My arms fell to my sides, and I whistled for Bandit to return. He arrived in seconds, his pink tongue on full display, his eyes bright with excitement at the rare and unexpected treat of a run on the beach after dark. He plunked his rump on the ground and swiped at me with his paw.
“Here you go, boy.”
He snaffled the treat and swallowed. I clipped his lead onto his collar and set off for home.
“Marin’s brother, Wyatt, came to see me today.”
I halted in my tracks and turned around to find Belle with her chin tucked into her chest, toeing the sand with her right foot.
“Oh?” I framed it as a question, determined that now that she’d started the conversation, I’d let her go at her own pace. Already, I sensed that the visit from her dead fiancé’s brother wasn’t a welcome one. If she’d greeted his return favorably, she’d have told me about him earlier.
“He called by the house this morning.”
“This morning?” I frowned. If she spoke with him before she left the house, then he wasn’t the cause of her distance this evening. Which beggared the question: what was? “Before I got there?”
“I don’t know.”
I shook my head as though that would empty the confused thoughts from my mind. I held back the temptation to hit her with a barrage of questions as I would if this was a work situation. Clearly she was struggling to articulate what had happened. The best way to handle this was to let her tell it in her own way.
“I went into the gardens at work today to eat my lunch, and he just appeared.”
“But you said he came by the house?” I rubbed my forehead, even more bewildered. “I don’t understand.”
“He saw us. When you gave me the car, he was watching.”
Watching? Like some fucking creeper?
Not feeling any better about Wyatt.
“And he waited to catch you at lunch? For what purpose?”
Her eyes filled up, and she blinked rapidly to clear the approaching tears.
What the ever-loving fuck?
“Belle.” I cradled her face, my thumbs brushing her cheeks. “What did he say?”
I tried—and failed—to keep the note of steel out of my voice. If this bastard had upset her in some way, I’d rip off his arms.
She nibbled her bottom lip and shook her head.
Fury bolted through my veins, and I had to take a huge breath, and hold it down in my lungs for a few seconds as a way to stop myself bellowing “Tell me right now!” I didn’t know this guy, but already my intuition had shot straight to Defcon Five. She looked… broken.
“He gave me a lot to think about, that’s all.”
“Such as?”
Bandit tugged on his lead, anxious to set off now that I’d tethered him. I tugged back, and he sat, peering up at me with his big brown eyes.
“It’s only been a little over sixteen months,” she whispered. “And here I am, with you, and it just… it just doesn’t feel long enough. Like I haven’t grieved enough. That I’m being disrespectful to Marin’s memory.”
Wyatt is a dead man.
“There isn’t a manual to grief, Belle. No one can, or should, tell you how to grieve. We all cope with loss in different ways. Take me for example. I withdrew from the world. You carried on, taking care of Zak, of your mom. Neither of those approaches are wrong. They are personal, to us, to how we choose to deal with what we’ve lost.”
I had the feeling every word I spoke was falling on deaf ears, and God, it scared me. It scared me more than I had been since that night. The night I lost Jenna. I’d felt her slipping away, and I had exactly the same sensation now, standing here on a darkened beach, in front of the woman I loved, desperately clinging on to her as she slipped away, too. Not in the same way my sister had, but just as finite all the same.
“We jumped into this too fast,” she said, as if I hadn’t spoken.
Her eyes were glazed. She’d withdrawn into herself, talking on autopilot without really being present.
“How can I trust my feelings for you when I’m still grieving? What if I’m on the rebound? How is that fair to you, especially after all you’ve gone through?”
“No way.” I gripped her upper arms and shook her gently. “You’re not on the rebound. I’d know. Fuck’s sake, Belle. When I’m inside you, and you’re looking at me, it’s real. It’s fucking real.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I love you!” I yelled. “Jesus Christ, I love you. And that’s real. It’s real in here.” I slammed my palm against my chest.
The amount of cursing was in direct response to the frustration surging inside me, like a tsunami whose progress I couldn’t halt. Desperate men did desperate things, and as Belle slithered through my fingers, I blurted out the very thing that shouldn’t be shared in a blaze of exasperation and anger. I wasn’t angry at her. My rage was directed at Wyatt.
The way she staggered back a couple of feet, a stunned expression exploding on her face, meant those words had gotten through the barriers she’d erected, intended to keep me at bay. Just as I hoped they’d crash to the ground, she dashed my hopes with her next comments.
“You can’t say that for sure. You’ve lived as a recluse for so long, Upton. How do you know that what you feel for me isn’t gratitude that I helped you move on with your life?”
“You think I feel gratitude? You’re the first thing I think of when I open my eyes each morning and the last thing I see when I close them at night, and you think that’s because of gratitude? Do you really think I’m that shallow?”
“That’s just it,” she whispered. “I’m not sure we know each other enough for me to answer that question truthfully.”
The knife, so perfectly aimed, sliced straight through my heart. I clutched my stomach and swallowed hard, feeling the color drain from my face. Everything inside me that Belle had painstakingly filled up with her patience and kindness bled out, swallowed up by the billions of grains of sand at my feet.
“Are you breaking up with me?”
She lowered her head, and her chin wobbled. “I don’t want to.”
A spark of hope restarted my heart with a jolt. “Then don’t.”
“But I can’t commit like you want me to.”
“If this is about moving in, forget it. We can take it slow. Whatever you want.” I realized I’d succumbed to begging, but I didn’t care. I’d do whatever it took for Belle not to crush me by walking away. Fuck pretending to be manly and an alpha-hole. All that mattered was that I didn’t lose the woman standing in front of me.
She shook her head. “It’s not just that. It’s… oh God, I don’t know. It’s everything. I feel as if I’m betraying everything Marin and I stood for. We were getting married. If the security services had managed to stop that terrorist, I would be married right now. And yet less than seventeen months later, with my fiancé barely cold in the ground, I’m already warming your bed. What does that say about me?”
“That you’re allowed a life of your own,” I said as gently as I could manage. Yelling at her wouldn’t work, although holding back on the impulse to shake her until her teeth rattled almost killed me. “That as much as you loved him…” I winced, then plowed on. “He’s gone. And I’m here.” I gathered her into my arms, hoping the physical connection would stitch us back together. She allowed me to kiss her, but when I tasted her tears, I withdrew.
Our eyes locked—and I instantly knew my worst fears had materialized.
I’d lost her.
“I think we both need some time apart,” she said, averting her gaze. “I’m so sorry, Upton. I’ll return the car, of course.”
“Keep it,” I spat bitterly. “It’s worthless to me.”
In my hurt and anger, I almost added “Just like you”, except those weren’t the three words I wanted to leave her with.
They were a lie.
25
Belle
“Belle, get up.”
I rolled over in bed and
faced the wall, giving Zak my back. “Go away.”
Five days had passed since I had walked out on Upton after telling him we needed some time apart. And every single day since a lump of concrete had sat in my stomach, one that screamed “You’ve made a huge mistake”. Not that concrete could talk, but you know what I mean. I felt sick, had hardly eaten, and I swore that my hair was falling out. A bit dramatic, maybe, but when I brushed it yesterday, I was sure there were more hairs entangled in the brush than on a normal day. The only thing I had managed to do was haul my ass out of bed each day to go to work. I put on a brave, smiling face for the residents, but the second I walked out the front door, my smile fell, and guess who arrived?
My new best friend—depression.
Wyatt’s blunt assessment of what he saw as a betrayal of his brother’s memory still rang in my ears. On reflection, sixteen months wasn’t long to grieve over someone you’d planned to spend the rest of your life with. At the back of my mind I recalled reading something about Queen Victoria of England who mourned Prince Albert’s passing for something like forty years, and here I was, jumping into bed with the first guy who showed me a little craved-for affection less than a year and a half later.
Except, deep in my heart, I knew Upton meant more to me than that. I kept thinking back to his comment about no one having a right to tell another how to grieve. That we each traveled that path alone.
Oh God, I’m so confused.
The competing—and opposite—desires made me feel as if I was on a boat in the middle of a horrendous storm. One minute I was pitched one way, and a second later, the other. I didn’t know what to do for the best. Whatever I chose, someone got hurt.
Zak had been on at me to tell him what happened ever since I returned home on Monday night and broke the news that Upton and I had split. I hadn’t mentioned Wyatt, or the cruel things he’d said to me. Zak would have shot straight into protective brother mode and wanted to fix things. Except he couldn’t fix this. Somehow, I had to unearth the answers on my own.
His hot stare locked on to the back of my head—call it a twin thing that I knew that when I couldn’t see him—and all I could hear was his steady breathing. Zak in this mood wasn’t going anywhere until I faced up to his questions.
With a heavy sigh, I turned over, burrowing my hands beneath my pillow. “What?”
“Talk to me, sis. Tell me what’s going on. This isn’t like you.”
“What isn’t like me? Having a lie-in on Saturday morning after working my ass off at a brand-new job? My brain is fried, Zak. I just need some space.”
He snorted. “We shared a womb, Belle, and countless secrets since. I can tell when you’re layering on the bullshit.” He sniffed the air. “Can smell it, too.”
Despite the resident gloom sitting on my shoulders, my lips twitched, but the smile didn’t last. The longing to talk my problems through with the one person who knew me most in this entire world overcame me, and I blurted, “Wyatt came to see me.”
Zak’s eyebrows shot up in twin arcs. “Wyatt? When? Where?”
“Monday, at work. He accosted me in the gardens as I was having lunch.”
“What the fuck did that tool want?”
Zak hadn’t exactly buddied up with Marin as I’d hoped, but he liked him well enough. Unlike Wyatt. Another twin thing we had in common. We both intensely disliked Marin’s older brother.
“Oh, you know, to offer me the benefit of his huge experience with relationships. And to call me a bitch and tell me I hadn’t grieved long enough for his brother before jumping into bed with another man.”
The incredulity followed by blind rage that crossed Zak’s face made me glad I hadn’t told him the part where Wyatt insinuated Upton had gifted me a car in return for sexual favors.
“He fucking what!” Zak roared, his voice carrying into the rest of the house.
Seconds later, before I’d had a chance to respond, Mom’s head appeared around the door.
“What is all this noise? Zakhary? Izabelle?”
Whenever Mom full-named us, it meant we’d pissed her off. Neither of us spoke, and she shook her head.
“I am on the phone.” She waved her cell in the air in case we misunderstood the meaning of the word phone. “Please keep it down.”
She disappeared again, leaving me alone with Zak, and for my benefit, he reiterated his last comment, this time hissing it underneath his breath.
I fessed up. “Wyatt saw me with Upton. I didn’t tell you because it seemed pointless, but when I left the house that morning, Upton was waiting for me with a huge bunch of flowers and a brand-new car.”
“He bought you a car!” Zak said, then lowering his voice in case he received another dose of Mom’s wrath, “a car?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t see a car sitting in the driveway,” Zak helpfully pointed out.
I rolled my eyes at him. “I could hardly keep such an extravagant gift after we split up. I left it at his house on Monday night and caught the bus home. But that’s not the point I’m trying to make. I kissed Upton that morning, and I guess Wyatt must have been watching.”
“Fucking creep,” Zak muttered, his face still red from my earlier revelation. And then his eyes widened. “Please tell me that useless piece of shit isn’t the reason you split with the best thing that has ever happened to you.”
I thought it interesting that he mustn’t think that Marin was the best thing that had ever happened to me, but I decided not to tug on that particular thread right this minute.
“He gave me food for thought, that’s all. He’s right, Zak. Sixteen months isn’t long. What if I’m on the rebound? What if Upton has latched on to the first woman he saw after emerging from a self-induced exile? What if the only thing we have in common is our dual loss and subsequent guilt? There are too many questions, and I’m not willing to make a huge mistake until I’ve answered them.”
“What crap, Belle,” Zak expelled. “I’m paralyzed, not blind. Anyone with half a brain can see how much you two are meant for one another.”
I nibbled on my thumb, a shard of nail providing a welcome distraction. “Are we, though? Marin and I were perfect for each other, and look how that ended.”
“Were you?” Zak asked.
“What does that mean?”
Zak hitched a shoulder. “Nothing. I’m just thinking out loud. Let me ask you this. Are you running from a relationship with Upton because you think you’re on the rebound, or being disrespectful to Marin’s memory? Or are you scared in case something awful happens to him and so you’d rather avoid the risk of falling in love with someone you might lose?”
I stared out the window and gave his questions due consideration. Zak remained quiet, allowing me some time to reflect. After almost a minute, I still didn’t have an answer.
“I honestly don’t know, Zak, which is precisely why I can’t commit. I need to understand where my head’s at before I can move forward.”
“And Wyatt just threw in a hand grenade,” Zak said, more to himself than to me.
I answered anyway. “He didn’t help the situation, that’s for sure.”
Zak reversed his wheelchair and pointed it toward the door. “I’ll leave you in peace. Next time, don’t fucking shut me out.”
I grinned. “I won’t.”
“Oh, and Belle, my advice for what it’s worth? Don’t take too long to make up your mind whether Upton is worth fighting for. A man like that won’t hang around forever.”
And with that bombshell, he left me alone with a jumble of thoughts and feelings I somehow had to make sense of.
One thing was certain: I couldn’t afford to make a mistake.
For my sake—and Upton’s.
26
Upton
When Zak and a guy I didn’t recognize arrived unexpectedly at my house, my stomach flipped over. God, please don’t let anything have happened to Belle.
I buzzed them in and went to wait by the front door. My palms were
clammy, and adrenaline caused pins and needles in my hands and feet. As soon as the car stopped, I strode straight over to the passenger side.
“Is Belle okay?”
Zak nodded, and his unworried expression immediately allayed my fears. “She’s fine. Sorry to barge in unannounced.”
“You’re welcome here anytime.”
“This is Chad.”
I nodded at his friend, then opened the trunk and took out Zak’s wheelchair. Chad and I lifted it over the front step and then I led them through the house and outside to the patio.
“How’s Belle doing?” I asked.
“Sad,” Zak said. “She misses you.”
I nodded, automatically seeking out the vast tree-lined garden as a way to anchor my emotions. “I miss her, too.” I cut my gaze back to Zak’s. “I still don’t understand what went wrong.”
“She’s confused and scared, and stubborn as a fucking mule.”
I chuckled. “I concur with the end of that statement.”
“Listen,” Zak said, leaning forward. “Don’t let her walk away. Not like this. Push her, hard. You need to fight for her, force her to face up to the demons she’s allowing to control her future, and help her shake them off.”
I shook my head. “Sorry, Zak, but I can’t do that. I won’t coerce Belle into something she doesn’t want. She made it clear on Monday that she needed time to work things through, and I respect her enough to give her that.”
“Jesus,” he groaned. “You’re just as bad as she is.”
My gaze fell to his hands where he’d clenched them into fists on top of the table. The right one was grazed. “What happened to you?”
He shot a glance at his friend then shrugged. “I went to see Wyatt. Marin’s brother.”
My jaw worked. “I know who he is,” I ground out. “Belle told me he visited her at work. She didn’t share what he said to her, but whatever it was, it made her doubt our relationship.”
Enchanted: A Billionaire Romance (The ROGUES Series Book 4) Page 17
