Crush(119)

Stupid.

Stupid.

Stupid.

Logan had left me his phone in case I needed anything while he went down to talk to Miles, but that left him without one. My instructions were to call Miles if I needed anything, but the phone was on the table beside my bed.

Standing straight, I opened the door. It was when I looked at Michael that the small fragment I’d been trying to recall from somewhere in the back of my mind came to me in a flash. The memory was of me getting out of Michael’s car after Lizzy’s funeral. I was trying to avoid a conversation I didn’t want to have with him and was rushing for the door when a man called out to Michael. I twisted my head and the man calling to him had icy blue eyes, the same eyes as Michael. The same eyes as the ones I had seen in the rearview mirror. And his son was with him, the same boy who had groped me and injected me with insulin. Seamus. The man’s name was Seamus. Michael called him that.

I felt myself pale and squeezed my palms shut.

“What is it?” Michael asked.

Pensive, I stepped out into the room very aware that I was naked beneath my gown and hating it. It made me feel vulnerable. I shook it off and decided it was time I came clean and that Michael did as well. “Who was the man who came to the house after Lizzy’s funeral with all the flowers?” I asked sharply.

Michael’s entire demeanor instantly turned aloof. “How would I know? There were a lot of people there that day.”

I knew he was lying.

“Why do you ask?”

My mind was wandering again, back to the picture in Erin’s house, the one with the family of five—Michael, his sister, his mother, his father, and the fifth unknown. I changed tack. “Do you have an older brother?”

Michael took a step toward me. “What are all these questions about?”

I stepped back. “Do you?”

For a moment, neither of us moved or talked. “Have you thought about my proposition?”

Stunned, I couldn’t even comprehend why he’d bring that up now. “No, Michael, I haven’t. I’m sorry, but someone just kept me captive and injected me with insulin until he could figure out how to put me on the right path.”

Blatantly ignoring me, he matter-of-factly stated, “You have something I need and I have something you want. It seems like such a simple choice, but still, I need to hear your answer.”

“I don’t understand why you’re changing the topic,” I said, exasperated.

He took a deep breath. “There are so many things you don’t understand.”

I sighed. “Then help me—tell me what I need to know.”

“Elle, before I leave here, I need to know your answer. That’s all you need to know.”

I threw my hands up. “Why? Why before you leave here do you have to know?”

“Clementine’s safety depends on you saying yes,” he said in a broken voice.

Panic tore through me. “That’s not true. You’re using her to get what you want.”

He frowned. “I wish I was.”

No more. I couldn’t take any more of this tiptoeing. He had to stop his lies now. “I’m in love with Logan McPherson and I want to be with him, not you.”

Physically shaking, he ran his fingers through his dark hair. “I figured as much when he barged into my office looking for you.”

I shook my head. “Then why did you still ask me about us?”

“Because I need an answer.”

My knees felt like rubber. “It’s no, Michael, it’s no.”

That fear seemed to grow on his face. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

I needed to sit down, so I made my way to the bed. Once there, I turned to him and softened my gaze. “Please, don’t take Clementine away from me. Don’t punish her for my choices. She needs me in her life.”

He seemed so distant, even though he was just across the room. “If you’re not standing by my side before the District Attorney nominations, her life will be in danger and there is nothing I can do about it.”

I got to my feet and ran over to him. “What are you talking about? Tell me what you mean.”

Five seconds had passed before he spoke. “I can’t.”

My fists were pounding against his chest and tears were leaking from my eyes before I knew what I was doing. “Stop saying that. Just tell me. Tell me now.”

As if defeated, he closed his eyes. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“The beginning, Michael. Start there.”

He nodded, and after a few seconds he began to speak. “Your sister and I didn’t fall in love. She was a prostitute I used for sex on a few occasions and although I fell in love with her, she never really loved me. She couldn’t, because she was in love with someone else.”

“Tommy Flannigan?” I asked, already having determined Lizzy had some kind of connection with him from what Logan had uncovered.

Another nod. “He wasn’t right for her. He couldn’t help her turn her life around, and that was what she needed.”

I had nothing to say. I was certain she did need that, but experience had told me no one could do that for her; she had to want to change.

“And yet she loved him anyway. He was her pimp, for f*ck’s sake. He used her to make money. I hated that. Couldn’t stand it. He didn’t want her to clean herself up, didn’t want her to get off the drugs; all he wanted was for her to keep her mouth on other guys’ dicks.”