Chapter 3
1447 Words
Adrian’s Sister
Maya's shift had been brutal: two traumas, one coding patient, and a teenager who'd swallowed pills. She stumbled through the penthouse door at 6am, desperate for sleep.
Then she saw the girl on the couch.
Early twenties, dark hair matted with sweat, skin gray. Track marks running up both arms like a roadmap of bad decisions.
Maya's exhaustion evaporated. She dropped her bag and moved fast.
"Hey. Can you hear me?" She checked for a pulse. Weak but steady. Breathing shallow. "Come on, stay with me."
The girl's eyes fluttered but didn't open.
Maya was reaching for her phone when she heard the elevator.
Adrian stepped out, still in yesterday's suit, looking like he hadn't slept. He saw the girl and froze.
"Lily."
His voice broke on the name.
"You know her?" Maya kept her fingers on Lily's pulse.
"My sister." He moved toward them, then stopped, like he didn't know what to do. "Is she…"
"Alive. Overdose, I think. How long has she been here?"
"I don't, I didn't know she was here." His hands shook. Adrian's hands never shook. "She's supposed to be in rehab. Clearwater Rehab facility, upstate."
"Well, she's not." Maya grabbed her phone. "I'm calling an ambulance."
"No."
"Adrian, she needs"
"No hospitals. No records." He finally moved, kneeling beside the couch. "She's been through this twice before. The press finds out, they'll destroy her."
"She could die."
"Can you help her? Here?"
Maya looked at Lily's gray skin, her shallow breathing. Against every protocol, every instinct.
"Get me your first aid kit. And blankets. Now."
An hour later, Lily's breathing had evened out. Color was returning to her face. She lay in the guest room, the neutral ground between Adrian's wing and Maya's hooked to an IV Maya had improvised from supplies she'd had Adrian's driver fetch from a 24-hour pharmacy, no questions asked.
Adrian sat in a chair by the bed, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.
"She'll be okay," Maya said. "This time."
"I should have known. When she stopped answering calls last week." His voice was hollow. "She always stops answering before she relapses."
"How many times?"
"This is her third time in rehab. First time at nineteen. Pills. Second time at twenty-one. Heroin." He laughed without humor. "She's an overachiever."
"What happened?"
"Our parents died when she was fifteen. Car accident. I was twenty-seven, building the company." He stared at Lily's sleeping form. "I put her in boarding school. Thought structure would help. Instead, I just handed her to people who didn't give a damn."
"You were grieving too."
"I was absent. There's a difference." He stood, moved to the window. "Every time she gets out of rehab, she's good for a while. Months, even. Then something triggers her and she disappears into it again."
Maya watched him, seeing past the cold billionaire to something raw underneath.
"She can't stay at rehab?" she asked.
"She left AMA. Against medical advice. They won't take her back without a court order, and I'm not doing that to her again." He turned. "She needs somewhere safe. Away from her friends, her old life."
"Adrian"
"I know. The contract. Separate lives. I'm asking anyway." His eyes met hers. "She stays here. I'll pay you extra if"
"I don't want extra money." Maya crossed her arms. "But if she stays, she'll know about us. The arrangement."
"I know."
"She'll ask questions."
"Then we lie better." He moved closer. "Please, Maya. I have nowhere else."
She thought about saying no. About the contract, the boundaries, the clean separation they'd maintained.
Then she looked at Lily, small and broken in the bed.
"She stays," Maya said. "But we do this right. Therapy. Support groups. Structure."
"Whatever she needs."
"And you can't just throw money at this and disappear. She needs you. Actually you."
Something crossed his face. Fear, maybe. “I don’t know how to go about that.”
"Then you'll learn."
Lily woke that evening, groggy and confused. Maya was there, checking her vitals.
Where?
"Your brother's place. You showed up early this morning."
Lily's eyes focused. "Maya. The wife." She tried to sit up, winced. "How much does he know?"
"Everything. I'm a doctor, Lily. What were you thinking?"
"I wasn't." She looked away. "I never am."
Adrian appeared in the doorway. Lily's expression shuttered immediately.
"Lily."
"Don't. Whatever lecture you've prepared, just don't."
"I'm not lecturing." He came in, sat carefully in the chair. "I'm asking you to stay here. With us."
"Us." Lily's laugh was bitter. "The happy newlyweds. I'm sure that's exactly what you need. Your junkie sister as a houseguest."
"You're not a houseguest. You're family."
"Since when?"
The words landed like a punch. Adrian absorbed them, nodded slowly.
"You're right. I haven't been. But I'm trying now."
Lily looked at Maya.“Were you paid to say that too?”
"Lily" Adrian started.
"No, it's fair." Maya eased herself onto the edge of the bed, her hands clasped in her lap."Your brother and I haven't known each other long. But I know what it's like to feel alone. And I know you need somewhere safe right now."
"Why do you care?"
"Because he does. And because I've seen too many people not make it through this."
Lily studied her, then Adrian. "Fine. I'll stay. But I'm not going to pretend this is some happy family reunion."
"I'm not asking you to pretend anything," Adrian said.
"Good. Because I'm not an i***t. I know what this is." She gestured between them. "Whatever arrangement you two have. I can smell bullshit a mile away."
Maya felt Adrian tense beside her.
"Get some rest," Maya said. "We'll talk more tomorrow."
Morning came too fast. Maya woke to the smell of coffee, real coffee, not the instant garbage she'd survived on for years.
She found Adrian in the kitchen, staring at a waffle maker like it was advanced alien technology.
"Do you know how this works?" he asked.
"You're a billionaire who can't make waffles?"
"I have people for waffles."
"Not anymore." She took over, mixing batter. "Lily needs normal. That means family breakfast."
"We're not a family."
"She doesn't know that."
Lily emerged twenty minutes later, pale but upright. She eyed the table waffles, fruit, coffee, juice.
"This is weird," she said.
"It's breakfast," Adrian said.
"You don't do breakfast. You do black coffee at your desk at 5am while yelling at someone in Tokyo."
"Things change."
Lily sat, piling food on her plate. "So. How'd you two meet?"
Maya felt Adrian stiffen beside her.
"Hospital," Maya said. "He came in with a cut on his hand."
"And you just fell madly in love while you stitched him up? That's very Grey's Anatomy."
"It wasn't like that"
"She was professional," Adrian cut in. "Efficient. She didn't fawn over me."
"So naturally you proposed?"
"Eventually." Adrian's voice was smooth now, finding the lie. "I came back. Brought flowers. Asked her to dinner."
"He was persistent," Maya added.
"I was interested."
"I was surprised."
"I was serious."
They looked at each other, building the story between them.
Lily watched, eyes narrowed. "How long?"
"Three months," Maya said. "From that first dinner to the wedding."
"Fast."
"When you know, you know." Adrian's hand moved to the table, close to Maya's.
She made a decision. Reached under the table and took his hand.
His fingers were ice cold.
"That's disgustingly romantic," Lily said, but her suspicion hadn't faded. "Where'd he propose?"
"The penthouse," Maya said, feeling Adrian's fingers start to warm against hers. "Overlooking the city."
"Was it grand?"
Adrian squeezed her hand. "It was private. Just us."
"Did you cry?" Lily asked Maya.
“Yes.” That part was clear in her mind: after three months, Maya would have cried at the very idea of a proposal.
"And you?" Lily turned to Adrian. "Did you get all emotional?"
Adrian looked at Maya, still holding her hand under the table. "I told her she was the most real thing in my life."
The words hung there. Maya forgot, for a moment, they were lying.
"Gross," Lily said, but she was smiling slightly. "You two are gross."
She finished eating and stood. "I'm going to shower. A real shower. In a bathroom that doesn't smell like institutional soap."
She left. The kitchen fell silent.
Adrian's hand was still wrapped around Maya's. It's warm now. Solid.
"That was…" he started.
"Good," Maya finished. "We were good."
"The most real thing in my life," he repeated quietly.“I have no idea why I said that.”
"It worked."
"Did it?"
They sat there, hands still clasped, neither quite ready to let go.
- Writer
