by Len Webster
Bile rose in her throat. “What did you say?”
“I am so proud of you,” her mother repeated.
“Why?” Savannah blurted out.
She snorted. “For dating Walter Vidović. The Walter Vidović. Is that why you went to Duke?” She laughed. “I now understand why you never accepted Cameron’s proposal. I approve. I’m so proud of you.”
She’s proud of me.
She’s finally proud of me …
For dating Walter.
But she wasn’t. She wasn’t dating him nor did she go to Duke to find a Blue Devil bound for the NBA. She had chosen Duke because she thought it was close enough to Southport and her father before her parents had gotten divorced.
“You’re proud of me because you think I’m in a relationship with a Knicks player?”
Her mother hummed. “Savannah May, he is what you deserve.”
Savannah felt nauseous. She wanted to throw up. Her mother thought she deserved Walter, but she had no idea what Walter had done to her and what he had put her through. All the tears and heartbreak. All the second-guessing and mess. All the goddamn secrets that were killing her.
For years, she thought she deserved how he treated her. Deserved his manipulation and games. His torture and heartbreak.
It took William Lawrence and his heart to show her what she truly deserved. Will showed her kindness. He gave her kindness. He ensured that she understood that she was worth more than Walter convinced her to believe. And that was one of the biggest mistakes she had ever made. Allowing Walter to value her when she should have valued herself.
I deserve better than Walter.
I deserve better than my momma.
I deserve better.
I just deserve better.
“Momma, he has a drinking problem,” she said in a small voice, giving her mother a chance to retract her previous statement. For Savannah to believe her mother had her best interests at heart. All she had to say was that Savannah deserved more and that status wasn’t worth more than Savannah’s happiness.
Her mother made a displeased sound, giving Savannah an ounce of hope. Then she said, “You can turn a blind eye.”
I can turn a blind eye …
Savannah had done that for years, but she only enabled Walter, and in return, she allowed his behavior to be normalized around her.
“It’s what you deserve,” her mother added, only fueling Savannah’s rage. Her mother thought she deserved the supposed love of an addict, but it wasn’t enough for Savannah anymore. It had never been enough. His drinking had hindered their future together.
In a serious tone, she defied her mother. “I deserve better than him.”
“Now, you listen to me. You deserve to be taken care of.” She sounded as exasperated as Savannah felt. “You deserve the societal status that comes with datin’ an NBA player.”
“But I don’t deserve happiness, do I?” There was no life to her voice. No reason in her heartbeat. No purpose in her breaths as her mother tore her down.
“Happiness is subjective, Savannah May. Marry him, and you’ll find happiness eventually.”
Eventually was no guarantee. Just like Walter. He was no guarantee to her happiness. But she had found who made her happy weeks ago.
Savannah shook her head in disbelief. Not just at her mother but at herself. For being foolish enough to believe her selfish mother had changed. It was clear money still drove her purpose. Money and status still made her happy. And Savannah was not her mother’s daughter.
No.
She wanted what her father had. A man who was rich with happiness and freedom with little money to his name. That was what Savannah wanted.
“I deserve a better mother than you,” Savannah finally said.
“Savannah!”
She held back her tears as her heart found new life in her chest. Happiness was her purpose. “You haven’t changed …” Tears fell down her cheeks, realizing how true it was. How her statement applied to more than just one person in her life. More than one person she loved and had given many chances to. Her mother could keep Savannah’s trusts. That money would never make her happy. She earned her bachelor from Duke with hard work, and she would deserve it with her career. “Like Walter, you won’t ever change so long as you continue to ignore the fact that you hurt people with your selfishness.”
“I’m selfish?” her mother squealed. “You left me to go to Vermont.”
“For the summer,” Savannah explained. “But I’m glad I stayed in Vermont. It’s been my home more than Southport ever was. Goodbye, Momma.”
“Don’t you dare, Savannah May. You hang up on me, and you can consider your trust funds gone,” she threatened.
Another threat.
They seemed to always follow her.
Savannah wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. “The moment you threatened me with them if I didn’t marry Cameron was the moment they were gone. Keep the money. I don’t want it. It comes with strings that ensure I will never be happy. Maybe you’ll find out how money can bring you love because it sure won’t give you mine. All I wanted was for you to love me. To see that I’m so much more than a way for you to blend our family with Cameron’s. That I am more than a potential housewife. For years, I wanted you to love me and accept my choices, but you kept letting me down. And I was wrong to spend years hoping for that. So now I’ll stop because you’re not worth it. Goodbye, Momma.”
Then Savannah hung up. She was without a mother, but she had been for years. She would always have her father’s love, and it was more than what her mother and Walter could have given her combined.
For years, Savannah had sought the wrong kind of love. She wanted selfish love. Painful love.
But right now, she wanted honest love. Respectful love. Devoted love. She wanted love with William Lawrence.
“Savannah?” Walter said carefully behind her.
Her rage had dwindled since her phone call. The war she would win would be settled with shredded white flags. She wanted to move on. But not without final words. So she spun around, her tears still rolling down her face. She expected guilt, maybe even concern on his face. Instead, she saw the intoxicated gleam of his gray eyes.
He lasted two weeks.
More than he had ever lasted.
But she needed years from him.
She needed him to prove forever, and he hadn’t.
So Savannah would be the better woman.
Because being tired of his disappointments was too heavy on her soul and conscience.
“How could you?” she asked in bewilderment of his actions.
He winced as his eyes searched hers. Then he shook his head in confusion. “How could I what?”
Her tears continued to fall, Walter watching each one stain her cheeks. “How could you threaten Will and Emerson? They have nothing to do with us.”
Walter swallowed hard as she saw specks of guilt try to outshine the intoxication in his darkening gray eyes. “You know?”
“Of course, I know!” Then she wiped at her wet cheeks. “Why would you threaten them?”
“Because they work for me, and he took you from me!” Walter yelled.
Savannah shook her head. “No, Walter. You and your drinking did that. You lied to me. Again and again. It was all you.”
He didn’t seem to believe her as he huffed. “Have you slept with him?”
Of course that would be his first question. The last person she had slept with before Will had been Walter. It had been years since their last time. And as she stood before him, she saw the weak, insecure man she had idolized for years.
She could tell him she loved Will. That she finally found a love stronger than the one she had with Walter. But he was not going to hear she loved William Lawrence before Will. She would not give Walter that first.
Walter balled his hands into tight fists, his knuckles strained white. “You have slept with him!” The hurt flashed in his eyes, and his body shook. “He’s my fin
ancial advisor, Savannah!”
“He is.” Savannah tucked her phone back into her pocket. She had checked her jacket and purse in the cloak room. She would collect them before she left Walter and never returned.
She had to be the one to walk away. Maybe it was what he needed to find sobriety.
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew him when you were in my apartment?”
“Because you didn’t have the right to know.”
“God, Savannah. Don’t you see? I love you,” Walter pleaded as if he sensed her goodbye. It was his last-ditch attempt to win back her heart.
But Walter had too many chances. All taken far too late.
This time, Savannah took a chance that would change her life. She would pick herself, and she would choose her own happiness.
“Sometimes love isn’t enough, Walter,” she uttered as his eyes shone with his unshed tears.
“You’re really going to pick a financial advisor over me?”
Savannah shook her head. “No, Walter.” She inhaled a deep breath and released it a second later so she could win her war.
A war that took a long time to finally end.
“I’m choosing me over you. I deserve to be happy, even if you and my mother don’t think I do. I can’t turn a blind eye to your drinking because then I’m choosing you, and I’m tired of choosing you and being at your beck and call. It’s always been when it suited you. You hurt me, and it was always my fault. You slept with other women, and it was somehow my fault. I moved on, and it’s my fault. You seem to blame me for your mistakes. I needed you to be better, Walter. I needed you to want to be better, but each time you try, you hurt me and the people I care about. What’s worse is that at one stage the person I cared about the most was you. I’ve spent years by your side trying, but I can’t make you better, Walter. All I’ve ever wanted was to help you, but you won’t help me.”
“S-Savannah,” he stuttered as he stepped closer. He reached out for her, but she shook her head at him. “I tried.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t try.”
“I tried to keep you.”
“You didn’t,” she stated as she felt the final letters of his name fade from her bleeding heart. “All you did was push me away after I gave you everything. You never wanted to get better. I walked away for a minute, and you already had a glass of whiskey and your arm around another woman. That’s not trying. You take the easy way out, but it ends up hurting me. I was on your side, Walter. Every time you called me drunk, I was there. Every party you stumbled out of, I was there to clean you up before your games. I didn’t let you take responsibility for your drinking. I let you hurt yourself. I should have done more, and I am going to do more by walking away.”
“No, Savannah. Don’t.” His voice broke with his beg.
She took a step back. “I have to, Walter. I have to. You’ve never loved me enough.”
The desperation on his face quickly turned to fury as he balled his fists and his nostrils flared. “I don’t love you enough?” he spat. “I have a check in my pocket right now to pay off all your Duke debt.” He pulled out the folded piece of paper from his slacks and showed her. “I was going to take on your debt. I was going to make life easier for you so you wouldn’t have to stress about repaying your student loans. I was going to find you a new apartment because God knows you deserve more than what you live in now. I even found your dad a new job and apartment in Vermont. I was fighting for you! I was giving you everything you needed to be happy.”
“Walter,” she breathed as she stepped forward and took the check. His eyes flashed with happiness, but they clouded the moment she ripped it up and placed the pieces in the palm of his hand. “I don’t want your money. This isn’t about you giving me an easy life by paying off my debts. I don’t want an easy life with you. You betrayed me when you hurt the people I care about. You showed me that I couldn’t trust you when you drank tonight. You proved that love isn’t enough when you try to manipulate me with money to get me to stay.”
The fire spread in her chest as the finality of her decision weighed heavily on her heart. Savannah couldn’t continue. She couldn’t turn a blind eye.
This had to end.
“At Duke, we were careless and somehow made sense in all that mess. We were stolen kisses and hidden moments. You were a heartbreak I couldn’t wear. We’re older now, so we should be better than those college kids who found something they misconstrued as love in the dark. We’re each other’s crutch. In order for you to get better, I need to be out of your life. I enabled you, but I won’t anymore. I can’t help you. I’ve tried to help you, but I can’t. You won’t let me. I needed you to let me, and you couldn’t. I want you to get better, Walter. I need you to get better. Not for me but for yourself. I can’t be in your life anymore. This has to be it. Goodbye, Walter.”
His lips parted, but she took a step back.
This was how Savannah won her war against Walter Vidović.
With a goodbye she finally meant.
Twenty-seven
Walter
She slept with him.
She fucking slept with him!
Walter saw red.
He was hurt. He couldn’t believe she had slept with someone else. And not just anyone.
Walter’s financial advisor.
But it was clear that Will was more than just his advisor to Savannah. They shared a goddaughter. They had a connection. Walter wondered how far it went. How long she had been with him. He knew it mustn’t have been very long. In fact, she had only started to change recently.
How could she pick him?
It didn’t make sense to Walter. He offered Savannah everything with his love. A blank check to pay off her Duke debt that she ripped up and left the pieces in his palm. He offered her everything, but it wasn’t enough.
Walter turned his wrist and let the pieces of his love for her slowly fall to the ground. He offered her millions, and she walked away. He fought for her, and she walked away. He gave her his heart, and she ripped it out and trampled on it before she walked away.
Savannah had finally walked away.
“Walter, you’re needed back inside,” his agent said as he stepped out of the party. “Where’s Savannah?”
Walter’s nostrils flared. She had left the party some time ago. He couldn’t move. He had stayed in that hall, waiting for her to see sense and come back to him. Will couldn’t give her what she needed. Walter knew Savannah. Loved her through the very worst of them. When it was just sex between them, he remained, but when he felt more, he pushed her away.
Wasn’t that what love was?
Wasn’t he giving her love all these years?
“She’s gone,” Walter murmured as he spun around.
Lu’s brows furrowed. “Gone where?”
“Out of my fucking life.” It was all Walter could say as he pushed past his agent and returned to his party. He should have known it was over when she didn’t react the way he expected when he went to Vermont to see her.
And I told her I loved her …
It didn’t work.
She had pulled away from his kiss, and they talked before she told him her dad would be home. He was sure she didn’t know how to explain why an NBA player was sitting on the small, tired couch of their tiny apartment. Walter knew Savannah had money problems after being cut off from her mother, but he didn’t realize how bad it was. He could tell she tried to make the apartment a home, but she couldn’t cover up the worn paint or the faded carpet. She couldn’t do anything when it came to the shady neighborhood she was living in either.
Walter had returned to New York the next day with a plan to make her life better. He would convince her to move to New York and live with him. He had even been sitting on news that he had found her father a better job and a new apartment. He had all these plans, but she didn’t want to speak to him about the future. All she wanted to discuss was his recovery. She never wanted to talk about him being in love with her. For
years, it was all she wanted. He should have known she was in love with someone else. The girl Walter thought would never change her heart had gone and done it. She had waited for him for so long that he didn’t understand how she could love someone else.
She loves him.
She loves him.
She loves him.
It wouldn’t stop.
His heart was breaking. It had never hurt this much. Savannah had been with men after Walter. He had never felt threatened by them, but with Will he was.
It’s because she loves him.
She had never loved the others.
But she loved Will.
It was so clear to see when she didn’t admit that she had slept with him.
Walter pushed past many guests until he reached the bar. The female bartender smiled and brushed her light brown hair behind her ear.
“It’s the man of the hour. Another soda with a little something extra?” She was being flirty. She had given him whiskey earlier to take off the edge. It might not seem like him, but Walter hated the attention he was given. He loved being a professional athlete, but he hated making important men feel like he was worth the investment.
“Straight whiskey,” Walter said, not wanting to delay the medicine he wanted in his body to heal him.
He had lied to Savannah.
He broke tonight.
But he was trying so hard to be the perfect image of himself that he needed what the alcohol could give him. Courage. Confidence. Belief that he was the man people had believed in.
The bartender set a glass down and poured him a drink. The man he wanted to be with Savannah fought with himself. He should walk away and find her, convince her that he was a changed man. But why should he have to change when she had moved on? She had changed too and chose another man over Walter after she had promised that she would only ever want him. In his bed in Milwaukee before she graduated, she whispered she didn’t want anyone else.
But then I broke her heart …
And the memory of her tears as he said goodbye at Duke resurfaced. The pain of her heartbreak was hard for him to breathe through. So he took the glass in his hand. He was no better than he had been. He lost his girl.
