Chapter Fourteen
Taylor
The numbers on the invoice I’m preparing blur, and the words might as well be written in a foreign language. I keep telling myself that work and paying bills matter more than the ache in my chest, but it’s a lie that hurts almost as much as my lie to Seth.
I try for the hundredth time to push past the pain, clicking through invoices, answering emails, pretending my relationship with Seth isn’t really over.
But I know the truth. Seth isn’t someone who procrastinates.
If he wanted to speak with me, he would have asked Taylor for my number days ago.
Mailing my sketchbook is an afterthought, a courtesy.
That shouldn’t hurt as bad as it does. We were only together for two days. Nobody has that kind of power, do they?
Seth obviously does. Only it doesn’t feel like power. When I think of power, I think of people wielding it. In all the years I’ve worked for Seth, never once has he used his wealth or status to make himself seem better than me, and in the time we spent together, he never did, either.
He’s not the one who caused this pain anyway. I only have myself to blame.
My doorbell chimes, startling me so badly my hand flies off the mouse. Leave it to Seth to send my sketchbook overnight mail. My throat thickens as I push to my feet and make my way out of my office. Why does this feel like the final nail in the coffin?
Buck up, Taylor, and answer the freaking door.
I pull it open, and the air rushes from my lungs.
“Seth…?” falls from my lips, raw and full of disbelief.
I blink repeatedly to make sure I’m not seeing things.
He’s really here, standing on my porch, broad shoulders covered by a black wool coat, hair tousled.
Hope claws at me, but it’s hard to think past his troubled eyes, brimming with restraint.
His smile slips through, quick and a little crooked, threatening to pull me under as it did on the island. “Hi, Ellie.”
Ellie hits like a spear to my heart. “Hi,” I whisper, hoping he doesn’t notice my hands are trembling.
His gaze moves gently over me, as if he’s trying to figure me out, but I have no idea how he could when I feel like a stranger in my own body. “How’s your father?”
The question sinks like a rock in my stomach, the lie still burning. “He’s okay,” I manage. “Seth—”
“I know how important this is to you,” he says, cutting me off as he holds up my sketchbook. “I didn’t want to risk something happening to it in the mail.”
“Thank you,” I say softly, reaching for it, but he doesn’t give it to me. His fingers tighten on the worn leather as if he isn’t ready to let it go, and oh, how I hope he’s not ready to let me go, either.
He steps closer, and my pulse quickens. The height difference between the porch and my entryway brings us nearly eye to eye.
His scent wraps around me, and it’s heartbreakingly familiar.
His jaw clenches, and he inches closer, so close my entire body starts to tremble against the urge to reach for him.
“I told myself I’d drop off the sketchbook and leave.
” His voice is low and gruff, as if he’s angry that he’s not doing exactly that.
“God, Ellie, I knew I missed you, but Jesus, seeing you again?” He leans in, brushing a hesitant kiss to my cheek, and stays there as he says, “I don’t know what you did to me, but I really fucking miss you. ”
I close my eyes, soaking in his confession, his warm breath ghosting over my skin. My hands find the front of his coat, my fingers curling into it, as I say, “Me too.”
Our eyes connect, and a gust of heat, hurt, and desire, so thick and pungent it nearly drops me to my knees, takes hold, and then he’s grabbing hold, too, and our mouths collide.
Our kisses are desperate, ravenous, like our mouths have been waiting for this exact moment to figure out how to work right.
The sketchbook thuds to the floor behind me, and I don’t even care as we both gasp out words between urgent kisses.
“Missed you.” “So much.” “God…Don’t stop… ”
His hands are everywhere, cupping my face, in my hair, pulling me closer, and I’m grabbing him, losing myself in the heat and hunger and the truth that I’ll never stop wanting him.
But there’s another truth that cuts between us, and he must be feeling it, too, because we both pull back, as if our brains are as in sync as our bodies.
We’re breathing hard, but he keeps me close, one hand fisted in my hair, the other belted around my waist, our foreheads touching.
He grits out, “Fuck,” as I force, “I’m sorry,” from my lungs.
He draws back just enough for me to see the collision of want and restraint in his eyes. “No, it’s my fault,” he says gruffly. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
“No. I’m glad you kissed me,” I croak, my throat thick with desire and regret—but not over the kiss. Never over kissing him. “I’m sorry for running away and not explaining.”
He searches my eyes again. “Was it what I said? Saturday night when we made love? Did I scare you off? I’m sorry if it was. I’ve never felt this way before, and I just couldn’t hold it back.”
My heart swells so much it hurts even more. “No. Yes. I mean, I didn’t leave because of what you said. I wanted that. But…” My throat constricts. “It all happened so fast, and then you said what you did, and that was everything I wanted to hear, but I didn’t know how to tell you the truth.”
His brows slant, but his voice is still tender. “The truth?”
The fear of telling him makes my skin feel clammy.
“I need to tell you something, and I hope you won’t hate me for it.
My name isn’t really Eleanor Mitchell.” My voice is shaky, but there’s no turning back now.
“I’m Taylor, and my last name isn’t really Mitchell.
That’s the name I use for business. It’s my father’s middle name. ”
The air between us splinters, confusion riddling his face. He doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink. “What?”
“I’m Taylor, your VA. But my real name is Eleanor Taylor Nunnally. I use a male persona for business for safety reasons.”
He steps back as if I hit him. “You’re Taylor?” The question sounds like an accusation.
“Yes.”
He shakes his head slowly, anger visibly building beneath the shock. “You lied to me,” he seethes.
“I never meant to—”
“You were in my house, in my bed, and the whole time you were playing me.” His voice is lethally low and unnervingly even, but it’s the disgust in his eyes that cuts me to my core.
“I thought you were different because you didn’t ask all the usual questions.
I thought you didn’t care about who I was or what I had. ”
“I don’t.”
“You’re no different from anyone else. You didn’t ask because you already knew every damn thing about me. You played me for a fucking fool in my own home, pretending to be someone else, someone who you knew would get under my skin.”
“That’s not true,” I snap, my chest heaving, my voice escalating. “I didn’t even know you’d be there. I swear. I panicked when you came in. I was protecting my business. I never thought we’d end up together.”
“But we did.” His voice hardens. “And you kept lying to me.” He exhales a ragged breath. A sound closer to pain than anger. “I can’t do this.” He storms off the porch.
“Seth,” I plead weakly, tears streaming down my cheek as I go after him. “Please just listen—”
He spins around, hurt and anger warring in his eyes. “Every time you let me call you Ellie, you made a choice, and you made that choice knowing exactly what it would do to us when I found out the truth.”
My voice won’t come as he climbs into a black SUV and speeds away.
I don’t know how long I stand in my yard, feeling like a rag doll, my arms hanging limply by my sides, tears streaking my cheeks. But when I finally head inside, my knees buckle, and I catch myself against the doorframe. My sketchbook is splayed face down on the floor, its pages bent.
I stare at it like it’s a villain.
If I hadn’t left it on the island, he wouldn’t have come.
If he hadn’t come, I could pretend there was a chance he’d understand why I lied.
My throat burns, sobs vying for release.
I press my knuckles against my mouth to keep them from breaking free, but after days of holding back, the dam breaks, and my legs give out.
I sink down to the floor, a sobbing, heartbroken mess.
I thought the worst part of lying was living with it.
But it turns out it’s watching the truth destroy someone you never meant to hurt.
I close my eyes against that pain, and Seth’s words burn through my mind—You made that choice knowing exactly what it would do to us—an echo of the words I used when I told him about my mother.
Like some kind of cruel mirror I didn’t even see until now, amplifying my guilt and misery.
After years of telling myself I’m nothing like her, it turns out I’m no better than she is.