by Ashwood, Eva
My brow furrowed. “Anna called you?”
“Of course she did. She has eyes. She probably knows you’re close to just falling down and dying. Which, fun fact, you definitely look like you are. When was the last time you ate?”
I thought for a moment.
“Two days ago? I had coffee this morning—”
“Jesus Christ. We’re getting lunch.”
“It’s ten in the morning.”
“Fine. Breakfast.”
Less than fifteen minutes later, we were standing outside a food truck, waiting our turn to order tacos. A fuck-load of tacos, according to Grant. I wasn’t sure that counted as breakfast, but when I brought it up, Grant just rolled his eyes and told me anything could be a breakfast food if ‘a certain someone’ didn’t have a stick up his ass about it.
I ordered five tacos and a side of rice. All of it was piled into a Styrofoam box. Grant and I walked farther away from the office, toward a tiny little park tucked between tall buildings.
Sitting on a bench, Grant at least allowed me the opportunity to eat something before he started up the questions again. I was actually grateful for that. I hadn’t realized just how hungry my body had gotten while I was in my funk; my stomach grumbled to be filled with food and I obliged it readily, shoveling the first two tacos down with abandon.
On the third, I slowed down. It was then that Grant started to speak.
“So, I guess I can skip the pleasantries. Given that you look like death, there’s no point in asking how you’re doing, so I’m just going to get down to the point. I think you made a mistake. I think you know you made a mistake. And I think, before it’s too late, you need to get on it and fix that mistake, because Mackenzie is a good woman—the best damn woman in the world for you, maybe. And it’s only your goddamn pride that has you sitting here right now without the prospect of going home to Mackenzie later.”
I looked over to him, swallowing the last bite of my taco as my brows drew together. I was taken aback by the conviction in his voice. I was surprised he cared so much—or rather, that he was so insistent on it.
“It’s a little too late for that,” I said finally. “Divorce went through. She cashed the check. I don’t know what more you want from me.”
“Fucking hell. It’s not about what I want from you. It’s about what you want from you, you idiot.” Grant shook his head. “Seriously, you were so damn smart in school; how is it that your brain just decided to leak half your intelligence in the span of seven years? Seriously, dude.”
I rolled my eyes and set the Styrofoam box on the bench beside me before turning to him.
“What do you want me to say, Grant?” I was defensive and mildly annoyed, even though I knew he meant well. “That I was an idiot? That I should have told her I didn’t want to let her go when she joked about me being happily single again? Should I have told her there was no reason we should’ve ever broken up the first time, let alone the second time? What is it that you want me to say?”
Grant shrugged in that annoyingly nonchalant way he had, utterly unbothered by my outburst.
“I was just gonna say you should admit you loved her and that you want her back, but hell, all of that is pretty accurate, too.” He peered over at me with a smirk. “Was that really so hard to admit?”
No. It wasn’t. Or at least it hadn’t been the first time around. There was one thing I couldn’t understand though.
“I just… I don’t get why my father wanted me to do all of this. I feel worse after marrying her and divorcing her. I’ve got the company, but—fuck, it doesn’t feel like it was worth it.”
“What makes you think your father ever intended you to get married just so you could divorce to have your company? He and your mom were married for years, right? Why wouldn’t he have thought you’d do the same with whoever you chose to be your wife?”
I hadn’t thought of it that way.
My father and mother had had a good marriage. It’d been very traditional—a little too much for my own taste—but it had been… good. Good in the sense that my mother had loved my father, and my father had loved my mother. I knew that because my mother had said it was so; my father rarely professed his love for her out loud, but according to her, it was a feeling she knew well from the man.
After she died, my father changed. He had been a hysterical mess the first few days and then locked himself away tighter than he had been even before she died. He had a penchant for drinking, something that would eventually land him in the grave he laid in now, and when he did, he took to pacing the halls. He would mumble about how it was too late…
Too late, Helena. That’s what he would say.
I didn’t know what it meant, when I was a teen who’d only just become a man. I resented him for being so cold and only showing emotion when he was three sheets to the fucking wind and it did no one any good. I hated how he never opened up like that with me.
Had his last will and testament been trying to do that? Had he been trying, in his own fucked up way from beyond the grave, to show me what really, truly mattered in life?
Wrapped up in my own tangled emotions and grief at his loss, I hadn’t seen any of that at the time. I’d only seen a giant pain in my ass, a flaming hoop of red tape to jump through. I hadn’t recognized it—what this dumb little requirement in his will was trying to show me.
He had found out too late, when it was too late to go back and change anything, what really mattered most. He and I had gotten along best in the last few years of his life, and I had always sensed that he was trying to make up for lost time. Was that how he had felt? That he’d wasted too many years on his company and not put enough time into his family?
Was that why he’d wanted me to be married before I accepted controlling share of Royal Tech? Because he hadn’t wanted the company to become my whole life, like it had been his?
“Jesus…”
The word fell from my lips on a whisper. I felt like someone had knocked the wind out of me.
My father had given me the chance to rectify the mistake that he had made, a chance to do better with my life.
And just like him, I had squandered it. Foolishly, selfishly squandered it.
“Ah, there you go.” Grant tapped the side of my head. “Looks like somebody finally turned the light on in there.”
I chucked a balled up napkin his way, my mind still reeling.
“Shut up.” Then I groaned. “I’m an idiot.”
“You can say that again. Question is, what are you going to do about it, idiot?”
* * *
Being miserable sucked. Being miserable by myself was worse.
I felt better after talking to Grant, but I was still at a loss over what I should do about Mackenzie. It seemed like there was no real solution, no real answer. I could admit that I wanted her—that was something that I wouldn’t deny anymore or try to talk myself out of with some misguided need to honor my family legacy. My parents were both dead. My father’s dying wish seemed to have been for me to prioritize what made me happy over the expansion of our empire.
And Macks made me happy. So fucking happy.
The problem was, I had no damn idea how I was going to get her back. Or, not back. This whole marriage thing had been so bizarre, such a mess of intense feelings and mixed messages, that I wasn’t sure where we’d really stood, even before the divorce.
We hadn’t truly been together at any point during our marriage, had we? Not the way I could finally admit I wanted. I wanted her—no strings attached, no business arrangements, no favors to a friend. I wanted her. In my bed at night, in my kitchen in the morning, painting in her studio, walking the dog. I wanted all of it. Her life and my life intertwined.
And I wanted it to be real.
Truthfully, I was also fucking terrified. I couldn’t forget how things had ended for us the first time, and I had to remind myself there was the very real possibility that maybe she wouldn’t want me, not in the way that I wanted her.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I moped around the house with a more hangdog expression than Bruno, I drank way too much whiskey, and I clung desperately to the small bits of Mackenzie that were still left in my life.
Sitting behind the large oak desk in my home office, I soothed my pathetically aching heart by scanning through old security footage of the house. The system was pretty state of the art, with full color and sound. While I wasn’t a high-profile celebrity like Grant was, it didn’t stop me from being overly cautious when it came to protecting what was mine.
That meant that over the last two months, I had collected practically every minute of time Mackenzie had spent here on camera, in glistening high def. Swirling my drink in my glass, I watched our escapades in the art room back as we painted together—me horribly, her beautifully. I flipped through more footage and watched her play with Bruno, running through the house without a care in the world. I held on to the sounds of her laughter as it echoed from the computer speaker. On the screen, I saw myself come home, saw how eagerly she yielded to my kisses…
When it felt a little too voyeuristic, I skipped ahead to the most recent footage that had Mackenzie in it. The day she’d moved out.
My stomach did flip-flops, the whiskey I’d just sipped churning inside it.
I watched the version of me on-screen retreat to the bedroom with Bruno—fucking coward. Chewing my bottom lip, my gaze zeroed in on her as she lingered in the foyer as the movers passed by with boxes, taking every bit of her that had made this house feel like a home. When they were gone, she went to move toward the bedroom, but she hesitated. I saw her lips move, and I paused, turning the volume up so I could hear it better.
“You can’t go back on this, Macks,” she muttered to herself. “You’re just going to get hurt again. Just leave. It’s better this way.”
I swore I could see her building the wall around her heart, brick by goddamn brick. The wall I’d had the chance to tear down—the one she would’ve gladly opened up for me if I’d had the courage to just fucking ask her. To just tell her what I wanted.
To commit.
To take the damn risk.
But I hadn’t. And even though she hadn’t wanted to go, she had taken my silence and withdrawal for the answer it was and protected herself by walking out of my life.
On the screen, Mackenzie drew in a shaking breath. Her gaze settled on the bedroom door once more, and the heartbreak on her face threatened to drown me in shame. Then, brushing the back of her hand over her eyes, she turned and walked down the hallway.
I kept staring at the footage of the now-empty hallway, feeling my heart beat heavy and hard against my ribs.
Empty.
The hall was empty.
My life was empty.
And all because I’d been a damn coward.
Shit. Grant was right about my fucking pride. I had been given a second chance with the woman of my dreams, something I’d never thought would happen—something I knew I didn’t deserve. And what had I done with it?
Wasted it.
I had let myself be pulled into all the same lies that had broken us up the first time. That my family legacy was more important than my happiness. That the business needed more of my attention than my goddamn wife.
Even when part of me realized I was ruining things, that I was pushing Macks away for no good reason, I’d been too damned stubborn and scared to open the bedroom door and fight for her. Fight for us.
Shit. I really am an idiot. Maybe the biggest damn idiot of them all.
Shaking my head, I turned off the security cameras. I scrubbed a hand down my face, my pulse racing almost as fast as my mind. It was fine. It would be all right. When Mackenzie left that day, she had thought I wanted her to go; that I really didn’t see a future for us. I just needed to show her how wrong that was.
How wrong I was.
She was the only future that mattered to me now. My company could crumble to the ground or take over the world, and neither of those things would mean shit to me if I didn’t have Mackenzie by my side.
She was my first love, and I knew down to the very marrow of my bones that she would be my last. There would never be anyone for me but Macks. I had made a colossal mistake by pushing her away once, but I’d be damned if I let myself make that mistake again.
I would do whatever it took to make things right. I would protect her heart with everything I had.
And this time, I would go to the mats and fight for us.
21
Mackenzie
Alex and I stayed at his place for a week before we both moved into a new apartment just a block away from the studio—close enough to walk, far enough away that it didn’t feel like we might as well live in the studio. I begged Alex to move with me and insisted on paying his rent, partly because I wanted to give him the same kind of support he’d given me when I’d needed it over the years, and partly because I’d gotten so used to living with someone else that it was hard to imagine being on my own.
I almost broke down and bought a puppy the first week, but Alex talked me out of it.
He was right. We were so busy with the move and the studio that it wouldn’t have been a good idea.
But I missed Bruno.
I missed Walker.
That was somewhat pathetic, I knew, but there was no point in denying what was the God’s honest truth.
Alex didn’t complain about our new digs at all—a three bedroom, with two full baths. It was pricey, but I paid the first year of rent on day one; for the first time in a long time, I knew we wouldn’t have to worry about whether we’d have a bed to sleep in, or lights and heat on, for the next twelve months. That kind of stability was a strange, freeing feeling. It was one of the many things in my life that was going well. With the apartment paid up, utilities covered, and essentials bought, I still sat with more money than I could ever know what to do with in my bank.
I let it sit, for the time being. I’d been able to talk myself into using it for housing, especially because I was taking care of Alex at the same time, but beyond that, I couldn’t bring myself to touch the money from Walker. I felt dirty and sad every time I thought about it.
After moving out of Walker’s house, I threw myself fully into art. Alex and I ran showings every week at the gallery, and I was booked steady with commissions for the next seven to eight months.
I kept busy—anything to keep my mind and body occupied—by putting myself out there in the eyes of the art-loving public. I even worked up the nerve to do chatty live painting sessions on Instagram, steadily painting and talking about what I was working on, sharing inspiration, or doing little Q&As with my followers who were curious about my work, my life, and what it was like to have shot up from vague obscurity to a measure of notoriety that still had me reeling. Sometimes I still couldn’t believe it. How in the world had I managed to make art that people actually wanted to see?
It became easier, the more I did showings, booked commissions, spoke with people who found themselves moved by my pieces, to see the talent that lay within me. I accepted it, and with a lot of pushing from Alex, I finally embraced it. It wasn’t dumb luck that I’d gotten where I was; it wasn’t even Walker’s help, although what he’d done had been amazing.
All of it came down to the art. As my best friend reminded me often, I could have had all the luck in the world—but without any talent, I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere or stayed there for long.
Those were the good things. They were the things that kept me going in the month after I said my final goodbye to Walker. And yet, despite all that good, whenever I paused, I felt the high of the success waning as the reality of my loneliness left me hollow.
I missed him. So fucking much.
The logical part of me knew I shouldn’t feel like this. That side of my brain insisted I’d known what I was getting into when I’d made the deal with Walker. It didn’t make s
ense to wallow in misery as I reached the professional goals I’d always dreamed of just because I didn’t get the guy in the end.
I wasn’t even a woman that had dreamed about getting the guy in the end. After Walker left me behind for the first time, I’d pretty much shut off that part of my heart. But now, in the aftermath of our brief reunion, my traitorous heart kept whispering what if.
The bitterness I’d had felt when I signed my name and sealed our divorce faded after the first few weeks until all that was left was the sinking realization that I’d made a huge mistake.
“Motherfucking bag of floppy cocks.”
I sighed, wiping off my hands on a kitchen towel and reaching for the coffee pot. Alex and I had lovingly furnished our new kitchen with shiny chrome appliances and cute little novelty knick-knacks. Coffee had become my second best friend; it was the thing that fueled me in twelve-hour art shifts and kept me wired enough to focus on painting without slipping too far into my self-imposed pit of despair.
The aroma of the dark roast tickled my nose and woke me even before my first sip. As the hot coffee warmed my belly, I sighed again.
Footsteps sounded from the back of the apartment, and Alex and his beau of the last two weeks stumbled into the room, both looking even more groggy than I felt
“Hey Jeremy. Alex.”
“Morning, sunshine.”
“Mackenzie.”
I liked Jeremy. He had a strange brand of calm shyness that Alex didn’t usually go for, but it seemed like Jeremy was interested in Alex. Interested, interested. As in, he actually knew about art and appreciated Alex’s skill; their little late night rendezvous were usually filled with Alex describing the methodology behind various pieces. It sure beat the last guy Alex had dated, who’d been so loud in bed that my earplugs were basically useless.
I hoped they lasted, honestly. They seemed like the perfect example of the phrase ‘opposites attract’.