Chapter 37
SHADE
Bryce digs her finger into my spine, shoving me forward.
I suck in a sharp breath but keep walking, needing out of this fucking studio before I destroy it. She doesn’t let me go without pushing again, this time spitting fire under her breath.
“You’re a fucking idiot.”
“Tell me what I should have done instead!” I snap, the words punching out of me.
When I whirl around, my best friend is looking at me as if she doesn’t even know who the hell I am. It stings, but I hardly feel it. I’m too torn up already.
“You should have made her stay! Or told her that you wanted her to stay here with you. Instead, you watched her leave while she believed you didn’t care!” she shouts, eyes wild.
“So I could have just been another person who made decisions for her? It wouldn’t have been that easy.”
“Gah!” She brings her hands to her hair, nearly ripping at it. “You’re dumber than you look, Shade. I thought I was bad, but you take the cake.”
I scowl, scratching roughly at my unshaven jaw. “Insulting me won’t bring her back.”
“No, but maybe it will encourage you to go do it yourself. Because honestly? I’m disappointed in you for rolling over like this.”
“Don’t, Bryce.”
“Don’t what? Slap you with the truth? Jesus, you’ve fallen for that girl, and instead of telling her that, you let her leave!” she yells, exasperated.
I step forward, my chest heaving. “She needs to make her own decisions. If I told her that I loved her, she could have stayed because of that and not because it’s what she truly wanted. Millie has lived for other people her entire life, Bryce. I want her to choose herself again.”
Bryce pauses, her throat pulling taut with a swallow. I lift my brows, waiting for her to speak.
“Did you just hear yourself?” she asks cautiously.
It hits me then. I let my chest absorb the impact of those words. It settles, feeling right in a way I couldn’t have ever expected. A chuckle slips from me, one heavy with disbelief and lingering frustration. Shoving a hand through my hair, I meet Bryce’s fiery stare.
“Tell me what that changes because I still need her to be the person I know she can be and choose what’s best for her,” I declare, stubborn to the core.
Inch by inch, Bryce’s ice melts. “She deserves to know and have all of her options laid in front of her before she chooses, Shade. I’d bet the only reason she went with her dad was because she didn’t know staying here and being with you was an option.”
“How wouldn’t she have known that? Would telling her I loved her have made that much of a difference? I’ve already moved her into my place, and fuck—I offered to apprentice her this morning.”
“Those are things any of us would have given her, Shade. They don’t necessarily declare love.”
“Fuck.”
“You can’t let her stay away. She’s . . . it’s not right to let her go without trying,” Bryce mutters, staring me dead in the eyes. “And that guy with the god-awful ring? He’s not her future. Don’t let him be.”
“Shelly’s going to tie me up and set me out on the lake in a canoe when she finds out Millie’s gone.”
“Maybe. But only if you stay and let her find out.”
“What are suggesting I do, then, Ice?”
Bryce lifts her chin, smirking. “First, we get your head out of your ass and back where it belongs, and then we come up with a plan.”
MILLIE
My mother has hardly let me out of her sight since I got back home yesterday.
She’s taken my bedroom door off its hinges and has Chadwick staying in the room across the hall. Despite the fact that he owns his own home, he’s been unofficially moved into mine. I shouldn’t have expected much else, considering the way I left things.
The wedding has been the topic of discussion since the moment I sat on the private plane.
First, it was the fallout I caused that took weeks for my father to resolve, then the clear guilting of how my actions forced the legal team to rework all of the paperwork that was set to be signed after the ceremony that day.
They’re all things I don’t care about, but I sat and listened anyway, too lost in my own thoughts to begin to think of what I should say in defense of my actions.
There’s no real excuse, though. Not one that neither my parents nor Chadwick would consider relevant in this situation.
I stare at my ceiling, lying in a coffin disguised as a bed. The clock showed that it was past ten in the morning the last time I checked. My freedom is a mirage, but at least I’m alone right now.
Beneath my pillow, I hold my phone, keeping it hidden.
The few texts I’ve received since leaving Oak Point yesterday have come from Lacey, and it’s clear she doesn’t know I’m gone yet.
Shelly doesn’t text, really. I’ve debated sending one to her anyway so she hears it from me and not someone else in town.
I haven’t, though.
My chest feels tight, pained. The sharp pain in my belly with every memory of Oak Point brings tears to my eyes that I let fall, unable to help myself. Being here is wrong. This house feels like a tomb instead of a home now that I’ve felt the warmth of a real one.
He hasn’t texted or called.
I keep holding out hope that he will. That Shade will be the one to reach out and tell me to come back. It’s unfair to expect that of him, though. He doesn’t owe me a life with him, even if I’m sure that’s what I want.
All he had to do was tell me to stay. Or showed me that it’s what he wanted before I got into that car. I know we didn’t agree to have a future together, but I thought . . . or hoped, that he felt the same way I did. That he’d fallen in love with me back, because shit, do I ever love him.
From his flirty grins to his unwavering support and blunt personality, I’ve grown to appreciate everything about him.
The way he isn’t afraid to try something new and has never judged me for a single thing, past or present.
He’s offered me the type of kindness that doesn’t come naturally to some.
It’s the purest form of it that never fails to bring me out of my shell and give me the courage to follow what I want.
There’s more that I haven’t even begun to find yet, but I want to. We didn’t have enough time together, yet the time we did have was more than enough for me to realize that I could be happy there, with him.
But I couldn’t risk my heart so soon after healing it. Not when he didn’t tell me how he felt.
“Why are you still in bed? Get up! Chadwick has been waiting for hours alone.”
Mom stalks through my bedroom and rips my curtains open, forcing the sun to flood through. I blink my tears away and stay lying beneath the blankets, unmoving.
“Millicent, this isn’t a joke.”
“I don’t hear myself laughing.”
A pause. The air grows thick with tension. “Watch your attitude.”
“Do you remember how many birthdays I’ve had?”
“Is that another one of your jokes?” she bites.
I roll my head along my pillow to stare at her. “Twenty-six, Mom. I’ve had twenty-six birthdays. That officially makes me no longer a child to be bossed around.”
The rage that rips through her should be studied. I’m not sure anyone is supposed to get that red.
“Millicent,” she snaps, eyes so narrowed I can hardly see the brown colour of them. “What happened to you?”
“I grew a backbone.”
“No, you learned how to disrespect your mother.” She grips the bottom of my duvet and rips it clean off the bed. I grind my teeth, only a thin sheet covering me now. “Get. Up. You’re going to get in the shower and wash away that town and the way it clings to you like a bad smell.”
Pulling my legs up, I sit against the headboard and shake my head. “I don’t feel up to being flaunted around the property today.”
“Millicent,” she hisses.
“Millie. I prefer Millie.”
Without another word, she spins on heeled feet and struts out of my room, not bothering to acknowledge my statement at all.
I cross my legs and exhale, a few of the chains that were wrapped back around me slipping free.
The lack of bedroom door doesn’t allow me any privacy, so I pull the sheet up to my chin and stare into the hall.
When a set of low, muffled voices sounds from where my mother disappeared to, I clutch the sheet tighter, knowing who’s going to appear next.
And like a bad dream, Chadwick appears.
He frowns at me from the doorway, his eyes betraying how unimpressed he is with all of this.
“It’s past eleven,” he states.
“I wasn’t aware there was a wake-up call scheduled.”
His jaw twitches. “Your mother mentioned you being upset about leaving that town.”
“She did? How’d she figure that out when she never asked?”
It’s like I can’t help myself. The serrated edge of my words continues to strike before I even realize it. This tiny bit of freedom is all I have in this place, and now that I’ve tasted it, I can’t go back to how I used to be. Not when everything around me is all wrong.
“What happened there, Millie? Why are you behaving like this?”
I glance out the window, taking in the dark clouds in the gloomy sky that I know are heavy with snow. It’s warmer here than Oak Point, even being up on a mountain.
“What am I behaving like, Chadwick? Other than someone who finally doesn’t feel a loyalty to this family the way I convinced myself I needed to for the last two decades?” I ask bluntly.
“Family is all any of us have.”
“You’re wrong. I had a real family back where I was.”
“They didn’t even know you. Not the real you. Even now, you don’t look like yourself. You’re all wrong,” he says with a huff.
I blow out a silent laugh. “Wow, that’s exactly what you should be saying to the woman you’re supposed to be marrying. Maybe that’s why you’re not.”
“What does that mean?” His words are sharper now.
“We’re not getting married, Chadwick.”
Shoving the sheet away, I slide off the bed. My hair is a mess, all tangled and dry as I pull it up and grab a clip from my nightstand, holding it out of my face. The silk on my body feels wrong, scratchy as I cross the room to my closet.
I look over the endless racks of clothes, from dresses to matching sets and jackets, and realize there isn’t a single thing that I want to wear.
Months ago, I would spend hours in here trying everything on and doing spins in the mirror, but things have changed.
My love for nice clothes and shoes hasn’t swayed, but where I’ve gotten them has.
The expectations that line the insides of each piece weigh them down to the point that I’d rather wear a garbage bag and wool socks instead.
“We are getting married. It’s already been decided,” Chadwick argues, following me into the closet.
Opting for a skirt short enough to scar my mother and a matching blouse, I fill my arms and turn to him. “Have you ever thought about how unfair it is that our parents get to decide who we spend the rest of our lives with? Do you really not care about that?”
“I care about my future, and if my future at my father’s company relies on me marrying someone chosen, then I’ll do it. It’s not about me, Millie. It’s not about you either. This is bigger than us.”
“That’s a pathetic excuse for you being a spineless pussy, Chadwick.”
I toss my clothes onto a nearby shelf and then reach for the biggest suitcase I have in the corner of the closet. Shoving it onto the floor, I crouch to unzip it.
“That hick town turned you into a cunt.”
My eyes fly up to where Chadwick stands over me, his hands clenched at his sides. “Maybe it did. Or maybe I always was deep down beneath the quiet woman I was always taught I had to be.”
“You’re going to ruin everything for our families,” he warns.
“I wish I cared.”
“Millie, this isn’t a joke. You need to think about the consequences here. If you fight this any harder, you’ll be thrown out. The Harrington name will be stripped away and given to someone else if that’s what they decide to do.”
Ripping clothes off the racks, I drop them into the suitcase.
My stomach clenches at the threat of what it really could mean to leave for good this time.
To not have this place to fall back on in case everything goes to shit.
There’s so much fear inside of me, but I don’t allow myself to change my mind.
If Shade doesn’t feel the same way I do, then we’ll have to make it work because I’m going back home, and I’m not leaving again.
“If my choices are to stay here and live a life like this, then I’ll take my chances somewhere else.
The Harrington name is nothing more than a brand only recognized by those of high enough status to know who we are.
It doesn’t mean anything in the real world.
I’ve done just fine without the money and influence that name has, Chadwick.
There’s far more to life than what you’ve seen in the bubble everyone here seems to be afraid to pop. ”
I finish with the clothes and move on to shoes. Each pair has its own shelf lit by white lights, and as I stare at the wall, I laugh. I almost can’t believe how much money is in this room or how little I cared about that before.
Pair by pair, I drop them into the other side of my suitcase, focusing on the ones with the red bottoms or jewels that I know were imported specially for me. They fall to the suitcase with loud clunks.
“That guy has ruined you,” Chadwick sneers, not valuing a damn thing I’ve said.
“No, he hasn’t. He helped me find the person this place tried to make disappear.”
Without another look at him, I take my chosen outfit and exit the closet. I can feel him following me, hovering like maybe his breath on my neck will make me give in.
“If I speak with your mother right now, she’ll come in here in a far worse mood than she was earlier,” he warns.
“Let her. It won’t change anything. Now, get the fuck out so I can get dressed.”
He doesn’t have time to argue before I take a single step into my ensuite and slam the door in his face.