Tied up With Love

by Amelia Thorne

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ethan sat and stared at the blank computer screen with pain raging in his heart. Izzy had been in Australia a week now and the agony he was feeling was steadily getting worse every day that he didn’t see her. He had made a terrible mistake and there was nothing he could do to rectify it. The door opened and Kyle and Gizmo walked in. There had been no pick up that day so there was no reason for them to be in.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Ethan said, trying to look busy, while he had no idea what any of the bits of paper on his desk actually meant. The place looked a state and he knew if Izzy was to walk in right now, she would kill him for letting it get this bad again. He would welcome it though. Even if she wanted to shout and scream at him for the rest of the day and night, he wouldn’t care, just as long as he could see her again.

  ‘Get your coat on, we’re going out tonight,’ Kyle said.

  ‘I’m not in the mood.’

  ‘We noticed and quite frankly we’re fed up of seeing your grumpy face. We’re going out and we’re not taking no for an answer. I bought tickets.’ Kyle threw an envelope onto the desk in front of Ethan.

  Ethan stared at the envelope for a moment and then picked it up, sliding three tickets out of it.

  Anger ripped through him when he saw what they were. ‘What the hell is this, how is this going to help?’

  ‘There’ll be lots of scantily dressed women, it’s going to cheer me up no end,’ Kyle grinned.

  ‘What does your wife think of this?’ Ethan asked Gizmo.

  Gizmo smiled. ‘It was her idea.’

  Ethan threw the tickets back across the desk. ‘I’m not going. I’ve got loads to do here, we’re busier than ever.’

  Kyle leaned across the desk to pointedly look at the computer screen that Ethan hadn’t even bothered switching on that day. ‘And you’re doing a great job of keeping on top of everything,’ he said sarcastically. ‘It will still be here when you get back, but for once in your life you need to prioritise you. Sitting here crying every day and feeling sorry for yourself is not going to bring her back.’

  ‘I don’t think anything will bring her back.’

  ‘Well at least we can go out there and have some fun.’

  Ethan shook his head. This was an awful idea.

  ‘It wasn’t a request,’ Kyle said, sinisterly. He nodded at Gizmo and Gizmo produced a rope from behind his back.

  Ethan half smiled at this tactic. Then an idea came to him, probably not one of his best but one he was going to run with nonetheless.

  He stood up. ‘Ok we’ll go. I need to go home and get changed first. And bring the rope. We’re going to need it.’

  *

  Izzy walked down the quiet country lane towards the farm she was staying at for a few days. The sun was beating down on her back, warming her from the outside. Nothing seemed to warm the chill on the inside though.

  She had thrown herself into everything Australia had to offer over the last week, she had been jet skiing, parasailing and scuba diving. She had tried delicious burgers at beach barbeques and even swam with dolphins. But while she pasted a smile on her face during the day, especially when she chatted to people, every night when she was alone in her bed, she found herself crying all over again. The pain of Ethan not wanting her was awful and she didn’t think it would ever go away.

  She heard one of the farm vehicles approaching down the road towards her and she stepped onto the grassy verge out of its way. She shielded her eyes against the bright sunshine and could see it was a large van, probably just a delivery driver, none of the boys on the farm drove anything like that. She carried on walking, kicking up the dust with her feet.

  As the van neared it slowed down, but as she turned to see what the driver wanted, she was suddenly grabbed from behind and a bag was pulled over her head. She screamed and kicked and punched as she was bundled into the van, but the man’s arms around her held her tight on his lap. The van doors closed and the van turned round and sped off up the road. She didn’t relent in her struggle though and as she lashed out she knew she hit someone in the face hard.

  ‘Oww,’ wailed a voice she’d know anywhere. Gizmo. She froze. At the same time the arms around her shifted and she caught the clean, spicy, dark scent of Ethan. Anger coursed through her as the adrenaline started to fade.

  She fought and punched out at the arms that held her. ‘You bastard.’

  ‘Izzy, calm down, it’s us,’ Gizmo said.

  ‘Oh she knows,’ Ethan said. ‘Tie her hands together quick before she kills us all.’

  Rope was tied around her hands as Ethan yanked the bag off her head.

  For a second, just a brief moment, her heart soared at seeing the man she was in love with holding her so close, but the rage she was feeling at being kidnapped and scared to death overruled that emotion.

  ‘Ethan Chase you let me go this very minute. I swear I’m going to rip you to pieces the second that…’

  ‘Pass me the bandana too,’ Ethan said to Gizmo and the next thing the scarf was tied round her mouth silencing any more of her protests. She stared at Ethan in the darkness of the van and he stared back.

  What was he doing here? In Australia? With his arms around her? Had he come to tell her he loved her and wanted her back? Two weeks of heartbreak wouldn’t allow her to hope for that. But if he had, then those two weeks of agony had been for no reason and she would hate him for putting her through that. Could she really let him back in knowing he would probably get scared and run away again sometime in the future? Her fragile heart couldn’t take it again.

  Unable to resist, she lifted her bound hands and tentatively touched his face, scared that he might flinch away from her. But he didn’t, he smiled, his tense face filling with relief. He leaned forward and kissed her softly on the forehead and the tears she had supressed over the last week found their way to her eyes.

  Kyle brought the van to a stop and Gizmo stood up and opened the doors. Ethan scooped her up into his arms and carried her into a large house. He jogged up the stairs and Gizmo and Kyle followed. He walked into a large bedroom with a huge bed and a balcony which over looked a private swimming pool. The doors to the balcony were open and the gentle breeze made the voile curtains billow into the room.

  Would he tie her to the bed and have his wicked way with her? Surely they should talk first. Although right then making love to him in this beautiful room over the pool seemed the best way to right the wrongs between them. Talking could come later. So she was annoyed slightly when he placed her down in a chair and even more annoyed that he then tied her to it and sat down opposite her without removing the bandana.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that. I need to say what I came here to say and I’d like to do it without you swearing and shouting at me.’

  ‘We’ll leave you to it,’ Kyle said and then he looked at Izzy. ‘Try not to kill him when he eventually unties you. As annoying as my brother is, I’m quite partial to him.’

  ‘Wait, before you go. I need you to identify someone for me.’ Ethan pulled out his phone and pressed a few buttons. ‘This whole thing started when Izzy saw me with another woman and I should have explained who she was then, but I didn’t. Let’s just clear that little situation up before we go any further.’

  ‘One of your many girlfriends?’ Kyle said, coming closer to where Ethan was sitting.

  ‘No, her.’ He held up a photo of someone on his phone to Kyle and then to Izzy. Emily, the woman she had seen him kiss on the forehead at Bex’s wedding.

  Kyle paled. ‘You really want me to tell her who she is.’

  Ethan nodded.

  ‘That’s Emily, our half-sister, my dad’s daughter from his ongoing secret affair. No one knows about her, not even our mum.’

  Ethan nodded and with little smiles from Kyle and Gizmo, they both left the room.

  There was no relief to be had with that little nugget of information. She knew she had made a terrible mistake by leaping to the wrong c
onclusion about Ethan and Emily, but she knew that wasn’t really at the heart of why they broke up.

  Ethan stared at her, trying to gauge her reaction or trying to think of what to say. Eventually he spoke.

  ‘I need to clear up something else too. I love you. I think I always have. From the moment I pulled that bag off your head that fateful day that Gizmo brought you into my life, something pulled me to you then. I fought against it in the beginning and I’m sorry for that but I’m more sorry that at the end you walked away from me thinking that I never loved you, when I did. I do. I love you with everything I have.’

  Izzy’s heart roared so loudly that any words he spoke after that were lost on her.

  *

  Ethan watched for her reaction. Her eyes bulged, she pulled against her restraints but he knew he just had to keep on talking. She was going to kill him. For scaring her by kidnapping her, for tying her to a chair so he could say his piece, but mostly for the heart-breaking agony he put her through. He was genuinely fearing for his own safety right now. There was no way he was walking from this room unscathed. But if she rejected him now, the pain of his heart breaking would be the worst pain of all.

  ‘It hurt that you didn’t trust me when you saw me with Emily, especially after everything we had been through. I know I had never said the words, I think I was waiting for the right time, but I thought you knew how I felt. So yes, it hurt that you would think so badly about me. But I overreacted, I know that. I knew that about fifteen minutes after I walked away from you. You were upset over Bex leaving and I should have been more understanding of that. The next morning when you came round to apologise, I wanted to kiss you so badly and take you into my arms and it tore me apart that I couldn’t. You have to understand that I wasn’t scared of our future together, but I was scared of history repeating itself. Kyle told me he told you about Charlie, about the fights that we used to have about money. When we first got together she would do anything I asked. We needed money to help start the business and she gladly gave every penny she earned but later she resented it. She hated that I wanted to put the company first and that she came second, but it was important for me to be able to do something for my family. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was a terrible husband. She should have been my priority but she wasn’t. But you were my priority, almost from the first moment I wanted to do things that would make you happy. Take you places, kiss you, make love to you the way that you wanted. And it terrified me when you spoke about giving up your dream of going to Australia so you could be with me, I was scared that one day you would resent that you had missed out on this opportunity to be with me just like Charlie did. But the final nail in the coffin was what people were saying about you at Bex’s wedding.’

  Ethan saw the confusion in Izzy’s eyes and he knelt down in front of her, taking her hands. ‘All my life I’ve lived with stupid lies and rumours about me and my family. I couldn’t even get a job because of what people thought of us. Kyle and Gizmo were the same. That’s another reason why I started KMW, because we could never find a job so it made sense to work for ourselves. I’ve grown to accept it now, but at Bex’s wedding I heard people talking about you in the same way that they’ve spent years talking about me – saying you were on drugs, and that you must be desperate to be going out with me. They said some disgusting things about you and it made me so mad that your reputation was in tatters along with mine. I didn’t want you to go back into hiding again, just when you stepped out into the sunshine. There was nothing I could do to stop it and breaking up with you seemed like the best thing for you. It destroyed me, but you were my priority.’

  He sighed and looked down at her fingers that were entwined tightly with his. Had he done that? ‘I went about it in completely the wrong way. After that night when I freaked out about what that gypsy woman told us, I swore I would never hurt you ever again and by trying to protect you from rumours that might upset you, I was the one that hurt you the most. I should have told you the truth and let you decide. So I’m telling you now. If you decide that you don’t want to be with me I’ll completely understand, but at least you’ll know that I love you with all my heart.’

  He slipped the bandana from her mouth and she glared at him. This was not going to end well.

  ‘You’re an asshole, you know that don’t you?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I can’t believe you kidnapped me so you could apologise. Most men would turn up with a bunch of flowers.’

  ‘Ours has never been a conventional relationship and it seemed fitting somehow that we should be reunited in that way. Besides, I wasn’t sure if you would talk to me. It seemed a good idea at the time.’

  ‘It was a terrible idea. You scared the crap out of me.’

  ‘Yes, with hindsight… it wasn’t my best.’

  ‘Neither was dumping me to help me escape the rumours. You make awful decisions.’

  ‘I do. I need you in my life to put me straight.’

  She stared at him. ‘I need to know about Charlie. Kyle said that you guys were fighting all the time but it seemed to me that you were still grieving over her. Are you still in love with her?’

  ‘No. She was my best friend and I did love her, but I had lost her many years before she died. She changed after the miscarriage and I never got my wife back. I tried everything I could to help her, but life with her was unbearable. I couldn’t leave her though. What kind of man would that make me, if in the lowest part of my wife’s life I walked out and left her? But that low point lasted five years. It was exhausting. You know what I struggled with most after she died? The guilt. Not only because of the accident, and how she had stormed out after a row with me, but because of how I felt. When everyone asked me how I was, or asked me if I missed her, I gave the expected reply – but in reality, I felt relieved that our marriage was over. Of course I never wanted our marriage to end that way, and I had lost my best friend for good and I was gutted about that, but in the days after her death when I was sitting in the house alone, I enjoyed the quiet that came from not having her screaming at me every day. I hated myself for thinking like that and it was that guilt that drove me into the arms of all those women for the last three years.

  But now, for the first time in my life, I’m not dwelling on the past, I’m not looking at my life and thinking about what I could have done differently. I’m not thinking about what kind of horrible person I am. You have made me be a better person, you made me want to be better. You challenged me, made me see things differently. You made me happier than I’ve ever been. After the first time we made love, you wrapped your arms and legs around me and just held me – I had never felt so adored before. When you told me you were in love with me, every fear, every doubt, every negative feeling I had about myself just went away. So now I’m thinking about you, about a future with you, if you’ll have me. I love you and only you and I will spend the rest of my life trying to make you as happy as you make me.’

  ‘Untie me.’

  Ethan hesitated.

  ‘Now.’

  He quickly untied the ropes from her wrist. She didn’t say anything and he didn’t know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. He leaned round to untie her from the chair, his lips just inches from hers as he fiddled with the knots. But as soon as her hands were free she launched herself at him, knocking him to the floor as she wrapped her arms round his neck and kissed him hard. Oh god he had missed her so much, her touch, her smell, the feel of her mouth against his. She pulled away slightly to look at him.

  ‘You love me, really?’

  ‘Yes baby, I do.’

  She grinned and kissed him again, this time he pulled away though it killed him to do it.

  ‘Wait, did you not hear any of the stuff that I just said about the rumours and the gossip. Do you not care that people are laughing at you behind your back because of your association with me?’

  ‘I heard, “I love you” and then I couldn’t care less about the rest.’

&
nbsp; She moved to kiss him again but he stopped her.

  ‘How can you not care?’

  ‘Ethan I love you, so much. I was content to hide away for the rest of my life, never giving myself to anyone in case they rejected me. I was too scared to get involved in a relationship, fearing they would be repulsed by my scars. I built this wall up around me and you came along and broke it down. For the first time in years you made me feel beautiful again, you made me feel cherished and adored and I love you for that. I love you for the man that you are with your family, how protective you are of your brothers. I love you for the man that you are with Psycho and Fang. I love that you care so much about your business. I love you and the locals of Chessingburyford can point and laugh all they want as I have found the man of my dreams and nothing could stop me from being with you.’

  He smiled, then frowned as he thought of something else.

  ‘Izzy, what about Australia? Would you have still come here if we were together?’

  She nodded without hesitation. ‘I know what I said at Bex’s wedding but that was just the emotions talking. I couldn’t have missed out on this opportunity and I know you wanted me to come too.’

  ‘I never want to stand in the way of your dreams. I did that with Charlie and she ended up hating me for it. If you want to get this job at the solicitors, it won’t affect us.’

  She frowned. ‘What job?’

  ‘You turned down a chance to train to be a solicitor so you could work with me.’

  She screwed up her face with confusion, then it cleared. ‘I was offered a job as a secretary at a solicitors, they were going to pay for me to go on some touch typing course, but the pay was appalling and that was weeks before I met you.’

  ‘So you don’t hold secret desires to be a solicitor?’

  She laughed. ‘No.’