Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Chandler
Two months later…
“Chandler.”
I lifted my head out of my hands, my thoughts and worries making the weight of it like a thousand pounds on my shoulders.
I hadn’t slept well for two whole months. Some of that was because hospitals weren’t known for their hospitality, even for a billionaire, but most was because worry and rest didn’t make good bedfellows. But when I did sleep, it was full of restless, regretful dreams of her. Her sun-spun hair. Her candy lips. Her cinnamon scent. And the fire she’d lit inside me wouldn’t die, no matter how long and hard I tried to tamp it out.
Tom sank into the seat next to me, his face mirroring the ravage I felt on my own. We’d spent the better part of the last two months in these chairs. Waiting. Fearing. Hoping. And fearing again.
“She’s going to be okay.” He placed his hand on my knee. “We’re going to be okay.”
He stared at Mom lying peacefully in the bed as he spoke the words he’d said a thousand times over the last unending weeks. Sometimes, they were for me. Sometimes, they were for himself.
“Yeah,” I agreed because there was no other option. Not for me. Not for her.
I slid my gaze to him, watching his jaw quiver as he nodded, and then a tear rolled down his cheek. He brushed it away with an apology. “I’m sorry?—”
“Don’t,” I urged. Both of us had cried so many times in these seats. Separate. Together.
“No, Chandler.” He shook his head, insisting as his hold on my leg tightened. “I’m sorry I let it go this long. I should’ve told you—we should’ve told you so long ago…I love her,” he confessed brokenly.
I stilled, slowly releasing the breath in my chest when his watery gaze flicked to mine and then back to Mom.
“I’ve loved her for as long as you’ve been alive.”
If I’d had my suspicions before, the last two months had without a doubt revealed the true depth of Tom and Mom’s relationship.
“Tom…” I didn’t know where to start.
“I’m sorry, Chandler.” He wiped another tear away.
“Don’t be sorry,” I said, my voice hoarse. “I know you love her…knew…”
His head turned to me. “You did?” He swallowed. “Did Laura…”
“No.” I shook my head. “I didn’t know—didn’t realize until Frankie—” I broke off with a groan, a sharp pain cracking through my chest like a wound being split back open.
I’d never realized the extent of Mom’s feelings for Tom because I’d extended the blinders for my own life onto hers. Onto theirs. Until Frankie made me want more.
I’m yours.
God, how those words haunted me.
“Chandler.”
Air hissed through my lips. “I’m fine.”
This was the first time I’d said her name in months. I’d thought of her—dreamed of her—in every moment, in all the small spaces between all my massive worries, but I never brought her up.
There were so many reasons we shouldn’t have been together before I left, and now that I had, they’d only multiplied.
“You need to go back to her.”
I flinched like he’d struck me. “I can’t. I left.”
“So—”
“When Mom’s discharged, I have to go back to Boston. We secured that last property from GC Holdings, so it’s finally time to make my play. After all this time, I’m on the brink of destroying his legacy.”
“Oh, Chandler.”
I hated the disappointment in his voice. Gritting my teeth together, I argued, “Mom is the one who told me not to be too vulnerable. She wouldn’t want me to go back.”
The morning I’d left, my only thought was Mom. For days—weeks, she was my only concern. And by the time I could even string two rational thoughts together about Frankie and how I’d disappeared…Mom’s warning overshadowed everything, and I decided it was better this way. We—whatever we were—had been hours from expiring anyway .
It was an asshole move to disappear with no explanation. Better to be an asshole than a fool.
Tom looked at me, agape. “She wasn’t talking about your father,” he said brokenly. “She was talking about me.”
My brow creased. “I don’t understand.”
“All these years, she thought she was showing you strength, taking care of you, supporting you as a single mom,” he began, his jaw tightening. “She didn’t want you to think she was vulnerable by being alone…or by needing someone.”
I felt the tension soften in my muscles. “By needing you.”
He nodded slowly. “That was our agreement. We could be together as long as no one else knew. Especially you.”
“You agreed to be her secret?”
“Oh, Chandler.” He sighed and gave me a small smile. “For her, I’d agree to be her anything.”
My throat tightened. “I never would’ve thought her weak for loving someone else,” I rasped. “For loving a good man.”
Tom’s smile tightened, and another tear fell. “I know.” Clearing his throat, he went on. “She hadn’t been too vulnerable to love again, she’d been too vulnerable to let you see it. To show it was just as important to take the risk as it was to show restraint.”
I tried to swallow but couldn’t. What he told me should’ve turned my world on end—upended the perspective I’d entrenched myself in since leaving Friendship that morning. Instead, it was like everything that had been foggy came into focus.
“It wasn’t a warning, Chandler. It was a plea. Don’t be too vulnerable to not let Frankie see…to not take the risk.”
“How can I go back now? It’s been…” Too long. Too much silence. Too cruel the way I’d left.
My tongue felt heavy and thick in my mouth. I couldn’t think about leaving the hospital right now, let alone going back to Friendship. Forget haunting me, Frankie would want my head on a pike. And she deserved it for what I’d done.
Tom placed his hand on my shoulder and looked me square in the eyes. “How can you afford to stay away?”