Revel (Second Chance Romance #1)(46)
Charlotte touched his face. He was still so handsome, even more handsome than he’d been.
“You didn’t do it,” she said. “You are not your mother. And you were right about what you said. Punishing you changes nothing.”
“I still f*cked up,” he said. “I should have told you as soon as I knew. I was just so scared. My mother… She needed me. When she told me she’d kill herself if I told anyone…”
“Baby, I know,” Charlotte kissed his mouth softly. “It’s terrible that she put you in that position.”
“It is,” he agreed. “But at the same time, it clearly ate at her, what she’d done. I know it’s hard for you to believe, but she wasn’t a bad person. She was really sick, yes. She needed help and none of us could see it. Or maybe we could see it, but we dismissed it as rich lady problems. I don’t want to defend her. What she did is indefensible. I’m sorry.”
“She’s your momma,” Charlotte said. “If you don’t defend her, who will?”
Declan smiled, “I guess. But it’s you. She hurt the person I love more than anything.”
“I wish we could back in time and stop everything from happening,” Charlotte said. “But then I might not have ever met you at all.”
“But you’d have your mother,” he said. “And I’d have mine. And I like to think, when two people are tied to one another like we seem to be, our paths would have crossed somehow. Even in a different life.”
Chapter Eighteen
They woke up late the next morning. The tide was in and the Atlantic was lapping at the shore a mere twenty feet from Charlotte’s back deck. She sat in an Adirondack chair, naked with a blanket wrapped around her, sipping instant coffee.
She’d thought about Declan all night. Watching him sleep next to her, it brought her such comfort. And despite the revelations about his mother’s part in her own mother’s death, she couldn’t let him go. She didn’t know how any of this could work, but being with him again was like coming home. Except home wasn’t a place, like she always assumed it was. Charleston wasn’t home.
Declan DeGraff was.
********
She’d awakened Declan by mounting him. He was hard under the sheets and she couldn’t help it. She needed him inside of her.
“Fuck,” he said, his eyes fluttering open. He watched her riding him, slowly. Her hips bucked, her large breasts bouncing, the nipples rigid.
“Make me come,” she begged. “Please.”
“Not a problem,” he said, placing his hands on her waist. “Ladies first.”
Afterwards they’d laid there quietly, panting from the exertion.
“This is going to sound weird,” he said. “But do you mind coming with me to see my dad today? He’s probably wondering where I am. I don’t think he even realizes I went to the ball last night; he was asleep when I left.”
Charlotte sat up, “I don’t know. You don’t think it would be weird?”
“He knows you’re here,” Declan said. “So it wouldn’t be that weird. Just a little weird.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes, “Well as long as it’s only a little weird.”
“You don’t have to,” Declan said. “I know it’s asking too much. But it’s getting harder and harder for me to see him.” Declan’s voice choked up for a moment. “I have a feeling there’s not much time left. I keep waiting for my phone to ring and it be one of his nurses telling me he’s gone.”
Charlotte took Declan’s hand and pulled it towards her chest, “My baby. I’m so sorry. That’s so terrible. Of course I’ll go see him with you.”
“Thanks,” he smiled. “It will be different than your last run-in with him. Cancer has humbled his ass.”
Charlotte laughed, “It’s fitting that it would take a terminal illness to humble Henry DeGraff. But God, I hate it for you, Declan. And for him. It’s not right.”
“No,” Declan said. “It isn’t right. But it’s life.”
********
Charlotte couldn’t help but be a little nervous as they entered the DeGraff home. Everything looked almost exactly as it had ten years ago when she’d first come for dinner-though it didn’t seem quite as bright now. It looked a little duller and more somber. The absence of Anna DeGraff was apparent. The mansion hadn’t known the touch of a woman in a long time.
Henry was asleep in his bed in the living room and although Charlotte was used to seeing patients and had done some of her residency at an oncology ward, it was still unsettling to see the once larger than life Henry DeGraff reduced to what looked like almost a skeleton of a man.
“Hello, Mr. DeGraff,” a tiny woman whispered to them across the room. She was replacing IV fluid. “He just fell asleep. He ate a tiny bit though. I told him you’d be here in a moment. He asked for you as always.”
Declan smiled, “Thanks, Marie. And please, Mr. DeGraff is my father. Just call me Declan. This is Charlotte.”
Charlotte stepped forward and awkwardly shook Marie’s hand, “Hello, nice to meet you.”
“Charlotte,” Marie said. “Mr. DeGraff actually mentioned you this morning.”