I open the door with a murderous scowl on my face. And then my stomach bottoms out, my jaw drops, and my heart sinks all at once, when I see Tyler standing there. I almost want to reach out and touch him, believing that I’m still dreaming. That soon, I’ll wake up and realize that this never happened.
So I reach out and pinch his arm. Hard.
“Ow!” he says, rubbing the spot, looking confused.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “Just checking.”
We stand face to face, on opposite sides of the threshold. The metaphor of our physical stance is not lost on me. For a moment, I can’t steal my eyes away from him. I search his eyes. Those same, familiar eyes. After all this time, I still find myself at home in them. Just as I open my mouth to ask the requisite, what the hell are you doing here? Mac walks in with Sadie.
Tyler casts a look over at them, then back at me. Confused, shocked. I can’t decipher the reaction on his face. So many emotions are all barreled into one split second. So I do the only thing I can. “Tyler, I don’t think you being here is a good idea.”
He’s still reeling from the shock of my baby, ten feet away from him. “Emily,” he looks at me with pleading eyes. “What happened?”
I choke back a laugh. “I think it’s pretty apparent what happened.” The reply comes out laced with sarcasm. And anger. My bottled up anger has finally bubbled to the surface. “Mac sure as hell didn’t give birth to her.”
“Why didn’t I know about this?” he asks quietly.
“Because you left!” I shout, sounding even louder after his nearly whispered question. “How dare you show up at my doorstep? After all this time. You turn up here uninvited, and you have the nerve to ask me why you weren’t told about anything that was happening in my life!”
Mac takes Sadie back into the bedroom, and I stand face to face with all of the pain of the last year. “God, I had just convinced myself that I was fine. It took me a whole fucking year! So what are you doing here?”
For a split second, I feel sorry for Tyler. His face is bleached out. His hands tremble at his sides. I think he may need a blood sugar boost before he passes out on my doorstep. “Well, come in,” I spit, moving aside.
He walks in slowly, and I gesture to the worn sofa. He sits, still wordless, still pale as a ghost.
“I presume you didn’t come here to faint, so why are you here?” I ask again.
He composes himself. He still looks like my Tyler. Same shaggy dark hair, same captivating eyes. Same simple tee and jeans, clinging to the same chiseled chest. Same sun kissed skin. A warmth courses through my body, and I curse myself silently for allowing myself to feed into the lust. But he’s different, because now, I’m different.
“Emily, I didn’t know about any of this,” he says softly.
“Because I didn’t want you to. Jesus, both of you Carson brothers are a piece of work. You didn’t know because I didn’t want you to,” I scoff.
“Why?” he asks simply.
“Oh, I don’t know, Tyler. Because you left me, after your grand gestures and proclamations of caring for me so much. And not only that, you sealed the fate of my relationship with Blake on your way out the door. You sent me on a mission that you knew would shatter my heart, and you didn’t stick around for the show afterward.”
“I was trying to show you that you were making a big mistake in marrying Blake!” he rebuts.
“Well done. You did that. And for that, I sincerely thank you. But what was the point in destroying my world, if your intention was to just leave me? All alone? What did you have to gain from breaking us up? From my vantage point, it seems like all you really wanted, was to best your brother.”
“That’s not true,” Tyler says softly. “I didn’t think you’d actually leave him. I really didn’t think you believed me. I wanted you to be happy, whether you were with me or not. And I knew what you were getting yourself into by marrying Blake. I couldn’t let him hurt you like that. I thought I was protecting you.”
“I get it,” I laugh. “Hurting me was reserved for you.”
“That was not my intention!” His face is so remorseful, so pained.
“Yeah, well, that’s what happened. Do you know the only feeling worse than hearing Blake tell Aria that he was marrying me out of convenience? It was the pain of walking into your apartment and finding it empty. It took me a whole damn year to stop thinking about you every night before I fell asleep. Every night.”
“And you don’t think I did the same thing?” Tyler argues.
“Then why weren’t you here? You ran away. Your freedom, impulsiveness, the things I loved about you. Now I realize that they were just excuses for when things got difficult. Your mother warned me—”
“My mother? What does she have to do with anything?”
“She has been the only member of your family that has supported me through this whole thing. I kept thinking, month after month, that you would come back. Only you never did. I had to deliver Sadie alone!” The tears involuntarily stream down my face.
“That’s not fair, Emily. You didn’t tell me about her. You didn’t give me the chance to be there for you.” Tyler walks over and tries to wipe the tears away. I swat his hand away furiously. “And where was Blake?”
“Who the fuck knows where Blake is, and who the hell cares? So you’re back. Now what?” I say through sniffles. “Now we live free and happy, forget everything? Spend our lives eating hot dogs and living for the moment? Sounds charming. But some of us have responsibilities now. Some of us don’t have the option of leaving when things get hard.”
“Emily, please just listen. I loved you then and I still love you now. I thought I was making things easier for you,” Tyler pleads. “Giving you space to think. I thought you would have called me. When you didn’t, I assumed that you had worked things out with Blake.”
“Love should have stopped you from leaving. Love should have stopped you from ever leaving me,” I say through tears. “But it didn’t. And now, I want you to leave.” I walk over and open the door, standing expectantly, waiting for him to go. Fighting the urge to hold onto him and never let him go. Fighting the urge to forgive this man. Trying desperately to keep my hands from reaching out. He gives me one more desperate look, eyes pleading. Imploring me silently. I stare resolutely at the wall. Avoiding those beautiful brown wells and all the false promises they bear.
He walks out moments later, and I slam the door hard behind him. Violent sobs wrack my body. I remain standing there, rooted to the spot. Head in my hands, tears staining my cheeks. Rage, joy, and about a million other feelings are all rolled into one confusing, convoluted mess. Mac takes Sadie for a walk in her stroller, and I resign myself to the couch. The hurt of last year that I had pushed so far down has now risen to the surface, all at once.
Chapter 26:
Tyler
My head reels as I walk through the busy Manhattan streets. I had tried to mentally prepare myself for Emily hating me. For her having replaced me. I never quite succeeded completely, but at least I had some contingency for that. I never, in a million years, expected to see her with a baby. I also never expected to see the anger and hurt that was clear in her eyes.
Blake. Where was Blake? If that’s his child, where is he? I can’t even be angry at him anymore. That would be wholly hypocritical of me. Judging him for leaving her alone, when I was no better. I walk up to my apartment and collapse into one of the pod chairs. I can’t stop thinking about Emily alone this year, alone for a whole nine months of pregnancy. Alone, because I was too much of a coward to stick around and wait for her. To just be patient and trust that she would believe me. And the more I think about it, the more I hate myself. The more I torture myself.
If I could just get her to listen. Get her to talk to me. To explain, plead, beg. I don’t know.
So I go to my next best option. The only other person who can fill in the gaps for me. I catch a cab to the penthouse of Eliza Carson. I dread this reunion more than the last. But I need answers.
My mother answers after three attempts at knocking, elegantly dressed and paparazzi ready, as usual.
“Tyler,” she says with a small smile.
“Hello,” I say. This is awkward. I haven’t called this woman ‘mom’ in years. But now calling her Eliza seems, well, kind of disrespectful. I’ll try to have this conversation without using proper nouns of any sort. She insists that I join her for a late lunch. I agree, and we make our way to the expansive dining room. In the hallway hangs a huge canvased photograph, a picture of a newborn baby. Sadie. I don’t comment, not yet.
“I assume you have more than a few questions,” she says to me as we sit.
“I do,” I say as politely as I can manage. This civil conversation thing between her and I is foreign territory for us. “What happened to Blake and Emily?”
“Well, Emily discovered that Blake was having an affair. Although I suspect that she would have left him anyway, even if the mistress situation had not been made public.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because she had fallen in love with someone else.”
“Oh,” I say, sliding slices of Camembert around my plate in an attempt to avoid eye contact.
“Your brother has since disappeared. So has his tattooed girlfriend. I sold his apartment, and from what I understand, she no longer owns that tattoo shop, either.”
“Does he know about the baby?”
My mother drops her fork loudly onto her plate. She glares at me, irritated. “The baby has a name. Her name is Sadie. And yes, he does. He made quite the song and dance about Emily’s pregnancy. Suffice it to say, I am now ashamed to call him my son.”
“What did he do?”
“Aside from claiming that Sadie wasn’t his? Aside from calling Emily a whore? Make no mistake, she isn’t innocent, but I don’t think for one second that she deserves a title like that. I froze all of his access to my money and forced him to do a paternity test the minute she was born.”
“And?” I ask impatiently. She’s telling the story like it’s the fucking financial news!
“Sadie’s not his daughter. She shares some common DNA with him, but not enough to make him her biological father. Enough to say, with no uncertainty, that he is related to the child’s biological father. Closely related.” She eyes me warily, hoping that I’m intelligent enough to comprehend
“So, she’s my daughter. And you didn’t think I might want to know?” I ask, raising my voice.
“I did what Emily asked of me. Seeing her so upset after she found out about your brother was difficult, but witnessing her heartbreak when she lost you, was infinitely worse. I suspect that’s why she greeted you so harshly today. Yes, she called me and told me you were back.” Eliza glares at me angrily. “She insisted on having that baby. She was determined. Alone. Scared. But determined nonetheless. She dealt with your brother’s reaction, and was still determined. I saw something in her that I have yet to see in either of my sons, and that’s strength of character! Might I remind you, Tyler, that you left her? Or are you just a younger version of your brother, blaming the rest of the world for your problems?”
I bow my head. “She must hate me,” I say despondently.
“No, she loves you, very much. But she doesn’t trust you. Can you blame her?”
“Not at all,” I reply. “So, what do I do?”
In a strange twist of events, Eliza Carson has now become the person I ask for advice. And she seems to know Emily better than all of us. I’ve landed in one hell of a fucking parallel universe here.
“Tyler, if I could choose you or Blake to be Sadie’s father, I would pick you. For all of your reckless abandon, you are nothing like your brother. I was thrilled at the result of that paternity test. She is my granddaughter, and you are her father, and Emily is her mother. Why don’t you start with being civil? Then take it from there.”
I nod, and as I do, the doorbell rings.
“That’s her now,” my mother says.
“Here?” I ask. “How did you know that I’d come here?”
“No time like the present to begin. Besides, I needed both of you to sign the paperwork for Sadie’s trust.” She shoots me a small smile as she walks to the door. “Plus, you’ve always liked to know the answers to everything, I guessed you would come straight here after what Emily told me. And it was a good guess.” Eliza Carson smiles placidly at me. She actually fucking smiled without an ulterior motive! I’m floored.
Emily and I sit across from each other on my mother’s opulent suede armchairs. Eliza gets us to sign the paperwork, asking Emily if she would prefer a lawyer to review it first.
“No, that’s okay Eliza. It’s very generous of you. Thank you,” she says to my mother.
“You’re welcome,” my mother replies, smiling and giving her shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll leave you two to talk,” she says before her high heels clop down the marble hallway.
I stare after her, still shocked. “It must be you,” I say softly to Emily. “You even managed to turn her into a human being.”
“Not me,” Emily replies with a smile. “Sadie did that.”
Emily’s face, her neck, everything appears just as I had memorized it. She looks tired now, though. And her breasts seem to have doubled in size. Not that I was looking, but they were hard to miss. We sit in awkward silence for a few minutes. Eventually, I work up the nerve to speak.
“Emily, I swear to you that I would have been here. I would have flown in from anywhere in the world to be here for you. Dropped everything. I wouldn’t have even cared if Sadie was Blake’s.”
Her face is hard and resolute at first. Sitting here in this awkwardness, it softens a little. “I know, Tyler,” she says softly. “But I can’t unlive the last year just because you’re home now. I can’t believe after five minutes at home that you are going to be here permanently. Will you leave again? I can’t honestly say that you won’t. I would never deny you being a part of Sadie’s life. But I’m not ready to let you back into mine yet. And you can’t just walk in and expect that.”
“Yet?” I repeat hopefully. “And I don’t expect you to just let me back into your life. I know it won’t be that easy. But if I can try, I do know that it will be worth it.”
“You,” she says, tears glistening in her eyes. “You were an idiot for not realizing how much I cared about you. Would I have sacrificed my engagement for any other reason? Nothing can replace the way I feel about you, even now. The only feeling stronger is the love I have for Sadie. But when someone you love so much, hurts you so completely, the pain runs deep. Blake’s lying and cheating, the hurt of that didn’t compare at all to finding you gone.”
I walk over and lean down at her knees apprehensively. She may kick me in the face, but I take the chance and let her continue to speak.
“When I imagined having my first child, I imagined lying in bed at night and placing his or her father’s hand on my belly to feel the kicks, the same hand holding mine when I was giving birth.” Tears stream down Emily’s face, and I want nothing more than to kiss each and every one of them away. “Maia came stroller shopping, and I broke down because I couldn’t decide on a fucking color. Even if Sadie was Blake’s, I didn’t want to make that stupid decision alone.”
I always saw Emily, the real Emily. But the woman in front of me amazes me even more. I took for granted the strength that she really possessed.
“Tell me what you want me to do,” I say simply. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do. Anything. I want to be with you and Sadie. If allowing me into her life alone is all you can offer, I understand. But I guarantee you that I will never stop fighting to be with you.” The moment is so intense, so raw. My heart pounds violently in my chest, hope igniting within me.
“I need time, Tyler. To process all of this. To decide if you are an option that I want to entertain again.”
I nod, and rest my head on her knee. Relief floods through me. After a little while, she runs a hand through my hair. Fro
m above, a tear falls from her eye and lands on my cheek.
“I really don’t want to hate you,” Emily says firmly. The word hate in reference to me is heartbreaking to hear, to say the least.
“Hate is a strong word,” I say quietly.
“It is,” she replies. “I really don’t hate you, not at all. But if I’m honest, there were moments, many moments in this last year, where I disliked you. A lot. And I am still angry at you for not being here. I’m even angrier for you coming back here after a whole year and expecting me to just open the door to my life and let you back in, as if you didn’t just miss a large and very important chunk of it.”
Desperation eats away at me. I search the recesses of my mind, trying to find the right words to say to get me out of this mess of my own creation. “Why didn’t you call me?” The words leave my mouth feebly, and I instantly realize that they were probably not the best choice.
“I picked up the phone at least a dozen times a month. Once or twice, I even started to dial. But every time I hung up. Because I still believed that you had no idea about my pregnancy.” Tears stream down Emily’s cheeks. “And I needed to believe that. I needed to believe that you didn’t just know, and chose not to come back at all.”
“Somewhere deep inside, maybe really deep inside, you already know the truth. You know that I would never do that to you,” I reply hopefully.
Emily cups my face in her hands. Maybe it will be okay. It’s an ambitious thought, but it keeps me positive. Until her hand connects with my left cheek in a resounding slap. Her eyes betray her when I look, stunned, into them. She wanted me to hurt, just a little. And I took it. I deserved it. She leans down and kisses me softly and then gets up and walks away. Without another word. Without any further clarification.
It cuts like a knife. The love in the kiss, and the pain in the slap. Her walking away from me without any further explanation. And this is how I feel in a minute. I realize what she did. She showed me how she felt, except she felt it for a year. The feeling is fucking horrific.
Scared of Forever (Scared #2) Page 16