by Lily Zante
“I quit.”
I wince. “Technically, you did, but I felt bad about everything that happened and you didn’t let me pay for the funeral costs or help you in any way. I didn’t know how to make it up to you so …”
She gives me a careful smile. “That’s very generous of you, but I don’t feel as if I’ve earned it.”
“Please take it. I can’t make things better for you and this is the only way I know that might help you in a small way.”
She makes a face as she stares at the floor and shakes her head. “I was in a bad place when my mom died. I hit back at you. I lashed out. I wanted to blame you, but the truth of it is that my mom having a stroke was nothing to do with you. It wasn’t your fault.”
“It wasn’t yours.”
She looks at me as if I’ve removed her flimsy façade, the one that covers the real her and disproves that she has it altogether.
She doesn’t. I know this because I too have lost people I’ve loved and I’m painfully aware of the damage it can do. “You blame yourself, but you had nothing more to do with what happened that night than I did. I’m talking about your mom and the stroke, Mari. There is no way you could have prevented that.” She looks as if I’ve winded her. “Hey,” I take a step towards her, wanting to hold her face in my hands and talk her through this. But it’s too late for all of that. Sadly, I feel that our time has passed.
“You haven’t just paid me, you’ve overpaid me,” she points out.
“I paid you what I thought you were worth. What I thought I could get away with without you noticing.”
“Pfft. You think I wouldn’t notice almost an extra $10,000 in my account?”
“It’s for the money you would have earned had you stayed here. Had you not quit, had none of the bad things happened. The payment is for that, plus a little bonus.”
“I can’t accept it, Ward.”
“I want you to have it.”
When she looks as if she’s about to protest, I push back. “Please, take it. Please. I have more money than I know what to do with. I’m not trying to buy you out, before you accuse me of such a thing. It would just make me happy to know you have it in case you need it.”
“It would make you happy?” she asks.
“It would make me very happy.”
“But it’s too much.”
“You’ve helped me more than you know.”
“I’ve helped you?”
“Rob forced me to come here because he believed it would get me out of a funk—not unlike the one you’re in. I too had lost my mom a few months before.”
“I’m sorry.”
I take a sharp inhale of breath. “I’m not so sure I am. She stopped being the mom I remembered and needed her to be.”
“I’m still sorry.”
“When I visited her on her deathbed, needing for her to tell me that she had been wrong, needing her to confess that she had made a mistake and regretted how she had treated me, do you know what she said?”
Mari shakes her head.
“She told me that if she could have picked between my stepfather and me, she would always have picked him. Even then, on her deathbed, that’s what she said.” My voice turns shaky thinking about it and I clear my throat, willing myself to stay strong.
“I’m so, so sorry, Ward.”
“Sorry doesn’t fix a thing,” I tell her. I tried so hard to make my mom change. Even after I left, I would still go back and visit her from time to time. But we were never able to get our relationship back. She pined for him. All that time I’d been hoping she would change back to how she used to be, she didn’t. That’s when I resolved never to get close to anyone. I keep all of this to myself. There’s no point in sharing my past with Mari. Not now. “Hearing your own mom say something like that breaks you,” I tell her. Hearing a car pull up outside, I bend down to grab one of my bags.
She looks as if she wants to say something, but the time for saying things has passed. I look at the door in anticipation.
“Do you have to leave now?” she asks, her anxiety making her sound breathless.
“I have a flight to catch and I’m all packed and ready.”
She looks deflated, so much so that I say, “If you wanted to talk, I wish you had come earlier.”
“I only saw the discrepancy in my bank account a few hours ago.”
I hate that we have run out of time. “Will you keep the money? For me?” I very much want her to have it. I don’t want her to struggle. I want only good things for her.
“If you insist.”
“I do.”
“Thank you.”
True to form, a car honks outside and I open the door and hold out my hand, indicating to the driver to wait. I could assume things—about her and me. I could put a stop to all this now. I could tell Mari I can stay and that I want to hear what she has to say, but I have learned that despite what I want, or how I need things to be, it has to come from her.
I could never understand why my mother stopped loving me, why she switched her attention to a monster in a heartbeat and forgot that I ever existed. I now have a fear of this happening again, and I won’t ever allow myself to be hurt like that. “You’re lucky. Your mom wanted you, Mari. She loved you. You can hold on to that kind of love because it stays with you forever.”
The taxi driver honks again. I reach for the other bag and see that Mari has picked up the third one. “You don’t have to do that.”
But she does it anyway and we walk out toward the cab silently. The driver takes my luggage and puts it in the trunk. I shove my hands in my pockets. They are safer there than out, where I run the risk of taking her face and touching her again.
“You being here helped me. Don’t tell Rob. This was all his idea and I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was right.”
She sniffles. “I wish you had opened up before. All those times when I wanted to know things.”
I manage to give her a smile, and then I do it anyway, because I can’t resist. I give in and put my hand to her face. The velvet softness of her skin is warm against my hand and memories flood back of the scent and feel of her against me.
I wish she had come sooner. I wish we had figured things out so that we could have moved to a better place together instead of moving apart. “I’m falling in love with you, Mari, but I have learned that love is a dangerous, precarious thing.” The confession tumbles from my mouth before I have a chance to rein it in. Her eyes widen and turn glassy and if she looks at me like that any longer, I will want to wipe those tears before they fall. I walk away.
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” she calls after me. I stand on the other side of the taxi, my hand on the door, about to open it. I pause and take in a snapshot of her face in case this is the last time I will ever see it.
“You don’t have the right to say that to me and leave,” she yells.
“Look me up next time you’re in New Orleans.”
I hope she does, but that is entirely up to her.
Chapter Fifty-Five
MARI
* * *
He said those things and walked out of my life, ripping through me like a tornado that twisted and broke everything in its wake. Trust Ward to do that to me. He left me thinking, and wishing, and hoping.
I watched the taxi drive away and a collage of our rocky past hurtled by me. We could have reconciled. We could have had a good thing, a great thing, before everything was ripped away from us.
It was fortunate that I started my new job soon after. It gave me a reason to move forward every day but, compared to before, everything about my new working life dimmed. It was like looking at a paler shade of a painting that had lost its color in the sun.
My life had no allure. I was grieving for my mom, and that was hard. Harder still was living alone, where it was just me with my melancholy thoughts. I tried to heed the warning Ward had given me about being sucked back into an abyss of nothingness.
I’m n
ot sure I managed to heed it well. It was work that saved me, that gave me a reason to get up and out of bed, and to be useful and pretend to function for the eight hours I was there. But it wasn’t easy, forcing myself to get through each day, stumbling from Monday to Friday to Monday again.
On the weekends, I would stay in bed, listless and feeling useless. Jamie tried to help, but I was so aware of his feelings for me, I pushed him away, made it clear to him that I didn’t feel the same.
After a while, he stopped trying to help me.
I fell deeper into my malaise.
It became a pattern. I would function during the weekdays and fall to pieces during the weekends.
I kept willing for Ward to contact me but he never did. And I, mindful of Jamie’s words that I was a magnet for men and relationships that weren’t good for me, forced myself never to contact him.
Even though the temptation was strong, I made myself believe I was weaning myself off an addictive drug.
One month passed.
Then two.
And still I thought of Ward. I forgot about the bad times, and only remembered the good ones.
Three months passed, and I still found myself thinking of him every time I went to sleep and every time I woke up.
I had to do something. I wasn’t succeeding at all in getting him out of my system. Maybe it was because I needed him more than ever.
I bought a ticket to New Orleans. I called Rob before, and got Ward’s address, telling him I wanted to send Ward a card. This was how I found myself one day getting a cab from the airport to Chesterton Heights, Ward’s home.
As I look through the heavy black and gold wrought iron gates, I begin to feel claustrophobic. I begin to feel as if I’ve made a terrible mistake.
What if he has forgotten me? Worse, what if he’s with someone else?
Twice I walk away and get my phone out to call a cab, and twice I walk back to the gates and look through them at the huge ornate mansion. I debate once more, trying to will myself to press the buzzer and announce that I am here.
But I am very scared and doubtful and resent having flown all the way here. His home looks like a castle. A beautiful haven. It’s so far from anything I have known. He has surprised me again, just like he always did.
My heartbeat is so rapid, I’m scared I’ll have a heart attack and collapse outside these gates. Now, that would be a sight. Something ghoulish for him to discover.
The intercom I’ve been too afraid to touch now buzzes and clicks, catching my attention. Someone speaks. “How long are you going to stand out there?”
It’s him.
He’s seen me, and now I’m doubly embarrassed. He’s probably seen me walk away and come back and walk away and come back.
“Mari?”
His voice, thick and velvety, sends goosebumps breaking out all over my skin. My heart jumps to life again. It’s truly frightening, the surge of excitement that courses through me, as if his voice, as if he, is the only elixir I need.
“Should I come in?” I ask, becoming that unsure, hesitant woman again. Why does he always reduce me to this? But I realize now, it’s not because I’m scared of him, it’s because I’m crazy about him and I’m terrified he won’t feel the same.
“Do you want to?”
“Do I want to what?” I ask him.
“I don’t know, Mari. Do you want to follow through on why you’re here, maybe? Why are you here?”
“I came to see you.”
“You can see me a whole lot better if you come inside.”
He lets me in, and I walk along his long, beautiful driveway, staring at the magnificent house and trying not to hyperventilate.
I barely get a chance to raise a hand to the door knocker, when an elderly woman opens the door. “You must be Freya,” I say, seeing the crinkles in the corners of her eyes as she smiles at me.
“And you must be Mari.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Yes, I am.”
“He hasn’t stopped talking about you,” she says, opening the door to let me in. He talks about me? This isn’t like him, the man who holds every minute detail close to his heart. I’m too shocked to speak.
“What did he say?” I laugh nervously.
“That you used to write him little notes. Food notes, he called them.” She chortles with laughter. “I don’t know what you did to him, but he’s a whole lot more bearable these days. He’s in the conservatory, let me show you the way.”
I follow her through richly carpeted hallways and note the stained-glass windows, and rich dark wood paneling. I lose count of the number of sparkling chandeliers.
This place is steeped in a bygone time, but it feels strangely comforting, strangely luxurious and decadent. I would never have expected this to be Ward’s home, but now that I know it is, it doesn’t seem so absurd. Coming from where he has, I understand why he is here, in this magnificent home.
Freya opens the door and motions me to go in. There, in the middle of the room, is Ward. He’s standing expectantly, with his hands in the back of his jean pockets, as if he’s waiting just for me. He looks thinner than last time. Smarter, too. More dressed up without wearing anything fancy. No sweatpants, but jeans, and a t-shirt. Smart shoes. He looks drop-dead gorgeous. It’s too much for me to take in. His surroundings and him all at once.
My brain fogs over in a mist of desire. I’m irritated and annoyed with myself for not having an ounce of resistance. This man’s effect on me is potent and resisting him is not an option.
“You look good,” I tell him, keeping it cool, or trying. Holding back while I can.
“Thank you. You look …,” he pauses, “You look as though things are getting better.”
I raise a hand to my hair. I had it cut and colored before I came and now I’m self-conscious. The months haven’t been good to me, but I am hopeful and more optimistic than I was when we last met. I’ve lost weight, I don’t sleep well, and I’m aware that Ward is being kind to me. A haircut and color can only do so much. It can’t completely hide the scars of all that has happened.
I stare around the room. It’s all glass with a few comfy chairs and a couple of tables. Flowers and plants decorate every corner. It’s light and airy, nothing like the writing cave I remember him in. He must sense my surprise because he says, “I write here most days.”
“That’s unusual,” I remark.
“I can write better here. It’s still enclosed but I can see out.”
I glance outside. His grounds are a place of beauty. “It’s very bright.” I recall how he never had the blinds up, how he would never let any light in.
“It suits me these days.” He walks towards me and my body starts to cheer. Cells jumping like preschoolers at play. My heart swoons all over again as he takes my hand in his big strong one, lifting it to his lips and pressing his lips against it. A shaky breath falls from my lips, as if I’ve run out of air. I’d hoped he’d have kept that distance between us, because I can’t take so much of this so soon.
His aura, powerful and overwhelming, and his presence, commanding and strong, are enough to unnerve me. I had schooled myself into toughness the entire trip here, and yet, here I am, weak and vulnerable, and all he had to do was kiss my hand.
His eyes are dark and dangerous, but our gazes lock steadily and I feel the warmth that emanates from them. His lips curl up into a smile and my heart floats away. This is intoxicating, him still holding my hand, rubbing his thumb over the back of it while his gaze burns into me. “How have you been?” he asks.
“Oh, you know, getting by.”
“You can do better than getting by.”
“It’s not always that easy,” I shoot back. It has been a struggle.
“I know.” His thumb on my skin is comforting, and a reminder of the good times we’ve shared.
“I’ve missed you, Mari. I’ve been looking out for you every day.”
I try to swallow, but can’t, because my muscles have gone on strike. “Every day?�
� I manage to say, finally.
“Every day.”
He holds my gaze, that look alone making me shake and throb with excitement. I had forgotten how strong it could be, the electric sizzle that rolls in the air whenever he and I meet; how much desire and yearning can coexist in the few inches between us. He kisses my hand again. “I couldn’t be happier to see you.”
“I needed to see you,” I tell him, my stomach sinking then rising, as if it’s on choppy seas with no sign of land in sight.
“Needed?” He dips his head, amusement twinkling in his eyes, as if this makes him happy.
I can’t remember what I was supposed to say to him. I’d been working on my lines all the way here, hoping to come across all casual and unaffected as if I had strolled by all the way from Chicago to New Orleans.
“Needed, Mari?” he asks again, as if he needs to know. There’s an intensity in his voice that I pick up on.
“Needed,” I confess. “I tried to forget you but I couldn’t. I tried so hard to shut you out of my thoughts, but you always crept back in.”
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I wasn’t planning to do what I always do, tell him how I feel, state my feelings first. I’d hoped I would be stronger, more together, but Ward has unraveled me. He did that right from the start and nothing is going to change that.
My gaze falls to his lips, then up to his eyes, then to his broad, broad shoulders. I’m a goner. The space between my legs, the part that belongs only to him, aches with lust.
He smiles, and my heart is in danger of bursting through my chest and flying right out of his floor-to-ceiling glass walls.
“You’re in my thoughts every moment, Mari. I never stopped thinking about you and I could never forget you.”
“But you waited for me to come to you?” I protest. “What if I hadn’t, then what?”
“I had plans to return to Chicago and write the next book. I was going to ask for my trusty housekeeper to come back and work for me.”
“Trusty?” I wonder how he can use that word after what happened.
“Trusty, sexy, caring.” He slides his hands around my waist. “I love you.”
