“DO YOU HAVE it on yet?” Grace hollered from the other side of the door.
“Almost! Hold on. The zipper is caught.” I bent down, trying to squeeze and pull the fabric tight to allow the zipper to move up the track. “I swear, I’ve gotten fatter since my last fitting,” I lamented. I took a deep breath in, and the tiny teeth came together to close off my oxygen supply.
“Oh, stop it. You have not. And even if you did, who cares? The extra bit of weight you’ve gained because of the anti-rejection drugs have done amazing things to your figure. I wish I could gain a few pounds and turn into a sex goddess.”
I snorted, smoothing the fabric down around my waist. “Sex goddess? I think you’re delusional.”
Without bothering to look at my reflection, I opened the door of the dressing room and stopped. Two sets of eyes widened as they took me in.
“Lailah, you look beautiful,” my mother said, blotting tears from her eyes.
“I was going to go with hot. You look hot.” Grace laughed.
Walking the short distance to the center of the room, I took a step, stood on the wide carpeted platform, and finally looked at my reflection in the mirror.
“You really had to choose pink, didn’t you?” I smiled.
Grace ran up to me, squealing. “It’s perfect! And yes, I had to choose pink. It’s the best color ever. You look amazing in it. You can’t argue with that.”
The dress was actually beautiful, but I had to give her a hard time. Any girl who themes her wedding Sophisticated Princess deserves a bit of hassling. The sweetheart neckline and high waistline gave way to a flowing blush-colored skirt that reminded me of the silk scarves my mother always loved to wear. It ebbed and flowed as I walked and—well, yeah, it made me feel kind of like a princess.
“I’m just glad you chose subtle over something in the cotton-candy spectrum of the color wheel.”
“I did say, Sophisticated Princess, not Barbie Gets Married.”
I laughed as she started playing with my long blonde hair, throwing out ideas on what we could do with it.
“Do you want it up or down?”
Looking at my reflection, I took a deep breath. The neckline of this dress left nothing to the imagination when it came to the scars of my past. The pink line that bisected my chest was now darker from the recent surgery, and it stood out prominently against the pink fabric. Having my hair down around my shoulders would take the attention away from it.
“Up,” I said, knowing I had to face my fears one at a time.
Life was no longer about hiding in the shadows. If I wanted to experience all the normalcies of it, I had to embrace the darker sides as well, and that started with a few stares and whispers.
“It will be beautiful,” Grace said, holding it away from my face.
The three of us looked at my teary-eyed smile staring back.
The girl who had never cried now couldn’t seem to ever turn off the damn water works.
I’d always been so good at keeping things together and in check. I wouldn’t break down, and I’d never shown my weaknesses.
But now, I let it all out. When I had been in pain during recovery, I’d cried out for help and cursed fate for making me go through so many obstacles. As I’d recovered, I’d cried for the ability to have a second chance. And late at night, I would cry because I missed him.
Six months had gone by, and I still awoke each morning, reaching out for his warmth. The dream I’d had in the recovery room wasn’t the last. I would see him nightly when I closed my eyes, but they were always memories—pizzas and pudding, laughing under an indoor rain shower, and feeling his tender touch as he made love to me while saying he’d never leave.
But he had.
“Beautiful dress,” a deep male voice echoed from behind.
I looked up, and my breath caught.
Jude.
But on second glance, I realized his hair was a bit too dark, his eyes were a little too hard, and he carried himself differently.
“Holy moly, that’s Roman Cavanaugh,” Grace whispered, turning quickly to see if the reflection she’d seen in the mirror was indeed real.
“Pleasure to meet you,” he said, taking a step forward to take Grace’s hand.
A slow, sensual kiss was placed on her palm, leaving her awestruck and tongue-tied.
“Grace,” she murmured. “I’m Grace.”
His lips turned upward, and he smiled as he took her in. His eyes roamed over her hair and curvy figure until they finally settled on the engagement ring on her left hand.
“Lucky man,” he commented.
A faint blush colored Grace’s complexion as she pulled her hand away, shaking herself from the trance she’d stumbled into. “Thank you.”
He gave a polite smile and then looked up, setting his eyes on me.
His eyes reminded me so much of Jude.
Closing the distance between us, he held out his hand, and I took it.
“Roman Cavanaugh,” he said. “You must be Lailah Buchanan.”
His gaze shifted briefly down to my scar, making me feel naked in my dress.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Good. Well then, is this your mother?” he asked, looking over to where my mother was standing, silently observing everything.
“She is.”
“Great. Do me a favor, will you?” he asked, stepping forward toward her. “Run home, and pack Lailah a bag. Maybe enough for a week or two. Whatever you can find. Anything else she needs, we can provide for her.”
My mom’s eyes widened at his bold request.
“Excuse me? I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m not going anywhere with you!” I exclaimed.
He turned back around, his face transforming into a wide grin. “Oh, sweetheart, after what I have to tell you, you’ll be begging me to get on that plane. And if you don’t, I guess you’re not worth everything my brother’s done for you after all.”
After I changed out of my dress, Roman and I headed to a coffee shop across the street while my mom and Grace headed home. He’d promised to deliver me safely back to my mom’s in an hour after he explained himself.
He might look like Jude, but the domineering attitude he carried made me want to dropkick him. He had exactly twenty minutes to reveal exactly why he had flown all the way across the country to pack my bags and order me around like one of his employees.
We stood in line, and I shifted from one foot to another as I read the menu posted above.
Number thirty-three—order a ridiculously priced cup of coffee.
I’d never been in a coffee shop—let alone, ordered a cup of coffee. The names baffled me.
Why couldn’t they just call them small, medium, and large?
“Are you okay?” Roman asked, obviously sensing my distress.
“What?” I startled. “Oh, yes. Um…what are you getting?” I asked.
We got to the counter, and I almost chickened out by saying I’d have what he was ordering, but I managed to get through it, ordering a grande mocha something or other. I didn’t know. It sounded decadent.
We both ordered scones as well, and we made our way to a small table in the corner by the window. I smiled, thinking about yet another thing I’d be able to cross off my list.
“So spill,” I finally said. I started to pull the corners off my chocolate scone before popping them into my mouth.
Yum. Real food is awesome.
Roman repeated my actions and took a bite of his blueberry scone. “When Jude called me last summer and said he was coming home, he was very specific about a few things.”
Taking a sip of my mocha, I watched him run his fingers over the edge of his cup. “Two things actually—one, he wanted more control, more power over what we did…and didn’t do.”
“Why does this involve me?” I hated every word, every sentence that involved Jude. It was like a lance to the heart, pulling me back, making me remember those beautiful few months where I’d felt soul-defining pure love—until he’d left.
“And the other,” Roman continued without bothering to answer me, “was immediate access to his account that I’d frozen years earlier. Now, I didn’t think much of it at the time, and I agreed to both on the spot. You’ve seen the news, I’m sure. Cavanaugh Investments wasn’t in a good place, and I would have agreed to just about anything, so I could hand over the reins to my younger brother.”
“Again, I don’t understand why we are having this conversation.”
He smiled. “You’re very impatient.”
“You would be, too, if you’d spent your entire life stuck on the outside, looking in.”
“We all have prisons and chains that keep us from the one thing we really want in life, Lailah. Yours were just bigger and stronger than most.”
“And what do you want most in this life, Roman?” I challenged, raising my eyebrow. I took a slow sip of coffee.
“Freedom,” he answered. “Just like you.”
“Handing everything over to your brother hasn’t turned out the way you expected?” I smirked, watching the pleasant smile on his face disappear.
“He might have solved our problems, but he’s not happy. He’s goddamn miserable.”
I shook my head. “He doesn’t appear to be miserable in the gossip magazines. Apparently, he’s dating a coworker. They’re very happy,” I sneered.
His eyes heated in anger. “Don’t believe everything you hear on TV or see in the papers, Lailah. Leaving you destroyed my brother. He’s nothing but an empty shell.”
“Well then, why isn’t he here, telling me that himself?” I asked a bit too loudly, causing a few people to turn their heads.
Roman looked around and cursed. “Do you think you could be a little more discreet?”
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“Why do you think Jude needed all that cash? All of a sudden? When he got home and I saw he’d traded his Sperrys and Polos for grungy jeans and tats, I figured he’d gotten himself into trouble. But the more I was around him, the more I realized it had less to do with him, and more to do…with you.”
“Me?” My eyes widened as everything started to settle into place.
I will never stop fighting for you
“Oh God, it wasn’t a dream. He was here—after my surgery. He was here,” I blurted out as my eyes began to blur.
“Did you really believe the insurance company would reverse a denial that quickly?”
“He paid for my transplant?”
“Yes,” Roman answered. “I finally did a bit of digging and discovered where he was wiring all those funds to. With the aid of a few friends, I was able to track the bank trail back to you. My mother filled in the rest, bursting like a dam when I showed her all the evidence. Apparently, she’s been carrying the secret of you around for a long time.”
“Your mother knows about me?” I asked, blinking away tears.
“Yeah,” he answered. “She’d really like to meet you.”
“He didn’t abandon me,” I said as an overwhelming feeling of hope spread through me. For once in my life, the feeling didn’t scare me. Hope was a terrifying risk for someone like me, but as many times as I’d been disappointed or overwhelmed with joy in life, everything had brought me to that hospital for a reason.
“So, what do we do now?” I asked.
“Now, we catch a flight, and you save my brother the way he saved you.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
Number eight-seven—Fly on a plane.
Check.