Chapter Seventy-Nine
TYLER
My body is occupied by a bunch of business men while my attention is stuck on my girl sitting at the bar with Mace and Sam. Cole and Anthony stand as pillars of protection on either side of them.
Her hair is a little wilder than earlier, subtle proof of my fingers through it. I smile as I take a sip of my bourbon, but it’s soon gone when I feel a presence next to me.
I knew I’d run into her tonight, considering it’s her father’s campaign, after all. I haven’t seen her since I called off the engagement. Well, since I forced her father to. I still wonder what Matthew gave Mitchell for it.
“Hey,” she mutters, looking at me.
I don’t look at her. Rather, my gaze is still pulled by Sunny, looking devastating as ever. They all see tonight that she’s my partner. My equal. She’s not some accessory to hang on my arm like all the other women here.
Without her, I’m not complete.
Without her, I’m nothing.
“Shelby.”
She doesn’t hold the aura of confidence she normally does. She looks more timid tonight, more sad. As if seeing me bring Sunny here told her everything she needed to know about her future with me.
She follows my gaze. They’re all laughing at something Sam said.
My family.
“My father told me about the contract you made.”
I’m unaware of said contract. Eventually I’ll find out what that is. Something tells me it was a cop out for her father so his infidelity doesn’t get leaked.
I finally look at her. “And?”
She’s wearing a burnt orange gown with her hair clipped up on one side. She’s pretty. But she’s no Sunny.
“I just…” she exhales a waivered breath. “Is that truly what you want?” Her brown eyes spark with hope I’d say no.
“It’s always what I wanted. It was just a matter of the push I needed to make it happen.”
“I’m sorry, Tyler. For the things I did. I know it’s probably too late for that, but I feel like I still owe it to you.” She places her hand on mine.
I flick my eyes to where our bodies meet. I almost smile. She’s sorry because it means she no longer has me. And she never will.
“I know you are.”
She’s watching Sunny now. “Was that push because of me? Is it because of me? The things I did?”
And I wish I yelled yes, of course it was. Bingo. Right on the fucking mark. But the truth comes out instead.
“No. It’s because of her.” I look at the love of my life. The one who changed it all for me.
My initial breaking up with Shelby was me showing her she couldn’t fuck around. I knew eventually my obligations would rise again and I’d do what I needed to do to fulfill them.
But then Sunny came, and she changed everything. Absolutely everything. My little fire set flame to a world I hated and burnt it to a crisp, freeing me of it in a way.
“I knew the night of the Hernandez campaign,” Shelby whispers.
"I saw the way you looked at her. Because it was the way I always hoped you’d look at me.
The way you tried to protect her from your parents.
The way you touched her." She swallows hard.
“You were never like that with me. Never so in love.”
"I knew, too. I knew way before then.” I look at Shelby.
She gives me a weak smile and nods. “It’ll always be her, won’t it? There will never be room for anyone else.”
I nod. “It will always be her.”
And in that moment, I feel the door finally close on us.
“I hope you get all the happiness you deserve, Tyler. You really do deserve it. I can see what you guys have and I hope one day I can experience that too.” She places a kiss on my cheek and then walks away back into the crowds.
SUNNY
“So, you’re a nurse?” The lady with a diamond necklace asks me as she takes a sip of her cocktail.
My eyes flick from her necklace that looks like a collar around her neck to her light blue eyes that match and nod. “That’s correct. I’m a travel nurse. I’m here on a six month assignment.”
I feel Mitchell come up next to me, his eyes bore into me. His salt and pepper hair is styled back in a way that reveals all the fine lines that frame his face. While I hate him, I have to attribute his role in Tyler's good looks.
“Wow! Do you know where your next assignment will be? Sounds so spontaneous.” Her eyes gleam.
Maybe she always wanted a life of travel but never got it. That’s another reason I made the promise to myself to do this. I never want to go to my grave filled with regrets of the things I should’ve done.
I already wasted so much time letting Ryan do that to me.
“I actually do,” I say, eyeing Tyler who stands a few people down. I watch his head slowly turn towards me as the words dawn on him, indicating he is always listening, always aware of my surroundings even when I think he isn’t.
I haven’t told him yet. I haven’t told anyone.
As my contract here is nearing to an end, my recruiter called me a week ago with a twelve week assignment in Colorado. In the heat of desperation to flee from Ryan, I said yes.
How could I say no after that fucking phone call?
It always comes in waves now. One minute I’m content, happy, and almost forgetting why I came here in the first place. Then the next wave I’m in sheer panic, wanting to run the first chance I get. Unfortunately, the recruiter got me in one of those frenzied waves.
Tyler looks at me as I admit this secret I’ve clutched onto and his mask of authority crumples to confusion and hurt when he realizes what I’m saying.
The almighty powerful front he had all night gone within seconds by me. Because this hits the nail on the coffin of the potential for me to stay, burying any hope he had deep into the ground due to its inevitable death.
“And how does your husband feel about that? Ryan it is, right? Ryan Crawford? He must miss his wife very much with you being gone for so long.” Mitchell watches me intently now as he takes a sip of his drink, spilling the one thing I didn’t want anyone to know.
Especially Tyler.
Because I know that if he’s already on the edge of breaking his promise to me, this would have him jumping off ready to immerse himself into shattering it entirely. And I refuse to have him do that. I will not be like his father.
The world pauses, and the only thing I can hear is my frantic heartbeat in my ears and slamming against my chest. It begs for an out, for something other than this part of myself that is now being revealed to a bunch of strangers.
I am married.
I’ve been running from my husband this whole time. Not boyfriend. Husband. Legally bound to one another.
My head snaps to Mitchell as my drink simultaneously falls from my hand and shatters on the floor. Glass and champagne splatter all over the front of my dress. That’s when the nausea settles deep in my belly, making me clutch it in fear of throwing up everywhere.
Mitchell looks down at it unphased. Then he looks back up at me, and I swear there’s a ghost of a smile hovering on his lips.
He knows what he just did.
He knows what he did.
Tyler stares blankly at the mess by my feet. His eyes slowly move up and meet mine, and I know there’s no hiding the truth that’s all over my face.
“Sunny?” he breathes.
“Oh, didn’t you know, Tyler? I figured if you two are sharing scars, you’d at least share a first name basis. I guess I’m wrong. Her name hasn’t always been Sunny. Isn’t that right, Lauren Sunshine Crawford?”
The panic rises in my chest as I search for the right words to say.
I need to say something. Something to crack the silence that sits before me.
To stop all the stares burning into me as everyone waits for me to explain myself.
Explain that I’m a wife to another man. Explain that I’m not who I said I am.
I shake my head and do the one thing I can think of; ignore the whole thing. I bend down to start cleaning the mess I made. Literally and hypothetically. The champagne sticking to my hands, the glass making me bleed.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmur as the wait staff surround me, trying to clean it up.
I know I can’t clean up the mess around me, so I try to focus on the one I can clean. Even as the pieces of champagne covered class cut my hands and make them bloody, I’d take that over the confusion and pain that sits in Tyler’s eyes right now.
The secret I clung to so fiercely ever since I left my hometown is now aired out to people I don’t even know and to the one person I didn’t want to know.
Mitchell did this on purpose. He did it to make me crack. To not only make me look bad, but make this whole scene look bad.
He knew Tyler would put me on a pedestal tonight to look like his equal. His partner. A woman who will help make decisions rather than submit to his own. But this, this makes me look like a cheater. A whore. A woman who is a mere mistress. A liar.
Not his equal.
Not his partner.
And he knew that would make Tyler damn near crack, too. He’s been trying to break Tyler. And I’m scared this may have worked.
“Sunny. Sunny.” I hear his voice above me. A calm in this mess of chaos.
Sunny has always been my name. Since the moment my parents took me home.
They called me that as soon as they realized I was not a Lauren.
It just was never legally changed until I left Ryan.
Because I felt like that name, Lauren Sunshine, died with the person I was the day I left him.
She needed to be left in the past, which is why I finally legally changed my name to Sunny Mason.
I reclaimed myself. And I changed my name in hopes people wouldn’t find a past behind it.
Masoner is my maiden name. I needed something different. Something of my own. Something that he wouldn’t be able to track down. But something that still remained close to my heart without letting him strip me of everything.
I feel Tyler’s hands gently grab underneath my arms to pull me up from the ground. He uses a napkin to staunch my bleeding hands.
“Funny how that works,” Mitchell laughs in his glass and walks away from the mess he created.
Before I can even think, I’m chasing after him, ready to fight him.
The anger fills me to the point where it blinds me.
I feel Tyler’s hands on me again, curling around my waist, stopping me in my desperate attempt to give Mitchell all the pay back he deserves for all the wrong he’s done in his life.
“Sunny.” Tyler’s shaking his head. “It’s not worth it. Don’t let him have that hold on you. Now, we need to talk.”
I slowly swallow down my anger which now turns to pure nausea at Tyler’s words and tone.
I’m going to be sick.