Chapter 28 #2
He has valid reasons, but what’s my excuse? I fell for him and lost sight of my purpose for being here in the first place.
“I always knew the truth would come out,” he says, back in the doorway with his sleeve rolled up on his forearm and the top two buttons of his shirt loosened from the holes.
His hair falls over his forehead like it’s been overworked in frustration.
Those blue eyes still hold so much warmth when he looks at me despite the chill of his words.
I shouldn’t notice such things under the circumstances, but even when he challenges or assumes the worst about me, he’s still attractive. It’s his insides that need work.
“I didn’t know how bad it had gotten until this point. And it’s so much worse than I imagined.” He shakes his head to scold me silently, and his anger begins to grow again as if it’s been watered. “You lied to get my money. When I didn’t fall for your act, you came out and asked for it.”
I’m too tired to go in the circles he wants to travel, too hurt to think clearly enough for a good comeback. I finally look up at him and say, “You missed a detail. When I was falling for you, I stopped caring about the one thing that brought me into your life.”
“Which was?”
“My family.” My chin quivering in his presence taps a source of embarrassment that makes me regret engaging. Get your stuff, Delaney, and get out, like the man wants.
“I didn’t even know your family existed before I met you—”
“That’s the problem.” Why does he have to make this so difficult?
I grab another shirt and lower it to my lap.
Pushed too far this time, I finally snap, losing any inhibition I had been restraining.
“You think you’re better than me. You always did.
Living in this high tower, only to leave each morning to go work in another, reeks of “let them eat cake.” But the people who live beneath you, the ones too busy working, barely have time to look up before you crush them under your expensive designer shoes.
Guess what, Warner? I’m one of them. My family will suffer at your hand, and you’ll never be forgiven. ”
He rolls his head back, then levels me with a glare. “Forgiveness?” His laugh holds nothing of the man I thought he was. He’s become unrecognizable, worse than the man I met in the elevator of Landers Ventures. “Business is business, sweetheart,” he says with less venom than before.
I thought I hated myself for causing this, for being pushed into a corner and saying things I knew I’d regret. I hate him more. “I wasn’t your business. I was your—”
“What were you, Sass? My girlfriend? My wife?”
“The label doesn’t matter. I should have been safe with you.”
“Nothing is safe in this city. Not if I have a say.” The severe lines tracking across his brow collapse as he pauses, seemingly losing his footing in the anger.
I thought I would be immune to attack if he loved me enough. He doesn’t, not like I love . . . loved him. His words cut like a knife. There is no coming back from this, so I let the wound bleed out. “Not even me.”
The intensity of his glare has me looking back at the suitcase.
I don’t care enough about these clothes to continue this fight.
I start to close it, but he reaches down with his eyes set on the case.
“My heart wasn’t enough. You want my shirt as well?
” He yanks a maroon tee from the stash, sending something hard flying out with it to land at his feet.
As if things weren’t bad enough already . . . I feel sicker than I already did watching him bend down and pick up the broken phone. Fuel to his already blazing fire, he looks from the phone to me and grits his teeth. “Is this what I think it is?”
I’m not going to be able to negotiate a smooth release by pleading momentary insanity. I cringe, thinking about all the things I’ve done to keep a charade going that should never have been a thing in the first place.
He says, “You’re awfully quiet for someone who claims to be innocent in all this.”
“I never claimed to be innocent or virtuous. I was doing what I thought was best.”
“Fucking me over? That’s a great fucking plan there.” His eyes ice over, the chill causing me to shiver in front of him.
My tears finally fall, unable to wager against a tyrant. “There’s no point in talking to you. You don’t want the truth like you claim. You want another apology and a yes-man. I’m not your guy for that.”
“You weren’t anything to me except a stranger who wanted me dead.” He shrugs unapologetically. “Guess what? I lived, sweetheart.”
I close the case, this time locking it, and grab the duffel bag.
Despite my push to honor his wishes, he stands in my way while I stare at his chest. I have a stubborn streak, and sometimes that involves having the last word, even when it would benefit me more to keep my mouth shut.
Looking him straight in the eyes, ignoring that my heart is shattered in my chest, I raise my chin and say, “And here I thought the accident made you a better person.”
“Guess it didn’t stick.” He moves aside.
I keep my eyes locked on his when I pass by. “You’re an asshole. You know that, Warner?”
“I’m okay being an asshole because what you see is what you get, but not with you.” He follows me down the hall just to get his licks in. “You’re so deep in your lies that you don’t even know who you are anymore, Delaney. If that’s even your real name.”
I stop and turn back, shocked by how low he’s willing to go. “You know good and well that’s my name.” I snub him by raising my nose in the air. “I wear it with pride.”
Just as I turn back, he says, “Sure as fuck could have fooled me, considering how you jumped at the opportunity to be a Landers the moment you saw an opening. You tossed it around with my doorman, worked over my mother to get on her good side, and anyone else you could force to listen while you name-dropped around the city.”
Setting the bags down, I slow clap for him. “There he is. I knew the real you was still in there somewhere. Bravo for holding back for so long.”
“Speaking of high-dollar performances, kudos to you for going the extra mile in bed.” He winks like we’re in on this together. “It really paid off.”
Anger creeps over my chest like fog, reaching my head and causing my blood to boil over. He has some freaking nerve! “How did it pay off exactly?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest to restrain my hands from breaking his other arm.
He walks around me and replies, “I’m not one to kiss and tell.”
“No. You’re just one to add insult to injury any chance you get.”
“You would know,” he says, leaning against the island. “You know the old saying, if the shoe fits.”
“Stop saying that—”
“Where’s the lie?”
I start toward him but stop myself from falling down this hole with him. Going tit for tat was never what I wanted. I get my bags and start again for the door. “I hope you feel better.”
“So much better.” He smirks, but it’s neither sexy nor cute. It’s too arrogant for that. Seems that, and money, is all he needs.
Relinquishing any power I won in that round, I reply, “You think you’re protecting yourself, that cutting me out of your life will give you back the life you once had, but you weren’t happy.
You never will be until you realize that losing me won’t make you whole.
Sure, me and all the lies we built our relationship on will be out of sight, but they’ll never be out of mind because I reached the one thing you didn’t even know you had.
A heart. And what becomes of that when there’s no one left to tend to it?
” I can be indignant all I want, but on the other side of that coin lies what hurts me most—losing him.
So I walk toward that door, trying so desperately to hold myself together until I can break down in private, well aware that losing him was never about losing access to his world despite what he thinks or insinuates.
I never needed expensive dresses or invites to balls or events at The Met, or to attend weddings at the Plaza, for that matter.
I was content with hot dogs on the street, Sunday dinners with my family, and falling asleep in his arms like I was his and he was mine, in spite of knowing it would only last a short time.
While he lets his heart disappear, I walk away from him, knowing mine will no longer be intact either. How could it be when the beats I felt were his all along?
“You gave up on me when I was still holding out hope. All I wanted was the person I was given a glimpse of the night at dinner with your family. That was the real you that the lies couldn’t disguise. Where did she go?”
With my toes facing the final door of this obstacle, I look back over my shoulder. “You never really let me in. So you win, Warner. You have this penthouse all to yourself again.”
He opens the door for me, though I’m certain it’s not from chivalry. As soon as I step into the hall, he slams it closed. The latching of the bolts is the final blow. I’m no longer welcome here.
I no longer have Warner.
He’s right because he lost me, but I also lost myself along the way.
Cutting through the lobby, Keith stands when he sees me. His eyes dart to the bags I’m carrying, and then he asks, “Going on a trip, Mrs. Landers?”
“Going home.” He holds the door open for me, and when I walk out into the June night air, I say, “Keith, it’s Bayetti. My name is Delaney Bayetti.”
The empathy in his smile makes my heart clench, like he saw through me the whole time. “That’s a pretty name, Ms. Bayetti.” I’d tell him to call me Delaney, but we know we won’t be seeing each other again.
“Thank you. Take care, okay?”
He tips his hat before I turn and head for the nearest train station.
Despite the fight I had upstairs, I can still appreciate how nice this neighborhood is.
It has a charm about it, but maybe it’s too pristine for someone like me, someone who needs to feel the pulse of the city.
Two blocks down, I can just make out his building, but the penthouse is too far above me to see.
This is it.
The tension in my body begins to alleviate, breathing coming easier as if I’d been holding it since the moment we met.
But as soon as I hop on the train, those tears I held back at his apartment fall carelessly from the corners of my eyes.
The emotion of the day is finally hitting a tipping point that I can no longer balance.
I need to finally admit the truth. It’s not the emotion.
It’s the loss of Warner that hits hardest.
Trying my best to swipe the running mascara from under my eyes, I stop outside the restaurant, catching sight of my mom through the window.
She’s bustling through tables with plates in her hands and a big smile on her face while my dad laughs with a group of men seated in the corner booth.
He glides to the next, sharing his joy, like he always did with us kids, ensuring everyone who dines at the restaurant feels at home.
I carry on, tugging open the door and going upstairs to enter the apartment. As soon as I enter the room, I kick the door closed and drop the bags in the middle of the floor before falling onto the bed and crying some more.