Page 16 of The Malibu Secret

His brows draw together in a tight line, and his eyes—those damn blue eyes that got me into this mess—cloud over with hurt. I watch confusion ripple across his face, then settle into a quiet sadness. No flash of anger, though. God, I wish he'd just yell at me, call me names, storm out. A shouting match would be so much cleaner than this silent collapse of everything we might have been.

“Okay,” he says quietly. Then he produces something out of his pocket. A jewelry box. “Here. I was going to give this to you so you can remember me. You might as well take it.”

I nod and take the box, keeping my eyes fixed on a spot over his shoulder. Looking inside the box would crack me open, and I can't afford that—not when he needs to walk out that door. "Thanks," I manage, my voice flat as week-old soda. Better he remembers me this way: the tattooed ice queen shoving him toward Sicily with both hands. Let him hate me a little. It's a gift, really. The last one I can give him.

The door clicks shut behind him and I'm left alone with the jewelry box, a lump rising in my throat. Holy shit. He remembered. That day he was over and I'd circled this exact necklace in the magazine, drooling over something I couldn't justify dropping that kind of cash on.

I lift it from the velvet, watching light dance across the different colored stones. Ruby bleeds into topaz, sapphire is nestled against emerald. There’s also deep purple amethyst, and that perfect beryl that's not quite blue, not quite green. In the bathroom mirror, I fasten it around my neck with trembling fingers. It settles against my collarbone like it was made for me, and fuck, I'm actually tearing up over jewelry. Mom always said I could spot beauty a mile away, and this thing is practically screaming it.

My phone's right there, and my thumb hovers over Cam's name. But Mom's sudden appearance—and her bombshell about possibly being bi-polar—has thrown my world sideways. Tomorrow's a marathon: I need to make doctor appointments for Mom, and help her shop for her now-skeletal frame, basic necessities, go on a Sephora run. I need to lock this place down so she can't vanish on me again.

So tonight, it's just Mom, me and my new necklace. Mom needs me focused on her, not on Cam—especially when I'm pretty damn sure he's already forgotten about me.

Chapter Twelve

CAMERON

A month later, and I still can't get Tally out of my mind. Her scent - Tom Ford Black Orchid with its heady notes of truffle and ylang-ylang - haunts me like a phantom, lingering in the collar of my white coat even after three washes. I bought a bottle at Nieman Marcus before leaving, keeping it on my nightstand in Sicily where I spray a single mist each morning, just so I can feel like she’s around. Her eyes haunt me the most - Caribbean-clear blue-green that darkens when she laughed, with flecks of gold near the pupils that caught the light when she tilted her head just so. The photo from the jazz club captures her mid-laugh, head thrown back, exposing the constellation of freckles across her collarbone. I had it printed on archival paper, framed in burnished silver, and it's the first thing I see each morning on my nightstand next to my bed.

While I'm working, my mind narrows to the task at hand. Twelve-hour shifts blur together in the makeshift clinics we've established in conjunction with the University Hospital of Palermo. I clean wounds inflicted by smugglers, set bones broken during desperate escapes, and listen to traumatized Libyan refugees describe horrors in halting English or through our overworked translators. Their eyes haunt me—hollow with suffering yet somehow still hopeful. When a young man with cigarette burns across his back thanks me, or a mother squeezes my hand after I treat her fevered child, Tally's face recedes from my thoughts—though never completely.

When I get to my tent and stare at the picture of us—her raven-black hair with rainbow streaks falling across her shoulder, revealing her beautiful swan-like neck—I feel it. I feel her warmth radiating through the glossy paper. We were "together" for only thirty-eight days, but I know now that I felt drawn to her strongly from the moment I saw her across the crowded ballroom at Max and Celeste's first wedding, her light sapphire-emerald eyes catching the light as she laughed. And then again at Max and Celeste’s second wedding in England when, once again, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

That magnetic pull I felt wasn't some temporary infatuation. It was visceral and real, like a current running between us. But Tally apparently didn’t feel the same—I’ve sent twenty-seven unanswered texts and called her eleven times, desperate for a video call just to see those beautiful eyes again, to watch how they crinkle at the corners when she smiles—but my phone remains stubbornly silent. So, the message is crystal clear. She wants nothing to do with me.

I've felt worse pain—when Alecia and Stephanie died, I thought I'd never breathe normally again. But this ache where Tally used to be isn't trivial either. Here in Sicily, I’m treating refugees who watched their families murdered before enduring torture themselves. Their suffering dwarfs mine, I know. But pain doesn't work like that, does it? It can't be neatly ranked and filed. This particular hurt has its own signature, sharp and precise as a scalpel.

I really believed Tally might be my second chance.

Now there's just this hollow space where that hope used to live.

Chapter Thirteen

TALLY

“Tally,” my mom calls from outside the bathroom. She insisted I take a pee test once I started vomiting every morning and couldn’t keep anything down. So I went to CVS and bought ten different pregnancy strips, praying at least one would say I wasn’t pregnant. But every single one lit up instantaneously—plus signs, “pregnant,” double pink lines—whatever they use to make it painfully clear you’re expecting. “What do the tests say?” she asks.

I slump on the toilet, head in my hands, and exhale. Everything had been going so well. After batteries of tests with a shrink over at Cedars, Mom got a latent bi-polar disorder diagnosis. The doctor explained to both of us that she’d likely shown bi-polar disorder symptoms forever, but they stayed hidden under the stress plus her Oxy habit. Once she quit the pills, the bi-polar disorder surfaced, and he prescribed a cocktail of lithium plus Abilify. It’s working wonders—she’s stable and happy.

Since then I’ve been cooking for her so she’d gain weight, and I even dropped my F45 weight-lifting classes so I could take her to Pilates five afternoons a week after my 7 AM–4 PM shift. She’s loving it, getting stronger every session. She’s talking about getting a job to “pay her keep,” not that I care much when she does. I bought her a whole new wardrobe on my credit card. She’s started a little herb garden on our terrace—chervil, rosemary, basil and upside-down tomato planters dangling from the ceiling. Mom has a real green thumb, and I’ve been enjoying her fresh herbs in every meal.

For the first time since Dad died, life seems peaceful for her. I was even planning to squeeze a baby grand piano into our cramped two-bedroom apartment—as soon as I 86 an old bookshelf and unused desk—and watch her play again. Helping Mom, plus my tattoo gigs and catch-ups with Celeste and Liv once or twice a month, nearly erased the pain of losing Cam. He’s called, texted, tried FaceTime countless times, but I never pick up. I want him to move on, find someone who fits him better, because I’m not that person for him and never was.

And now this. A baby. Damn. What am I going to do? We’re stuck in this tiny apartment—two little bedrooms, one for me, one for her—and there’s no asking Mom to move out. She’s too fragile. I’m not sure she’d remember to take her meds, eat properly, keep up with exercise, make doctor’s appointments or get to bed early enough to avoid triggering her symptoms—she’s such a night owl. In other words, I don’t trust my mother to take care of herself without me. I’m keeping her together. I still hold my breath every fucking time I go to work for fear that when I get home, she’ll be gone. Still hold my breath every time I go to sleep that I might wake up and she’ll be gone. Same thing for when I go out with the girls.

Fuck! The girls! No way I'm telling Celeste who knocked me up. She'd go ballistic. She's still clueless about me and Cam, and I'm keeping it that way. Christ. I'll have to feed her some line about a random hookup, which she'll never buy since I don't do casual. Never have.

And protection? Dammit, we used protection, all kinds of fucking protection. The pill since I was sixteen, plus Cam's condoms every damn time. How the hell did this happen? Roman's wife Lilith would probably flip her tarot cards and say some mystical bullshit about the universe having plans. And maybe she'd be right – because what else explains a pregnancy that bulldozed through two forms of birth control? The universe clearly wants this kid to exist, and I had absolutely no say in the matter.

I emerge from the bathroom, tugging at my jeans that already feel snug across my middle. "Guess I'll be hitting up the stretchy pants section soon." I scan our cramped apartment, mentally rearranging furniture to figure out how the hell I’ll fit a baby in this place. "Where the hell am I supposed to put a crib?" Mom's stuff is barely unpacked—she only moved in weeks ago. No way I'm asking her to sleep on that lumpy couch when this whole knocked-up situation is not her circus, not her clowns. Hell, it’s barely even my fault considering we were so careful. But I know Mom—give her one uncomfortable night and she'll be halfway to Timbuktu by morning. Not happening.

Mom’s not sure how to take this news. She looks like she wants to be all happy about her first grandkid, but, then again, if she says one fucking word of congratulations, I’ll cut a bitch. She knows that. Poor Mom.

“Well,” she finally says. “At least the father is wealthy, or comes from a wealthy family at any rate.”

“He is wealthy,” I say. “Makes six figures, around 300 large a year at the ER and plus he has a trust fund. They all do. Celeste tells me that each of the brothers have at least a half a billion in trust, because the Granddad made it that way.” I shake my head. “But that’s neither here nor there, Mom. I’m not telling him about this baby.” I cross my arms in front of me. “I mean, I’ll tell him there’s a baby. I’ll have to, because word will get around to him. Celeste will know, and she’ll tell Max, and…” And what? Why would Max announce the baby to Cameron? Nobody knows about us. But he might let it slip - “did you hear that Tally’s having a baby?” Somehow, someway, the jig will be up with Cameron, if not Max slipping then maybe I’ll run into Cameron at some Kensington function in the future. At any rate, there’s about a zero percent chance of him never finding out I had a kid so…better tell him something.

Dammit. He’s exactly the kind of guy who’ll demand we “do the right thing”—and that “right thing” is the last thing I would ever want. Other girls fantasize about their big day—what dress, what flowers, how many bridesmaids, where the reception is, who takes the photos, yada yada blech. Not me. I refuse to trade my independence for some guy. No one gets veto power over my life choices. Especially not Cam, dropping to one knee and sliding a diamond on my left ring finger. He doesn’t know this baby is his. So I’ve got to beat him to it: call him, and drop the hammer of the fake story I’ll create—I got plastered right after he left (and yeah, he’ll do the math), slept with a rando and now I’m pregnant. End of story. No fuss, no compromise. Cam will hate me? Fine. Let him.