The Mess You Left Behind: An Enemies-to-Lover Romance
Page 25
I winced. “None of those things are my fault either. If you are innocent in this story, so am I.”
“Doesn’t make it okay. Once she finds out, the only thing she’ll see when she looks at you is everything you kept from her.”
“I’ll make her understand. I’ll make her see that I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“You can’t make her understand. There are still things you don’t understand.” She cupped my cheek. “I’m asking you. Begging you. Just let her go. Let her live her life separate from yours. Before you both get hurt.”
“Why? What is it that I don’t know? She and I, we have the chance to be something together. Why do I have to let her go?”
Her eyes turned blurry, and I didn’t know why she was crying. Didn’t I know all of their sordid history? All of the hideous past that the Caldwells had tried to bury? So what was I missing?
“I can’t let her go,” I said forcefully. And that was the truth. I tried to let her go in the beginning. I failed.
She turned sharply to me. “You love her.”
I didn’t reply.
“I love you, Wyatt. You are like a son to me. But I can’t stand here and watch you destroy yourself for another Caldwell. I just can’t. So if you are so insistent on being with her, I can’t stop you. But I won’t be around for it.”
“You’re giving me an ultimatum? Her or you?”
She nodded. Walking into the bedroom, she came out with her suitcase in hand. “I didn’t realize you were dating Emery Caldwell when we spoke. I wouldn’t have flown all the way here to meet her. I’m sorry, but I can’t be here. Come see me when you come to your senses.”
“Aunty?”
She didn’t turn back as she walked out of the room, the door clicking shut behind her. And I didn’t go after her.
***
It wasn’t until the week was nearly over that I felt the first inkling that something was wrong. That even if Emery had spent every night in my arms, she was pulling away from me.
It was more than just the meeting with my aunt. It was more than me just reassuring Emery that everything was fine.
It was the secrets I had kept, the secrets she knew I was keeping.
I didn’t know how she found out that I was keeping secrets. Perhaps her aunt had said something, but whatever it was, it was making her pull away from me, and I didn’t know what to do.
Sometimes I would catch her staring at me with this look on her face, like she couldn’t figure me out, or that she was afraid to.
“Do you want to hear my explanation now?” I asked one night, as she laid in my arms. I had hoped to make her fall in love with me first before I told her everything. Then she would have a reason to fight for us. I knew now that it was idiotic to even think that way. The secrets only got bigger and bigger with each passing day, and now... I could only hope we weren’t past that point of no return.
I felt her tense, before she relaxed her muscles. “Do I want to know?” she asked calmly.
“Don’t you want to know?”
“Will it break me?” she whispered, so softly I wasn’t sure if I had heard her correctly.
“The Emery Caldwell I know is too strong to break.”
She brought my hand up to her lips and kissed it. “It’s just a mask, you know. I’m not really strong.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true. You want to know why I resisted us so much in the beginning? It’s because I knew my own weakness. I knew how badly you would ruin me if I gave you the chance.”
“You think because we’re together, you gave me the chance to ruin you, and I took it?”
“Yes. Isn’t that what you’re doing?”
“Hell no.”
“I’m too tired to hear any more tonight, Wyatt. Won’t you make love to me?”
“Emery. Don’t you think we should talk about this?”
“What’s there to talk about?”
“A whole lot.”
She turned to face me, taking me in. I stared into her bright green eyes, feeling so damn hopeless, I wanted to break the damn bed. “Make love to me,” she pleaded. And because I understood the quiet desperation in her eyes, I did what she asked. I didn’t have to tell her. I didn’t have to hurt her. At least not tonight.
So I pulled her panties off, throwing them somewhere on the floor, and rolled up the white T-shirt she’d borrowed from me, until her upper body was exposed to my gaze.
Until her nipples tightened from both the cold air and her arousal, and then I pulled my shorts off. We stared into each other’s eyes as I entered her, and I kept my eyes on her as I moved, listening to the squeaking of the bed with each thrust.
Her breathing became labored, her skin flushed, and... she had never felt so far away from me. I brought her to the brink of her orgasm before quickening my pace, driving us both crazy before we succumbed to the pleasure, before I surrendered myself to her.
Sweat coated our bodies, and her skin was warm against mine. Even still, I couldn’t bring myself to let her go. I fell asleep with my arms wrapped around her, and when I woke up, like many, many nights back, she was gone.
Chapter Thirty: The Truth about Our Heritage
Emery
I got out of the shower, and my phone was ringing. I didn’t have to look to know who was calling.
As soon as it stopped ringing, my phone dinged with an incoming message. It had been going off all morning. Ever since Wyatt woke up and realized I had sneaked away in the middle of the night.
It wasn’t Wyatt’s fault that I was being elusive—it was just that the more time I spent with him, the harder it was to convince myself that I hadn’t completely put my entire well-being in his care. That I had become so damn dependent on him, I was afraid I might not recognize myself in the mirror anymore.
So I asked him to make love to me, and at the point in the night when I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving his arms, I left anyway, just to prove to myself that I could.
I turned off my phone when it rang again, and left it there as I quietly padded downstairs, into my grandpa’s office.
My aunt was home, I knew that much. But I hadn’t seen her much since the last time we talked, when she brought up Wyatt’s blackmail. We spent our days avoiding each other, as if we were ghosts, scared of the sight of each other.
At the rate we were going, I was afraid our relationship might not make it.
His office was cold when I entered. I shivered and pulled my sweater closer around my body, then took a seat in his chair. I spent more time here now than I did in my own bedroom, and this chair had become more familiar to me in recent days than my own bed.
I pulled the chair closer to the desk, tracing my fingers over some of the marks left behind by its former owner.
Then, with a steady breath, I pulled the metal box out of its hiding place and opened up the first letter. It was dated older than the other ones by at least a year. And, looking through them, I knew that whoever had written to him wrote over the span of one year.
I read the contents, put it carefully back in the envelope, then read the second one, and then the third, and I didn’t stop until I had finished reading the last one. Then I put everything back where it belonged, stood up, ran upstairs, grabbed my phone, keys, and jacket, and left the house.
***
Joey was home when I got to her apartment.
I let myself in and walked into the kitchen, where all the noise was coming from.
“Hey, what are you doing?” I asked.
Joey had all sorts of stuff laid out on her island, ingredients to bake something, though I couldn’t tell what it was.
“Baking,” she answered, licking the chocolate frosting off a spatula.
“Why?”
“Because I’m bored and Cole likes my cookies.”
I shot her a look. “Please tell me that’s not code for something sexual. Or I will never forgive you for ruining the word ‘cookie’ for me again.”
I laughed then, my mood instantly lifting. This was exactly what I needed. To be in Joey’s presence. There was something about her that always made my problems feel small and insignificant, even if it was temporary.
“You know I love you, don’t you?”
“I know. Is everything okay?”
“No. I don’t think it is.”
She dropped the spatula in the bowl and walked over to me. “What is it?”
“I found something. In my grandpa’s study.”
“You went in there?”
“Yeah. I wanted to learn about him. Do you think I was living with a stranger all that time and never knew it?” Even I could hear the heartbreak in my voice. I hated how sympathetic she looked then, so I turned my gaze to the black stovetop just over her shoulder.
“Oh, sweetie, you know I don’t think that. And neither do you. We both know how much he loved you. Some things are probably harder to say to your family. You know what that can be like.”
“Still. I’m starting to question whether the man I knew was really him.”
“Tell me what you found.”
“I found letters to my dad from Wyatt’s aunt.”
Joey pulled back, obviously surprised. “What? Are you serious?”
“I’m sure it’s her. The letter was signed with her first name, but there wasn’t a last name. Still, I know it’s her. I found a picture of them together when they were younger.”
“Them? You mean your dad and... Erin?”
“Yeah. It was love letters. They had this secret affair that lasted about a year, but then they broke up, and I don’t know why. I think my dad broke up with her. And she hated him for a while. Then, in her last letter, she said she knew why he did it. And that she forgave him. She sounded devastated.”
“Can I see them?”
“I left them in his office. I’ll show them to you later.”
“Okay. But this doesn’t mean anything. I mean, how old were they when they went out?”
“She was sixteen. He was twenty-three.”
“That’s... messed up.”
“Just seven years apart. Wyatt and I are even further apart in age.”
“But you’re not a kid. You can make your own decisions. Do you really think you were capable of making those kinds of decision when you were sixteen?”
I grimaced. “Probably not. But that was only four years ago.”
“Maybe so. But even you have to admit how much growing up you’ve had to do during that time.”
“I guess so. But I don’t think their age difference was the issue here.”
“What was the issue? I can’t think of one person I was with when I was sixteen that I would want to spend the rest of my life with.”
“Maybe what they had was different. Something real.”
“Then why did they break up?” I looked at her. “You don’t think your grandpa had anything to do with it, do you?”
“Why would he keep Erin’s letters to my dad?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know my dad used to be happy.”
“I’m sure he was.”
“I always assumed his problems were because of drugs. That he got addicted and he didn’t know how to get out of it. And he could never find his way back to being a better human. A-A better father.”
Joey wrapped her arms around me. “We always want our parents to love us, even if they are messed up, right?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m saying this. You were dealt even shittier parents than me.”
“Hush now. This isn’t a competition to see who got the worst deal in life. I came to terms with my relationship with my parents a long time ago. I even accepted it. You were never given the chance to accept it, because you never knew them. Maybe now is a good time to find out more about your dad.”
“Do you really think I should?”
“We all deserve to know where we came from. I’ll be there with you every step of the way. And maybe you should talk to Wyatt.”
“Why? He might know more about my grandpa than he’s said, but he never knew my dad.”
“But his aunt did. And she might have told him about her history with your dad.”
“Do you really think she would have shared intimate details of her life with her nephew?” The very idea sounded strange to me. I knew I wouldn’t have if I were in her shoes.
Joey shrugged. “It’s worth a shot.”
“Maybe. You know, I think I met his aunt before.”
“When?”
“I think it was when I was still living with my dad.”
She didn’t look convinced. “You were really little then. Do you really think you would have remembered her, even if you did meet her?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that she looks very familiar. And I don’t know why.”
Chapter Thirty-One: I Didn’t Fall in Love with You
Wyatt
I waited outside her house. I knew she wasn’t home, and a quick chat with Joey told me that Emery had been with her a little over an hour ago, but she left, and she hadn’t come home. And I didn’t know where she was.
I had thought everything would eventually work out, but I could see now that was nothing more than a fantasy.
Emery was an enigma to me. She wore her mask so well, it was hard to know what she was thinking just from looking at her. And by the time I finally spotted her car, I was angry.
Angry at her for being so flighty, angry at myself for having discovered the secrets in the first place, angry at my aunt, at Emery’s dad, and most importantly, at Joseph Caldwell.
I was angry about a lot of things, but more than that, I was angry about this situation we suddenly found ourselves in. Everything was going fine. Emery had finally let me into her life, and we were on our way to a better future. Now, everything was messed up, and I didn’t know how to dig myself out from under all the crap that had begun to pile on since day one.
I knew she saw my car when she pulled into the driveway.
I got out at the same time she did and, without thinking, walked over to her and picked her up. I carried her over my shoulder.
“Wyatt! What are you doing? Put me down!”
“We’re going to talk. And then when we’re done, you’re coming to stay with me. We’re not taking separate cars, because I am goddamn sick of waking up and finding you gone.”
“I can walk,” she said, sounding a lot calmer. I wished I could say the same about myself.
I deposited her in my car and closed the door behind her. For once in her life, she didn’t argue. She stayed where I put her. Though I still didn’t trust her not to make a run for it, so I rushed around to the driver’s side and sped off.
We drove in silence. I was too pissed off to say anything, and Emery was... well, I didn’t know. I didn’t know if she was mad or sad or unsure. She stared out the window with about as much interest as watching paint dry. That indifferent mask of hers wasn’t something I knew how to get used to. Sometimes I feared it might not be a mask at all. That her indifference was real.
And what would that say about us?
When I got to the apartment, Emery followed behind me. I thought her reluctance to walk side-by-side with me was because she didn’t want to be here, and the only reason she was here was because I had given her no choice. But then I turned to look back at her, and I caught her expression in one unguarded moment. In the length of one small exhale, all of my anger seeped out of me.
She looked absolutely guilty.
I pressed the button for my floor and waited until she looked up at me. Then I opened my arms wide.
She didn’t need me to tell her twice. She ran into my arms without hesitation, burying
her face in my chest. I tightened my arms around her, feeling more anchored than I had since this morning, when I woke to find her gone.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“It’s okay,” I said. There was nothing more to be said. She was sorry, and I couldn’t hold it against her. I didn’t think I ever could. Where she was concerned, I would forgive her for anything.
I didn’t know what to call that. Irony?
From the beginning, she was so afraid I might break her heart, she never once entertained the idea that she could break mine.
That, when it came down to it, I wasn’t strong enough to walk away from her. That I would do anything for this girl in my arms, even move mountains. And that I never stood a chance under those emerald eyes of hers.
***
My realization from the night before was even more evident in the morning light. For once, it was me who woke before her. I was able to watch her sleep with the kind of peace that had seemed to elude me lately. I didn’t know what to do anymore.
Not telling her was no longer an option, but telling her meant I risked losing her to secrets I had no hand in creating.
And it was the thought of losing her that sent me into a near panic every time I tried to close my eyes. It was what drove my actions now, as I moved my hands over her body.
She stirred but didn’t wake, and I lifted up the shirt she was wearing until her tits were on display. I loved her tits. Loved the softness, the fullness. They weren’t big, but they were enough to fill my hands.
I pinched her nipple, and her mouth opened. I watched as her skin became flushed, as she become aroused, even in sleep.
Then I moved my hand down inside her panties, loving how she unconsciously moved against my seeking fingers, wanting more friction.
I played with her pussy until she was ready for me, then removed her panties and entered her in one slow, torturous thrust.
I kept watching her face as I moved, waiting for her to open her eyes. She wrapped her legs and arms around me, seeming to come alive a little more each time I pushed inside her.
When she finally opened her eyes, her green eyes were almost black, and she pulled my hair, urging me on, silently telling me to move faster, harder.