Chapter Four

Mac

She's gone when I come back to where I left her. I hold her drink in my hand, staring at the spot she should have been.

"Hey."

I don't turn at the sultry voice. It's not Maren, I know it. And when this woman's hand snakes up my bicep, it takes all I have to not jerk away from her touch. But I do turn when she takes the drink from my hand. Of course, she's blonde. Smoking body, evidenced by the blouse that cuts to her navel and the skintight skirt that feels like a suggestion rather than actual clothing. Flawless face with high arched eyebrows. A trendy tattoo of a bird on the inside of her wrist. The kind of girl who would eagerly warm my bed if I took her home.

She wraps her pouty lips around the straw, her blue eyes locked on mine as she sips. Then she grimaces and pushes the drink back at me.

"What is this?" Her face puckers in offense, as if she's forgotten she's trying to seduce me.

"Not your drink." I turn to leave, but she grabs my arm again. This time I do shake her off.

"If it's for that lush you were with, she took off. I think she left with some other guy." She shrugs, then moves closer to me. "But I'm here. I'm Brittany."

"And I'm leaving," I say, pushing past her. I half expect her to follow, but don't look back to find out. I ditch the drinks on a table, then head for the exit.

I know Maren didn't leave with anyone. I shouldn't be confident about this, but I am.

And it makes me feel like shit, because she should have left with someone else. The last thing she needs is to be with someone like me.

So maybe it's a good thing she took off.

My car is parked in a nearby garage, a black Jaguar sedan with sleek lines and unmatched power; a newer version of a car I once saw when I was just a paycheck to a family with three other fosters. I can still remember the hunger ache in my belly, the way my pants hung loose at the waist but hit at my shins, and how that slinky car wormed its way into my appetite like a cheeseburger and a strawberry milkshake. I wanted that car—more than I wanted to escape the slap of the belt that left welts on my skin, more than I wanted to ease my unquenchable hunger as my foster parents squandered each paycheck on useless junk delivered to the house every day, and almost as much as I craved just one person I could trust.

I knew if I had that car, everything else would fall in place. And here I am. Driving the car. Living the life. Free to make my own choices.

Or am I? The mere thought makes me laugh out loud as I press the key fob, the Jaguar's lights bouncing off the concrete walls. Even though it's been a few years, it still feels like I'm playing a massive game of pretend. Fancy car. Fancy clothes. A watch that costs more than I used to make in a whole year.

I slide onto the leather seats, inhale the still new smell, and think of the way Maren felt in my arms. The lilac scent of her shampoo, and the hint of honeysuckle on her lips. How she didn't pull away when I took off her shoes, pulled her to her feet, and kissed her sweet mouth.

How she didn't recognize me, probably doesn't even remember me, and may even forget me by the time she wakes up tomorrow. But I'll remember, and I'll probably continue thinking of her, just as I have over the past few years.

But I won't contact her. I was too chicken shit to say anything when we first met, and I lost that right before the ink dried on the documents that secured the sale of those apartments.

She's better off without me.

I pull out of the garage, taking the coastal highway that leads to my home in King's Cove, the highest point of Sunset Bay. The gates slowly open and I pass through, my eyes on the rearview mirror as they close behind me, then back to the winding road until I reach my home on a cliff. It's like a metaphor for my life. I'm new money, in a way. Thanks to Benji, I've been around it for the past twenty years, but I'm not used to having it line my pockets. Not used to the women who throw themselves at me. All it took was a decision to try something different, one hell of a lucky break, and a resolve to make it or die trying, and I suddenly have more money than I know what to do with.

This wasn't just handed to me, though. I worked my ass off for this. I grew my brokerage from the ground up, though in a relatively short time. I made the moves that helped us surpass our competitors.

But I'm not an idiot, I couldn't have done this without using Benji's name—and I can't help feeling like all I have to do is sneeze and it will all go away.

Fucking imposter.

The lights are all on, illuminated against the black exterior that blends in with the dark night sky. It's all windows, which would make the home like a fishbowl if I had any neighbors close by. But I chose this home for the privacy, my closest neighbor about a mile from my door. I also chose it for the endless view of the ocean that makes up my entire backyard. A view I'll never grow tired of. If this all goes away tomorrow, that's what I'll miss the most.

But I won't stay here tonight. I haven't been home in weeks, though the clean smell through the open door lets me know the housekeepers have been, keeping the vacant home free of dust because that's what they're paid to do. Even though no one is here to enjoy it.

I drop the bag of laundry near the front door, knowing it will be dry-cleaned and hanging in my closet by the end of tomorrow. Then I take the stairs two at a time until I reach the large room that makes up the entire second floor. I pass the Florida King bed on the way to the closet, opening the double doors and stepping inside to racks of suits, shoes lining the shelves, and an armoire with a few dozen watches, a wide variety of luxury silk ties, cufflinks, and twenty-seven different pairs of sunglasses.

I pack a few suits in a garment bag I've laid across my bed, then grab a few more pairs of shoes.

I know this drill, how to pack in the least amount of time possible. I spent years doing this very thing, though back then I didn't have much to pack. Now it feels like a joke to have my hands brushing against linen, silk, and mohair fabrics, and my eyes wandering over Bentley and Cartier aviators.

My ten-year-old self would shit a brick.

I take what I can carry, laying it flat in the trunk of my Jaguar. Then I travel the winding road back into Sunset Bay, toward the freeway that serves as the vein of our coastal town, until I reach a house I'm more than familiar with.

Benji's home. And for the time being, my home too.

I sit in my car out front, peering at the place I grew up. The house is too large for a dying man. But he refused to go to the hospital. There are dozens of untouched rooms, though they were like that long before the cancer diagnosis. Now they're cleaned each week by the housekeeper I hired, only to collect dust and be cleaned once again.

The only rooms that are used now is the living room, set up with a hospital bed and a fold-out luxury couch for the overnight nurse, and my own small bedroom in the back of the house. The one I lived in starting at age fifteen. The only room in this house I consider mine.

The place I'll sleep tonight while dozens of families over on Beale Street wonder what the hell they'll do in just a month's time .

The dash camera says it's just past four in the morning, but I haven't been sleeping much the past few weeks anyways. Now that the deed is done, the ink dry, the contract all in place, I wonder if sleep will come easy again.

Has it ever?

In a few hours I'll be driving to the office, so I don't even bother to cover the Jaguar. I pull my clothes from the trunk and walk the short pathway to the house between two mounds of dry grass—the casualty from years of neglect. My key slides into the lock and I turn it noiselessly, just in case everyone is sleeping. But once I reach the living room, a small light in the corner lets me know Hattie is awake.

The nurse glances up from her book, then slips a bookmark in as she rises to her feet. Her grey hair frames a slender face lined with age, even more pronounced by the early hour. I'd worry about her all-nighters; except she's been doing this for decades; says she prefers overnights to days because it keeps her off her feet.

"How is he?" I ask, then look to the sleeping figure in the bed that takes up a corner of the room. Benji's chest rises and falls, a small groan escaping his lips with each breath, and the monitor next to him beeping in time with his heart.

At this point, Benji is just to be kept comfortable. He's not on Hospice, because to do so would take away some of our end-of-life choices, and I want control over the way his last moments are lived. This includes the nursing staff, a team of five nurses who care for Benji on rotation. It's been a few months, and we're all on first name basis—Hattie, Anna, Shane, Amber, and Bill. All of them have been amazing with my benefactor, treating him with the utmost care, even on his most difficult days. But Hattie, with her motherly care and tireless spirit, is undeniably my favorite.

"Anna was here before me, and she said he slept most of the afternoon and evening," Hattie says. "When I got here, he ate a little at dinner but not much. He had a slight fever upon evening, but nothing too serious."

I lower my garment bag on the couch, then cross the room. I feel his forehead, and he stirs slightly but remains asleep. It's damp, but cool to the touch, as if his fever just broke.

"Did you catch any sleep?" I ask her. She shakes her head. Hattie never sleeps on her shifts, even though I wish she would.

"But I got to the part where the government plot was revealed, and the heroine is kicking some serious ass," she says, picking up her novel, a book named Numbered . I'm not much into reading, but kickass heroines remind me of a certain raven-haired vixen who left me tonight without a word .

She's better off.

I retreat to my room, turning on the monitor next to me. Hattie is here, but it makes me feel better to keep tabs on Benji in case anything changes. Through the monitor, I can hear the slow rock of Hattie's chair, the steady beep of the electrocardiogram, and Benji's slow breathing.

He has weeks at most. Maybe a month. And once he'd dead, his sins will remain on my shoulders. But I've kept his secrets because I owe him that much. I clean the messes he's left behind, praying it's enough penance for whatever awaits him after this life. Praying it will save me too, because Lord knows I've enough sins of my own.

I pause for one more moment, listening to the regular symphony of the home. When I'm finally convinced it's no different than any other night, I close my eyes and hope to get at least two hours of sleep before my day begins again.