Chapter Twenty-Four
“Y ou’ve been so quiet,” Marissa says later that night as she climbs into bed next to me.
We stayed far longer at her sister’s shower than either of us wanted to, but I knew she wanted to be there for her sister, and I wasn’t going to leave her to deal with whatever potential fallout was brewing. Her parents didn’t acknowledge me for the rest of the night and barely said more than a few words to Marissa except during pictures. From the outside, it didn’t seem like anything was off, but I could feel the tension between them, and behind Marissa’s smile, I could see how hurt she was.
“I’m sorry, baby. Just a lot on my mind, I guess.”
She purses her lips and sits up. “Should I be concerned that I’m half naked in your bed and you haven’t tried anything?”
I give her a half smile as I notice her state of undress for the first time. Fuck, I really have been distracted if I didn’t notice she’s only wearing a tiny silk camisole and matching shorts. I pull her to straddle me and rest my hands on her hips, sliding my hands underneath the soft material over her skin. “How is it going to be with your family?” I ask her.
“I don’t know,” she says sadly before biting down on her bottom lip. “They’ve never been like that with me.” She lets out a sigh. “Then again, I’ve never done anything…that they didn’t approve of.”
“Will they come around?”
“Ever?” she asks. “I think so?”
“Will you be able to live with it if they don’t?” I ask her the question I’ve been contemplating ever since her mother looked at us like Marissa was a stranger and I was the man who caused this situation. She doesn’t say anything and just looks off to the side like she’s considering a life that doesn’t include a relationship with her parents. “Will you be okay if they never approve of me or how we came to be together?”
“I can’t imagine if we continue down this road and you wanted to marry me or give them a grandchild, they’d hold onto their anger,” she says. I can hear the lilt in her voice and see the nervous look in her eyes over bringing up marriage. “I don’t mean tomorrow!”
“In a perfect world, I’d marry you tomorrow.” I grip her thighs tighter and give them a squeeze. She giggles before shifting slightly in my lap.
I don’t say what I want to say, which is that it feels like we will never live in that perfect world. First, it was my marriage and now it’s her parents’ reaction to said marriage, and that’s not even taking into account that she works for me and I don’t know how I’m going to handle HR.
“How about we let my parents get used to the idea before we spring that on them?” she says breaking me from my thoughts. I hold her steady as I try to stop her from moving against my dick but she continues to rock her hips against me. She leans over and hovers her mouth above mine. “They’ll come around.”
“I hate the thought that you have to wait for that. You live at home. Won’t that be difficult?”
“I’ve actually been thinking about moving out. Not just because of this, but I do have this big fancy salary now,” she jokes, “I can afford it.”
“That’s amazing. I’m really proud of you.” I force a smile and she frowns before climbing out of my lap.
“I feel like you’re shutting down on me.”
“I’m not.” I sit up. “This was just a lot. Your parents witnessed our first run-in with Holly and now they know and I don’t want to create a divide between you and your family.”
“You’re not! They were just surprised and in shock,” she argues.
“Maybe, but there’s a good chance that the shock will never wear off, and don’t tell me you don’t care, because I don’t believe that.” I know she cares and maybe today it doesn’t bother her, but at some point when the anger wears off and she misses her family, she may wish she’d done things differently.
She’s about to respond when the sound of her cell phone buzzing on the nightstand stops her. When she looks at it, she shakes her head. “It’s just my sister. I’ll call her back. Chris…I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m not suggesting we end it because my parents aren’t thrilled about how we got together. It’s not the end of the world. I’ll talk to them.” She looks down at her hands in her lap before looking up at me somberly. “Unless this is just too much for you?”
“I didn’t say that. I’m thinking that this is too much for you . I hate that I’ve made things so hard for you by putting you through all my shit.”
“Well, how about you let me decide what’s hard for me?”
“I keep thinking about what your dad said. That you’ll wake up in five years and wish you hadn’t gone down this road with me.”
She’s silent for a moment before she speaks again. “Are you…breaking up with me?”
Her words hit me square in the chest and I hate the thought that after everything we’ve been through, we don’t end up together. “No. I want to be with you. I’ve always wanted to be with you, but should it be this complicated?”
She frowns and pulls a blanket around her, to cover up her body, and I hate that she’s feeling like she needs to shield herself from me. “I’m fairly certain you started this mountain of complications when you slept with me at our friend’s wedding three years ago.”
“I know,” I tell her because I did set all of this in motion and I don’t know if I had to do it all again if I would do anything differently.
“Okay, well it kind of feels like I’m having to talk you into being with me.” She gets off the bed and I see her moving towards the closet. “And I’m definitely not doing that.”
“You’re not. I want to be with you more than fucking anything.”
She comes out of the closet and she’s pulled a sweatshirt over her torso. “Suddenly, it doesn’t feel like it.”
“It’s just with work and your parents and…I kind of feel like I’ve fucked up your life.”
Her phone begins to ring again on the nightstand and she rolls her eyes before picking it up. “Autumn, this really isn’t—” She sighs. “Yes, it was kind of a mess, but can we talk about it later?” She looks at me before dropping to my couch in the corner with an exasperated sigh. “I don’t see why everyone has an opinion about my life.” She pauses and I can see the annoyance all over her face, making me wonder if Autumn, who’d previously been on our side despite our obstacles is now voicing a different opinion. “Fine, whatever. I’ll be home in the morning,” she says before hanging up the phone. “Well, my whole family thinks I’m making a huge mistake, and now you’re acting like you have one foot out of the door of this relationship.”
“That’s not what this is.” I shake my head at her. “The idea of not being with you…” I give her a look that I hope tells her how much I hate that idea. “I just don’t want to put you in a position where being with me alienates you from everyone in your life. I know that’s not what you want. You’re close with your family. You’re not like me who lives several states away and barely talks to them.”
She doesn’t say anything, and for the first time since we started this conversation, I wonder if it’s setting in. “You should call your mom more,” she tells me sadly and I nod in agreement because I definitely should. “And your sisters,” she adds. Tears have sprung to her eyes and when she looks at me it feels like someone’s standing on my chest. “So…I can’t have what I want?”
“I just think you should give this some thought. This isn’t just because your family doesn’t like me. They don’t approve of us together, and that might make things tense and uncomfortable. How would holidays work? Your sister’s wedding? Birthdays? Things that you would want me to come to…they may not want me there and then that’s just going to cause a divide.”
“It already is. I’m so angry at them.”
“In their own way, they think they’re looking out for you,” I tell her as I make my way over to the couch and sit next to her.
“So, what does this mean for you and me?”
I grab her hand and hold it in mine before dragging my lips over them. “I don’t know. I want to be with you, but I don’t know how it can work. We have so many things stacked against us.”
“I hate this.”
“So do I,” I tell her. “I feel like I’ve waited so long to be happy. So long to be happy with you, and I still can’t have it.”
I’m walking through my front door the next morning after a long and teary night with Chris. Neither one of us wants a breakup but even I can admit that it seems like we’re no closer to seeing light at the end of the tunnel than we were two years ago. I’m upset and angry and I know exactly where to place my anger.
I find my mother who’s sitting in the living room, scrolling on her iPad. She doesn’t look up when I enter the room. “Where’s Dad?”
“Golf.” Yep, she’s pissed.
I guess I’m going to have to start this conversation then. “So, you just have nothing to say to me?”
She puts her iPad down and looks up at me before sliding her glasses off. “What do you want me to say?”
“How about I’m sorry?”
She narrows her eyes in confusion. “For what, may I ask?”
“That was not the time for any of that last night. That was…so unlike you.”
“And sleeping with a married man…that’s like you ? News to me.”
I shake my head in frustration. “Mom, we didn’t do anything to you . The way you treated us was so uncalled for.”
She stands up and I can already tell I’m in for it. “Uncalled for? Your boyfriend’s wife basically called my child a whore to her face and you think my behavior was uncalled for? You’re lucky we didn’t have the cops called! Had we been anywhere else and I had just a few more drinks, your father would have had to call in several favors,” she says as she stomps past me.
I follow behind her into the kitchen, “I know and I get why you’re angry and that you’re just trying to look out for me but he loves me and I love him.”
She slams the refrigerator closed as she brings out one of her sparkling waters. “Marissa, be serious; you’re in love with the forbiddenness of it all. It’s all of the sneaking around behind closed doors that you’re in love with. Let’s be honest with ourselves.”
“That’s not it!”
“Okay, so explain to me. He’s divorced now. Fine. We’ll put a pin in that for now. How does it work with you working for him? Are you going to quit your job? A job you love? A job you’re doing very well at? Or are you just going to be sneaking around for the rest of your career there? That’s not a life or a relationship.”
I lean against the island and rest my arms on the counter. “I don’t know. We haven’t gotten that far, but I assume we’d have to speak with HR and I wouldn’t be able to report directly to him obviously. That’s currently the least of our problems. I don’t want you and Dad to hate him.”
“We don’t hate him, but you’re asking us to just be okay with how you guys got together and for us to not be skeptical about his intentions. He was married for six years and—”
“Again, there’s more to that and I’ll agree that no one can really know what goes on in a relationship but those two people, and there are two sides to every story, but it sounded like Dad was taking Holly’s side last night by repeating her nonsense back to us.”
She shrugs. “Well, I wasn’t there for that.”
I hesitate, not wanting to ask this question but knowing that inevitably I have to know. “Can you support me being with him?”
Her lips form a straight line. “I don’t know, Marissa, and I never thought I’d ever be in the position where I’d have to be asked that by one of my children. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“He won’t hurt me.”
“How do you know that?”
“It’s just…a feeling. I know he loves me.”
“Love isn’t always enough. Honey, you’re so young.”
“Oh, here we go.” I groan.
“Yes, your age definitely gives me pause. It’s so easy for a young girl to get swept up in a good-looking, older, rich man and all of the promises of the world that he offers.”
“He’s not even that old!”
“He’s thirty-five and you’re twenty-three. Yes, there are bigger age gaps, but you’re in very different phases of life. You just graduated college and are just starting your career; you still have student loans and live at home and he’s what? A billionaire?” She scratches her head before shaking it. “Well, maybe not anymore, since his wife took half.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Who’s joking?” she asks as she walks past me again to go back into the living room. “Give it some time. If you two are really serious about each other then it shouldn’t matter if you wait a few months.”
“What’s a few months going to do?”
“Give you some space to think about what it is you want?”
“I want him . And I waited over two years for him.”
“The time he was married hardly counts.”She shakes her head. “Honey, when I was twenty-three, I was dating this guy who I swore I was going to marry. I was ready to let him lock me down and I wanted to give him all the babies.”
My parents met when my mother was twenty-five so I can only assume there were guys before him. My mother is beautiful now, but in her twenties, she was an absolute knockout and always had guys coming to the house asking for my grandparents’ permission to take her out. I know this because my grandfather still talks about how he’d sit on the front porch with his shotgun. It wasn’t loaded but it got the message across.
“I thought I loved him,” she continues, “I thought he loved me too and maybe he did.” She shrugs. “But he also loved three different other girls in neighboring towns.”
“Chris isn’t like that.”
“Maybe not? But…do you really think it’s unfathomable given how you two met?”She gives me a look that’s full of uncertainty.
“He wouldn’t do that to me,” I whisper, but even I hear the conviction leaving my voice.
“And all I’m asking is if, you’re sure?”