by Tee, Marian
"It's you, isn't it? Slade's new girlfriend?"
Her blood went cold as her worst fears were confirmed. It really was her, she thought numbly as she clumsily turned around, and her gaze immediately collided with eyes filled with anger.
And yet...
There didn't seem enough anger in the world to hide the pain in Penny's eyes, and the knowledge made Kady's own heart hurt.
Because she knew.
One day....
One day, she could be the same, too.
Penny had a hard time forming her thoughts. The other girl was neat at best and plain at worst. She couldn't see a single thing that would make the other girl better than her---
And didn't that tell you something already?
No. No. No.
Penny's gaze narrowed. "You know who I am, don't you?" She saw the other girl hesitate, saw the flash of pain, and she realized---
This girl knew everything, Penny realized sickly.
Kady's heart lurched painfully at the look of devastation on Penny's face. "Penny---"
"Shut up!" Penny wanted to lash out, but instead she could feel her voice shaking and her eyes stinging. "Someone like you doesn't deserve him," she whispered bitterly. "I should be the one in your shoes---"
"If you were," Kady cut in unsteadily, "you'd find out soon enough it's no different from what you used to wear." Every word she spoke was the truth, and every word hurt. It hurt so bad, but even so, she couldn't stop herself from saying them. Because Penny had loved Slade, too, and Kady was the one girl in the world who could imagine just how much it had to have hurt to lose him.
"He doesn't love me either, Penny." She saw Penny's eyes widen, and a painful smile wobbled over Kady's lips. "So you see, we're both the same---"
"Are we really?" Penny heard herself ask. "Then did you tell him you loved him, too?"
Kady swallowed hard. "That day...I saw you...when you slapped him."
Penny paled.
"Neither of you saw me, and I...I heard everything---"
Penny's lips started trembling. The thought of this girl - this girl who had the man she loved - the thought of this girl seeing her sink to her knees and hearing her beg, the thought of this girl watching Slade turn his back on her for the second time---
Kady saw the tears that started running down Penny's face, and her own eyes started stinging. "I'm so sorry---"
"No, you're not." She couldn't be. Because now it was too late, and Penny, too, had already taken her revenge.
"I know he doesn't believe that you loved him, but I do. I have to. I can't not believe you because it would mean my own love for him isn't real, and that's why...when I r-realized why he left you, I also...I also decided to never tell him---"
Penny pointed to someone behind Kady's back. "You just did, honey."
No.
She whirled around.
Slade.
NO. OH GOD NO.
Penny watched Slade walk away. Saw the other girl run after him. But none of it turned out to be what she hoped for. It didn't make her love him less or hate the other girl more. It didn't even stop the pain. If anything, she was only hurting more, knowing that she had been so selfishly bent at destroying Slade's chance at happiness...that she had refused to care about who else she hurt in the process.
Chapter Eighteen
Nothing Compares 2 U
* * *
"A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them." ~ Victor Hugo
* * *
Kady had never liked watching rom-coms much. Every time she did, she just couldn't picture herself doing any of the things the cute and quirky heroine did in the name of love. In her mind, girls like her were better suited at keeping to themselves. Or at least that was how she used to think and feel...until she saw the man she loved walking away from her...maybe for good.
Just like a rom-com heroine, she threw her heels away to run after him, and just like a rom-com, music from somewhere started playing - Sinéad O'Connor's Nothing Compares 2 U.
"Slade, please let me explain!" She was crying as she called out to him, and she didn't even care how all the other university students at the parking lot were turning to gape at her.
And that, too, was just like a rom-com heroine.
Because apparently, she only needed to find her soulmate, and just like that, she could easily imagine herself doing anything and everything that rom-com heroines did.
"Slade, please!"
But he was just so fast, and seeing how close he was to his truck, she knew there was only one thing for her left to do.
"I know you care for me, and you wouldn't want me to beg, but I'm despe---" It worked far more quickly than she anticipated, and her words stumbled to a halt when he suddenly swung to face her.
Slade saw the look in her eyes, and it made him sick. "Goddammit, Kady." Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. "Don't you fucking look at me like that---"
"I'm sorry," she sobbed.
"Then stop looking at me like that---"
"S-Slade, please---"
"You're right," he snarled. "I would never have wanted to see you beg. Because that's me being nice and nothing else---"
"But---"
"But what?" he demanded roughly. "But you love me? You think you're different? Special? Because I'm fucking nice to you? Because I care for you?'
"Yes!"
"And if I told you I cared for Penny, too, what then?"
Her heart stopped beating.
"Didn't you even wonder why Penny lasted far longer than all the others did? Did you really think you were that different? I cared for her, too---"
And her heart started to break.
"Do you get it now?" Slade asked bitterly. "You're just like the rest of them---"
"Slade---"
"Just forget it," he said tightly. "Because whatever you think you have to say - I've already heard it, and my answer won't---"
She threw herself at him, catching him by surprise, and her mouth covered his before he could push him away.
God.
Her tears seeped into their kiss, and goddammit, but it was still everything he needed, even if he now knew it wasn't for him.
And then he felt her pulling away, and he had to clench his fists against the urge to yank her back.
She looked at him, hoping for a sign that he had softened, but instead Slade's handsome face remained cold and distant, and it hurt. God, it hurt so, so much.
"Please, Slade," she whispered brokenly. "Maybe...you're right. Maybe there's nothing else for me to say that someone else hasn't already told you. Maybe there was really nothing different with how you treated me, and maybe the way you started caring for me was how you also started caring for h-her...but...that kiss---" Her voice caught. "That kiss...you have to know it's not like anything else. And that's what makes us different. I just need you to give us a chance---"
But he only stared at her.
"Slade, please."
And when his lips finally moved---
"You leave me no choice."
The words were enough to kill her.
You leave me no choice.
The words he had used on Penny, and now on her, too.
Because, she thought numbly, maybe it was just as he said.
The tears rushed down her face as she watched him walk away, and she couldn't even make herself call his name out. Because now...now...he, too, had left her no choice, and she could only believe him when he said...
She was wrong. And he was right.
She didn't love him, had never loved him, and could never love a man who could so easily break her heart.
Kady turned away and walked barefoot to her mother's hotel. The door opened the moment she knocked---
"Kady, dear God." Catherine quickly pulled her daughter inside her room. "What happened? It's him, isn't it? What did he do? Did he hurt---"
"He broke up with me because he couldn't love me back." She tried to make light of it, but her voice cracked in the e
nd, and when she looked at Catherine, she saw that her mother's face had also started to crack.
"Mother?"
"Stupid girl." Catherine's voice shook. "What are you looking so surprised for? Your father and I may never see eye to eye with you, but you're our child."
Kady's hands flew to her mouth.
"Of course I'd hurt, too," Catherine said almost defiantly, "seeing my own baby hurt---"
"Mom."
And then she was flying to her mother's arms.
"Oh, baby." Catherine's own tears fell as her baby girl cried in her arms.
"Mom."
"I'm here, baby. Always."
Chapter Nineteen
It Must Have Been Love
* * *
"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards." ~ Steve Jobs
* * *
Slade had only been driving for ten minutes when his blurry gaze left him no choice but to pull over. God. He closed his eyes, but it was no use. He couldn't get her out of his mind. Couldn't forget the way she had looked at him, the way she had cried in silence as he turned his back on her.
Pain slammed into him, and a massive shudder wracked his body.
I'm sorry, baby.
A short distance away from where Slade was slumped over his truck's steering wheel, a certain redhead was walking down the same street, listening and humming along to Roxette's It Must Have Been Love ,when she suddenly halted in her tracks.
She squinted, thinking the truck seemed familiar, and she moved forward to take a closer look at its license plate.
REDWOOD
Her eyes widened in recognition. Slade Wyndham was the only one with a personalized plate in the entire town, and she remembered the priest from England ribbing the cafe owner about it, saying with mock alarm that the other man must cure himself of his vanity before it was too late for salvation.
Coming up to the driver's side, Anah knocked gently on the window. "Mr. Wyndham? Are you alright?" A moment later, she heard the door unlock, and Anah stepped back as the cafe owner came out.
"Hey." Slade's voice came out a little gruff. "Sorry I worried you---" He glanced around to see if she had anyone with her and frowned when he found none. "Don't you have anyone with you?"
"It's fine," she said with a smile. "My parents' place is in the next block."
"I see."
After a moment's hesitation, she asked worriedly, "Are you really alright?" His eyes were noticeably red-rimmed, and he looked a far cry from his usual wickedly charming self. "I'm afraid you don't look that good."
Slade only grunted, and since people like the cafe owner (and Ethan) only clamped up for one reason...
"Did you have a fight with your girlfriend, Mr. Wyndham?"
"Kady isn't---" He stopped speaking and scowled, realizing that the nineteen-year-old had practically tricked him into mentioning Kady's name. "How do you even know about her?" he questioned irritably.
"Secret net worths of its residents aside," Anah said lightly, "Hartland is just like any other small town..."
Slade shoved his hands deep into his pockets. "Well, the rumors got it wrong." Seeing Anah's visibly dismayed expression, he felt obliged to make sure the blame fell squarely on him, and he heard himself say flatly, "I led her on. It made her want more, and I couldn't give---" He stopped speaking when the girl started vehemently shaking her head.
"That's a load of crock," Anah burst out. "I saw you two once, at the movie theater, and it was so obvious how much in love---"
"You saw what you wanted to see," Slade said grimly.
"Or it's the other way around, and you couldn't see what's right in front of your nose all along." Also like Ethan, she couldn't help thinking, but that was another story entirely.
The whole argument should be pissing him off, but instead it only made Slade feel weary. What was the fucking point talking about this when it was all over?
Anah's heart wrenched at the look of devastation on the billionaire's face. "I'm sorry, Mr. Wyndham," she said in a small voice. "I know none of this is my business, but I just think it's such a waste---"
"She didn't love me, Anah," Slade repeated tonelessly. "And I didn't love her."
And he actually believed that, she realized, stunned.
"Anyway...it's getting late. Let me walk you back."
"Okay." She saw that he was surprised at how quickly she took him up on his offer, but that was because her mind was already busy hatching up a plan for Operation: HEA.
As the billionaire fell into step beside her, she asked right away, "What did you fight or break up about?"
Slade groaned. So that was why she had let him walk her back to her parents' place.
"Just give me a try," she said cajolingly.
"We barely knew each other," he said shortly, hoping that would be the end of it.
But as things typically were with the opposite sex, it was not, and follow-up questions were inevitable.
"I fell in love with Ethan at first sight," she pointed out, "and none of you seem to question my feelings."
His jaw clenched. Anah's words made him think of his tomboyish, basketball-obsessed sister, and how Lace had fallen for a man who hadn't even owned a single pair of sports shoes prior to meeting her.
She had been nineteen then, probably even more sheltered than Anah was, and definitely a lot less experienced in matters of the heart.
And yet...
When Slade had found out about his sister's relationship with Silver March (Farica's future brother-in-law if his business partner had her way), he hadn't questioned it at all---
The same way he had never questioned how right it had seemed to him, in the rare instances that he saw Anah and the youngest Blackwood together.
Anah held her breath when Slade turned to her, thinking that he would tell her she was right, and that he would go after his beloved Kady, and Operation: HEA would be a success.
But instead, the man proved as stubborn as his gender was infamous for, saying curtly, "Things are different between Kady and me."
Oh, for the love of St. Dwynwen!
"Why is it different?" she challenged.
"You know the truth about us," he spelled out coldly. "She does not."
Oh my God, that was all?
"You're talking about the fact that all of you are billionaires?" she exclaimed incredulously. "That's it? You think just because she doesn't know about how much money you have in your bank account, it's automatically proof she doesn't love you?" she scorned. "Shouldn't you be happy that she says she's in love with you despite---"
"Quit twisting my words," Slade snapped. "You know it's more than that---"
"But it isn't," Anah insisted fiercely. "So you're a billionaire. Is that really the most important thing about you, Mr. Wyndham? Is that what truly defines you?"
His teeth gnashed at the way the girl was shaking her head at him, almost as if she had suddenly become his wise fucking mentor and Slade, her too-old, dumb, and denser mentee.
"You know what the problem here is, Mr. Wyndham?"
"The unwarranted role reversal?"
But she went on as if his words were the very opposite of wisdom. "It's the fact that you've read too many books on finance and coffee but not enough romance."
"For fuck's sake---"
"Let me just ask you two questions," Anah offered calmly, "and if answering them doesn't make you realize it was love between the two of you, I'll happily order humble pie at your cafe for the entire week."
Slade wanted to tell her this whole fucking thing was stupid and pointless, but considering how much of a notorious cheapskate Anah was, the billionaire knew she wasn't just saying those words for nothing.
"If you could make up the rules that would determine what true love was, what would be the one non-negotiable thing you'd demand from all couples?"
Time.
You had to know each other for a long time.
But he remembered how Ethan an
d Guilia had been dating for a decade, and he realized that time wasn't enough.
So what was left?
He kept waiting for thoughts of Kady to come into his mind, but instead he found himself thinking of someone else.
Penny.
Slade inhaled sharply, but the memories kept coming.
Penny crying...hurting...begging...
Every memory of her was a burden, and even the good times they shared left a bitter taste on his tongue.
And that was when he heard himself say, "They have to make each other happy. Even with all the ups and downs, just the sight of the other person would be enough. You wouldn't even have to say you weren't alright, wouldn't have to teach the other person how to make you smile---"
A hazy image started forming in his mind.
"Just being there is enough."
And he remembered Kady hugging him at the university parking lot, just hugging him.
Anah tried not to cry as she saw the truth slowly dawn on the billionaire's face. "I think you already know what my next question is," she said shakily, "but I'll ask it anyway."
Slade's handsome gaze was ashen now.
"The person who's all those things...you've met her already, haven't you?"
Chapter Twenty
You Were Meant For Me
* * *
"You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. " ~ Steve Jobs
* * *
Kady heard the knock on the door and forced herself to stir, pushing herself up to a sitting position on the couch. "That must be room service."
"Just stay there," Catherine said. "I'll get it."
"I should get dumped more often," Kady managed to joke, "if it means having you spoil me rotten."
Catherine's nose went up in the air. "I won't even dignify that with an answer." Horrible child, to suggest that she was only nice in such occasions! Didn't Kady know such truths were never to be spoken out loud?