For Her Own Good Read online

  “You look after her as much as she’ll let you, aye?”

  “Always.”

  I shake his hand, and then it’s time to make my way through the bustling airport to head back to Boston. A city I fled fifteen ago and at the time, never thought I’d go back to. But there’s been a hole in my heart since then, and I’m hoping it will be filled by going back to this old New England city. If you can call it old, at any rate. Americans have no sense of history.

  It’s ridiculous, really, to be going back. There’s no reason to think—

  Well, as I told Maeve. It’s about the job. I wanted the job. I loved that job—though I’ll be working with adults and not children and adolescents as I had before. But most of what I loved is the same: the colleagues, the culture of constant learning and improvement via the latest research, the bucolic campus of the hospital. That’s all there is to it. A job.

  * * *

  Starla

  Airports are not my favorite. The people, the bustle, the announcements you can’t understand but are probably trying to tell you something important? Yeah, not my jam. It’s better now that I’m settled in my seat in the last row of first class and don’t have to worry about missing my flight, or it being delayed without me knowing. All the things that, while fundamentally insignificant, really cheese people about air travel. I can breathe easier now.

  Traveling for work isn’t my idea of a good time. But when a client like Rafa Cabrero asks me to come to Chicago to help set up his brand-new eight-million-dollar condo, I don’t say no. Not that I need the money, but I do like my business to run in the black. Also, Rafa really does need me and it makes me feel good to be part of his secret to success.

  We struggle with different things—anxiety is his primary issue whereas mine’s depression—but we both find keeping tabs on our physical space to be helpful in managing our shit. So, he took a few days out of his busy finance industry schedule so we could set up systems big and small to help him be successful and in control, which in turn lowers his anxiety, which leads to being more successful and feeling more in control and well, you see how this works. It’s not magic, but it does take attention to detail, and an understanding of how mental illness can fuck with people’s heads.

  These cycles we get ourselves involved in don’t always have to be bad, and that’s what I’d been here to help with: setting up this incredibly talented and brilliant man whose brain glitches when faced with certain stimuli to spend less time glitching and more time doing the things he’s awesome at. Those things he’s awesome at? They helped him buy that prime piece of real estate in the first place. Yes, Rafa had been very grateful, and I’m headed home feeling satisfied with a job well done.

  Besides, it’s good for me to get out of Boston on occasion. I don’t often—what’s this “vacation” some people speak of?—but I had enjoyed the couple of extra days I’d taken to do some sightseeing. The museums, the aquarium—I even braved Navy Pier—they’d all kept me busy, my mind engaged with things other than the issues constantly gnawing at me lately.

  It’s been rough for the past three months to be at home, ghosts around every corner. I miss my father. So much. But I’ve also got Tad Harding breathing down my neck and not the way he used to when we were together—that was, if ultimately a failure, still the sweaty, sexy, orgasm-inducing kind of being on top of me. This is none of that, except maybe the sweaty part because anxiety is fantastic like that.

  I’ve inherited a controlling interest in Patrick Enterprises and I need to make some decisions. But I’m not ready yet. Aside from it feeling like a very final goodbye to my father that I can’t bear to make, even thinking about it spikes my anxiety.

  If managing my own shit is like rolling a boulder up a hill on my best days like a modern-day Sisyphus, then holding tens of thousands of people’s livelihoods in my hands is like having a rockslide behind the boulder. But even knowing what I’m headed back to—and as much as I don’t like planes because strangers are all up in your shit and honestly, air travel brings out the worst in humanity—I’m glad to be on my way home. Traveling makes my anxiety kick up too, and it’s getting closer to the six-week mark of my ECT cycle so everything’s getting more difficult because of the depression that’s started tiptoeing around again.

  Getting out of bed. Getting dressed. All the things most people take for granted are tasks that start to make me feel accomplished when I check them off my list. So, more difficult, yes, but not anywhere near impossible. I never get anywhere close to impossible these days. Which is perhaps part of the reason my father felt it was wise to direct that rockslide in my direction.

  I don’t need to think about that yet, though. What I should do is take this opportunity to relax, breathe, and enjoy the last few hours before I’m on the ground at Logan—Boston, you’re my home.

  Compared to the flat, wide-open spaces of Chicago, this space is cramped. I’m hoping the aisle seat next to me—which is technically mine, but I prefer the window so I’ve occupied it—will remain empty, although the flight attendants have been telling everyone the flight is full and given the overstuffed overheads, I believe them. Nothing I can do about it though, so I may as well read my book while I wait for takeoff.

  I’m perhaps more tired than I thought after spending two full days with Rafa and then two more wandering around Chicago, taking advantage of the city’s excellent culinary scene when I wasn’t walking or riding the “L” between tourist sites.

  The words on my Kindle start to blur and swim, and I catch my chin dropping to my chest a few times but try to shake myself awake to read more of The Devil in the White City, which I started on my way out here.

  I wake with a start to someone dropping into the seat next to me. I crack a crabby eye to see who’s disturbed me and instead of some standard road warrior in a Brooks Brothers skirt suit or a guy coming home from a bachelor party weekend with his buddies, I get hit with a bolt of lightning. It’s like a kick to the chest, and my lungs empty in a choking rush. It’s not possible.

  But from the way he’s looking at me—blue eyes blown wide, ginger brows crunched, and his mouth slightly open—he feels the same way, which is what confirms it. It’s him. It’s really him.

  After not having seen him for fifteen years, I have the…misfortune? Tough break? Devil’s own luck—yes, that seems most apt—to find myself trapped next to the only man I’ve ever really loved, the one who abandoned me when I needed him most, the one who alternately haunted and blessed my dreams even before he’d gone. And oh yeah, the man who saved my life and kept me from destroying myself when it was so, so tempting to end it all.

  Lowry goddamn Campbell.

  Or should I say Doctor Campbell, since I only ever called him Lowry in whispers at night in the dark, half the time with my hand between my legs.

  * * *

  Lowry

  I’d wondered when I first saw the woman in the window seat. Her long, chestnut-dark hair, the slope of her shoulder. I couldn’t see her face since it had been turned to the window, neck unnaturally bent in sleep, but those similarities alone had brought on a fond pang in my chest. That pang has turned into a riot of some sort, like the lads down at the football pitch, because it’s not an apparition. Or if it is, it is the most realistic one I’ve ever seen. Disturbingly so. If she is indeed a doppelganger, she’s going to haunt my dreams.

  She’s glaring at me with those hazel eyes of hers rimmed with dark lashes.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  So it is Starla. If I’d had any doubts left knocking around in my head, they’d be cleared by the way she snaps out the question. She always did have a tongue like a whip, except when things were at their worst and I could barely get her to look at me, never mind speak. It shouldn’t please me, the way she cusses and looks like she’s going to dig my eyeballs out with her nails—wouldn’t please many people, that’s for sure—but a good portion of what I’m feeling is delight. Relief. She’s doing well. Looks tire
d, sure, since I woke her, but on the whole, very good. Healthy, vibrant, and very much alive.

  I would’ve known if she’d died. If she’d… Well. But it’s not as easy to know from afar how a person is faring otherwise. Google alerts only tell a person so much, although more in the past three months than in the last fifteen years altogether. I suppose that’s when the fact she’s an heiress to a massive corporate conglomerate became much more relevant—since she’s not an heiress anymore. Simply one of the wealthiest people on the Eastern seaboard. She’s still just Starla to me.

  “I…” You’re a smooth one, you are, Campbell. “My ticket’s actually for the window.”

  She looks at me as though I’m rather daft with those forest-floor hazel eyes of hers and then shakes her head, muttering what I’m certain are more curses, and reaches for her seat belt.

  “No, no. It’s fine. You don’t have to, I prefer the aisle actually. I just…”

  Didn’t know what to say. It’s been fifteen years and I’ve seen photos of her, but had resigned myself to never seeing her in the flesh ever again.

  She’s had an expressive face ever since I’ve known her, at least when she wasn’t drowning, and it’s remarkable how I can still read her, how the clues on her face have remained so similar, though her features have become concentrated somehow. Sharper. She was lovely then, and she’s beautiful now, her cheekbones and jawline more defined, making her wide mouth and her round eyes more prominent. She’s truly gorgeous, the fact that she wants to murder me not detracting from her appeal in the least.

  “Whatever.”

  She looks me over again, and if it were possible to send daggers through one’s eyes, I would be dead as a doornail right now.

  “So are you going to answer my question?”

  Question? Ah, right. What the fuck am I doing here?

  “I live in Chicago. Well, lived, I suppose. I…I’m moving back to Boston.”

  “You’re…you’re moving back to Boston? You left fifteen years ago without a goddamn word and now you’re back? You’re not supposed to come back. You’re supposed to be gone. Forever.”

  Not exactly a hero’s welcome, but I’m pretty far from a hero. I do wish this had gone some other way but this is how it’s going and I scramble to make it a tad less awkward and, well, less likely to result in my death.

  “I, uh, am sorry to disappoint you.” Not as sorry as I’d been fifteen years ago, but now I can tell her I’m sorry. “I hope you know I really am truly sorry about—”

  She puts a hand in my face, the universal symbol for stop, and my mouth snaps shut. The fury in her eyes is still burning hot and even if it weren’t, I’d honor her request for silence. It is literally the least I can do.

  “No. Absolutely not. I don’t accept your apology and I never will. You’re the one who taught me that I am not required to give anyone my forgiveness, that sometimes there are hurts too deep to be forgiven. That’s how much you hurt me when you left, and you don’t deserve my forgiveness so, no. You can shut your face and you can find yourself a new seat on this plane because I would rather sit next to a rathtar than you.”

  Girl still loves Star Wars. Not girl—woman. She’s thirty-three years old and a grown, mature, elegantly dressed woman.

  Who still uses Star Wars references. I knew she’d see the new ones; had wondered as I watched them if she’d enjoyed them. I’d ask, but she’s punching the button to summon the flight attendant.

  One bustles over, the red, white, and blue kerchief at her neck fluttering as she makes her way to us.

  “Yes? We’ll be taking off shortly, so unless it’s an emergency—”

  “Could you switch this man to a different seat? Any seat will do. I can see there are no free seats left in first class, but seriously, even something on the wings or in the cargo bay would do. You don’t need to worry about his comfort. At all.”

  The woman’s gaze flicks between me and Starla, and I give her a pleasant, innocent smile.

  “I’m sorry, the flight is completely full and there are no open seats. And federal regulations prohibit—”

  “Fuck my life,” Starla mutters, burying her head in her hands.

  “Is he… Is this man bothering you? If he’s assaulted you or is harassing you, I can have them delay takeoff and get security onboard, but…”

  Her mouth wrenches to the side, clearly unable to decide which of us to believe. I’m calm, Starla is livid, but if I’d done something truly awful to Starla—now, not fifteen years ago—I’m glad the attendant is willing to shut this whole thing down to fix it. As things are…

  Starla’s head snaps up and she levels me with a calculating glare before clearing her throat and putting on a forced smile to turn on the flight attendant.

  “No, he hasn’t done anything like that. Or committed any kind of crime. He deserves to have his heart cut out with a rusty spoon and fed to him, but he’s not violent, he’s not a threat to anyone. He can see if someone will switch after takeoff.”

  I suppose I could, but I don’t want to. Boundaries, though. She’s allowed to have them, as are we all, and it would be unforgivably hypocritical of me to insist that she dispose of hers. She needs them more than most people, and I helped her build them.

  * * *

  Starla

  Never has three hours seemed so long. It is absolute torture to sit this close to Lowry, burning with questions—where have you been? What have you been doing? Who have you been doing it with? Are you happy? Did you miss me? Did you think of me at all?—and determined not to say a single word. Because if I open the floodgates, I doubt I’ll be able to close them. And I cannot subject myself to that again. To feel anything but anger toward this man who abandoned me at the worst possible time.

  Yet I feel the other impulses creeping in and I hate myself for them. Fifteen years didn’t do anything to dull the attraction I feel for him. It’s still as sharp as a knife that could gut me, leave my entrails spilling into my hands. If anything, he’s gotten more handsome. How is that a thing men can do? Some women too, I suppose, but it’s mostly a guy thing.

  He’s always had a line bisecting his brows, one I thought of as the mark of him being a psychiatrist because it would deepen when he had his listening face on, which was most of the time. The past decade and a half has also given him brackets around his mouth—I hope from the broad smiles that always made me feel like the sun had come out—lines on his forehead, plus some crow’s feet and red fading into strawberry blond and gold at his temples for good measure. It pokes at a part of me that doesn’t need poking, especially not around Doctor Lowry goddamn Campbell anyway.

  He is, after all, the one I blame for my daddy kink. Well, not so much blame, because I suspect I would’ve had an eye for older men no matter what. Would’ve wanted to be cosseted and doted upon, instructed and corrected even as I’m cherished, regardless of whether or not I had been his patient and foisted my adolescent affections upon him. But I feel like he’s the one who confirmed those feelings for me. Distilled them into something so strong, I could no longer ignore it or think this was how everyone felt toward their puppy love crushes. No, the urges and fantasies I had—and annoyingly, still have—about this man weren’t the same as the ones I heard the girls in high school and in college repeat.

  I am definitely not sneaking glances at him whenever humanly possible. Certainly not taking the opportunity to stare when his back is turned as he gets up to use the restroom. He still seems tall. Still dresses in a way that pushes my buttons real hard; shawl-collared sweater with a button-down underneath that should make him look ridiculous, but he gets away with it in his neatly tailored wool trousers and—someone must’ve gotten ahold of him because he’s upgraded his shoe game considerably. I ought to know; I spent a lot of time staring at his feet throughout my latter years of high school.

  Goddammit. Goddammit all to hell. Because when he sits back down, our forearms brush and I barely keep from whimpering at the electric charge. Sam
e fucking one that would always hit me whenever I had the—rare—opportunity to touch him. Then humiliation surges through me remembering the last time I touched him. Or rather, was touched by him. No wonder he left. Which doesn’t make any sense. I’m sure he’d tell me so himself. He always was telling me not to take on too much, and this is something I can’t—or at least shouldn’t—blame myself for.

  Him leaving had nothing to do with the fact that he’d had to pry me out of a bathtub, soaking wet and naked save for a towel, only to dress me and braid my hair because he knows—knew—I hate hair in my face, and then take me to the hospital so I could do what I should’ve done over a month before. Because that’s what happened—we both knew it would, and I did it anyway. Skipped my ECT because I wanted to be a “real girl”—whatever the hell that is—and be able to live my life without being anesthetized and have electricity run through my brain every six weeks.

  Haven’t skipped it again since because that disaster left me scarred. The greatest humiliation of my life. And while I often have some memory issues from the day before and the two after my treatments, that particular episode is forever seared into my brain. Because I’m lucky like that.

  It’s a wonder he didn’t request to switch seats himself. He can’t have fond memories of the calamity I was, how much work he poured into me—and how did I show my gratitude? By trashing it all for a month of living with my boyfriend at the time, which resulted in the inevitable breakdown because as much as I’d like it to, my depression won’t quit, and there’s only one thing I’ve ever found that can keep it at bay. And it ain’t tepid teenage sex and other adolescent indulgences like eating cookies for breakfast. Lowry knew better, and I should’ve too.

  Is there enough room beneath this seat to crawl under? No, which is unfortunate.