THIRTY-FOUR
Cece
We’ve barely taken two steps outside the main door when I come to an abrupt halt. A tired, pained laugh escapes me. “Ass cheeks,” I say, voice cracking.
Levi quickly turns me to face him, his gaze studying with an intensity that’s become his normal. It’s bizarre to see him this attuned to my every reaction.
Unfortunately for him, I’m still struggling to understand the source of most of my actions.
“I said ass cheeks,” I repeat through another bout of laughter. “To my mother.”
The grin forms first, and then he throws his head back, laughing right along with me. “God! I should’ve recorded that for Vi.”
My shoulders shake under his hold, and before I can think twice, I raise my hand to tug at his suit lapel.
It’s slowly becoming a thing again. My signal. So much so that I rarely hesitate anymore. But I’m still fully aware of my actions, unlike before, when hesitation didn’t dictate my hands—instincts did.
I want those instincts back. The ones that didn’t pause to check for trust before following through.
One tug, and I’m enveloped by his warmth. Our chests shuddering with laughter still.
“I missed your press conference,” I mumble, my voice muffled against his chest. “I had it queued and everything. But my parents wouldn’t stop talking. I couldn’t even have it on in the background.”
“Ack! It’s okay. Went fine. You knew the agenda anyway.”
I lean back to look at him, his face content and relieved for some reason. “You really resigned, huh?”
He grins softly, wiggling his brows. “So… when is my interview with the Wentworth Group?”
I snort, poking at his sides before pulling us both toward his parked car. Even this small, insignificant touch seems like a thought-out master plan to my brain. Every movement of my muscles is trained on control these days.
I think my parents’ words got to me. And I find myself actually believing that I’ve lost control of myself. That the difficult circumstances have caused my behavior to no longer align with the Wentworth values.
God knows what those ‘values’ are. But I do know I’m no longer contained within them.
It almost feels like a choice. A decision I made by myself. An assertion of some deluded, self-proclaimed bravado that I’m embracing my diagnosis instead of suppressing it.
But all I think I’m doing is giving the world more of my vulnerable self. A self I’m yet to understand. And becoming an embarrassing mess while I’m at it.
Shaking off the morose train of thought, I look at Levi, a small, teasing smile on my face. “I think you botched it before it could even happen, Mr. Astor. Samuel Wentworth will never hire you now.”
“Fuck. Why did I forget he’s still the chairman?”
I giggle softly because his voice is still light with amusement. There’s no worry lacing his tone. I wonder if it’s because this was truly what he wanted, or if he’s stupidly confident about being voted back in.
He rambles on about the press conference on our way back home. About the invasive questions he ‘expertly answered’.
I was going to watch it myself later anyway.
But there was a different lilt to his voice today. A palpable sense of relief in every word he uttered.
That’s when it hits me.
It wasn’t as though I didn’t know the outcome of his resignation—I obviously did. He’d said it a dozen times in the past few weeks.
But I hadn’t let myself actually think about the consequences until right at that moment.
“The clause,” I whisper. “It’s—”
“Gone, baby. The clause is gone.”
My mind starts running faster than the speed of this caging, metal machine I’m in. There’s a rapid, rhythmic sound pulsing near my ear, and I realize it’s simply my heart trying to beat out of my body.
Questions—so many questions—clang against my skull, obliterating seconds before my throat can even create the sounds. My lips twitch, contorting into words I want to force out. But nothing comes.
No sound.
No words.
No thought.
Panic attack. That’s what this is. Or at least a start of one. With an alarming frequency of at least once a day, I can easily recognize the signs now.
But this one is oddly silent. I think I can even breathe through the throbbing burn in my chest. I realize that I haven’t been surviving through them for years. I’ve just been becoming accustomed to them.
And since living with Levi for the past few weeks, I’ve even trained my muscles to remain numb while my insides scream through the searing pain of terror.
He’s still talking like nothing is happening. Like I’m not floundering to escape the chaotic labyrinth of questions still forming and dissipating before I can grasp at any one of them.
Ask him.
How? Ask him what?
Suddenly, my mind slips into a void—a place where the only sensory thing I can feel is numbness. The questions, the clarifications I was seeking, screech to a halt.
When I continue to remain silent, unable to respond to him, I feel his gaze darting between me and the traffic.
“Cece? Baby, are you okay?” His frantic voice punches through the low roar in my ears.
I nod, at least I think I do.
“We’re almost home, okay? Just one more minute. We’re almost there.”
I don’t think he’s lying for my benefit. Because when I force my eyes to blink through the sun in my eyes, I realize we’re exactly one minute away from parking at his lot.
I don’t notice much else after that. I’m sure I walked on my own, maybe with some assistance, and we reached the penthouse within a few minutes after I last heard his voice.
Not to say that he wasn’t speaking. He probably was.
But the buzzing finally relents as I feel Levi’s shaking hands holding mine in a tight grip. A sharp sting cuts at my palm.
That’s when I feel a hard object in my hand. An ice cube. Surprisingly efficient.
A cold, wet hand cups my cheek, and I look up to see his eyes boring into mine, shining with potent relief. “There you are.”
The ice cube slips away, and Levi quickly puts it in the display tray on the coffee table next to us.
“Sorry, I…”
“It’s okay,” he says, exhaling unevenly before settling down next to me and cocooning me in his arms. “God, you fucking scared me for a minute there. What did I say? Did I say something wrong? Or was it—”
“I don’t know,” I tell him honestly, voice dull. “I think it was the clause being gone, maybe. I just… blanked out.”
He sighs. “I’m sorry. I was just—I realize that it’s not a source of comfort for you. And I was stupidly excited about… doesn’t matter.”
Doesn’t matter.
Levi’s words stick the same way the ice cube did at my skin a few seconds ago. That same thing that was supposed to divert the sting from my chest to my palms.
But these words don’t divert any pain. Instead, they lodge deeper where those endless questions were. Settling with the same unease—reminding me that they’ll remain unanswered if I don’t start voicing them.
Those questions weren’t about the clause. At least not just the clause. And they are evolving too rapidly in the absence of it.
Suddenly, there’s no clause to hide behind.
Every single doubt born out of it that I’ve carried through our relationship is going through a gradual erasure. The excuses I planted for myself so that I could blame the clause and not our flawed love.
Well, maybe not flawed. Nascent, perhaps.
But then I force myself to recall how he just removed the clause from our lives. How he gave up his entire career to prove the love he proclaims.
And without the foggy blanket of medication, I’ve also come to terms with the fact that this Cece won’t be happy with variations of the truth.
Because before, when I got them, when I was blindsided by lies of omission—Levi had given them to me. The truths he deemed as enough. And I still felt empty-handed.
“I have a question,” I blurt out, and he leans back to lock his concerned eyes with mine. “I have…”
I pause when his thumb brushes between my brows, melting away the frown I didn’t even know I had. “I want to ask something that—maybe it won’t make sense immediately but…”
“You can ask me anything.”
I hesitate briefly before forging ahead. “You have a playlist on your phone,” I begin, and somehow my own frown transfers to him, his eyes growing confused. “You always had it queued when we’d drive somewhere together. You… you fought your father and—”
“Thomas,” he cuts me off gently.
I realize quickly that he’s correcting me, so I nod. “You fought Thomas and Gareth when they opposed me being the finance director for the merger. Because… you knew I wanted it. I was good at it.”
He swallows hard, breathing still uneven.
I know he’s wondering where I’m going with this.
But I need to preface my question with all that I’m saying.
I’m scared that this clarity I’ve gained is momentary and I’ll lose it all to a manic haze.
“You never called me Celestine again when you learned I preferred Cece. You… knew when I needed a hug. I’d…
” I pull at his shirt collar. “I’d do this, and you’d know. You always hugged me.”
A pained whimper escapes his throat, and he opens his mouth to say something, but I quickly shake my head.
“You knew all of these things and more. In fact, you started showing me your love way before you ever said those words. And at some level, I think you even knew that I was hesitant in returning them. You loved me…” I frown as I scramble to find the right word, “specifically. In specific ways that meant so much more to me than your words.”
“Baby, why are you—” he croaks, his voice thick. “Please don’t use past tense.”
My gaze softens at his plea, a wry smile curving my lips. “Levi, you forgot them.”
He shakes his head, eyes wide. “I never stopped loving—”
God. I believe him. I do. But—
“But for weeks, you forgot them. And I don’t want to hold those weeks against you.
I know you were struggling. I know that.
But then you started keeping things from me.
Things that blindsided me. All while you stopped—” loving me.
I shake my head, not willing to voice it. “You stopped paying attention.”