Chapter 45
CONNOR
Ican’t handle the hurt in her voice or the sting of my own feelings.
Mildred has no idea about the shitstorm that’s about to hit my family, or her, because she carries the Grace name.
I wish I could give her a piece of the truth, but what good would that do either of us?
This isn’t a life she wants. I’m not the person she should be tied to.
The silence that stretches between us is agonizing, but her next words tear my soul apart.
“I thought you were better than your father.” Her voice cracks with emotion. “You’re not a better liar, but you’re just as cruel.”
I lift my head at the last part.
Any of the softness I’ve come to love has disappeared. I ruin beautiful things, as evidenced by what I’m doing to her, to me, to what she means to me.
Her cold gaze meets mine. “I pity you.”
“You shouldn’t.” I don’t deserve anything but her wrath.
She turns around and walks out.
It takes every ounce of restraint not to run across to her bedroom and tell her she has to stay. That she can’t leave. She has an obligation to fulfill.
But hasn’t she already done that?
She mended Meems’s heart, gave her something to keep fighting for. And for that I’m eternally grateful, so forcing her to stay to incur more of my vitriol seems like a torment she doesn’t need. And I already hate myself enough right now.
Half an hour later, there’s movement in the hall. I do us both a favor and stay where I am.
Eventually Cedrick appears in the doorway, his expression stricken. “Mrs. Grace has taken her personal effects and is preparing to leave the manor.”
My stomach feels as though it’s trying to turn itself inside out. I nod.
“If I may be so bold, maybe you would try to talk to her and request that she stay?”
“She should be able to leave if she wants to.”
He stands there for a long moment before he clears his throat. “Madame Grace is speaking with her now. She’s asked that you come down.”
I thought I would have time to prepare for this. Might as well rip every Band-Aid off and let all the wounds bleed at the same time. “I’ll be down shortly.”
He leaves me alone.
I stall another twenty minutes, but I don’t want Meems to have to come to me.
She’s waiting for me in the living room when I descend the stairs. She doesn’t look sad, or frail, or like she had heart surgery less than two weeks ago. She looks like a wrathful angel.
She points to the chair across from her. “Sit.”
I follow her orders. My throat is tight, my mouth dry, my eyes burning. I’ve ruined my life, and I have no one to blame but myself. I deserve her disappointment and her anger.
“When will you stop sabotaging yourself?”
“She left me,” I point out, stupidly.
“Why are you pushing her away?”
“The family’s about to be dragged through the mud, thanks to Father. Mildred doesn’t need to be put through that, too.” It’s a weak excuse that holds no merit.
“Your father’s idiot choices are his own, and yes, there will be shit flinging, but it’s not as though she hasn’t already endured it. Now try again, with the truth this time.”
“Mildred ran into financial issues back in September.”
“What does this have to do with anything?”
“I’m explaining.” I run a hand down my face. “I saw how much she cared about you, and how much you cared about her, so I told her I would take care of the situation…if she agreed to marry me. I didn’t want you to think I was going to end up alone, so I made her sign a contract.”
Meems throws the closest object at me, which thankfully is a box of tissues and not something she’ll regret breaking. She also has terrible aim, so it hits me in the arm and drops to the floor. “You made her sign a contract?”
“I did it for you! I wanted you to be happy!”
“I would have been more than happy for Dred to be your girlfriend. You didn’t need to make her your wife.”
“She never would have stayed with me otherwise! My own family can’t even stand me.”
“You silly, ridiculous man. You will fight anything, won’t you?” She sighs and shakes her head. “You always manage to do things the hard way, even when you have alternatives.”
“What other option did I have?”
“You could have done what I suggested in the first place and asked her out on a date,” she points out.
“She never would have said yes. Her best friend hated me.” It’ll be present tense again once he finds out she’s left me, and why.
“She said yes to marrying you,” Meems argues.
“Only because she didn’t have another option.”
“Didn’t she?” She shakes her head. “Always and forever the hard way. Even when you were a little boy.”
“Nothing has changed, obviously.”
“Shut up and listen,” Meems snaps.
I shut my stupid mouth.
“There was an event.” She rolls her eyes to the ceiling, trying to remember the details.
“There was always an event,” I supply, unhelpfully.
She shoots me a look. “Your father always needed to throw a party so everyone could celebrate the amazing things he did, and you and your sisters were always on display. Your sisters loved the dresses, at least for the first couple of hours, because they could pretend they were princesses.”
“The fairy tale worked for them,” I mumble.
“For a time, yes. But it never worked for you. You hated the suits. You despised being made to look like a miniature adult when all you wanted to do was play hockey.” She shakes her head sadly.
I would endure just about anything to get on the ice, but I always hated the parties. Hated all the people, the socializing, being something I wasn’t.
“This one night you refused to get dressed. Your mother was furious. Your father was too busy to help, because God forbid he be a parent outside of the title. The staff couldn’t persuade you. And the moment you saw a chance, you bolted and hid. They had to search for you for over an hour.”
I remember that night now. I was supposed to have a hockey game, but my parents had deemed the party more important. I knew what it would look like. Hours of sitting in chairs like dolls—not being able to move, run, play, or have fun. No time on the ice. “I hid in Dad’s office.”
“And you broke your father’s favorite statue,” she adds.
My father had been enraged, red faced and livid. He’d yelled and railed and spanked me so hard it hurt to sit for days.
“You still had to sit through the party, and you lost your hockey privileges for a week.”
I remember that part, too. The boredom had nearly killed me.
“You were always mischievous, Connor. It’s one of my favorite things about you—that and the fact that you refuse to fall in line when it doesn’t suit you.
But when you find yourself in trouble, you don’t look for a way out of it, you find a way to make an even bigger mess.
All you had to do was tell Mildred the truth.
You could have owned the way you feel about her, but instead, you’ve done everything in your power to cut her down and shut her out. ”
She’s right. That’s exactly what I did.
Meems’s expression grows sad again. “Anyone who sees the way you look at her knows you’re in love. All you had to do was tell her, and she would have been yours. Now you’ll have to work ten times as hard to fix the things you’ve broken.”
“I don’t deserve her.”
“Not with the way you’re acting right now, no.
This is you self-sabotaging, Connor. You do it in your career, with your family, with your teammates.
The only person you hadn’t done it with was me.
Except now here we are. You married the woman of your dreams under the guise of making me happy.
You should have owned your feelings for Mildred from the start, because if you’re honest with yourself, they existed long before you locked her into a contract. ”
“I knew she was a good person.”
“And you liked her!”
“I liked her,” I reluctantly agree.
“And you fell in love with her!”
I look at my hands.
She sighs. “All you had to do was rip that contract up. That was it.”
“But then she would have left,” I whisper.
“No. That’s what you were afraid she would do.
So instead of putting yourself on the line, you made sure that’s what happened.
” Meems pauses for a moment, waiting for me to acknowledge this truth.
Finally I nod. “You want to fix the mess you’ve made?
Do something that makes you proud of yourself, so other people can be proud of you, too. ”
She pushes out of the chair and crosses over to me. Her soft, weathered hand rests against my shoulder, and she bends to press her lips to the top of my head. “Stop breaking your own heart.”