Chapter 47
Ryan
I threw open the front door and walked inside, feeling at the lowest point I could possibly feel in that moment. The demise and heartache throbbed through my chest, and I ached for another day with Sara. The drive from the airport had been miserable, but walking into the empty house was even more so. I hadn’t been this low probably since I was a child, a childhood I had spent my time drowning out with money and women, a childhood that had crept back into my life and ruined everything for me. I couldn’t even bear to think about it all. Sara was gone, just gone, and without even a goodbye or a reason. I had fucked up again, only this time, it had cost me the woman I loved.
I shook my head, realizing I was fooling myself if I didn’t think I knew why she had left. I had taken everything out on her, the one person who’d had my back no matter what. I had snapped at her, yelled at her, and left her all alone in an unfamiliar place. My job was to be there for her and with her, to grow together, but instead, I’d pushed her away at the first sign of trouble. It was probably all for the best anyway. Sara was one of the sweetest and purest women I had ever met in my life. She didn’t have a mean bone in her body, and when she loved, she loved with everything she had. She had even told me she didn’t care about that dark past, that she wanted to judge the man I had become, yet I couldn’t let her love me. I had to push her away and make myself as miserable as possible.
After all those years, all the junkies I beat up, the women I’d let be abused, and the horrible things I did to take care of my family, I was finally getting what I deserved. I may have had good intentions when I was younger, but karma didn’t care about intentions. It cared about the actions I took and the harm I did to other people. Well, it had decided I’d had my fun at the top, and it was time for a little retribution, raining pain and suffering down on me and making sure to remind me at every turn that this was exactly what I had deserved.
As I stood looking out the window, I couldn’t help wondering where Sara was at that moment and how she was feeling about everything. Just as the thought popped into my mind, I heard the elevator ding out in the hall. I turned and ran for the door, thinking that maybe, just maybe, Sara had come back. She was coming back to give me another chance, to pursue a relationship we had been fighting for all along. Maybe karma wasn’t taking everything away after all. I hadn’t had such good luck lately, and I needed it to be Sara standing on the other side of the door.
I grabbed the doorknob and threw open the door, a huge smile on my face. That smile quickly faded when I realized it wasn’t Sara. Instead, my ex, Natasha, was standing on the other side, swinging her elevator key around in her hand. I’d forgotten to get the damn thing back when I had broken up with her. She was pretty much the last person I wanted to see, and I could tell by the sparkle in her eye that she had some sort of plan. Immediately, Natasha sprang forward, draping her arms around my neck.
“Moya vozlyublennaya,” she said, speaking Russian.
“I’m not your sweetheart,” I groaned, trying to pull her off me. “What are you doing here, Natasha?”
“To see you, of course,” she said, leaning in to kiss my lips but getting my cheek instead. “What’s the matter? You aren’t feeling my love today?”
“Or any day,” I said. “We’ve gone over this about a hundred times, Natasha. I broke up with you, and surprise, I moved on. You need to leave that elevator key here with me.”
I pulled her arms from around my neck and pushed her off me. I stepped back in the house but stood firm, not wanting her to come in. She pouted and batted her eyelids, not liking the rejection I was showing her.
“You’re so stupid.” She smiled. “We’re meant to be together. You know it. You just won’t accept it. One day, when I’m gone, when I’ve moved on from you, you’ll realize that, and it will be too late for us. I will have forgotten all about you.”
“I think you should start doing that now,” I said. “The forgetting about me part.”
“You think you’re so innocent, that your new money and your big projects make you better than me in some way,” she said. “But I’m just like you, and you’re just like me.”
“I’m nothing like you,” I barked. “Or your father.”
“Don’t you see it?” She walked forward. “We work so well together because we understand life. We both know how cruel and unforgiving it can be. We both know there isn’t anything fair in this world. We realize that to make something happen, sometimes it takes a little action on our part. I may have come from money, but I knew all along where that money came from. I knew it was covered in scandal, in blood even sometimes. I knew there wasn’t anything honest about that money, not in the least, but I had to accept it and move forward.”
“You didn’t have to accept anything,” I snorted.
“And do what?” she said. “Put my father in prison like you chose to keep your father out of there too. The world isn’t a pretty place. We both can recognize that and understand it. We can push forward through all the bullshit and know that on the other end is exactly what we want. It takes guts, strength, and bravery to do that. Women like Sara, they don’t know about that world. They will never know what it’s like to have to scrape your last bit of moral courage and throw it out the window if you ever want to make anything of yourself. I understand that, though, and so do you. That’s why we will always make a good couple. We can navigate the ugly parts of life and not let it get to us.”
She smiled and leaned against the doorframe, crossing her silver stiletto over the other one. I stood there staring at her, thinking about the words she had spoken. For the first time since I’d met her, she actually said something worthwhile. She knew the world was cruel and unforgiving, and so did I. She knew what it felt like to lose everything and have to pull yourself up and keep fighting. She knew that no one in that life ever did you a favor without expecting something back. She was right. We had a lot in common, and we were similar in so many ways, but that didn’t really mean a lot to me. Just because we were similar didn’t mean we were meant to be together. If that were true, there would be a line of women I could be with, but I wanted love, not survival. I wanted to care about someone, to find myself in them, and all that Natasha ever did was suck the joy out of a man’s heart. She used them, bewitching them with her Russian eyes, and then left them dry.
I didn’t want a woman like her, someone who was so cold she could barely feel her heart anymore. The manipulation and the games were exhausting, and they were nothing close to what I wanted in my life. She wouldn’t know love if it hit her right in the face, and what she was doing there at my house was looking for a way to survive. Her father was in trouble, serious trouble, and when he was gone, she would be all alone, something she was not accustomed to or okay with. She was looking for me to take care of her, to give her all the things she wanted in life now that she was going to be alone in the world.
“I can’t be with you,” I said, shaking my head. “I promise I never meant to lead you on, but I’m not ready to accept the world you described, the world you live in, as my reality. It’s cold and silent, and I’ve found something in my life that’s more than that. It’s the opposite of that in fact. I’m sorry you’re going through so much, but I can’t be that man for you anymore. You went down a path I don’t recognize, nor do I ever want to again. I turned my back on that world, the one full of lies, booze, and a lack of responsibility for the people around you. You never left that world, and I cannot be sucked back into it. You almost ruined me with your lies and your father’s deceit, something I still haven’t lived down. Everywhere I go, they ask about you and your lies, and I’m more than sick of it.”
“You’re such a naïve child,” she said angrily. “You think you’re better than me because of where your money came from. I’m here to tell you that you aren’t. You’re exactly the same as me and exactly the same as you’ve always been. You may wear nicer clothes now and live in a luxurious penthouse apartment, but yo
u’re still that scared little boy, chasing things you can never have. Call me when you grow up and stop chasing the good girls who will only reject you in the end because you are, at the root, that same street thug you were when you were a child.”
She shook her head and scoffed, throwing her nose up in the air and tossing the key to me. I watched as she turned around and stalked back into the elevator. I closed the front door and locked it, leaning my back against it for a moment. I thought about what she’d said, calling me just a boy, and figured that maybe she was right. Maybe everything that had happened in my life did nothing more than make me a well-dressed street thug who couldn’t get past the roots that were suffocating him on a daily basis. Sara was too good for me. She always had been from the first time I’d met her. I knew that, and somewhere inside, I would bet Sara knew that too. She was too good to be with a man with a past like I did, but she’d given in to it anyway, seeing beyond the past and hoping for a better future. She didn’t judge me or put me down, and that was one of the things I loved most about her. She was a genuine woman with terrible taste in men.
Regardless of whether I knew she was too good for me or not, it didn’t mean I was willing to give up on the idea of the two of us together. I cared about her too much and was drawn to her unlike any woman I had ever been with before. She enchanted me but, in a way, much differently than Natasha had. Sara enchanted my heart, not just my cock or my need for acceptance. I knew I could be a better man for her, someone she deserved, someone who would always be there for her and with her. The only thing that stood in my way was wondering if I would ever be able to convince her of that fact. If I didn’t, all might be lost.
Chapter 48
Sara
When my flight landed at the tiny Bonanza airport, Alison was there to pick me up. She greeted me with a huge hug and a smile, and we went straight back to the ranch. As I stepped out of the car, I took a deep breath of the fresh air and instantly started to feel a little better. I wanted to keep my head on straight so I could be there for Alison, and that was exactly what I did. I spent most of the night consoling Alison on the horses she almost lost and her now ex-boyfriend. Over the years, she and Jimmy had probably broken up and gotten back together about a dozen times. This time, though, unlike the others, Alison swore this was the last time. It was the first time she had ever come out and said that, and I believed her. She was worn out from the drama, worn out from the constant upheaval that went on in their lives, and I didn’t blame her. Jimmy didn’t support her dreams, didn’t support her drive or needs. Alison was ready to move on, and I was glad I could be there for her.
“This is seriously the last time,” she said with tears in her eyes. “I have given him so many chances, so many ups and downs, and still, he ends up right where we started. I can’t keep crawling back to him and maintain my self-respect, right? I mean it would make me into nothing more than his puppet if he thought I would always fold to his sweet words and empty promises. Please, tell me I did the right thing.”
“You did the right thing,” I said, handing her a tissue. “Jimmy has treated you badly for a long time, and you’re never happy.”
“I know,” she sighed. “We’ve just been together for so long, and it’s so hard to break that tie. I really used to think that he and I would be forever. I don’t even know if I believe in forever anymore. It died out with our parents and grandparents.”
“You only feel that way now because you’re hurt,” I said. “You’ll see differently when you meet someone worthy of you. You deserve a partner in all respects, someone who’s there for you, walks beside you, supports your dreams, and can keep up with you. If you don’t think Jimmy is that partner, then you’ve got to keep looking.”
“Thank you,” she said, leaning into me. “You’re the best. You want to sleep in here with me tonight?”
“Sure.” I smiled, pulling the blankets up on the bed. “I promise everything will start to feel better in the morning.”
It took me a while to fall asleep that night between letting Alison cry herself to sleep and then lying there thinking about everything I had just been through. After a few hours of staring at the farmhouse ceiling, though, jet lag and emotional exhaustion took over, and I fell asleep pretty deeply. I was usually a light sleeper, always waiting to hear my phone for an emergency, but that next morning, I slept through the alarm and Alison getting up to go out to work. When I woke up, I looked at the clock, and it was afternoon. I hadn’t slept in like that in years, and I figured it was probably very much needed after everything that happened in New York and how I got very little sleep there.
I got out of bed and stretched my arms over my head. I grabbed my bags and pulled out a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, figuring I would spend the day at the ranch instead of heading back home yet. I walked out to the kitchen, my stomach grumbling and smiled as Alison walked in the front door at the same time.
“Well, good afternoon, sleepyhead.” She smiled. “You hungry?”
“I’m starving.” I smiled.
“I’ll make some sandwiches then,” she said, washing her hands in the sink. “I woke up before the sun this morning and figured you probably needed to have extra sleep. I felt you tossing and turning last night.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, sitting down at the counter. “I had a lot on my mind. I just couldn’t seem to get my head on straight, and I wanted to figure out what I needed to do to get back into the swing of things now that I’m home.”
“Yeah,” Alison said, spreading the mayo on the sandwich. “You left there in kind of a hurry. What in the world happened out there? I thought everything was okay, even though Mr. Money was going through some serious drama with his past. I figured you’d be very much needed for comfort through all of that.”
“That was a mess,” I sighed. “It took him completely off guard. He got lost in it all, and I tried to be there for him, but it was like he was pushing everyone away. I tried to be understanding that he was trying to sort through all of it. His past was pretty deep, but he hit this self-loathing point, and I just decided to stand back and let him work it out himself. But that wasn’t why I left.”
“Okay,” she said, putting down a plate in front of me and sitting next to me at the counter. “So why did you leave? It wasn’t for me was it?”
“No, I mean I needed to be here for you, but that wasn’t why I jumped on a plane,” I said. “I guess in a way, he and I are too different. I think I ignored it before and hoped it would work itself out.”
“How are things so different between the two of you, besides money, of course?”
“He has a life in New York City,” I sighed. “A life full of fancy galas, rich people, crazy ex-girlfriends, and paparazzi all over the place. I live here in small town USA with my horses and my practice. I like to go to the town fair, and he likes to wear a tux and go to charity events and pledge thousands, even millions of dollars while he drinks champagne and schmoozes with the other billionaires.”
“Does he actually like that or is it just part of the deal?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But either way, that’s part of his life.”
“I just don’t understand how you can give up all that glitz and glamour to come back to little old Bonanza where the most exciting thing our town has seen is my half-assed charity event each year.” She laughed. “I saw that dress you were wearing, and you shook Oprah’s hand. There was a picture of it online that ended up in the town paper. That’s enough to keep my ass firmly planted right there in the middle of all of those big, tall buildings.”
I laughed, remembering thinking how amazing it was that I got to shake Oprah’s hand in the first place. I knew eventually it would get back to everyone. That was exciting, I couldn’t deny it, but the in-between had been extremely stressful.
“I like this town,” I said, eating my sandwich. “I was born and raised here. It’s a quiet place, and the peacefulness of it all is soothing to me. I like to buy Miss Albe
rt’s peach jam during the summer, and I like the fact that three most exciting things in the town are the charity event, the town fair, and the Christmas parade. I like that I can walk out in the morning to get the paper and wave at the cars passing by because I know almost every person. Maybe I am crazy, but I’m okay with that as long as my days are helping animals and brushing the horses.”
“But it’s New York City,” she groaned with a smile. “The buildings, the lights, the people. It’s what people dream of when they grow up in a place like this.”
“Yeah.” I chuckled. “But it’s so much of everything all of the time. It’s absolutely true that New York City never sleeps. You can hear horns and ambulances all night long, and there’s constantly something to do. People have to pay money to relax in spas instead of going out in their front yards and just taking in the breeze. Having a pet is like a full-time job since to walk it, you have to go down a hundred flights of stairs, try not to get hit by crazy city drivers, and then make your way back up.”
“I think you would get used to the negative parts of the city,” Alison said. “All the amazing things to see would make up for it. You would never get bored there, and there would always be something to do.”
“I like being bored.” I laughed. “I don’t think I would ever get used to it. I think if I were forced to live there, I would crave Bonanza or anywhere without the congestion and claustrophobic amount of people. I would probably go to the center of the park and become a nomad out there so I could feel like I was in nature again. I don’t know. It’s for some people, but it wasn’t for me.”
“Well, I’m glad to have you back,” Alison said with a smile as she picked up our plates. “You ready to get to work on the ranch? I know those horses missed you.”
“God, yes.” I smiled. “Show me the way.”
My Last First Kiss Page 52