Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
Sadie
“ I t’s me,” I said into the speaker outside Lockhart’s gate about an hour after I ran into him at Seen . “Will you please let me in? We need to talk.”
There was no way I was going to let another day pass without telling him the truth. Based on how he had reacted at Seen , I could only imagine what was running through his head. I wanted him to hear my side, and what he did with that information, I couldn’t predict.
I could only hope.
“Sadie …”
My eyes squinted shut, and my jaw clenched at the sound of his voice, at the emotion that was embedded into each syllable, at the anger.
I rested my forehead against my steering wheel and pleaded, “Please. Please, Lockhart. Just open the gate. Let me tell you everything. And then, once you hear it all, if you want to kick me out, fine. If you never want to talk to me again, I’ll fight like hell to make you change your mind, but”—I lifted my forehead and stared at the camera that was pointed right at me—“I will have to be fine with that too.” The emotion was thick in my throat, and it was already threatening to spill. “But don’t shut me out, not until you at least hear my side.”
I knew that after today, there was a chance I’d never drive to his house again.
I’d never feel his arms around me.
I’d never see him.
It would break me.
Oh God, it would wreck me in ways I’d never felt before.
But hadn’t I put myself here?
I could hear him breathing. I swore I could sense his mind going in a million different directions. And eventually, the sound of the gate unlatching and the metal clanging overshadowed those noises.
I carefully drove through, taking my usual spot in his driveway, and once I parked, I made my way up to his door. Normally, he was standing there, waiting for me when I arrived.
I didn’t realize how much I’d loved that until I no longer had it.
And I didn’t realize how much it would hurt to not have it until I stared at the closed door, my hand wrapping around the knob and opening it, a pang of emotion tearing my chest apart.
I found Lockhart in the kitchen, standing at the island with both hands pressed against the counter, leaning into the stone as though it were holding him up. A tumbler, of what I assumed was whiskey, sat between his hands.
I set the stack of papers in front of the glass. It was four pages that I had printed as soon as I got home from Seen and stapled in the corner before I rushed over here .
“Please sign that.” I even brought my own pen and placed it on top of the pile.
He didn’t look down. He didn’t break eye contact with me. The only thing he did was lift a hand to pick up the drink and take a sip. “Are you Dear Foodie?”
There was no question in my mind that he had figured me out.
But hearing him say those words made it even more real.
I nodded toward the stack. “Sign that, Lockhart. Please.”
He crossed his arms. “Why?”
“So I can tell you the truth.” I waited. “So I can give you the answer you’ve been wanting to hear.”
Because something told me that when we had been lying in bed and the review of Musik went live, he had known then. Maybe he had even known before.
He finally glanced down, and I watched him scan the words. “A fucking NDA? Are you kidding me, Sadie? This is what it’s come to?”
“It’s the only way we can have this conversation.” My voice was soft and calm. “I’m sorry. It’s not my rule. It’s Seen ’s rule.” I paused. “You, out of all people, should understand how this works.”
“It’s bullshit. That’s what it is.” He lifted the pen off the counter, flipped to the last page, and signed his name at the bottom.
When he dropped the pen and looked at me, I said, “Yes, I’m Dear Foodie. And my mom, my dad, my sister, Bryn, and my boss at Seen are the only people in this world who know that.” I was using my fingers to count, gripping each one as I said a name. “You make person number six.” I let out a loud breath, holding my chest. “God, that felt good to say out loud to you.” I grabbed his drink and shot back the remainder of what was inside, placing the empty on the counter. “You have no idea how long I wanted to tell you that, and I couldn’t.”
“Yeah … you just lied to me instead.”
The accusation hurt.
But it was the truth.
“It kills me to admit that, but I did.” I held the counter with both hands. “In my defense—and I’m going to defend myself when it’s warranted because I’m here to tell you my side—I contractually wasn’t allowed to tell you. Yes, it was still lying, but all I was trying to do was spin things, like why I was really at Musik or how I told you I had to work nearby when I really didn’t.” Breathing was becoming harder and harder. “Those lies weren’t spoken to hurt you. I never wanted to be dishonest. But I was required to twist the truth because my NDA prevented me from telling you who I was, and the lies were the result of a trickle-down effect”—I shook my head—“one that was horrific on my heart, on my gut, and?—”
“On our relationship.”
I nodded. “Yes, it was.” I sighed. “And that’s the reality of a binding agreement. It doesn’t matter who it hurts, and it doesn’t matter who I have to lie to.”
He banged his fist on the counter. “Sadie, this is so fucked.”
“Believe me, I know.” I quickly glanced at the ceiling. “Do you know how hard it is not to say anything to my extended family? My aunts and uncles and cousins? Or any of my friends, aside from Bryn?” I felt my chest contract even tighter. “Or my boyfriend?”
I picked up the glass, gazing at the tiny bead of amber liquor that rolled around the bottom. “It doesn’t matter how much I despise that aspect of my job. There’s nothing I can do about it. I knew that when I signed their contract. And all these years later, I’ve never regretted it. Until now.”
As my stomach churned, my eyes burning with tears, I brought the tumbler into the living room, filled it with several fingers’ worth, poured a second glass, and carried them into the kitchen, handing him one.
I positioned the liquor against my lips, but I didn’t take a drink. I just breathed in the aroma.
I needed him to speak.
I needed to know where his head was at.
“Please, Lockhart, say something.”
He hissed out some air. “I don’t even know where to fucking start.”
“Start anywhere.”
His head hung, and he didn’t lift it. He just looked at me through his lashes. “I understand you’re under contract. I understand what kind of obligation you have to Seen . But I can’t help but feel pissed off that I wasn’t told until today. I shared things with you about our company, how we want to buy Horned—that’s something I wouldn’t have told you if I had known you were Dear Foodie.” He let a few seconds tick by. “I think you carried this on for too long.”
“I probably did, yes. But there are many parts to this that you don’t know.”
“Tell me.” His fingers tightened into a ball. “Make me understand all of it. Because, Sadie …” His voice drifted off, and he turned his head.
My heart shuddered.
He couldn’t even look at me.
I had to make this right.
“When my boss asked me to review Charred and Musik, we were already dating. The weight that consumed me over that request, I can barely describe it. I felt sick.” I let out a long breath. “I still do, especially knowing that Toro is coming next. But my boss’s requests didn’t stop there. He asked if I would travel to other Charred locations across the country and review them, comparing them to the LA location for an extended feature on The Weston Group. The viewership is so high right now. Seen is exploding. He doesn’t want the heat to die.”
I shifted, holding on to the counter, every part of me feeling weak. “But do you know the kind of pressure that put on me? The kind of heat I felt from that request? I have to be honest in the words I write for Seen , and I have been honest. But now my boss is afraid that I’m too biased to write Toro’s review, and …” My eyes were windows that allowed him to look in, and I knew he was seeing everything. “I’m afraid I am too.” My hands moved to the top of my head. “What if I don’t love Toro? What does that mean? For you? For me? For Seen ? For The Weston Group?” I rubbed my lips together, patting my chest to push the air through. “So, I had the Charred review, the Musik review, and the Toro review—all eating at me. And then my boss wanted to send me out for another feature? No. I couldn’t handle more. Not for the Westons—not when I’m in love with you.”
There was an immediate change in him.
In the animosity in his eyes.
In the grimness of his lips.
Both lessening—even if it was slight.
But I still had a long way to go, and I still had so much more to explain.
“This morning, when I was in bed with you, I hit my breaking point. I couldn’t take another second of the lies. So, I went to his office.” I moved my hair off my shoulders and slipped out of my cardigan, setting it on the counter, my anxiousness making me sweat. “For one, to turn down his offer of traveling and tell him I couldn’t review another Weston restaurant after Toro. And two, to discuss my NDA because I wanted to breach it for you.”
I took several sips of whiskey. “I don’t discuss my personal life with my boss. But today, I did. I told him how we had met. How I felt about you. And how I wanted to come clean to you.” Every detail of that meeting was circling in my head. “He said he would give me one pass and one pass only, as long as that person signed an NDA with Seen . And I shouldn’t waste that pass until I was absolutely positive I was in love.” I wrapped my arms around my stomach, my face tilting as I gazed at him. “As soon as he said that to me, Lockhart …”
I stopped to take a breath.
To observe his expression.
To process that once this was spoken, I could never take it back.
“There was no doubt in my mind who deserved that pass,” I continued, offering him a soft smile. “I’m in love with you. I can see myself spending the rest of my life with you.”
When he didn’t say anything, I finished the rest of what I had poured and set the empty down.
“I left that meeting and called Bryn to tell her the pass was going to you. That I was going home to print out the NDA and I was going to drive to your house or your office, wherever you were, and have the conversation with you. And that’s when I ran into you …”
“Jesus Christ.” He turned silent for several seconds. “I don’t even know what the hell to say. I’m …” His fingers dived into the sides of his hair. “My head is a mess.”
“I’m sure it is.” I moved around the island to where he was standing so there wasn’t any stone separating us. “But I want you to know I’m sorry. For the things I did. For the things I said. For the lies I told you. If I could have been honest, I would have. I swear to God, I would have.”
He wrapped his fingers around the booze, the liquor sloshing against the sides from his grip. “I couldn’t figure out why you wouldn’t invite me to your place, why you wouldn’t want me there.”
“I was hiding Dear Foodie?—”
“I know.” He ground his teeth over his bottom lip. “Or why I saw you at Musik, but you wouldn’t go to the hockey game with me. I took that shit personally when I saw you’d made the reservation four days prior to going, and you were there for two and a half hours and said nothing to me about it.”
I rubbed the wetness off my eyelashes. “All things I would have told you if I could. And I wanted to. I wanted to so badly, Lockhart.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “I believe that. And I believe you. I just …”
“You just … hate me? You can’t stand the sight of me?”
He rubbed his hands over his face, and when I finally got his eyes again, he said in the most harrowing voice, “I’m worried we were based on a lie.”
“Never. Nothing that even remotely resembles one.” The emotion was pouring in and out of me. Every time I took a breath, I swore it swished into my lips and swirled through my chest and went straight to my stomach and came up through my eyes. “I don’t want you to think that. And I don’t want you to think I chose my job over you. And I don’t want you to think that any of this was a choice—it wasn’t.” I slid my palms over my bare arms. “When I went to my boss and begged him to let me break my NDA, that’s when I made a choice.” My fingers stilled. “Because I love you.”
“Sadie …”
“I do. I’m completely in love with you.”
“Sadie—”
“And I want you to know the night we met at Horned, I was there as Dear Foodie, but that’s not who you met. That’s not who you took to your hotel room. And that’s not whose body you had sex with. That was all me. This whole time, all you’ve ever experienced is me.”
I closed the distance between us and held on to his shoulders. “Be mad at me—I deserve that. Be hurt—I deserve that too. Be disappointed. Tell me I handled everything wrong.” I moved up to his face and held it while the tears poured down mine. “But don’t tell me I-I ruined us-s. Don’t tell me this-s is unforgivable. And p-please … don’t tell me that you don’t l-love me.”
I felt his exhales. They were coming out hard and fast.
“That’s why this hurts so fucking bad.”
My fingers fanned his cheeks. “You d-don’t have to forget. You don’t even h-have to forgive me—at least not n-now. But tell me w-we’re somehow, someway, going to be okay-y. That we can eventually move on from th-this.” The drips were running so fast from my eyes; I couldn’t stop them from flowing past my chin. “That I w-won’t have to live my life without y-you.” I could taste the saltiness on my lips. “I don’t want to live without you. I-I don’t even want to spend a day without you?—”
I was suddenly in his arms. My face on his chest. My breathing matching his.
“Lockhart …” My tears were staining his shirt. But beneath the soft cotton was the warmth of his skin, and I needed that.
“We’re going to be okay.” His hug was so tight that it confirmed everything he’d just said.
I clung to him. My fingers. My arms. Even my face was somehow holding on to him. “You really mean that?”
“Yes.” His lips pressed against the top of my head, and when he lifted them off, I tilted my chin up to look at him, and he began to wipe the wetness off my skin. “Because I love you, Sadie.”