"I really did want to tell you," I stammered out. The words weren't right, but they poured out of me in a torrent, as if I could make up for not saying the right thing by just saying a million words about it. "I wanted to, but from the beginning, you thought that I was rich, and I thought that if I didn't have that kind of money, I wouldn't be good enough for you..."
She just stared out at me. "Wouldn't be good enough?" she repeated. "So you decided to lie?"
"I know it wasn't a smart decision..."
That, apparently, was the last word she could handle in that conversation. "Just go away! Leave me alone!" she cried out, her voice rising to a shriek before she pulled it back down. I stood there, frozen, as she took a deep breath, reducing her volume.
"You hurt me," she said after pulling herself under control, her voice soft and fractured nearly to the breaking point. "Worse even than Marcone did."
She started to close the door, but one last sentence slipped out before it shut. "At least he never lied to me."
And with those final words burning a hole into my brain, she left me standing on her doorstep.
I stood there, gazing at the ornately sculpted wood of the door, my thoughts a confused buzz that couldn't seem to coalesce into anything resembling sense. Just like that, all that we'd created together, our entire relationship was over? One lie, so small at the beginning, had grown into such a monster that it tore our entire relationship apart?
I wanted... I didn't know what I wanted. Part of me wanted to scream out in anger, throw myself at the door and batter my shoulder against it until one of us broke and yielded. I wanted to bunch up my muscles and punch it until it shattered and let me in. This was supposed to have been my moment of triumph! For just a few hours, I'd been convinced that I was finally managing to turn my entire, shitty, screw-up of a life around! I had a book deal, the promise of a big cash advance, with further royalties if my book turned out to be a hit, and most importantly of all, I'd finally found someone who not only seemed to like me, but actively inspired me to be a better version of myself.
I staggered back to my truck, climbed into the driver's seat but didn't stick the key in the ignition. I just sat there, holding onto the wheel with both hands, fighting against the tide of thoughts that threatened to swallow me.
I didn't just like Helen. She wasn't just a woman who found me attractive, whose smallest smile made me want to jump on her, drag her off to a cabin in the remote north woods where we'd forgo all clothing entirely. I'd tried to tell myself, at the beginning, that what I felt towards her was just simple lust.
It was more than that, I saw now.
She'd pushed me to be more. From the moment that I started seeing her, she was worlds above me, so far out of my league that I didn't stand a chance of scoring with her, even if I hit a home run. She was the kind of woman who would never, ever, go for a screw-up loser like me.
But she had. And from that moment onward, I'd fought harder than ever before to change myself – no, to better myself.
In the last few months, since Helen and I started seeing each other, I'd written more words than ever before in my life. And I hadn't just spewed words onto a page; I'd gone back over them, editing and refining, making sure that the story was perfect. I wanted it to be an ode to her, a dedication that would truly show her how brightly she shone in my eyes. She was my muse, and my work needed to be worthy of her glow.
I couldn't make myself rich, but I could do my best in every other area of my life. I kept on working out, keeping my body fit. I trimmed back my beard, went to a barber and got my wild hair tamed into a cut that actually made me look handsome instead of half-crazy. I planned extravagant dates, and even when they fell through, Helen always smiled at me, in a way that made my chest tighten and my heart sing. She somehow saw the man inside of me that I had the potential to become, and I'd done my best to bring out that man.
But now, just on the verge of my triumph, it was over.
Finally, I realized that I couldn't sit in the driveway of her mansion any longer. She'd probably send Julius out, and while the old English butler wouldn't be able to do much more than disapprovingly flap his arms at me, he'd still drive me away. Just one more reminder of the spike she'd just slammed home into my heart.
I started up the rattling old engine, pulled back out into the street. Probably ought to get a new car, I thought dully to myself. Now that I'm a successful author, and-
I couldn't even handle the word "alone." I didn't want it. I'd give up all the minor success I'd earned, if I could get Helen back. I'd throw away a hundred fortunes if I could see her dark eyes smiling at me one last time, so warm and full of love, echoing the love in my own heart. I'd spend a million dollars-
My brain, still a bit addled by this day's events, slammed on the brakes as it replayed that last sentence. Unfortunately, my body imitated its controller, also slamming on the brakes and nearly concussing me as my head smacked against the steering wheel. The car behind me gave me an indignant honk as they swerved around the sudden blockage in the middle of the street.
I hadn't used the word like, inside my head. I hadn't described my feelings towards Helen as lust, attraction, wanting, physical desire, any of those. I was a writer; I knew the power of words.
I'd called it love.
Only dimly aware of the honking of car horns from other frustrated drivers, I limped the truck over to the curb. I put it into park so that it wouldn't roll away, and raised up my hands to hold them, palms open, in front of my eyes. I stared at them, not really seeing anything in front of me.
I loved her? In just a few months, I'd fallen in love with this woman?
Tentatively, almost fearfully, I prodded at my wounded heart. I offered it the image of Helen O'Callahan, and it responded with a burst of need and pain and loss that made my entire body shudder.
It was the truth. I didn't just miss her body, her smile, the easy way that she seemed to understand me better than anyone else, to believe in me in a way like no one else ever had done. To trust that I would get what I was after, that I'd manage to achieve my ethereal and distant dreams.
For all of that, I'd fallen in love with her.
And now, I'd lost her.
Chapter Twenty-Three
HELEN
*
The next month, maybe two, drifted by in a haze behind the ever-present ache in my head – and in my heart.
Lying in the expanse of pillows and blankets on my bed, staring up at the dusty and cobwebbed ceiling, I tried to tell myself that I shouldn't feel so bad. After all, I'd been the one to end things. This hadn't been a shock out of the blue, like Marcone's loss had been. I'd made this choice, knew that I couldn't stay with Tanner. I couldn't be with a man who'd lie about something for so long, just to be with me.
This time around, the pain should be easier to handle. It shouldn't hurt so deeply, shouldn't be such a raw, flaring nerve ending that exploded into fresh pain every time that I probed at it, like touching the spot of a removed tooth with my tongue.
It wasn't any easier to handle. I lay there, in my bed, unable to even gather the strength to get up and move about my house. In the afternoons, the light shone in through the window, painting harsh lines across my limbs as they lay tangled in the blankets. I looked down at them, felt the warmth of sunlight on my skin, but couldn't bring myself to get up.
Two months had passed, by my vague and uncertain estimate, and I still couldn't think of a single reason to get up. What else was there to live for? No one else respected or cared about me, and they would all start gossiping the moment I re-entered society. Even more, now that they'd seen me with Tanner – and now they'd see me alone.
Always alone. That seemed to be my fate.
I closed my eyes and, after some indeterminate amount of time, opened them again at the sound of a faint knock at the door. I looked up and found Julius's worried eyes gazing back at me from my bedroom's entrance.
"Mrs. O'Callahan," he said, and even his us
ual courtly English accent seemed softer, more concerned about me. "I brought lunch for you."
It was lunchtime already? I could barely tell the difference between morning and afternoon any longer. I gave Julius a little nod, which he seemed to accept as assent to enter.
He moved in, carefully balancing a tray with plenty of food piled high on it – eggs, muffins, juice and coffee, a full smorgasbord. None of it made my stomach sit up and declare that it was hungry. It all looked dull, just like how the rest of my life felt.
Julius set the tray down on the table next to the bed, but paused for a moment beside me. "You do need to eat, Mrs. O'Callahan," he stated, as if gently reminding a child that an envelope needed a stamp before it could be mailed.
I didn't even feel like correcting him, telling him that it was Miss, not Mrs. Not any longer, and it wasn't likely to ever become Missus again. "Thank you, Julius," I said, dismissing him.
Incredibly, he still didn't leave. "I know that Mr. McCallister was... deceitful," Julius said, sounding like he was carefully picking each of his words. "But don't you think that he deserves another-"
I sat up, the words clicking after a second of bumping around in my head. "You knew?" I exclaimed, almost shouting. My voice cracked, hoarse from disuse. "How?"
Julius's entire face crumpled into a wince, as if he hadn't meant to fully give it away. "The man helped clean up much of the house, if you noticed," he said softly. "I can't name a single wealthy individual who would pitch in to help servants take care of the most minor chores. No one's that good."
Perfect. Another needle with which to torture myself. Not only was Tanner sexy, handsome, ardent, and so refreshingly straightforward after the crooked and labyrinthine minds of other wealthy elites, but he was also apparently revered in the eyes of my own butler. Had he managed to fool everyone?
"He's a liar," I snarled, glaring up at Julius. "He lied to me, and kept on telling me that lie, over and over, for the entire time that we were together. I can't trust him if, in the back of my head, I know that he managed to lie to me so easily, for so long. How can I ever know again that he's telling the truth?"
I expected the older man to shrink away and give up at this sudden flare of anger. But Julius just stood there, weathering it like a rock in the middle of a stream.
"Everyone lies," the old man said softly, his gaze focused inward. "Male, female, young or old. But most do it for only the pettiest, personal reasons. If I've learned one thing in my many years, meeting people in all walks of life, it's that they all lie. They do it for themselves, selfishly." His eyes returned to my face.
"Mr. McCallister did it for you."
I didn't have an answer for that, not before the butler had turned and, head held high, left the room.
I didn't even look over at the tray of food that Julius brought in. My stomach flipped over at just the thought of eating. I knew that I'd gone too long without food, but none of it seemed to have any taste, now. It all tasted like ash in my mouth.
Tanner. Every time I thought of him, a new spike of pain entered my head. He really had been all those things that Julius described, and I could see easily why the butler liked the man. Everyone liked him, were charmed by his easy smile and his quiet confidence. That was, after all, why I'd fallen in love with the man.
Now, in my bedroom, alone and without anyone else to talk to, I could admit that fact to myself. It still burned inside my head, painful every time I touched on it, but there was no denying it. At some point, in between that first night when he didn't care about my past and when he took me out on dates that made me forget all my troubles and my past, I'd fallen out of "like" and into full-on love. I'd been ready to tell him at that date that never happened, the one pre-empted by Champagne's horrifying revelation.
I loved him. After losing Marcone, after having my heart broken and convincing myself that I'd never find another, the impossible had happened. Tanner wasn't Marcone, and never would be the same. But he was different in so many wonderful ways, new little qualities that I could spend a lifetime delightfully discovering. He cared about me more than anything, crinkled the corners of his eyes in a special smile when he saw me that he shared with no one else, and I felt my heart swell each time he looked at me, or even stood near me. His touch never failed to send a tingle shooting through me, awakening my nerves and casting goosebumps over my skin as it whispered of delectable promises and temptations.
I loved him.
Past tense, I told myself. More out of spite than any real hunger, I reached out to grab a chunk of apple from the plate of food and bit into it viciously. I didn't love him anymore. If I stayed here long enough, hiding away from the world, all those feelings would eventually fade. It hadn't worked with Marcone, but maybe it would work with Tanner.
I hadn't expected the apple to taste good, but my stomach let out a loud roar as the first chunk landed inside it. Hmm. Maybe I was hungry, after all. I looked over at the tray, trying to find something that looked appealing to my eyes and taste buds as well as to my now loudly complaining stomach.
Huh. The plate was piled high with food, sure enough, but it looked like it was resting on top of something else. Sitting up, I carefully picked up the plate with both hands to see what lay beneath.
A book. A hardcover novel, to be precise, with a pastoral photograph on the front dust jacket. Red-and-white letters spelled out the title, fit into a road sign in the photograph so it looked as if they had been written on the original sign.
"The Climb," I read off, frowning. Why had Julius brought this to me?
The answer became clear a second later, as my eyes dropped down to catch the author's name, much smaller at the bottom of the photograph, overlaid on the waving fronds of grass and weeds. Oh.
Tanner McCallister.
This was his book. I remembered that he told me he finished the book, that now he had to submit it to publishers – or no, he had to send it to an agent, and the agent sent it on to a publisher? Something like that.
It seemed that he'd been successful in finding a publisher who liked it. I snorted a little to myself. Well, of course he didn't have trouble with that. If there was one thing that the man could pull off, it was telling a compelling and believable story, even if it might be totally fabricated.
I picked up the book, setting the plate of food back down on the tray. I turned it over in my hands, considering whether I should rip it in half, or just chuck it across the room to get it away from me. On the back cover, I kind of expected to see a huge picture of Tanner, smirking at his readership. Instead, however, there was no picture of the author at all, and only a couple sentences as a biography:
"Tanner McCallister has lived all across America, passing by countless opportunities due to bad timing, bad advice, or just plain stupidity. A brush with his muse gave rise to this novel. He doesn't know where he'll go next."
That was all. Nothing about where he lived, nothing about who he was, no bragging or puffed-up arrogance. I couldn't keep myself from thinking that, if one of the rich scions that I knew had been the one to pen this book, he'd have quotes praising his brilliance competing for space on the front and back covers. Hell, he'd probably use a self-portrait as the front cover.
Tanner, once again, surprised my expectations.
Despite my earlier intentions, I cracked open the book's cover. At first, I intended only to flip to the back, to see whether he included more information and his picture on the inside. The book opened up to the dedication page, however, which made sense as someone had folded down the corner to bookmark it.
"For Helen, my muse," I read. "The goddess who pushes me to be a better man than who I am."
I blinked, suddenly feeling tears at the corners of my eyes. That was the classic Tanner compliment, lightly disparaging himself while making me feel lifted up, supported and loved.
Unable to stop myself, I turned to the next page. I found the first few words of the book, glanced over the first paragraph. I backed up and then
read it again, this time focusing more on the words, absorbing their information. Tanner painted in broad strokes with his words, but he provided just enough detail for a picture to appear in my mind, an image of the bucolic setting that was anything but serene when given more than just a cursory examination.
Still with my eyes glued to the book, my hand reached out towards the tray that Julius had set on my bedside table. I picked up another piece of apple, crunched on it as I read. I was careful not to get the page dirty as I turned it, wiping my fingers off on the provided napkin. I kept on reaching out until, when I finally tore my eyes away from the book, I noticed that I'd eaten just about everything off the plate.
Oh. Maybe I had been feeling hungry, after all. I thought about calling Julius to bring me some more food, but the book's tale beckoned to me, and I couldn't put it down even for a few minutes, lest that brilliant picture fade from inside my head. I settled back into bed, grabbing some pillows to prop up behind me, and kept reading.
Chapter Twenty-Four
HELEN
*
I turned the page, and found it blank.
For a moment, confusion rippled over me, before I flipped back and realized that I'd reached the end, not of the chapter, but of the entire book. I blinked, sitting up a little and flipping back through the pages. There were more than three hundred pages in the book! Had I really just read all of it in a single sitting?
I had, apparently. I'd devoured it, tearing through it like a starving man given his first real meal after being rescued. I set the book aside, put my hands on my lap, and gazed at nothing as I reflected on the incredible tale I'd just read.
Tanner had a singular gift, I now realized. He'd described stories to me with great conviction and emotion in his face, but his spoken tales were nothing compared to the way he wrote. He knew exactly how to evoke such powerful imagery that I felt swept away from my own life, as if I was truly seeing out through the heroine's eyes.
For Love of Passion (Stone Brothers Book 4) Page 16
