Chapter 37
Reese
“Fuck him and the stupid expensive car he drove in on,” I screamed as I tossed the pillow across my living room, narrowly missing Ever, who’d just stepped through the door.
“Well, I see we’ve moved on to the anger stage,” she said as she picked up the pillow from the floor.
“That’s my cue to leave,” Logan murmured as he gave me a wide berth. He nodded at me and leaned over to Ever. “Good luck.”
Once the door shut behind him, Ever crossed the room and dropped herself into her favorite chair, the pillow wrapped in her arms as if she were protecting it. “Feel better?”
“I’ll feel better when he stops texting and leaving voicemails on my phone.
” I’d read every single one, not caring that he’d be able to tell I read them.
The texts didn’t get to me like the voicemails did.
The second I heard his voice, it was as if he were in the room with me.
It confounded me that I wanted to smack him and fall into his arms at the same time.
Stupid heart. The damn thing didn’t know what it wanted.
“Not exactly what I meant. I am glad to see the tears have vanished, though.”
Ever had driven all the way to Dulles to pick me up at the airport.
The minute I’d sat in the car, away from the prying eyes of fellow travelers, the tears flowed freely.
That was two days ago, and I’ve moved on since then.
Now I was just mad. At least until I curled into bed and could still smell him on my pillow, remember how it felt to rest my head on his chest after he’d spent hours treating me as if he couldn’t get enough.
“I can’t believe it was all a lie.” I wasn’t sure if I said the words for my cousin or me, not that I expected her to have an answer.
I didn’t really think anyone would have an answer about anything.
“Are you sure it was?”
“Of course.” The words came easily out of my mouth, but they didn’t feel right. It was something I’d tried to talk myself out of since I got home, but I couldn’t. Nothing about what happened that day in New York sat right with me.
“Would you sit and stop pacing. I can’t talk to a moving object.”
Ever waved her hand toward the couch. Obligingly, I sat, even if the pent up energy I had going on hated being stationary.
“Fine. I’m sitting.”
She nodded. “Better. Now tell me again what happened.”
“I already did.” I’d blurted it all out in the car ride.
“You were a blubbering mess and I missed stuff. Besides, maybe there’s more to the story now, so I want to hear your version.” She pulled her legs under her, putting her phone on the arm of the chair. “Tell me.”
Rolling my eyes, I gave in and recounted the whole thing.
Reg showing up, what he said, the scene with Clay outside of his building.
In those moments, my head had been warring with my heart.
One telling me to stay and listen, the other complaining it was right all along.
I’d almost listened to my heart until he said the magic words. Too much.
I really thought Clay had been the one person I wasn’t too much for, but he’d proven me wrong.
That, more than anything else, had me jumping in the rideshare when it’d pulled up.
Maybe it made me a coward, but I couldn’t take it.
My heart had exploded when he’d said it, and I was no longer acting rational.
Listening to his stepfather was rational?
Okay, so that may not have been either.
I dropped my head into a pillow and plowed my hand through my hair, tugging on the strands. “AHHHHHHH.”
“Annnnd, there we go.”
Lifting my head I stared at Ever.
“Don’t look at me like that, Ree, you know you’re confused. Why the fuck would you believe his stepfather over Clay?”
It was something I’d thought about over the past forty-eight hours, but I didn’t like hearing it.
Didn’t like knowing someone else realized that’s exactly what I had done.
I believed someone who had admittedly creeped me out, who Clay didn’t trust, over the man who’d really done nothing but make me feel.
Loved. Important. Cared for. A whole slew of words could describe what I felt when I was with Clay, yet I’d tossed it all to the side for what?
Self-protection.
“I was scared,” I mumbled, my face still in the pillow.
“Why?”
“Damn good question.”
“And yet you know the answer,” she countered.
“It stopped being a fling, if it really ever was. Love is not easy under the best of circumstances. Throw in a billionaire who lives hundreds of miles away, runs in crazy elite circles, owns a mega corporation, and holds our livelihood in his hands, I can see why nerves may take over and dumb decisions were made. That’s a lot to deal with.
” She leaned forward, resting her hand on my knee.
“But Ree, it’s not like you to give up. Out of all of us, I would have expected you to fight. ”
Raising my head, I questioned her, “Am I that much of a hard ass?”
“You’re that driven. You’re that focused. You’re you.” She pinned me with a stare I didn’t see often from my bestie. This one didn’t give me any room to dodge the question or make up an answer. “Again, why?”
I looked away, staring out the windows at the mountains I loved.
I’d thought about this a lot since coming home to the Falls.
The answer was right on the tip of my tongue, but I hated admitting I’d made a stupid mistake about the most important thing in my life, and for once, I didn’t mean my family.
I meant myself.
I turned back to Ever, finally ready to answer her.
“We hadn’t talked about anything. Not about feelings or the future or anything.
” If I hadn’t blurted out the whole “make love to me” thing, I wouldn’t have even said the word.
Even before Reg showed up, doubts had been speed-walking through my mind about where we went from there.
“I didn’t think it would hurt as much if I broke it off now.
” It was a lie I’d told myself over and over in the car to the airport and on the plane.
Even as my heart was crumbling to nothing, I’d kept saying it, hoping I’d believe it.
“I thought I could pretend it wasn’t love.
That it really was only a fling. If I left, I could protect myself. But none of that’s true.”
“Of course it’s not, you dummy.” She slapped my thigh and sat back in the chair. Sometimes I wondered if Ever got any tact at all in the genetic lotto.
I thought about what I really felt when Reg had showed me the documents. “It was easier to believe Reg than risk Clay telling me it was over. It was easier to doubt my feelings than believe Clay’s.”
That’s what it boiled down to. I trusted myself when it came to business ideas for my family, but risking my heart? Well, that was another story.
“Because love’s scary as shit, especially when it’s not something you ever experienced before.”
She was right. I’d never even come close to feeling what I felt for Clay.
“It doesn’t matter. It was stupid to think it could be anything more than a fling.
Really, Ever, how would it work? Maybe that’s why we never talked about it, because we knew.
I’ll take a back seat and try to avoid him as much as possible if the deal goes through. ”
Ever’s mouth dropped open. “But you love him and this is your baby. I know, deep inside, you want to trust your feelings and his. For what it’s worth, I don’t think you have to worry about his.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Has he reached out to you?” She shifted her gaze, looking everywhere but at me. I gasped. “You’ve talked to him!”
“What? No. Of course not.” Except those blue eyes, so much like mine, were staring at something over my shoulder. I opened my mouth to say something when the doorbell rang. “Oh,” Ever exclaimed as she jumped up, “saved by the bell.”
“You’re not going to be saved forever,” I tossed her way as she opened the door. And my heart, or what was left of it sank.
“Aunt Martha.” I’d judiciously avoided my aunt since coming back from New York even more than I had the rest of the family. I couldn’t even imagine what she’d have to say to me.
“Reese. Ever.” Aunt Martha nodded in my direction. “Can I have a word?”
Can I run away and never come back? I sucked in a breath. “Of course. Come in.” Crossing to Ever, I gave her a hug. “Thank you.” I wasn’t sure what conclusions or decisions I’d made from her visit, but it felt good to talk things through.
“Anytime, bestie. I know you’d do the same.” She squeezed tight and then whispered, “True love is as much of a Henley legacy as this land is. Don’t let yourself give one up for the other. You deserve both.”
Tears pricked the back of my eyelids as I gave her another squeeze. “So do you.”
Ever leaned back, her hands on my shoulders. “Don’t I know it. Just have to find it.” We both knew she had, if only the man in question would open his eyes. “Toodles,” she called out as she gave a finger wave and headed out the door.
I didn’t want to turn back and face my aunt.
Between running home like a scared little girl and possibly putting everything we have in danger, it really wasn’t a good look for me.
I hated that I was still unsure of everything.
Of whether Clay really did have an ulterior motive.
Whether he was going to figure out a way to get our property, even though other than a few pieces of paper, waved around by a man I didn’t trust, I had no proof that was his plan.
Had I really made that much of a mistake?
“Are you going to look at me, Reese?”
“Do I have to?”
Aunt Martha let out a low chuckle. “I would prefer it if you did, but if you want to hide, that’s up to you.”
Ouch. Talk about hitting a girl where it hurts. Pivoting, I watched a smile cross her face.