by Stacey Lynn
She simply lived her life unashamedly going after what she wanted—happiness, her career, her personal life.
She was uninhibited in everything she did and had brought life back to my deadened and cold heart with a mere glimpse of her.
Not because she was beautiful. Because she was herself, unapologetically real.
The ice-cold water splashed over the glass and snapped me back to the present. I turned off the water and reached for a towel to dry my wet wrist and the glass before I grabbed the pills and went back to Courtney.
“Hey,” I whispered. She slowly opened her eyes and smiled drunkenly. I handed her the meds and waited until she took them, handing me back the emptied glass. “Are you sure you don’t need anything?”
She shook her head. “I’ve got someone I can call if things get bad, but I think what I need tonight is to be alone with my friend Chardonnay and a good cry-fest.”
She looked healthy. Sad and drunk, but she still had a healthier glow to her, an honesty in her eyes that had always been sheltered before.
I stepped back. “Okay. But if you need something—”
“I’m not calling you.”
I smirked. “I was going to suggest Dylan. He’d help you. Gabby, too, if you need it.”
She pushed to her feet and blew her blond hair out of her eyes. “Thanks. Have a good night.”
I lifted my hand in a wave goodbye and shut her door behind me.
There was no reason to stay. I had to trust Courtney that for once, she knew what was best, and seeing her drunkenly upset was better than depressingly ruined.
She’d be fine, I hoped.
To make sure, I’d still have Dylan check on her.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, called the guy who had by now dropped Haley off at her house and told him where to come pick me up. I walked through Courtney’s townhouse complex to the main street, and waited.
And while I waited, I planned.
Dylan had been right. I’d never once officially punished Haley for her disobedience.
I let her get away with too much.
If she wanted more, I’d give it to her. And it wouldn’t just be my hand or a crop, but it’d be my heart as well.
Then we’d have a serious talk about not only where we were headed, but where I was now certain we’d end up.
Chapter Twenty-One
Haley
I had barely climbed into bed when a faint thud echoed through my quiet house.
After the limo ride home, which felt like it took forever, I’d picked up the phone and called Anya as soon as I’d walked through the door. Considering she’d assumed I would be spending the weekend with Jensen, she knew something was wrong when my name lit up on her phone’s screen.
“I’ll be there in ten,” she’d said as soon as I croaked her name through my dry throat.
She had hung up without saying anything else. Ten minutes later I had divested myself of the beautiful dress, thrown on scraggly sweatpants and sweatshirt, and managed to wash off my makeup and smeared mascara before she showed up.
She let herself into my house with her spare key and by the time I reached the kitchen, she had gin gimlets poured and one waiting for me.
She took one look at me, said, “Talk,” and I let everything spill.
When I was done, she poured us another round of drinks, I followed her into the living room and we spent the next two hours drinking while we analyzed every single one of my mistakes, every single one of Jensen’s comments and looks down to the last details.
What could I say? Girls were neurotic when we were on the cusp of having our hearts potentially broken.
We also figured out nothing.
The only thing I could do was wait a day or two and hope Jensen would be ready to speak to me again. He was too respectful to ditch me completely without ending things, and until then, I decided to hold on to the minuscule hope I had that we’d be able to get past this major blip.
One of my own selfish making.
By the time Lance came and picked up Anya, after we’d realized how much alcohol we’d had, I was drunk and depressed. I sent her home after assuring her I’d be okay and I’d call her in the morning.
Before they left, Lance pulled me into a hug and whispered, “If I thought I had a snowball’s chance in hell of being able to kick his ass, I’d do it just for you.”
I had laughed so hard snot shot out of my nose and onto the shoulder of his T-shirt. I also didn’t tell him.
After they left, I cleaned up our drinks, spent more time moping and finally slipped into a comfortable pair of pajamas and crawled into bed.
The depressing crooning of Adele was the only sound in the house as I tossed and turned. I tried to get comfortable but every time I rolled over, the lingering scent of Jensen’s cologne on my sheets and pillows seemed to smother me.
I was finally drifting off, tears still occasionally forming in my eyes and running down my cheeks when another low, quiet thump echoed from downstairs.
Without thought, I jumped out of bed and opened my nightstand, reaching for my 380 Smith & Wesson handgun my dad had insisted I learned to shoot.
When another thump, louder this time, hit my front door, I silently thanked him for forcing the issue.
“You’re a woman alone running a resort and living in a house too large for you. It’s smart to be safe,” he’d said. My mom and I had rolled our eyes but I let him take me to the shooting range. He took me twice a week until he felt comfortable with not only my knowledge of handling and shooting a gun, but cleaning it properly afterward.
My fingers curled around the butt of the gun and I held it tightly to my side as I tiptoed down the hallway and then the stairs. Every creak of my stairs, every shift of the old house settling made me jump and I reminded myself to keep a proper grip on the gun.
The last thing I needed to do was to wrap my finger around the trigger and shoot it by accident.
The chime of the grandfather clock I’d locked away in a guest room made me jump on the last stair and I wrapped my hand around the railing to steady myself. Only one chime.
Who in the hell could be visiting me at one o’clock in the morning?
And why in the hell did I grab my gun and not my phone? I’d seen enough thriller movies to know I had just made the dumbest mistake possible.
As I cursed myself, another thump hit the front door followed by four quick knocks.
“Haley!” A voice shouted.
A masculine voice.
Hope filled me and warmed me, thinking that Jensen had come back to talk to me, before recognition hit.
It was quickly replaced with irritation.
“You’ve gotta be freaking kidding me,” I muttered, setting my gun on the coffee table as I walked to the front door.
“Haley!” Timothy shouted, pounding on my door.
I unlocked and opened it quickly. His hand was still raised, ready to knock. I clearly opened it too fast because he tumbled inside the door, landing on his knees in the doorway.
“What in the heck are you doing here?” I asked, hands immediately going to my hips before I flicked one in the air. “Never mind. I don’t care why you’re here. You need to go.”
Awareness settled in his glazed-over eyes as he realized he was on his knees.
“Funny,” Timothy slurred and I cringed. Great, he was drunk. Or worse. “I don’t think I got down on my knees for you when I proposed.”
He hadn’t. I still bristled at the memory he gave me. Us, walking along the pier just down from the Inn. When we’d reached the end, he’d taken my hand and slipped a simple band with a tiny diamond on my finger and said, “Spend forever with me.”
I had loved the ring. I didn’t care that the diamond was so small it
barely sparkled. I’d loved him with everything I had but, just like most moments since then, all of it was tainted with years of regret and failure.
“What are you doing here?” I asked Timothy again, not bothering to help him up.
His head dropped at my stern tone causing his sandy-blond hair to fall over his forehead, blocking his eyes from me. I didn’t move as he struggled back to his feet.
“I miss you,” he said, his gaze slowly roaming the entryway to my house before it lazily slid back to me. “I miss you so much, Haley.”
“You miss my income.”
“I made a mistake. A lot of them, I admit. But I wanted to come here tonight to talk to you. See if we can work things out between us.”
“Us?” I asked, arching a brow. “Or the lawsuit?”
He had the grace to flinch and stepped forward into my house. Before I could stop him he was too far inside to push him back out the front door. I should have done that while he was still on his knees. Kicked him in the chest and sent him sprawling onto the front porch.
He sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. It flopped all over before settling in its typical disheveled way. “Can we please talk?”
I had talked enough. For years I had tried to get through to him. Nothing worked then and nothing would now.
Still, like I always did when Timothy flashed his slightly crooked grin at me, I had a hard time saying no.
“It’s late, but I’ll give you a few minutes.” I shut the door and then frowned as it clicked. “Did you drive here...after you’ve been drinking?”
He huffed and headed toward the kitchen. He’d been here enough when we were dating and married that he knew his way around just as well as I did.
“Came back this weekend to see some old friends.” He called out, “Remember Dan and Mark? Mark’s bachelor party was tonight.”
That explained the drunkenness. Perhaps even him missing me.
I rolled my eyes and followed him. The sooner I listened to what he had to say the sooner he’d be gone. “Of course I remember them,” I said. Hard to forget them when we all went to high school together. “Are Mark and Tonya finally getting married?”
I found him digging through the liquor cabinet that only held tequila, a bottle of orange vodka, and Scotch that Jensen had brought over one night.
Timothy pulled out the Scotch and frowned as he read the label. “This is nice stuff.”
Five hundred dollars’ worth of nice. I didn’t explain.
He eyed the bottle and then me with as much speculation as he could muster before opening it and taking a swig.
Ugh.
“Yeah. Mark finally graduated grad school. They’re moving to Chicago in a few weeks after their wedding next weekend.” He took another swig and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. I couldn’t continue watching him fill Jensen’s bottle of Scotch with his germs, even if Jensen might never be drinking from that bottle again after the clusterfuck from earlier.
I went to the cupboard and pulled out a glass, adding ice before handing it to him.
“Use this.”
He swung the bottle back and forth, holding it by its neck. “Got someone in your life who might not like me drinking his good shit?”
I was certain Jensen would be furious. I wasn’t certain I had a man in my life anymore. “None of your business,” I replied, crossing my arms. “You wanted to talk. Do it. And while you’re at it, be sure to explain this bullshit of a lawsuit you refuse to drop.”
Something lit in his rich brown eyes when he smiled. He poured a drink and brought it to his lips, the whole time not removing his eyes from me.
A chill rolled through me and I fought the urge to shiver in front of him.
“Listen, Timothy. It’s late. I’m tired and I had a long night.”
“Yeah, I heard about your night.”
His eyes lost their light from moments earlier and he set the Scotch on the counter.
“Heard all about how hot you looked, how fuckable you still looked, draped over some hotshot lawyer’s arm all night earlier. Do you know how big of a shmuck I looked like when I was out with my boys and Matty-fucking-Bentzen of all people sauntered up to me and told me all about how he saw you with that prick at some fancy ball tonight?”
It took me a moment to place the name and when I did, I frowned. I didn’t remember seeing anyone who looked familiar while I was at the benefit, but Matt Bentzen and Timothy had been huge rivals at school, and Matty generally came out ahead in every contest...athletics and academics.
Timothy hated him.
If Matty had really seen me and then rubbed it in Timothy’s face, it would explain Timothy’s anger and drunkenness.
Which was really why he was here. Not because he wanted me, but because I’d somehow made him look bad.
I took a step back. His eyes darkened, swirled with anger, and that never ended well for me. Not that he’d hit me. Sadly, that would show he cared too much. But it still led to arguments and shouting and migraines and tears and I was so...
Tired of it all.
“You should go. I’m sure there’s nothing we have left to talk about.”
I turned on my heel, hoping he’d follow me to the door.
He was never one to let an argument go until he’d won. It was the only thing he’d ever been able to commit to.
I was also partly right. As I reached the front door and wrapped my hand around the door knob and unlatched it, I heard his footsteps following me.
But as I began opening the door, his footsteps stopped and the soft click of a gun being cocked echoed in the background.
Fuck. Of all the stupid things for me to do, leaving my gun out was by far the stupidest.
“I wouldn’t open that door any further if I were you, baby.”
I cringed at the endearment before slowly turning around.
He stood right by the table where I’d set my gun earlier, and had it aimed at me. His hold wasn’t steady. His arms were shaking and he slightly swayed, but it didn’t matter.
I’d never had a gun pointing directly at me before.
Fear ignited in my veins.
“We’ll talk, Timothy. We’ll talk about whatever you want okay?” I lifted my hands and stepped away from the door. “But please. Lower the gun and set it down. You’ve been drinking and you’re upset. Perhaps you’re not thinking clearly.”
The gun shook in his hand and he blinked. “I loved you.”
“I loved you, too.” And I had. With all of my heart. All of my being. “Sometimes that isn’t enough though, Timothy. And we went over this.”
Repeatedly. I didn’t say it.
I took a step toward him, keeping my steps calm and slow. “Please, honey,” I said, sweetening my voice at the same time lowering it. “Let’s just talk. We’ll talk about whatever you want. But you’re scaring me.”
He’d never done anything like this before, never looked as wild as he did in that moment. He blinked again and ran his free hand through his blond surfer locks. They used to look curly and soft. Like he spent too much time in the sun even though he really spent too much time playing video games and watching The Walking Dead.
Now, as I took another step closer, there was a drastic change in his appearance. Bloodshot eyes with dark circles beneath them. His face was thinner, and his clothes didn’t hang as perfectly on his body as they used to.
“You left me,” he whispered harshly, narrowing drunken eyes on me. “You weren’t supposed to leave me.”
“We made a lot of promises to each other we didn’t keep. I couldn’t live like that anymore, always taking care of everything and both of us and the finances and the apartment. It was too much. We fought too much.”
“This wasn’t my fault.” He shook his head, stepp
ing back until he hit the back of my couch. His eyes never left mine and while he didn’t lower the gun, his arm didn’t follow me as I stepped out of the trajectory he was aiming for. “You were mine. The only woman I ever cared about, the only thing I cared about. We were supposed to be happy and follow our dreams and when you left, they all burned.”
“You were supposed to help me with those dreams, and you didn’t.”
“Do you know what I felt like tonight, hanging out with my friends from school? Seeing all they had, seeing the women they had who supported them? And then to hear you’d already moved on? They looked at me with pity, Hales. Like I was the fucking loser. And I wasn’t. And now you won’t even give me what you owe me.”
My anger grew as his voice rose. He had some facts right, but mostly his were all wrong.
They all showed him as the victim. He was too prideful, too lost inside his own fantasies to see that tonight, he had probably seen the truth but was too much of coward to admit it.
“Can we sit please? And talk? Like we used to?” I tried to smile, but my lips wobbled. I was never good at faking and I hoped he didn’t see how much I didn’t want to be anywhere near him. “Maybe work something out?”
“I need that money, Hales.”
I fought another cringe. He was the only person I ever allowed to call me that. Even then, I’d hated it. It wasn’t even a real name. He was just too lazy to throw in another syllable.
“Suing me isn’t the answer.”
“It’s the only one I had.”
“Shooting me won’t get you the money.” My voice wavered. It wouldn’t would it? Unless he got away with it? But even then, he wasn’t listed as a beneficiary on any of my paperwork or insurance. I took another step away from the door and the gun and toward the kitchen. Perhaps if I distracted him, I could make a run through the back door.
“No, but if I get you back, then it can all be ours. Think about it, Haley,” he said, his voice taking on that soft lilt I used to love. The one that could make me do anything. He flashed that lopsided smile and rested his hip against the couch, the position casual enough to hopefully make him forget he was holding on to a gun. “Stop walking away from me, first.”