by Kate Stewart
The driver shouted in warning and darted his eyes at Daniello in the rearview.
“Goodbye, Phoenix,” he murmured before he shut the door and the SUV sped away.
I didn’t return to Charleston, despite Daniello’s sacrifice to keep me safe. I had to be absolutely sure. And once again, that meant I had to keep my distance from those I loved.
And nothing about the life I left appealed to me without him in it.
The doctors had declared Amber out of the woods when she woke up. She would soon start therapy. When my sister opened her eyes, she was met with a new future. A man by her side who truly cared about her and a son to raise. She would never again be in the kind of danger that she’d been exposed to. She wouldn’t be a target for anyone or anything, except the bastard called life. And I knew without a doubt she could manage her way through the bad. She was well armed for that. She’d endured so much, her day-to-day problems would seem totally trivial. She would thrive, and so would her son.
“Where are you?” Cedric asked as I gripped my phone in another rented car.
“I’m home.” I looked up at the mansion I hadn’t visited in years as Cedric questioned me.
“You aren’t home.”
“I’m where I need to be for now.”
“If I ever see you again, I won’t know whether to kiss you or kill you.”
I heard the longing in his voice. “I’m sorry for what I’ve put you through.”
“Do you want me to come?”
“No. I need to just be alone for a while.”
“Back into old habits, huh?” It was a dig, and I knew he meant it that way. He was still angry with me.
“One day you’ll forgive me.”
“I gotta go.”
“Cedric—”
The phone went dead. I would let him have his space. I knew his love for me surpassed friendship a long time ago. I knew what unrequited loved felt like. I’d experienced a good bout of it on my own by the man who owned the mansion I stared at.
There was a chill in the air, alerting me to the arrival of fall in Memphis. I let down my window, and a few leaves drifted across the hood. Automatic lights flicked on around the property, giving it a regal, white glow as I stared at the lifeless house and remembered the last time I saw Ray.
“I’ve arranged for you to have a brownstone in Boston. It will be easier if you don’t have to come home for break.”
“What?” I paused my packing and turned to him. He shrugged, indifferent.
He wore his usual suit and tie, as he looked over my luggage and then back to me. “No sense in coming back here, kitten. This isn’t your home anymore.”
“I can come back for Thanksgiving in a few months and Christmas. What about summer, Ray?”
Ray moved in front of my suitcase and resumed packing for me. “I assume you’ll be fucking some college Joe by then.” I moved to stand in front of him and ripped the T-shirt from his hands. “You know that won’t happen. You are the only one I want.”
He looked down at the floor between us. “How many times do I have to tell you this? You aren’t for me.”
I stood my ground. I could hear the lie in his voice and feel it in my heart. “I am for you. You’re twenty-nine fucking years old! Ten years is not that big of a fucking age gap, Ray. We have nothing to be ashamed of!”
He gripped my arm. “So then pay me back. When you’ve made enough money to pay me back, maybe I’ll take you seriously. Until then, stay gone.”
I bit my lip to keep it from trembling. “That’s what it’s about? That you paid me?”
Ray faltered, his whole frame dropping as he looked me in the eye.
“You want love from me? That’s what you want?”
“I want you to admit it’s already there!”
“I have to respect you, kitten.” I faced him head on. We were in negotiations, something he’d made sure I’d mastered.
“You do respect me.”
“No, I don’t. I think you’re brave. I think you’re exceptionally smart. I think you’ve got a goddamned mouth on you that would make the devil weep, but respect has to be earned. You want mine? Go kick some ass, make your fortune, and come back to me then and ask for love.” He crossed his arms, and I took an aggressive step forward.
“You love me.”
He shook his head, his blue eyes resolute. “I don’t. You want me to, but I don’t. This is it for us. Contract is over. Let’s say goodbye like adults, kitten.”
I tamped down my tears as I looked him over. “I’ll hate you for this.”
“You might, or you might thank me.”
I maintained my composure as he tried his best to rattle me. I held my head high as the seconds ticked by.
A slow smiled traced my lips as I pushed my anger aside and gave him a wink.
“Have it your way, Ray.” I could feel the pride on his side as I fought the battle with my anger and my pride and won. He confirmed my suspicion when he reached me. We fought breathlessly to get our clothes off, and once he was buried deep, his emotion-filled eyes cloaked me in what I needed to feel. No gentle words, no soft whispers, just deep blue eyes. When we’d both come, Ray leaned in and kissed me for the first time. It lasted endless minutes, and it was filled with every unspoken kindness he’d deprived me of. I moaned into his lips, and he took and took and took some more. Our tongues tangled and slowly broke apart as he sealed it before gracing me with one last lingering look.
“Offer stands, kitten. Come back when you make your fortune.”
“Ray?” My heart sank as he leveled me with his goodbye.
He looked at me without an inch of fight. “I’ll be waiting.”
Outside, on the front steps of his castle, I shivered as tears streamed down my cheeks then rushed to the front door and unlocked it. “Ray.” I needed him now more than ever. I leapt up the stairs as I had three months into my first semester at Harvard.
“Ray!” I yelled, excited after the all-night drive from Boston to Memphis for winter break. I knew it would aggravate him to no end that I was yelling throughout the house. Still, I couldn’t stifle my excitement. I had just been granted enough in student loans to carry me the first semester and maxed out six credit cards to pay for the rest.
I moved toward his bedroom as memories rushed toward me from all sides. Deep blue eyes, his rare smile, his hungry lips on my skin, his reluctant friendship.
“Ray?!” I barreled down the hall to his bedroom at six in the morning to see it made. Thinking he might have been early to rise, I rushed into his office and stopped short when he wasn’t there.
“Taylor? Is that you?” Olivia rounded the corner from the foyer with a warm smile on her face.
“Olivia, hi!” I moved toward her, filled with excitement, and gave her a brief hug.
“Where is Ray?”
Olivia’s smile faltered. Instant tears surfaced as I shook off the impossible. “Is he out of town?”
Powerless against the memory of my last trip to the house, I hung my head as I reached the door to his bedroom. I stared at his empty bed then walked in and closed the door behind me.
“Taylor, he’s gone.”
“Gone.”
She nodded as she took my bag off my shoulder, gripped my hand, and led me to the couch.
I swallowed as I stared at the high heels I’d worn to show him what a grown up I was. It seemed so childish to me then. “His heart?” I braved a glance her way.
She nodded and took a seat on the ottoman across from me.
I let the tears slip down my cheek. “I mean, I knew. I knew something was wrong. I just didn’t know how. . . bad. . . Oh my God, Ray!” I let myself free fall into devastation as she did her best to calm me.
“Why . . . why?” Confusion and anger overpowered me as I lashed out at her. “Why didn’t you call me?! Goddamn you, Olivia, you knew I loved him!”
“So did he, Taylor. He knew. He wanted it this way. He didn’t want you to suffer.”
“Well, I’m suffering anyway! He was only twenty-nine! He was rich! Why the hell didn’t he save himself?”
“Money doesn’t solve everything, Taylor.” I cringed at her words because they belonged to Laz. “It was his second rejected heart. He said a third would be too selfish.”
“Selfish?” I scoffed. “That bastard was worried about being selfish? He’s the most selfish man that ever lived!”
“Taylor, he knew you wouldn’t go to school. He knew.”
I let my body dissolve as she spoke softly.
“He never really said much, but I know you were his world, Taylor.”
I cut my eyes at her. “I was his whore.”
“That’s not true and you know it.”
“I know nothing.” I stood, wiped my tears away, grabbed my bag, and barricaded myself in his room. On top of his bed was an envelope for me. I stared at it for three days before I slipped it in his bedside drawer and returned to Boston.
I pulled one of the shirts from his closet and slipped it on. Nothing smelled of him anymore, and in my anger, I hadn’t taken the time to do anything that a women in love would do with her grief. I’d kept it all inside at school and used my pain as my anchor. Even with my hurt, I’d set out to do everything we talked about. I’d made my fortune. I’d conquered. I ruled my share of the corporate world, and I’d done it all for a dead man’s acceptance. For myself, but mostly for Ray. He was the voice in my head, my mentor, the whisper in my ear for the better half of ten years . . . until I met Daniello. I knew grief had its limitations, but I found myself in a heap on his bed minutes after I’d arrived, swallowing chalk with desperate sobs. I released years of pent up sadness, grieving my losses, my failures, and the three loves of my life.
Ray had left everything to me. His home, his fortune from the quick sale of his Fortune 500 company, even the Studebaker he refused to let me drive. I was a millionaire my first semester in college, but I refused to cash in. I was self-made, and somehow, even from the grave, I knew I had his respect. But I later realized it was just an excuse. He’d bred me to be a winner, and I’d become one, in a sense. But his cruelty had stunted me in a way that refused to let me embrace my feminine heart. I was a working robot, and only Daniello had been able to break through the façade. Ray was wrong to hijack my emotions. He’d ripped away life from the living.
Still, somehow, I needed him to come back, to remind me of who I was, of my capabilities. I was frozen and drifting, and I needed the kind of slap only he was capable of giving. I needed to shed the emotions and get back to the heart of what I was. But who the fuck was I?
I wiped my face as the sun peeked inside his massive bedroom and gripped the envelope I had placed in his drawer ten years ago. I held it to my chest and swallowed hard, mustering the courage to open it. Slipping the letter out of the envelope, I paused when I saw the length of it.
Kitten,
In another life, I would have loved you.
Ray
I gripped the paper tightly as I read it over and over before I tucked it back in the envelope and felt another folded letter inside of it. I gripped it like a lifeline, hoping for more from a man who had never given it, and gaped when I saw what it was. I took a seat in the chair next to his bedroom window and stared at the crumbled paper.
Dear Committee,
I was born into a nuclear family. I’ve had a swell life. I attend church with my loving and supportive parents every Sunday. My hobbies include feeding the homeless, daily bike rides with my high school sweetheart, and visiting old folk’s homes to ensure they are entertained and rarely lonely.
I’ve read three thousand books in my high school career. I was valedictorian of my class, and my SAT scores are well above average. With a degree from Harvard, I intend to make a difference in the world. With an MBA in business, I intend to become a leader my parents will be proud of. I intend to cultivate fresh ideas, benefit from them, and return the profits to the business community. I see a bright future riddled with prosperity. These are my plans.
But that is complete bullshit.
My name is Taylor Ellison. I come from a tiny town in Tennessee that the world has forgotten about. My parents were addicts, and I didn’t own a pair of shoes until I was two years old. My hobbies included escaping my house and the wrath of my mother to read one of a thousand books I couldn’t understand. On weekends, I would help my toddler sister scrub the walls of our house to keep my unhappy mother at bay. I spent a majority of my days at the local library, which housed exactly three thousand books. I read every one of them until I memorized them. It took me eighteen years. I managed to escape the clutches of my parents my senior year through sheer ingenuity and graduated valedictorian of one of the hardest prep schools in the country. My scores speak for themselves, but this is where you want to hear about who you will be letting into your school and the carefully laid plans for my future.
I’m a child of abuse and neglect and an adult who doesn’t use it as an excuse. I want to rule a boardroom, found a company that will support a life without financial worry, and maybe use the money to mentor someone like myself. I’m thirsty for whatever knowledge puts me in this position. And I know that I can gain that knowledge at your school. I’ve brought myself to your door. Please open it.
Sincerely,
Taylor Ellison
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I choked out a laugh. I had no idea Ray had seen that letter. It was one of a thousand I had written. It was more of a joke for myself, the bitter ramblings of an eighteen-year-old girl whose background couldn’t compare to a majority of those applying. But it was my heart, the truth of who I was, and he wanted to let me know it. Ray had loved me as the penniless girl he took in as well as the woman full of confidence he sent back into the world.
The only thing bad about his heart was that it wouldn’t let him love me.
“Oh, you bastard.” I turned my head and sniffed the shoulder of his shirt and caught a subtle, if not imaginary, whiff of his cologne.
My heart wrenched as I thought of my mirror, a man who had taken the woman Laz and Ray left broken and smashed the pieces of her back together in their wake.
And he loved me anyway.
It was time to mourn.
I’d never given myself a chance. I wrapped myself up in the three men who had, in some form, shaped and ruined me. But I guess that’s what love did. It built you up to believe and broke you if you didn’t get to keep it. And I was comfortably broken as I stared out of Ray’s bedroom window at the falling leaves.
“You’re right, Ray. This isn’t home, but mind if I stay a little while?”
Eight months later
“Oh my GOD!” The speaker of my phone pierced my ears as my sister screamed in excitement.
“Amber, seriously, stop yelling.”
“I’m getting married! MARRIED!”
“I’m on my way.”
“You staying longer this time?” I closed the door to Ray’s house and locked it with a bag in hand. “I don’t know.”
“Okay, but as soon as you get here, I have plans.”
I cradled my phone in the console and turned on the Bluetooth.
“Shopping?” Dread coursed through my veins. “We’ll discuss it.”
But—”
My phone beeped and I smiled.
“Amber, I have to go.”
“But—”
I clicked over. “How’s it going, partner?”
Nina all but growled her reply. “Sometimes I really hate you for leaving me with this mess.”
“I’m doing my part.”
“I know, but it would be easier if we weren’t conferencing every ten damn minutes.”
“I’ll be back soon. I’m on the road now.”
“Thank Christ.”
“Get off the phone,” Devin ordered in the background. “You were the one bitching about date night.”
“I have a company to run, deadbeat,” she murmured.
“That’s going t
o hurt you,” he quipped as she shrieked in pain. Devin’s silky voice summoned me over the phone, “Hello, Taylor, you ready to come out of the woods yet so I can spend a day with my fiancée?”
“I’m not marrying you,” Nina barked as she snatched her phone back.
“You are marrying him,” I argued.
“I know,” she said, and I heard a door close behind her. “I’m thinking a solid year of groveling.”
“It’s been a year, Nina.”
“Okay, two.”
I laughed as she dug in. “How are you?”
“You saw me three months ago.”
“And you were too thin.”
“I’m fine.”
“Have you heard from him?”
“No, and I won’t.” I killed any emotion the idea brought. “Did you deal with the Organic Orange disaster?”
“Taylor Ellison, back to all business,” Nina mused.
“Always.” If there was one thing I discovered about myself on my hiatus, it was that I loved my job.
“I’ll take it as a good sign. Yes, it’s dealt with, thanks to you. I could really use you back. I mean, I know you are working your ass off, but it’s not the same.”
“I know.” I wanted to offer her more, but I couldn’t. I was consulting for her but, I couldn’t bring myself to dive fully back in. I was getting there.
“Hurry up, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Nina!” Devin barked in the background.
“I’m coming!” she yelled. “God, he’s such an ass.”
“So, go kick it.”
“I will, bye.”
An hour and a half outside of Memphis, I drove past the dilapidated town square and felt my chest tighten. I let out a heavy breath as I drove the rural route past a haunted house where my nightmares played out and down the road that divided my heart. I stepped out of the car and stared at the pond and the faint outline of a little girl with clown hair and a dark headed boy splashing in the water. The new spring breeze whispered through limbs full of leaves above me and an eerie calm settled over me.