buzzed him in. "Third floor, apartment 13b."