Best Kept Secrets (Complete Series)

by Kandi Steiner

I wished he were still here to live it with her.

  “Let me ask you this,” she said, placing her other hand over where mine held hers. “Do you really believe what that woman told you about Reese, what your head is trying to convince you of? Do you believe he wanted something from you before he called his friend in New York, that he would use you like that?”

  I dropped my gaze to my lap. “I don’t know how to not believe that… not after what happened.”

  “No,” Mom said, squeezing my hand until I looked at her again. “I want you to really stop for a moment, listen to your heart, and tell me — do you believe Reese would ever do anything to hurt you?”

  The tears I thought had dried up flooded my eyes instantly, because I’d known long before she’d asked, long before I told her everything, long before I’d even walked out his door that night we fought.

  I knew Reese would never hurt me, but I still ran away.

  “He would never hurt me,” I whispered, sniffing against the urge to cry again. “Never. Well, intentionally, anyway. But, even though he didn’t mean to, he still did, Mom. He still hurt me.”

  Mom patted my hand again. “I know he did. And sometimes, when you love someone, you can’t see straight. Sometimes we hurt each other when we think we’re doing what is best.” She paused, considering her next words. “I think you’re right, though — I don’t think he would hurt you in any malicious way. Want to know what else I think?”

  I nodded.

  “I think you’re scared to fully trust him, and to let him into your life, because of what happened to you. And that is okay, Sarah.” She lowered her gaze, searching my eyes with her own. “Do you hear me? It. Is. Okay.”

  I didn’t realize I felt it, that I was ashamed of my own feelings, of the way I reacted, of the way I pushed Reese away until my mom said those words. And when she did, I shook my head against them, face twisting with the emotion they left behind.

  I had no one else to blame but myself for the position I was in with Reese.

  And I couldn’t even fully explain why I’d put myself here.

  “It’s okay that you ran away from him,” she continued. “That perhaps your reasons in his eyes or mine or anyone else’s don’t seem to make sense. It’s okay that your anxiety spoke louder than reality in that moment of time when he was trying to express his care and love, but it came out in a form that pushed all your soft spots. And it’s okay that your emotions won against logic — trust me, it happens to the best of us.” Mom pressed her lips together in a soft smile. “Honey, you do not have to always be okay. And if anyone will understand the war you had going on in your head, the war that may always go on for you, it’s Reese. You just have to tell him. You have to trust him. And you have to let him in. And if you can’t do that?” She shrugged. “Well, then he isn’t the right one.”

  I shook my head immediately. “It’s not him. It’s me. This is all me. He got me this… this… incredible opportunity. In the city I want to be in, with one of the most amazing mentors I could ask for, aside from him. And he did it because he wants to see me happy.” I choked on a sob. “I think it’s what he’s always wanted. And I can’t figure out why I fight it, why I seem to be so much more comfortable in misery than in happiness.”

  “Well, I think a lot of that comes from what happened with Wolfgang. And that brings me to something else we need to discuss.” She paused, chewing her bottom lip a moment as she considered her next words. “I think you need to see a therapist in New York, Sarah.”

  Mom watched me like she expected me to fight, to throw a fit, to say I was fine and I didn’t need to talk to anyone.

  But none of that was true.

  I wasn’t fine, and I knew it.

  “I think you’re right,” I whispered in agreement. “Honestly, maybe if I would have sorted through all this before I got to Pennsylvania, before I worked with Reese, I could have been more open to him. I wouldn’t have pushed him away, pushed us away.”

  “Ah, but see, that’s the funny thing about life, isn’t it?” Mom said, a genuine smile touching her lips. “It seems that way, but if you would have talked to someone immediately, you might not have even ended up in Pennsylvania. Or if you had, Reese might not have seen the same pain in you that has lived in him, and maybe, he wouldn’t have connected with you on the same level. Everything happens for a reason, mwen chouchou. But now, it’s up to you to decide what happens next.”

  I returned her smile, nodding as she squeezed my hand. And slowly, like a balloon being filled with each new breath I took, hope started to float back into my soul. My heart raced at the thought of running to Reese, of telling him everything, of pleading with him to come with me to New York like he said he would.

  Only, I didn’t know if that offer was still on the table.

  “Manman,” I said after a long moment. “What if he doesn’t listen to me? I mean… I’ve been awful to him. I ran out of his house. I accused him of terrible things, of using me, of doing the absolute last thing I know he would ever do.” I swallowed. “And, I threw one of his biggest scars in his face. When I saw him with Charlie, I just… I snapped. I wanted to hurt him the way he’d hurt me, but it wasn’t even him who had hurt me at all.” I sighed, pulling my hand from Mom’s so I could bury my face in both of them. “Everything is such a mess, I can’t even see my way out of it.”

  Mom clucked her tongue, reaching over to rub my back as I tried to sort through it all.

  “He said he loved you,” she reminded me. “Right? The last time you spoke?”

  I nodded, resting my chin on my knees so I could look at her. “He said I saved him, too.”

  At that, Mom’s smile bloomed, and she shook her head, running the back of her knuckles along the side of my face. She stopped at my chin, framing it with her thumb and forefinger as her eyes watered over. “Oh, mwen chouchou. Who saved who?”

  I choked on a sob, throwing myself in her arms as the emotion took me under again. Only this time as she held me, it wasn’t pain that wracked through me — it was hope.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, my head still against her chest where she held me. “I couldn’t do this without you.”

  “Do what?”

  “Life,” I said on a laugh.

  Mom laughed, too, pulling back to frame my face with her hands. “So, now what, my love?”

  My heart squeezed, a completely different kind of anxiety causing my muscles to seize. This time, it was born of the fear of rejection, the fear of putting my heart on the line only to have it passed up, like a bowl of peas on a dinner table.

  “Now, I tell him how I feel,” I said, heart racing as an idea came to me. It was stupid. It was big. It was risky. But if I had a prayer of getting back the man I’d lost, it would all be worth it.

  “And how do you do that?”

  I smiled. “By using the only language he’ll understand.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  * * *

  Reese

  At least the weather was on my side.

  Just like on the anniversary of my family’s death, there was a torrential downpour soaking all of Pittsburgh to its bones the day before Sarah was destined to leave town. I drove through the gray, miserable rain on my way across town, taking in the foggy skyline as the sun dipped away somewhere above the dark gray clouds. It was just another Friday night at The Kinky Starfish, another day in my monotonous routine of surviving — and that’s all it was, surviving.

  I didn’t live anymore.

  It was the same state of being I’d been in before Sarah walked into my life, and it didn’t surprise me that with the knowledge of her leaving, I was slipping right back into my comfort zone of nothingness. For the last two weeks, I’d done the same thing every day — wake up, take Rojo for a long walk, work out at the house, play piano, lose an afternoon watching movies, pop open a beer as soon as five o’clock hit — unless I was working at The Kinky Starfish — and to be honest, even sometimes then. I was doing whatever I could t
o get my ass out of bed and keep going, even when it felt like there was nothing to keep going for.

  But tonight was different.

  Tonight, my pulse beat hard and haphazardly right along with the windshield wipers on my old car trying to combat the rain. Because I knew I would see her.

  And I also knew it would be the last time.

  I’d made a promise to Charlie when she chose Cameron that I would let her go as gracefully as I could. Well, it turned out I had about as much grace as I did vegetables in my pantry. That is to say — absolutely none.

  But with Sarah, I would follow through on my promise.

  I’d tried to keep her, tried to get her to listen, to believe me, to believe in us. I couldn’t make her choose me, and so I would choose to be happy for her, for her next journey — whether I was a part of it or not. This time, I would have grace in letting the one I love go.

  Maybe because she was the one I’d loved more than any other in my life.

  It seemed impossible, even as my heart beat the truth of it into my chest. How could I love her after only knowing her a few months? How could I feel this connection to a woman just barely over half my age?

  None of it made sense, and I guessed that was the most intriguing thing about love. It didn’t have to make sense.

  It didn’t have to be reciprocated, either.

  The potholes in the back lot of The Kinky Starfish were full of water, and I sloshed through them as I parked my car, pulling my rain jacket on and popping open a large umbrella as soon as my door was open. My shoes were soaked in an instant, the rest of me barely saved from the coat and umbrella. It was the kind of rain that was nearly impossible to shield yourself from.

  When I made it inside, I shivered at the air blasting from the air conditioner in the back of the kitchen. Shaking my umbrella off, I propped it by the door before peeling my jacket off and hanging it on the rack.

  I was in such a daze that I didn’t realize mine was the only jacket there.

  Or that my car was one of only two in the parking lot.

  Or that the kitchen was empty, the lights dimmed, even though our doors would open in less than half an hour.

  None of it hit me, not until I walked through the swinging kitchen doors and out onto the floor to prep my setlist for the night and saw that my seat was already taken.

  It all hit me then — the dark, empty restaurant, the candles flickering from where they sat on top of the piano, the fact that I was completely alone in a place that should have been buzzing to life right now in preparation for a busy night ahead.

  Well, almost completely alone.

  Sarah sat at the bench I usually occupied, a soft melody flowing through the space between us as she let her hands glide over the keys. Her eyes were soft, hopeful, and yet I saw the fear in them as she watched me from across the room.

  I stepped closer, broaching the circle where the piano sat under the chandelier. It was funny, the way the room was set up, because I was in almost the exact same proximity to her as when we were together in my home — her at the piano, me off in the right-hand corner. As soon as I crossed that threshold, Sarah paused, letting silence fall over us. Her eyes met mine, and I saw goodbye written all over them as I waited for her to speak.

  But she didn’t.

  Instead, she closed her eyes, blew out a long, steadying breath, and began playing a song I’d never heard before.

  The song struck violently to a start, a crescendo of sharp, dramatic notes causing my heart to kick harder in my chest as I watched her play. There was violence in that music, and pain, and sorrow — and she moved with every beat of it. Her shoulders were rounded, relaxed, her fingers flying over the keys as she brought the unfamiliar song to life. Her face screwed up as the harmony shifted, the volume of her playing softening in a gradual decrescendo until she stopped playing altogether.

  She took a long rest, eyes fluttering open and meeting mine. She held my gaze, and the softest, sweetest smile touched her lips as she started playing again.

  The new melody was strong and hopeful, romantic and sweet, like what you would imagine if you were strolling along the river boardwalk with a lover’s hand in yours, the moon full and bright above. It felt like home, and adventure, like something fresh and new and somehow familiar all at once. I wanted to pull her up from that bench and dance with her, that’s how powerful the music was.

  Instead, I leaned a hip back against the low wall that circled the piano, watching as the shadows from the candlelight danced over her face, instead. She pulled her gaze back to her hands, moving with them as the song progressed, and the longer she played, the more dramatic it became.

  Her fingers pounded the keys in a crescendo, the brazen forte making me suddenly feel uncomfortable, like I was in danger or on the brink of a discovery I didn’t want to make. I felt every flex of her body as it moved with the beat, every tap of her foot on the pedal, every dramatic scale she took me on.

  And it was then that I realized there was a reason the song was an unfamiliar one, one I’d never heard before.

  It was because she’d written it.

  I didn’t know what it meant — her being here, the song she was playing — but I couldn’t fight against the hope that bloomed in my chest. I tried to tamp it down, to quiet it and hold onto the moment for whatever it was worth. She’s leaving, I reminded myself. But still, hope bloomed.

  When she played the last note, long and soft and bittersweet, it felt like the music you’d hear at the end of the saddest movie you’d ever watched in your life. It was laced with goodbyes, with regrets and sorrows.

  And still, somehow, hope bloomed.

  Silence fell over us like a sheet being spread out over a bed, the fabric slowly descending, surrounding us in a bubble of the last note before it deflated altogether. And when the quiet blanketed us completely, Sarah stood, the fear back in her eyes as she took a careful step away from the piano and toward me.

  “Did you write that?” I asked.

  Sarah nodded.

  “Did you write it for me?”

  Her face broke at that, tears welling in her eyes as she rolled her lips together and nodded again. And that hope that had bloomed slowly in my chest exploded like a comet, searing a path across my heart.

  “I’m so sorry, Reese,” she finally said, eyes brimmed with unshed tears, the candlelight making them glisten like diamonds. “I’m sorry I left you that night, that I believed you would ever hurt me, that I took something so personal and shoved it in your face the first chance I got. I wanted to hurt you, Reese. I did. And I’m so sorry.”

  I frowned, torn between the urge to reach for her, to pull her into me and soothe her and the urge to run from her all at once. There was the proof, her admittance that she wanted to hurt me.

  And she had.

  I didn’t know what to do with that.

  “I don’t have any excuse for the way I’ve behaved,” Sarah spoke after a long pause, inhaling a deep gulp of oxygen before blowing it out again. “None that matter or make up for anything. But, I want to explain, if you’ll listen. God knows I didn’t listen to you, so I can’t blame you if you walk out of here right now without letting me say another word.”

  She paused, like she was waiting to see if I’d bolt. When I didn’t, she continued.

  “Reese, from the very first time I met you, I couldn’t fathom a world where you could ever be interested in me. The way I see myself, the damage I feel like a floor-length gown that I permanently wear, it stops me from ever even considering a life where I could be happy with someone else. So when things escalated between us, I ran away. I ran because all I could see was him. All I could picture when someone touched me was Wolfgang.”

  I swallowed hard, jaw clenching tight at the acid laced in her truth. I wanted to murder him, to torture him until his last breath to make him pay for what he did to Sarah.

  But more than that, I wanted to hold her until she realized that what he did had nothing to do with who
she was.

  “And then, we set boundaries again. We fell back into our roles.” Her lip quivered. “But I couldn’t let you go. No matter how I insisted that you should go on a date with Jennifer, that you should move on with a woman your own age. I hated it. And when I showed up at your door that night, when I broke in your arms, I realized that even if it didn’t make sense and even if you were completely out of my league, I wanted you, anyway.”

  I had to fight back a laugh when she said I was out of her league, like I was even on the same playing field as someone as beautiful, smart, and strong as she was.

  “But it was still there, Reese,” she said, taking a tentative step toward me. “That voice in my head that said I wasn’t good enough, that said I was only good for one thing — my body. I’d quieted it, I’d tried to silence it, even. I was trying to listen to you, to my heart, to anything other than that voice. But all it took was one conversation with Jennifer Stinson to unleash its power again.”

  I frowned. “Jennifer?”

  Sarah nodded. “She was here that night, before our fight. At the bar. And she told me you’d slept with her, that your hands had touched her, that just like every other woman, you had used her as a distraction from Charlie before tossing her away.”

  I fumed at that, taking a step toward Sarah as my neck heated. “I never touched her. Ever.”

  “I know,” she said quickly. “I know that now. Hell, I think I even knew it then. But I couldn’t see it, couldn’t hear the truth past the voice in my head. Jennifer told me you’d do the same to me,” she said, eyes tearing up again. “And then we went home, and you told me about Jason, and that voice inside my head just… it took over. It screamed that everything Wolfgang had said about me was right.”

  “Sarah…” I crumpled, shoulders folding forward at the absolute sorrow I felt that she could ever consider that true. I hadn’t even thought of it that way, that she could see it as me trying to get rid of her instead of helping her on her path to what she’d always wanted.

  I’d been naïve.