23. Ryan
23
Ryan
Driving back to the mansion, my mind is a mess. I’ve never seen Emma so upset and angry, and all I wanted to do was wipe her tears away. Heading to the clinic, I wanted to tell her that she had nothing to worry about. That it wasn’t true. That I would never, ever betray her like that. But she just wouldn’t listen. There was no reasoning with her.
Can you blame her?
I suppose I can’t. She’s spent the last ten years thinking I was an arrogant pig. Carrying that burden of pain after I humiliated her in high school wasn’t just going to go away because I said I was sorry. I hurt her. A lot. It was written all over her face that night in the parking lot before we went to the charity dinner.
Without telling her, I was going to spend as long as it took to make it up to her. That’s why I took her to the spa. It was the first act of many to show her how much she meant to me and how sorry I was.
But she’s seen that picture and believed it. Maybe it took her right back to that football game over ten years ago. Who knows? But she was sold, just like Thomas before I convinced him that it couldn’t be true. If my own brother was going to believe that trash, how could I possibly expect Emma to be any different?
The Audi screams up the driveway at speeds far too dangerous for the short distance, and I pull to a screeching halt outside the front door.
“Mr. Steele,” Beatrice gasps as I barge through the door. “What has happened?”
“Not now, Beatrice,” I bark. “I’m sorry.”
I storm past the astonished housekeeper and head straight into the living room. Pacing back and forth, I have all this pent-up energy that I don’t know what to do with. How am I going to make this right? How am I going to convince Emma that this is trash if she won’t even let me talk to her?
That thought stills me, and I pull my phone from my back pocket.
“Phil,” I gasp into the phone. “I need your help.”
“I was just going to call you,” he says, sounding more than a little ruffled. “What the heck, Ryan? What’s going on? My phone hasn’t stopped ringing all morning.”
“It’s not real,” I blurt. “The picture is fake. It never happened.”
“You mean, you weren’t with her in that bar?”
“No! Do you think I’m an idiot? Why would I be with her? More to the point, don’t you think I might have mentioned that I let her get a picture of us in the bar, knowing what kind of person she is?”
Phil falls silent, and I can nearly hear the thoughts in his head.
“You need to call the paper,” I bark, now feeling angry that whoever printed that nonsense didn’t do a proper job of checking their facts. Like they even care. It’s news, right?
“It’s Photoshopped, Phil. They need to make a public apology.”
“Right. Right,” Phil says, clearly still in some kind of thought process. “What about Emma?”
“Emma’s gone off the reservation. She won’t even speak to me,” I spit. “She thinks it really happened.”
“Okay. Okay. Don’t panic. I’m going to get on this.”
I nearly laugh into the phone, but not because what he said is funny. Panic is gone. I’m well past the panicking stage. Now, I’m beside myself. If I can’t convince Emma that this isn’t real, it’s over. Everything we’ve built over the last couple of months will come crashing down around our ears, and any chance for us will disintegrate.
“They need to be sued, Phil,” I bark.
“Calm down, man. Let me handle it. Okay?”
“Sure.”
I end the call and continue pacing, my heart thumping with anger, worry, and fear. What could have been might have ended before it’s even started, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
“What’s happening?” Thomas says as he walks into the room. “What did Emma say?”
I look at him, feeling like my world is falling apart. “Nothing,” I sigh. “I went to see her, but she wouldn’t speak to me. She pushed me out of the clinic. She actually yelled at me.”
Thomas looks at me for a long minute but doesn’t speak.
“What am I going to do?”
My brother takes a deep breath in and releases it slowly. “Was that Phil on the phone?”
I nod. “He’s going to contact the paper. But it might be too little, too late.” I run my fingers through my hair. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I’m going to go out of my mind.”
And then I bolt across the room and head for the door.
“Where are you going?” Thomas frowns as I pass him.
“I need to think,” I hiss as I carry on.
Five minutes later, I’m trudging across the gardens and heading to the lake. Weirdly, I was only out here an hour ago, but my thoughts were far different than they are now. I yank my skates on and glide out onto the ice. Sitting around and moping won’t help. I need to be doing something. Besides, I’m angry. I need to get rid of some of this rage before it explodes out of me. And with that, I push off from the edge and set off into rounds of speed skating.
Sometime later, I float around the lake in a daze, my mind flooded with memories of the time Emma and I have spent together. The weekend away with Madame Amour, the drives into the city, the interviews, the dinners, the laughter and the fun we’ve had. The memories are like bombs going off in my brain, each one crashing into me as they explode.
There has never been a time before Emma when I’ve felt so happy. That sounds like an exaggeration, but it’s true. I meant every word I said last night when I told her she’s made me a better man. Now, I regret not coming home sooner. All the time I’ve wasted playing the bad boy, hooking up with girls that were nothing more than arm ornaments. This whole time, I could have had someone like Emma by my side.
And now, thanks to that vindictive little psycho, I might just have lost the best thing that has ever happened to me. Or could ever happen to me.
It’s getting dark when I finally make it back into the house. I’m freezing, but I don’t feel it. I’m aware of it, but I’m too numb to care. In fact, I can’t care about anything right now. Nothing matters. Only Emma.
Making my way into the living room, I pass Beatrice in the hallway.
“Mr. Steele?” she says tentatively.
“I’m sorry about earlier, Beatrice,” I sigh.
She shakes her head. “Please. Don’t worry about it. How about some dinner?”
“Not hungry,” I reply as I carry on walking.
In the living room, I close the door and head to the drink cabinet. Taking a short glass and a decanter, I drop into the leather chair beside the roaring fire. With a glass of amber liquid in one hand and my phone in the other, I sit there for ages, wondering if I should call her.
There are no texts or messages from her. Clearly, she’s still mad at me. But I have to fight for her. I can’t let this go.
Finding Emma’s number in my contacts, I press the green button. With my phone to my ear, I hear the call go straight to voicemail. I sit listening to her soft voice, telling me that she can’t take my call right now, but if I leave a message, she’ll get right back to me. Funnily enough, I doubt that’s going to happen, so I hang up. But then I call again. Not because I think she’ll magically have turned her phone on in those few seconds. I just want to hear her voice.
I don’t know how many times I call. The time seems to slip by as her soothing tones dance in my mind. Staring into the fire, I eventually stop and put the phone on the table beside me. The flames lick upwards, trying to escape up the chimney, only to fall again like something is dragging them back.
The fire mesmerizes me, and I feel myself slipping into some numbed-out, trance-like state, where time stands still, the world stops spinning, and nothing even matters anymore. And maybe it doesn’t.
The door opening behind me pulls me out of it, though I have no idea how long I’ve been sitting here. I turn my head and see Thomas standing in the doorway. He’s wearing a coat, and I frown.
“You heading out? I ask, hardly caring one way or another.
“Just back, actually.”
“Oh. Where did you go?”
Thomas holds my gaze for a long second, and then he steps to the side. My eyes pop out of my head when I see Emma standing there. Clearly, she was behind my brother’s broad frame, and now, I nearly fall over the chair trying to scramble to stand.
“I’m going to leave you two alone,” Thomas says, turning towards the door.
A second later, the door closes, and it’s just me and Emma. She’s standing across the room, looking a little timid, and I’m gazing at her, thinking I might be hallucinating.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” she says,
If I’m hallucinating, it’s pretty darned real, and so, maybe I’m not. Maybe Emma Carter, the love of my life, the woman I’ve been worrying I’ve lost, is actually standing in the living room of the mansion, looking at me like she’s waiting for me to say something.