Chapter 367

“Oh my goddd,” Ella breathes, picking up magazine with the picture of Luca splashed on the cover. “Oh, he is…he is spinning out, isn’t he?”

“He is,” Cora says, nodding eagerly and grabbing the next in the pile, one with the headline “The Playboy is Back!” emblazoned over the front. “Apparently he’s spent the last two nights partying – there are doubts about whether or not he’s even slept –“

“So, my girl is crying,” Ella murmurs, a snarl in her voice as she explores the paparazzi photos inside the magazine, “and this jackass is out until three in the morning with girls on each arm?”

“Scum,” Daphne growls, shaking her head. She grabs a pen from the center of the table and begins to black out a few of Luca’s teeth in one of the photos before adding horns and stink lines radiating from his body.

Ella laughs and then reaches for another pen, starting to do the same.

“No, but you guys have to see this,” Cora says eagerly, flipping to a dog-eared page. “It’s insane –“

“What is?”

All three women go still and then slowly, as one, turn towards the pretty blonde girl in white pajamas standing a few feet away.

“Nothing!” Ella says, far too cheerfully, snatching up all of the magazines on the table and pressing them to her chest. “It’s…Mark! He was being so dumb! And the tabloids…got pictures!”

“The tabloids don’t care about Mark, all he does is play sports and try to feed peanuts to squirrels,” Ariel scowls, striding forward. “Just show me.”

“Ari,” Cora sighs, shaking her head. “It’s – you don’t want to see –“

“If you all know, I want to know,” Ari says with a wavering frown. “It’s obviously about Luca and I can’t be the only one completely in the dark about my ex-mate. I want to see.” She holds out her hand, insistent.

Ella sighs but then puts the magazines back on the table.

Ariel takes a step forward but then hesitates. “Do they say anything bad about me?”

“No, sugar,” Cora says, shaking her head. “There are speculations about why he’s out at the clubs and acting like a free man but…nothing cruel about you.”

“Good,” Ariel says with a sigh, moving forward again and looking down at the images on the covers, not yet reaching for one.

“Let me get you a coffee, baby,” Ella says, leaning forward to give Ariel a kiss on the cheek before turning away.

Cora and Daphne stand quietly while Ariel lets her eyes travel over the images. She grows visibly pale, her lip starting to tremble even though she tries so, so hard to keep it together as she sees Luca with a beautiful young brunette clasped to his chest, Luca standing on a bar singing and spraying champagne over other club-attendees, Luca slumped at a table with twelve gorgeous women around him, flashing a peace sign towards the camera.

In each, he’s handsome and carefree and – bizarrely enough – wearing sunglasses, even at night. And his clothes and hair are always…damp? But beyond these strange details, Ariel can see right through his determined coolness, can see the desperation with which he tries to pretend that everything’s fine. She can see it, in the strain on his face, that he’s in a great deal of pain too. He’s just…being a real jackass in his refusal to address it, to pretend that everything’s fine.

“God, he’s a mess,” Ariel sighs, shaking her head at the man who broke her heart. “Just determined to cover his emotional wounds with as many women as possible.”

“Pig,” Daphne bites out. She grabs the closest magazine and draws a curly tail on Luca’s butt.

Ariel lifts her eyes and gives her friend a small smile, the best she can do at the moment.

Then Ari returns her eyes to the images and reaches for one magazine that shows Luca on a rooftop somewhere, his shirt unbuttoned to the waist.

“What the hell is that?” she murmurs, leaning close to see better.

“What are you talking about?” Ella asks, bringing Ariel’s cup of coffee over and leaning close.

“On his chest,” Ariel murmurs, tapping some kind of red mark there. “That’s…I mean, that wasn’t there two days ago.”

“That’s what I was going to point out before you came in,” Cora says, her voice a bit grim. She flips to a page in one of the tabloids and lays it out for everyone to see, tapping one picture. “This one got a close up and broke the story. It looks like Mr. Grant got a tattoo – and did not follow medical advice regarding how long to keep it wrapped.”

“Oh. My. God.” Ariel murmurs, leaning close, her jaw dropping when she sees the large letter A tattooed on his muscled chest, right over his heart. And then trailing after it, to the right, the letters r, i, and e. The shirt covers what final letters are remaining, but it’s not precisely difficult to imagine what comes next.

“What a loser,” Daphne murmurs, shaking her head. “I mean, in other situations, it might be sweet? But here…”

“Seriously, crossing a line,” Cora murmurs, shaking her head. “One day you reject a girl, and the next you get her name tattooed over your chest? And that big? He’s such a drama queen, making a statement about his broken heart and ensuring that everyone knows all about it.”

“And is – is his face all bruised?” Ariel asks, looking closer at a rare picture in which he’s not wearing sunglasses. “Do we have any idea where that came from?”

“We don’t,” Ella sighs, looking steadily at her daughter, watching her reaction. “But I don’t have to make a ton of guesses, considering your line of supporters who would leap at the chance to give him a good punch.”

“And why is he all…wet all the time?” Ariel asks, frowning, leaning closer. “No one else is…”

“That…might be me,” Cora says, quite innocent.

The other three go silent and then turn to her, shocked.

“What, I’m your godmother,” she says, shrugging, fighting a smug smile. “If you didn’t want me to have a tiny rain cloud chasing your douchebag ex around the city wherever he goes, you should have said so in the first place.”

Ariel lets out a sputtering little laugh as Ella and Daphne look at her anxiously. But when Ariel’s shock fades and it turns into real, true laughter, everyone joins in to the point where they’re all wiping tears from their cheeks, leaning against each other for support.

“Cora,” Ariel laughs, hugging her aunt and resting her head on her shoulder. “Please take it away – it’s so mean –“

“No way,” Cora sighs, pressing a kiss to her niece’s head. “He gets at least a few more days of that. Luca pissed off the wrong girl’s family – he’s paying for it -”

“All right,” Ariel sighs. “But no lightening.”

“No more lightening, you mean,” Cora coos, grinning.

“What!?”

“Oh, come on,” she sighs. “I had to zap his ass a few times to send a message. Don’t mess with the Sinclairs – we’ll make your life miserable.”

Ariel doesn’t say anything else, just looks around the room at the three women who are her family now, grateful to the depths of herself to have them on her side. “You guys are the best,” she whispers, breaking into tears again and moving to Daphne to hug next.

“Oh geeze,” Daphne says, wrapping her friend up in a hug. “Who knew, all we had to do was zap Luca with a little magical lightening and you’d feel better. It would have saved us a great deal of expense in spa treatments if we’d known that little secret from the start.”

“No, I want more spa treatments too,” Ariel murmurs into Daphne’s shoulder. “Also, ice cream.”

“Well, that we can do, trouble,” Ella says with a happy smile, moving for the freezer. “That we can do.”

A few hours later, massaged so that my muscles feel like butter and filled to the brim with every single desert that room service could think to create, I rest curled up at my mom’s side while Cora and Daphne sing karaoke in front of the TV, matching glasses of wine in their hands.

I smile, so pleased to be here but…knowing that the time is nearly up. That this has given me enough strength to face my life.

Mom and I spent a long time this afternoon going over it all. I tell her everything – what the Goddess said about needing all of my mates’ marks, and me deciding not to tell Luca and Jacks so the marks could be freely given. And about sleeping with Jackson first and how right it felt, and how sorry I was when he didn’t mark me, but how much sense it made when he explained it. And then what it felt like to lose Tony, and how good Luca was to save me.

And then how everything happened in his room, with the wine and the whiskey and the sex the mark the rejection, all so fast. How it all feels like it was my fault, and how if I’d just managed it all a little differently, it would all be…fine.

“You have to forgive yourself, angel,” mom murmurs, curled up at my side, as I sniff again, going over it all in my head for the thousandth time. She presses a kiss to my hair. “You’re very young and you’ve never done any of this before. I’m not sure anyone has. You tried, you may have made mistakes, but you can learn from them. That’s how it works. But forgiveness first – the regrets…they help us grow. But you can’t live with them on your shoulders. Too heavy.”

I nod, hearing her, truly listening. And honestly, I do feel lighter seeing it from that perspective.

She’s right. I do like to be perfect, I hate to do things wrong. And I did a lot of things wrong. But there’s no changing it now – only moving forward.

“I think I want to go back to school tomorrow, ma,” I whisper, resting my head on her shoulder, my own wine glass balanced in my hand.

“Are you sure, baby?” she asks, turning to me slightly, going a bit rigid. “We can stay longer – we can –“

“No, I’m sure,” I say on a sigh. “I…I miss Jackson. And I need to talk to him.”