Her eyes filled with tears.
She’d hoped at the end that confronting him with her past would have made him see, but it hadn’t. She’d had to watch helplessly as his anger drained away, to be replaced by a cold kind of nothingness that had made her chest hurt.
So no, she hadn’t believed it when he’d told her she wasn’t enough, especially not after he’d helped her deal with all those horrible, painful memories. What broke her, what had cracked her all the way through, was the fact that he’d lied. That he’d said those deliberately hurtful words so that she’d walk away from him.
And she had. Not because he’d been needlessly cruel, but because he’d been so deliberate about it. Because he’d chosen blindness and anger over clear vision and love.
Yeah, that was the bit that hurt especially. That he’d turned away from the fact that she loved him.
You could have stayed. You could have fought.
She could have, but then she’d told him already that he didn’t have to do this. That he didn’t need to be anything more than what he was. What more could she have said? What else could she have done?
The next step had to be his, and he hadn’t taken it.
He’d turned away instead.
She’d made her choice, and so had he. Pity it hadn’t been the one she’d wanted him to make.
By the time she got back to the apartment, her chest was aching and sore, and her cheeks were shiny with tears. But beneath her pain was a new kind of purpose.
So her friendship and then her abortive relationship with Levi were over and done with permanently. They’d tried it, and it hadn’t worked, both of them too damaged by their pasts to make it work. In a way it was a relief, wasn’t it?
It meant she could move on. Put him behind her. Start again from scratch.
She’d never feel the same way about another man, but that didn’t mean her life was over. There was still plenty more living to do.
She kept telling herself that as she walked into the apartment, trying not to look at the evidence of their fledgling life together all around her. Instead she made straight for the bedroom, tearing off the dress she’d put on with such hope, then dressing in her favorite jeans and top. Then she flung open the drawers of the dresser and began filling her suitcase with clothes and the few things she wanted to take with her.
It didn’t take her long to pack.
On her way out the door, she paused briefly in the main room, looking at the little knickknacks of hers that Levi had gathered and displayed so beautifully for her. But no, those pieces were part of the past, and she had a future in front of her.
A future without him in it.
She swallowed and turned away, heading toward the door. She wasn’t going to take them. It was better they stayed in the past with him.
Rachel didn’t look back as she headed out of the apartment, and, fifteen minutes later, dragging her suitcase behind her and feeling as if she’d been kicked very hard in the stomach, she arrived at another familiar door.
She knocked, hoping like hell either Gideon or Zoe was there, relief filling her when she heard a footstep and the door opened a crack.
“Rach?” Zoe jerked the chain off the door and pulled it open, her eyes widening as she took in the suitcase by Rachel’s side. “Oh no. Was the party that lame?”
At another point in her life, Rachel would have laughed.
Instead she burst into tears.
* * *
The apartment was dark and silent when Levi finally got home at some Godforsaken hour of the morning. He was drunk, having tried to fill up the empty space inside him in the time-honored Rush tradition—meaning he’d had too many shots of Grey Goose to count. And hell, he was doing better than his old man; at least the vodka had been top-shelf and not the shit his father used to drink.
But no matter how many shots had gone down, Levi could not seem to fill that empty space in his soul. It was still there, beneath the alcohol and the slaps on the back from the businessmen at Novak’s function. Beneath the money they’d promised him and the enthusiasm they’d shown.
His development project for Royal Road had been a hit.
And he’d never felt so fucking awful in all his life. Not even when he’d stared at the guy he’d just pulled off Rachel and punched, the one who’d fallen on the pavement and hit his head. Who’d just lain there, unmoving, making Levi’s stomach drop away and dread curl in his heart.
No, this was worse than that.
It felt as if his heart wasn’t there at all, swallowed by all that emptiness.
But he’d done the right thing, that’s what he had to keep telling himself. He’d let Rachel go, and that was the most important part of it. He’d set her free. Free from the anger he couldn’t seem to shake. Free from him.
Slamming the door of the apartment behind him, Levi chucked his keys onto the console table nearby and stumbled into the main room. He didn’t want to go to the bedroom. Didn’t want to face the potential emptiness of the room, the certainty that Rachel wasn’t there, that she’d gone. Which made the couch the best bet, at least in his current condition.
But as he lurched into the room, he caught a glimpse of a shape sitting in Rachel’s gran’s chair, and his heart suddenly inflated and shot up and out of his chest like a balloon.
“Sunny?” he said hoarsely, desperately. “Is that you?”
“No.” The voice was male and deep and undeniably Gideon’s.
Levi’s heart plummeted back into the empty shell of his body and broke into pieces as it landed
You dumb fuck. As if she’d ever come back to you after you turned her away.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Levi demanded, bitter disappointment curdling in his gut.
“Sit down.” Gideon said, his tone neutral.
Levi wanted to argue, but he couldn’t be fucked. So he did as he was told, collapsing on the couch opposite where Gideon was sitting. “How the hell did you get in?”
Gideon ignored him. “You’re drunk.”
“Yeah, and?”
“You’re never drunk.”
“First time for everything.” Levi leaned back against the couch and flung an arm over his face. The room was spinning around him, and he was spinning with it.
There was a terrible silence, and Levi wished Gideon would go the hell away and leave him in peace.
Sadly Gideon showed no signs of doing so.
“Rachel told me what happened,” Gideon said at last.
Great. Fucking wonderful.
“Before you give me a damn lecture,” Levi said, “I let her go. She’s free of me. I won’t touch her; I won’t come near her ever again.”
Another hideous silence.
“Why?” Gideon asked.
Levi took his arm away, squinting in the dark, trying to make out the other man’s form. “What do you mean why? Wasn’t that what you wanted from the beginning?”
Gideon sighed. “What I wanted was for you not to hurt her. For you to see what’s right in front of your fucking face.”
“Oh Christ, spare me. Rachel’s already given me that fucking sermon—”
“You love her, Levi.”
What a goddamned stupid thing to say. “Well, of course I love her. She’s my friend.”
“No, dipshit. You’re in love with her.”
It didn’t feel like a revelation. In fact, his broken heart ached with the truth of that particular statement, the pain of it like the pain of his father’s dismissal, knowing he’d been abandoned for a bottle of alcoholic fucking liquid. “Yeah, and?”
Gideon shifted in the chair, the springs creaking. “You’re being particularly dumb today, Levi. If you love her, why the hell did you let her go?”
Beneath the protecting blanket of alcohol, Levi’s anger stirred. “Christ, why the hell do you think? I’ve done nothing but hurt her since day one. All I wanted to do was help, to fix our entire fucking lives, but in the end I just forced her into doing things she did
n’t want.” He gave a bitter laugh. “I was selfish. I was patronizing. I was angry. And she doesn’t deserve that.”
“No, she doesn’t.” Gideon’s voice was quiet. “And neither do you.”
Christ, his chest hurt. Nothing about this was good. He needed more vodka. Or maybe he just needed to close his eyes and sleep and pretend this day had never happened. “What the hell are you talking about now?”
“You’ve had it shit, Levi; no one can argue with that. But you’ve paid your dues. You don’t need to punish yourself anymore. So don’t you think it’s time to stop thinking about the shit, and start thinking about the good?”
“I’m not punishing myself, and there’s no good.”
“Bullshit. Sure, your actions killed some motherfucking, drug-dealing scum. You can keep beating yourself up about that if you really want. But Rachel’s the good, and you know it.”
You have me.
His chest ached like a bastard, and nothing he did seemed to make it better. “Yeah, and she’s too good for me,” he said roughly, unable to keep the frayed edges of his voice together. “And I’ve got nothing to give her anyway.”
Gideon let out another sigh. “That’s bullshit too. You’ve got plenty to give her.”
“What? Anger? Some fucking plans she didn’t want?”
“You, Levi. You have you.”
Levi wanted to laugh at the simplicity of it. The stupid simplicity of it. “Jesus Christ, you don’t understand. Didn’t you hear me when I said she was too—”
“You’re not a coward, Levi Rush.” Gideon cut him off with quiet authority. “Don’t be one now.”
A coward? But he wasn’t being a coward. He was only accepting the truth. That no amount of fixing or helping or being positive ever changed anything.
He wasn’t enough, and he never would be.
“I’m not a coward,” Levi echoed, the words sounding pathetic and weak in the darkness of the room.
“Then if you’re not, if you’re any kind of man, you’d get up and go to her and you’d beg her forgiveness. Then you’d lay your heart at her feet.” The springs creaked again, and Gideon’s dark figure got up from the chair. “Just my two cents. For what it’s worth.”
Then he walked out the door without another word.
Levi sat there in the dark, staring at nothing. Then he shifted, and something rustled in his pocket. He frowned and put down a hand, drawing out a crumpled packet. Fucking Pixy Stix.
Rachel’s the good, and you know it.
He stared at the packet of candy.
She used to buy him packets of the stuff to cheer him up, to make him feel better, the only thing she could afford.
She’d been his sunshine, right from the very first day he’d seen her open the door of her gran’s apartment, when she’d given him a shy smile. He hadn’t known how rare those smiles were then. He only knew it had lit something inside him, something that was burning there still.
You have you.
Pathetic. Why would she even want that? After all his anger and all his demands, his refusal to listen to her, his refusal to see.
You’re not a coward, Levi Rush . . .
No, of course he wasn’t. After all, what would he be afraid of?
Levi blinked as something began to coalesce inside him. A realization and, more than that, a certainty.
Holy shit. He was afraid. Afraid of that pain of rejection, that pain of loss. He couldn’t remember the number of times he’d cleaned up after his father or taken him to the emergency department for detoxing, or dragged him home from whatever bar he’d passed out in, and Levi had never gotten anything in the way of thanks from the old man. He’d told himself—shit, he’d told Rachel—that it was love that made him do it, and that was enough.
But it wasn’t enough. He wanted more. He wanted to know he made a difference. He wanted to know he mattered.
No. You want to be loved.
His heart gave one heavy, hard beat inside his chest, the raw pieces of it rubbing together like the sharp edges of a bone in a broken leg. The realization hurt. It hurt like fuck. But it was true.
You fucking idiot. She was right. It was there right in front of your face this whole time. What you truly wanted. And you just threw it back in her face.
He went still, a shadow in the dark of the living room.
Gideon had told him to go to her and beg her forgiveness, but he couldn’t go now, not reeking of vodka and more pathetic than his father ever had been. And Levi had no problem with begging, but he’d always been more comfortable with action. Now that he thought of it, he had the perfect way of asking her forgiveness. The gesture he should have made the moment he’d gotten out of prison. Made without anger blinding him or the past clouding his vision.
Because he loved her.
Because she was his sunshine and, without her, all he’d ever be was a pathetic, drunken asshole, sitting all alone in the dark.
* * *
Rachel got rid of the last client, locking the door of Sugar Ink behind her and turning back to clear up the last of the gear. Xavier had gone off to the local club, Anonymous, and had tried to drag her with him, but she’d refused. She hadn’t told him about her and Levi, and, considering Xavier’s distrust of Levi, she’d thought it best not to broach the topic until maybe Xavier asked.
Which she hoped wouldn’t be anytime soon.
She went over to her station, tidying various things, keeping her thoughts very firmly on nothing in particular and not on the prickly, dry feeling behind her eyes or the dull ache in the place her heart used to be.
It was difficult, but thinking about her plans for the art gallery helped, as did thinking about the impending meeting she had with the Royal Road Outreach Center, to discuss the possibility of art classes for the kids there.
She was just getting her inks in order when there was a loud battering at the door.
Probably just another drunken asshole desperate to get a tat while the mood took him. Luckily she knew just how to deal with those.
Except as she approached the door, it wasn’t just another drunken asshole.
It was Levi.
She stopped dead, staring at him, her mouth going utterly dry. And considering she only had pieces where her heart should be, it was ridiculous how the stupid thing suddenly started beating, hard and fast, as if it were running a race it was desperate to win.
He’d stopped knocking, the fierce intensity of his gaze holding her fast.
She wasn’t going to open the door, because why should she? He’d made his choice. A choice that wasn’t her.
Yet, she moved to the door all the same, unlocking it, then opening it.
And suddenly he was there, moving toward her, pulling the door shut behind him before reaching for her, gathering her up in his arms, sliding his hands into her hair, and tipping her head back, covering her mouth.
She didn’t want to return the kiss, wanted to push him away, because she had no idea what this was or what it meant, and she couldn’t bear it. But her head was falling back all the same, and her mouth was opening under his, letting him in, the kiss so sweet and hot and so painfully tender it brought tears to her eyes.
She didn’t want to move. She wanted to stay here like this forever.
But he was lifting his head and letting her go, putting her from him and standing back.
“Levi . . .” She couldn’t finish. Didn’t want to hear yet another rejection from him.
“I need to give you something,” he said, and he reached around and took something from his back pocket. More paper like the title deed he’d given her before, except this looked like a whole stack of them.
“What are they? And why are you here? What—”
“Look at them, Sunny. Then I’ll explain.”
Reluctantly she took the papers from him and glanced down at them. They were indeed title deeds, to a whole lot of buildings, including the apartment building he owned.
And then she saw the name of the
owner.
Rachel Hamilton.
She looked up at him in shock. “What the hell is this?”
There was tension in his expression, an uncertainty she’d never seen there before. “What it looks like. The deeds to all my buildings. Or should I say your buildings now. They’re yours to do whatever you want with them.”
The shock deepened. “But . . . What about your development plans? I thought that was what you wanted?”
“No.” His gaze never wavered from hers. “What I wanted was you. It’s what I’ve always wanted, from the moment I first saw you. The moment you smiled at me. It’s just taken me fucking years to realize it.”
She blinked at him, not quite understanding. “But all those plans . . . You said they were all you had left.”
“I did think that was all I had left. But you’re right; I was blind. I couldn’t see what was in front of me, because I was too angry and too afraid.” He didn’t move, and yet she could feel the sudden, leashed intensity of him getting stronger, more powerful. As if he wanted desperately to touch her and yet wasn’t letting himself. “But I see now, Sunny. I really see. And what I see is you.”
It was too much to hope for, wasn’t it?
“I thought I wasn’t enough.” Because she couldn’t help herself, couldn’t stop from asking.
He didn’t look away. “That was bullshit. I hope you know that. I was just afraid. Dad never wanted anything but the bottle, and he hated me for taking that away from him. And nothing I did seemed to fix him; nothing I did helped. And nothing I did helped you either.” His hands were in fists at his sides. “You’ve built a life for yourself, Sunny. And after what you went through . . . Jesus, you don’t know how much I respect your strength and your independence. But this life of yours and this business you built . . . You did it without me.” He took a breath. “You don’t need me. I’m just the son of a drunk. A fucking idiot who killed a man. What do I have to offer that you can’t do yourself?”
Her throat closed up, the broken pieces of her heart all jamming together, trying to make themselves whole again.
“Yeah, you are a fucking idiot.” Her voice was hoarse. “Why do you think this business is here? Why do you think I built the goddamned life I have now? It’s because of you, Levi Rush. Because you believed I could do whatever I wanted. Because you taught me the power of dreams. Which makes this . . . All of this is because of you.”
Wrong for Me Page 27