Chapter 40
Garrett
Wind blasts the car, rocking it back and forth as I hurtle across Overseas Highway.
Never in my life have I felt as small as I do speeding down a bridge with miles of ocean stretching out beside me, behind me, in front of me.
Rain buffets the windshield. The wipers thunk back and forth, but I can’t see shit.
Just raindrops blasting through headlights, and the blur of tail lights ahead.
It fits.
“Garrett?” My Angel clears her throat. “You should slow down. These conditions are rough…”
The streaks of lightning are the anger blasting through me. They’re my clenched jaw. My knuckles white with rage. I can’t believe I let myself hope things would work out. I’d close the deal. Get the girl. And what? Live happily ever after? That’s Angela’s dream. Not mine. Not anymore.
“Fuck.” I slap the steering wheel, then readjust my grip when a blast of wind pushes me over the double yellow line.
“Garrett…” Angela peeks at me from the passenger seat and I purposefully exhale, looking for the calm she deserves.
“I’m fine.”
I channel my anger into the gas pedal. Faster. Like I can outrun my past. Outrun my present. Skip to the future where all of this is over, and I never have to see Jordan leering at my Angel again.
My hands flex as lightning flashes and the ocean churns.
Rain pelts the car. A cacophony of percussion drowning out the roar of the engine.
Faster. We go faster.
“Garrett…” Angela presses a hand to the dash, eyes wide. “Slow down. Please…”
Thunder adds its low rumble to the orchestra of chaos and a tight smile twists my lips.
Fucking Jordan.
Fucking Elizabeth.
Fucking Jordan fucking Elizabeth…
And there he was, flirting with my Angel.
“Garrett!” Her voice barely registers.
Red.
I see red.
Fuck…! I see…
Tires squeal. Red smears…
….Taillights!
Taillights smear into focus. Too close.
“Shit, shit, shit!”
I slam the brakes but it’s too late. Too late!
Angela screams.
The wheels lock, skidding on the slick pavement. I swerve. We miss the car in front of us but careen onto the shoulder, grinding into the guardrail.
The car jolts to a stop, jerking me against my seatbelt and there’s a sickening thump and soft gasp from the passenger seat.
I rake a shaking hand through my hair.
“Fucking hell,” I murmur before every cell in my body focuses on my Angel.
Her hand is on her temple. She pulls it away, shocked by the streak of blood on her palm.
My heart battles the cage of my ribs as another roar of thunder rattles my bones. “No, no, no. Oh, goddammit Angel.”
I can’t do this again. Not with her. I can’t lose another woman I love.
…can’t lose another…
…another woman I love…
The thoughts barely register as I struggle to see in the low light. “Oh my God. Oh fuck. How bad is it? Oh, shit, shit shit…”
I’ll never forgive myself for hurting her.
I free myself from my seat belt, fumbling, cursing, frantic. Grip her face
There’s a cut above her eye. Bleeding. She’s bleeding and it’s my fault…
Fuck.
Fuck!
“I’m fine, Garrett.” Angela cups my cheek and meets my eyes, blinking as blood drips down her temple. “I’m fine. Everything’s okay. It’s just a little cut.”
Her words barely exist under the roar of the rain.
“You’re hurt. You’re not fine.” I need to stop the bleeding. Need to do something. I yank open the glovebox and am rewarded with a pile of napkins. I wad them up and gently press them to her temple.
She winces.
“I’m so sorry. God, I’m so fucking stupid!” I dab away the blood to reveal a gash that isn’t as bad as it could have been.
My breathing slows.
…could have been so much worse…
“I’m fine, Garrett. I promise.” Her blues meet mine, guiding me back from panic. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”
I flip on the emergency lights and let out a shuddering breath, losing myself to the thunk, thunk, thunk of the wipers. The hard splatter of the rain. The blur of taillights and the slashes of lightning illuminating the world every few seconds. All that matters is right here. Right now.
Where we didn’t hit the car in front of us and my Angel is okay.
“Hey. You with me?” Angela grips my hand. “You good?”
Her voice comes from far away.
I nod. “I’m good.”
“Because you don’t look good.”
But I’m not the one bleeding, so I look better than her.
“That was…that was so bad.” I rake a hand over my face. “I thought…for a second…I thought I was gonna lose you.”
“You didn’t. I’m right here.” Angela leans down to catch my attention, leading me back from the edge. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me you’re done with me.”
She’s smiling, laughing lightly, warm and inviting, but her words strike a wound that never healed.
“Elizabeth used to say that.” I drag myself from the brink of panic and refocus on the woman beside me. “She was lying.”
Sympathy softens Angel’s face. She takes my hand, eyes searching mine as if to see inside my soul and understand how I ended up so broken. “I can’t imagine how hard it was to lose her like that, but accidents…they happen.”
It’s time.
It’s time she knows the truth.
The thought is so clear, so pure, I speak before I can second-guess.
“I lost Elizabeth before the accident.” I lick my lips, as if wetting them will make telling this story easier. “I told you how she died. You should know how she ended up behind the wheel.”
I expected to choke on the words, but they whisper into the conversation instead.
“I loved her.” I glance at Angela. “I loved her so much; I was thinking about proposing.”
Her gaze is gentle. Soft. So willing to take my pain and hold it for me. With me.
“She was the daughter of a client. Like you, but not like you at all. The only reason she cared about her father’s business was because she’d inherit a lot of money one day.
” Rain pours down the windshield as I stare through it to my past. “Elizabeth…she could make you feel like you were the only thing that mattered in her world. She had this way about her, you know?”
Angela smiles sadly. “Sounds like the best kind of person.”
I thought that, too. At first. Funny, how much a person can hide.
“Jordan…he was my best friend. I didn’t…I hadn’t seen him for who he is yet. We were working with this client—Elizabeth’s dad—together. I trusted him. I trusted her. I thought they were exactly who and what they said they were.”
Just like I trust Angela to be exactly who and what she says she is.
I stare hard at the thought, studying it, accepting it. The differences between Elizabeth and my Angel are vast. If I’d been paying attention, I would have seen them from the start.
“And then, you know, I found out she was sleeping with Jordan.”
There it is. Out in the open.
Angela’s jaw drops. Her eyes glimmer with understanding, with sympathy. Her hand tightens around mine. “Oh my God…”
“She started seeing him the day after we went on our first date. And she had me twisted around her little finger and he…he knew. He watched me fall in love and make a fool of myself, all while he was fucking her on the side, because he didn’t want to jeopardize the business relationship.
He actually said he’d fuck his way to rich if he had to.
” It’s such a bitter truth, my lip curls and my nostrils flare. I can’t stand the taste of it.
“Shit, Garrett.” Angela covers her mouth with a slim hand.
“I found them together. There was this big confrontation and…uh…I said some things I regret. And she started crying. Told me she never loved me. That the whole thing was just about money. Hers, mine, his. There was this big fight and uh…she got behind the wheel. It was late. Raining. And she ran off the road. She was trapped there for, uh…for several hours before anyone found her. She died the next day.”
“I can’t even imagine.” Angela rubs her thumb along my knuckle, her touch soothing the ache in my heart. “I don’t have words…”
“Elizabeth taught me to be careful who I trust because the only thing that matters to other people is money. Everyone’s only in it for themselves.”
She also taught me not to think about forever, because no one is who they want you to think they are.
Angela shakes her head. “You can’t let one person change how you see the world.”
“You can when it keeps happening to you. When my mother died, an entire town turned against me. They didn’t see a child hurting, in need of help, they saw a monster. A scapegoat. So I became that, until Mom changed the course of our lives. But then…Elizabeth.”
“Is that how you see me?” Angela asks, carefully, quietly, as if she’s afraid of my answer. “Do you think I only care about myself?”
“No, my Angel.” I shake my head. “You care about making this world a better place for others. You feed feral kittens and take the time to see past the defenses of a broken asshole like me. I think your whole family is that way.”
“They are,” she says with a smile. “It’s why The Hut is so important to me. It’s our way to give back to the world.”
“I know. My family started coming here in the summers when I was a teenager. The year the adoption went through, we celebrated at The Hutton Hotel. I could feel it even then. As a kid. That’s why I was the one who fought to take your account, and I’m still gonna fight even now that I’m off it.
I knew I was coming down here for a reason… ”
It’s time for another truth, this one more terrifying than the last.
My eyes meet hers.
I take a breath.
“…I never expected that reason to be you.”
Angela’s lips part and her eyes soften. They trace the lines of my face before she tilts her head, questioning. “Me?”
I stare for a long moment, wrestling with this, with us, with myself. “After everything happened, I swore I’d never let myself care about another person.” My attention wanders to the cut above her eye. “It’s too easy to lose people.”
She sits back with a sigh, staring at her lap as her fingers twist together.
“Garrett…I understand. You made it clear you weren’t a relationship person from the start. I’m sorry I said anything about feelings. Please don’t feel obligated to acknowledge them.”
She’s distancing herself from me. Protecting her heart because she hasn’t heard me. Not yet. She doesn’t understand.
“I have to acknowledge them.” I pinch her chin and turn her face to mine.
“I feel it too, my Angel. I’m falling in love with you, and this feels bigger than me, bigger than Elizabeth.
You’re…” I shake my head, searching for something to describe the immensity of what this is. “You’re more. You’re everything.”