Chapter 14
REID
Isat at my kitchen counter, staring at my phone for a long time before I finally started typing. Mailing the letter in my hand felt too impersonal, but I didn’t want to show up unannounced and make Lila feel cornered in her own home.
So I kept the message to the point.
Me
Would it be okay if I dropped a letter off in person? I won’t stay long. You can read it later if you want.
I hit send and waited, thrumming my fingers on the marble. Her reply came ten long minutes later.
Lila
You can come by now if you want. I’m home.
I exhaled in relief before grabbing my keys, determined to get there before I lost my nerve.
The drive from house to hers only took about twenty minutes, but it felt like forever. Except when I got to her door, my nerves got the better of me, and I stood there for a moment with my heart pounding harder than it ever did while negotiating multimillion-dollar deals.
This letter was the hardest thing I’d ever written. Holding myself accountable in black and white had been more difficult than I expected. I redrafted it three times, making sure there were no excuses hidden between the lines.
This wasn’t a grand gesture to make Lila forgive me. It was about showing her I was finally listening. And I could only do that if I actually handed the letter over.
I finally lifted my hand and rapped my knuckles against the hard surface. The door opened almost immediately, as though Lila had been waiting for me to knock.
Pulling the envelope from my pocket, I held it out to her. But I didn’t move forward, waiting to see if she would invite me inside.
Her gaze darted down to my hand, her conflict clear on her face. After a moment, she stepped back and opened the door wider without taking the letter from me.
I walked in, careful to keep some space between us. The spicy aroma of her famous gingerbread drifted to me, and my mouth watered at the memory of how delicious the treat was. “I interrupted your baking.”
“Yeah.” She closed the door and leaned against it, crossing her arms loosely over her chest as she watched me with guarded eyes.
“Filming wrapped?”
Her plush lips curved into a rueful smile. “Yup, my usual celebration, along with catching up on all the laundry I’ve been putting off.”
I took comfort in the fact that her habits hadn’t changed dramatically in the time we’d been apart. As though it was a sign that all had not been lost yet.
Tilting my head toward the living room, I asked, “Do you mind if I sit?”
“No, that’s fine.”
I was hyperaware of her soft footsteps behind me. She took the wingback chair, and I dropped onto the couch where we’d cuddled together so many times. I held the envelope a little more tightly, all too aware of how much this interaction mattered.
I took a slow breath before speaking. “In the interest of being completely honest, I should tell you the letter was an exercise from my therapist. She asked me to write out what happened from your perspective.”
“I see,” she murmured, pulling her legs up so her knees were pressed against her chest and her feet were perched on the edge of the chair.
Seeing her defensive pose hurt my heart. I needed to move this along for her benefit. “She said the choice to share it with you was up to me, but once I was done, I knew it was the right thing to do. Even if knowing you’re going to read what I wrote makes me feel vulnerable as hell.”
Her eyes widened before her gaze dropped to the envelope again. “You’re sure you want to give it to me?”
“Not sure I’d call it want, more like need.” I shook my head and shrugged. “You deserve to know what’s in here, and that’s what’s important.”
She studied my expression for a moment before coming to a decision. “Then I guess you’d better hand it over.”
She stretched out her arm, and I gave her the envelope.
“You can take all the time you need. Or not read it at all. That’s completely up to you.”
“I know.” She didn’t open the envelope right away, holding it in her lap with trembling fingers.
Leaving was the last thing I wanted to do, but I felt like I had to offer. “Would you like me to go?”
“I don’t think that I do,” she whispered.
I hadn’t expected that answer. Honestly, I thought she’d take the envelope and send me on my way.
The fact that she wanted me to stay felt like a gift I hadn’t earned. Which made me even more determined not to waste it.
“Okay.”
I sat back slightly and waited until Lila finally opened the envelope. She read silently at first, her eyes moving across the page. Then she began reading certain lines out loud, her voice quiet.
“You stopped bringing your lunch to my office because you didn’t feel welcome there anymore.” Lila traced her finger over the page. “I didn’t even realize you’d noticed.”
When she looked up again, I met her gaze.
“I did but explained it away as being too busy between work and wedding planning. But in hindsight, I realize it was because I handled everything so poorly after you stopped by and found Kaylee perched on the corner of my desk. I allowed the situation to continue even after you told me how it made you feel. I wasn’t truly listening. ”
“That is unfortunately accurate,” she agreed, her fingers tightening slightly on the paper.
“Unfortunate doesn’t even begin to describe it,” I muttered.
“You started apologizing before telling me how you felt.” Lila’s eyes lingered on the page. “I don’t remember doing that.”
“You did.”
Her brow furrowed. “All the time?”
“Toward the end, yeah.”
Her brow wrinkled. “You make it sound like I was giving up.”
“You were.”
“I suppose that’s fair.”
I clenched my hands to stop myself from reaching for her. “Only because I pushed you too far away.”
Scanning the letter again, she bit her bottom lip. “Maybe I’m overreacting. I guess I used to say that a lot.”
I nodded. “Which is on me because you were just echoing the excuses I made in my futile attempt to keep the peace at work. I allowed boundaries to blur because it was easier than enforcing them. I chose comfort over protecting what we had. I should have recognized that much sooner.”
“Not just you. My parents and sister, too.” Her throat moved as she swallowed. “It really hurt when I stopped believing you’d listen. You were supposed to be my safe place. My person.”
Her whispered admission hit harder than anything I’d written in the letter. She wasn’t even trying to hurt me, only telling the truth. “That only makes what I did worse.”
“You were very detailed in your examples.”
I didn’t reply because there wasn’t anything I could come up with that wouldn’t sound like I expected her gratitude when I was trying to give her honest accountability for the ways I had let her down.
Lila turned another page, reading more. I sat quietly, letting her absorb what I’d written without interruption.
She finally reached the last example of my failures. “You’d start a conversation about something that bothered you, then tell me it wasn’t important before I could respond.”
I nodded. “I thought we were resolving things, but looking back, it was probably one of the early signs you were starting to give up. And I had my head shoved so far up my ass, I missed it.”
“That’s new.”
My brows drew together. “What?”
“Your self-deprecating humor.”
“Ahh.” I crossed one leg over the other, resting my ankle loosely on my upper thigh. “Yeah, therapy has definitely been eye-opening.”
“Did your therapist also tell you that you didn’t need to wear socks with your suits anymore?”
It took a moment for her teasing tone to register. I shook my head with a sheepish smile. “No, I just need to catch up on laundry, same as you. I’m down to the low-cut liners you always hated. Found them shoved in the back of a drawer the other day.”
“Maybe you should’ve bought some new ones instead of going to Erewhon yesterday.”
Shit. She knew.
Clocking the expression on my face, she explained, "My mother called me."
“Dammit.” I raked my fingers through my hair. “That was the last thing I wanted.”
“Yeah, she wasn’t kind when she told me what happened, but I have to admit I enjoyed her ire being turned on you too.” She folded the letter and set it in her lap. “Was confronting my parents and Sienna something your therapist suggested?”
“No, it wasn’t,” I answered honestly. “That was something I chose to do on my own. I talked about it in therapy afterward and realized I had never stood up for you before. Not when it counted.”
“I appreciate it.”
The simple words shouldn’t have felt like a victory. But they did.
“Now that you’ve finished reading the letter, I should go.” I stood slowly. “Thank you for letting me come in and for listening.”
Lila remained seated, the letter still in her lap. “I accept your apology, but I’m not ready to forgive you yet.”
I nodded, respecting the clear boundary she had set. “I understand.”
As I walked out the door, I had to admit she’d already given me far more than I deserved.