King's Baby - A Bad Boy Romance (39 page)

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Holland

For the first time
since I was reunited with Juliette, we are sleeping with the door unlocked.
King is gone. We’ve been living under the same roof for a while now, and it
feels weird to know he’s not here somewhere. If I weren’t so sure I hated him,
I would think I missed him, but I don’t. At least, I don’t think I do . . .
he’s making this more difficult than I thought was possible.

I hate the gifts he
leaves for me. I honestly despise them. They feel like bribes or little pieces
of manipulation. But I’m having more and more trouble ignoring the growing
tenderness in my heart for him. He’s been very kind and loving and generous,
and he’s respected every single demand I’ve made and every wish I’ve had. I
even threw in some ridiculous things to see what he’d do like requesting
lobster for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a week, or the time I told him
Juliette and I were going to watch the midnight showing of the latest Disney
movie.

He would raise his
eyebrows and cock his neck back, but he never questioned me. It was always,
“Alright, Holland.” “Whatever you think is best, Holland.” “If that’s what you
want, Holland.” A couple of times I wanted him to put up a fight just to make
it interesting, but I knew he wouldn’t do it. I could ask for the moon, and he
would hire someone to figure out how to get it for me. He’s desperate, and I’d
be lying if I said I didn’t like it.

The longer I’m in
Puerto Rico, the more evidence I find that he was telling the truth. He truly
believed he was doing the right thing for me. He thought I was destined for
greatness and that if he stood in my way, I would be devastated and resent him
for it forever.

And as far as I can
tell, he’s completely out of the drug business. I haven’t seen a contact or
heard a business phone call for weeks, and Sebastián, his father—God, I
still can’t believe that—swears he handed it all over to the Russians.

But still . . . three
years . . . I can’t set aside the misery and heartache he put me through
unnecessarily, even if he did think it was right. It’s like shoving a butcher
knife through someone’s chest just to cut a tiny mole off of their back when
they could have removed it with a scalpel by simply turning the person
over—if it needed removing at all. A mole is an irregularity. It’s not
necessary to remove it.

I never considered
Juliette an irregularity or an obstacle to overcome. She was a part of me. He
didn’t have to remove her from my life so that I could live. She was one of the
things keeping me alive and he was the other. Without them, I was lost.

***

Someone is pounding
on my door. I open my eyes and look at the clock on the bedside table. It’s six
a.m. and our flight isn't until noon. We aren’t late. What the hell is going
on?

I sit up and pad
quietly so I don’t disturb Juliette, until it dawns on me that it’s not
necessary—she can’t hear us.

“Holland,” Sebastián
yells and bangs on the door some more. I open it and look down at where my hand
is on the knob; he’s surprised it’s not locked. His eyes are wild and
red-rimmed. He’s been crying. Alarms and whistles start going off in my head,
and my heart plummets.

“There’s been an
accident . . . a plane down . . . King could be . . .”

Oh my God. My hand
flies to cover my mouth, and tears spring to my eyes . . . tears. I swore to
never shed another tear over that man, but he might be . . . no, no, no, this
isn’t happening. I lost him once. I can’t lose him again. I didn’t say goodbye
last night. I told him I hated him . . .

Sebastián looks over
my shoulder at Juliette. She’s still asleep.

“Come, we have to
make some calls and find out what’s happening.”

I nod and reach for
my robe from the chair next to the door and glance one more time at Juliette.

She may have lost her
daddy. The thought rips me apart. She loves him so much—he’s her
world—this would shatter her.

When the door is
closed, Sebastián leads me to the main living room at the end of the hall,
where the TV is on and a reporter is talking to a coastguard official about a
plane that went down around midnight last night—the same time King’s jet
was supposed to be flying to Houston.

I stop halfway into
the room and stare at the screen, listening to them describe King’s plane.

There were no
survivors. They don’t know what caused the crash—the weather was perfect,
the sky was clear, and it just took a nosedive straight into the ocean.

Sebastián turns just
in time to see me drop to my knees and lean back on my heels. I can’t feel. I’m
numb. This isn’t like when I came home and couldn’t find Juliette and King.
It’s worse. There’s no panic, no urgency, no question, because there isn’t
anything anyone can do. He’s gone, he’s at the bottom of the ocean, and he’s
never coming back. His plane crashed, and he died alone in the ocean without
knowing that I love him. I’ve always loved him.

“Now Holland, we
don’t know for sure, it might not have been his plane. He could be in Houston
right now. We need to contact the authorities.”

Our eyes meet, and I
can tell he’s grasping at straws, trying not to accept that his son is gone. It
strikes me as ironic that he was only able to fully and openly love his son for
the same amount of time that I was kept from loving my daughter.

He shakes his head
back and forth.

“Don’t you give up on
him,
Holland.
He’s not dead
,
he will not be dead
. He’s my son, dammit! You may have
stopped loving him, but I haven’t.”

“I never stopped.” I
blink once, freeing two large, hot tears. Sebastián helps me up and over to the
couch, where we sit together. I watch the news coverage that’s repeating over
and over that the one man I ever loved might be dead. Sebastián is on his phone
for what seems like forever. I haven’t heard a word he’s said. I started tuning
out sound a while ago when I couldn’t stand to hear the story repeated one more
time. When he hangs up, he takes my hand in both of his. I’m still numb. I can
hardly feel his fingers on mine. When I look over and see his ashen face, I
know.

“It was his plane,” he
says.

Those four words
strung together in that specific order at this specific moment destroy me.

Part of me knew he
was gone already, but the confirmation of his death brings the shock rushing
back a thousand fold.

“I didn’t know . . .
I didn’t know . . .” I whisper as Sebastián’s arms circle my shoulders.

“I know, but he
believed you did, he never gave up, he swore he would spend the rest of his
life trying to make it right between you two, and he did, he’s gone, he died
trying.” His sobs break free, he cries against my neck, and I sit there with my
arms at my sides, staring through the French doors at the ocean lapping against
the shore, the same ocean that claimed King and his plane.

I didn’t think I
loved him. I thought I despised him, but now that we will never have a chance
to make amends, I realize how blind I’ve been.

***

I haven’t seen
Juliette all day. I’ve been curled up on my side in King’s bed doing the same
thing I did when he and Juliette disappeared. I’m breathing the scent of him
into my lungs, where I wish I could keep it locked up forever.

How do you tell a
three-year-old her daddy is dead? I haven’t even learned how to sign the word
‘dead’ yet. I should be comforting Sebastián. He just lost his son, but he had
to go pick up his wife somewhere. I didn’t even know he was married. He never
mentioned her.

Sebastián sent
Juliette to play at the neighbor’s house with their little girl. They have been
friends with King for years, and the girls have grown
up
together. It’s strange not being with her. I have literally not let her out of
my sight for a month, but there’s nothing to worry about now. There’s no one to
take her from me, because King is gone.

I’m glad she enjoying
one last afternoon of carefree fun, believing that her daddy is in Houston
preparing a surprise for her. I wish the afternoon could last forever so she
never has to know this pain.

I open my eyes when I
hear a rustling on the balcony outside of King’s room. When I look, it’s a big
ol’ seagull flapping its wings before settling on a post that supports the
balcony. Stupid bird. King hates it when they hang around pooping on the
patios. I jump out of bed and shoo the stupid fucking bird off the patio.

When I turn to go
back into the house, I notice a series of leather-bound books stacked on his
desk. They don’t look like books that you read for pleasure, but they aren’t
business binders either. Something about them draws me to the desk. I sit in
his huge leather office chair and slide one of them off the top of the stack and
flip it open.

May 23
^rd
Today Juliette smiled and I swear it
wasn’t gas. Her smile is the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen with the
exception of yours, Holland. She misses you, though I know she’s only two
months old, but I swear she looks for you. Her first word will be mama. I swear
it. Even though you’re not here, she will know you, my love. When you’ve
fulfilled your dreams of becoming a famous musician, we will come home and she
will call you Mama. I promise, she will be able to pick you out of a crowd of
thousands. She will know you. She will know who her mama is.

We have the diaper-changing thing down pat now. I can
finally get her changed without making a colossal mess. You would be proud. I
showed her your picture three times today, and I played her a track of you
practicing. She doesn’t respond to the music yet, but she’s young. She’ll
learn. No one can resist your talent, Holland. You’re going to be a star.

I can’t see to read
anymore. My eyes are so full of tears, but I flip through the pages of the book
and see that he wrote something every single day. I grab the next book on the
stack and wipe my nose with the back of my hand before I flip it open and find
more entries, hundreds of them, and at the end of each day's narration, there
is a letter that begins,

My dearest Holland, “I do love nothing in the world so much
as you.” –William Shakespeare

Shakespeare, he
quoted Shakespeare. I turn the page, and there is another letter after the
daily rundown that begins similarly.

My dearest Holland, “Pride can stand a thousand trials, the
strong will never fall, but watching the stars without you my soul cries.”
–William Shakespeare

I slam the book
closed and push away from the desk until the chair hits the wall and I scream.
I grip the arms of the chair and scream for the loss of a man who I spent years
wishing were dead, only to
mourn
gravely when he is.

The door to King’s
room swings open. I pull my knees to my chest,
wrap
my
arms around my legs, and bury my face.

“Go away. Leave,” I
yell. No one can console me now. I just need to be alone. Whoever it is ignores
my pleas and approaches. I pull my legs closer and squeeze my eyes shut so hard
I see sparkles.

“Holland? Baby, open
your eyes.”

Oh God, I’m really
losing my shit now. That sounded exactly like King. Can a person hallucinate
voices?

I keep my head down
until I feel a hand gather my hair and move it to the side and a kiss on the
back of my neck.

All the air is sucked
out of the room, and suddenly I can’t breathe. I’m dizzy, and I don’t even have
my eyes open. It can’t be, he’s gone. It was his plane, that’s what Sebastián
said, I’m sure of it.
It was his plane
.
I’ll never forget those four words.

“Sweetheart, look at
me, it’s okay,
I
wasn’t on the plane.”

I tell my muscles to
let go, I order them to relax, but they won’t listen.

When his big, warm
hands are on both sides of my head, lifting my face to his, I know it’s all a
mistake, a terrible, awful, horrible mistake. He’s alive, and he’s here right
in front of me, breathing and . . . living.

I launch myself out
of the chair and into his arms, wrapping my arms and legs around his body,
clinging to him, because this time, God answered
my
prayer. This time he listened, this time he brought my King back to me. He
sewed the last few stitches of the mortal gaping wound in my heart shut with
this miracle.

“I love you, King.
God, I love you,” I say, kissing his neck.

“I didn’t think I’d
ever hear you say those words again.” His voice cracks, and I pull away just
enough to cover his mouth with mine. Our kiss is desperate and so very long
overdue. I can’t put my hands every place I want them to be fast enough.

“I never stopped
loving you, Holland,” he says between kisses, but I don’t want to hear him talk
right now. I want to show him how I’m feeling instead.

“Shush, take me to
bed.”

“Something else I
never thought I’d hear again.”

“Prepare to hear that
often.”