35. CHRIS
35
CHRIS
T he cabin was painfully empty. The room had been stripped of Bella’s presence, leaving only the faintest scent of her perfume in the air, mingling with the cool breeze from the AC unit that hadn’t been turned off.
Absently, I picked up the remote and turned it off. She wasn’t here anymore, so it didn’t matter, did it?
It felt like walking into a ghost of a moment, a space that still felt hers even though she wasn’t here anymore. My gut twisted and I felt sick to my stomach. I’d swallowed a cocktail of regret and anger and it didn’t sit well in my gut.
But this was my fucking life, wasn’t it? All the good stuff for the rest of the world, all of the fucked-up bullshit for my personal life.
The yacht bobbed on the water as I stepped further inside. Down here, on the servants’ deck, I felt the movement of the water so much more. The divide between my world and this one was so painfully clear. And it echoed the rift between me and Bella.
One I’d pretty much created for myself, right?
When I looked around, bitterness rose in my throat like bile. She’d left so easily, so completely. The perfectly made bed, the empty closet, the toothbrush missing from the sink—all of it felt like a punch to the gut. My hands balled into fists and I gritted my teeth before I moved to the small desk tucked into the corner.
I didn’t even know why I was looking or what I was looking for.
Something—anything—that could remind me of her. Something to hold onto.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked myself.
I didn’t know anymore.
I opened the drawer even though I didn’t expect to find anything. A stack of neatly organized papers lay in the drawer, and I frowned, picking them up.
Had she forgotten them? It seemed unlike Bella to forget anything—the rest of the room was almost as if she’d never been here.
I flipped through the pages, and as I scanned the words, my heart sank.
Detailed notes. Copies of emails. Even photos.
Where the hell had Bella found this?
It looked like a blueprint of Eli’s plan to undercut me and my company. Bella had mapped out every angle, every move he’d made to undermine my business. The bastard wasn’t just spreading rumors; he’d been working on a calculated campaign to steal my clients one by one… until there was nothing left.
Pages outlined how Eli had planted seeds of doubt in our investors, using whispers and half-truths to make them question Blackwood Yachts’ stability.
Another section detailed how he’d approached one of our suppliers, offering a better deal to lock us out. He’d even compiled false complaints about our designs, leaking them to industry blogs to chip away at our reputation.
My throat tightened as I stared at the evidence. Bella had been collecting all of this. She’d said she’d done it to protect me.
It looked like she’d done exactly that.
Fuck.
I didn’t know what to think.
I sank down onto the small chair and pushed my hand into my hair. Guilt nailed into my chest, searing hot. I’d fucked up again, hadn’t I?
But that was my modus operandi . That was what I did. I was Chris Blackwood.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, jarring me from my thoughts. An unknown number across the screen, and for a moment, I considered ignoring it. But what if it was a client? Work? Something that could save this shitshow, stop my entire career, my reputation from sinking?
“Blackwood,” I answered.
“Chris,” a voice said the second I picked up, one sharp and cutting. “You screwed up.”
“Who the fuck is this?”
“It’s Gigi,” she said. “Bella’s friend? You weren’t too wasted to remember me, right?”
Oh, the friend that had partied with us that night. I remembered her now—a bit of a weirdo with blonde hair and homemade jewelry, always traveling. She was Bella’s best friend.
I sank back in the little chair.
“Thanks for the reminder,” I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose. I wasn’t just talking about the reminder of who she was. “It’s not like I’m sitting here basking in my good decisions.”
Her sigh crackled through the line, followed by a pause that felt like judgment incarnate. “I’m serious, Chris. You let your past screw up your future. Again.”
“What the hell would you know about it?” I snapped.
“I’ve been with Bella all the way, and we talk. Don’t you know how women work? No, don’t answer that. But I’m serious. You’re the only one letting this happen.”
“And what the hell am I supposed to do about it?” My voice came out sharper than I meant, but I didn’t bother softening it. “She lied to me. She snuck around with Eli. Did she tell you about that, too?”
“Of course, she did. You know she was doing it for you, right?”
“It’s a tough pill to swallow,” I said gruffly. “How am I supposed to just get over the fact that she was with someone else for my sake? Do you hear how twisted that even sounds?”
“She wasn’t sneaking around,” Gigi said. “She was trying to help you, Chris.”
“I know,” I finally admitted, staring at the papers. “I found all her research. She left it in her desk drawer.”
“Well, then you know what’s real and what isn’t. Maybe if you’d stop wallowing in your own damn insecurities for five minutes, you’d see that.”
“Jesus, sugarcoat it, why don’t you?”
“The way I see it, you’re not thinking straight,” Gigi said. “And since you’ve been the person she’s been talking about for years, I feel like I know you, and I have the liberty to say all of this to you.”
“You don’t get it,” I said, and my voice cracked. Damn it, I hated sounding so vulnerable. “I can’t be what she needs. I… I’ll just ruin it. I always ruin it. It’s in my DNA, or something.”
“Bullshit.” The word was blunt and unapologetic. “You’re using your past as an excuse to keep people out. Yeah, you’ve been hurt. I get it.”
“You really don’t,” I said with an emotionless laugh. “How could you?”
Gigi stayed quiet, and for some reason, the silence pulled it all out of me. Someone might as well know.
“My dad was a dick. He drank all the time and when he drank, he hit us. Me, my mom…” I swallowed hard. “My mom was an emotional mess. I mean, who could blame her? But when she decided it was enough, she left. She just didn’t bother to take me with her. So, I stayed behind to be the punching bag, the target of my dad’s fury until the state finally caught wind of it and took me away.”
“Chris…” Gigi said, all the reprimand gone out of her voice. “I didn’t know.”
“I never told anyone before you,” I admitted.
“If you tell Bella, she might see things differently.”
I laughed bitterly. “I don’t have what it takes to be the man she needs. She deserves so much better than that life.”
“Then be better than that life,” Gigi said as if it was that fucking simple. “Your parents were a disaster. But you’re a Blackwood now, aren’t you? Aren’t they the parents you look up to?”
“Well, yeah. That just doesn’t change where I came from.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Gigi agreed. “But it does change where you go. You get to choose, you know. So, your birth parents were a disaster. That doesn’t mean you have to be, too. You came from a shitty past, and I’m not even going to try to understand what that kind of hell had to have been like. I just know that what your past was doesn’t have to define your future.”
I stared at the papers in front of me and my chest was tight. She was right. I was hiding behind the shadows of my past, letting them dictate my future. And in doing so, I’d pushed away the one person who had been fighting for me all this time.
Bella had always been there for me, from the very start. That’s all she’d ever done.
Nice going, asshole.
“Chris,” Gigi finally said. “You’re the only one who can change this. The only one who can decide if you’re going to let your past win. But if you keep this up, you’re going to lose everything. And not because you’re not good enough, but because you didn’t even try.”
Fuck. She was right, again.
The line went quiet, her words hanging heavy in the air. I rubbed a hand over my face.
“What do I do?” The question slipped out before I could stop it, raw and vulnerable in a way I didn’t like one fucking bit.
“You start by fixing this,” she said simply. “You find Bella, and you tell her the truth. About everything. No more walls. No more bullshit. You owe her that much. After that? You get to decide.”
The call ended, but it felt like her words echoed all around me.
You get to decide.
I looked back at the papers, the evidence of Bella’s loyalty spread out before me. It was like a mirror reflecting all the ways I’d failed her.
But maybe it wasn’t too late.
Bella had believed in me, even when I couldn’t believe in myself. I had to find the courage to do the same.
I wasn’t sure if I could fix this, but Gigi was right. I tried not to let the fact that Bella’s best friend had just berated the shit out of me smart too much.
The only way forward was to try. I realized now that I’d had something worth fighting for all these years, and I’d been an idiot to let her slip through my fingers again and again. I couldn’t let that keep happening.
Even if that was the only good thing I ended up doing—I wasn’t going to let my past win. Not again.