Chapter 30
An hour later, we sit in her car outside the Green Hill Hotel. It’s the nicest hotel in the area, a modern three-story building mainly used for conferences, as evidenced by the three businessmen having a smoke nearby still wearing their suits.
“Maybe this isn’t the best idea,” Louise says as I gaze at the sliding doors of the main entrance. “Maybe you should meet in a restaurant. Somewhere public.”
“It’s not like we’re going to scream at each other. And he did come all this way to see me.”
“The element of surprise,” she mutters.
“I know this is you being on my side,” I say. “But I also need you to be quiet.”
She gives me a look as if to say fine and I turn back to the hotel, steeling myself.
“Let’s get this over with.”
Louise accompanies me inside, going to the lobby bar while I walk past the desk to the small elevators. No one stops me as I ride to the third floor, following the signs down the winding carpeted halls to the dark wooden door of room thirty-two.
Tyler answers seconds after my knock as if he’d been waiting for me.
He’s just showered, as evidenced by his wet, slick-backed hair and the strong smell of aftershave emanating from him. He’s dressed casually for Tyler in an expensive sweater and dark jeans. He looks nice. He always looks nice.
“Going somewhere?” I ask.
“Not anymore.” He opens the door wider, gesturing me inside.
The room is nice, elegant and understated.
One of the more expensive ones in the building no doubt.
The curtains are open but the lights are on, meaning I can’t fully appreciate the view of the Irish countryside below. A dinner jacket is laid out on the bed.
“You got a hot date?”
He closes the door. “I thought I’d check in on my other girlfriend while I’m here.”
“I’m not your girlfriend,” I remind him.
A pause. “You’re right. I misspoke.”
I doubt it. Tyler always says exactly what he means to.
“Are you hungry?” he asks. “I’m told the restaurant here is good. Or we could order in.”
He goes over to the closet. It’s a casual move. A “look at us being normal, doing normal things” move. As if I’ve just come back from a drink in the lobby.
“I already ate,” I say, drifting toward the window.
“Never stopped you before.”
I can hear the smile in his voice but I don’t turn around. In the reflection of the glass, I can see him standing by the room safe, looking at me.
I stare straight back and I feel… I don’t know what I feel.
“Abby?”
I turn around, hugging my arms to my chest. I no longer care about my body language. I no longer care about what he can read from me. Let him read. Let him know. I have nothing to hide anymore.
“You always said I was bad at small talk,” he says eventually.
“It’s more that we’re good at it.”
“We?”
I make a vague gesture to myself and the world outside. My country. My people.
“Right.” He swallows. If I didn’t know him any better, I’d say he looked nervous. “Well, I won’t try to compete with them. And I won’t waste any more of your time.”
And before I know what’s happening he drops down on one knee.
“The box is empty,” he says, holding it up. “I was hoping you still had the first ring.”
I can only stare. “What are you doing?”
“Proposing to you.”
“You already proposed to me.”
“And now I’m doing it again,” he says politely. “I didn’t get any rose petals. I know you’d think it would just be extra work for housekeeping.”
“Tyler—”
“I’m sorry, Abby. I’m sorry for ever doubting my feelings for you and I’m sorry I didn’t realize that until I lost you.”
“You didn’t lose me,” I remind him. The back of my knees feel funny. “You broke up with me.”
“I did. It was a mistake. One that I’m trying to amend.”
“But I don’t want you to. I don’t want any of this.” I drop my arms, pacing the three steps between the window and the bed. Tyler doesn’t move. “You broke up with me like I was some girl you’d been seeing for a few weeks. Like three years together meant nothing.”
“I know.”
“I was going to marry you!” It hits me then.
Marriage. I hadn’t thought about it before.
Not really. Sure, I said yes. We bought the ring and we told our families but I hadn’t pictured a wedding or a dress or flowers and food and a honeymoon.
I hadn’t thought about putting a Mrs. in front of my name.
Hadn’t thought about what it meant. How different my life would have been.
“I was going to marry you,” I say again.
“And you left. You left and you didn’t talk to me again. ”
“I tried to.”
“Only when MacFarlane happened.”
“What does that matter? You didn’t answer my messages.”
“Because I didn’t want your pity.”
“It wasn’t my pity. It was my help .” He rises, slipping the box back into his pocket. “Help because I still cared about you. Can’t you see that? I shouldn’t have cared so much for someone I chose to cut from my life but I did. That’s when I knew how much I loved you.”
“So because you pitied me you realized you loved me.”
“You’re twisting my words,” he says calmly. And I am. I know I am. I want to make him the bad guy.
It would be so much simpler if he were the bad guy.
“You don’t want to marry me,” I say, feeling tired. “You think you do but you don’t.”
He smiles slightly. “You might have to explain that one to me.”
“Number one, how about the fact you were barely around the last year we were together.”
Tyler takes a seat in one of the low, beige armchairs, folding his tall form gracefully into it. “I was traveling for work.”
“And has that work just magically disappeared?”
“No.”
“No,” I echo. “So how would you balance that with our relationship?”
“My workload has never been an issue before.”
“Well, it is now. What we had before didn’t work, so we’d need something different.”
“Okay,” he says. “We can talk about that.”
Talk. Always talk. Talking without saying anything. “Number two, your mother doesn’t like me.”
“Of course she likes you.”
“She doesn’t. She doesn’t think I’m good enough for you.
She always had some comment about my clothes or my hair or my accent.
And you never defended me in front of her.
Not once. I just had to stand there and smile, which, thankfully, wasn’t that often because you never brought me to anything with your family. ”
“You never brought me to yours.”
“Because mine were an ocean away and I didn’t see them either! Sometimes I didn’t even know you were with yours until you told me afterward how bad a time you had.”
“I did have a bad time.”
“So don’t go!” I exclaim. “Or bring me with you so it can be fun. You say I’m your partner but you never let me into your world, into the family I was supposed to marry into.”
“I didn’t know you wanted to go,” he says, his hands upturned as though to show how open he’s being. “You always said it wasn’t your scene.”
“But it was yours. It was yours and you shut me out of it.” I perch on the edge of the bed.
“I’m not trying to blame you,” I say. “I’m not saying it was a one-sided thing but you need to see that maybe what we thought we had wasn’t actually what we had.
Maybe we were together because it was the easiest thing to do, because neither of us thought we had to pay attention to the other and maybe…
maybe that used to work for me before but not now. ”
“That’s a lot of maybes,” he says quietly. “Maybe you’re not sure what you want.”
“Are you trying to be funny?”
“No, Abby. I’m trying to understand you.
Something I don’t think I ever had a problem with before.
” He leans forward, capturing my gaze. “It’s not that my mother doesn’t like you, Abby, it’s that my mother is mean.
She’s mean to everyone. I know that. I’m used to it too and that’s why I never said anything when she picked on you.
I also said nothing because I know you can handle yourself and that it takes more than a few snide comments to bring you down.
I didn’t bring you to see my family because I thought you wouldn’t enjoy it.
I was trying to save you from wasting your few hours of spare time with a bunch of people you don’t like, not because I was shutting you out.
I don’t know what I was thinking when I broke up with you.
All I know is I was stressed with work and we’d been seeing so little of each other and one day your name flashed up on my phone and I didn’t want to answer it.
” Tyler sits back, softening as I stare at him.
“I thought that meant something,” he says.
“But I was wrong. I was so wrong, Abby. You have to believe me.”
I don’t answer. A room service cart rolls heavily along the hallway outside and I picture Louise waiting in the lobby, wondering what’s happening.
“I think I want to have children.”
He looks like I just slapped him.
“Not now,” I continue. “But one day. Maybe.”
“Okay,” he says slowly.
“We dated for three years. Three years together and we never talked about that, not once.”
“If you want children we can discuss it, Abby.”
“But that’s not the point.” I fight the urge to drop my head into my hands.
“Don’t you think that’s something we should have covered?
Who marries someone without thinking about something like that?
We never properly let each other into our lives.
We don’t know anything about each other. Not really.”
“Excuse me?” He laughs a little. “Abby, you know me better than most.”
“But not what counts. I know how hard you work. I know how you like your coffee in the morning and I know where you like to buy your suits and what cars you like to drive and where you see yourself professionally in five years but I don’t know you . We talk but we don’t talk .”
“So let’s talk . We have time, don’t we?
Talk to me. Learn me. Because I obviously need to learn more about you.
I know you haven’t forgiven me for what I did.
I wouldn’t forgive me either. But I’m asking you to give us a chance.
I’m asking you to try. Come back to New York with me.
You don’t have to take the job at Hanson’s.
You don’t have to move in with me. You can move in with Jess or I can help you find somewhere new.
I’d like to do that if you let me. And maybe I don’t really know you, but I know you don’t do well sitting still.
You never have. It’s one of the many reasons why I love you. You can’t stay here.”
“Number three—”
“Abby—”
“I don’t love you anymore.”
My words ring out between us. I’ve surprised him again. For three years I was convinced he knew my every thought and twice in two minutes he looks at me like I’m a stranger.
“And,” I continue, when he doesn’t say anything. “The reason I don’t need an interview at Hanson’s is because I’ve got a new job.”
His eyebrows pull together, but this is safer territory. This he can deal with. “Where?”
“Stewarts.”
“They’d be a good fit for you,” he says. “Smaller but… New York?”
“Toronto.”
He blinks, ruining his poker face. “Have you said yes?”
“Not yet.”
“But you will.”
I nod. I will.
He watches me for a moment, analyzing me. “Toronto’s a ninety-minute flight from New York.”
“Tyler—”
“You loved me before,” he says as if it’s such a simple thing.
“You don’t marry someone because you hope you’ll love them someday.”
“No,” he murmurs. “I guess not.” He takes a breath. “So that’s it?”
That’s it. I remove the ring from my purse. “I want to give this back to you.”
“Keep it,” he says, but we both know I won’t.
I stand and after a moment he does too. We meet each other halfway.
“It’s a nice ring,” he says when I hand it back to him. “You have good taste.”
“Expensive taste.”
“That too.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to return it?”
“I’ll figure something out.” He slides it into his pocket. “Come here, Abby.”
I let him hug me, let his arms come around me and pull me into him.
Let him rest his head atop of mine while I press my ear against his chest. I do all of that and know I’ve made the right decision.
I feel no love for the man holding me. Sorrow, maybe.
Relief. Maybe even a little affection for what I thought we once had. But not love. Not anymore.
“I think you’re making a mistake,” he says softly, his voice just audible above me.
I open my eyes, gazing at our reflection in the window, at myself staring back at me. “At least it’s mine.”