“You should have seen her, you know?” he says, turning to me. “She’d have loved you. You’d have loved her too. She was a good kid. Funny, sweet, smart as hell. Yeah, she could be a pain in the ass, and sometimes I was short-tempered with her. After all, I was just seventeen and I was living the life of an adult. But I didn’t resent her for it. I swear.” He looks at me with pained eyes, yearning for me to hear him.
“I believe you,” I whisper.
“And then, one day, my mother was released from the hospital where she’d been for so long. She came back for good and wanted Madeline to live with her again. I refused to stay with Mom, but I had no legal rights to Madeline. I mean, she was her mother. I couldn’t stop her.”
“Of course not,” I agree, my stomach sinking as I feel where this is all going.
“I should have at least tried to fight it, though. I remember, Madeline begged me to come home with her to my mother’s house. I just—I couldn’t live with my mother again. I didn’t trust her and I couldn’t go back to dealing with her moods, her depression, wondering when she’d get back to using and drinking again…”
I nod my head. I hold onto his arm with both hands, as if keeping him from flying away.
“I still remember, the last thing Madeline said to me, on the phone one night before she went to bed. She said that she missed it being just the two of us.” His voice breaks.
“What happened?” I ask, feeling myself shake with anxiety. I feel nauseous from it.
“Cops showed up at my apartment. They told me there’d been a fire.” He swallows. He opens his mouth and nothing comes out.
His eyes look completely blank.
I’ve never seen anyone look this way before. Never.
I don’t know what to say or do.
“They were both gone. My mom…she’d been smoking, drunk of course, and Madeline must’ve been asleep when the fire started. The house went up like a goddamn box of matches. The whole thing was burned to the ground.”
“I don’t know what to say. That’s horrible.”
“After that, I was numb. I bought a gun and one night I had it against the side of my head,” he says dully. “But I was too scared. I didn’t have the courage to use it.”
“I’m glad you didn’t use it. It’s good that you didn’t.”
He shakes his head and laughs. “You don’t understand. I was dead inside anyway, Haisley. After that, I was just as hollow as the ashes and blackened skeleton of that house. And despite everything that’s happened to me since, none of it really means anything to me.”
“That’s not true. Don’t say that.”
“I failed her. I let Madeline die, and when it ended for her, it ended for me, too. That’s the fucking truth.” He looks directly in my eyes and I can see he means it.
“I think I understand,” I tell him softly.
“You’d have loved her, I swear.”
I manage to get Dermot to bed not long after.
He’s drunk, and he literally leans on me as I walk him out of the study and back to the bedroom.
A moment after he falls into bed, fully clothed, I hear him snoring lightly.
I feel completely drained, sapped of all energy.
I never in a million years would have guessed that Dermot Nash had such a tragic life. But so many things make sense, now that I know it.
And in knowing it, my heart breaks for him. He has a good soul, and at his core, he cares deeply, whether he knows it or not.
Maybe he is permanently broken and hollow, as he claims.
But I don’t think so.
As I climb into bed next to him and watch him sleep, I feel a surge of emotion for this man I hardly even know.
Suddenly, I hear my phone buzz. And then again.
Someone is texting me.
I take out my cell phone and look at it, and see the messages came from the last number in the world I want to see.
U still owe us.
We need to talk.
I instantly respond.
I paid you. Did you not receive the last payment?
I see that Vincent Rossi is writing again, as the little dots on my screen indicate he’s messaging me back now.
But the situation has changed.
I frown, wondering what he means. Has my father gambled more somehow? And then I receive a picture from him. I stare at the image on my cell, eyes wide, mouth open slightly.
It’s a picture of Dermot and I, coming out of the show tonight.
Looks like Ur Famous. And rich.
I see that the picture was pulled from a website, and upon following the link, I come to a story on The New York Grind, an online tabloid. There’s a small article next to a couple of pics of Dermot and I together. The website refers to me as Dermot’s “mystery woman,” and indicates that we seemed quite cozy with one another.
I quickly reply to my tormentor.
No. I paid you what I owe. That’s it.
For a long time, I get nothing back. My heart is pounding, and I feel sick, powerless and terrified. My hands are sweating, my insides trembling.
I should have known this could never end simply. They’re maniacal criminals. They’re never going to stop. Never.
And then one final text comes in.
It’s not over until I say so. And the price just went up.
THE END OF PART THREE
Click here to begin reading Part Four immediately!
To get alerted to more of the hottest deals in romance—sign up now to the Favor Ford Romance newsletter!