Chapter 32 #2
“What if I don’t want to go?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what if I tell you the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life is not listening to you, not believing you, not telling you I love you when I really do?”
“It would’ve been worse if you told me you loved me,” she says. “I mean, it was bad enough that you made me feel it, but it was a whirlwind. I could blame myself for that. If you told me—” she shakes her head. “I wouldn’t even be able to look at you again.”
I stare at her. I so badly want her to give me another chance. I so badly want to tell her what I know about our connection, about her parents, about David. But I’m scared. I’m scared that if she has that information, she will completely shut me out.
“Will you come to New York—you and your friends?” I ask her.
She stares at me for a couple of seconds. “No, of course not.”
“You can’t stay here,” I say. “You can’t work at this bed and breakfast. You can’t allow Charlotte to manipulate you, to hurt you.”
“I have nothing else.” She shakes her head. “I can’t leave.”
“But maybe that’s the way to get back at her,” I say. “Maybe you and your friends walking out and leaving this place empty is the way to make it really hurt, because isn’t that how she controls you? With this job?”
She stares at me, nodding slowly. “But we need the paycheck until she officially fires us.”
“Will you please come to New York? Spend the weekend. You don’t even have to stay at my penthouse. I own hotels. You guys can stay in one of the suites.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t do that, Sebastian.”
“I have a lot of friends—powerful friends, friends with money, friends who invest in businesses. What if I just make some introductions? What if I allow them to talk to you?”
“Excuse me. What if you allow them to talk to me? What does that mean?”
I glare at her. “I mean, they’re all good-looking, and I know you already thought Jack was handsome.”
“I’m not interested in Jack. I was just pretending to make you jealous and upset.”
“Oh,” I say, grinning. “So you wanted to make me jealous, did you?”
“It’s not about that right now.”
“I know,” I say, clearing my throat. “Well, what if we set up some meetings and you can pitch ideas for your bed and breakfast? They’re not going to invest unless they really believe in it.”
“I don’t want your money, Sebastian.”
“I won’t invest,” I say.
“And you won’t tell your friends to invest?” She looks thoughtful for a moment.
“They don’t listen to me about what investments to make,” I assure her.
She nods slowly. “I mean, I’ll have to speak to Katherine and Brielle, but it’s a possibility we could do that.”
“You want to call them now?”
“Now?” she says. “Really?”
“Well, I’m thinking if they say yes, I can drive you back to the city with me.”
“Really, Sebastian?” She rolls her eyes, but then a smile tugs at her lips—and that gives me a frisson of hope. Maybe, just maybe, I’m not going to lose her from my life. It gives me hope that I may have a chance.
“I love you, Willow.” She stares at me, but there’s no response. “The reason I married you was because I had feelings.”
“You gave me a contract telling me the exact opposite,” she says. “You don’t think I remember that?”
“But I never followed through with any of the crazy plans I had. I never did anything to hurt you, aside from keeping you there because I loved you—and I knew it wasn't right. I just hadn’t processed it yet.”
She nods. “I get that. I truly do. It’s just really complicated. All of this is really complicated.”
“Do you love me at all, still? Do I have a chance?”
She bites her lower lip and looks away from me.
“You didn’t say no,” I say.
Her eyes flash to me, and she wrinkles her nose.
“You still didn’t say no.”
“I told you, I don’t lie,” she says with a huff.
Warmth spreads throughout me. So there’s a chance, I think to myself.
She still loves me. I still have a chance.
A voice in my head whispers that I should tell her now about David, about her parents—but I can’t ruin that little bit of hope.
She will hate me even more than I hate myself, and right now she’s the only good thing I have going for me.
“What’s going on with the company?” she says.
“They may or may not be voting to remove me from the board right now,” I say, shrugging.
“What?” Her jaw drops. “What are you talking about?”
“There’s an emergency meeting called for today, and I believe there’s going to be a vote by the board.”
“But I thought you were going to take care of it. I thought—”
“I don’t care, Willow. You are more important.”
“But that’s your business—”
“Then whatever’s going to happen will happen.
If they don’t trust me because of Sergio and what’s happened, then they don’t trust me.
Like I said before, I’m still going to have my billions, and I can start over.
You are more important to me. Coming up here to Whispering Haven to talk to you, to figure this out—that’s the most important thing in my life.
More important than my family business.” I watch as she swallows hard.
She steps from behind the desk and comes to stand next to me.
She looks up at me, her blue eyes full of wonder. Her lips twist up into a small smile.
“You put me before your business.”
“I did.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I did.”
“How’s Sergio?” she asks.
“Still young, dumb, and stupid,” I grumble with a shrug. “He’s my brother, and I love him. I don’t want to make any mistakes and I’ll always be there for him—but I’m not going to fight his battles for him anymore.”
“He didn’t even know you were fighting that one,” she says, and I nod.
“He didn’t. I made a mistake, and I promise I realize that.”
“It’s admirable you wanted to help him, to want to exact revenge for the people who hurt him—even though you were mistaken. I understand how you felt.”
“Oh, you do?”
She nods slowly. “For years, I always thought maybe I’d try to figure out what happened to the person driving the car who killed my parents.
Sometimes I think to myself, are they still happy?
Are they still alive? Do they ever think about the lives they ruined?
” She shrugs. “Sometimes, in the back of my mind, I think—wow, if I could get my revenge, I would.”
“But you would never do that,” I say softly.
“I wouldn’t. But it doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it. I think everyone who loses someone in a horrific or sad way thinks about getting their own revenge back. So, I understand. That’s not the part that hurts me.”
“I know. It’s the fact I didn’t listen to you.
” I reach for her hands to see if she’ll let me grab them, and I’m thankful when she does.
“I made a huge mistake, Willow, and I knew in the back of my mind you weren’t that person.
But I didn’t listen, and I’m sorry.” She nods wordlessly.
“I love you, and I am determined to prove that to you.” I bring her into me and give her a kiss on the lips.
She presses her body against mine, and I feel her hand on the side of my face.
Her body is warm against me, and I want to do more—but I’m not going to overstep the boundary between us.
I step back. “You want to call your friends? You want to see if we’re heading to New York City? ”
“Yeah,” she says. “Let me do that.” She turns around, walks back to the desk, and picks up the phone. She looks over at me. There’s a look of wonder in her eyes. “You’re not all that bad, Sebastian.”
“I’d like to think not.”
“Well, you’re not. Don’t be too hard on yourself. I know you have a propensity to take a lot of things on, and I don’t want you to do that.” I smile at her, because even through it all, she’s thinking about me. Because that’s the sort of woman she is. That’s the sort of woman I love.
“Thank you, Willow. You really are the best.”