Chapter Fifty-Five
TYLER
I could’ve been on my hands and knees begging, and you wouldn’t have been able to tell the fucking difference.
The car ride is silent for the most part. Save for the few times Shelby tries to stir up conversation. She sits in the seat that once belonged to my Sunny.
“Will you ever get a new car? You’ve had this old thing forever,” Shelby says.
“No,” I manage to get out.
“Why not? Isn’t it super old.” She peers around the truck I love.
“Because Cole and I built it.”
She purses her lips as she contemplates. “Well can’t you imagine yourself in a Mercedes or even something a little lower class like an Escalade?”
Lower class.
“No.” I rub my jaw. My suit feels extra tight around my aching chest. I’m not in the fucking mood for conversation. Especially with her.
Maybe this agreement isn’t fair to her either, because I don’t care about her. But in the end, she’ll get everything she always wanted. Everything she was bred for. The only thing Shelby wants more in this world than money is me. And she’s going to be able to get both.
“What about when we have babies?” She eyes me, waiting for a reaction.
I give her none, regardless of the fact my heart beats a little faster in my chest. The only person I want to put a baby in is in another person’s car right now.
The image of Sunny pregnant with my child does something inside me. A primitive need I never thought existed awakens in my chest.
“Then we will cross that bridge when we get there,” I reply, hoping we never do. I’d get a vasectomy so I could avoid that happening with her.
“What if… what if we tried to start crossing that bridge now?”
My eyes slowly pan over to where she sits. We haven’t even so much as kissed when I decided to follow through with my end of the bargain. Yet here she is, already trying to get me to put a fucking baby in her.
“Not before the wedding.” I grip the steering wheel a little harder.
“Oh, come on. The wedding is going to be in like two to three months max. No one will know. They’ll just think it’s a honeymoon baby.” She leans in closer to me.
Propping my elbow on the door, I keep a hand over my mouth, trying to create as much distance as possible between us. “People will do that math, Shelby.”
She knows it’s the way to lock me in for good. She’s tried once before and fuck, she’s trying again. She won’t bite the hand that feeds her again, I try to tell myself. She has no other ambition outside of this life.
No fight.
No fire.
She leans back into the seat with a huff, finally realizing I won’t budge on this topic.
The remainder of the drive is silent and I’m grateful for the quiet.
But her damn hands still keep trying to toy with me.
Running through my hair. Tracing circles on my hand.
Rubbing my thigh and going up a little too high.
I keep my eyes on the road, trying to not acknowledge it. But my fucking dick decides otherwise as it twitches in my pants. I hate myself for it.
Just your body reacting.
She lives in a luxury condo her parents still pay for. When we pull up, I send a silent prayer to whatever exists that she won’t try to convince me to move in here. Yet, I can’t imagine allowing her in my home. There’s too many precious memories there I refuse for her to taint.
I put the car in park and hop out to open her door. The damp cold is prevalent with the cloud that forms around me with each of my labored breaths. I offer a hand to get her out of the truck, and she smiles at me like it’s the kindest gesture.
“Come inside.” She holds my hand, looking up at me.
All I can imagine is Sunny looking up at me with her big blue-green eyes round as she observes my face.
Each beat of my heart brings a reminder of the ache. I won’t move on from her. My heart resurrected from a grave I shoved it into the moment I laid eyes on Sunny, giving it a reason to start beating again. But now it aches as it slowly loses its lifeline, desperate for her again.
I shake my head. “No. Not tonight.”
“Come on,” she gently coaxes me, tugging on my hand. “We need to celebrate. And I need to thank you for this gorgeous ring.”
I run a hand over my face. “I’m tired, Shelby. It’s been a long day.”
“I can make you feel better.” She leans into me.
No you can’t.
She licks her lips, readying them for mine. I know what she wants. I’m just not sure if I can give it to her.
“Come on, Tyler. Just come inside. Nothing has to happen. Or I can do all the work. Let me show you how grateful I am for this ring,” she pleads seductively with her hands on my chest, rubbing up and down.
But something in her eyes tells me otherwise.
A small smile curves on her red lips when words don’t leave my mouth.
I know when I’d do this with Shelby it’ll be with my hand pressing her face down on the mattress.
There’s no fucking way I can watch what I’m doing and be okay with it.
There’s no way I can fuck her and not think of Sunny the whole god damn time.
I’ll fuck her feeling like I’m betraying the love of my life.
But she made it clear what she wants, what her intentions are. She is going to stay running around in her labyrinth, never finding a way out, so I may as well, too.
I look up to the sky that’s now polluted with light from the condos as I contemplate. There are no stars for me to wish on tonight. Nothing to hear my final cry.
Let me let you go.
I fist Shelby’s hair with one hand, maybe a bit too firmly, yanking her to look up at me. Her lips part, waiting for mine. Feeling my jaw clench at the sight, I swallow the knot in my throat.
A smile creeps on her face, and I fucking hate it. Her hand clutches my shirt as my hand tightens in her hair, keeping the other deep in my pocket to prevent myself from strangling her. Take her air the way she has taken so much from me.
“Okay,” I breathe.
I toss my keys to the valet driver as Shelby leads me inside her building, tugging me one way while my heart is being pulled another.