by Pamela Ann
+++
The next day, Toby decided to take a day off from work and go with me to my flat in Covent Garden. He had just hired an assistant the other day. He’d also found an office building close to where Blake’s South Bank was located, so that was brilliant for convenience. He had also asked Chad to do most of the interior decorating. Everything was coming along, and I was thrilled for him and the next step he was embarking on for his future.
After last night’s ordeal, he became more attentive. He would always reach out for my hand, kissing me whenever he could—the little things that counted most, he did right.
And, in a way, driving back to my flat with him looking at me with that look of awe felt like that first night we’d dated.
“Just like the old times,” Toby announced the second we opened the door, walking inside. “This place holds mostly good memories.” That made me smile. At least we had something in common.
“Yeah. It sure does.”
He spun around in the living room, pulling me towards him. “Two years worth of fighting and making love mostly done in this apartment. I remember the first time I came here and never came out until five days later… Do you remember any of that, Luce?”
Funny how I had been just thinking that earlier…
“How could I forget?” I gazed at him and butterflies immediately went amuck in my belly.
“We couldn’t get enough of each other.”
“Yes, the good, old days,” I agreed with a ting of sadness.
There we stood, in the middle of the room staring at each other, before he broke the spell after a minute.
“Do you still have those videos?” he asked, cocking his head to the side, searching.
What was he talking about?
“What?”
He barely glanced at me as he went through my DVD collection. “Of you and me? Random videos that we took of each other and made into a movie?” he gave me the rundown before it clicked in my ever so slow functioning brain.
He was talking about that. Why was he looking for it? That video was an embarrassment… for my part anyway.
“Somewhere in the room… I think,” I reluctantly said. “Why?”
“I was thinking that maybe we should watch it.”
The signature weak-in-the-knee smile appeared, and for a second, I was entranced… until I remembered how pathetic I had been in the video. “Maybe someday, but not tonight.” Maybe never.
He brought his arm to his chest as if I had just shot him. Dramatic he surely was. “Let’s walk down memory lane together. Maybe it would do us both good.”
Not at my expense, we wouldn’t.
“We have photos,” I kindly suggested, hoping he’d take the bait.
“I want that video, Luce. Please?”
Drat, he looked desperate for it.
“Why do you want it so badly? We don’t have to watch it now.” I was beyond ridiculous in that thing.
“Because, after last night…” He trailed off, searching my eyes. “If you’re thinking—maybe even considering—leaving me, I just want you to see what it was like for us to be happy again, in case you had forgotten.”
That video…
“I never said I was leaving, Toby.”
“But you never said you were staying, either.”
He was waiting for me to say something back, to tell him that I wouldn’t go anywhere—that I was staying with him through thick and thin—but I needed more… I needed more from him.
“It’s in the closet… in the black luggage,” I said just as he raised his brow, looking at me weird. “It’s locked so you might want to find the key first. It’s taped behind the toilet.”
He licked his bottom lip, biting it as if he was trying to hold back a laugh. “Don’t tell me you hid the key with another key?” He looked amused and smug.
“It’s behind the mirror. What does it matter if I had to do just that?”
Kisses rained on my face. “Nothing. It’s just letting me know how crazy you were about me.”
“Were—past tense.”
He paused, pulling back to see my face. “Lucy, how often do I need to tell you not to lie? You look gorgeous even when you do, and that just brings the caveman out of me.” His lips nipped mine. “And it also fuels the need to sexually draw the truth out of you.”
God, if he only knew… “We shall see if you’re worth it,” I threw it out there. He could take it however he wanted to.
“You know I am and you’ll know it, too, after the video.” He kissed me once before leaving to scour the bedroom for the video.
I was in the kitchen, pouring a glass of wine, when I heard him come out of my room.
“Found it!” he declared with pride.
Brilliant, I thought as I shook my head, draining the rest of the wine.
I was about to bring the bottle with me to the living room when I heard the video come on. It was so loud it echoed around my apartment. I stood frozen, listening to our recorded voices.
When I finally managed to start moving again, striding into the living room, I found Toby deep in thought. He looked up, smiling, before he pulled me against him and wrapped his arms around me from behind.
In the video, we were in my bedroom, the camera situated on the side table and angled at the bed. Sheets were scattered everywhere and we were both obviously naked. I looked young, cheeks tinged with pink, red puckered lips from his kisses, and I had that look about me that screamed I was deeply in love with him. I literally had stars in my eyes.
“Where do you think we’ll be three years from now?” I asked him.
He grinned, twirling my hair with his fingers as he left kisses on my chest, above my slopes. “Hopefully, we’ll be married then.” He paused, thinking. “Yeah, we’d be shagging whenever I fancied.” He laughed, peeking at me before he bit a nipple, whispering, “You’ll be wearing my ring and my name. On the outside, we’d appear like normal, happy folks, but when we’re at home, you’re basically the boss of me.”
“You’re not being serious.” I lightly shoved him, making him laugh once more.
“You want me to be serious?” he asked, rolling on top of me.
I nodded, looking up at him.
“Happiness came when I found you. We fight hard and often, but I do know that we love each other twice as hard. You’re my forever, and I won’t stop chasing after my forever. You’re it for me, Lucy.”
His words held so much meaning that I felt too exposed to be taped, so I moved, needing to breathe.
The camera shifted when I moved, showing only the bed while I could hear myself sobbing in the background and him trying to comfort me.
“Hey, don’t cry…”
I was beyond hysterical, crying like I had just lost someone—the eerie sound of someone bawling wretchedly. “I just love you so much—it scares me all the time.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Not until you marry me. Not until you’re swollen with my child. Not even when you find me balding, fat and unattractive. I will love you until I die. There won’t be any other woman for me. You’re all I see. Forever, I will always belong to you,” Toby vowed, making me cry harder.
That was it… I couldn’t take anymore of this.
Yanking his hands off me, I paced towards my bedroom, closing the door lightly before I sat on the bed… the same bed that those words had been exchanged upon.
There was a knock before I heard it open. His boots echoed on the wooden flooring until he was right before me. He then sat on his heels, looking up to me with confusion.
“Why’d you leave?”
I shook my head, not wanting to say anything. Because if I did, I wasn’t sure what would come out of it.
He wasn’t going anywhere. “No. Talk to me.”
“I just need a moment…” I whispered, pleading.
His hands held mine. “Don’t shut me out like you did before—”
“What do you want from me?”
A frown creased his fore
head. “I just want to know what’s wrong. You’re obviously upset.”
That was putting it lightly. “Upset? I just watched what my life would’ve been with you. I saw it all; the house, the baby… everything.” I let it all out, vomiting all the ugliness I kept locked in my heart. “It was supposed to me at that altar with you, not her.” I sobbed, tears dropping onto our joined hands. “All I have are pieces of memories that I have to put together when I need reassurance that we have a future. I’m so tired of wishing that it will be how it was.” I gave him a look of pained sadness. “It’s never going to be the same. I know that now.”
“It will be. Just give us time,” he pleaded.
Words… it could be jumbled and misspelled, just like his promises in the video and from last night.
“We can’t keep lying to ourselves, Toby. We tried—”
“Four days isn’t considered trying, Lucy,” he argued with frustration.
“What then? A year? Maybe three? Ten?” I pulled my hands from his, needing to hold myself. “What difference will it make?”
“We could still have it, Luce. It’s not too late… We can still marry and have a kid. All of that we can do—Fuck, let’s do it tomorrow. If you want a baby, we can make one right now. Just tell me. I’ll do it for you.”
Marriage and a baby? Did he need me to step into her shoes and provide a child so he could remember them through me?
“I don’t want to be any of those. You don’t have to say these things to make me feel better. I don’t want marriage. Not even a baby.”
He looked like I had just struck him. “I understand how you feel about marriage, but the baby? You used to say you wanted them. Did you change your mind? Don’t you want one with me?”
I shook my head. “Not yours.”
He stood up then, backing away while asking, “Why ever not?”
“I don’t want us to live in their shadows.” Their being Amelia and their baby.
“You think you are?” he shouted at me.
My answer would end everything, but I couldn’t hide anymore.
“Yes,” I answered, looking away.
“Then why the fuck are you with me, Lucy?” he barked out, sounding insulted and infuriated.
“Because you asked me to.”
“That’s not a bloody answer. So you’re here, tolerating this nonsense, because I asked you to? If the bloody Pope himself asks of you to run naked in the streets of Rome, would you? I thought not! So don’t give me this ludicrous excuse. Don’t you think for yourself?”
I looked at him, irritated from his patronizing tone. “Of course I do! Why do you think I’m here? I’m here because I fucking love you—even if it’s killing me inside. I hate that you have wedding pictures stashed in closets. Or how your wedding ring sits next to my toothbrush. I hate that every time you look sad, I always imagine that you’re thinking about them, hoping that it was them with you instead of me. But most of all, I fucking hate you! I hate you for ruining me for any other man because no one could come close, not even if they tried.”
“Why don’t you ever say anything? I had no idea how you were feeling—”
We hadn’t addressed anything, nothing of importance. “Why should I? It would only make me look weak. Well, it’s irrelevant—because I already do. I’ve always been weak when it comes to you.”
“You’ve driven me mad with jealousy, insecurity and distrust…” he started, looking at the other side of the room, as if needing distance. “You eviscerated me. Left me on my own to pick up the pieces and try to live with what was left in my life. When you left, you took my present and future with you. You had me begging on my knees just to have you again, but you—you turned your back on me, as if I was a nuisance in your life that needed ridding of. BUT STILL, even after all that mentioned, I still pursued you. When you dated Troy, I was devastated, but that didn’t stop me from trying to get you back. Even when I was casually seeing Amelia, I still chased after you. No matter what I did, nothing could make you come back to me!
“I wasn’t over you—not even when I found about the baby, not even when the talks of a wedding came up. But at that point, it was a wake-up call for me, and I was hoping it would do the same for you. When I saw you in Madrid, I thought you were there to beg me to stop all the nonsense and come back to you, to tell me that you’ve had enough living without me, but you chose to walk out on me, yet again.
“Each time I saw you around our friends, or at events that involved me seeing you again, I always ended up following your trail, begging like a pitiful excuse of a man because I simply couldn’t get enough of you. Each encounter was worse than the other. It had been so long by then that, at times, I thought what I’d had with you was simply an illusion I had made up upon desperation… then Rome happened.
“I meant to get you back, I truly did. That’s why I filed for divorce, mainly because of you and for my own welfare and sanity. I moved back here, thinking that I could be around you, and at the same time, build something for our future. But I witnessed how miserable you were when I was around… so that made me step back and think about what was best for you.
“Freeing you killed me, Luce. Then Amelia committed suicide, endangering the baby’s life. And when she died, looking so tiny and helpless, those tiny eyes telling me that she knew she was wasn’t going to live long—” He looked pained, eyes moist from recalling the past.
“It was one tragedy after the other. I was emotionally exhausted and felt like I had no purpose in life. When I found you that night in my living room, I was furious because you were there when I had freed you to do whatever you wanted. But you were persistent… and I despised you for that. My plan was easy, and that was to drink myself into oblivion until I was dead. It was brilliant and the least painful way to die. The uncomplicated plan was well on its way until you came along. You made everything complicated.”
I stared at him in horror. I’d had no idea…
“I wanted you to leave me alone, but you were such a persistent pest. When you offered your body for me to use, I was drunk, but I wasn’t daft, either. So, of course I took advantage of that, thinking that I was going to die the next day anyway, so why not take a small memory that had you in it to keep me companion when I’m dead and gone? I just wanted to take you once, but you went all out on me that night, becoming this highly crazed, sexual woman—and I wanted more of you. When I fell asleep with my cock buried deep within you, I remember thinking that maybe living for you wouldn’t be so terrible, and I was somehow okay with that.
“The next day, I woke up to you getting dressed, seeming distant. And you told me you were going out that night. I told myself that I didn’t care about you, that I could care less if you shagged a dozen men, that sex the night before wasn’t that phenomenal and that I should carry on with my plan.
“I somehow ended up waiting for you. I gave myself until three a.m. and if you didn’t show up, I’d end it then. Luck was on my side because you chose to show up, looking so gorgeous with that flimsy, little, short fucking dress that showed off your long legs and your body, and the makeup that made your eyes so sexy. I hated you on sight, and yet, I wanted to fuck you until kingdom come.
“Thoughts of you shagging Troy played in my head and I just went bonkers, maddeningly jealous that you weren’t mine. I wanted to hurt you, not physically but inside, where it hurts most—until you cried…” He swallowed, looking apologetic, eyes somehow reaching out to me.
“When I heard you cry… it was when I felt the ugliest. I had forgotten you—the woman inside. I had forgotten that you had a tough exterior, but you were all sweetness inside. It was the reason I fell for you… and yet, I forgot that very simple fact.”
He strode over, closing the gap between us, wiping my tears with his hands. “I’m so very sorry for causing so much pain and suffering. I know I’m not worthy of you, but you must understand, I can’t live without you, Lucy. I don’t have the power to erase any of the pain and memories, but I do
have the power to pave a brighter future, for you and our children.”
I cried the hardest when he mentioned children. I was such an idiot. I would give him a dozen babies just to make him happy.
“My heart hasn’t changed. No one has ever been in it except you. I have loved you from the beginning and I will love you until the end. I just love you—through Heaven and Hell—to the moon and back,” he vowed before producing something out of his pocket. It was a ring.
Oh, God. He couldn’t be, could he?
Agog and beyond shocked, I stared at him before he got on his knee. Oh. My. Fuck!!! I was going to have a heart attack. I was hysterical with tears, laughing and shedding more tears.
“When did you get that?”
“My Aunt Tamsin was here when she was first diagnosed with cancer and I told her about my plans. I asked for her help since I had no idea how to shop for engagement rings. It’s the ring that you would wear for the rest of your life, so I wanted it to be perfect. She went into her room, came out and presented me with this. It was what my late uncle gave her for their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. She wanted us to have the same luck and happiness she’d found with him.”
He touched my cheek. “This was the day after that night you cried for loving me so much in the video. My plan was to propose after your graduation. I even had it all planned out…”
He took my hand, hovering the ring upon the right finger. “Lucille Connelly, you’re the very reason why I’m still here—the sole reason for everything I do with my life. I had memorized this proposal two years ago and I still know it by heart. Word for word, it’s forever ingrained in me—in my soul.”
“Love—” I was sobbing, but he stopped me, beaming with love for me.
“I fell for you when we were friends, when you thought I wasn’t looking at you, but I saw you very clearly. I just needed time to be with you, and maybe a little courage because I knew loving you is forever. The night I approached you, I was all in then—there was no going back. My heart chose you, even from a distance; it slowly loved you until you were fully mine.
