Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
L ila sat her oversized purse on Brian’s sofa. She was nervous. So nervous that she didn’t know what to do with her hands.
On the drive over, Lila practiced what she would say to Brian but couldn’t get the words right. Ticktock ... time was up. It was time to lay her cards out on the table. Only her mind was racing, and she couldn’t string two coherent thoughts together.
What am I going to say?
Lila wrung her hands together and glanced down the empty hallway. She wondered what was taking Brian so long to come out of the bedroom. Time was relative; in fact, her anxiousness made a few moments feel like an eternity.
Do I tell him everything?
Lila continued to fret over her words until Brian emerged. The moment she saw him, she froze. Suddenly, she couldn’t think, breathe, or even blink. Her mouth felt as dry as cotton. Every step Brian took toward her made that kernel of dread inside the pit of his stomach turn into the size of a boulder.
Lila tried to smile but failed. It didn’t help that Brian’s eyes lacked the usual warmth they typically had when he looked at her. His grim expression almost made Lila rethink this entire exercise.
“Hi,” Lila said breathlessly.
“Hey,” Brian responded in kind.
There was an edge to him that Lila hadn’t seen in a long time. Not since that night long ago in college. Something was definitely wrong. “Is everything okay?”
Brian nodded. “I was wondering the same thing about you. It’s not like you to show up out of the blue. You typically call before coming over.”
“I’m sorry.” She was a little taken aback. “You gave me a key. I assumed it was okay to come over anytime.” Lila glanced over Brian’s shoulder. She noticed he’d closed the door to the bedroom, and it was a little late for him to still be in a robe.
Was he not alone? Suddenly, Lila felt sick. They had never actually formally committed to being in a relationship. So, if Brian wasn’t alone, technically, he wasn’t doing anything wrong.
The direction of Lila’s eyes caused Brian to look over his shoulder. “What?”
“If you’re not alone”—Lila’s throat had all but closed. Her words died in her tongue. Lila couldn’t believe she was ready to spill her guts to him. She clearly thought they were more to each other than they were. Lila was not about to have another confrontation, not after the situation with Carrington. She quickly turned around to grab her purse.
Brian was confused, and then it dawned on him. He pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “You think there is someone in there? In my bedroom...as in a woman?”
“We never committed to one another. You can do whatever you want.” The sting of hot tears threatened to spill over. Angrily, Lila pulled the straps of her purse up and over her shoulder.
Lila pivoted and started to walk away.
Brian grabbed a hold of her wrist and gently turned Lila around. “Really? That’s your only reaction to another woman in my apartment?”
Flashbacks of Carrington’s wife confronting her were fresh in Lila’s mind. Of course, she was hurt, and Lila couldn’t even look Brian in the eyes. Instead, she stared at her feet. She thought things with him were different. “What am I supposed to say? I’m not going to lose my shit over a man who clearly doesn’t feel the same way as I do.”
Brian placed the tip of his finger underneath her chin and lifted it. Her eyes were glassy. His chest tightened at the sight. He was awash with guilt for thinking Lila might still be involved with Carrington. “Just so we are clear, I am alone. No other woman has been in this place or my bed since we reconnected, and it makes me ill to think of you with someone else.”
Her eyes snapped to his. Vigorously, Lila shook her head. “I’m not. I’m not seeing anyone else.”
Finally, Brian could exhale. “Good.” A small smile started to form on his face.
“But...” Lila took a deep breath. “We need to talk.”
His smile froze. “You do realize that ‘We need to talk’ are the most dreaded four words ever spoken to someone you’re dating.” Still, Brian took a seat on the sofa, pulling Lila down with him.
They sat quietly for a few moments before Lila spoke softly into the silence. “I need to tell you something, and it’s difficult.”
Brian inhaled deeply before responding. “You can tell me anything.”
Lila had been on the verge of tears from the moment she received Carrington’s text. Initially, it was because she was hot with rage, but now it was because of the fear of rejection. Deep inside, Lila knew she would have to tell Brian everything. She couldn’t keep her tears from falling as they spilled over onto her face.
Brian had no idea what Lila needed to tell him, but it didn’t matter. None of it did. He loved her. Brian gently used the back of his knuckle to wipe her tears. “Lila, I don’t know what’s going on, but whatever it is, I’m not going anywhere. We’ve fought too hard to get to this place.”
“You say that now.” She wanted so badly to believe him. “You have no idea what I’m about to say.”
He didn’t, and Brian hoped his words were true as he laced her fingers with his. “Try me.”
Lila finally looked him in the eyes and took a deep breath. “Last night, I received a text message from someone I used to date.”
Brian nodded. He figured as much, but Lila had reassured him that he had nothing to worry about. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Was her confession connected to what Randy had told him earlier? He would soon find out. In the meantime, Brian wouldn’t push or ask any questions. Instead, he would wait and allow Lila to speak at her own pace.
She dropped her head into the palms of her hands. “I’m so embarrassed.”
Brian caressed her back. “Baby, we’ve all done some shit we are not proud of. If it doesn’t affect us now. I don’t care.”
Slowly, she lifted her head and held his gaze. “That’s the problem. It might.”
Brian didn’t know what to say, so he remained silent.
“I was desperate, down on my luck and my last two hundred dollars. My modeling gigs had all but dried up, and I needed a job and a place to stay. One day, I was at a coffee bar on my laptop, searching for jobs, when Carrington Hughes walked over to my table. I’d never met him before, and he was charming and offered to buy me a cup of coffee.”
Brian didn’t want to hear any of this but remained calm, at least on the outside. He listened for her sake. He hated a man he had never met.
“That was the beginning of a year-long tumultuous relationship. He is one of many regrets on a long list of mistakes I’ve made.”
Brian squeezed her hand to reassure her. “If he’s in your past, you don’t have to tell me this.”
“I do because Carrington is no longer in my past.”
His body tensed. “So, you two have reconnected?”
Slowly, Lila nodded. “We have, but not in the way you think.”
“How do you know what I’m thinking?”
“The expression on your face. It’s giving away the whole ballgame.”
Brian hated to ask but had no choice. “Do you love him?” Time stood still, and everything seemed to depend on her answer.
Lila didn’t leave him in suspense. Her reply was quick. “No, I never loved him.”
Brian had never been more relieved.
Lila continued to explain. “Carrington was a way to get through a tough time. We had an arrangement, and for me, it wasn’t serious.” She released a sarcastic laugh. “It clearly wasn’t serious for him either. I found out he was married when his wife showed up at our apartment and went nuclear. We got into a huge physical fight.”
“He was married.” It was a statement not a question.
She whispered, “Yes. But I didn’t know. The situation was just a means to an end.”
“Okay. It’s not up to me to judge you or your decisions, but I still don’t know why you’re telling me all this.”
“Because...I know how important that deal is with Glenmore. You haven’t said it, but I know things are getting dicey, and that’s why you’ve had to lay off a few employees.”
“You don’t need to worry about that. I’m dealing with Lockwood.”
Lila was losing her courage. If she didn’t tell Brian the whole story, she would lose her nerve. “Carrington owns Glenmore, and if I don’t go back to him, he is going to pull the funding.”
Brian was quiet for a long moment. He wasn’t sure he’d heard Lila correctly. “Let me get this straight? Are you telling me that Carrington is trying to blackmail you into getting back together in exchange for him signing with Lockwood?”
Lila stared at her hands resting in her lap. “Yes,” she said in a breathless whisper.
“And you’re thinking of doing it?” he asked incredulously.
“N-no! But I won’t lie. For the briefest of moments, it crossed my mind. You and Colby have so much riding on Lockwood. I don’t want to be the reason you lose everything. But then I got so angry that he would do this to me that I wanted to tell you everything and hoped that maybe we could figure something out—together.”
It took everything within Brian to remain calm. He managed it for Lila’s sake, but he was ready to erupt inside. That man hurt the woman he loved and tried to treat her like a common whore. Brian was going to destroy him. However, he would hold his powder for now. Carrington had no idea what he had unleashed.
Brian pulled Lila into his arms before kissing her gently on the lips. “Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me everything.” He pulled back slightly to look her in the eyes. “That is everything, right? No more secrets between us?”
She nodded. “Yes. That’s it. I don’t have any more secrets.”
He released a huge sigh of relief. “I don’t want you to worry about a thing. I promise we’ll get this whole thing sorted.”
“How?”
“I knew something was up with Glenmore because this deal felt off. Typically, I run a complete background check on any business I work with, but I didn’t have time to get one on Glenmore before our meeting. My investigator told me this morning about the connection between him and Hughes. Full disclosure...he even told me that you had a relationship with Carrington.”
Lila was surprised. “You knew?”
“Yeah, not the details. I found out a few minutes before you got here. I was still processing it.”
“Is that why you seemed angry?”
“Probably. I thought maybe you didn’t have enough faith in me to believe I could find sponsors for Lockwood, and you reached out to him. Throw in my jealousy and you’ve got a toxic mix. I would have asked you about it once I’d gotten control of myself.”
“I would never. There is no reason to be jealous. I don’t want him. What I want is for whatever this is between us to work. And for the record, I believe in you so much.”
Couple things Lila said didn’t sit right with Brian. “Whatever this is between us? What do you think is happening?”
I’ve fallen in love . However, Lila wouldn’t say that. She didn’t want to scare Brian off. Instead, she shrugged a little. “I don’t know. I’m taking my cues from you.”
“Hmm.” Brian lifted her hand and kissed the back of it, then gazed into her eyes. “I thought my feelings for you obvious but let me make this perfectly clear. I knew the moment I saw you in the Student Center all those years ago that it would be a wrap if you ever gave me a chance. I’ve never loved a woman the way I love you. I’ve never wanted a woman the way I want you. When you’re in a room, you are the only woman I see, need, or want. Is that clear enough?”
Her heart melted. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, because I feel the same way.”
Brian tucked a strand of flyaway hair behind her ear. “Lila, I work hard to make Lockwood successful because I want to be the kind of man you can be proud of.”
“My god, I’m already so proud of you!” Lila sandwiched his face between her shaking hands. “For the longest time, I hated myself for messing up what we had.”
Brian shook his head. “No. I won’t let you take the blame for that. I shouldn’t have been a shit and trusted what we had. But I promised myself I wouldn’t ever make that mistake again.”
The words that had been on the tip of her tongue flew out. “I love you.”
Brian thought his chest would explode. “I love you too.”
Lila was sitting in the parking lot of the University of Illinois, about to go inside to take her final exam, when Carrington called. She was grateful her professor had accepted her paper for that final, and this was the last one. Three days had passed since his ultimatum, and she had been expecting him. She wondered what had taken so long.
Carrington wasn’t anything if not predictable. Lila planned to change her phone number as soon as this messy little chapter was closed. “Hello.”
“It’s been three days. I see you’ve decided to call my bluff.”
“No, I didn’t decide to call your bluff because that would require me thinking about you, and I refuse to do that.”
Carrington paused. “You really care about Brian Lockwood that much that you would allow your cousin’s team to go bankrupt?”
“I love my cousin and Brian. But...they would be pissed if I sold my soul to you over Lockwood Racing. In Brian’s case, your proposal might even put your own life in jeopardy.”
“Really?” Carrington spoke as if he didn’t believe her. “Maybe I should call him and find out. I’m sure you didn’t give him the sordid details. Then again, maybe he’ll get a hard-on at the pictures and videos I have of us.”
Lila’s face blanched. “You’re gross. You took pictures and videos of us without my knowledge?”
“Why wouldn’t I want to chronicle our time together?”
Lila was disgusted. “First, I already told Brian everything. There is nothing you can say that he doesn’t already know. Second, it’s my understanding that you might need to be more concerned with your own board of directors than anything I’m doing. Maybe I should send your wife, her father, and your board copies of my receipts of us. How do you think they’d like it when my lawyer shows up and serves you papers for what’s your...ninth or tenth sexual harassment lawsuit?”
It was Carrington’s turn to feel off-center. “Bitch?! Are you crazy? I will have someone unalive you so fast!”
Lila laughed. “Stop it with the threats!” Her voice dropped to a menacing level. “Let me be very clear; leave me alone. Leave my family alone, and don’t ever contact me again.”
She disconnected the call, and for the first time in a long while, Lila felt lighter and more in control of her life. She opened the car door and got out. This was the last final exam she would have to take before earning her degree.
She walked with purpose and a fierce determination to control her own destiny.