61. Now
SIXTY-ONE
now
I wake to a vicious hangover and enough self-loathing to fill my bathtub and drown myself in it.
In the shower, I cringe every time I think about last night. The way I taunted Ella while I touched her. The glimmer of tears on her pale cheeks. Walking away and asking her to keep herself hidden. Basically calling her a shameful secret mere moments after coming inside of her.
I was distracted during my speech. I didn’t even hear Dad’s or Daniel’s. I all but ignored Olivia and my mother for the duration of the evening. And I decided to cap off the night by drinking so much gin that I don’t really remember how or when I got home.
I know I’ve truly fucked up when I walk into my kitchen and find all of the Ella items I asked Marco to dispose of, sitting on my kitchen island. A message, clear as day, from my right-hand man. Only, I don’t understand why .
With an aching head and a hollow chest, I lower myself into the backseat of my car ten minutes later than usual. A stone-faced Amir regards me through the rearview mirror. Glares at me, actually.
“Sir,” he clips.
Is he… pissed off?
“Amir,” I return. “Is something wrong?”
Marco’s face doesn’t even flinch. “Your mother called. She asked me to pick her up on our way into the office. Is that all right with you?”
Damn it . She’s going to be pissed, too. I fight back the urge to avoid her, knowing it will only make for one more apology later on.
“Fine.”
We work our way up Fifth while I lean my head back and try to get it to stop thumping. When we pull up to my parents’ townhome, my mother is waiting on the sidewalk, looking elegant in a black sheath dress. As expected, the climate in the car falls from chilly to glacial as soon as she slides inside.
Without so much as looking at me, Mom crosses her legs and smooths her skirt over her knees. “Marco? Close the partition.”
Before I can speak, she holds up a hand. The glass partition between the front- and backseats rolls up while she rummages in her purse and produces three pills. She holds them out, still not meeting my gaze.
“Mom?”
“Ibuprofen.” She waves her fist at me until I take the meds from her. “They’re for your headache. I’m assuming you must have one after draining all of the Tanqueray on the island. ”
Her cool rebuke chastens me. I swallow the pills without argument and lean back into my headrest once more, shutting my eyes. “Mom, I?—”
“Save it,” she interrupts. “Honestly, Grayson. Don’t even think about lying to me again.”
Confused, I sit forward and turn to her. “What do you mean?”
Mom casts an uncharacteristically nervous glance at the front seat and the tinted glass separating us from Marco. She straightens up, looking down at her hands, twisting together in her lap.
“I saw you. Last night.”
My stomach drops to my feet. “You saw?—”
“You,” she whispers, finally raising her sharp emerald eyes to mine. “And Ella.”
Oh dear God .
My mind reels, spinning through the series of events I’ve tried desperately to forget.
But I remember all of it. Including the way Ella held me at the end, offering the same comfort and adoration she used to give me unconditionally. And how we heard a noise that made us jump apart.
“You saw us?”
Venom seeps into Mom’s gaze and her voice. “Yes,” she hisses. “Your office is made of glass , Grayson. I went upstairs to fetch some aspirin for your father and…”
She shifts, obviously uncomfortable. “In any case,” she goes on, “You are a grown man and the CEO of the company. I’m not going to scold you over your sex life.”
A flush crawls up my throat. “ Mother .”
At my note of outrage, fury snaps in her eyes. “As your mother , I hoped I raised you better than to do something so private in a public place,” she continues, scolding even though she said she wouldn’t. “In your place of business, no less. Honestly, son. It’s disgraceful to display a woman and your intimacies that way. A gentleman protects his partner’s privacy. ”
Hell . She’s right. I was reckless with Ella. And I certainly didn’t protect her—during or after.
If I’m honest with myself, I know that’s the real reason I wound up drinking so much. When I couldn’t quite convince myself that she deserved my callousness, I tried to numb the shame of it.
It didn’t work. No amount of gin could ever banish the fear that I harmed her. I barely took any of her triggers into account. And I rammed into her without a modicum of control. Recalling the tears that studded her lashes the moment our bodies connected still makes me want to wince.
Satisfied by whatever guilt she sees on my face, my mom starts to cool. She pins me with another searching look. “I think you should tell me how this happened.”
The past week blurs through my throbbing brain. “We got—I’m—Last night was an anomaly, I promise.” I rub the back of my overheated neck. “I ran into her last night, and… you know Ella and I have a history. We were just overcome by it for a minute. That’s all.”
Her fury returns, flashing in her eyes. “I said: no lies ,” Mom bites out. “Try again.”
I don’t know what to tell her. Because, honestly, I don’t even know what to tell myself.
How do I explain what happened between me and Ella—in the past or over the last few days? For fuck’s sake, I’ve been asking myself the same question all morning.
Night.
Week.
Years , actually.
But as I sit here, steeped in guilt, staring at my mother’s irate face, hating myself… the answer finally comes into focus.
“I love her,” I admit. “I never managed to stop.”
“ Gracias a Dios ! The truth.” Mom runs her gaze over my face, her lips falling into a pensive frown. “ Mi amor , if you love her, then why are you letting her get away again? You could not find her, before. But now you know where she is, and you know she still obviously has feelings for you. Why can’t you rebuild things?”
Outside my window, the Upper East Side blurs into Midtown. Unable to help myself, I wonder if Ella will be heading to work soon. My jaw hardens as I remind myself, “What she did is unforgivable. I could never trust her again.”
“Well, I certainly understand the trust issue,” Mom relents softly. “But why is what she did so unforgivable? If she truly was scared and ran away… Can’t you have some compassion for that?”
The truth is, I do. Even at this very second, vicarious pain pierces my heart. The image of Ella slumped on the floor of my office, struggling to breathe, hits like a gut punch.
She always squeezes her eyes shut and furrows her brow during panic attacks, as if fighting through every second by sheer force of will. If what happened three years ago is simply the result of her temporarily losing her grip, I know I could forgive her almost instantly.
But there has to be more to it than that.
And she still refuses to explain herself.
Instead of delving into the riot inside me, I blow out an unsteady breath and reach for a tidier, equally true response. “She hurt you guys, too. How could I be with someone who ran off the way she did, knowing about Dad’s illness and all that shit? She never even apologized.”
It’s Mom’s turn to look ashamed. Her skin pales as she mashes her lips together. “Grayson… There’s something I need to tell you.”
She reaches into her purse and pulls out a yellow envelope. My scalp prickles at the sight of the curved handwriting on the front.
“It’s from Ella,” Mom whispers. “She mailed it to me about three months after... the incident. It didn’t have a return address, so I opened it.”
Gingerly, she sets the dandelion square on my charcoal pant leg. The color brightens all of the monochrome around it. My chest heaves while I sta re, unable to move to pick it up. I know it might contain the answers I’ve been so desperate for so long, but now I wonder… do I really want to know?
“What does it say?” I demand, hoarse. “Does it say why ?—"
“No. It doesn’t say a thing about what went on between the two of you. It’s an apology. To me. She felt she owed me one after ruining my plans.” Mom pauses, her expression softening further. “And for hurting you. She knew it would devastate me to see you in so much pain. She apologized for that as well.”
A quiver shoots through my hand as I reach for the envelope. My fingers brush over the loops of her handwriting, remembering.
“It’s a lovely apology,” my mother whispers, voice clogged with emotion. “Beautiful, even. When it arrived, I wanted to tell you right away. But you’d just started coming to the house again. Your grades were recovering. You’d agreed to return to the office. You were so miserable for so long, mi amor … Your father and I were scared that reading this might pull you back under.”
I remember that time in my life with surreal horror. The months I spent clawing my way from one day to the next, hanging on to stability by my fingernails.
“If I had known she sent this, I would have gone after her,” I realize out loud. “I tried to, at first. I went to her school, her old student housing unit, and her friends. They all told me she was gone, out of the city. Then I realized she’d blocked my phone number. I thought she hated me, but if I knew she had written to you, I would have thought there was hope for us.”
Mom’s frown deepens. “Perhaps there is. Maybe if I’d given it to you…” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Grayson. I only wanted to protect you from being hurt again.”
I turn my face away from her and the letter, peering at the crush of traffic around us. “It doesn’t matter now,” I decide. “I can’t spend the rest of my life in love with someone who runs from me. ”
Mom shifts, her air awkward once more. “Did she run again last night?”
“No.”
I did .
Her hand lands on the sleeve of my suit. “Then maybe there is hope, after all.”
The rest of our ride passes in silence. A few blocks from the office, my mother taps on the partition and asks Marco to drop her off, pressing a kiss to my cheek before she slides from the car without another word.
By the time we make it to the Stryker & Sons garage, I feel ill. Before Amir gets out of the driver’s seat, I stop him. “Marco.”
He stills but doesn’t look at me. “Sir?”
My cheekbones darken. “The cameras on the executive floor. I need the recording from last night wiped.”
He raises his hard stare to the rearview mirror. “Already done. After I saw Miss Callahan, I deleted all the footage for the hour preceding her departure.”
Ah .
That explains the glaring.
A hot stab of shame hits me. “Thank you. Did Ella—I mean, did Miss Callahan get to the garage without incident?”
Marco doesn’t so much as blink. “She was distraught. I had one of our cars take her home.”
His intense regard thickens the guilt wedged in my throat, turning my voice into a rasp. “I never should have sent her away like that. I hate myself for it. I’m sorry you had to intervene.”
“I returned her belongings to your apartment.” He finally casts his gaze down. “And I collected her personal effects after the gala. She left in a hurry and didn’t want to go upstairs with her dress ripped— her coat, purse, and cell phone were left behind.”
Dear God . A burst of panic grips me. If Marco hadn’t spotted her, she would have been alone, on the streets, without any money or means of contacting anyone .
Because of me.
“I need to take them to her. I’ll cancel my morning.”
Without hesitation, Marco throws the car in gear. “She’ll be at her office by now. ”
“Let’s go.”