Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
Even though I’m hungover as fuck and wanted to spend the day wallowing in self-pity in bed, Oliver called an emergency meeting. So Danger drove Lunar and me into the office so we could get this over and done with.
We make our way to the boardroom, even though I can barely walk, let alone function.
I’m not looking forward to seeing Tillie today.
She’ll know I’ve been out and not looking after myself, but more importantly, I hate the fact that she’ll be angry with me, and I’m not looking forward to the berating I will get from her.
But as we approach the boardroom, my spine doesn’t tingle, and my hair doesn’t stand on end.
I don’t get the feeling that Tillie is nearby, and as I walk in, that feeling is confirmed.
She isn’t in here.
I furrow my brows and take a seat while Oliver glances up from his computer. He takes one look at me and shakes his head. I wince and slump into my seat as Danger and Lunar sit down. Nate smirks while Matt doesn’t give a shit and continues to fuck around with his cell.
“Okay, let’s get right to the point. Tillie had to go into PR-crazy mode to cover some breaking story about Ryan hiring a hooker last night. He was seen leaving a bar in a cab with her.”
Opening my eyes wide, I gasp. “Whoa! Whoa! What? A hooker? I swear I went home alone. Tillie knows that, right?”
Oliver shakes his head. “She’s telling the world exactly that! But I don’t think she believes one word of what she’s having to release to the world, Ryan.”
I stand so fast that the seat falls out from under me. “Where is she?”
“Packing her things… she’s resigned. We’re interviewing new PR candidates today.”
“What?” everyone asks as my heart sinks and I flush red-hot. My stomach churns, and a sticky sweat covers my entire skin. Shaking my head, my feet act before I can even think, and I bolt out of the room.
I rush around the building to her office.
She can’t leave like this!
She can’t think I hired a hooker.
I can’t have her thinking I’d do that to her.
As I continue down the hallway, racing to her room, I’m relieved when my body reacts the closer I get to her door.
Out of breath as I look in, she’s wiping her nose with a tissue.
Her glasses are off. Her hair is down and sweeping around her face as she packs things slowly into a box.
Tears run in rivulets down her cheeks, and the sight breaks my heart.
My chest squeezes, and I flare my nostrils. I’ve done this to her.
As if she senses me, her head turns to look right at me. Her breath stops, and her nostrils flare while she throws one hell of a glare my way. She swallows hard, then turns back and continues packing without saying a word.
It cuts me deeper than any knife could have.
“Tillie—”
“Don’t, Ryan.”
“Let me explain—”
“How you hired a hooker on a drunken bender, and then I had to cover it up?”
“It’s not like that—”
“Oh, really?” She turns to look at me, picks up a book, and throws it at me. It smacks me right in the center of my chest as she starts to really cry. “Then explain to me how the fuck it is?”
“I was drunk. She asked me for a light. I said no. I was too drunk. She agreed and then helped me to a cab. When I got to the cab, I was so wasted that I accidentally fell. She fell on top of me. But I swear, Tillie, she got out, and I went home… alone. Ask Danger and Lunar, they can tell you I spent all night in the bathroom by myself.”
She stops packing and stands there looking into the box like she’s thinking about that for a moment. I take a step closer, but she puts her hand up to stop me. “Don’t! You’re the reason I’m like this, Ryan. You’ve ruined me. So don’t try to make it better.”
My stomach sinks, and I wince, wanting to burst into tears myself at seeing her in this state. “Tillie, I never meant to hurt you.”
Her head snaps up, and she glares at me with vicious intent.
“You never meant to hurt me? Then why go out of your fucking way to hurt me, Ryan? Explain that! Everything you have done lately feels like some personal jab at me, and I don’t know why.
I don’t know what I did to make you fucking hate me so fucking much! ”
My stomach churns, and I despise that she thinks that. “I don’t hate you, far from it—”
“Funny way of showing it.”
I risk another step closer, and this time, she lets me. “Don’t leave.”
She exhales, shaking her head slowly, and turns away from me, packing more of her stuff into the box. “I have to go.”
“Why?”
She glares at me again. “Because I can’t watch you with other women and continue to clean up your PR messes. Covering your ass is just too painful.”
“So you’re just going to leave?”
She scoffs. “You don’t want me, Ryan, so give me a good reason to stay? You win! You always wanted me gone, so you got it, baby. Now, I’m gone!”
Something inside me clicks.
I see my future without her.
And it’s horrifying.
Devastating.
Being without her is something that scares the shit out of me.
But I can’t let her go.
If having her and having the risk of losing her means I get to have some sort of life with her, then I’d rather take the risk than not have her at all.
What the fuck was I thinking?
I love her.
I need her.
I don’t want to spend another minute—nay, another second without her in my life.
Fuck the risks!
“Tillie, I’m sorry. There’s something I’ve been keeping from you, something from my past. Something that’s been holding me back in our relationship. But if you’re willing to hear me, I want to open up to you. I want to prove to you that… I love you.”
She stops throwing things into the box and slumps her shoulders like she’s relieved. She glances at me as a single tear rolls down her cheek. Her bottom lip trembles, and she simply nods.
I take a deep breath, knowing this is my one and only shot at making her stay.
At getting her back into my life.
I reach out for her hand, and she lets me take it.
Our fingers intertwine, and a spark so intense jolts through me, making me gasp.
I notice her breathing hitch, too, and I swallow hard as we walk off down the hall.
I don’t even have to tell her where we’re headed.
She seems to read my mind as we move for the fire escape.
We step up the stairs, and the crisp midday air hits my face.
It’s getting close to December, and it is pretty chilly up here these days.
She wraps her arms around herself as we walk to the edge of the building, taking a seat.
We’re quiet for a moment, but I don’t want to let the silence take a stranglehold.
I want to tell her about Katie.
I’m ready.
So I turn to face her and grab both her hands, holding them securely in mine.
Taking a deep cleansing breath, I start, “So, I know you’re wondering who Katie is,” I say, and she sits up a little taller and nods.
My chest tightens slightly, but I push through the memories threatening to consume me. “Katie was my childhood sweetheart. We grew up together and basically knew we were going to end up being together for the rest of our lives.” I smile at the happy memory.
“We were eighteen when I asked her to marry me. We were young, yes, but we’d been together since we were pretty much twelve years old, if you can even have a relationship that young. But Katie and I, we were inseparable.”
Tillie chews on her bottom lip while furrowing her brows slightly.
“We got married not long after I asked her, and then two years later, we had our little girl, Maddison.”
Her eyes open wide, and her brows furrow like she’s completely confused, but she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she tightens her hands in mine.
“Anyway, we were a happy little family. I loved my girls more than anything, but then that night happened.” I tense up, stopping and taking a second to compose myself.
Next to me, I feel her breathing quicken, so I turn to look at her beautiful face. Her eyes glisten like she’s on the verge of tears.
“You don’t have to tell me anymore if it’s too painful,” she offers kindly, but this isn’t about me. Tillie needs to know and know it all if we are to move forward from here to a future together.
“No, it’s okay, you need to hear this…” I fake a smile.
“I was driving. Katie was the front passenger, and of course, Maddie was in her booster seat in the back. We were on our way out for a family dinner. Maddie was crying. I was distracted, trying to make her happy, you know, being the goofball dad that I was. I only wanted my baby to feel better. So I had her binky, and I was playing with her when I should have been just fucking driving.”
My eyes well up, and I have to swallow hard to get past the lump that’s formed in my throat. I can’t risk looking at Tillie, but I can hear her sniffing as my eyes mist up completely.
“I looked back for a moment, just to try to ease Maddie. The light had turned green, so I drove straight through, but a truck driver on his cell phone wasn’t paying attention to his red light.”
A sob leaves my throat, and Tillie squeezes my hands tighter. The tears don’t fail me as they burst through and slowly slide down my cheeks. I don’t care if she sees me cry. There’s one thing I’ll cry for in this world, and it’s my dead family. I’m not ashamed of that.
“It’s the sound of the metal crunching that never leaves you, you know? I don’t remember much, but the metal crunching I’ll never forget…”
I risk looking up at her, and she’s looking at me with such sad eyes. My chest hurts as I gaze over at her, thinking that it all could have happened again when she had her accident. I could have lost her, and instead of spending every precious moment with her, I pushed her away.
God, I’m such a dick.
“They didn’t make a sound, not one. I was moaning and groaning, but I couldn’t hear anything from either of them.
The truck hit the passenger side and pushed right into it.
When I looked up, Katie…” I wince and trail off as I remember the disfigured body of my wife.
Tears stream down both our faces as Tillie’s bottom lip trembles uncontrollably.
“I didn’t dare look back at Maddie, but I knew. I could feel it. Her booster seat was on the passenger side at the back. There was no way, no way she’d survive.”
“Oh God,” Tillie murmurs and reaches out, hugging me tightly. “I’m so… so sorry. I get it now. Why you pushed me away after the accident. I can’t even imagine all the memories, everything that must have brought up for you. I’m so sorry. But you know the accident wasn’t your fault.”
“Then why do I feel like it was?”
She shakes her head and caresses my face. “It wasn’t, Ryan. You went through on a green. You did nothing wrong.”
“I was driving, I was distracted by Maddie… if I had been paying more attention, I would have seen him running the light. I could have saved them—”
“No. There was nothing you could do if it were a truck. You wouldn’t have been able to outrun it. There was nothing you could do, Ryan. Stop blaming yourself and pushing people away. Let me in. I’m here for you if you’ll let me be?”
I pull back from her and look her in the eyes, wiping the tears from her face. “I want you to be… please don’t leave.”
She sniffs, shaking her head. “I’m not going anywhere. Although if you do this again—”
“I won’t… promise,” I interrupt. Leaning in, I press my lips to hers tenderly, and she kisses me back with such fierce intent that my knees feel weak even though we’re sitting. A spark so strong shoots through every atom in my body.
And there it is again—that same damn feeling.
Everything is amplified with Tillie, and right here, right now, I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that Tillie is the one for me.
She’s the one to bring back the balance in my life.
She’s my safe place, my home.
She’s fucking everything—and I’m never, ever going to take her for granted, or let her slip away. Because I know all too well how quickly you can lose the people you love.
Slowly, I pull back from her and look into her beautiful eyes. Even though they’re puffy and have cried enough tears lately to sink a battleship, she’s still the most beautiful woman on the face of this earth. “I love you, Tillie.”
She presses her forehead to mine, and a slow smile crosses her lips. “I love you, too, Ryan.”