by J. Saman
She sucks in a rush of air, and I spin around to face her. Her eyes are glassy, heavy with tears. “So you did it for the arrangement.”
It’s not a question, but still, I know I have to defend myself.
She’s right. I did lie. And I had the school lie for me. It was wrong and yet I don’t regret what I did. Only that Amelia is upset about it.
“What else was I supposed to do? You would have never accepted me paying for the other half. Never. Just as I know you didn’t accept my father’s check today. You’re stubborn and proud and refuse help. Layla deserves that program, Amelia, and I was going to do whatever it took to get her into it.”
She stands up, fire in her eyes. “Layla is my responsibility. Not yours. You should have talked to me. Told me the situation and we could have worked it out together. I can’t let you pay for that, Oliver. It’s too much.”
A growl sears past my lips. “Yes, you can. Yes, you fucking can. Please, Amelia. Don’t do this. Don’t ruin Layla’s future over something like money. Over something like pride. You’re right, I shouldn’t have lied, but you shouldn’t have kept things from me either.”
“My debt is not your business and Layla’s education is not your responsibility.”
“Yes, it is! Because you are!” I yell at her, storming over and grabbing her arms so she can’t run or hide from me. “You are my responsibility. You are my business. You are mine.”
“If I let you pay, I’m everything they say I am. A gold-digger.”
I shake my head, even as I understand her thinking on it. “You’re not because I know you’re not. That’s all that matters. You’re mine!” I say again. “So why does it feel like you’re trying not to be?”
Tears slip from her eyes, trailing down her cheeks. “Because I don’t belong in your world. I don’t belong with you. This was always going to end. In two weeks, this was going to end.”
I stare at her, stunned, my heart thrashing around my chest. It’s exactly what I feared all along. That the moment our deal was over, she’d walk. Just as she’s doing now. My mind is telling me to retreat. To pull back. To close ranks and protect what’s left of our forces.
But I can’t do that because doing that means I’m allowing this to happen.
“You don’t have to do this. Amelia, don’t do this.”
More tears fall and I reach up, cupping her face in my hands, wiping them away with my thumbs, begging her with my eyes.
“Oliver, it was never going to work,” she sobs. “What your father did and what he thinks of me aside, in the months we’ve been together, we haven’t figured out a solution. Probably because we both knew the reality, we just didn’t want to face it or believe it. This has to end. And now, after what happened today, we have the perfect excuse.”
My throat closes in on itself as I watch her eyes solidify with determination.
I love this woman and she’s walking away from me. Just like that. No fight. Yeah, she was pissed about the scholarship. Hurt over what my father did. But… at the end of the day, she doesn’t love me back. Does she?
“What if I told you, I love you?” I ask. “That I’m in love with you? Does that change any of this for you?”
Her face crumples, her body trembling so hard she falls into me, her hands clutching my back. “I love you too,” she whispers against me, her voice cracking. “So much. But I can’t let you pay for Layla, and I can’t lie anymore. Sometimes loving someone isn’t enough to overcome the reality of life.”
I don’t know what to say. What to do.
With a final squeeze, she steps back, her face soaked in tears, her eyes red-rimmed. She’s as heartbroken as I am, which is why I don’t understand her walking away. Except I do. She thinks she’s saving me from her. From what she does to my life. From what the truth would do to my world.
She doesn’t feel worthy. Always the poor girl. The bullied girl. The one who doesn’t belong. And if she was unsure about that before, my father just nailed it home for her.
Not only that, she doesn’t trust. Neither did I until she came along. Now look.
All her life she’s been left by those who love her, forced to pick up the pieces because no one else was there to. Even now, she can’t put her faith in me. In us.
“You’re scared,” I challenge. “You’re leaving because you’re scared. Stay with me. We can figure it out together.”
“Don’t you understand? There is no figuring this out. If there was, we’d have done it weeks ago. I’m doing this to protect you.”
She takes off her ring, setting it down on the coffee table. The necklace next, and all I can do is stand here and watch, heart in my throat and chest empty.
In the next breath, she’s gone. Just like that. Like she was never here to begin with. Our fake engagement was always going to end. Our relationship along with it. And now I’m left with nothing.
32
OLIVER
“Wake up, dickwad, you’re a fucking mess,” Luca barks in my face, only to slap it twice when I don’t respond with anything other than a groan.
“Go away.”
“How much has he had?” someone else asks. I think it’s Carter. “Please tell me this bottle wasn’t full.”
“I think it was.” Landon. How many goddamn people are there in my house?
“I’ll make some coffee.” Rina. Why is Rina here?
“Yes. I’ll help. Muffins. I’m going to make some muffins. Muffins will absorb whatever he’s been drinking. Do you think we should start an IV? I brought stuff to do that. He has to be dehydrated as hell.”
“I hate muffins,” I tell Grace.
A cold hand meets my cheek, and I open my bleary eyes to find Grace hovering over me. Blazing, blinding sun shoots razor blades into my eyes and I wince, instantly shutting them back up.
“No, you don’t,” she whispers softly. “I make amazing muffins. I’ll even make you chocolate chip because I love you. But first, you need a shower. You look and smell awful. Then I’m going to start an IV or have your sister do it.”
“I love you too. Now go away. All of you. I don’t need this.”
“I tried the gentle approach,” Grace says. “Now he’s all yours.”
Her hand leaves my face and then suddenly, I’m hoisted up in the air. At least I think I am because my head spins and my stomach roils as it lands against a very hard shoulder, my body getting ready to spew out whatever I put in it last night. Blanton’s, I believe it was. Single barrel. Smooth on the way down and likely to burn like hell on the way up.
Good. Bring it on.
“Come on, baby brother. The lady is right. You stink. I get heartache, but it’s certainly not worth killing your liver over.”
“Your Boss Baby-looking ass has never been in love,” I snarl at Kaplan.
“True,” he says, ignoring the Boss Baby comment. “And from the looks of it, I think I’ll keep it that way.”
“Wanna tell us what happened?” Brecken asks. “Why we walked in to find you passed out on your sofa?”
“It’s morning. People sleep on their sofas all the time.”
“It’s twelve-thirty and we’ve all been calling you for hours.”
Oh. “I turned my phone off last night.”
My father kept calling. He kept calling and Amelia wouldn’t pick up and I couldn’t take it anymore.
“We realized that,” Kaplan mutters dryly. “Dad called us.”
“Fuck him.”
Two seconds later, I hear the shower starting, and then without warning, I’m tossed in clothes and all, falling hard onto the marble floor, instantly drenched from the freezing spray. That’s when I start to throw up. Dragging myself up onto all fours, my stomach empties and empties and empties until I’m nothing but dry heaves and misery.
“Did you really drink the whole bottle?” Luca asks, crouching down and brushing my wet hair back from my forehead. He checks my pupils and a few of my cranial nerves, ever the neurosurgeon.
“Look
s that way.” Feels that way.
But for real, what the hell else was I supposed to do? Amelia wouldn’t call me back. She wouldn’t answer my calls. She would reply to my texts. I’m a broken man. This is nothing like it was when Nora betrayed me. This is visceral. A plague. Abject despair.
I never tried to get Nora back. I was done the minute she walked out of that restaurant.
But I can’t do that with Amelia.
She didn’t betray me. My dad made her believe she didn’t belong with me. In my world. That she was nothing more than an opportunistic gold-digger. Things she’s already been made to feel all her life because prep school kids with too much money are real assholes to kids without it.
I don’t blame her for walking away.
She’s right. We never were able to come up with a solution to our problem.
But so fucking what?
Falling back on my ass, my head hits the wall behind me, my eyes closed, as I let the water run over me. It’s still cold, which shockingly enough, I appreciate.
“What do I do?” I ask, not even knowing if anyone is still in here with me or not.
“You really love her?” Landon. A man who, too, has seen the ugly side of love. Who has been betrayed by it. Who turned into an absolute wanker of a man because of it. A grump whose only soft spot is his daughter.
“Would I look like this if I didn’t?”
“Okay. So what are you going to do about it?”
What am I going to do about it?
“I refuse to let her go.”
“Then you need a plan.”
I need a plan. Yeah. That sounds good.
But before I can get there, I need to do a few things first.
I slither my way up the wall until I’m standing. Then I strip out of my clothes which miraculously clears the room pretty damn quickly. The shower gets turned to hot and after I’m clean and dressed, I have Rina start an IV—always have the nurse start the IV—of lactated ringers for me while I devour two piping hot chocolate chip muffins.
And once I’m completely sober and fully rehydrated, I kick everyone out of my place and drive over to my parents’ compound. This isn’t something I ever wanted to do. But now it seems I’m without a choice. If I want Amelia back, I have to fight for her. If I want Amelia back, I have to prove to her that she does, in fact, belong in my world.
There is no other place for her to be other than by my side.
The moment my tires come to a halt and my Porsche is in park, my dad is waiting for me on the front steps. He looks like shit. His dark salt and pepper hair is all over the place, like he’s been running his fingers through it. Strained, wary eyes with purple stains beneath them hold mine as I amble out of the car.
I’ve only seen him like this once before and that was after Rina’s psycho ex kidnapped her.
“I’ve been calling you,” he says, taking the three steps down to meet me in the circular driveway. I’m guessing he doesn’t want my mother to hear any of this.
“I had nothing to say to you on the phone. Everything I have to say needs to be done in person.”
His hands meet his hips, and he lets out a weighty sigh, but his dark eyes hold mine. “I’m sorry, Oliver. I hurt you and I know I hurt Amelia. But I had to know for sure.”
“My word wasn’t good enough? You couldn’t have talked to me first? You had to go and do that to her? To make her feel that way? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
He glances back over his shoulder and then back to me. “Take a walk with me.”
I’m not given the choice as he grabs my arm, twisting me around and leading me in the direction of the tennis courts.
“I was in love with a woman before I was forced to marry your mother,” he starts, and my eyes explode from my head. I’ve never heard this before. “I met her in college, and it was pretty damn close to love at first sight. I was crazy for her. Blind to everything and everyone else. I knew my marriage was going to be arranged for me. I knew I was going to marry Octavia Abbot even if I had never met her. Your grandfather was very old-school. Very traditional, and this was just the way it was.
“I told him I was in love. That I wasn’t going to get engaged or married to anyone else. I had planned to propose to the woman I was in love with and have us elope. And the night I went and attempted to do that, she asked me one question. ‘What happens to your money if we do that?’ In the four months I was with this woman, a woman who I would have sworn on my life was as in love with me as I was with her, never once did I realize what she was really after.”
“Your money.”
He nods his head, his expression sad. Broken. “My money. The moment I told her I would be giving up my inheritance, that I’d have to take out loans to pay for medical school, but we could be together, she was gone. Just like that. Six months later, I married your mother, and it was the best decision I was ever forced into. But when I learned of your engagement, of how quickly you and Amelia got together, I panicked. I saw you repeating my old mistakes and I couldn’t allow that to happen. I knew about what you did for Layla at Wilchester. I learned of Amelia’s debts. And I was positive, in my heart, that you were being played.”
“Except you were wrong.”
He licks his lips, stopping us just before we hit the path for the tennis courts, just on the edge of the driveway and garage. His hand meets my shoulder, squeezing. “I was wrong. I was so, so wrong. I expected Amelia to take the money and run, just as that woman would have done if she had ever been presented something like that. But Amelia didn’t, and in her eyes, I saw what my assumption did to her.”
I glare at him. Hurt for Amelia. Furious for what that must have been like for her.
“Did you know she was bullied all through middle and high school? Made to believe that because she was a scholarship kid, she didn’t belong? That she wasn’t good enough? That she never fit in and was ridiculed by everyone?”
He takes a step back, his eyes falling to the ground as his hands meet his hips once more. “No. I didn’t know that.”
“Because you never tried to get to know her!” I bellow. “You never gave her the benefit of the doubt. Instead, you nailed home every single doubt and insecurity that was ever drilled into her. Amelia didn’t know I paid for Layla’s tuition. I did that on my own because she would have never let me pay for her to attend Wilchester. She also never told me about her debt because she knew I’d want to pay it off. And I would have. Because Amelia deserves the fucking world, Dad. She had to drop out of college at twenty. The guy she was with for over a year ended their relationship over a text, and she came home to take care of Layla who was only six at the time because her parents were dead. She had to switch up her entire life including her desired profession and she did it all without complaint or second thoughts. Just because she’s poor doesn’t mean she only cares about money.”
His gaze flickers up to mine where they lock. “I owe you and especially her an apology.”
My eyes narrow at that, so incensed and heartsick I can hardly stand here without going crazy. “Except she’s gone, Dad. She left me.”
He starts at this, his eyes bouncing back and forth between mine in confusion and regret. “Oliver… I… Why would she do that? Because of me? Because of what I did?”
“I have something to tell you and Mom.” Without another word, I turn and storm back to the house. My father quickly catches up, tracking my side. The house is quiet, dark, and overly warm, which I imagine is for my mother’s comfort. Typically, my parents spend the majority of the summer at the house on the vineyard, my father doing pro bono work at the hospitals there and on Cape Cod.
But not this year.
My mother is sitting in the solarium, a book in her hand though her focus is out the window, staring out into the gardens beyond. She hears us enter and instantly puts a smile on her face. It’s forced and it hurts to see. She has three more chemo sessions and then some scans and then we’ll know more.
“Ol
iver,” she exclaims, some of the light returning to her eyes. “What a lovely surprise. Come sit with me.”
I do and I can tell by her expression that my father never told her what he did with Amelia. That’s his sin to confess. I have my own to cleanse myself of.
My mother scoots her legs over and I sit on the edge of the long plush chaise, taking her hand in mine. It feels like ice, and I instinctively use my other hand to adjust the blanket over her legs.
“Stop fussing,” she admonishes. “I’m fine, but I can see you’re not. What’s wrong?”
I glance quickly up at my father and then return to my mom. “Mom, the engagement with Amelia was fake.”
“Fake?” my father echoes, obviously not expecting me to say that.
“Yes,” I answer, still staring at my mother. “Fake. Amelia and I didn’t reconnect again until the night of the reunion. I had stepped in to save her from some nasty comments and then both she and I got to talking. Neither of us wanted to go in there and face our pasts, so we decided to do it together. I wanted her to feel confident. To have the people who had bullied her, including Nora, eat their words. I had the ring in my pocket, and I slipped it on her finger. We spent the evening together and I think, in truth, I fell in love with her that night. By the morning, our pictures were everywhere.”
“And I started calling about it,” she says, leaning back in her seat, holding my hand just a bit tighter.
“Yes. We were worried about you. You were just diagnosed and about to undergo surgery and chemo. We wanted you happy and you were happy that I was engaged.”
“So you lied to us? To the world?”
I look up at my father and nod. “Yes. We did. I asked Amelia to pretend to be my fiancée for three months and in exchange, she asked for Layla to get a full scholarship to Wilchester. She told me flat out she didn’t want my money. Just a scholarship. All she asked was for me to pull some strings. It was meant to be a business deal.”
“But you fell in love with her,” my mother says.
“But I fell in love with her.”
“Then I ruined it,” my father jumps in, sinking down into a nearby chair.
