Second Hearts (The Wishes Series) (48 page)

As soon as I was close enough, I asked a stupid question. “What’s going on?”

It was Kinsey who blurted out a reply. If I hadn’t already known the answer, her jumbled words would have made no sense. I linked my arm through Adam’s, but he was so worked up he didn’t seem to notice I was touching him. I wasn’t sure who would wear the brunt of his fury – until Parker foolishly appeared.

Adam lurched forward, grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pinned him against the wall. Kinsey let out a scream and Seraphina worked hard to calm her down. Jeremy attempted to separate them, but Adam refused to let go. I had never seen him so infuriated. Parker raised his hands in a motion of surrender and that was when I noticed the angry red welts.

“How could you?” hissed Adam through gritted teeth.

Adam released him with a hard shove. Confident that the confrontation was over, Jeremy took a step back.

It would’ve been an opportune time for Parker to walk away, but he didn’t. Foolishly, he answered Adam’s question. “You should’ve been taking care of business, Adam. I’m
only too happy to keep picking up your slack. Your wife is in need of a little TLC too.”

Even Jeremy, the peacemaker, couldn’t make sense of his audacity. He did nothing as Adam drew back his fist and punched Parker square in the face. Kinsey screamed again and Sera quickly led her away.

Adam stood over Parker. “If you get up, I’ll smash you again.”

“Enough,” ordered Jeremy, putting his hand on Adam’s chest and pushing him back.

I looked back at Whitney for the first time. She bestowed the tiniest smile on me and I wondered if her confession had had the desired effect. One thing was certain. After that night, nothing would ever be the same.

The rest of the partygoers continued revelling in the ballroom, oblivious of the drama outside the door. But we were done. Adam took my hand and led us across the foyer to the cloakroom. “We’ll get our coats and then we’re out of here,” he muttered, seemingly to himself.

It took a few minutes for the attendant to find them and the delay was beginning to annoy him. Our coats appeared at the same time that Kinsey came barrelling across the foyer, calling Adam’s name.

He turned to face her. “I won’t touch him again, Kinsey,” he promised.

“No, no,” she said, panicked. “He’s had a reaction to something. He needs to go to the hospital.”

I looked past Kinsey and saw Parker listlessly walking across the foyer toward us. It was hard to tell what was hurting him more – his angry welted hands or his bloody swollen nose. Adam turned his attention back to me. “I have to take him to hospital,” he said, sounding totally inconvenienced. “Take a cab home and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

I was thrilled to be going home. My intention was to make a quick getaway but hailing a cab was harder than expected.

“I have a driver,” said Whitney, appearing from somewhere behind me. “You’re welcome to share a ride with me.”

I pulled my coat tighter around my body, trying to protect myself from the bitter cold – and perhaps a bitter Whitney.

“What happened to Nate?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I guess he just wasn’t that into me.”

“What made you finally come clean, Whit?” I asked, too curious not to know. “Did your conscience finally get the better of you?”

She looked to the pavement. “I saw him talking to you. It made me realise what a tool he really is. His spiel hasn’t changed much.”

“He is a tool,” I agreed, shuddering.

“You made his hands welt, didn’t you?”

“Possibly.”

“I wish I’d thought to do that.”

“You deserve better than him, Whitney,” I said, sucking the humour right out of the conversation. “Don’t settle for less than you’re worth.”

“I won’t do it again,” she promised, holding her hand to her heart.

“Me neither.”

“Regrets, Charli?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “None.”

I wasn’t lying. I regretted nothing, but had finally realised that I’d reached the end of my rope. The desperate need to have Adam in my life had finally given way to self-preservation. My sanity would give out if I continued with the Manhattan madness that had become my life. I didn’t end up sharing a ride home with Whitney. I managed to hail a cab and get the hell out of there.

39. Small Details

I wanted to be awake when Adam arrived home, but zonked out on the couch some time after two. I probably wouldn’t have woken at all if he hadn’t made such a racket on the way in. He dropped his keys on the floor, bent down to pick them up, and managed to take a dining chair with him. Boy Wonder was drunk. In fact, Boy Wonder was blind rotten smashed. This was a first. I had no idea how to handle him.

“Charlotte.” He staggered back a few steps, steadying himself by leaning against the wall.

I made no attempt to get off the couch. “Adam.”

He paused. “The chairs fell down.”

“I know, I saw. Why don’t you sit down?”

It took a long few seconds for him to process my instructions before he pushed himself off the wall, stumbled toward me and fell in a heap at my feet, resting his elbows on my knees.

“I love you so much,” he slurred.

I ran my hands through his messy hair, looking into his tired blue eyes. He looked like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I love you too. Where have you been?”

“Out. Getting drunk.”

“By yourself?”

“No big deal,” he muttered. “I’m probably going to be spending a lot of time alone from here on in.”

“Did you take Parker to the hospital?”

“Yeah. They’re keeping him overnight.”

I felt slightly bad. I’d done some pretty low things in the past but that was the first time I’d ever inflicted actual physical injury on someone.

“So he’s okay?”

“He’ll live. Besides, I think his broken nose hurts more than his allergies.”

I put my hand under his chin and lifted his head, forcing him to look at me. “You broke his nose?”

A lazy grin swept his face. “You broke his hands.”

“He told you that?”

“He told me
everything
,” he replied. “Do you know everything, Charlotte?”

His question formed a dangerous line of conversation. In a few short hours, Adam’s entire social circle had imploded. And I suspected he knew that our relationship had almost gone down with it. It wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have with him while he was plastered, so I censored my reply.

“I know about Parker and Whitney.”

He huffed out a sharp laugh. “You knew that? Wow. How’d I miss it for so long then?”

I wasn’t about to explain. There was a scar on my brain where I’d burned the memory from my psyche. Thankfully, Mr oblivious wasn’t thinking clearly enough to realise I hadn’t answered him. I leaned down and kissed the top of his head. “I’m sorry they betrayed you like that.”

Better than anyone, I knew the pain of finding out your friend is a treacherous jerk. It hurt almost as much as finding out I was married to one.

“I probably deserved it,” he conceded. “I’m just like them. They lie, cheat and manipulate to get what they want. I do the same thing to you. But you know that now, right? Parker told you.”

“I would’ve worked it out sooner or later, Adam. I’m not giving Parker any credit for spelling it out for me.”

“I’m sorry he hit on you,” he said, veering off-subject.

“I dealt with it,” I replied, surprised that Parker really had told him everything.

He laughed blackly. “Yes. I suppose inflicting anaphylaxis is dealing with it.”

I couldn’t find the humour. If he had been sober, I doubt he would have either. Ending the conversation seemed like a good idea. I grabbed his hand and tried pulling him to his feet.

“Let’s go to bed. I’m tired.”

Adam yanked me down into his lap. “Tired of loving me?”

I linked one arm around his neck. “No one ever gets tired of loving someone, Adam. They just get tired of waiting and being disappointed and getting hurt.”

“I can’t give you what you need,” he said bleakly. “I’ve known that from the
very beginning. I was never going to leave here. I belong in New York. I want to finish my degree and practise law. I’ve been dragging you along for the ride, trying to change your mind about wanting to leave. I tried my hardest to make you happy so you’d stay here with me.”

I absolutely believed he thought he’d given it his best shot. In hindsight, everything from stargazing on rooftops to gifting me Billet-doux had been tactical. It just wasn’t enough for me anymore. “I know. But I’m not going to discuss it while you’re drunk.”

“We have to. That’s why I got drunk. How else was I supposed to work up to telling you all of this?”

I wrestled free of his grip. “Don’t do this now. You’ll regret it in the morning.”

He brought his wrist to his face, squinting as he tried to read it. “It’s already morning, and I already have many regrets.”

“Stop talking, Adam.”

He ignored me. “Maybe you should get drunk too. Then we can reminisce about all the horrible things my mother put you through when you got here. And when that subject runs dry we’ll move on to the torture my friends inflicted.”

“Don’t – ”

“No, let me finish. There’s plenty more I don’t want to talk about. How about all the times I let you down? All the times I refused to see what was going on because that was easier than trying to deal with it. Your time here’s been a living hell.” He shook his head, speaking with pure regret. “I’m such a selfish bastard. I did nothing to save you from it.”

I couldn’t argue with the truth. The best I could do was remind him of why I endured it. “I love you, Adam.”

He grimaced as if my words had caused him excruciating pain. “You gave up everything for me. Don’t do it anymore. I can’t give up anything for you.”

It was the most honesty I’d seen from him in a long time. I reached for his han
d and held it tightly. “I’m sorry for that, Charli.”

“I’m sorry too,” I replied, dully.

“Why did you put up with it for so long?”

“Because I thought it was temporary. You let me think we were leaving.” It was important that I kept calm. He was barely thinking straight. If I overloaded him with anger, there was a chance the conversation would end up in a place we couldn’t recover from. “What did you think was going to happen? Did you think you could string me along indefinitely? Show me enough magic every now and then to keep me loved up and happy? You know me better than that, Adam.”

He shrugged but at least he had the good sense to look contrite. “I don’t know what to tell you, Charli. Love makes you do all sorts of unreasonable things.”

It was the same cryptic quip Gabrielle had confounded me with a hundred times, only this time, I understood its meaning perfectly. It was the very reason I’d stuck it out as long as I had, and why he’d duped me into staying.

“You lied to me,” I said, dropping my hold on his hand.

“Every. Freaking. Day,” he admitted, enunciating every word. “I won’t do it any more. I’m exhausted. I know you’re leaving me. I know our five minutes are up.”

Of everything he’d just confessed to, those last seven words were the ones that wrecked me, especially the blasé way he’d said them. I covered my face with my hands, willing myself not to cry.

“You’re okay with that? Do you want me to leave, Adam?”

He pulled my hands from my face, forcing me to look at him. So many emotions crossed his handsome, wasted face that I truly couldn’t pre-empt his answer.

“No Charli. I want to rip your fairy wings off on a daily basis to make sure you can’t fly away.” The frustrated words hitched in his throat, slowing his rant. “
I love you. I want you to stay here and be miserable forever so I never have to face life without you. Is that too much to ask?”

He grinned then, extinguishing the cruelty of his words in an instant. “You’re a sloppy drunk, Adam Décarie,” I admonished, smiling back at him.

The deep dimple in his cheek vanished as quickly as his smile. “Please wish for things to be different,” he urged. The alcohol was talking. He was practically begging me to do something that his normally logical brain had trouble believing in. “Cash in your biggest wish and find a way to fix this.”

“You can’t fix hopeless, Adam.”

His head lolled back and he growled in exasperation. “The universe sucks, Charlotte,” he said roughly.

“Tonight, she does,” I agreed, laughing at his uncharacteristic choice of words.

Fate is a cruel mistress. She let us find each other and fall desperately in love, years before we were supposed to, at a time when neither of us could completely surrender to it. I was beginning to suspect that my father and fate were old friends. Alex had warned me of this outcome long ago, and only now could I concede that he’d been right all along.

“I know that you’re going to hate living in New York,” he’d told me. “Adam will win out for a while, but eventually you’re going to have to decide when to call it quits.”