Reverse (Bittersweet Symphony Duet #2)

FIFTY-ONE

FIFTY-ONE

Easton

D ad slams the villa door before blocking me from it. Fury rolls through me like a tidal wave as I slam my fist into the back of it, because for the first and only time in my life, I’m close to striking my own father.

“What the fuck are you even doing here!?” I roar.

“I’ve been here since last night!”

I look over to Joel. “You fucking told him?”

“You hijacked my fucking plane!” Dad barks in Joel’s defense. “But you have him to thank for keeping me from this door until he calmed me down.”

“Sorry, man. I was forced to make a judgment call when Nate pulled up to the hotel,” Joel confesses.

“Yeah, well. It was the fucking wrong one,” I rip at my hair and shift my animosity to my dad. “As much good as it did to have you here.”

“What did you expect?”

“For you to have my back!”

He gapes at me in disbelief. “Like you had your mother’s and mine?”

“You would never allow this to fucking happen if it was you and Mom!”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he grits out. He pulls out his cigarettes and lights up. “That’s the problem with not knowing the full fucking story.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?”

“I did let it happen. I made it happen. That situation in there started because of me. Your mother never would’ve been with him if I hadn’t left her, but I couldn’t get myself together enough to be the man she needed, so I walked away for both our sakes. That’s when she fell for him .”

“Well, that’s your fucking cross to bear. I’m not backing down, and I’m not walking away from her.”

“And it’s starting to tear her apart already!” He tosses his hands up. “I let your mother choose, and it was the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever done.”

“We aren’t you. We chose each other. She’s my wife!”

“And his daughter ,” he emphasizes, “and as your father, I’m in my own hell right now.”

“Yeah, and what’s so fucking hard for you? You got Mom.”

“Yeah, but I lost pieces of her and years to him in the fucking process, years I’ll never get back. And you’re right, that’s my cross to bear, but yours is going to be too much for you to handle!” He runs a hand through his hair. “Easton, FUCK!” I notice the dark half-moons beneath his eyes as his jaw works back and forth. “I can’t believe you did this knowing full well the shitstorm it would cause.”

“Not to hurt you. It was never about you, Mom, or Nate. I married her because she’s the only woman who will ever fit me and because it’s too fucking painful to be away from her. Sorry, but that alone negated my need to know your whole history. Because it’s history, Dad. Those are your mistakes, and I’m not going to let them cost me my wif—”

“Say you have babies,” Dad interjects, argument ready, “and your mom comes face-to-face with the man she nearly married twenty-six years ago. Do you think we can honestly be comfortable or cordial enough to manage some sort of harmonious fucking relationship?” Dad’s chest bounces with incredulity. “Maybe for your sakes, we should. Maybe it’s the right thing to do, but it’s too much to ask of all of us. I’ve resented that man half my life because of the faraway look I sometimes catch in your mother’s eyes. And the worst part is, I don’t even fucking know if it’s him she’s thinking about, or it’s just my paranoia. Either way, I don’t ask. I can’t, and I won’t blame her if she is because it’s my fault for walking away.”

I stand, stunned by his confession. “Then why—”

“Because she loves me more , Easton, and always has. And thank God for that.” He shakes his head. “For a lot of other reasons too, but this isn’t so simple or cut and dried. You say it’s history, son, and it is, it was , but what you’ve both done is drag it all right back, front and center.” He takes a long drag, hotboxing his cigarette, his exhale clouding the air. “Here’s a history lesson,” he grits out. “Other than in passing and only vaguely aware of each other before everything went down, we’ve never crossed paths.”

Cigarette pinched between his fingers, he points toward the door. “That’s the first goddamned time Nate Butler and I have ever truly come face-to-face,” he seethes. “You’re responsible for that, and if you stay married to her, you’ll be forcing us all to the sidelines to avoid each other. Do you want that?”

“That will be your decision.”

“No, it was yours. Even your wife is aware of it.”

Panic seeps in for what’s happening behind the villa door. “Dad, I need back in there.”

“No. He deserves his time with her.”

“He’s ripping her apart!”

“He has a right to be furious.”

“Do you want me to fucking resent you ? Because I will if you continue to try to tarnish the thing that matters most to me.”

“Yeah, fuck your family, right? I just held your mother’s hand and watched her check out, but that doesn’t matter.” Dad’s eyes redden as he stares at me like we’re strangers. “The whole time I watched her disappear inside herself, I told myself I can get past this with you, because you are what matters most in the fucking world to us both. But if you keep looking at me with zero remorse, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive you.”

Every word strikes like a blow to the chest as reality sets in deep. No matter how much Natalie warned me of the blowback this would cause, she was all I could see. My willpower wavers slightly as I gaze at my father, who looks like he’s aging by the second.

“I fucking love her,” I rasp out, “with all that I am. She’s everything to me. You want me to give that up?”

“Love isn’t selfish,” he says evenly. “If there’s one thing I learned from waiting on your mother, it’s that.”

I heard those same words in my vows two nights ago as he speaks up again, his tone a mix of anger and hurt.

“You need to give this thing some space, step back, and let the dust settle. If you don’t, you’ll implode it from the inside out.”

“You don’t know anything about us.”

“Whose fault is that? And maybe not,” he exhales a plume of smoke, “but I’ve observed enough to know that woman in there, who’s wearing your ring, who just took our last name, loves and respects her father. And she is crumbling fast because she’s being put in a situation to choose between Crowne and Butler. Sound fucking familiar?” He crushes his cigarette beneath his boot. “She wants to keep him in her life, and that’s not going to change, Easton. That’s never going to change. You may no longer give a fuck about your mother and me—”

“You know that’s not true—”

In a flash, I’m nailed to the door, exasperation in his eyes as he searches mine. “Then act like it! Where in the hell is the son I raised?! Because from where I’m standing, I see no signs of him!”

“That son is trying to be a husband!” I defend before he releases me and steps back as a long silence lingers between us.

“How could you . . .” his voice breaks as he lifts tormented eyes to mine.

Chest tightening unbearably, I run my hands through my hair, feeling more helpless than I ever have in my entire life. He’s never shown so much emotion in front of me, and the knowledge that I’m the cause of his devastation starts to undo me. “Dad, is Mom,” I rasp out. “is she—”

“She’s home, but still heavily sedated. Lexi is with her.” He chokes before he speaks. “I’m hanging by a thread right now, Easton.” An unchecked tear drops to his jaw, and I die a little at the sight of it. “I need you to come home. She’s not talking.”

“All right, Dad,” I say, gripping his shoulder, knowing it’s pointless to tell him I’d planned on coming clean the second I got to Seattle. The state of him is enough to pacify me. I’m all too aware this fight between us is far from over. Once his hurt subsides, his anger will come back with a vengeance. That’s how we’re made because aside from me, when it comes to Reid Crowne, there’s only one other thing in his life you can’t fuck with, and that’s his wife. To him, I committed the only thing he considers a cardinal sin.

“Let’s go,” I force the words out though they pain me, even if it was our original plan. “Let’s go home.”

“I’ll be on the plane.” He nods toward Joel, silent communication passing between them before stalking down the stone-covered path toward the parking lot.

Joel steps toward me. “Easton, I tried, man—”

“It’s . . . fuck it,” my shoulders slump, “we’ll talk later.”

Joel nods, appearing condemned, my emotions running far too rampant to do anything other than shift my focus.

Today, I made my father cry, and it’s going to be hard to live past that.

Taking a breath, I knock on the door before entering. Natalie meets me on the other side of it, fully dressed, expression bleak, face thoroughly tear-streaked. I stride into the room to see her purse sitting atop her packed suitcase. The sight of it cracks my chest. Nate stands stock still against a floor-to-ceiling window, scanning our view, hands stuffed in his slacks. Natalie blocks my view of him and reaches for my face, the metal of her wedding ring against my jaw has emotion lodging in my throat as her eyes fill. “I have to go home now, Easton, and so do you.”

I nod my head into her palms as the crack in my chest widens.

Natalie turns back to Nate. “Daddy, can you please give us a minute?”

Nate drags a hand down his face as if contemplating giving us that much, and it’s all I can do to keep silent before he turns abruptly and I step in his path. He pauses, his body averted along with his gaze as if it’s too fucking much to look at me.

“I’m truly sorry for what you’re feeling right now, but I do love her, Nate, and I have no intention of letting her go. Can we not do this? For her?” Burning blue eyes the exact color of my wife’s meet mine. I recognize so much of Natalie in this man. It’s uncanny. Do the parts of my mother that loved Nate Butler exist in me, as well?

I conclude they do, and every other part along with them. It strikes me hard in that moment—even with as many times as Natalie’s pointed it out—my mother was going to marry this man. She was going to build a life with him, and maybe he loved her just as fiercely then as I do his daughter now. From my father’s confession, my mother still harbors love for him and always will. I try to reason with that man even though he’s almost impossible to see. “Please don’t make her choose—”

“You have no right to ask me for anything,” Nate clips out. With a slight tilt of his head, I see the resolution in his eyes along with his declaration of war. A war he has no fucking intention of losing. We hold eyes a beat longer before he brushes past me.

Biting my tongue, I fist my hands at my sides as Nate slams the door closed with his exit. Nothing I can say to him will make a difference. He wants me gone, and he’s hell-bent on making it happen.

I feel the first pang of genuine fear as Natalie stares back at me, looking utterly lost.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” I murmur.

“I’m okay,” she sniffles. “I mean, I’ll be okay. I knew this was going to be bad.”

“Not this fucking bad,” I murmur, gathering her to me tightly before she pulls away with her question.

“Is Stella—”

“She’s home with Lexi. I’m going straight to her.”

She nods.

“Dad got in last night. I’m willing to bet he and Joel had it out in a way they never have before to keep him at bay. They’re overreacting.”

“ Are they ?” She croaks. “Jesus, Easton,” she glances toward the closed front door, “I’ve never seen him like this. Ever.”

“He’s never going to accept us,” I relay, knowing it’s the truth of it.

“He’s my first love and sadly the only man you’ll ever have to compete with for my affection . . . and it may not seem like it right now, but he’s a good and typically more reasonable man. He’s just unimaginably hurt.” She shakes her head. “It’s not just who you are. It’s the culmination of everything. The extent of my deception. I did this in an unforgivable way.”

“ We did this. Which he will also hold against me.”

Are you going to choose him?

Irony of the worst kind strikes me as I realize Dad’s right. History is repeating itself to an extent. Her love and loyalty for Nate is our biggest threat. It’s been our only real issue from the start. What’s worse is that I can’t ask or force her to choose.

“I’ll get through to him,” she declares, despite a shaky conviction.

But will she feel the same conviction she did two days ago when the dust settles? In a week, a month from now?

Even as my heart demands an answer, I have to believe the ring on my finger is all the assurance I need. I keep the question brimming beneath the surface because if I do ask it right now, it may sharpen the point of a wedge capable of separating us.

“Let me go home. Let me try and figure out a way to get through to him.”

I shake my head, unable to let it go yet. “He’s not going to let you find one—”

“I love you,” she burrows further into me. “I love you. I belong to you. I meant every word I said.”

“Then remain my wife,” I plea, unable to help myself. “Keep your promises, your vows to me.”

“Don’t do that,” she whispers.

“Okay.” I relent easily and pull her to me, and we cling to each other, her tears coming freely as she cries into my shoulder. Even with her close, there’s not an ounce of solace to be found. There’s no solution, and it irks me that I can’t find one. I can’t see one, either—at least, not in the near future. The overwhelming feeling hits that in her mind, she might no longer see a future for us on the other side of that door. The thought starts to eat at my resolve to give her the decision to fight alone as we break in each other’s arms. Preparing myself for war, I pull back and firmly cradle her face. “It’s up to us. It’s our fucking choice.”

“I know.”

“Please don’t let go.”

“Stop! Easton, please,” she cries, “I’m paralyzed!”

My throat burns as my head begins to pound. Every tear gliding down her beautiful face eating me alive. In our shared silence, we fruitlessly search for a potential solution and find none. She’s right. For the moment, we’re completely gridlocked. If we continue like this—the way things are—we’ll destroy our relationships with our parents, eventually destroying us. We can’t allow it. Dad’s warning and our vows reverberate through me.

Love isn’t selfish.

The crux is that I have to share her with a man determined to make that feat impossible. Despite needing her, despite wanting her, despite the pact we made to remain unified, we were just divided by an atom bomb. I have to be the man she needs me to be right now, even as it rips me apart.

With a lump lodged in my throat, I’m reluctant to let her go. Heart splintering in my chest, I tip her chin with gentle fingers. “Okay, baby. Go. We will work this out.”

She looks up at me, a glimmer of hope reflecting back. Cupping her face, I dip and kiss her, our tongues tangling in desperation as I infuse it with all I feel for her. I shake my head when her sobs interrupt it and manage a smile, wiping her tears with my thumbs.

“I love you, my beautiful wife.” Even as I say the words, the ominous premonition threatens again. This time, I can’t shake it, even as the fight continues to build inside me.

Jagged, cutting bitterness takes hold for everything that just went down in the same place we made some of our most significant memories. We tear ourselves apart before she grips her suitcase and shoulders her purse. Our red eyes hold when she glances back at me from the open door of our villa. I fist my hands, forcing myself to remain idle while trying not to let her see what’s raging beneath the surface. She does anyway.

“I love you, Easton,” she declares vehemently. “And despite what just happened, I don’t regret it, and I won’t, no matter what,” she re-grips the handle of her suitcase while gliding her thumb over her ring, a new habit that strengthens my pulse just before she turns and walks out of the door.