“There isn’t any. Don’t you think I tried to find one? Don’t you think we all did?” He shoved his hands in his pockets and scowled at me. “You’ve spent your whole life doing what was expected of you. Now is not the time to deviate from the plan.”
I remained silent, fuming inwardly.
Derek sighed deeply, all the anger flooding out, leaving him a slumped-over mess. “I meant what I said before. If the merger doesn’t go through, Thornton Products will survive, but Hastings International would be circling the drain. If you tell my father, if you tell anyone, and the merger falls through, your family is the one that will get hurt. What will it do to your father to see your family’s legacy destroyed? What will it do to you, and all those employees?”
I didn’t have an answer for him because there was no good answer.
He was right.
Interpreting my silence correctly, Derek shrugged. “For what it’s worth, I think I could be a good husband to you. Now that you know the truth about me, we might even be able to become friends.” Turning on his heel, he left.
I watched him go, still holding on to the doorknob.
As his Ferrari disappeared down the road, I covered my mouth. Tears were streaking down my cheeks, leaving hot paths behind, as I struggled with my grief. A part of me had hoped Derek might be an ally in escaping the circumstances we faced. That he might help me come up with an out. Then I could be with Jackson, and he could be free to find someone, too, and no one would get hurt. But I’d underestimated his fear.
There was no escape.
I always knew there was a possibility that I might have to actually marry Derek if I wanted to save all those people’s jobs, but losing that slim possibility of freedom I’d clung to for so long was devastating. Fumbling with my keys, I finally opened the door to the townhome and closed it behind me, bracing myself against it. The second I shut that world behind me, the real world, it was as if a huge weight was lifted off my chest, and I could finally breathe. When I was here with Jackson, I could ignore everything trying to keep us apart. Everything felt right.
The second I walked into brunch this morning, I knew I’d made a mistake in leaving Jackson. And after the newest debacle on the doorstep, I was even more certain.
Sitting at that table for brunch, and making polite conversation while smiling as if I were happy, pretending to be one hundred percent okay with marrying a man I barely liked, felt wrong. I had to marry a man that I basically tolerated.
And I was expected to be okay with that?
I wasn’t. I wasn’t okay. But I was going to do it, anyway.
What I really needed was to exist in denial for a little while. I needed Jackson, and his touch. His laugh. His words. I needed…him.
“Hello?” I called out, setting my purse down on the table. His truck was here, so I figured he had to be here, but the house was dark and silent. “Are you home?”
No answer.
“Jackson?” I called out louder.
Still nothing.
I climbed the stairs, passed my bedroom door, and stopped in front of his room. Reaching for the knob, I tried to turn it. It didn’t budge. He’d locked me out. “Jackson?”
Footsteps sounded on the other side of the door. “Yeah?”
“Uh…can I come in?”
Silence, then: “No.”
My heart twisted. “Why not?”
“I don’t want to see you right now.”
Jackson didn’t want to see me. Didn’t want to talk to me, and that hurt more than any of his other rejections had ever hurt me before. I swallowed hard and rested a hand on the barrier keeping me from the one thing I wanted. “Is this because I went to brunch?”
“No. Well, yes, in part.” The light at the bottom of the door dimmed, and I knew he was standing just on the other side. For some reason that made his refusal to open it even harder to swallow. “It’s not that, specifically, but it made me realize something. It’s time to rip the Band-Aid off.”
“When did I become a Band-Aid?”
Silence, and then, “When you promised to marry Derek.”
Resting on the doorjamb, I scrambled for the right words to express how I felt, which was hard because I didn’t even really know what I was primarily feeling right now. Coming so soon after Derek’s refusal to help, it was a blow, and all my feelings were scrambled together. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—I didn’t—I don’t know what to do anymore. What to say.”
“Just go to bed, don’t say anything at all. I don’t need or want an explanation. You’re marrying Derek,” he said, his tone short. “There’s nothing more to say.”
I pressed my lips together. “I feel like there is.”
“Lilly…” He made a small sound. “It was fun, what we had.” He laughed, but it wasn’t his laugh. It was a mockery of it. “It felt good. We can both agree to that. But now it’s over. Now we move on, and go back to the original plan of pretending this never happened. I’ll just be your stepbrother, and you’ll just be my stepsister.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready for this.” I gripped the knob and twisted it again, rattling it. “Can you please just open the door?”
“No.” His voice brooked no argument. “It’s time to start over again. What we had, what we could have been, is gone. Now it’s something we might have had, in another life, and that’s all. We’re through.”
I shook my head and jiggled the knob again. “I…I don’t want to have this discussion through a door.”
“Well, I’m not opening it because there’s nothing else to say.” Something hit the wood door, and I wasn’t sure if it was his hand or his head. His shadow didn’t move. “Look. If I open the door, I’ll cave. I’ll touch you. Kiss you. Make love to you. And it’ll hurt too damn much. I thought I could settle for the scraps of you, of living in the moments you could spare. But this morning proved I’m too selfish for that. I want all of you. And I can’t have you.”
Tears blurred my vision, but I refused to let them fall. “But you said you wouldn’t want more. That you could never see yourself settling down long-term.”
“I know I said that. Things change.” Silence, and then: “People change.”
“No.” I shook my head again, even though he couldn’t see me. Jackson was being smart, making the mature, sensible decision, but even knowing this, I couldn’t stop acting like a thwarted child. “We had a deal. We were going to be together until we couldn’t be together anymore. Until you left or I got married. We had a deal.”
“The deal’s off.” He stepped back. I saw his shadow pull away from me, and I felt the distance all the way to my soul. “Lilly, you’re giving up control of your future to save thousands of strangers. It’s honorable and brave. Give me up now, so I can save myself.”
I let go of the knob, because he was right. I should let him go. “I gave you everything I could.”
“Yeah.” He paused. “It wasn’t enough.”
He was right again. It wasn’t.
The only way I could give him everything was if I called off the wedding.
Things went full circle as once again I was arguing with a man about my future. Only, now I was the selfish one. “Jackson…please.”
He let out a sound that was half laugh, half groan. “If you’re ready to walk away, ready to live your own damn life for yourself, say it. I’ll be yours, and you’ll be mine, and nothing will stop us. I’ll do my best to make you happy, and we can give this thing a real try. Just tell me you’ll stop living for the world and start living for us. Say the words, and I’ll let you in.”
I stared at the door. I wanted to. Yearned to. They were on the tip of my tongue, the words he wanted to hear, begging to be set free. But I couldn’t turn my back on all those people. And Derek was right, in a way. If I let Hastings International collapse, knowing I could have saved it, I would blame myself, and I could end up blaming Jackson for making me choose.
So I said nothing, because I couldn’t.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought,” he said, his voice tired. “It’s time for you to go back to focusing on Derek. Your life. Leave me alone.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” I pressed my knuckles to my mouth, holding back the sobs trying to escape. “I’ll g-go.”
And I did the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I walked away.
I didn’t think I could cry anymore, and here I was sobbing again. It felt as if my heart had physically been ripped out of my chest. Knowing I would never feel his arms around me again, or have him hold me close and tell me everything would be okay…no.
I wasn’t ready. I would never be ready.
But I also wasn’t willing to turn my back on people I could help. I wasn’t willing to put my needs above others’. Marrying Derek for a few years was the only way to facilitate the merger, since all other avenues had been closed to me. So I would do the right thing, the heartbreaking thing, and give up Jackson.
Because if I was selfish and thought only of myself?
I’d be no better than my father.
Chapter 20
Jackson
I gripped my phone, staring out the window of my bedroom. It had been a week since I’d cut things off with Lilly through the door. A week of avoiding her, after witnessing her kissing Derek on the porch, and trying to be as emotionally dead as possible. But sometimes ripping off the Band-Aid meant the bleeding started. I didn’t think it would ever stop, and that was the pisser of it all.
I would never stop loving her….
Not even after she married another man.
For the rest of my life, I would always play “what if” about our last conversation. What if I had left the door unlocked? What if the sound of her sobs had driven me to open it? What if I hadn’t seen her kissing Derek before coming to my door? What if she had said yes, she’d call off the wedding? What if she said she loved me? For the rest of my life I would always wonder what would have happened if she chose me.
She hadn’t.
So it was time for me to go.
Resting my forehead on the glass, I watched her leave. Now that I was back to avoiding her, life was way too quiet. And too damn lonely. After just a week or so of living with her, I’d gotten used to having her around, chattering on about some nonsense or other. Like how her letters had calmed me back when I’d been overseas, her voice affected me the same way.
There would be no more letters, no more cheerful ramblings.
No more her.
Even though we lived in the same house, I made sure we were never alone. But a small, evil part of me thought, if given a chance, I would force her hand. Kiss her in front of a room full of people, or tell Walt we’ve been fucking behind his back. Something, anything, to get her out of this marriage.
But Lilly would never forgive me if I did that, and Walt probably wouldn’t even care, so long as the Thorntons never found out.
She walked up to Derek’s Ferrari and stood by the passenger door, fidgeting with her bag. What was in the bag? A change of clothes? If so, why did she have them? Were she and Preppy Prick finally taking the plunge into…well, each other? The mere thought made me want to rush down there and beat his ass all over again.
She was supposed to be mine.
Only, she wasn’t.
So I refused to leave my room until she pulled out of the driveway with Derek. I refused to share their space, watching Lilly look miserable, while he checked me out and ignored her. She deserved more. We both did.
This was surely the definition of an unhappy ending.
True love’s kiss wouldn’t fix this.
Just last night, I’d heard her talking on the phone as I passed her room. She sat on her bed and said something about a wedding dress fitting next week and how the florist was worried about not being able to get the right flowers for the centerpieces at the reception. She wanted pink and yellow ones. Just like the ones I’d gotten her. She didn’t say that, but we both knew it. They were wilted and drooping, but they still sat on our dining room table like some awful reminder of what had been.
And what we could have had.
For a second, just a damn second, I froze outside her open door. We watched one another, and I could see the panic in her face.
The pain.
How badly she didn’t want this.
It felt like another “what if” moment, like maybe she would beckon me in, but instead, she started talking about what other flowers would be in season, her voice as achingly hollow and resigned as her gaze had been.
So I walked away.
Later that night, when I came back up to go to bed, her door was shut, and her soft sobs came through the cracks. It took all my control not to go inside. Not to kiss away the sadness and the tears. Not to rescue her. Because she didn’t want to be rescued.
If she did, she would have said so.
Derek walked around to his side of the car, opening his door and sliding inside. That left Lilly to open her own door. He was such a prick. Before she slid in, though, she hefted her bag into the car on her own and glanced over her shoulder, up at my window. I stiffened, because she clearly saw me watching her.
For a second, we stared at one another.
I lifted my hand and waved.
Pressing her mouth into a tight line, she sat down and closed the door behind her without waving back. Derek didn’t even wait for her to buckle her seatbelt.
He drove off immediately, carrying Lilly away from me.
After pushing away from the window, I opened my suitcase and started tossing things inside it. I might not have heard back from my superior about Hawaii yet, but I knew one thing. When she got home tonight, I wouldn’t be living here anymore. The time had come to move on, and for that to happen…
I had to move out.
When someone knocked on the door, I almost didn’t answer it. After all, it shouldn’t be for me. But when I peered out the side window, it turned out it was. My mother stood there, holding a plastic-covered hanger with a tuxedo, so I opened it. “What do you want?”
“Remember that event we spoke about?” she asked, her voice tight as she glowered at my tattoos. “My one favor?”
I stiffened. “Yeah.”
“Well, it’s tonight. It’s for Lilly.” She shoved the tuxedo at me, and I took it out of reflex. “Show up. Wear this. And give her this.” She set down a wrapped present. “Then you’re free to go on with your life as you have been, destroying no one else’s in the process. Think you can manage that?”
I flexed my jaw. “Does Walt know I’m coming?”
“Yes. I informed him. But he doesn’t know you’ve been living here, or how long you’ve been here.” She pointed a finger. “And you’ll behave yourself.”
“Will he?” I asked, still holding the tux.
“He’s not the problem here, and you know it,” she said, sliding her glasses back into place. “Be at the Yardley Country Club at six.”
I didn’t reply. Just watched her go.
Once she pulled out of the driveway, I went upstairs, laid out the tuxedo, and resumed packing. A few hours later, I was showered and dressed, and everything was packed—minus the tux I wore and my outfit for afterward.
Come tomorrow morning, I would leave this place behind me and move on to the next chapter of my life—whatever that might be. I hadn’t told Lilly yet, but it didn’t matter. The sooner I left, the better, all things considered.
It’s not as if my leaving would change anything.
If anything, it would make it easier on her. Although maybe I overestimated my hold on her. Maybe she didn’t care where I did or didn’t live.
Carrying my overstuffed suitcase, I opened my door and went downstairs, tugging on my bow tie as my footsteps echoed in our silent home. I had no idea what this damn party was, but I knew it was the end of the road for me. After I made an appearance, I would come home, grab my bags, and wash my hands of the whole mess.
Of Lilly. And if that hurt to think about?
&nbs
p; Well, I guess that just showed that I was capable of feeling pain, after all.
The ride to the country club passed quickly. As I climbed out of my truck, I grabbed the wrapped present Mother had given me along with the tux, murmuring hellos as I made my way inside. I plastered on a fake smile and pushed through the doors, tugging on my tux jacket to make sure none of my ink showed…and the smile quickly went away.
Because I realized what this “party” was.
To my left was a picture of Derek and Lilly, holding on to each other and smiling. If you cared enough to study it closely, you could see they were both miserable as hell. It struck me that I knew when this was taken. Exactly a week ago. It was from the day she left me, and our breakfast, to go to her parents’ house with Derek.
And she’d come to my door afterward, wanting me to let her in.
Stood crying outside my door. After smiling for this photo.
Above the entryway there was a tasteful banner reading “Good luck” in pink-and-yellow letters, set against an elegant fabric arrangement. I had walked into some sort of formal engagement party for Lilly and Derek…and no one had bothered to tell me.
Yanking on my bow tie again, I glanced to my right. A discreet placard reminded guests of their wedding date, September 18, and invited them to sign the guest book. Then there was a photo collage on an easel with a generic quote in the middle about marrying your best friend.
I was literally celebrating her marriage to another man.
Now I truly had found hell.
I gripped the present that my mother had given me, wrapped in a pretty fucking silver bow. It didn’t have a recipient name, just mine on a generic “best wishes” card. No. Hell, no. I might be a gracious man, and I might be willing to accept that I lost the one battle worth winning, but I would be damned if I toasted the “happy” couple.
There was a table overflowing with presents straight ahead, so I stalked over to it, set mine on top of a large square present wrapped in the same pink-and-yellow wrapping paper, and headed for the door. I made it halfway there without anyone stopping me—but had to come up short for the second-to-last person I wanted to see.
Bad Romance Page 20
