24. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Marcus

" O h my God." Leighton's blue eyes shine bright for me. Only for me. "That was so fucking good."

This isn't the right time for my dick to get hard.

Matter of fact, it shouldn't be possible for me to get hard right now.

From this. From Leighton doing nothing other than lying on the tan couch in our living room. Her feet are propped in my lap. Her mouth parts so she can thank me for dinner.

For fucking dinner.

She's not trying to seduce me. She's grateful, full, and content. That's it.

This is innocence at its finest.

Except my cock doesn't get the memo.

My cock is obsessed with her round breasts covered by my gray Henley. With how the hem reaches a little over her knees. My eyes can't stray away from her exposed thighs. My hands can't stop giving her a foot rub that coaxes moans out of her.

I'm obsessed with this creature in my possession. With her sexuality and compassion.

She's letting me have this week of us being just us like I asked her. Hasn't brought up me stalking my own daughter. Hasn't begged me to sort out through her blocked memories.

I've reciprocated these generous acts of kindness. Other than my daily check-ups on Rylan in our Santa Barbara home, I've been completely devoted to Leighton. Haven't even called Dr. Hatchett to let her know Leighton and I are alive and well.

Leigh and I haven't had a therapy or hypnosis session.

We've been busy being a couple. Sipping on beer while sitting on that first step of the pool. Taking morning and evening walks. Watching old horror movies— Rosemary's Baby , she loves that one.

Then there were our talks. We talked more than anything else. Held normal conversations like normal people did while we explored the terrain.

Leighton admitted she could never tell the difference between love and lust since she hadn't dated or had other boyfriends. She'd known for almost a decade that she craved my attention, my company, my approval.

I've been honest as well. I struggled with confessing my love for the seventeen-year-old Leighton. As real as it'd been, it'd been equally immoral. Leighton hadn't judged me for falling for her. She got off on it—bright eyes, pleas to tell her everything.

And I have. I broke down my walls and tore off my mask. I bared my soul to her, and she took me in exactly as I was.

We saw and appreciated how multilayered humans each of us were. How we were built of curves rather than one boring plane. How the light didn't hit each angle the same, how it hardly ever does.

A good partner, a truly loving one, would adore the darkness of the other as much as they'd revel in the light.

Our human flaws weren't flaws at all. They were what made us who we are.

Leighton's words, not mine.

I had no choice but to agree with her.

Truthfully, I agreed with every single word that came out of her mouth. Couldn't get enough of this woman.

During this week, Leighton's been mine. I've been hers.

She's given me this gift, and I didn't throw it away.

I'm not ready for it to end.

"I see you like my pecan pie." I'm stalling. I owe her answers. It's time. Yet here I am, stealing a few extra moments of happiness. Of ignorance.

"Like?" Leighton's tongue peeks out to lick her lips. My dick strains in my jeans at the sight of her display of pleasure. "I moaned throughout the entire dessert. Freaking loved it. Truth is…" She lets her voice float.

"Yes?" I'm curious to hear what she has to say next. No, not curious. Obsessed .

"I had to silence a lot of moans over the years." Her toes wiggle, her cute foot dragging up and down my erection. "Every time you baked this pie."

"You wanted to fuck the pie?" I pin Leighton with a harsh stare that throws her into a giggling fit. "Is that what you're telling me?"

I'd reference the movie American Pie , except I know she hasn't watched it.

"When you say it like that." She grabs the hem of my shirt she's wearing, pulling it up her thighs. "Fucking and all…"

I get the view of her wet pussy, then her navel. She stops at the underside of her breasts, teasing me.

Bitterness is black ink, spreading inside me like poison.

But, again, I made a promise to Leighton. Swore I'd tell her the truths she needs to hear for us to move forward.

It's the right thing to do. We have to start the rest of our lives together.

We don't have a choice.

Her cycle is due in the next week or so. I hope to fuck it doesn't come. I hope like hell our firstborn's already brewing in her beautiful stomach.

"Enough." I yank the shirt back into place.

"Okay, okay, I'm done playing." Her eyes lose their playfulness. "What's up?"

She doesn't ask if she's done anything wrong. Leighton knows my anger isn't and never will be aimed at her. I'm relieved. Grateful for her.

She gets me.

"Remember the day at the pool a week ago? "

"Yes." There's a smile sneaking past her stern expression.

She likes the memory. Likes it so much that she forgot why we were in the pool to begin with.

"I owe you a story." I return to rubbing her feet. "The last piece of the puzzle."

"Oh." Leighton sits up straight, pulling her legs under her. She looks at me, and her eyes begin to water. "Fuck, Marcus, we had so much fun that I totally forgot about Rylan. I'm the worst friend. The worst goddamn friend ever, and—"

I don't wait for her to finish the sentence. My arms fold around Leighton, and I drag her to me until she's in my lap.

"I forgot about her." Her hands are fists on my bare chest. "At first, I put the real world aside because you asked me to. I didn't forget about her then. I just put everything aside."

"I'm grateful for that." I stroke her hair. "So grateful for you, Leighton."

"After that…" A sob rips through her. Her tears are a stroke to my ego. That she lets herself cry around me. "I did forget. You've taken every available space of my life. I—I—I forgot."

"You didn't." My lips kiss away the tears. Stop the rest from coming. "I made sure you were focused on us. On our happiness. What we were owed. I'll die before apologizing for this. Over these few quiet weeks together here with you."

"Rylan, though—"

"We'll have our whole lives to spend together, beautiful." Hopefully . "I told you I'd do my best for us to have one big family, and I meant it. Now, no more crying. You have to focus and hear me out. "

She wipes at what's left of her tears, blinking her red eyes at me. She's a mature woman through and through, but it's moments like these that I remember how young she is. How careful I have to be around her.

"What I'm about to say won't be easy to hear." Gently, I place Leighton back on the couch. "You have to trust that I'm telling you the truth."

Leighton sighs heavily, tucking her feet under her again. "I think I know where you're going with this."

Her chin dips. I place a finger under it, returning her gaze to me. "You do?"

"I love Rylan. More than love her. I adore her. I would've been raped if it weren't for her. I would've been so lonely without her." Leighton shudders, and my pulse kicks up. "My life wouldn't have been the same without her laughs and easy smiles. She's so much fun to be around. The fact that we don't share DNA doesn't matter. She's my sister."

My days as a psychiatrist taught me a crucial lesson. If a person needs to talk, you let them. Uninterrupted. Bare of judgment. So, I sit there, quiet, and do just that.

"Those women you dated. They didn't disappear." To my surprise, Leighton doesn't grimace at what she's insinuating. Her face doesn't blanch. "They didn't ghost you, did they?"

"No." My lungs expand as I start telling her the full story from the top. "The first evening I had Alexa over for dinner was the first time I saw another side of Rylan. One I hadn't met before. Despite years of practice, I'd missed out on the other side my daughter had been hiding. Even then, I chose to ignore it. I—fuck—it didn't make sense. What was right there in front of me didn't make sense."

"She hadn't had a reason to show it to you until then. You were her dad. Hers." Leighton understands. Such a clever, perceptive little one. "She wasn't hiding her jealousy, either. She just didn't feel it. You couldn't see what wasn't there."

I shake my head. Most days, I'm able to forgive myself. Most days, I'm able to live with my denial. Not today.

"You shouldn't blame yourself." Leighton's palm covers mine on my thigh, squeezing my hand. "You can't blame yourself."

"I can, and I will." As the memories swim to the surface, my self-loathing grows. "I should've seen the signs. Ry's not like the other kids in her school. She smiles too hard, laughs at everything and anything."

Leighton rubs her thumb on the top of my hand. "Since when is being too happy a bad thing?"

"Leigh, I admire your loyalty to your friend. For my daughter. I do. Down to the marrow of my bones. Thankful for the love you have for Rylan." I press a warm, cherishing kiss on her forehead. "But neither you nor I are blind."

Her lips pinch into a straight, pained line.

"Rylan and Alexa joked. Laughed. Played board games together, as you remember." I continue my story. "You two were thirteen at the time, so please forgive me for saying this—I liked Alexa. I thought she and I had a future together."

"There's nothing to forgive." The subtlest shift in Leighton's saddened expression suggests otherwise .

Moreover, since she confessed to being jealous of her while in a trance.

"I've been single for thirteen years, prioritizing my daughter first, my career second. It was time for me to start dating, and Alexa, my secretary, was there." Sadness clutches at my chest for the next part. For upsetting Leighton. I flip my hand, gripping hers tight. "I don't love her anymore. I don't miss her. You're the only woman for me, Leigh. Have been for the last five years. I'm going into detail because you need to see the full picture. That's it."

"Okay." Leighton nods. Her trust in me smooths over the wrinkles in the corners of her eyes. "Go on."

"One day, Alexa disappeared. Didn't show up to work. Didn't return my calls. When I went to her apartment, I found out it'd been vacated." I remember the U-Haul receipt at Rylan's dresser a year later, and I curse myself inwardly. "I'd accepted that she moved on. To something better. Someone better. She'd said she loved the idea of having a stepchild, but maybe she changed her mind? I couldn't tell since she was gone. No note, nothing. I accepted that. I fucking shouldn't."

All signs of jealousy are wiped from Leighton's eyes. Compassion filters into her blues. She scooches closer to snuggle up to me.

I'm not worthy of her or anyone's forgiveness, but I take it regardless. I'm selfish. Damn it, I need someone to forgive me.

"A year later, I met Sylvia at a psychiatry convention. Once more, I introduced her to Rylan. Once more, Ry smiled at her. That first time her lips stretched wide and her white teeth showed. This time, I didn't ignore my suspicions." I ball my hand into a fist, my teeth grinding. "That wasn't enough. Sylvia's disappearance was harder for me to accept. A psychiatrist doesn't just up and leave without offering alternatives for their patients. And Sylvia cared for her patients very much."

Leighton's throat bobs when she gulps on her spit. "Did you tell anyone you were going when you kidnapped me?"

"Took, baby. Took. And yes." I raise her palm to my lips, kissing each and every one of her knuckles. "I did some digging, called mutual colleagues, her secretary. No one had heard from her. A few days later, I noticed the abundance of new flowers in our garden. Rylan planted them next to the flowers she'd planted right after Alexa's disappearance."

I bow my head, leveling Leighton with a meaningful stare.

"No." She gasps. Shakes her head. "I helped her grow those flowers."

"I'm sorry, beautiful." Kissing her won't solve anything. I kiss her lips briefly anyway, and go on, ending this gory tale. "I dug deeper, literally. I'd crushed sleeping pills into Rylan's drink one evening. In the middle of the night, when the neighborhood was quiet and everyone slept, I slipped outside. I pulled out her flowers. One of the faces under them was Sylvia. The other was a skeleton. I recognized Alexa from the gold chain with a pearl pendant."

"You were sad." Leighton changes before me. She's almost growling now.

She doesn't care that they're dead.

She's worried for me.

I'll address the subject later .

"For Rylan. For those women. They were innocent. I liked them and cared for them. That was their only crime, and Ry made sure they were punished for it." I sigh. "She had gotten away with both of these murders. What about the next time, though? Who would've saved her from being locked up? I had to do something."

Leighton frowns at my insinuated betrayal. I shake my head vehemently.

"I would've never gone to the police or a mental institute." Both Leighton and I can see where this conversation is going. Still, her relief and need to have Ry's back is shocking. "My daughter was a product of a nightmare. Camille died during childbirth, and I'm certain the trauma somehow bled into Rylan's psyche. That's why I didn't turn her in. I decided to deal with it myself."

"By being celibate," Leighton completes my sentence.

"Yes. It started out as a conscious choice. Then three years later, it wasn't." My lips hook to the side, despite everything. Leighton does that to me. Shines her light on my darkest places. "I fell for you. There's no one else after that because I never wanted anyone else but you. But fuck, there shouldn't have ever been a you , either. For your sake, there shouldn't have been."

"Until now that I was about to move?"

"That too. The thought of losing you hurt me on a visceral level. Then you started telling me we shouldn't be together." The air I suck in doesn't feel cleansing. Nothing could cleanse me for what I'm about to tell Leighton. "Those aren't the only reasons why I took you the way I have, though. You and I had been reckless, that day on the poolside. Before that day too. Both of us had been sneaking glances at the other. Ry picked up on it."

It's as though white paint has been splashed on Leighton's face. The healthy tan is no more. She's pale. So pale. I haul her into my lap, and when she straddles me, I grab her throat to force her attention back on me. Saving her from panicking.

I'll save her from anything.

"Tell me you haven't noticed." My eyes narrow, searching hers. The flicker is there. Goddamnit, it's there. She's still with me. "You have. Forced smiles?"

She nods.

"Her mood wasn't steady."

"I thought"— sob —"I don't know what I thought."

"You couldn't have known, baby." Needing to reassure her, I wrap an arm around her, pinning her to me. "I could. The iced tea she offered to set for us would've been spiked. That day would've ended up with me fast asleep and you dead in our garden. For years, I've built and equipped this house for you, for us. Years of postponing, of thinking maybe this was a bad idea. Now, I'm sure it hasn't been for nothing. This glass home was here to protect you. To hide you. It'll continue being exactly that for as long as I'll need. Until it becomes something better. A vacation home for us."

Silence stretches in the room as we gaze at each other. Warm each other. Processing what I've just said. My reality and the heavy burden I've been carrying by myself are now shared between the two of us .

"That's why you're stalking her?" Leighton breaks the silence. "To see if she found out about this place?"

"Yes."

More silence. It's her turn to demand answers, to yell, to accuse me. I'll let her do anything.

"Has she?"

"Not as far as I'm concerned."

I brush a silky strand of hair behind her shoulder. My eyes skim over her blonde roots. Even if I would've wanted to dye her hair pink again, I wouldn't have. She might be pregnant with our baby, and I'd rather avoid doing so until the second trimester.

I need a baby from her like I need air.

"She has no idea they're there, so she couldn't have fucked with them. I saw her at home this morning. She keeps wearing different clothes and the cameras on my app are hidden. She's still there. And…"

"What?" Leighton asks when she realizes I've stopped mid-sentence. "What is it?"

"Milo is there some days," I snarl. "Desperate to find you."

I can practically hear the connections being made in her head.

My jealousy tantrum. Milo's betrayal.

What toxic love really looks like.

Click. Click. Click.

"What are we going to do?" She runs a hand through her hair. "Does anyone else know we're here?"

We. As in the both of us. She's not giving up on us even after everything I've done. After how I treated her. How I covered up the murders of two innocent women for my daughter's sake.

She loves me, regardless.

The relief is overwhelming, but my face betrays nothing. I'm strong. An alpha, all-powerful man for her. A wall of impenetrable resolve.

A man who'd stand between my Leighton and anyone trying to harm her.

"No one but Hazel, the realtor who sold me the property, my contractor, and the two people he hired for the job." When I see that my answer hasn't satisfied Leighton, I continue ticking off the safety measures off my list. "You know I texted your parents through an app on my computer letting them know you're prolonging your stay in Cancún. My patients were notified I'm on indefinite leave. I have more than enough cash here to live off for decades. Everything's been taken care of."

Leighton, unlike me, doesn't hide her relief well. Her body goes slack in my arms, and I hug her tighter.

"I'm going to drive over there and talk to Ry. In person." My voice is steel. "By myself. We'll have to handle this situation carefully. She's unpredictable when she's upset. I can't imagine what weeks of frustration have done to her."

"Okay. Uh. Thank you." I don't miss how quiet she becomes.

"Out with it." I frame her face in my hands, massaging her scalp. "Whatever you're thinking, tell me. No secrets."

"What if she never forgives me?" Tears leak out of Leighton's eyes. She isn't afraid for her life; I can tell that much .

It's losing Rylan that hurts her worse than anything. The lifetime of love and friendship they shared.

"Rylan will have to see reason." Please, God, or whoever's up there, let that be true. "If it means I'll have to tie her up and convince her you're still her best friend and I'm still her father, then that's what I'll do. It'll work out, baby. Everything will work out at the end."

Ice trickles up my spine, coating them in hardened resolve.

For Leighton, I'll do whatever it takes.

Whatever.

It.

Takes.