Page 11 of His Aries Heiress
“Hello?” she said, dragging her feet as he moved forward, trying to slow him down. All it did was irritate him, and he tugged her forward gently so she would move her damn feet. “I told you I’m not going with you.”
Marcellus halted and let out a long sigh before he turned to her with a glare melting his features. “Look, you want to get to know Tato, right?”
He knew it might be wrong to dangle Tato in her face when he wasn’t even really her brother, but he wanted to make good on his promise to Grim, which meant he needed her in his line of sight.
Her eyes softened, and he swore he saw tears swimming in them, but she blinked them away and nodded. “I do.”
“Aight, then. I’ma pick him up tomorrow, and you can be there when I do. Did anyone explain to him what happenedtoday?” Marcellus asked. The thought of someone else doing what he should have done pissed him off and relieved him all at the same time. He didn’t want to deal with the burden of telling Tato the only parent he knew was dead, but he also wanted to be there for his son to break the news. He didn’t know much about comforting another human, but he knew he wanted to try to do that for Tato.
“No,” she whispered. “I think they wanted to wait for direction from you. Seems like everyone does that.”
She said the words with a questioning tone, as if she wondered why that was. If he had it his way, she would never know, but he knew that wasn’t his fate.
He disregarded her last statement and focused back on Tato. “He’s gon’ need his big sister when I break the news to him.”
He knew that was a low blow, giving this pretty woman false hope, but he needed to give her incentive to go with him so he could figure out what to do with her.
A smile tugged at her lips before it fell again. After letting out a long sigh, she said, “Fine. For him.”
That was all Marcellus needed to hear. He turned and walked out of the waiting room and toward the elevator. He heard her quick steps behind him. When they got on the elevator, he asked, “You drove here?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I came in the ambulance with Grim. I’ll drive your car back to my place.”
They got off the elevator, and her face screwed up as they walked toward the exit. “How do you know I want you to drive my car? I’m more than capable of driving.”
He didn’t slow his stride as he reached out his hand. “Where yo’ keys?”
“Did you hear what I just said?” she asked as they walked out of the hospital. The cool night air slapped him in the face, and he finally glanced behind him.
“I heard you. I just don’t care much.”
“Well, I do. I don’t let anyone drive my car. It was a gift . . . from my parents.”
“So?” He clenched his jaw as he waited for her response. He was losing patience. It had been a long ass day.
She looked at the ground as she spoke. “They’re dead. They died a few weeks ago.”
Parents were always a soft spot for Marcellus. That coupled with not wanting to waste time arguing with someone who seemed just as hardheaded as him, he decided to let it go. “Whatever, man. Just put my address into your GPS.”
He rattled off his address, and when they made it to her car, he shook his head. “You gotta be kidding me.”
Her face scrunched up as she unlocked the doors. “What?”
“This is what you drivin’?”
“Proudly.” She emphasized the word as she opened the door and slid into the car.
He couldn’t believe how ancient the car looked or the fact that it looked like it was lived in. It was filled to the brim with bags and boxes.
“Shit,” he muttered as he tugged on the door handle and got in. He was happy as hell his house was only twenty minutes from the hospital. Life had turned him bougie, so the less time he had to spend in the old ass car, the better.
As an Aries, she carried many scars she refused to show.
The car rideto Marcellus’s house was silent, and she was completely okay with that. She drove to some part of town called Ellington Heights, while deep in thought about everything that had unfolded that day. Questions swirled through her mind, and finally, she decided to pull one from her head and ask it out loud.
“Why do you call him Grim?”
