“Because I’m not in love with you,” I said simply.
Angelina’s eyes widened in surprise and she stumbled back a step like I’d shoved her. “That’s not true.” Her voice was deceptively soft. “Snap out of it, William. I’ve had enough of this. We’re perfect together. We want the same things and the media adores us. What’s not to love?”
“The media?” Dry, disbelieving laughter burst out of me. “You’re bringing the fucking media into this?”
I just about saw the wheels turning in her head before she schooled her features and flashed me a demure smile. “I’m just saying, darling. Our careers are so intertwined and everyone loves us together because we love each other so much.”
“No, that’s not what you were saying. It doesn’t matter anyway because I don’t love you.” I wasn’t sure I ever did. “We can keep having it out for the rest of the day and all night if you want to, but I’m not backing down this time. I’m done with you.”
“You’re done with me?” She tucked her chin closer to her chest and jutted out a hip before her lips twisted into a sneer. “We’re done when I say we’re done, and we’re not done.”
“Really? What gave you that idea?” I laughed again, but this time, it was genuine. Taking a long swig of my beer, I watched as a myriad of emotions played out across her face. None of them looked even remotely like heartbreak. “There’s something seriously wrong with you if you think you’re holding me on some kind of leash. I’m done with this, Angelina. There isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.”
“I’ll...” She trailed off, eyes narrowed again as she stared into the middle distance, clearly trying to come up with some kind of threat that would actually hold water. I cocked my head as I waited, folding my arms loosely across my chest and smirking when I saw her coming up empty.
“You’ll what?” I set my beer down again and placed my open palms on the bar, leaning forward and waiting until she looked at me again. “You won’t do anything. There’s nothing you can do, darling. Breakups happen every day. You can keep the ring if you want. I don’t give a damn.”
“I’ll go to the press,” she snarled. “I’ll tell them everything. You’ll never work in this town again.”
“Let them come at me.” I shrugged. “The truth is on my side and they know it, thanks to all those pictures and videos of you in that club. Plus, I’ve been around here a lot longer than you have. I’d love to see you trying to keep me out.”
“My fans will cancel you.” Triumph flared in her eyes, like she thought she had me by the balls with that statement.
When all this had first started, she might’ve. I knew better now, though. “Open your eyes and check what’s going on even with your own fans. You disappointed them as much as you did me. A few of them might try to ruin me, but there are more people in my corner than in yours.”
“Don’t do this to us, baby,” she said, suddenly teary as she took a deep breath and the fight drained out of her. “I can make it up to you.”
“You literally just threatened to ruin my career, and now you want to make it up to me?” I looked into her eyes and, for the first time probably ever, saw her clearly. “This whole time I thought Anna and I were the ones faking it and the real thing was what you and I had, but now I’m realizing it’s the other way around.”
She stiffened, her spine shooting straight as she crossed her arms and glared at me. “So this is about her?”
I shook my head. “Everything with Anna was real, but it’s still not about her. I hope I’d have seen you for what you are even without her. Our relationship was a farce, Angelina. I don’t think I ever loved you, but I felt like I should.”
“Of course, you loved me.” She scoffed, but she didn’t sound even close to convinced. “We’re good together, you and I.”
“No, we’re not. Things were always forced between us. We were lying to ourselves because we wanted it to be real, but it wasn’t. I won’t keep doing it.”
“Just take a second to think about what you’re doing here, what you’re giving up,” she pleaded, but there was no sincerity in her eyes. They were ice cold and calculating. “What would we even do without each other?”
“You’re going to get your shit out of my house and find someone else to move on with. When you’re done, you can leave my key with Dave or at my office. I’m leaving.”
I never should’ve come back there in the first place. The longer I stood there, looking at the art I hadn’t chosen on the walls, the uncomfortable pieces of furniture scattered between my own that I’d bought because Angelina had wanted them, and thought about how much of myself I’d lost in recent years, the more I knew I was doing the right thing.
Leaving while she was still in the house was a risk, but it was one I was willing to take. She could burn it down for all I cared. I felt like the blinders that had been slowly growing around my eyes since I’d come out here were deteriorating, and with every thought I had, I was regaining perspective.
As I passed her on my way out from behind the bar, she grabbed my wrist and held on to it. “Stay with me, Will. We can work this out. If you want to talk about it every day, we’ll talk about it every day until we’re happy again.”
“It’s too late for that, Angelina.” My lips pressed into a tight line as I freed my arm gently from her grasp. Before I turned away from her, I took one last look at the face I thought I’d love for the rest of my life. “Find someone you can really be happy with. Someone you really love. You were right when you said I don’t love you the way you deserve to be loved, but there’s someone out there who will love you that way.”
Her teeth sank into her lower lip, and there was finally a flicker of actual emotion in her eyes. Somehow, I didn’t think she was going to follow through on any of her threats. I didn’t care if she did, but it seemed like I might’ve finally gotten through to her.
“Where are you even going?” she asked, her voice wobbly but strong.
“I’m going home,” I said. “Take as long as you need to move your stuff out, and take whatever you want from here with you. I don’t think I’m coming back anytime soon.”
As I walked away from her, I heard the faint sound of her sniffling but not of her footsteps following me. And I finally, finally felt free.
Chapter 36
ANNA
Jessie and I didn’t keep talking about William after we left her office. By silent agreement, we’d left the subject of him behind when we took the champagne outside and spread out on a blanket in the shade behind her cottage.
Shielded from the eyes of the guests, we’d had our lunch out on the lawn and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening dreaming about what the future had in store for us now that we were in business together.
It felt good to just relax with my best friend, lying in the mottled patches of sunlight that shone through the branches and planning what came next. William hadn’t been far from my mind since I’d fled Traverse City in that cab, but I hardly thought about him as we brainstormed about how we could spice up the Mackinac experience for her guests.
I would be helping her in all aspects of the business, and I was honestly excited to see what we could come up with to give the B&B an extra edge. We giggled like the girls we used to be as we exchanged ideas, everything from ludicrous—like hosting bachelorette parties and convincing the male members of staff to be shirtless all weekend—to the more realistic, like creating a must-see attraction somewhere on the grounds.
We were a little tipsy when the sun started setting and we moved into Jessie’s cottage. Lying on our stomachs on her bed with our knees bent and our legs in the air, we kept drinking champagne and having a great time.
Naturally, however, I had the hiccups from the bubbly, and Jessie kept trying to scare them away. We were in hysterics when we were interrupted by a knock on her door.
“Be right there,” Jessie called, rolling over and almost missing when she went to place her glass on the nightstand. She breathed
a sigh of relief, still giggling as she sat up and jumped off the bed. “Who is it?”
She swung the door open without waiting for an answer and promptly stopped laughing. Her face fell and I saw her jaw clench as her expression hardened. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to talk.” William’s voice, as smooth and rich as silk, met my ears. “Is she here?”
Shock permeated every part of my hazy brain, and judging from the way Jessie’s mouth went slack, I assumed she felt the same way. I sputtered into my glass, but she recovered faster than I did.
Grinning deviously, she stepped aside and grabbed his arm, dragging him inside before abandoning us. “I’ve suddenly got a craving for something sweet. I think I’ll go see if there’s any dessert left over from the dinner service. Play nice, you two.”
I muttered curses at her for leaving me like this as I pushed myself upright on her bed. I tried to stop the hiccups, but not even looking up to find Will’s sea-green eyes only a few feet away was enough to chase them away.
He didn’t laugh at me this time, but the corner of his lips twitched in a smile. Auburn hair sticking up at all ends like he’d been tugging at it for hours and with his clothes more wrinkled than I’d seen them since he was a teenager, he held his hand out to me.
“I’d like to talk if you’re willing to hear me out.” There was a hint of vulnerability in his tone that made me shake my head in the hopes of clearing it.
No such luck, though. I got off the bed so he wouldn’t be looking quite so far down at me. He was tall enough that I’d still have to look up at him, but at least we were closer to being eye to eye if I was standing.
“I should walk out and tell you to get bent,” I said, proud of the way my voice remained even despite the fact that seeing him had cracked my heart wide open again. “You disrespected me. I don’t owe you a minute more of my time after the stunt you pulled.”
“Fair enough.” He held my gaze firmly. “You’re absolutely right. I did. You haven’t said no to talking, though.”
After a quiet moment, I nodded and gestured toward the door. “Say your piece. I won’t stop you from talking, but I can’t guarantee I’ll have anything to say in response. Let’s go for a walk.”
I needed fresh air to get through this conversation, and I didn’t want to hog Jessie’s home for however long it was going to take. If he really had come to talk like he’d said to her, it might be a while.
There was a lot that we both needed to get closure on, and while I wasn’t sure I was ready to open up to him, I also wasn’t so petty or childish that I wouldn’t let him speak. We had too much history for me to simply ignore him, and since I was going to be working with his sister in his family home, we might as well get it out of the way.
“Yeah. Okay. Let’s go for a walk.” William dropped his hand when I stared at it but didn’t take it, then hooked his thumbs into his pockets, nodded, and took a step back. “To the water?”
“To the water,” I agreed. The two of us somehow always seemed to end up near the lake anyway.
The gentle lapping of the swells greeted us when we’d made our way in silence across the road, taking a seat on a bench they’d constructed here in their father’s memory. Moonlight shone silver on the dark water, illuminating the ripples from the breeze on the surface.
He turned to face me once we were seated, the earnestness in his eyes shining like a beacon even in the pale light of the moon. “I’m sorry, Anna. I wish there were words more powerful than those to use for this apology, but there are no words in any language I know that can truly express how sorry I am for hurting you.”
“I’m listening,” I said because I could hear how heartfelt his words were. “But I’m just not sure if ‘I’m sorry’ cuts it, Will.”
“I know.” He ran his fingers through his hair again, leaving it sticking up in entirely new directions as he swallowed and glanced at the moon before bringing his gaze back to mine. “I feel terrible for not sticking up for you when Angelina found us. It doesn’t excuse my behavior, but at the time, I didn’t say anything because I didn’t even feel like what she’d said justified a response.”
“It didn’t justify a response that she called me a bimbo? Or any of the other awful things she said?”
He hung his head for a moment, resting his face in his hands and letting out a soft groan. “I should’ve handled it better. I can’t tell you how ashamed and embarrassed I am over how it went down. I was just so shocked to see her that I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
Turning his head to face me without sitting up again, he clasped his hands together between his knees and sighed. “I’m not making excuses, but I didn’t even realize how backward I’ve been for the past two years until you came back into my life and reminded me of who I was.”
“Get to the point, Will.” He was saying all these things, but I couldn’t sit here with him much longer knowing that he was still going back to her once he’d said what he needed to say. “I appreciate you coming all this way, but I—”
“I called off the engagement,” he said, surprising the heck out of me. “For good this time. I told her I was done before, and she didn’t accept it, but I made sure she got the message before I left LA. It’s over between us. I ended it and I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
I was shocked speechless for a few long minutes, reeling over what he’d just said and trying to wrap my head around it. “I thought you loved her. Why would you have done all this if you don’t?”
“I thought I loved her too.” He let out a humorless chuckle before squeezing his eyes shut. “The thing is, I’ve realized I never did. Not in the way I love you anyway. Not in the way I’ve always loved you.”
“What?” I felt like his words were tiny bolts of lightning striking right at the most broken pieces of my heart. “Don’t say stuff like that, Will. Not now.”
“If not now, then when?” He sat upright, locking his gaze on mine like I was the center of his universe and the only thing he could see. “I want to date you properly, Anna. No business deals. No fake engagements. No more pretending.”
Squaring his shoulders, a look of fierce determination settled on his face. “I understand if you don’t trust me right now. I’ve made mistakes and some serious errors of judgment, but I’m willing to do whatever it takes to earn your trust back.”
He raised his arm, his fingers gently caressing the two feathers that hung from the arrow etched into his skin. “When you asked me about this tattoo before, I told you it was about finding direction in life. What I didn’t tell you was the feathers signify you and me. They were supposed to remind me of where I came from regardless of where I went. I lost track of that for a while, but it won’t happen again.”
Silence fell between us. All I could do was stare at him. I wanted to say something—anything—but words evaded me.
William smiled softly, exhaling deeply before reaching for my hands. “I want to give this thing between us a real shot because I’m pretty sure there’s something incredible between us. Something that’s always been there. Something neither of us have fought hard enough for.”
If I looked into my heart, I knew he was right. Whenever we were together, it felt like everything was the way it was supposed to be. Pieces of a puzzle I couldn’t see slid into place, and there was a peace in my soul that was never there without him.
When we were kids, I hadn’t realized how rare that was. How significant it was to feel that way with and about someone else. I’d thought everyone felt that way with their partners, that it would be easy to find it again, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
This thing between us was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. The kind of love people went to war over, built monuments to that stood the test of time. Our road to getting here hadn’t been easy, but nothing worthwhile ever was.
As I sat there and looked into his eyes, I knew he was right but I also knew my heart was still broken and my belief in him shattere
d. I let him go the first time, and he walked away from me the second. Theoretically, I supposed we were even but that didn’t mean it would be smooth sailing from here on out.
“There is something between us worth fighting for,” I said slowly as my shocked brain tried to find the words I needed. “There is something between us that I’ve always wanted to fight for, and I still do. But William?”
He tightened his grip on my hand. “Yeah?”
“After you left the first time, I struggled to adjust to life without you. It was really bad. You were my rock and my anchor, and even though it was me who told you to go, I was adrift for a long time. Last weekend when you left again, I thought I was going to have to go through that all over again. It took everything I had not to fall back into that darkness. I can’t go through it again.”
“You won’t have to,” he promised, moving closer and capturing my face between his big tattooed hands. His gaze was intent on mine, shining with so much emotion that it brought tears to my eyes. “It was always supposed to be you and me. We’re going to do it right this time, baby. I love you and I will do everything in my power to show you how much every single fucking day for the rest of my life.”
I took a moment to absorb his words and the resolve behind them before I nodded. “It’s going to take us a while before we get there, but where do you suggest we start?”
Chapter 37
WILLIAM
When I had walked Anna home last night after we talked, I played the part of a perfect gentleman. She’d invited me inside, and even though I’d wanted nothing more than to take her up on her offer, I’d declined.
“If we’re doing this right,” I’d whispered against her lips as I held her in my arms, “I should leave with a goodnight kiss and nothing more.”
It’d nearly killed me to do it, but I had kissed her passionately and then let her go. Part of me had questioned whether I was doing the right thing, leaving her alone after the emotional evening we’d had. Another part of me—primarily the part below the belt—had wanted to take her to bed and claim every inch of her as my own, but I’d resisted.
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