The Only Shark In The Sea (The Date Shark Series Book 3) (11 page)

Collapsing to his knees, Vance bled out his pain through tears that seemed they would never stop. No one tried to pull him away or ask questions. The world outside Vance and Stephanie ceased to exist for him. Guilt cut through him. Remorse crushed him. Grief consumed him. No questions came. They all left him to drown in the pain of losing the woman he loved and the child he would never know.

Chapter 14

The Dark Parts

It was all an act. People kept commenting on how well he was holding up, considering everything. They hugged him and patted him on the back. They told him they were sorry while whispering about whether or not they believed the coroner’s report that Stephanie had died of a cerebral hemorrhage and not suicide. He hated thinking about the ruptured blood vessel bleeding onto her brain and how much pain it must have caused her before taking her life, but they didn’t even believe it was the truth. He thanked them and nodded and held back the tidal wave of emotions trying to bury him.

The only member of Stephanie’s estranged family that had shown up was a half-brother from Portland she talked to on and off. He was only nineteen, but he and Steph had developed an amicable relationship over the last several years. They weren’t close like normal siblings, but it was the most stable relationship Stephanie had with a family member. It meant a lot to Vance that he had come, but facing him with the guilt he carried was torture.

Guy and Eli stood on either side of him as the never ending line of people came to offer their condolences. Charlotte and Leila had come to support him as well, but Leila was off to the side rocking the baby and Charlotte needed to rest and was sitting with Warren at a nearby table. Sabine had been at his side almost constantly since arriving in the States after hearing the news, but had finally broken down after the funeral and had stepped out to get some fresh air.

The sight of Natalie walking hesitantly toward him didn’t inspire panic like everyone else did. Aside from Sabine, she was also the only other person who knew about Stephanie’s pregnancies. He hadn’t even told his parents. Vance knew it would break their hearts to find out they had not only lost the woman they considered a daughter, but two potential grandchildren. There was no chance he would ever tell them about the first pregnancy, no matter how desperate he was to confide in them and seek their support. It would taint their memory of her forever.

Vance hadn’t really meant for Natalie to know everything, but when the questions from the police began in earnest and he knew he’d have to tell them everything, he had panicked. He couldn’t let Guy hear the truth. It was too much to admit what he had done, what Stephanie had done. Confused and probably hurt, Guy hadn’t known what to do when Vance demanded he leave the apartment while he talked to the police.

He hadn’t even noticed Natalie had stayed on the couch next to him—at Guy’s request, he learned later—until he was already halfway through his explanation, but when he did realize, he only felt relief. Maybe because of the compassion she’d shown earlier. Maybe because Natalie was as broken as Stephanie had been and he suspected she would understand without judging better than anyone. Regardless of the why, he didn’t ask her to leave. She sat with him through all the questions, silent, but a bubble of support that held back the worst of the pain while he talked to the police. It hadn’t lasted, but it had been enough to get him through the interrogation. Afterward…what he remembered of the rest of that night was a blurry haze of agony.

Vance was still struggling to come to grips with what Stephanie had done. Her death was too consuming to even hope to deal with his emotions over the pregnancies. He knew her and understood her better than anyone. While he could never agree with what she had done and part of him hated her for it, he still loved her. He hoped, in time, he could forgive her. That would be easier than forgiving himself. For his family, though, forgiveness would likely never happen. So he hid the truth from all of them, holding it close even though it felt like poison.

They were all there, which made it better and worse. His parents, his two brothers and sister, and their families. In true Sullivan fashion, they had all dropped everything and come to support him when he needed it most. It should have been a comfort, but hiding the truth from them only made it painful. Part of him wanted to scream it at the top of his lungs, rant that he wasn’t just sick with grief, he was angry too. He couldn’t. He would never tell them any of it. He couldn’t even bring himself to tell Eli and Guy the truth.

They would understand his pain and tell him it was okay to be angry. Not only did he not want to hear that from them, that wasn’t how things were supposed to work. When Eli fell so hard for Leila that he turned his life upside down to make her fall in love with him, Vance was the one he went to for advice. Sure, Eli didn’t really listen to him most of the time when it came to Leila, but no matter what the problem was, he knew Vance would be there.

When Guy found out about Charlotte’s cancer and didn’t know if he strong enough to sacrifice for her, Vance was his first call. Vance was the one his friends went to for support. He was supposed to be the rock. How could he admit how far he had fallen, admit his mistakes and failures? When the coroner’s report listed a cerebral hemorrhage as the cause of death in Stephanie’s file, it should have been a relief, but it was just another knife in his gut.

He had missed the symptoms, even though they had been staring him in the face. Stephanie never got migraines. Stress headaches, sure. But the pain she had been in those last few days should have been a glaring neon sign. Bleeding on the brain of that kind was incredibly painful. Vance thought she was just coming down with the flu, aching and emotionally strung out with the difficulties she’d been having in her classroom. If he had seen what was happening early on, he could have gotten her help, saved her and the baby.

“Vance,” Natalie said when she finally reached him, “I’m so sorry.” Tears pooled in her eyes, though he knew she was desperately trying to be strong for him. There was true compassion in her eyes because she shared the full weight of knowledge and pain. Sabine carried the same look in her eyes when she faced him. It should have been too much for him to bear, but it was the only real comfort he found that day.

Natalie didn’t try to touch him or shake his hand. He had never once held her disability against her, except in that moment. All he wanted as she stood in front of him was for her to just…pat him on the shoulder or shake his hand, something to prove he wasn’t alone. Sabine could only stay in Chicago so long. He knew she would talk to him as much as he needed her to, but she would be halfway across the world within days. The only other person who knew his secrets couldn’t bear to be within five feet of him. How could he ever get through this?

“Thank you,” he managed to say before his throat closed off from the emotions squeezing it shut. “For everything.”

More tears welled in her eyes. At any second he thought they would come spilling over, but she kept them under a tight rein. He suspected it was a skill she had perfected over her entire life. Part of him wanted to ask her about Samuel and her father, but he knew it wasn’t the appropriate place. If he were being completely honest with himself, he was too emotionally drained to care enough to ask the question.

He worried about her being safe, but it couldn’t compete with losing Stephanie and knowing he was ultimately responsible for her death. His fingers started twitching. He clenched them into a fist to make them stop, but not before Natalie noticed it. Her brow furrowed in concern and he knew what she was thinking. He never used to do that before. Now, it was a constant struggle not to let everything he was holding in escape the only way it could.

Behind him, he felt Guy and Eli shift. Both had gently tried to ask him over the last few days what had really happened with Stephanie. Vance didn’t lie or try to pass off their suspicions. He simply refused to speak about it. They both knew Sabine and Natalie understood at least some of the truth, though. They seemed to sense nothing else was going to be said with them standing there, so they excused themselves to check on their families, walking away with worry and confusion written on their faces.

“You need to tell them,” Natalie said.

Bristling, Vance glared at her. “It’s none of their business.”

“Look, I get that you don’t want to tarnish her memory, but you’re drowning and I don’t know how to help you,” Natalie begged.

“Who says they do?” His sharp, undeserved words seemed to echo off the walls. Vance knew he was practically whispering, but even speaking of it in public set his skin on fire. “They can’t tell me anything I don’t already know.”

Natalie shook her head slowly. “You know that’s not how it works.” She took a step closer, closing the distance between them to about three feet. Her arms stayed wrapped tightly around her body. “Sure, you know the techniques and treatments or whatever. That’s not the point. You need to talk about it before it eats you up more than it already has. None of this was your fault.”

“Don’t tell me it wasn’t my fault!” Vance snapped. From the corner of his eye he saw Guy and Eli both stand from their chairs and narrow their eyes at him in worry. That didn’t concern him nearly as much as the way Natalie jumped back from him in fear. Enough of his anger fell away that he was able to take a breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t…”

“It’s okay,” she whispered. She stayed at a distance.

Hating that he had scared her, he opened his mouth, but the words just got jumbled up on his tongue. He knew he wasn’t thinking clearly. The realization didn’t really do anything to help him sort things out. Natalie wasn’t who he was angry at. Taking his pain out on her was a jerk thing to do. Everything he felt was so close to the surface, though. Putting it aside was impossible.

Natalie started to turn away from him. “Wait, stop,” he begged. “I’m sorry, please…please don’t go.”

He was begging. All out begging, like a child. She couldn’t leave. He didn’t think he could get through the rest of the day if she walked away from him. There had to be someone else who knew the truth, who shared the burden of hiding it from everyone, because holding it by himself was crushing him.

“I won’t leave,” Natalie said quietly.

Somewhat more composed than when he had last seen her, Sabine marched up to the both of them and took in a deep breath. A second later, she threw her arms around Vance’s neck and hugged him fiercely. She didn’t say a word. Everything Vance had wanted when Natalie walked up was given in Sabine’s embrace. During the funeral he had been surrounded by his family, but she had been close by, offering her silent support. Finally feeling her sympathy, compassion, and grief so close and real was like being pulled out of water that was trying to drown him.

Pulling back, but not letting go of him, Sabine’s expression was serious as she said, “You must tell Guy and Eli.”

Vance pushed her hands away and Natalie flinched. Another hot retort was on his lips, but before he could actually say anything, Sabine grabbed his arm and started dragging him from the room while motioning for Natalie to follow. Yanking him into some sort of small parlor, Sabine rounded on him. She wasn’t angry, but she was determined.

“This is not acceptable. Eli and Guy can help you. You do not always need to be so strong. Sometimes you must let others help you.” Sabine pointed a finger at him. “This is too much for myself or Natalie to help you with. You only allow us to know the truth, but we are not professionals. It is too much.”

Her voice cracked and she pressed a manicured hand to her lips as her eyelids batted furiously to keep back the tears. “It is too much for me, and I was only her friend. She was your partner, your love. She was everything to you. Now she is gone and has left you with lies and hurt and loss. You need your friends. You need to trust them.”

“I can’t.” His voice betrayed his brokenness. The two syllables barely made it out of his mouth before falling apart. “Maybe they’ll understand because they know about her past, but it will change the way they think about her. It will never be the same. Every time I talk about her they’ll think about the babies and judge her, judge me for leaving her when she needed me. I can’t do that to her.”

“Vance, she is gone. You are the one who must carry on,” Sabine pleaded. “I know protecting her is important to you. It is all you have done since the two of you met. Protect her from her past, from her fears, from the future. It gave her confidence to love and live her life, but it is no longer your job to protect her. You must care for yourself now.”

She was begging him. Almost demanding. Part of him knew she was right, but he refused to accept her words. “I can’t stop protecting her now.” His body convulsed as another sob wracked through him. “I failed to protect her when it really mattered. She died because I didn’t see what was happening.”

“She died because of a freak occurrence,” Sabine argued angrily.

“I should have seen it!” Twisting his hands in his hair, pulling until he felt pain, his fiery eyes leveled at Sabine. “I was too angry, too focused on my own pain to see what was killing her. I was selfish!”

“You were human!” Sabine snapped. “Hiding what she did and the lies she told to you, is not protecting her. You have a right to be angry with her.
I
am angry with her! I am so very furious with her for the hurt she caused you. I understand what led her to do it, but I am still angry. You are angry too, and you should be angry. Pretending you are not accomplishes nothing but hurting yourself even more. You must tell Eli and Guy.”

Shaking his head angrily, Vance pointed at her. “You have no right to tell me what I
must
do! They won’t understand. How could they?”