Chapter 15 #2
He walks away, and I look over Ethan’s shoulder at his glowering face. “What the hell was that? Have you lost your mind?”
His jaw is tight. “You don’t understand. He’s interested in you.”
“I’m young enough to be his daughter, Ethan. What is wrong with you?”
He seizes me by my shoulders and gives me a quick shake. “No, you don’t understand. Roland isn’t the type of person to show interest in someone unless he wants something from them.”
“Like you then?” I shoot back, and his expression goes blank.
I instantly regret my words.
Rubbing the bridge of my nose, I let out a sigh.
“I didn’t mean that. Look, I’ve spent enough time around Braxton and his friends to know when a man is looking at me with that sort of intent.
Roland isn’t. He’s not interested in me.
He just likes me for some reason. That’s all. I’m not that unlikable.”
I meet his gaze. “You shouldn’t have been so rude to him. He’s one of your biggest investors. You shouldn’t have screwed yourself over because of me.”
“I don’t trust him.” Ethan’s reply is curt, and from the set of his jaw, I know he’s not going to listen to reason.
I just roll my eyes. “He was upset. You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why do you care so much about his feelings? You barely know him. ”
The tension in his voice has me bristling. “You had better not be saying what I think you’re saying.”
He looks away, and my shoulders slump. “Why are you here? Were you following me?”
He tucks his hands in his pockets, his eyes returning to me and running over me. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“You had my phone number.”
He doesn’t answer for a few seconds. “I thought you might not want to hear from me.”
“And since when have you become so considerate?”
I sit down on the bench, feeling tired. When he doesn’t move, I look up at him. “I don’t want to get a crick in my neck. Sit down.”
He obeys.
I look down at the phone in my hands, anxiety building up. “There’s something we have to discuss.”
“I’m not accepting your resignation, Natalie.”
I go still. “Is that why you haven’t contacted me for the penalty fees?”
He looks at me, and his lips twist in a wry smile. “You must really have a low opinion of me if you think that I was actually going to collect that penalty fee.”
I don’t know what it is, his words or his tone, but my heart feels funny in my chest. “You had Jake draw up that contract, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” He takes his sweet time in answering.
“I knew that you would have left the moment you saw me. I needed to give you a reason not to leave. I thought if I spent enough time with you, you would be able to move past what happened five years ago. I didn’t realize your hatred for me would run so deep. ”
My lips part. “I don’t hate you.”
He doesn’t look at me now. “I see.”
“Why?” I turn to face him. “Why did you go to that extent? Why did you want me cornered like that? Five years is a long time, Ethan. I need to know the truth.”
He hesitates—the first time I have seen him do so—and then he reaches into his jacket’s inner pocket to bring out something, placing it in my hands.
It’s a scrunchie. A faded purple scrunchie.
For a moment, I stare at it. “I don’t—I don’t understand.”
“You were wearing it that night five years ago. I’ve been carrying it around ever since.”
Whatever I was going to say is stuck in my throat as I study the faded hair accessory.
“Why?” I finally choke out. There’s a pressure in my chest, my heart beating so fast I can barely keep up. “Why would you keep this ridiculous thing? It was—I just got it that morning from a drugstore. I didn’t—Why?”
The desperate question is ripped from my soul, and Ethan gently picks up the scrunchie from my palm.
“It was all I had of you. I came back that night, maybe an hour later. I knew I fucked up. I made a mistake. In those few dates we had, I had already fallen for you, Natalie. I thought I would come back and tell you the truth, and we could start over. But you were gone. When I went to your apartment, you weren’t there anymore.
You just disappeared without a trace. I spent days looking for you. ”
“I was in the hospital.”
“I know that now,” he answers simply.
My blood grows cold. “You know. What else do you know?”
“I know Lucas attacked you. And I know your mother made you homeless. And I know it was all because we slept together.”
I stare at him for a few seconds, trying to comprehend what he’s saying. “For how long?” My fingers dig into my pants. “How long have you known?”
“I just found out recently. ”
“You had me investigated.” I stare at him numbly. “You violated my privacy?”
“I didn’t look into you. I wanted to because I wanted to find out what happened in all these five years that made it so I couldn’t find you. But it wasn’t me.”
I get to my feet, my blood thundering between my ears, an inexplicable anger seizing me in its grip. “You—You had no right!”
“You told me I could.” He gazes at me, his expression calm.
All the fight leaves me as I recall what I said. “I didn’t think you would actually do it.”
“It wasn’t me, Natalie.” Ethan takes my hand, pulling me back down on the bench. “Given how fragile our relationship already is, do you think I would have done it? I would have liked to. I did want to. But it was Jake. I didn’t even know he had done it till he told me.”
“Jake?” I think of his twin brother. “Why?”
I can’t stop my voice from shaking.
“Because you are a Thorne. He doesn’t trust you because of your brother.”
Angry laughter bubbles out of me. “My brother? I know he attacked me and he shouldn’t have, but what did Lucas ever do to you? He was your best friend, and you tried to use me to get his company’s client list?—”
“That’s where you have it wrong,” Ethan says coldly.
“It’s the other way around. That company that you’re speaking of, it was my idea.
The client list I was trying to get back was mine.
Your brother stabbed me in the back, Natalie.
He stole my idea and the client list, and he erased all the data I had.
He made sure to remove every trace on my systems so I couldn’t sue him.
Before I could do anything, he went behind my back and offered all those clients incredibly cut-throat rates.
He had all my business plans. This company that you’re speaking of, we were supposed to start it together. I put in all the work and the money. ”
I stare at him, my hands shaking. “You’re lying. You have to be lying. Lucas wouldn’t?—”
“You are seriously defending the man who nearly killed you for sleeping with me?” Ethan’s eyes narrow.
“Do you hear yourself, Natalie? I know what he did to you. No matter what, he should never have put his hands on you. You were his little sister. Little sisters are meant to be protected, not beaten within an inch of their lives.”
The fury in his voice has me sighing. “I’m not defending him.”
“You are.”
“Because of me, he lost everything, Ethan,” I burst out. “His fiancée left him because he went to jail. He lost out on important investors for his company. His life collapsed because of what I did?—”
“Not because of what you did.” Ethan’s voice is harsh.
“Because of what he did. Why are you shielding him? You simply told him what happened. Everything he did after that and whatever happened as a result were on him. You did nothing wrong. He made the wrong decision. And you should have pressed charges. You?—”
My hands go limp on my lap as he says the words I’ve known all my life, but I couldn’t admit.
“I wanted to.” I feel so empty. “But my mother?—”
A wave of nausea washes over me, and I try to breathe through it.
“Your mother threatened you, didn’t she?” I’ve never seen Ethan look so angry. “And despite you dropping the charges, she still went ahead and put you out on the streets. This is the same mother that is bleeding you dry.”
My stomach twists as humiliation settles in. “Well, Jake was certainly thorough.”
“I could lie to you, Natalie,” he says quietly.
“I could lie to you and pretend not to know any of this, but I don’t believe in building a relationship based on lies.
I don’t know every sordid detail, but I have the major gist of everything.
I would have liked it if it came from you, and I know that you would have preferred it. ”
I want to be mad. I want to be angry that he knows all this and that his brother ripped my life bare for him to see everything, and yet I feel relieved.
“I might not have been able to tell you any of this,” I admit, a heavy sadness settling deep in my bones.
“Do you think I don’t know my mother is using me?
Do you know how I felt when you took me home to meet your family?
I saw how loving your parents were. I was so jealous.
I wanted that for myself. But I know I can never have that for myself.
I cannot make my mother love me. I could cut out my heart for her and put it at her feet, and she would still hate me. ”
Defeated, I look ahead at the children. Young kids climbing the monkey bars, babies playing in the sandbox, while a few clouds gather on the horizon.
“My mother always hated me. My father never wanted a daughter. He tolerated me first as long as he could, and then he left us. Mom told me I should just be grateful she raised me. She could’ve thrown me into the system.
I’m supposed to be grateful to her. Everything I am is because of her. ”
“And you believe that?” Ethan asks in a disbelieving tone.
I don’t have the strength to look at him. “I want to be loved by her.”
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes, willing my tears away. “I know it’s pathetic. Trust me. I know.”
My voice cracks.
“There’s nothing pathetic about wanting to be loved by your parents.”
Ethan takes my hands in his, forcing me to look at him.
“I consider your mother to be unfortunate. Your family doesn’t deserve your loyalty.
You can’t spend your life trying to get their approval, not when you have your whole life ahead of you.
I want to know what happened that night.
I want to know it from you, but only when you’re ready to talk about it.
But know this: I never betrayed your brother. He cheated me.”
I searched his gaze. “That’s why you came after me, didn’t you?”
I feel so terribly sad, my heart crumbling inside the cavity of my chest. “You were never attracted to me. You were never interested in me. I was just Lucas’s sister.”
When he doesn’t say anything, I don’t even have the strength to laugh bitterly.
“It was a fluke, Ethan. Let’s say Lucas did steal from you.
Why are you here now? Do you really expect me to believe that during all those ‘dates’ that we had, you ended up falling for me? And you looked for me for five years?”
“You were just Lucas’s sister in the beginning.” Ethan doesn’t lie, and my hands curl into a fist. “And I did find you attractive, or I wouldn’t have gone down that route. I also ended up falling in love with you. I didn’t know it at the time.”
His words pierce me to the core.
Love?
Does he know what he’s saying?
“I looked forward to our time spent together.” Ethan’s voice is serious as he continues. “I tried to drag out our dates so that I could watch you talk about what you wanted to do after college. I liked listening to you, to all your plans for the future. You were so driven.”
He curls his hands around my fist and gently loosens the clenched fingers, his eyes on my hands.
“Remember when that server dropped the iced coffee on your new dress? It was a white dress. You didn’t get angry.
You picked up the glass from the ground and handed it to him before you went to the bathroom to clean yourself up.
You had no problem continuing the dinner with that large stain on that dress.
I never forgot that. I got you a necklace from a famous jeweler on our fourth date, but you got more excited over the cheap flowers I picked up at the gas station. Everything about you just arrested me.”
My ears burn as he talks about moments that I remember but never paid much attention to.
“You were everything I didn’t know. And if you mesmerized me back then, you stole my breath when we met again.
When I found out what you had been through, my admiration for you only grew.
Life threw hurdles your way, and Natalie, you made something spectacular of yourself despite them all.
How could I not be drawn to a woman like you? ”
I try to pull my hand away, but he holds it tight, looking up, our eyes meeting. “If you don’t want me, if you think I will always be a reminder of the worst time of your life, I need you to say so. I will walk away.”
My mouth turns dry. “Just like that? You’ll walk away from me? You won’t bother me again?”
There’s no mistaking the pain in his eyes, but his jaw is hard. “Yes.”
I hold his gaze for a long while. It would be so easy right now. I could walk away. I could close this chapter of my life. I could move somewhere far away with this baby, start over, be hap?—
“What if I don’t want that?”
The words slip out of my mouth, and I feel his grip on my hand tighten. “Then?—”
The wave of nausea returns, this time with a vengeance. Pulling away from him, I stumble to the trashcan a few feet from us, making it just in time. I throw up so viciously, that my body is left wracking from the force of it.
“Natalie!” The alarm in Ethan’s voice barely reaches me, and then he’s holding me in his arms, rubbing my back as I throw up once again. He pulls my hair back from my mouth.
It’s like he doesn’t even care how disgusting this is, I think to myself dazedly .
When I’m done, I sink against him, unable to stand. He guides me to the park bench, ordering, “Sit here. I’m getting you some water.”
There’s a hot dog stall down the road, and he brings back a water bottle for me. To my relief, it’s cold. I drink some of it to get rid of the taste in my mouth. My hand is on my belly as I feel the light cramps return. The doctor told me I would have them for another two to four weeks.
Without thinking, I press the cold water bottle to my forehead, groaning, “I hate morning sickness.”
“What?”
My eyes fly open.
“Natalie.” Ethan sounds shocked. “Are you pregnant?”
Shit.