Chapter 50
Tim
I turned to Tabitha. “Those execs tricked me into saying that. I shut them down, and they promised not to air my comments. Those lying snakes.”
“Don’t come near me,” Tabitha said, her face a fury of red anger. She bolted to standing and, without a word to anyone else, fired through the doorway.
“Jesus Christ, man,” Darcy said. “Who the fuck are you?”
I wanted to punch him, but he was right. “We agreed we were going to fight for the sake of the show, because we wanted to win the prize,” I said weakly. “And I told them not to use that clip,” I added as I rushed from the room to find Tabs.
A huge bang from upstairs announced her bedroom door had been slammed. I was an idiot for trusting the execs, but I wasn’t about to lose Tabs over this.
I flew upstairs and knocked on the closed door. “Tabs, honey. It’s Tim. Please let me in.”
“Go away. Go home.”
“Tabs, I backtracked right after what we just saw. I asked the execs not to use the stupid stuff I said about you, and they agreed not to.”
The door swung open so fast I stepped back and swayed. Her face was streaked with tears. I was a total fucking bastard, and I hated that I’d done this to her. Why had I panicked and answered the question like that? Trying to fix it afterward didn’t make that okay.
“Tabs, I’m sorry. I love you,” I pleaded, desperate, almost in tears myself.
“No. You don’t get to call me Tabs.”
She stepped outside her bedroom and into the hallway. I needed to correct this.
“How could you think they’d keep you saying I was dull and boring and no fun out of the show?
Those piranhas live for that drama. And no, this is not what we agreed on,” she said, shaking her head.
“We agreed on a number of scenarios, and we went over them and rehearsed them. We agreed not to get personal.” She wiped her hands down her face.
“If anyone else had said that about me, I would have felt hurt.”
Tears dripped down her face, and it was everything I could do not to fold her in my arms to comfort her. Comfort her from what I’d done.
“But it was you,” she went on. “I’m devastated.
I’m h-h-h-humiliated.” She was sobbing by now, and I hated being helpless to stop her pain.
“How do you think I can show my face at work now? How can I even face those two guys downstairs? I’ve been working with them for a week, and they respect me.
And then they hear someone who is supposed to be my boyfriend talk about me like that.
Dull, boring, no fun—everything Perry said about me. ”
She swiped a hand over her wet cheek, and her shoulders shuddered. “Why didn’t you tell me about the online comments?”
Fuck. “I was trying to do something about it. I asked Simon to block them, and he said he didn’t have that power.
Then I asked Solomon to upload videos showing who you really were, kind and artistic and hardworking, but his mother is the boss and she nixed them.
Then I called every exec in the company.
I contacted a lawyer to find something in our contracts that would control those comments.
I set up a fake account and replied to the worst of the comments. ”
“I thought that was you.” She slapped her hands at her sides, shaking her head. “Tim, you didn’t think I was strong enough to handle the comments? It hurts to read them, yes. It’s very painful. But also, I’m a grown woman, I have to handle these things. I wanted more faith from you.”
She seemed so defeated and sad and disappointed in me, it sent a fathomless ache into my chest.
“I don’t know, Tim. Maybe we were never meant to be. Things shouldn’t be this hard. Twice now, we’ve been derailed, and we’ve only been together two weeks.” She wiped under her eyes. “I need to hit pause.”
She said “pause,” but her words had a finality to them that terrified me.
She trudged back into her room without closing her door, heaved her bag onto her bed, and started folding her clothes into it. She practically ran to the bathroom, and the sounds of her toiletries being angrily packed clattered toward me. A line of cold sweat trickled down my spine.
My phone rang. Macy. I silenced it.
I stood at the doorway, wanting to go in and knowing I couldn’t. “Please, can we talk?”
“No, Tim. Not right now. I’m too hurt. Too humiliated. Just—”
My phone rang again. This time Amy, but even though I never ignored her calls, I pressed ignore.
“Where are you going?” I asked. “Are you going back to London? Please let me drive you. Tabs, I’ll do anything to make this okay.”
Suddenly, she calmed. “It’s out there, Tim.”
Amy called again. I went to press ignore but fumbled and pressed speakerphone instead.
“I was going to surprise you and bring Mum over to the preview party with us,” Amy said.
“But I walked into her flat, and flames were leaping from the stove. Mum was boiling soup on the burner and then Macy came in from outside and had a fit. When the hell were you going to tell me she has dementia, Tim? I’m so furious with you.
This is why you’ve been fobbing me off and restricting the time I spend with Mum. Why you are always here when I visit.”
I pressed the speakerphone off and slammed the phone to my ear. “Is Mum okay? Everyone’s okay?”
“No burns. But Mum’s upset and so am I, and Macy is in tears.”
“Thank God no one was injured,” I said. “I’m coming right now.” I pressed off and looked up at Tabs.
“Everyone’s okay?” Tabs asked desperately, her hand clutching her heart. I nodded, and she let out a breath.
She was stock-still, a jersey in her other hand, her face frozen with shock. “You never told Amy. It’s been a week.”
I took a step toward her. “I—”
She lunged for the door and slammed it in my face.
Amy didn’t say a word when she opened the door at Mum’s flat. Apparently, Macy had taken Mum for a walk along the river, while Amy waited to confront me.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Like I said, I walked in and saw flames on the stove. I raced to take the pot off the burner and Macy comes in from hanging up the washing outside. She’s freaking out, I’m freaking out, Mum’s freaking out.
After Macy calmed down, she confessed everything.
We both feel awful, and I’m angry with you that she’s been asked to keep it from me.
After Macy left the room, Mum proceeded to tell me the same story twice.
And you know how Mum is about bores who repeat stories.
Turns out, the story was about her daughter, but in reality, it was her mother. ”
I slumped into a chair at the breakfast table and put my head in my hands. Mum was having a very bad day. I looked up at Amy to indicate for her to continue.
Instead of sitting opposite me, she perched on the edge of the kitchen counter, arms tightly folded. “Then Mum shows me a brochure with a castle on the front and says she’ll be swimming in the pool at Christmastime because it’s heated!”
Shit. How did Mum find that brochure after I’d hidden it in my bedside drawer?
“And I flick through it,” Amy continues, “and lo and behold, it’s a castle half an hour from here that’s been converted into a memory care facility, and the paperwork clipped inside shows you’ve paid the deposit for a suite.
The deposit was eye-watering, and then I checked the cost at the back.
Tim, you could have bought your own castle with what this costs.
” She ground her jaw back and forth. “This place is so expensive, so how on earth can you afford it?”
I started to answer, but she held up a hand.
“Why don’t I know about any of this?” she asked. “And why have you kept it from me? I’m furious with you, Tim, because I think I know the answer.”
My breathing strained, I rose and paced Mum’s tiny kitchen. No more lies. I had to come clean.
“Ames, I was keeping it from you because I knew you would quit London, head back here, and go back to law because you’d want to chip in. And I didn’t want you to give up on your dreams.”
But now, because of the mess I’d made of this, it was going to happen anyway.
She rolled her head back. “So, you’re making this decision on my behalf because I’m not capable of making those hard decisions for myself?” She nodded at her quad cane propped at her feet.
Her pain struck a dagger through my heart. “It wasn’t about that at all, Ames. It was because you’re my sister, and I want the best for you.”
She didn’t look even remotely convinced.
“Please, Ames, don’t think it’s got anything to do with your having CP. I promise it’s not—”
“That feels like exactly what this is. Just because I’m disabled doesn’t mean I can’t make decisions on my own!”
“Ames, this has nothing to do with your disability.” I searched her face, trying to get her to feel my sincerity, but her mouth was tight and I saw a wounded guardedness in her eyes that absolutely killed me.
This was my worst nightmare. This was what she’d battled all her life, ignorant people thinking differently of her. That she’d put me in that category wrenched my heart so painfully, my hand clutched at my chest.
She creased her forehead. “So, you’re thinking I’d come back because I felt I owed Mum? Because she worked in an office all day, and often in the pub on weekends, so I could have all the support and physical therapies I needed?”
“She gave a lot to me too. All those trips away for sport, helping me out when my apprentice wages weren’t enough to cover the bills, helping me set up my business, spending hours doing my paperwork.
” Thinking about all the selfless hours and emotional support she’d given me tugged at me hard.
“And I promised Dad before he died that I’d take care of you and Mum, and I take that promise seriously. ”
She did a double take. “This wasn’t what he meant. Dad didn’t take action over every single event in his life, trying to control everything like you’re doing here.”
That knocked me speechless because her words rang…true. Dad was more of a quiet listener.