Chapter Seven
ETHAN WAS TIRED AND restless. Had been so for a very long time. Most days, if he were asked about this, he would say it had begun almost ten years ago, the day Guilia had come into his life.
But on the rare days that he was alone, and alcohol had shorn him of his defenses, he would find himself unable to keep up with the pretense. It was the need to constantly hide the truth, to pretend every fucking second, that exhausted him, and it was Anah's feelings that had his soul restless and his heart unable to settle.
There were times when Anah's love was like a brick around his neck. She loved him. She deserved to be loved. But there was nothing he could do. Because it was already too late.
But then there were the other times. Times when Anah's love was the only fucking bright spot in his life, and he was almost tempted to end things with Guilia and start with Anah anew. Times when he was about to lose his mind in jealous rage and bitter despair, and he found himself desperately hanging on to the memory of the softness of her cheek under his lips.
That memory had been his lifeline, the one thing that saved him from going crazy every time he was confronted with yet another irrefutable photo of Guilia hooking up with another man.
When Anah had left for Hartland, he had flown back to Guilia's side in another attempt to work things out. And again, for a while, it had been good between them. But then another media event came out, Guilia had started throwing tantrums, and Ethan was back to being single.
In their first few years together, he had tried to make Guilia understand why Hartland was so important to him and the twins. The helicopter crash that killed their parents hadn't been an accident. Rather, it was cold-blooded murder, and an investigation had eventually led to the arrest of one of his parents' competitors.
It was this kind of attention that Ethan and his brothers didn't want for themselves and future members of their family, and why they had helped set up The Hartland Initiative.
But no matter what he said, it was as if she had been deaf to all his words, and these days, Guilia took her vengeance to a sick new level. She would record clips of her time with other men and send to him like it was some fucking joke.
Time after time, he nearly found himself breaking things off with Guilia for good and asking Anah to take a chance on him.
But because Ethan knew Anah deserved more, he had never allowed himself to give Anah the slightest hint of his feelings. No one - not the twins or his closest friends in Hartland - not a single soul knew, and he was determined to keep it that way.
For as long as Guilia still claimed the smallest part of his heart...Anah was better off without him.
THE USUAL HUSTLE AND bustle drifted to Anah's ears like a cheerful greeting as soon as she entered Redwood Cafe, followed by a genial chorus of hellos and friendly nods from the town's resident secret tycoons.
Many of them still remembered Anah from her intern days, but more importantly, they all looked at her as their honorary little sister, owing to her close ties to the Blackwoods.
"Hello again." Farica, co-owner of the cafe, looked unusually frazzled as Anah settled herself on one of the bar stools. Her lovely blonde hair was twisted up in a messy bun, and her granny glasses kept slipping down her nose. Anah had a feeling it was the older woman's way of making herself stand out less, and well...it wasn't working. Nothing would, with the kind of looks the Dutch heiress possessed.
"Everything okay?" Anah asked when Farica exhaled her breath in an irritable sigh.
"We're short-staffed again," Farica admitted grumpily while handing Anah the menu over the counter.
Anah was stunned. "But didn't you guys just hire the last one?"
"Yeah, she's gone."
Anah winced. "I guess that means she..."
"Couldn't help falling in love with Slade and made a nuisance of herself?"
Before Anah could answer, the other owner of the cafe sauntered up to the bar, saying dryly, "No need to hold back, Fari. Feel free to make it sound like it's all my fault."
"But it is your fault," Farica pointed out, "that we've gone through five waitresses in the past three months!"
"Ignore her." Slade Wyndham's pleasant voice was clearly meant to further needle his business partner. "She's always hysterical this time of the month." Anah had to swallow back a laugh as a successfully-baited Farica threw a dishcloth at Slade's ruggedly handsome face.
Anah cleared her throat. "Can I order my lunch before someone dies?"
Farica groaned. "Sorry, Anah. It's this jerk's fault I forgot to take your order."
Ignoring this, Slade turned to Anah, asking suavely, "Won't you change your mind and start working for us instead?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Wyndham," Anah apologized. "But I really like my job at the library."
The cafe owner grimaced. "I knew you'd say that."
Anah bit back a smile at the way Slade's brooding expression only made him look more handsome. He looked very much like Henry Cavill when playing pre-Superman Clark Kent, with his dark hair, beard, and penchant for plaids. It was easy to see why so many of the cafe's former waitresses had all lost their hearts to him. Anah probably would have done the same thing, too...if she already had her heart back.
But since that part of her body was still stubbornly beating for a man who remained out of her reach...
Slade mentally shook his head when he saw the girl's expression turn pensive. He knew exactly what that look meant, mostly because he had seen it more times than he wished on his own business partner, who had been nursing her own unrequited love for almost a decade.
Anah was still in love with Ethan Blackwood, and she had done such an awful job hiding this that the whole town knew of her feelings. Unfortunately, the whole town also knew that Ethan had never returned her feelings...and probably never would, for as long as a temptress named Guilia was in the picture.
IT WAS ABOUT TEN IN the morning when Ethan's plane landed in Laramie, and after grabbing a quick shower, he found himself succumbing to the urge to drive to the library.
He'd just say hi , Ethan reasoned to himself. He and Anah had rules now, and dropping by to check on her would be fine as long as he remembered to play by their rules.
Unfortunately, it was only Mrs. Hutchins manning the counter when he arrived.
"You just missed her," the head librarian told him regretfully. "She's on her break right now, but I think you can find her at Redwood Cafe."
Hearing this nearly had Ethan groaning out loud. That damn place tended to be the beehive for local gossip, and it was with extreme reluctance that he decided to bite the bullet and simply make his way to the local cafe.
As expected, all heads swung to his direction the moment he entered, and Ethan responded to their looks of interest with a flip of his finger. Fuck you all.
But of course, everyone was just thick-skinned enough to simply laugh it off.
The sudden laughter made Anah glance curiously over her shoulder, and she almost choked at seeing Ethan sitting down and joining the twins at their table. He was his usual rakishly good-looking self, and when she saw him flash a grin at something Aidan said, she couldn't keep her heart from skipping a beat. She liked him best when he was grinning like that; he looked so much like Christian Slater in his Heather days, and it just made her wish so, so bad she had the right to just look at him for as long as she wanted.
But since she didn't...
Anah forced herself to turn back to her food, and it was then she saw that her iPhone, placed next to her plate, already had one unread message waiting for her.
Ethan : I'm back.
Anah's heartbeat rate shot up like a rocket. She and Ethan had "rules" now, and one of those rules?
Ethan permitting himself to reach out to her first, but only on the days when he was officially without a girlfriend again.
Like now.