still ill • michael gray

Chapter 15

It's been two weeks since he left, and I've only gotten one short phone call assuring that he was safe. For the first time since I killed the man outside the club, I'm truly scared. I don't know what he's doing out west, and I don't even know where exactly he is. I got the last call over a week ago.

I've been living in his penthouse like he asked, and although I've had Cara over a few times, I feel so alone staying here, but I don't go out much either. I'm paranoid that something's going to happen to me if he isn't around. It's stupid, he has few, if any enemies in New York. I just worry that there could be someone new, someone we don't know about that's out send a message to his family with an easy target.

It's not a risk I'm willing to take, so I'm left to sit around here alone. I read, write in my diary, play piano, but after two weeks it's gotten to be tremendously boring. So boring that I've decided to go to my parents for dinner tonight. It's the first time we've had dinner together since the wedding. The past few times I've stopped by have been tense, but no questions have been asked. I know they're going to ask about Michael at dinner, and I have no idea what I'm going to say.

I won't tell the truth, even though lying is the last thing I should be doing if I want to get back on my father's good side. I'll probably say he's gone to Philadelphia or Chicago on business or something.

"Miss Beatrice," Eve murmurs as she does my hair, "You look awfully tired, are you sure you shouldn't be resting?"

"It's dinner with my parents," I reply, "it's probably for the best if I am a little sleepy."

"I'm sure it'll go just fine with them," she says as she sticks in a hairpin, "you could charm the stripes off a tiger, Miss Bea."

"But I can't charm my parents, in my nineteen years of life I've never been able to. The only way I've ever been able to win them over is submission."

"Then they taught you a valuable life lesson. Sometimes it's for the best to simply back down."

"I don't think that's a lesson I'll ever learn," I laugh softly.

"That isn't a bad thing in this circumstance," I can see her smiling in the mirror, "Mr. Gray needs you to stand up for him against his family."

I raise my eyebrows in surprise, knowing full and well she works for Tommy. "You think so?"

"Don't look so surprised," she brushes the last curl in my hair, "I may be paid by Thomas, but I serve you and Michael, I always will."

I look up at her, "Thank you, Eve."

She places her hands on my shoulders, "You're a brilliant young woman, Beatrice. You have a bright future ahead of you, and so does Michael. He'll come home safe and everything will go back to the way it was. You two will go to England for Christmas, and for all I know, you'll be engaged by the end of the year."

I blush, "Everyone keeps saying that, you, his mother, his cousin."

"And you don't believe it will?"

"I believe with the life we live that shit happens," I sigh, "anything could happen in the next few months."

"But nothing is going to happen that won't make you two stronger," she pats my arm. "I know the both of you well enough to see that."

"Eve," tears begin to form in my eyes, "what if he doesn't come back and I never find out why?"

"He's coming back," she coos, "he wouldn't want you crying over him."

I can feel myself falling apart more and more by the second. I cover my mouth with my hand as a sob racks my body, "I'm so scared Eve, I can't lose him."