49. Nora
CHAPTER 49
NORA
“You’re still mad at me.”
His words aren’t an accusation. They’re just a statement of fact, coming from where he stands at the base of my bed. It’s been a long day. Longer still with all the information that’s come out, and I am still angry.
But I’m also relieved and aching and frustrated and a mess of emotions. I’m everything all at once. Before him, I would have hid that deep down. Would have painted on a smile whatever the cost.
“Yes,” I say, because I’m not that person anymore.
“Do you still want me to sleep here?” He looks tense. A dark outline against the bedside light.
“Yes,” I say again and flip the covers open.
His shoulders sink, like he’s relieved, like he was expecting the opposite. He undoes the buttons of his shirt while I lie on my side, watching him.
“You’re annoyed,” he says, “and I get it. I’m used to it. That was our status quo. Before.”
“Before,” I repeat. He steps out of his jeans, and it’s all long muscles and tan skin. He had the gash on his shoulder checked out, and it’s covered in gauze now. Far more professionally done than I managed in Costa Rica.
He gets into bed on the side that’s somehow become his.
I reach out and brush my fingers along his cheek. His skin is dry and a bit rough to the touch. He hasn’t shaved today, and I love the feeling against my palm.
His eyes close. I repeat the movement, trace up to his temple and to the scar in his eyebrow. “Your father thought he fixed the trust?”
“Yes.” West’s voice is tired, resigned, but he doesn’t shy away from my touch. “He and my mother married when they were in their mid-twenties.”
“I’m sorry you lost him. My father passed a few years ago, too.”
West’s whiskey eyes open. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Do you miss yours?”
“I think I hate him a little more with each year that passes. But yes. I still miss him.”
The raw honesty in the statement makes me smile. “I know the feeling,” I murmur. “What was he like?”
“He was godlike when I was a child.” West shakes his head a little. “Then he was a tyrant. Neither he nor my mother was made to be a parent. They weren’t made to be married to each other, either.”
“Your mother hasn’t mentioned him to me,” I murmur. “In our conversations.”
“My parents didn’t exactly have what I’d call a successful marriage,” he says.
“What was it like?” I asked.
“Well, when I was small, I thought they were in love. I suppose they were, in their own sort of way. It was all-consuming. Toxic. I was twelve when I discovered the first affair, thirteen when I told them about it. They shipped me off to Belmont shortly after.”
My fingers still on his cheek. “They did what ?”
“I caught my dad out on the tennis court. So I went to my mom. Turns out she already knew.” He chuckles again, but it’s not a particularly happy sound. “She’d had affairs of her own, and she’d just made up with my dad. It was inconvenient to have me around. I saw too much.”
“West… that’s awful.”
“Yeah,” he says, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. “I suppose. But that was their marriage, and neither of them ended it because that wasn’t possible, either. Calloways don’t divorce,” he says, his tone wry. “Outwardly, they were great at it—the perfect, sparkling couple. I remember one of their anniversary parties. My mom went up and gave a beautiful speech to my dad. People were entranced. There were barbs threaded throughout that speech, of course. That was the way they used to play.”
“That sounds terrible,” I say. And relatable. I was young when my parents divorced, but I remember the fights too.
“During that speech, she wore a brand-new diamond necklace that her lover at the time bought her.”
“Oh my god,” I say.
He shakes his head a little. “It is what it is. But I never want to end up in that situation. To see someone turn resentful, angry—trapped.”
“You won’t.” I brush my hand over his jawline. He’s always been handsome. I knew that from the start, and now it’s so painful to me, just how much I love looking at him. Touching him. “For what it’s worth, I think you’d be a good husband.”
His eyes darken. “You do?”
“I’ve gotten to know you during these months, you know.”
West’s hands slide in under the camisole I’m wearing, brushing over the bare skin of my low back. “You didn’t like me for years. I’ve grown on you, then?”
I run my finger over his eyebrow. The scar there smooth after so many years. “Maybe.”
“Maybe, she says,” he mutters. “You’re harsh.”
“You like it when I’m harsh.”
“I do.”
I smile a little. “I think you might be the only person who does.”
“No,” he says. “Stand up for yourself more, and you’ll see that people won’t mind nearly as much as you think they will.”
I dig my teeth into my lower lip. “Do you remember a Christmas party a few years back? When I asked…”
West’s eyebrows pull low. “By the fireplace?”
“Yes. I wasn’t sure if you remembered.”
His thumb sweeps back and forth over my skin. “I remember.”
“Well, I liked you before then. I’d been drinking that night, and I figured…” I shrug a little. Embarrassment makes my cheeks tinge. “Anyway. You weren’t interested.”
“Nora,” he mutters. His eyes are narrowed.
But I have to keep going, or I won’t share any of this. And now that I’ve started talking about the past, I want it all out. “Half a year later, you were at a party my father threw at the Lake Como house. All of you were. I was upstairs, on the balcony facing the lake… taking a breather. And you were downstairs. Talking to Alex.”
West’s jaw tightens. “Go on.”
“I overheard your conversation,” I say. “He said I looked beautiful that night. Asked if you knew if I was single.”
“I remember.” His eyebrows are drawn low. “What did I say in response?”
I wet my lips. “If you remember, why should I say it?”
“Tell me,” he says. “And tell me how angry you’ve been at me for it.”
“You said that I was pretty enough, but boring. That I was… the last person you’d date.”
West’s eyes close. He’s still as a statue, only inches from me. “Yes. I said all of that.”
“I hated you for it,” I whisper. It was the final nail in the coffin of my stupid crush. And now I want to hurt him with it, too, because he’s getting married, and he didn’t tell me. Even if it’s just a business transaction. Even if he and I can never be, because of my brother and their stupid pact.
West’s eyes open, and this time they’re blazing. “Good. I never meant for you to hear those words.”
“So we’ve both changed our minds about each other, haven’t we? I’m not the least bit bland.”
“I didn’t mean a word of it.”
I roll my eyes. “Right. And why would you have said that?—”
“Because I wanted him to stay away from you.”
My heart is in my throat. “Why? You didn’t talk to me. Barely looked at me.”
“You’re my best friend’s younger sister,” he says. There’s agony in that tone. “You were then. You still are. There was no looking. There was no talking. You were forbidden. Alex knew that, but he was—still is—reckless.” West’s jaw works. “He wasn’t good enough for you.”
“You were jealous,” I breathe. “Even then.”
“Yes. I was.”
The confession makes my stomach tighten. “Oh.”
“You were never meant to overhear it. It was a lie.” His right hand finds the curve of my waist beneath the cover, settles where he usually keeps it. “Don’t tell me you believed it, trouble.”
“I did,” I admit.
He tsks. “Not you. Confident, bubbly, sparkling. Wide smiles to everyone, long legs, shiny hair. It hurt to look at you.” His eyes track the movement of his hand sliding down my neck, settling over my collarbone. “Did you really think I didn’t like you?”
“I used to. But not anymore.”
“Thank god.”
“It’s what made me feel comfortable arguing with you in the beginning,” I tell him honestly. My anger is seeping out. Replaced with frustration, and warmth, and the confession. He didn’t mean it.
I wish things were simpler. That this little bubble here with him would never end, never stop, never burst.
“Then I’m grateful for it,” he says, and pulls me against his chest, “if it let me see the real you.”