57. West
CHAPTER 57
WEST
She’s offering me everything I’ve ever wanted.
I spend the night after the party reveling in it. Gauging myself in the pleasure of us, of her, of her thighs on either side of my face and her body stretched out in my bed. How unreal she feels around me and the nails she rakes down my back. And then her pleased smile after she comes and the soft sound of her breathing as she falls asleep in my arms.
But I wake up to the knowledge that I’m the one benefiting here. To a throbbing bruise beneath my eye and Fairhaven in post-party disarray.
Nora is still asleep, curled on her side, dark hair across the pillow that’s become hers. I can’t see her wake up. Can’t handle the guilt that kept me awake for most of the night as I held her.
She’s too good for me. Too good for all of this.
Rafe told me not to contact him and to stay away from his family. I didn’t heed the second command, and in the car on the way to Calloway Holdings, I go against the first.
Be angry at me. Don’t be angry at your sister. She’s innocent in all of this.
He won’t respond. But it has to be said.
She values her relationship with her brother. She always has, and I’ll be damned if I’m the reason it breaks down.
Maybe our friendship is over. More than a decade of having him as my own brother… Fuck.
But as long as it’s not her. Whatever happens, she can’t be the one who pays the price. I won’t stand for it.
I use the gym at the office, sit in on meetings that have more than a few of my senior executives looking at me sideways. Coming in unannounced always has them nervous, and here I am, sitting silent, angry, and with a black eye.
Early in the afternoon, I walk into the jeweler. Unease makes it hard to focus on the diamonds under the counter. Harder still when the smarmy well-dressed woman assisting me asks me who the lucky woman is.
Lucky.
I’m the one who’s lucky, and too much of a bastard to let Nora go. She offered marriage because it’s what I need, not because she’s ready for it. She hasn’t even been in a relationship before.
Over and over again, she’s said that she wants to learn how to date, to let guys in, to be in a relationship. To stop being afraid and one day find true love. Getting shackled to me wasn’t on her list of goals.
But I’ve seen just how kind she is.
Kind enough to offer to marry a man she likes, a man she trusts, just to make his life easier. Kind enough to tell herself she might even like it. Might even be a nice, neat solution.
And I’m enough of a bastard to have accepted it when she offered because I want her that badly. Because I’m willing to have her, even without her love, even knowing that she offered just to do me a favor.
I tuck the pear-shaped engagement ring into my back pocket, but I don’t give it to her when I see her that evening. I can’t bring myself to.
Every time I see her, every time I hold her, it’s torture. Knowing that she doesn’t feel like I do.
Alex sends me a delivery a day later. It’s a giant box of magnum condoms, along with a note that makes it clear he’s spoken to Rafe.
I’m too young to become an uncle again. Magnum was generous of me, which I want noted. Happy for you. You took a risk with this. I approve. Burn this note after reading, though, and don’t tell Rafe. I’m playing both sides here. You get it.
I do get it.
This could blow up so much more than just my relationship with Rafe. It could destroy the group.
The diamond ring stays in my pocket. And it burns. I feel like I’m drowning in the want of it. Of her beside me. Of the promise of a forever with her.
Of more nights, more days, of her sketching on the lawn and gripping my hand on flights and the small moments, us at dinner, her teasing, her smiles.
I want it so fucking much, and she’s doing me a favor. I know her well enough to know that she puts other people’s needs ahead of her own as easily as breathing. It’s what she’s always done. And I never wanted her to do it for me.
The guilt is acidic. It hurts.
At least there are things I can do for her. Things that need handling, and Ben Wilde is high on that list.
Rafe wanted to handle him quietly. That was never my strategy.
He’s going to hate me for this, too, but he already hates me. What’s one more reason if it’s one that will keep Nora safe? Wilde needs to know that he’s done playing this game. That we’re going to come after him with everything we’ve got and it’s not going to be pretty.
My team has gotten intel that he’s throwing a party in the Hamptons, so I spend the afternoon driving the surrounding streets. Scoping out the place. Scoring an invite shouldn’t be difficult, but I don’t want any trace of my name on the list.
I’m driving up a curved tree-lined street when my phone rings. It’s not Nora. It’s not Rafe.
I sigh but hit answer. “Hello, Mom.”
She tells me about the thank-you cards she’s been signing all morning from the Spring Ball and how the bartender wasn’t up to par. I do my best to make it seem like I give a single fuck.
“Is there something I can help you with?” I ask.
“Can’t I just call to chat with my son?” she asks. “But yes, there is. Nora. You’ve been dating for a while now, and you’re only three months out from your thirtieth birthday.”
“I’m aware.”
“Have you asked her to marry you yet? I have a caterer on hold for the weekend before your birthday. I booked them over a year ago; they do fantastic roasted lamb.”
I close my eyes. “Mom.”
“Have the two of you discussed it? I may not live at Fairhaven anymore, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want it to remain yours. To be passed down to your kids. It can’t be torn apart.” She takes a deep breath. “I don’t understand this, Weston. You’ve known about this for two years. What do you have against marriage?”
That makes me laugh. “What do I have against marriage ?”
“Yes. Your father and I were together for almost three decades, and we had a wonderful time together.”
There are days when I can nod at my mother’s cultured delusions. Days where I play along with the narrative she prefers over the truth. Today is not one of those days. “You hated each other,” I say. “ Wonderful time? How many affairs did you have? How many affairs did Dad have? I could never keep count.”
There’s silence on the other end, and then her low, furious voice. “West.”
“I suppose that was the point, though, with sending me off to Belmont. If I wasn’t around, I couldn’t keep track.” My voice is cold. “What do I have against marriage? Everything .”
“Your father and I loved each other.”
“That’s not what love looks like,” I say, thinking of Nora sleeping in bed this morning. Of the furious, painful need inside me to protect her. Even from herself and her own people-pleasing.
Which should also mean from me.
“You don’t know everything,” she says.
“No, I suppose I don’t. But from where I stand, can you blame me for not wanting a marriage like yours?” My words are cruel, but they’re also true, and right now I don’t have it in myself to be restrained.
“Why do you think your father and I married? He was just as much a subject to the clause of the trust as you were. But he decided to do it right, consider a lot of candidates. We arranged it all nicely.” Her voice is far more aloof now. “Nora is a beautiful girl. You will make a lovely couple, and she clearly adores you. It’s a great start.”
My hand tightens around my phone. “That was all fake.”
There’s complete silence on the other end.
“We pretended. She was pretending every time you saw her.”
My mother laughs. It shocks me enough that I have no response. “That girl is head over heels, West, and if you can’t see that, then I can’t help you,” she says. “And the fact that you’re hemming and hawing over the simplest, most strategic course of action tells me that maybe you are too.”
“If I marry her, it will be for my own good,” I tell my mother. “Not for hers.”
“Marriage is compromise. Your father and I may have had our moments, but we understood that from day one.” Her voice hardens. “The question is, do you?”