Chapter Fifty-Eight
TYLER
I can’t stop thinking about another woman at my own engagement party.
People saunter around the venue in their suits and dresses while waiters walk around with trays of food I can’t pronounce. Shelby clings to my arm, her white dress flowing behind her as a prelude of what’s to come in the next few months.
Yet all I can think about is Sunny’s lips around my dick. I’m so confused, so fucking confused.
“Here come mommy and daddy.” Shelby clutches my arm, her smile beaming.
Her parents approach us with wide smiles on their faces. She shares the same brown eyes and blonde hair as her father, but the rest of her features are just like her mother. Dainty, sharp and feline.
“Tyler.” Governor Goodman takes my hand in his. “We are so thrilled about this. Congratulations to you both.”
Shelby smiles between us as I take her mother’s hand in my own and place a kiss on it.
“Oh Shelby, you really do have a good one.” Mrs. Goodman smiles at her daughter, her cheeks flushing by my touch.
“I know,” Shelby says, laying her head on my shoulder.
“Fancy running into you here, Matthew.” Mitchell approaches with a wide grin and shakes hands with Matthew. Ironic everyone is smiling tonight except me.
“Look at these two! They belong in a magazine,” Diane chimes as she makes her rounds and greets us.
“Truly they do. There is no better match,” Mrs. Goodman says to Diane, both of them clearly giddy over this match. “Can you imagine what their babies will look like?”
As they continue their conversation, I analyze the venue. The conversation ultimately becomes background noise when Sunny walks in.
Her gown is stark black like night, as if this is a funeral over a celebration. A death to something that could’ve been ours. A two piece dress that reveals just enough to make anyone curious about the rest underneath.
Her blonde curls are a wild mess around her head. She toys with a curl in one hand while the other holds a flute of champagne. Blue-green irises flick to me, as if she knows I’m watching her, like she can feel my presence just as much as I can always feel hers without even looking.
Our stare lingers. Stay with me. I wish she could hear me. Stay in this moment. Stay with me. But then her eyes go back to whatever it is our family is saying to her. And I realize my reality crashing down on me.
I’m over here. They’re over there. A distance I don’t like. A reality I refuse to accept.
I clear my throat. “If you’ll excuse me.”
“Where are you going?” Shelby doesn’t let go of my arm.
“I have people I need to greet,” I say, removing my arm from her.
Her eyes trail to where my family stands and back to me. “Well let me come.”
“No, it’s fine,”
“Tyler, bring your fiancé with you.” Mitchell’s eyes are on me.
“I’ll be just a minute,” I say, walking away
With each step I’m given a flashback of last night. Sunny’s lips exploring my body, as if she were trying to memorize it. My hands in her hair and that look in her eyes as she swallowed me entirely.
Fuck.
“The man of the hour.” Cole gives me a hug. “You okay?” he asks, placing his hands on my shoulders. He knows. He always does. That’s why he’s head of security.
I just nod.
“We’ll talk later.” He pats my shoulder and releases me.
“Congrats man.” Anthony hugs me.
I give Macey and Sam hugs and kisses, though my sister is clearly reluctant and pissed off at me.
I can’t blame her. I kept secrets from her.
I don’t like it, but I knew how she’d react if I told her before the agreement was done.
That I was fulfilling at least one promise made, even if I never made it myself.
I approach Sunny, my heart beating a bit louder in my chest. “Can I talk to you?”
She just blinks at me. “About what?”
I shake my head. I see that fortress trying to come back up. She’s so damn stubborn, and it’s turning me on instead of pissing me off.
Not saying anything else, I grab the flute of champagne from her hand and set it on a tray. With her arm in hand, I take her to a place where I know no one will find us.
“Tyler!” she snaps as I continue to drag her down stairs into a dark cellar filled with hundreds of different wine bottles.
We need a quiet place to talk without any disruptions.
A place where I know no one will hear her screaming my name.
SUNNY
Before I can say anything else, he pushes me against an old brick wall in the dimly lit room lined with hundreds of wine bottles. The thud of my back against the wall is the only other sound in here besides his heavy breathing.
The sharp angles of his face are hallowed in the dim lighting, and it makes me wonder if this is who his victims see before he introduces them to death.
I know he was thinking about me all night. And I know he was thinking about me all day, even here, at his own engagement party. Yet, here we are, still at the damn engagement party.
He didn’t call it off.
“What do you want, Tyler?” I cross my arms.
“Me? What do you want, Sunny?” He starts pacing in front of me.
I don’t say anything because I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what I want except for one thing.
I don’t want him to marry her.
“We are at your engagement party, Tyler. You are engaged when you promised to find a way out. You didn’t just break the promise but you locked yourself in instead!”
“How is what you’re doing any different? How is it any better? It’s not a solution. It’s a fucking cop out,” he growls.
“I’m running from him. Not to him,” I bite back. “You broke the promise we made.”
“I’ve broken a lot of promises, Sunny. This wouldn’t be my first.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I take a step towards him.
He stops in his tracks and gets so close to me that I can practically taste his anger on my lips. He braces his hands against the wall on either side of my head, caging me in without escape.
“Let me let you go, Sunny. Let me let you go,” he whispers, the pain laces each letter, cracking my heart.
I can’t. I can’t.
I can’t let him go because of this connection. I want to scream at this bond so deeply woven between us. My frantic fingers have been desperately trying to undo it. And even then, I still don’t know if it’ll ever separate. It’s deeper than anything I’ve ever felt in my life.
I’ve felt more love between us than in my ten years with Ryan.
The realization of this hits me so hard, I practically feel the sting of it across my face.
It’s in this moment, as I watch his emerald eyes searching mine, I realize I am in love with Tyler Michael Caddell.
I’m so completely in love with him.
It comes crashing on me, and I don’t know how to stop it. Something changes in me. My heart starts beating differently. By the look of Tyler’s eyes, I think he sees it too. His pupils dilate, his nostrils flare as his breathing picks up and catches.
“Sunny…” he rasps.
But this is all we get. All we’ll ever get. I’m still leaving because Ryan is still out there. As long as he is, I have to keep running, regardless of my love for Tyler and his love for me. And even that feels too weak of a word to describe what we have.
What we feel.
How I feel.
“Let’s just let it go then,” I say, meeting his eyes, my heart screaming at me for pushing him away. Stop. Stop. Stop.
“If it was that easy then I would have done that a long time ago.”
“You knew,” I seethe. “You knew I was leaving and still made me feel the way I feel.”
The pain and the anger take over, prevalent in my voice and shaking hands. I’m so angry that he let me feel this way. That he made me love him. That he made me fall in love with him.
All of it.
“You knew I was leaving and that no matter what this would be the end result. All I wanted was just…sex and I get this!” I hit his chest but he doesn’t move.
“You knew!” I yell, beating his chest with my fists while he just looks down at me with pain in his eyes.
“This is all we get! This is all we get Tyler, is this moment here with us.”
He grabs my wrists. “It doesn't have to be that way Sunny if you just let me fucking help you.”
I shake my head as tears begin to stream down my face.
He grabs my face in his hand. “Why won’t you let me help you Sunny? Huh? Why are you so fucking scared to feel something? Why are you so scared to allow yourself to love me?”
I do love you. But I am not supposed to.
I swallow hard. “You know what happened to me the last time I loved someone, Tyler.”
“I am not fucking Ryan,” he seethes. “And you are not the same woman you were just a few months ago.”
“I know that,” I say. “I know that.”
“Then why are you running from me?” He makes me look at him again, even though I close my eyes through the tears, shaking my head like it’ll somehow change things. “Why are you always running from me?”
Looking up at him through watery eyes, he takes a thumb and wipes the tears. He brings his forehead to mine, and we sit there for a beat, taking in one another.
“Just stay with me, Sunny. Just stay with me,” he whispers with his forehead still pressed to mine. His eyes close shut and I feel his breath on my lips. I can taste his anguish and pain. His desire and need.
I’m not even sure who initiates it, but one minute we’re sharing breath and the next we’re sharing tongues.
It’s rushed, it’s fervent, it’s desire, and need in its deepest form as our hands frantically pull and search and touch. It’s teeth hitting and lip biting and faces still wet from tears.
He pulls away, removing himself from me, creating a distance I don’t appreciate. But in the same breath he comes back to me, grabbing my face to make me look at him. His eyes frantically search mine for answers I refuse to give him.
“What does this mean, Sunny? What does this mean?”
I just look at him. The words are stuck in my throat, banging with each beat of my heart. Don’t marry her. Don’t marry her. Don’t marry her. I love you. I love you. I love you.
His grip tightens. “What does this mean, Sunny?” he pleads each word out slower, as if I didn’t understand the first time.