23. Callum
23
CALLUM
“ A nd the next piece is a unique, one-of-a-kind painting submitted by Eloise Beck,” the MC of the gala calls the next item for auction to the stage.
“Christ. I should have reviewed the script before tonight,” I mutter to myself as I carry Eloise’s painting onto the stage.
Mr. Bronson isn’t a bad guy, but sometimes he does stuff that makes you question his motives. The man isn’t opposed to a bit of exploitation if it means he makes a buck. Beck is not her surname. She has never used the name Beck. Her father’s name is Grey. I realize the Beck name makes this piece more enticing, but Eloise has gone out of her way to distance herself from the Beck legacy. Not to mention, this painting is coming home with me regardless. Tipper’s name swap only means I’ll be forking up more money to take it home.
After setting the piece on the easel, my eyes naturally float to Eloise, excited to see her reaction when her painting is revealed, but when my eyes settle on her, I don’t see nerves or trepidation. I see distress. She looks like she’s about to break down. What the hell? That’s when I notice Sherry has helped herself to my vacated seat. Shit. This is not happening. Tonight is not going at all like I had planned. I knew I shouldn’t have left Eloise with her. It ran the risk of her hearing things. I wasn’t hiding things from her, per se. It was more like I was waiting for the best time to tell her, and that hadn’t quite come around yet.
I attempt to will her eyes to focus on me, but she’s not seeing me. She’s seeing through me, and I can’t get off this stage quick enough. My hands remove the cloth from the painting with the MC’s prompt and two things happen. The crowd oohs and aahs, and my girl bolts. Fuck. I try to exit the stage as calmly as possible so as not to cause a scene, but the second I’m off the stage, my feet break into a sprint as sheer panic sets in. This isn’t happening. She’s not leaving me.
“Eloise!” I call after her as she hastily makes her way toward the valet stand. She stops but doesn’t turn around. “What are you doing?” I ask as I catch up to her.
“I needed some air.”
“Really?” I pant. “Because it looks like you were running.”
“That’s because I was.”
She still doesn’t turn around, which doesn’t work for me, so I step in front of her. When I look at her, she doesn’t return my gaze. Instead, she looks anywhere but at me. What the actual fuck? Maybe I had it wrong. Maybe Sherry didn’t say anything because out of all the reactions I saw playing out when I told her about our past, this isn’t one of them.
“Are you running from me?”
“Yes… no… I don’t know.” She runs her hands through her hair.
“You promised!” I step toward her. “You promised you wouldn’t leave me. You swore it.”
She takes a step back. “Yeah, well, promises are made to be broken.”
“Are you serious right now?” I demand, my tone unable to hide the outrage building inside. “What the hell is going on, Eloise? We were fine?—”
“Were we?” she booms. Her eyes finally focus on mine, and I see hurt. “You knew. All this time, you knew who I was. From day one, you lied to me.” She throws her arms wide. “All we’ve done is lie to each other. We stood back there tonight and professed that there were no more secrets between us, but Blair was right… there’re always secrets.”
“Did Sherry say something? Is that what this is about?” I reach for her hand. “I can explain?—”
She pulls out of my hold. “It doesn’t matter anymore. None of this matters. I have to get out of here.” She stomps off toward the valet and I follow hot on her heels.
“I’m coming with you.”
“You should stay.”
“The fuck if I’m staying anywhere you’re not. History is not repeating itself. I didn’t chase you before. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”
She shakes her head, not pleased with my choice, but she doesn’t argue. She knows it would be useless. Turning to the valet, his eyes widen as he knows he has just witnessed a private conversation.
“Miss Grey…” he stutters out nervously. “When I saw you coming, I tried to get the car, but there are too many vehicles parked around it?—”
She holds up her hand. “Whose car is this?”
He looks at the other valet for an answer. “This is Miss Wyndham’s car.”
“Perfect. I’ll take it. She can take my car when she leaves. It’s nicer anyway.”
“Ma’am, I don’t know?—”
“I’ll give you a thousand dollars to hand me the keys.”
His eyebrows shoot up in surprise, but he doesn’t object. Instead, he wordlessly hands me the keys. I open the passenger side door, but Eloise doesn’t move.
“Get in the car, Eloise,” I say firmly.
I know why she paused. She was giving me another chance to stay, but I won’t be swayed. My mother’s legacy means the world to me, but Eloise is my world. She rolls her eyes, annoyed that I’ve taken it upon myself to join her rather than stay, but I couldn’t care less. She doesn’t get to walk away from me.
When I climb into the driver’s seat, I don’t ask her to tell me why she’s upset. Instead, I give her my story. “Our mothers were best friends. I’m assuming Sherry mentioned that tonight.” Pulling out of the roundabout, I glance over to gauge her reaction. She rolls her lips, and I know that detail came up, and it’s at least part of why she’s upset. “You were wrong before when you said I knew all along. I didn’t. The day I met you, I didn’t know who you were. I didn’t know you were Eloise Grey or that our mothers were best friends. Those details didn’t reveal themselves to me until after I had already fallen for you.
“I can prove I’m telling you the truth. I was always going to tell you.” Damn it, this isn’t how I wanted to do things, but I need to give her a reason, one that’s big enough that she’ll understand. I check the pocket inside my sports coat to confirm my insurance is still there. “Eloise, I was going?—”
“Just stop, Cal. Please, this already hurts enough. Don’t make it worse.”
“Why can’t you see I’m trying to make it stop hurting?”
“Because you can’t!” she yells.
I hit the steering wheel. “I don’t accept that, Eloise. What we have is worth fighting for.” My hands twist around the wheel. “Do you love me?”
Her lip trembles. “You know I do.”
“Then you fight. We fight for the things we love. We fight together.”
“You don’t understand. It doesn’t matter if I love you, not anymore. You’ll never be able to love me the same way I do you.”
“That’s my choice, Eloise!” I attempt to rein in my mounting frustration. “You don’t get to tell me how I feel. What makes you think I’d choose any future that doesn’t include you?” My eyes flick between her and the road.
“Because truths can’t be undone.”
“What does that even mean?” I angrily run a hand through my hair.
“You have a trust, one your father never told you about and one that my mother is the successor executor on.”
“Okay…” My grandfather owned one of the biggest hockey franchises in Canada before he passed. It makes sense that he would have left his fortune to my mother, given she was an only child, but I’m not following the rest. I told her I didn’t care about the money. What I haven’t figured out is why she cares so much. She doesn’t need it either. “How does having a trust change things between us?”
“Your father and my mother both knew a trust existed, yet neither of them has told us about it.”
“So you think they’re working together to take it without my knowledge?”
“Maybe, but that’s not what this is about. We’ve always known your father is greedy, but it’s his words, Cal. Remember what I told you he said to me the night I found out I was pregnant.”
I narrow my eyes on the tree-lined road that winds off the estate, trying to recall the words that have her running away from me now.
“We all have skeletons, and I know where yours are buried.”
My eyes widen as my heart skips a beat, and my mind quickly follows the direction of her thoughts. I turn to her, and when I do, her eyes are full of sorrow and hurt.
“Remember what you insinuated about your father at the hospital? How you weren’t sure he didn’t look the other way on your mother’s health…” She squeezes her eyes closed. “You were right to suspect your dad, but I don’t know how you’ll ever be able to look at me the same, knowing my mother helped him.”
Bright lights illuminate the car, and we both turn toward the front window.
“Cal, look out,” she screeches as another car careens to swerve and misses a downed tree in the middle of the road. I slam my foot on the brakes, but the car doesn’t respond. “Cal!” she screams in terror.
“The brakes aren’t working,” I bellow as I turn hard to avoid hitting the tree head-on. “Hold on,” I shout as I try to keep the car from spinning out of control, but the snowpack on the side of the road is frozen—the car tailspins as I try to correct it. The fear in her eyes connects with mine right before there’s a searing pain in my chest that knocks the wind out of my lungs, and everything fades in and out as I struggle to find my breath and open my eyes.
My whole body hurts like I just took the most brutal fucking hit of my career as my mind battles my body’s desire to dissociate and cope. My head lulls from side to side. “Eloise,” I force out, trying to move more than just my neck. My heart starts pounding when I don’t hear a response, and I breathe heavily out of my nose. “Eloise,” I grind out louder but still nothing. Fuck. I dig deep. I bend my body to my will, and finally, my fingers move. I clench and flex, clench and flex as I continue to move my head from side to side until, finally, I’m able to open my eyes. My vision is blurry, and I blink rapidly to get them to focus. That’s when I see her. In the passenger seat, slumped against a broken window with blood running down her temple, is my whole world.
“No, no, no.” I reach for her arm and shake it. “Eloise, Eloise, baby, can you hear me?” My hand drifts to hers, and it’s ice cold. “Fuck! You’re not leaving me. You promised you wouldn’t leave,” I say, pulling her sleeve up and searching her wrist for a pulse. I try to settle my shaking hands, my fear and adrenaline working against me. “Damn it,” I breathe through my nose, taking long, slow breaths while I frantically move my index and middle fingers, probing for a heartbeat. Finally, I find a beat. I wait to see if I’ll feel another, to ensure it’s not my mind playing tricks on me, willing something to exist that’s not there. I feel another and reach for my door handle. I have to get her out of the car. I need to get her flat. If she’s knocked out, her sitting position isn’t helping to get the blood flow to her brain.
As soon as I open the door, Dash is there. “Cal?” he asks, surprised to find that I’m the vehicle’s driver.
“You have no idea how happy I am to see you. Can you call nine-one-one?” I ask as I stand a little too quick, and a dizzy spell has me grasping the door.
“I called the second I saw your car spin out. They’re on their way. The weight of the ice must have brought that tree down, and with no lights on these back roads, you don’t see it until you’re on it.”
“Eloise is hurt. I need to get her out,” I say as I round the car.
“Eloise is with you? Why aren’t you at the gala?”
I wave my hand. “I’ll explain later. She hit her head, and she’s not responding. I need to get her, Dash,” I try to keep my panic at bay.
“Shit,” we curse in unison when we see her door pinned against the tree I slid into.
I rake my hands through my hair. The car is smashed up but mainly on her side. “Let me see if I can back up.” I rush back into the driver’s seat. Seeing her limp body again kills me slowly. “Eloise, I’m going to fix this. I’m going to make this better, I promise. Just don’t leave me, blondie.” The wheels spin when I put the car in reverse and slowly step on the gas. “Come on.” I pound on the dash, pressing the pedal into the floor harder.
“Stop,” Dash calls out. “I have an idea,” he says, removing his coat before shoving it behind my right rear wheel. “Go again,” he calls out.
I apply gas lightly, hoping the fabric of his coat catches, and the second I feel it grip, I push hard. “Yes,” I cheer as though that small win is the most significant victory of my entire life, and maybe it is because I don’t see how saving the girl I love is anything but the ultimate win. She’s my whole life. I can’t lose her.
When I round the car to open her door, the guardian angel my mother sent in the form of Dash Westin says, “I’ll open the door slowly. You catch her.”
I nod. “Yeah, good plan.” When he goes to open it, we both let out a sigh of relief when it gives and opens. Her unconscious body falls into my arms, and the way her neck flops to one side has me swallowing down the contents of my stomach. That’s not good. “You’re not going to die on me. This isn’t how our story ends, Eloise Grey, do you hear me?” I grind through clenched teeth as I lay her flat on the ground before hastily removing my jacket and delicately placing it under her head.
“Fuck,” Dash says, the fear in his tone palpable. “Did you check for a pulse?”
“I thought I felt one in the car,” I say as I bring my hand to the side of her neck for a better reading. Sirens can finally be heard in the background, but they don’t bring me peace. I need them to fix her. I’m not loading her on a stretcher any other way. I refuse to accept the alternative. “Shit.” My eyes get glassy.
“You’re not doing it right. Your fingers are too high.” Dash drops to his knees beside me. “You were too close to her ear. You need to be right here.” He moves my fingers. “Just below the jaw, next to her windpipe.”
I anxiously hold my breath, unable to stomach what comes next, and then I feel it. “It’s beating.” Elation floods into my tone. “It’s fucking beating.”
“Thank God.” He grabs her hand. “Lou, can you hear us?” Running his thumb over the back, he says, “If you can hear us, move your fingers.”
“She’s so cold,” I say when I grab her other hand. I lean down and cradle her face, careful not to move her neck, and breathe against her ear. “I know I hurt you. I know I’ve messed up and maybe I don’t deserve you, but you’re going to wake up and give me those words, blondie.” I gently kiss the side of her face.
“Cal, look,” Dash exclaims. I turn to him and their joined hands, where I see her thumb is steadily tapping against his. “She’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay, Lou. The ambulance is coming.”
The lights of the ambulance pull our eyes toward the truck that’s now sitting on the other side of the downed tree. They’re not going to be able to get around it. “Dash, go tell them we’re over here. Tell them we need a stretcher.”
He kisses the top of her hand. “On it. Hang in there, Eloise.”
“You’re going to be okay,” I say as I brush back the bloody hairs stuck to the side of her forehead, getting a better look at her injury. That’s when I see what caused all the blood. There’s a shard of glass lodged into the side of her temple. My hand shakes as I search my pockets for my phone to take a better look. Bringing the light to the side of her head, I can’t tell how deep the glass is wedged in there, and while my first instinct is to pull it out and make it better, I know I can’t. I can’t risk it.
I move the light to her face to examine her other injuries, and when I do, I catch sight of her eyes fluttering closed.
“Bright,” she croaks.
“My new favorite word. Baby, I love you.” I kiss her blood-smeared forehead. “I love you so damn much.”
“Sir, we’re going to need you to back away,” a paramedic says, arriving on the scene.
“I’m not going anywhere, blondie. I’m right here, baby,” I say, stepping aside to let the medics help her.
“Ma’am, can you speak?”
Her eyes flick over the people surrounding her as she lies on the ground.
“She just opened her eyes. The impact of the car hitting the tree knocked her out cold,” I answer for her.
“Sir, are you hurt?” One of the medics does a double take when he sees me.
“No, I’m fine. Take care of her.”
“You’re bleeding.”
I look down and don’t see anything.
“On your face.”
I reach for my cheek, and my hand is instantly slicked. “The airbags deployed. It’s probably just a burn.”
“I’ll take a look,” another medic offers.
“No, I’m refusing treatment. Take care of the girl.”
“Miss, can you tell me your name?” He tries again.
“Eloise…” she rasps. “Eloise Grey.”
“Eloise, what hurts the most right now?”
“My head,” she answers, squeezing her eyes shut with a grimace.
“Eloise, we are going to get you on the stretcher. I’m going to put this brace around your neck before we move you.”
“Okay.” She swallows before they carefully tend to her neck, lift her onto the gurney, and cover her with a blanket. Her face contorts in pain as they move her, and I want to rage. It’s my damn fault she’s hurting at all. I’m the reason she ran. I was driving the car.
The four medics pick up the stretcher and start toward the ambulance. I pick up my jacket, and Dash and I follow the paramedics back to the waiting ambulance.
“We’re going to take her to St. Catherine’s,” one of the men says as they load her in the back.
“I’m riding along,” I state surely.
“Only family can ride along. I’m sorry.”
“I am her family. I’m her husband.”
“Dash, we are not married,” she answers, her voice cracking. I pinch the bridge of my nose. Does she think I’m Dash now? The two paramedics share a questionable look, and I think quickly.
“She hit her head,” I say as I squeeze by the medic and climb into the ambulance.
“It’s okay, baby.” I grasp her hand. “I found your ring on the floorboard when I lifted you out,” I say as I slip a diamond ring on her finger.
Her eyes widen, and she waggles her ring finger, examining the diamond I just placed on it. “Cal?—”
“Shhh.” I put my fingers to her lips and look to see that the medics bought my bluff. When I see they’re appeased, I add, “I told you I wasn’t going to ask.”
“But—” she tries.
I shake my head. She might have a head injury, but she knows my name, and her memories are alive and well because I already know what she’s about to say.
“But nothing. We’ll figure this out. What you said doesn’t change anything for me. When I said I loved you, it didn’t come with conditions. And if what you said is true”—I shrug—“call us even.” Her brow furrows. “That brake issue wasn’t a coincidence.”
Her eyebrows rise. “But that wasn’t our car.”
“Nope. It was Blair’s. She was no longer useful to him.”