She dropped her gaze. “It’s not that easy—”
“I’m not going to hurt you again. I promise.”
She pressed her lips tightly together.
“You know I’m telling the truth. You know I’m gonna be here day in and day out. Let the past go, and let’s be together. Forever.”
When she reached her breaking point, she pushed me off her. “No.” She took the stairs to the next level.
“You think I’m just going to go away? You think this problem is just going to vanish? You think you’re gonna wake up one day and stop loving me? Because you would be over me by now if that were true. And I sure as hell will never stop loving you. Ever.”
She turned around and looked down at me from the next landing, her eyes watery. “No. But the hurt isn’t going to stop either, Derek. It’s easier for you to forget what happened because you didn’t even experience it. But for me, I remember… I remember every fucking day all over again. And every day, I’m going to be scared that something will set you off, and I’ll have to suffer all over again.”
Daisy opened the door, her long brown hair in a high ponytail, wearing her black leggings and a loose sweater. She smiled when she saw me and opened her mouth to make a joke, but when she recognized my sour mood, she shut her mouth again. She regarded me for a few seconds. “Everything okay, Derek?”
“Dad around?”
“He’s always around.” She stepped aside and let me into the condo. Then she wrapped her arms around me and gave me a warm hug with a kiss on my cheek. “I’m always down for a talk…or to take some shots.”
I gave her a slight smile. “I know.”
Daisy moved to the couch and talked to Mom for a bit. They silently excused themselves, knowing I wanted to talk to Dad alone. They probably went down the hallway to watch a movie in bed because they were stuck together like glue…just the way my dad and I were.
Dad left the dining table and walked to me, his eyes sizing me up, trying to read me before he reached me. His hand moved to my shoulder, and he gave me an affectionate squeeze, sadness entering his gaze like he could somehow feel everything I felt just through the touch. “Beer or scotch?”
“Scotch.”
“She just needs time.” He sat across from me, never looking at the time on his phone because his attention was entirely on me. Hours passed, and he never looked tired, even though he had work in the morning. “Give it to her.”
“I’m just afraid all the time in the world won’t be enough. She’ll meet someone and forget about me.”
“Not possible. There’s no man out there who’s better than you.”
“You’re a bit biased, Dad.”
“I know. But doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
I lifted my gaze and looked at him.
“She knows it too. She’s just hurt and scared—understandably. Your mother and I had a rough patch before we got married. She gave me all the time I needed, and then we worked it out.”
“What did Mom do?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
I couldn’t imagine Mom doing anything remotely close to what I did, and I doubted it was nearly as egregious, so that didn’t make me feel better.
“I think there’s something you can do to fix her insecurities, but it’s not something you should do if it’s disingenuous. You should only do it if you absolutely mean it, if you’re serious about it, if there are no doubts.”
I had no idea what that could be.
“Ask her to marry you.”
I had no reaction because I didn’t think that was a great idea. “She knows I want to be with her forever. I’ve told her that already. I told her I want to be a father to Lizzie.”
“It’s one thing to say it and another to put your money where your mouth is. She’s scared you’re going to leave again when you hit another rough patch. What’s a more powerful way of assuaging her fears than by making a commitment like that?”
I dropped my gaze and stared at the table.
“But don’t do it if you’re not ready. Don’t do it if there’s any doubt. Don’t ask her to marry you unless you mean it—”
“I’d marry her tomorrow if she wanted.”
He turned quiet as he stared at me. “Then ask her.”
“You think she’d say yes?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, Derek. But I doubt she’ll say no.”
“You don’t think it’s too soon? I haven’t even known her for a year.”
“I don’t think love can be measured by time in a linear aspect. Your mother and I weren’t together very long before I asked her. I’m sure you remember that.”
I nodded. “Yeah.” I remembered proposing to her with my dad, because we came as a set. “I just…wanted your approval.”
“You don’t need my approval, little man. The fact that you aren’t scared to get married after everything that happened with Tabitha tells me you’re absolutely confident in this decision.”
When I told Emerson I wanted her forever, I meant it. I’d said it before we broke up, and I meant it then too. But now I meant it differently, because I wanted more than a marriage; I wanted to be a family. I wanted to come home every day and see Lizzie there, to watch TV before bed, to help her with her homework, to take care of both of them every single day. “Yeah…I am.”
24
Emerson
A week passed, and Derek didn’t try to talk to me again.
I wasn’t naïve enough to assume that was the end of it.
He would keep coming…and coming.
I started to realize there was no way out of this. Derek would always be such a big part of my past that he would also always be part of my future. Even if I continued to date, I would always compare them to the man who stole my heart.
There was no escape.
It was a form of emotional torture that would never stop.
My only option was to get another job and cut ties with him completely. If I didn’t, I would never get over him.
And I wasn’t entirely sure if I wanted to get over him.
When the interns started at the company, it was a bit chaotic. I was all over the place, helping the engineers with the schedule, switching interns with their mentors because of personality mismatches. It was nice to do something different, to be involved in something that would make a difference in the long run, but I could never get away from Derek Hamilton even when he wasn’t in the room.
Because everyone adored him.
Every person revered him for his mind, for his philanthropic causes, his commitment to doing the best every single day without fail. He was the most inspiring person I’d ever met…and also the most beautiful.
I couldn’t believe he’d ever been mine in the first place.
Any woman would kill to take my place. Any other woman would forgive him in a heartbeat.
But I actually loved him, so that was why it was hard to forgive him, because I loved him more than anyone ever could. He hurt me deeper, hurt me harder, ruined me more than he could have ruined anyone else.
Because I loved him for him—not for any other reason.
I went to the warehouse at the end of the day and was disappointed to see that Jerome and Pierre already left. It was just Derek, standing there at his workbench, his scaled rover on the surface beside him. He was tall, muscular, and handsome, so he could be doing anything and look sexy. But when he worked, used that big brain to do things no one else could, he never looked more attractive.
He didn’t need to wear a ten-thousand-dollar suit to be sexy.
He could do it in jeans and a t-shirt—and still have as much power.
I walked to his desk with the folder in my hand. “I know you wanted this as soon as possible, so here’s all the questionnaires from the engineers supervising the interns. I glanced through them, and the feedback seems to be mostly positive. After we paired up everyone correctly, there seemed—”
“I don’t care about this.” He grabbed the folder and
tossed it aside. It made an audible smack when it landed on the hard surface beside his other papers. His eyes were glued to mine, intense and purposeful, and he definitely had something to say.
He gave me space after every strike, but then another strike was on the distant horizon, coming closer and closer. Now, the next one had arrived, and he became as aggressive as he had been in the stairwell that night.
“Derek—”
“I’m talking.”
With my mouth still open, I stood there, shocked by what he said to me.
He came around the desk until he was directly in front of me, looking down at me slightly, his eyes angry. “I don’t care about the internship program. I don’t care about my rover. I care about my family and nothing else. And yes, you’re family.”
“I didn’t realize family abandoned each other like that…”
He didn’t cringe at the insult. “Families make mistakes. And families forgive one another.”
I shook my head. “Derek, how many times are we going to talk about this?”
“As many times as it takes,” he snapped. “What else are we going to do? Can you honestly tell me that either one of us will be happier if we just move on? Can you honestly tell me you think there’s a chance you’ll find another guy whom you’ll love more than me?”
Not in a million years.
“I can confidently say that’s not possible for me. You’re the only woman on this planet who could look past all my bullshit and see the real me underneath. Anyone who replaces you will be a cheap knock-off. Now that we’ve established that, work this out with me.” Instead of being gentle and kind, he just yelled at me, like he was frustrated with me—when he was the one who’d fucked everything up.
“I know you’re used to getting whatever you want—”
“That’s not what this is. I see you walking down the same path I’ve already been down. Trust me—it leads to a dead end.” He stared at me for a while, his eyes shifting back and forth as he looked into my gaze. Then he slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out a ring. A diamond ring. A simple princess cut. It reflected the light even when he hardly moved his hand.
I stared at it but couldn’t register what I was actually looking at. My gaze flicked back to his.
“I’m not going to hurt you again.” He flattened his palm and extended the ring to me, letting it sit between us, the diamond pointed toward me. “I promise. I’m here—through the best and the worst.”
The shock hit me hard because the gesture was so unexpected. I felt a million things at once, but it was such an emotional cacophony that I didn’t know what I felt at all. “This is not how a woman wants to be proposed to, Derek. A man asks a woman to marry him because they’re happy and in love, not because they’re sorry. This is just an expensive apology.” I turned to walk off, not wanting to look at his face anymore.
He came after me. “It’s not an apology.”
“Yes, it is. You never would have asked me to marry you this quickly—”
He grabbed me by the arm and turned me around. “No, I wouldn’t have. I never would have asked you to marry me so quickly if I hadn’t lived without you. But I did live without you. I’m currently living without you. I don’t want to do that ever again.” He held up the ring again. “I want to do this every damn day for the rest of our lives. I want to be your husband. I want to be a father to your daughter. I want to make this work, no matter what, till death do us part. But even that wouldn’t be the end of it because if I ever lost you, I’d never get remarried. You’re it for me, Emerson. I know I fucked up. I know my actions are unforgivable. But I’m here now. I’m here, and I’m not leaving ever again.”
I could see the sincerity in his eyes like a beacon from a lighthouse, bringing all those lost souls home. It was true and bright, glowing. Poor decisions in my youth gave me a rough life, but life had never been as hard as when he left. “Derek, people get divorced all the time. You can still—”
“No, not us. This is a lifetime commitment, and I take that seriously. It’s not just a piece of paper to me. I want to completely share my life with you, every penny I have, everything I have.”
I shook my head. “After a few signatures on a prenup, there would be no consequences for you leaving me, and you can just kick me out—”
“No. I would never ask you to sign anything like that.”
“Then you’re stupid.”
“Take all my money, Emerson. I don’t care. You’re all I care about. You’re the only thing I would miss if you left me, not the money.”
I turned away because he had a counter to everything I said, a deeply romantic one. Everything I wanted was right on the table, and all I had to do was take it.
He must have seen my resistance wane because he came closer. “Baby, come on. Let me take care of you. Let me take care of your daughter. Let me make you happy. Let me spend the rest of our lives making up for what I did. You can’t say I would ever hurt you again because I’ve more than proven I never will. Take me back, and this hell will end. The rest of our lives will begin.”
I kept my eyes on him and ignored the ring resting in his palm, the promise that would bind us together forever. Flashbacks of our relationship came back to me, stripping off our clothes in my bedroom in the dark, calling me family in front of his family, the dedication he wrote in the books he gave me…the first time he told me he loved me. But there were also other flashbacks too, the depression in my heart every time I looked at our Christmas tree, the sadness in my daughter’s eyes every time she looked at me, the vast emptiness he left behind when he ran off to someone else.
I turned away.
“Baby.”
I kept walking.
“Emerson, come on.” He came after me again and grabbed me.
I pushed his hand away this time. “Leave me alone, Derek.” I was on the verge of tears, but I managed to restrain them, managed to get control of them so I wouldn’t burst into an emotional tirade in front of him.
“You didn’t say no.” His eyes shifted back and forth quickly as he looked into my gaze, trying to read past the silence and to the thoughts deep within.
I turned away. “I didn’t say yes either.”
“But you didn’t say no…”
Lizzie knew I was in a bad mood, so she stayed quiet, working on her homework on the couch, lifting her gaze to glance at me in the armchair as I sipped my wine.
I’d picked up dinner on the way because I was in no mood to cook. I just wanted to eat, have some wine, and go to sleep. But the next morning, I’d have to wake up and do it all over again, see Derek all over again.
If I didn’t have a daughter, I would drink a whole bottle of wine tonight.
Lizzie returned her schoolwork to her backpack. “Mom? What happened?”
“Nothing…just a long day.”
It was time for bed, but she stayed in the living room with me, watching me as I watched the TV.
“Mom, I have to tell you something.”
The tone of her voice and her choice of words made me turn my head quickly. My hand returned the glass to the end table beside me.
“The reason why I’m doing so well in math is because…Derek is helping me.”
I couldn’t contain my sigh of irritation. I should have known what was going on right under my nose. No matter what tutor I got for Lizzie, she continued to fail, and then she miraculously found a tutor who helped her earn A’s.
“He started helping me a while ago. He makes videos for me and sends them to me.”
I stared at her and had nothing to say. Derek had successfully won my daughter’s heart, and her allegiance was to him and not me.
“I told him I didn’t want his help at first. I told him I hated him for the way he hurt you. But when he got rid of that guy, I started to feel differently toward him.”
“What guy?” I whispered.
“That guy who came here asking for money…”
I closed my eyes as the humiliation s
wept over me. I thought it was odd that Paul was so aggressive and then he just disappeared—right off the face of the earth. “You told him about that?”
“I was scared. You were scared. I called him because I didn’t know who else to ask for help. You always tell me to call for help if I’m in danger. Grandpa is too old, so…Derek was all I had.”
Derek knew about this the entire time and didn’t mention it? “What did Derek do?”
“I don’t know. He never said. But I knew he did something because that guy never came back.”
Now Derek officially knew I had been dating a bunch of losers who would never compare to him, and he was the man protecting me from them because they were lesser men than he ever was, even at his worst.
“And when he came over here and we talked, he told me about his mom. He told me that people make mistakes when they’re upset, and he would do anything to take it back. Mom…he cried… He cried in front of me.”
I knew the fight was over. I’d lost this battle, and it was a bit of a relief to let it go.
“I know he messed up, but he’s a good guy. You’re always talking about forgiving people… I think you should forgive him. I know there’s a lot of fish in the sea, but are there really other fish like him?”
No. Not by a long shot. “He asked me to marry him.”
“What?” Lizzie sat up on the couch, her hands gripping the edge of the cushion. “Are you serious?”
I nodded.
“Did you say yes?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You just…said nothing?”
“I left.”
“Mom, you want to be with him, so just say yes. Why are you doing this to yourself?”
“It’s…complicated.”
“Make it uncomplicated. This is Derek Hamilton we’re talking about here. He’s the coolest guy ever—besides Grandpa.”
I gave a slight smile. “I think it’s time for bed, Lizzie.”
“Ugh, Mom.”
The Boy Who Has No Redemption (Soulless Book 8) Page 19