"You're not an idiot," Ellen protested, although I wished that she could make the words sound a bit more convincing. "You're just a normal person, and Sebastian Stone is attractive and rich and charming. He got into your pants, after all?"
"That didn't make me fall in love, though." How could I even put it into words? "When he wants to care about something, he puts more of himself into it than anyone else in the world. That's how he first got me to give up all my dreams of a college degree and professional career, after all. He put himself into winning me away from school, and he succeeded. When he found out that I was pregnant, even though it scared him silly, he jumped into it fully. He went out and bought me this house, all those books on being a father, how to handle when the baby comes..." I took a deep, shuddering breath. "I thought that he did it all for me, that he would always be there for me like that."
"Oh, Tori." Ellen's words were kind, not mocking or demeaning. She sat there with me on the couch, gently rubbing my back, as my levees against the tears finally broke and they came pouring down my cheeks. She held me as I curled up on the piece of furniture and sobbed like I was the infant, crying until I felt like I'd totally emptied myself and had nothing more inside of me.
"There, there," she said, carefully retracting the sleeve of my blouse. It somehow got caught up in my wave of tears, and I'd managed to soak it with salty moisture. I saw her consider wringing it out, but apparently decided against it. "It's okay. Things will get better, Tori, I promise."
"Thanks," I grunted, wiping a sleeve of my ratty sweatshirt across my face. "But I don't know what I'm going to do now. I can't keep living here."
I didn't need to explain why to her. "Well, if it's in your name, why don't you sell it?" she suggested.
I blinked. "What?"
"Yeah, if he bought the house for you, why can't you sell it?"
It was a suddenly tempting thought. "And where do I go?" I asked. I gestured down at my stomach. "I can't exactly jet off to somewhere halfway around the world."
Ellen suddenly straightened up. "Come live with us!"
What? "Us?" I echoed in confusion.
"Yeah! My mom and I, we've got the whole apartment above the café. Didn't you ever notice the stairs leading up there?" I had, but I'd assumed that it just led to a storage area for extra equipment. "And we've totally got a spare bedroom where you could stay?"
I wanted to tell Ellen that no, I could find my own way – but my eyes suddenly filled with tears again as another surge of hormones hit me. And, to tell the truth, I didn't know where else I'd go. I didn't have the money for a long-term hotel stay or to go out and find a new place to live with no advance notice.
Perhaps sensing that I was on the verge of giving in, she gave me a squeeze. "Come on, say yes," she pressed. "Live with us, and you can pay us back by continuing to help out with getting the café set up and more profitable! My mom might actually like the person I bring home, for a change!"
That last statement, corny of a joke as it was, finally made me laugh. "Okay, okay," I gave in, wiping my eyes one last time. "Let me go upstairs and see if I can find a suitcase or something, so I can pack up all my maternity stuff."
Ellen jumped up, helped me to my feet. "I'll come with," she said. She looked around the living room one more time. "You sure that you don't want to burn this place down?"
I shook my head. "No – but I do think that I'll talk to someone tomorrow about putting it on the market." If I could sell the house, even for a lower price than it might earn if I priced it competitively, it would give me some breathing room on my bank account, enough cash to figure out what I'd do next with my life.
What I'd do without Seb as part of it.
I needed to get away, leave him behind. I'd never be free of him, be able to get past how I felt towards him, until I put physical distance between us. Only then, hopefully, this infuriating attraction in my chest would fade away.
Chapter Nineteen
SEBASTIAN
*
Something was wrong, I thought distantly to myself through the aching headache as I climbed out of the cab, looking up at the house. I couldn't put my finger on what exactly was out of place, but there was something off, something different from how I remembered. I winced as I narrowed my eyes, reached up to rub one temple.
So much for having a great, perfect party. After I finally managed to end the call with Tori's answering machine, I ended up having to stumble down a dozen flights of stairs before finally finding a door that opened to the ground floor. Legs burning, I emerged out into the main entrance area of the hotel – and barely had time to stagger to the nearest trash can before I lost most of the mingled scotch and champagne from my stomach.
That pretty much spelled the end of the party for me. I didn't put a stop to it, of course; no reason for others to stop having fun just because I was down for the count. I needed to hit the sack – but there was no reason why I needed to go there alone.
Wiping off my mouth, I rode the elevator back up to the club on the roof, swished my mouth out with club soda to try and rid myself of the smell of puke, and then set about inviting a couple of the girls to my suite. Their eyes lit up when I mentioned that I had one of the villas, and I didn't have much trouble getting a willing female under each arm. I grinned to myself, knowing that I'd turned things around.
That smile lasted until I made it to my room – and found that the key card from my pocket didn't seem to want to unlock the door.
"Dammit," I growled, trying it a few more times. The door kept on beeping at me, flashing its red light from the lock. "It must have rubbed against something in my wallet and come un-magnetized, or whatever."
"Uh huh," said one of the girls distantly, looking at her nails instead of back at me. She glanced past me at her companion. I might be wobbling drunk, but I saw the second girl roll her eyes. "Maybe we'll go upstairs and grab a drink, then."
Shit. "No, look, just hang out here for a minute," I tried. "I just need to duck downstairs to the front desk, and they'll get me a new key." I raised my eyebrows, put on my best enticing expression. "Come on, think about it. Villa, hot tub in the suite, huge king size bed..."
I didn't know if I'd convinced them, but I needed to go down and get a new key regardless. I growled the entire elevator ride down, glaring daggers at each other couple who climbed aboard as it stopped at what felt like every single floor.
Of course, by the time I showed the front desk manager that I was the same person who'd rented the villa, got a new card, and made it back upstairs, the girls were long gone.
Whatever. I just headed inside and collapsed onto the bed, not even bothering to peel off my clothes.
I woke up the next morning in a black mood, only tangentially related to the aching hangover that threatened to split my head in half. Eating a large, greasy breakfast ordered up from room service helped a little bit with the aching head, but it didn't make my mood improve. Instead, I just sat in my room, staring at the television as it blared mindlessly and trying to figure out why I felt so unhappy about the previous night.
Wasn't this what I wanted? I'd been stifled living with Tori, stuck with her and watching as she got bigger each day, knowing that the baby was coming who would ruin my entire life even more than it had been already. I wanted to be out here, cutting loose, having fun and not tied to anything, not having any responsibilities to drag me away from losing myself in booze and women and fun.
Yeah, 'cause that was working out so well for me right now. All I had to show for the big cost of last night was a headache. I hadn't even gotten laid.
Closing my eyes, I could practically hear Tori laughing at me. "You idiot," she'd say if she was here, looking down at me with that smirk on her face contrasting with the warmth and caring in her eyes. "Don't you ever learn when to stop pushing for more and just be happy with everything you've got?"
And then I'd tell her, with a smirk on my face, that I was only happy when she was scolding me. She'd laugh, eve
n as she told me again in those warm tones that I was an idiot, and I'd pull her down into bed with me to help me forget about my hangover...
"Not what I wanted," I repeated to myself, my voice so raspy as to be almost incomprehensible. Hadn't I used to be able to go out drinking all night without waking up and feeling like death? What happened?
I'd planned a whole weekend of debauchery, everything to make me forget about Tori and get back into the swing of my old life. I'd arranged to have open seats waiting for me at all the hottest strip clubs, made sure that I had a virtually unlimited line of credit waiting at the most popular casinos.
Instead, I spent the rest of the weekend in the hotel room, spending most of my time either on the bed or on the sofas in the living room. I didn't go out to any of the five-star restaurants, instead ordering room service and delivery. Hell, most of the time I didn't even bother putting on pants.
So much for my amazing return to bachelorhood.
Monday evening, I finally checked out of the hotel, hauled my sorry ass back to the airport. I sat there for several hours in sullen silence as our family's pilot apologized, there'd been some sort of fueling issue. Even once that got resolved, we'd lost our place in the takeoff line and needed to spend nearly an hour sitting on the tarmac between other jets before we were finally cleared to take off. I just wanted to get back home.
It wasn't until I pulled into the driveway of the house, however, that it finally hit me that I didn't have anything back here waiting for me.
I'd broken things off with Tori – but I now realized that I hadn't thought about the repercussions of that impulsive choice.
For one thing, I remembered dully to myself as I stared at the "For Sale" sign standing front and center in the middle of the house's lawn, I had put the house in Tori's name.
And that meant that she was free to choose to sell it.
Thankfully, it seemed that she hadn't had time yet to change the locks. My key still unlocked the front door, and I wandered into the place that, over the last five months or so, I'd come to think of as my own.
Most of her things were gone. Only now, looking around at the empty, bleak interior, did I realize how much she'd done to spruce up the place. The house had come furnished, but Tori had added her own little touches – colorful pillows to offset the whiteness of the couch, a blanket tossed over one of the armchairs for warmth, a couple pictures that somehow captured the two of us on a rare moment when we hadn't been drunk or high together. She'd put little knickknacks in the kitchen, had a set of sea glass coasters that she'd kept on the living room coffee table. I'd barely noticed the little touches as she added them, but their absence made the house feel hollow, like a shell of itself.
There were still books on the bookcases in the living room. I ran my fingers over the spines. They settled on one of the baby books, and I impulsively pulled it off the shelf and carried it with me.
My clothes weren't in the closet. I found them packed away neatly in a box in the garage, loaded it into the back of my car. It barely fit in the trunk, and I bleakly considered that a luxury sports car probably wasn't the best choice for a new dad.
Not that I'd be involved; it seemed that Tori had decided to cut me entirely out of her life.
I dialed the number on the "For Sale" sign in the front yard. A disturbingly cheery real estate agent answered, and I asked her for any information on the owner of the property, why she'd decided to sell.
"I'm afraid that I can't share details about the seller," she answered me, some of the breezy cheerfulness fading from her voice. "She's moving to a new location, and is willing to be quite considering of offers slightly below market price. This is a great deal, and I can promise you that it won't last long in this hot housing market..."
I listened to her prattle on for a few more minutes before finally managing to interject and hang up. I tossed the phone down on the passenger seat beside me in my car, and then leaned my head back against the headrest.
This was what I wanted, I tried to tell myself again. This pain, this loss I felt, was only temporary. I'd get past it.
And the first thing I needed to do was find a new place to live.
No more of this suburbia stuff. I drove right into the heart of the city, sought out the highest-priced condo that I could find. Someplace big, spacious, modern, and right next to the hottest clubs and bars. Someplace that I could walk to from a night of drinking, preferably with a smoking hot lady on each arm. Someplace decked out with modern art, all sorts of choking hazards and dangers for any infant. Someplace clearly meant for a bachelor.
This was what I'd been missing, I told myself as I looked around at the expensive, totally unsuitable for a pregnant woman or new mother, very classy apartment. This was moving on. I needed to just keep myself apart from Tori, make sure that none of those confusing feelings came rising back up. I'd still offer her any help that she asked for, financially, but that had to be the extent of our relationship. If she tried to ask for more from me, I'd decline. Couldn't let myself get sucked back in, trapped again.
Now that I'd bought myself a new apartment, complete with furnishings left over from the previous playboy owner, I headed down to my car to grab the box of my clothes that I'd salvaged from the suburban house. I brought it up – but as I dropped it onto the stone, sharp-edged, totally-not-baby-proof table in the living room, something slipped out of it and landed on the floor with a thud.
I bent down and picked up the baby book that I'd taken from the shelves of the other house. Part of me wanted to just throw the book away, but some other, deeper voice in my head told me to save it. The new apartment didn't have bookshelves, so I dropped it into a drawer in the kitchen area.
Out of sight, out of mind. Like Tori. The real estate agent said that she'd moved away. I didn't want to think about where she might be, whether she was in trouble, how she'd be able to handle the pregnancy and baby on her own.
I didn't want to think at all. I just wanted to forget it all, make all these intrusive thoughts go away and leave me alone.
The bed didn't yet have sheets on it, but I still crawled onto the bare mattress and covered my head with my hands, still listening to my hollow words repeat that this was what I wanted.
Chapter Twenty
TORI
*
"Thank you again, Vicky," I said politely as I nibbled at the massive plate of food that Ellen's mother had slid in front of me. "For letting me stay here, not just for breakfast."
The woman snorted loudly, blasting air out of both of her nostrils. "Nonsense. You're a growing girl, especially with that baby, and you need to eat. Now, dig in."
I looked down at the huge plate of food and grimaced. Some women apparently became ravenous when pregnant, but I seemed to not be one of them. Instead, I found my appetite totally absent most days, and had to work to force even a meager serving of food into my mouth. I could handle tasting different dishes, helping Vicky to continue remaking the menu for River's Edge, but I couldn't take more than a few bites of a sandwich or omelet without feeling full and pushing the rest aside.
"Are you sure that I can't pay you rent or something in exchange for putting me up?" I tried, seeking another topic to distract myself from the huge plate of food still sitting conspicuously in front of me. "Really, it wouldn't be any trouble-"
Vicky turned around, brandishing a spatula at me like a nightstick. "I've said no before, and I'll say it again!" she stated, wagging the spatula so strongly that a few drops of liquid flew off its tip. "You're here because you're a friend of Ellen's, and I can't go around charging you rent!"
"Besides," piped up Ellen from the other side of the table, "you're doing a ton of work for us, helping with the café. It really means a lot, and that's way better than a little rent payment."
I rolled my eyes at her, trying to communicate that I really didn't mind, but she just smiled back. Ellen knew that I didn't have to worry much about money now. Just as the real estate agent had confidently p
redicted, the house sold quickly. "Even managed to get a bit of a bidding war, once a couple parties became interested," she'd told me over the phone, her voice full of pleasure at the thought of her own fat commission. "Got the price back up above what I might have originally listed it at, even. Good strategy."
Dealing with all the paperwork took longer than I expected, but a couple of weeks later, a very sizeable deposit hit my bank account. With that money, I could go anywhere, buy another house, start a life for myself and for my unborn child. I could certainly afford to pay rent to Vicky and Ellen each month without any worry.
"But you're not going anywhere, are you?" Ellen asked me after I finally managed to excuse myself from breakfast, get away without Vicky attempting to literally force food down my throat. "I've just gotten used to having you here!"
I sighed, looking at her across one of the new tables in the café. The old tables had been so wobbly and rickety, some customers inadvertently spilled their drinks the first time that they rested an elbow on the flat surface. I'd convinced a local carpenter to make us some new tables for cheap, and he'd done an amazing job. He even used some reclaimed, naturally unfinished wood from other projects, giving the tables flowing lines that reminded me of the outdoors, of a real river.
"I don't know," I confessed. I glanced down at my swollen stomach. No way to miss that I was pregnant, now. "I don't want to make any rash decisions now, but what am I going to do with my future, Ellen?"
She frowned. "This is about Seb, isn't it?"
"No," I stated, as firmly as I could manage. "He's in the past. Really. I should have known from the beginning that it would never work with us, that it would be a bad decision right from the onset." I blinked, fighting as tears suddenly, unexpectedly threatened to appear in the corners of my eyes. Stupid pregnancy hormones.
Either Ellen didn't see the tears, or she chose to tactfully ignore them. "Well, in any case, I'm glad that you're staying here," she said. "I know that we sort of hung out before, but I never felt like we were really anything more than superficial friends, you know what I mean?"
For Love of Freedom (Stone Brothers Book 3) Page 13