Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Marcus
I ’d headed home to wait Hallie out, knowing she’d have to return at some point, if not to stay, then at least to collect her belongings. Knowing she had her passport worried me; she was a known flight risk, but I hoped Erica and Jules were enough to keep her as grounded and as close as could be. At least for a little while longer.
Through the sound of blood rushing in my ears, I hear a car door slam, my side gate opening and closing. I count to twenty slowly, giving Hallie time to get inside, and then I make my way to her.
Palms sweating, I knock twice before opening the door to the pool house, relieved to find it isn’t locked. My relief’s short-lived when I see her on the couch, looking down at her phone, posture slumped. I struggle to swallow.
Attuned to my presence, she turns, her spine straightening. “It’s you?” Hallie accuses, eyes narrowed, and voice as cutting as broken glass.
I know I’ve left it too long, and time’s run out. I’ve lied, even if simply through omission.
“I thought finding out you’ve been conspiring with my dad was low, but this? This might be worse.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and take a hasty step toward her, but she stands to face me head-on instead.
“It isn’t what it looks like. It’s not as simple as it seems,” I say with a slow shake of my head.
“Then complicate it for me. Because it looks to me like you screwed me over for money and then bought my house,” she bites out, anger visibly simmering beneath the surface.
How quickly the perfection of last night has been able to seep away until I’m left with the complete mess of our current situation. I need to explain to Hallie the truth, to put it all out there, but I’m unsure of how I go about doing so without making things worse.
Hallie looks down at herself and then to her small, open suitcase, overflowing from where she’s haphazardly pulled things out. Maybe I should’ve given her more time to unpack, to shower and get comfortable. But I couldn’t. It didn’t feel like there was enough time to make this better.
“You told me we’d talk when we got home. Well, you’re here.”
I don’t miss the stricken look on her face, the distrust in her eyes, and I hate being the one who put it there. Hal had slipped up and called my place home first, and it was true. It was home with her here, whether she wanted to admit it or not. I couldn’t imagine her not being here.
But her insinuation isn’t lost on me. This is my home, not hers. No matter what she’d said previously.
I am not her home.
“What do you want to know?”
“Do you know what? You should just go.” She throws out an arm, gesturing toward the door.
“Don’t be a coward, Hallie. You’ve got questions, and you deserve an explanation,” I push, hoping for her curiosity to win out.
“No.” Her voice is resolute.
“What?”
“I don’t want to hear a single word from you. Not a thing.” Her head is shaking from side to side, disgusted with my general presence, it seems.
“Hallie. You don’t mean that.” I’m doing my best to keep calm, to keep my own temper grounded, but I know it’s the wrong thing to have said as soon as the words leave my mouth.
“Don’t tell me what I mean, Marcus.” She seethes. “What would be the point anyway? I wouldn’t be able to believe you. You lied to Jules and Erica. You lied to me. You got in my pants, and it was to what? Get close to me? To pull out the rug from under me? To leave me again just like you did the first time, ensuring I was heartbroken enough I’d leave and not come back while you got a fat paycheck and a good price on a new renovation project?”
She isn’t done, not even close.
“Do you do anything that’s not self-serving? This person you portray to the world—who helps others, who listens, who cares—it’s a farce. It’s no wonder you’re never in a relationship. You can’t keep up the act of being a ‘good guy’ long enough to fool a woman into being with you. I can only imagine that if you play the role for any longer than nine to five each day, they’d see the truth and run.”
Hallie’s face is flushed, and her words are venom spilling into me. The way she views me is similar to how I’m viewed by others. If I’m honest, it’s similar to the way I view myself.
My breath is short, my own frustration rising.
Still, I let her continue. I want to absorb it all, every damn word.
“You know, they shouldn’t let those young people near you. They don’t need your type of mentorship; they don’t need the example of the type of man you are.”
Out of everything Hallie’s said, this has me taking a step back, and I see in her eyes the moment she recognizes she truly hit her mark. A hint of what I think is regret shadows her features but is gone as quickly as it appeared.
I feel the growing urge to leave, except I know it’s likely what she’s pushing for. She’s on the offensive, trying to hurt me before I can hurt her more than I already have. But even with this knowledge, I can’t hold back the words that spill from my lips in retaliation.
“And who should they have as a mentor, Hallie? Someone like you? Someone who runs when things get tough? Someone who holds the people she cares about at arm’s length and is happy to think the worst of them in a heartbeat?”
Somehow, we’ve ended up chest to chest, with Hallie’s anger a palpable thing, alive and thriving between us.
My smile feels more like a grimace as it pulls on my lips. “I’ll offer it to you one more time. What do you want to know? Anything you want.”
Her lips pull together in stubbornness, refusing to speak.
“Hallie,” I admonish. “You know exactly what you want to ask me.”
And I’m right. She does know.
It’ll be a question she doesn’t want to ask, and one I don’t want to hear, let alone answer. It’ll make us both feel like shit for different reasons. And it’s got nothing to do with the last few weeks.
Finally, she takes a ragged inhale. “Am I so…nope, nope, nope. I will not ask that question.” A thread of fury pulses through her voice.
If she was about to ask if she’s easy to let go, I’m thankful she was able to stop herself. It’d cut me deep to know that question was the first one she thought of.
Hallie’s eyes hit mine and hold. “You said you’d be my family. Marcus, you asked me to marry you.” She steadies herself, eyes still icy on mine. “And then the day after you fucked me, you told me I was too much. That I needed too much. Surely my dad didn’t tell you to say all that. So did you just not love me at all?”
Her words are as sharp as blades, and I let each of them do their damage.
She’s right. I was the guy who got the girl to love him. Got her to believe in every single word he spoke. Took what he wanted and then simply seemed to bail. That’s exactly what she and everyone else had seen. At the time, it felt like shit, but it didn’t hurt me on the surface—not my reputation, not my social life, not the career I would one day have. The only things it damaged were my relationship with Hallie and the bond I had with my brother. My actions decimated those two things. Utterly and completely.
So far, I’ve only been given the opportunity to build one back up, and here I am, continuing to dismantle the other.
I want to tell her. Have already said I would. I’d done what I’d thought was the right thing at the time; I believed her dad when he said we were young and we’d grow apart. I’d believed him more when he’d said I’d have nothing worth offering her.
“We were too young, Hallie. Way too young. I didn’t deserve you, and you didn’t deserve to be stuck forever with me. You deserved so much more. I shouldn’t have said any of it. I should’ve known better.”
“And what, you couldn’t have figured that out, I don’t know, before you told me you loved me and I let you inside of me?” The fury in her is potent, barely simmering beneath the surface. “Before you kissed me and licked me and held me as you came inside me?” She is purposefully crass, and I can’t help but wonder which one of us she’s trying to hurt more.
My jaw tics. “Are you done?”
“Are you?” she fires back, furious. Her argumentative tone strangely gives me hope.
“Not nearly.” My voice is firm, ready to withstand whatever comes next.
“When I tried to talk to you, when I cried, you laughed at me and said it didn’t matter, that we were just kids and this wasn’t it. That it wasn’t love because my dad had said so. What even was that? Did he offer you money then too?” Hallie’s voice breaks ever so slightly, but she pushes through. “My heart shattered, and you laughed.”
“No. Of course, there was no money. I was a kid—all he had to do was make me feel like I wasn’t worthy, to remind me it was you who wanted to see the world. Yes, I should’ve fought for you then, and I shouldn’t have believed him over us. But we were young, Hallie. He wasn’t wrong about that.”
It’s true. We’d been young, and I had loved her. Enough to let her go. And I’d do it again now if she asked me to.
“Well, we aren’t teenagers anymore, and it turns out you’re just the same as you’ve always been. It’s no wonder you’re still alone. You fix all these houses, build people’s dream homes, and yet you can’t figure out how to maintain even the simplest of relationships. With brick, mortar, and all things surface-level, you do okay. But with flesh and blood and love? You fail every time.”
Her words encourage the poison seeping through my skin, running through my veins, and I lash out in the pain of it.
“Hallie, what would you even know about a home?” My tone is scathing. “If you clicked your ruby-red boots together three times, where the hell would you even end up?”
“Well, I sure as shit wouldn’t end up anywhere near you,” she replies, quick as a whip, with only resentment seeping from her.
I drag a hand through my hair, my eyes lifting to the ceiling in silent prayer. This was not the conversation I’d come here to have.
“And what was this between us? A way to keep me occupied and satisfied until you could ensure your money was in the bank? Sleep with me, tell me it’s more, and then end things after the wedding anyway? Make sure I was humiliated and hurt enough that there was no way I’d stay?”
I rock back on my heels. “You’d think that.”
“You’ve given me little reason to think otherwise. You’ve kept this from me the whole time.” She’s right, and all it’s done is put us right back where we’d started. “And my house? I don’t want you to own it.” Her words are scathing and utterly unforgiving.
“Well, that’s not how business works.” Hallie is too angry, and I’m too on edge to have this conversation go anywhere positive.
She rears back like I’ve struck her. “That’s really all this was to you, wasn’t it?”
“That’s not what I meant.” I was right to have worried about only making this situation worse.
“But it is what you said.” Her eyes are once again aflame.
“And I’m telling you, it’s not what I meant. Don’t you need the money for a fresh start? Why should it matter if it comes from me?”
She looks to the ceiling. “I don’t know. If I don’t get to call it home, then neither do you.”
I let out a groan of absolute frustration. “Hallie, you can’t have it all. If you want the house, stay. If you want your new home in Edinburgh, let me be the buyer and take the money.”
She laughs, and her voice cracks with unshed tears. “You’re wrong. I could’ve had it all. I could’ve sold the house, kept the cash, and stayed here to try and start something new. I’d wanted to tell you today I was going to stay with you if you’d have had me. But that was before I found out you’d strung me along. Before you proved once again that I’m not a priority for you. I never was.”
Everything inside of me sinks.
Her plans had included a chance for more with me. Plans I hadn’t wanted to hear, had been too selfish to want to know about, instead just enjoying the here and now. The fact that I hadn’t shared what I’d wanted with her…
Hallie really did deserve better than me; I’d just been too selfish to let her go. All I could do was keep offering her a chance at the world.
All the anger and frustration inside me deflate like they were never there. My reasons for not telling her about the money her dad had offered me disappear. I should’ve tried harder.
“I’m sorry, Hal.” I know the words will never be enough. They won’t make up for the pain I’ve caused her. “I spoke to your dad, and I won’t be accepting any donations from him or his business. But I need you to know the money was never for me. Your dad, he’s been a funder of my charity for a few years now. When he found out you were here, he used the money as leverage. The charity’s important, and I’ve got young people relying on our support. It was their well-being and employment on the line. But I was still wrong. I should never have been prioritized over you, should never have kept it from you.”
She nods her response, saying nothing.
“Will you still stay here?” I ask. “At least until the wedding.” I don’t care if I sound desperate. I want her to stay for a little longer.
I watch as she pulls herself together, her shoulders rolling back and a shuttered, empty look falling over her eyes.
“Of course. I can keep up appearances for Erica and Jules. It’s not like I’ve got anywhere else I can go without making it obvious.”
She’s misinterpreted my words. I open my mouth to say something, anything, but am horrified to realize there’s a lump in my throat.
“Just do one thing for me?” she asks, no longer looking at me. Instead, she gazes out the window to where the sun betrays us by still shining.
“Anything.” I feel nervous at the apathetic tone of her voice.
“I want you to go back to looking at me like you can’t stand the sight of me. At least that way, when I’m looking at you the same way, people won’t question it.”
A chill settles over my skin. I cast my gaze to where she stands, so close and yet so far away. She might as well have already left, and there’s no one to blame but myself. The recognition is the final dagger to my heart, sharp and incessant in its pain. Hallie might be it for me, but it doesn’t mean I’m the one for her. The least I can do is give her what she’s asking for.
“Sure, Hallie.”
Her shoulders tense ever so slightly, but she doesn’t look my way again. Without another word, I turn and leave the room, my heart on the floor at her feet, exactly where it belongs.