Chapter Thirty-Six
SUNNY
I wake to the sun shining from a slit between the blackout curtains in Tyler’s room. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I sit up and notice I’m not in his bed anymore.
That’s where I was, right?
If the throbbing behind my eyes is any indication of the hangover looming over me, I am absolutely in deep. Looking around, I realize I’m on the floor wrapped in blankets.
What even happened?
My hands fist the hoodie and sweatpants still on my body.
I huff out a breath of relief. That was a very vivid dream.
I stand, swaying on my feet as I get my bearings and make my way to the nightstand.
My head throbs with each step I take, and my stomach growls in protests of hunger yet somehow, I’m so damn nauseous.
Looking at my phone, I note it’s already almost nine am. So we’d gotten at least a few hours of sleep. Maybe he’s already left for work, and I won’t have to face him hung over. A text from Sam lights up my screen in the dim room.
I know you are probably going to be mad at me, but it was for your own good. Love you!
If only you knew, Sam.
Finding my way out of the room, I follow the aroma of coffee downstairs. The light from the morning seems way too fucking bright, and I wonder why a man who enjoys his privacy so much has so many floor to ceiling windows.
I hear him down there. Maybe he called out since he was up so late. Because of me.
I try to manage the mess of hair on my head in a bun and rub my face to make me look more awake. My body aches, my head throbs and I don’t think I’ve ever had a hangover like this.
I make it down the stairs to see he’s already up and dressed for work, wearing a nice collared button up shirt that has a tie secured around his neck. His hair is groomed back neatly and he doesn’t even look slightly as disheveled as I feel.
In times like last night, I almost forget who he is, how important he is. Yet last night he was just a drunk guy, and I was just a drunk girl.
Leaning forward against the island, he reads the newspaper while sipping a mug of coffee. Who the hell still reads the actual paper?
“Good morning. Pour over okay?” he asks.
I simply nod. He grabs a mug and pours me some coffee while I find a seat at one of the barstools. He hands me the mug and I cradle it in my hand, letting the heat melt into my skin.
“Thank you.” I blow on the coffee. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Perk of being the next owner of the company. I can make my own schedule. Well, for the most part.” He takes a piece of bacon off a platter and takes a bite.
An assortment of breakfast foods lay in front of me. Eggs, bacon, fruit, pastries. Clearly way too much food for only two people.
“Where did you get all of this?” My stomach growls, despite the nausea it’s persistent on.
“I cooked it earlier. I figured you might be hungover. So you need all you can eat to soak it up. The pastries I ordered from Mike’s.” He takes another bite of the bacon.
“Let me pay you back for all of this.”
He laughs and gives me a look like what I just said was absurd. “Money is not an issue, Sunny. And I’d never let you pay, regardless.” He grabs the paper again.
I rub my temple, taking a sip of the coffee. “Why was I on the floor?”
“I don’t know, not sure how that happened.” He shrugs, though he fights a smile.
“You didn’t even move me?” I ask, embarrassed.
“Well, for the better half of the night, you wouldn’t let go of me.
You clung to me like a sloth on a tree. But then, you basically kicked yourself off the bed and onto the floor.
When I tried to move you, you somehow remembered all the training I taught you and fought me off.
So, I decided to let you stay. Besides, you looked so comfy,” he teases.
“Ugh.” I pull the strings of the hoodie, closing my face inside because I am absolutely mortified.
“It’s okay baby, we’ve all had those nights.” He smiles at me through my little peep hole.
“How are you so okay?” I ask, finally emerging from my cocoon of his hoodie.
“I don’t get sick, and I sure as shit don’t get hung over.”
I roll my eyes, only widening his grin. “What time did you even wake up?”
“Around seven.”
“So that means you got what, three hours of sleep?”
“Yeah.” He shrugs. “But that’s pretty standard for me. So tell me, what do you remember from last night?” He leans into the counter again with a wicked smile.
I remember my sex dream.
“You picked me up from that party. We got rained on. We showered and got dry. Then, drank way too much bourbon. My head is reminding me with its persistent ache. We laughed way too much my abs hurt. Then we fell asleep in your bed after giggling around like two idiots.” I pick apart the bits and pieces.
It’s honestly all just fragments in my memory. A bourbon blurred mess.
A too wide grin pulls his lips as he stares at me.
“What?” I ask.
He clears his throat as he takes a sip of his coffee.
“Tyler, what…Oh my god.” I place a hand over my mouth. “So that wasn’t just a dream?”
The dream is now becoming reality as the coffee and bacon absorb the alcohol in my system.
“Oh, so you dream about me, do you?” he laughs as he pours himself more coffee and then fills my cup.
I pull the hoodie over my face as my cheeks heat and slump down into the chair.
“Come on, little fire, no need to be embarrassed. A woman has needs.”
“So, do you make breakfast for every girl you have over?” I ask, still shielding the redness taking over my face.
“Just you.” He hands me two ibuprofens and a glass of water. “Take these now that you have some substance in your system.”
“Not even Shelby?”
“Not even Shelby.”
I take a bite of bacon and pop the pills in my mouth, flushing it with some coffee. I know what I’m about to ask can lead in two different directions of how this morning will go. I figure it’s time I know, especially with all the parts we’ve shared with one another already.
And frankly, I’m nosy.
Shelby is a sensitive topic, but it isn’t for the common reasons you’d think.
He wasn’t in love with her, and I need to know those reasons.
He knows every dirty detail about me. Well, as much as he needs to know.
I want to know every dirty detail about him, no matter how dark.
We are sharing parts of one another that he shared with her.
The thought makes me sick.
“Tyler?” I look at him.
“Sunny?” He answers, still reading the paper.
“When are you going to tell me about what happened with Shelby?”
He sets the paper down and looks at me, making my heart thrum against my chest. He stares at me blankly, and I’m unable to read what’s sitting behind those eyes.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
Nodding, he flattens the paper down and leans back against the counter behind him with crossed arms. The flex of his forearms give me flashbacks to last night. I squeeze my thighs and take a calming breath.
“Well, you know that we’ve been arranged by our parents since we were kids.
Her father is the governor, and he’s a good one.
His own father was governor before him. He wanted to lock in the biggest investors he could and my father wanted more ties inside the political world.
So they made an agreement when we were kids.
Before we were born, honestly,” he sighs.
“I’d prolonged the inevitable, with my thirtieth birthday as a deadline looming over me like a standstill storm.
So, naturally, I did my part and tried things with her.
We were together for about two years give or take.
On and off, if you will. I was just so busy with work.
Or just using it as an excuse to spend less time with her. ”
I nod, listening despite the fact it’s hard imagining another world where Tyler is so heavily involved. Knowing it was with another woman.
“Shelby is the definition of an old money brat. She’s never had a job and never plans to.
Her parents pay for everything. She likes the finer things, but that’s all it was.
She wants to be a trophy wife, which is exactly what our parents want—a woman like that for me so I can look more powerful and respectable.
A wife who can come to every event, plan all the parties, be just another puppet in the game. ”
Regardless of the fact I can’t bring myself to look at him, he still stares at me with those greens.
“She wants me, but I just don’t want her. I tried. I tried my best to love her. Hell, to even like her, but something was missing.” He swallows down a gulp of his coffee and crosses his arms again.
The look on his face almost has me regretting asking, but he’s telling me, and I know he wouldn’t unless he wanted to.
He takes a deep breath and says, “I haven’t told anyone this part simply because, it’s fucking embarrassing. But I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you because I trust you, Sunny.”
What did she do to you, Tyler?
I nervously trace the lines of the black and gold marble countertop, trying to create space for his voice.
“As you have observed, Shelby can be handsy. I just…” his voice falls. “Shelby is frail. I could snap her in two…if I was able to.”
Rage kindles inside my chest. I don’t even know what Shelby did, but it’s enough to make Tyler hurt and that’s enough to make me hurt.
“Shelby is a kinky bitch. I’m never opposed to anything,” he chuckles, trying to create light in darkness.
It makes me...jealous, knowing Shelby got those parts of him and I didn’t.
“She wanted to dabble in some bondage. I’ve never been one to say no to any sexual endeavors.
I’m all for it. I’ve done bondage before.
Many times. Just not with her.” He shrugs, but the tension that lines his shoulders tells me this is something more than casual.
Those emerald eyes look at me. “I have one rule with anyone I’ve ever slept with—I will always use protection.
I will never sleep with someone without a condom.
It’s just too intimate. Too risky. Something that should be shared between two people who truly love one another.
And that wasn’t me and Shelby, or anyone for that matter. ”
“I understand,” I whisper.
“So, we tried the bondage thing. She had me tied up. Hands, legs. I couldn’t move anything.” He breaks our gaze, looking down while he rubs the back of his neck.
It’s an unexplainable thing, what happens inside my chest. Simultaneously, my heart breaks all over again, only to be put back together by the melted pieces caused by the fucking rage that sets flame inside me.
She raped him.
“Tyler…”
“It’s okay, Sunny. I’m okay.”
It’s not okay, Tyler. This will never be okay.
“I noticed she didn’t have a condom. I told her to unstrap me and that we needed to stop unless she put one on, but she wasn’t listening to me.
” He shakes his head. “Despite my efforts to…make it not happen, my body betrayed me. Despite my protests, she continued. And despite any will power I thought I had, my body reacted, regardless.” His eyes close slowly.
He blames himself. Shelby violated him in a way no one should ever be violated, and he blames himself.
“Tyler, you can’t possibly blame yourself.”
“It makes it hard to trust your own body when it does the one thing you wished it didn’t do. I should’ve known better than to be vulnerable enough to let her tie me up. Put me in a position where I wasn’t in control.” A muscle feathers in his jaw.
I shake my head.
“It’s okay, Sunny. I know now it was just a reaction. That’s all. Just my body reacting. But that reaction bit me in the ass. It made me feel so fucking powerless. So fucking stupid. I’m trained to take down a threat. Yet, I somehow let that happen to me.”
“That’s not fair,” I argue.
“I ended up snapping the restraints. Too late, of course. I grabbed her by the neck and slammed her against the wall. I could’ve killed her.
I let go before she passed out on me. Giving her back the life she doesn’t deserve.
And I hated that she got so under my skin that I was able to snap that way.
I was a glimpse of Mitchell.” He stares at nothing in particular.
“I broke up with her immediately after. A few weeks later she told me she was pregnant.”
My brain works out the math, realizing by this point, Shelby wouldn't be pregnant anymore.
“Yes, I should have a baby by now. That is if what she told me were true.”
“So she lied about the pregnancy,” I confirm.
“As soon as she told me, I started contacting all the best doctors we know. We are friends with a lot of doctors. Hell, we own part of the hospital. So I had an appointment booked immediately that week with the best OB in Boston.”
Despite it all, he still cared enough for that. It’s an odd thing to bring tears to my eyes, and yet it does. I blink them away quickly.
“She avoided everything involving the pregnancy. She just kept saying she needed time to process. What she needed was time to come up with another lie.” He rubs the back of his neck.
“Her plan failed. I know she wanted to actually get pregnant because she knew that’s how she could lock me in.
I could get out of just about anything, and she knew that.
She knew I was planning to break up with her and formulate a different plan for her father.
Pregnancy was the one way to keep me because how could I not stay for my child?
But she didn’t get pregnant, and she webbed a lie, catching herself in it instead of me. ”
When I finally look up, he’s staring at me, the echo of his pain still prevalent in his stare.
“She took two things from me that day,” he says. “The first time I could have sex with someone without any boundaries, and the first time I’d find out I’m becoming a father. I never really wanted any of those things, so it shouldn’t bother me anyways.”
“And now? Do you want those things now?” I ask.
He smiles as he leans forward on the counter, leveling his face with mine. Just mere inches from my lips.
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Find your way out, Tyler. Find your way out of it.” I meet his gaze.
“Only if you do, too.”
“Then it’s a deal.”
“A promise.” He gives me his pinky.
Smiling, I link my pinky with his. “A promise.”