CHAPTER SIXTEEN #2
“I was never yours!” I yell. “I only started dating you because I thought my husband divorced me and didn’t love me.
I thought he had moved on and didn’t want to be a part of his daughter’s life.
” My chest is heaving and I’m short of breath.
“How could you ever think it was okay to keep me from him and my family? I had a thriving business that I gave up, thinking this was going to be temporary. Brody, you can talk all you want about Levi being a monster but you are no different.” I’m shaking with rage and Zeus is nudging me to sit down but I can’t. I need to get some distance from him.
“So, what? You’re just going to run back to him with open arms? What about me? What about what we shared here for the past two years? Two months?” He goes to stand. “And stop calling him your husband when he divorced your ass when you were placed under arrest.”
I’ve never been driven to violence in my life, other than when I slapped Levi at the restaurant, but I could easily punch Brody in the face right now.
“Newsflash, Levi and I are still married. He had it stopped when he found out that his father did it against his wishes.” I narrow my eyes.
“And I never said that I would run back to him. He and I have a lot of issues that we have to work through, but even if I do that would be my decision.” I point to my chest.
“And us? What about us?” Brody points back and forth between us.
“How can there ever be an us when I was manipulated into moving on with someone who knew my husband was turning the world upside down looking for me?”
He looks as though I’ve struck him, but what did he think would come of this once the truth was out, and that he played a major role in keeping a wife from her husband and a child from their real father.
Then it hits me like a ton of bricks. Levi has been looking for me like crazy since he woke up.
All doubts of him not wanting me are gone.
He didn’t stand a chance to find me when DA Buttons hid me by not putting me in the real Witness Protection.
Levi never stood a chance. If he didn’t have the resources at his disposal then he might never have found me.
I’d go on living my life thinking he hated me and never wanted our child.
Would Grandma and Grandpa have kept my secret? I know that my grandparents would’ve.
Am I still mad at Levi for keeping me in the dark about the threats to me and Halo? Yes. But it does soften the blow knowing that he’s broken down every door looking for me and Halo.
The guilt of what happened last night settles heavily on my chest, and I need to tell Brody the truth, or I’m no better than him.
“Brody, something happened last night with Levi,” I start, and am having a hard time looking him in the eyes.
“I… I didn’t stay at Grandma’s house. Instead, I got drunk at a bar with Everly in town and somehow Levi was there and took me back to his hotel.
I’m not going to torture you with the details, but you can guess what happened. ”
He starts to pace the room and pulls at the collar of his shirt. He’s mumbling things I can’t hear but finally, he stops and turns back to me.
“Okay,” he says and continues. “I can understand and rationalize that. A lot was thrown at you in the last few days and I can look past last night. But please Sadie, let’s not rush any decisions right now when the tension is so high. I know I’ve kept things from you but…”
“Are you delusional? There are no buts, Brody. What did you think was going to happen when all this blew up in your face? You can’t even call me by my real name.
This isn’t real, Brody. You put me and Halo in your real-life fantasy.
My daughter has been calling the wrong man ‘daddy’ and he has missed so much of her life already. ”
“Honestly, I never thought it was. The more time went by, the more I thought we’d really become that married couple that everyone here thinks we are. You were finally in a good place, opening your heart again, and I know that I could’ve made you happy until we were old.”
“Even if that were true, our relationship was based on a lie. A lie that you knew about from the start. No relationship could ever survive this kind of dishonesty. Just because you say the sky is green doesn’t make it true, and telling yourself that you love me doesn’t make that true either.
You knew how I struggled with leaving Los Angeles and how heartbroken I was.
How could you sit there and watch me cry for days, knowing my husband actually cared and wanted me back?
I don’t think I could ever forgive you for this.
I couldn’t care less about me but when my daughter is affected by this, you’ve closed your own coffin. ”
“So that’s it. We’re done and I’m never going to see you or Halo again?”
I haven’t really thought that far ahead really, but I guess we are. How can I be with one man when I’m still married to another? I’m not even sure that I’d want to be with someone who deceived me for two years anyway.
Brody walks back over to me and holds my hand as he sits down.
“I’m sorry, Sadie—Saylor. I think after losing my last relative and realizing that I was the only family member left, I latched on to you.
Halo came shortly after and I had the picture-perfect family wrapped in a bow at my fingertips.
” I can hear the sadness in his voice and my heart aches for him.
I know he wanted a family really bad, but you can’t just steal someone else’s.
“At first, I know we were playing a role but as time went on it felt right, and the more I let myself believe that this was real the more I wanted to make it happen in reality. Consequences be damned.”
We sit in silence for a while, taking in everything with both of us lost in our own thoughts. Never did I think that this is how my life would’ve turned out when I moved to LA.
“Please don’t hate me, Saylor,” Brody pleads after a while.
“I don’t hate you Brody, but I can’t say that I’m not mad as hell.
We all played a role in all of this, it’s not just one person’s fault.
” I lean forward and prop my elbows up on my knees and my head goes to my hands, hiding my face.
“I need to get mine and Halo’s things, we’re going to be staying at Grandma and Grandpa’s house or with Glammy and Granddad. ”
“What? No Saylor, you don’t have to leave. This is yours and Halo’s home,” he pleads.
“It really is not, Brody. This is your home and I think that my husband finding me and our daughter has changed things completely. Especially, now that the truth is out.”
He looks so sad and it breaks my heart that I’m the one who did that, but I can’t be here with him after learning the truth from his own mouth. I really feel like I have no fight left in me after the last few days. When is there going to be peace in my life?
I’ve got several bags of our stuff and most of my clothes and bathroom items from my room, along with my birth control pills and Halo’s vitamins from the kitchen.
I didn’t really have anything in Brody’s room, even though he had pushed to move all my things into his.
Brody helped carry everything out to the truck when an SUV pulled up to the front porch.
Ryan steps out and I’m glad to see that he is alone.
I don’t think I could handle another pissing match again.
“Mrs. Thorne I can take you anywhere you’d like.”
“Thanks Ryan, and can we go back to calling me Saylor?”
“Of course, Saylor.” He smirks, and it feels nice to have him around again. He grabs the bags in my hands and places them in the back of the SUV.
Ryan was a nice guy when he was my security. Once we established a boss/friendship, it made it easy to have him around all the time. He kind of reminds me of the brother I never had.
“Saylor, you can take your truck, you don’t need to be driven around,” Brody spouts off.
I know I could but it doesn’t belong to me; it belongs to him and I need to distance myself from him.
When the car is packed, I turn back to Brody and for the first time since meeting him, I’m nervous to be around him. We’ve acted like a married couple from the moment we met and now things are… different and I’m not sure how to be around him.
He starts before I can, “Please call me when you’re ready to talk. I know I went about this the wrong way but I do love you and Halo very much. I’d love to still get to see and play around the ranch with her.”
This is so hard because I want to say not a chance in hell, but I can’t bring myself to hit him with another blow.
I’m not one to revel in someone’s pain, and even though he did what he did, I can’t kick him while he’s down.
Halo already has a daddy, and I don’t want to confuse her any more than she is going to be.
But something is nagging me and I didn’t want to add to this fire that is already separating us, but I need to know.
“What did you do with the photos I had you mail? The ones where you told me you sent them off.”
I already know the answer because everything that Levi and Mitch said yesterday has been confirmed by Brody. But I want him to say the words so he understands how hurtful and wrong it was of him to do this.
He steadies himself against the front of the SUV and hangs his head.
“They’re in a file in the lower cabinet in my office.
” He sounds as defeated as I am right now, but I don’t have the capacity to help myself and him.
My left hand feels weighted down as I catch the sight of his rings on my finger.
Gently, I pull them off and drop them into his front pocket of his shirt.