Gravity (Wilde Boys Book 1)

by Sara Cate

  Alistair flinches, but I feel like I’m hearing pieces to a story, and I can’t make any connections. Alistair had a girl over the night before the crash? Why would Nash be mad about that?

  “Before she went back to Preston’s room,” Nash adds, and my eyes snap to him.

  When the pieces finally do come together, it comes together as a lie. This is all a mean prank or a charade to make me leave altogether. They don’t want me here anymore so they’re making up stupid stories to trigger me.

  “I thought it was you,” Alistair says, his voice low and strangled.

  “I don't understand,” I snap loudly.

  “He fucked Emma!” When Nash yells those words, I know it’s not a lie. I know by the tears building in Alistair’s eyes and the look of remorse on his face as he stares at me that it’s true.

  “No.”

  Alistair steps toward me, and on instinct I move away. I search his face for love, comfort, connection, but I only see a stranger. A liar. Hate.

  I don’t even hear myself mumbling “no” over and over again. The walls are closing in, and it’s suddenly a hundred degrees in the room. They both reach for me, and I react on instinct. When I hear Alistair’s voice behind me, my open palm moves on its own and slams into his cheek, reverberating down my arm and right through my heart. Then I turn to find Nash, and I swing for his chest, but he grabs my hand first.

  He’s still charged and angry as he tries to pull me closer. He’s shouting something about Alistair, but I’m trying to get away from both of them.

  There’s movement, an arm flies and the two of them break out in a fight, furniture falling over as fists connect with jaws and bodies are thrown against walls. It all happens so fast, and I scream, but it doesn't help. Jumping up, I try to pull them apart, my sobs doing nothing to tear them apart. Then, there’s an elbow and I’m knocked to the ground with a scream.

  “She’s hurt,” one of them yells as they both drop to the floor to pick me up. There are Nash’s hands on me, whispering his tear-filled apologies and Alistair on the other, inspecting the red bump on the side of my face with an expression of anger.

  I can’t stop crying as they both hold me, and all I can think about is that I came here to help them, and I’ve managed to break them even worse. It doesn’t matter how much I love them. My love still managed to tear us all apart.

  Alistair is talking, but it’s all noise and none of it gets through the barrier I’ve put up.

  “She just showed up in my room in the middle of the night. I thought it was you. I swear to God I thought it was you. As soon as I knew it wasn’t we stopped.”

  “Leave me alone,” I say through my grit teeth as I move to stand. “Both of you just leave me the fuck alone.”

  “Zara,” Alistair calls after me, but I wheel around and shove my finger in his face.

  “You lied to me.” A painful sob wracks through me again, but I can’t voice any of the things I want to scream at him right now. As I turn back to the door, Nash is there waiting to stop me. I shove my hands against his chest. “You don’t get to blame me for how fucked up you are anymore, Nash! You and I only ever used each other because we were both in so much pain. And you knew about this the whole time, but you never told me? I can’t believe I’ve spent the last three months of my life stuck in some fucked up orbit out here on this island. But I’m done—with both of you. Now, move. I’m going home.”

  I watch him give up the fight and move away from the door.

  As I run to my guest house, I notice how they both stay in the house, and I say a prayer they don’t follow me.

  Thoughts race through my mind, and I can’t seem to make sense of any of them. Alistair had sex with my sister. The night before she died. Why? Did they have a relationship the whole time? I don’t believe for a second that she just snuck into his bed and he thought it was me. Lies. I would be an idiot to believe that, and I’m not an idiot.

  I never should have come here. When I get to the guest house, the walls immediately feel too confining. I can’t find comfort here. I need to get off this fucking island. But I won’t get in an aircraft with either of them.

  My anger toward Nash equals my anger toward Alistair. He knew the truth and he said nothing. He let me fall for Alistair, and he knew the truth the whole time. They both just want me for their own purposes, and they don’t give a real shit about me. It’s all a fucking joke to them. I’m a joke. A stupid girl who fell for their lies.

  I need to go home. Now. Someone else can fly me. The yellow N-2 model sitting on the helipad shines in the sunlight. Alistair left the keys in it. I’ve landed it a couple of times, and it wasn’t bad. I could do it again.

  I’m not thinking right. I’m desperate. Reckless. And I swear to God I think at some point, so what if I die? So what.

  Without another thought, I grab my purse and rush through the guest house door leaving it open as I walk toward the helicopter. I don’t see them through the window to the house anymore, and I hope they don’t hear me because they will try to stop me.

  All I know right now is that I have to get off this island and it’s time for me to break free. Without another thought, I climb into the aircraft and start the engine. Within less than a minute, I’m off the ground and on my way home.

  38

  The crazy thing is that once I’m in the air, my panic dissolves and confidence takes over. I shut off the thoughts in my head about Nash and Alistair, and I do what I learned, what I watched each of them do a hundred times. Nash and I made this flight so often, I navigate the straight path to the airfield easily.

  Once I’m up there, and I have a few quiet moments before I have to worry about landing this thing, I think about Emma during that last weekend. Did she ever show signs that she was unhappy with Preston? Did I not notice she had feelings for Alistair?

  I make so many excuses for her in my head. She was unhappy, scared, pressured to do it, but the only reasonable answer to any of it is that she fucked up. My beautiful, perfect, shining star sister made a stupid mistake. She wasn’t perfect. Nobody is, and this entire time, I’ve been treating her like some sort of martyr to live my life in comparison to. I’ve been beating myself up for not being Emma, and now I know that when my sister was trying to live her happiest life, she was just as scared and lost too.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of Alistair’s familiar red four-seater. I turn straight and ignore him. I figure he doesn’t believe I know how to get there or maybe he’s just worried I’ll make off with his aircraft, but he stays firmly behind me the entire flight.

  And it’s not a long one. After only fifteen minutes, I see the landing pad in the distance and my nerves start to get the better of me. I’ve only landed about three times, and that was with Alistair in the seat next to me, giving me the confidence I needed.

  “You’ve got this.” His voice comes through the comms, startling me as I start to drop the lever on the side and feel the helicopter lower. I’ve got this.

  From there, I just turn off my brain and quiet every stupid voice that wants me to fail. Every voice that has spent the last two years—no, my entire life—convincing me I’m not good enough. If I’m destined to fail, then why even try? It’s better to end on a high note. You may have been trained well, but you have no natural talent.

  Shutting each one of them off, I focus only on the aircraft, the ground, the horizon, everything Alistair taught me, his voice in my ear, and I land the helicopter. It’s a bumpy, jerky landing, and I feel it hit the ground a little rougher than I should, but I land safely nonetheless.

  Once I’m on the ground, with shaky hands I shut the engine down. My breath is panicked, and bile rises in my throat. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him land near me. When I move to open the door, I find that my legs are shaky and barely hold me up.

  Suddenly, he’s there. I want to cry into his chest. I just did my first solo flight, and I should be celebrating, but he’s ruined that. Anger takes over as h
e snatches me up and holds me tight against him.

  “How could you?” I sob against his shirt.

  “I told you, baby. I thought it was you. She crawled into my bed, I was sleep-fogged, I let it get too far. I wanted you so bad, I let my mind believe it. But I stopped her as soon as I found out it was her. She said Preston was cheating on her.” His voice is soft, full of pain and regret.

  “She must have been humiliated.”

  He squeezes me tighter. “I’m so sorry, Zara.”

  My hands have his shirt clenched tight as the pain manages to find its way to every crevice of my body. “I miss her so much,” I whisper, and I don’t know why that comes out. I hate that I’m crying to him after everything that just happened. But he squeezes me even tighter and buries his face in my neck.

  “I miss him too,” he mumbles.

  We hold each other for a long time just like that until it feels like I’ve cried every tear I have in my body. When I pull away, I make the mistake of looking at his face. Before I can give into my body’s stupid desire to kiss him, I shove away and march toward the house where I know I can order a car if Hank isn’t there to drive me.

  “Zara,” Alistair calls after me, his voice sounding despondent and so much weaker than I’m used to hearing it. When I turn around, I wipe the tears away as I wait for him to speak. “I’m proud of you. You should be too,” he says.

  I don’t respond as I spin around and keep walking away from him. With every step, I know I’m in for a long hard road of pain, but I can’t go back now. I can never go back to that island.

  39

  Three months later

  Three years. Some days it feels like ten and others it feels like not a day has gone by since I could hear my brother’s laugh in the house. Today marks three years since the worst day of my life.

  When Zara left, there were no more words to be said between my father and me. He retreated into his life and I retreated into mine. We never discussed what went down, what I saw, or how things between Zara and I got so bad. How I got so bad.

  I spent the first month hating myself for the person I had become. Trying to trap her in a sick relationship with me because I needed her. Wanting to hurt her so I could feel something, anything. Convincing myself that she wanted it too.

  I hated having to tell Zara about what Emma and my dad did. Ruining the image of someone she loved was the cruelest thing I had done to her, and it haunts me the most.

  She doesn’t answer my text messages, and I’ve sent a few.

  Not because I want her back but because I can’t leave things the way we did. But that’s the fucking kicker, isn’t it? I don’t get to call the shots anymore. If she remembers me forever for the way I acted that night then that’s just the way it is.

  My email pings on my phone, and I pick up to see another reply from the program coordinator about my transcripts. She received everything she needs from me. I start in four weeks.

  I haven’t even told my dad, but I know I need to. You can’t just move to the Netherlands without so much as a goodbye.

  Pocketing my phone, I stare down at the gold plaque with my brother’s name engraved in capital letters.

  Preston Wilde

  Beloved son and brother

  I’m allowed to move on with my life. I know that now. Fuck, I didn’t sit through six weeks of therapy for nothing, but they don’t tell you how hard it is to do the shit you say you’re going to do. I’m officially older than my brother now—my big brother. That thought doesn’t settle easily.

  It makes me think of Zara, how every birthday since the crash probably feels like hell.

  I want to text her and tell her about Amsterdam. I feel like she’d be happy for me, if she and I were the version of ourselves before everything went to shit. Before I turned into a fucking psycho, she’d be proud of me.

  There’s the scuff of a shoe against the pavement behind me, and I turn to find her standing there, staring at me like I’m a ghost.

  “Zara,” I whisper, standing up to face her.

  Okay maybe I figured she’d come today. Maybe I was fucking counting on it, and I stuck around a little bit longer than I wanted to just to see her.

  “Hi,” she replies before stepping forward. She has on a knee-length black skirt and a thin top draped delicately over her shoulders. Her hair is still black but not as long, cut just past her shoulders.

  “How are you?” I ask, not knowing what else to say.

  She nods, biting her lip and looking as nervous and uncomfortable as I feel. “I'm good. You?”

  “I’m good,” I answer, although there is a lot more behind that answer I’m just dying to fucking say. I gesture to the bench, hoping she’ll sit next to me for just a few minutes.

  After a moment of contemplation, she strides toward me and stops when we are only a foot apart. Is it too soon to hug her? God, I miss putting my arms around her. Is she still afraid of me?

  Without a hug, she sits and faces the plaque. This isn’t the exact spot they died, but it’s the closest we could get. So, this is all that’s left of them, a plaque on a quiet mountain overlook.

  It occurs to me that I should probably leave. She deserves a moment alone with her sister, and as much as I hate to do it, I step away.

  “Sit with me, Nash,” she says quietly, looking down.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, I sit next to her. We’re silent for a while before I feel her head land softly against my shoulder. The contact makes me shudder.

  Then it’s like everything I’ve kept bottled up for three months comes spilling out. “Zara, I have to apologize—”

  “Nash, you don’t—”

  “Yes, I do, please let me say this.”

  She looks up at me, sadness in her eyes as she nods and pinches her lips closed in a straight line.

  “The way I acted with you was wrong. I used you and even if it was consensual, Zara, it was damaging to you, and I should have known that.”

  Her hand reaches out to take mine, and she squeezes as tears fill her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, squeezing back.

  Then, her head is back on my shoulder, and I hear her sniffling. After another long silence, she finally speaks. “You look good. I like the beard.”

  I let out a forced laugh and scrub the growing stubble on my chin. “Thanks. You look good too. I’ve been following you online. You look happy.”

  “I am happy. Are you?”

  “I am,” I answer honestly. Then my news just flies out of my mouth, desperate to tell someone, especially her. “I’m starting a program in Amsterdam next month. An aviation program.”

  She lifts her head and stares at me. Her mouth is hanging open and there are tears in her eyes. “That’s great, Nash. I’m so proud of you.”

  “Thanks.” Then, I reach forward and tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. “What do you think they would say? If they saw us now?”

  Zara swallows a pained expression as her gaze follows mine, settling on the view over the city. “Emma would say, ‘Geez, Zar, what the hell took so long?’” she says in her sister’s slightly higher pitched voice.

  I can’t help but laugh. “Preston would call me a loser, for sure. He’d tell me to find a hot Dutch girl, and to tell dad to fuck off from him.”

  She laughs through her tears. Then I watch as she bites her lip, and I know she wants to ask about him. I wish she would, but I just wish I had more to tell her. I don’t want to have to tell her we’ve gone back to not talking, but now it goes both ways. I miss the days of hating my dad before knowing that he hated me back.

  “It’s good we’re moving on, Nash,” she says, and I don’t know if she means from the crash or the breakup. Then, tears cascade down her cheeks, and I pull her into my arms, letting her cry softly against my shoulder. She sits there like that for a while before the clouds grow heavy in the sky and the rain starts to fall.

  I run with her back to her car parked just off the road. As she gets in, I try t
o hold onto her for an extra second. I don’t want to say goodbye. I’m afraid this will be the last time I see her, and I still have so much to say.

  But the moment passes and her door closes. Before I know it, she’s driving away.

  40

  “Mr. Wilde, are you still on the call?” my secretary says, pulling me out of my reverie, staring out the window of my office, watching my son coming in for a landing.

  “I’m here,” I answer blankly.

  The board is going on and on, and I’m zoning out every word. These meetings used to excite me. Talking about the future of the company, how we can capitalize on new markets with our extended international reach, but I’ve lost interest.

  This is why I never should have gotten involved with her. I was hoping that after she left, I could focus more on work. It was the only silver lining in the whole situation, but it’s not much of a silver lining at all.

  The only silver lining is my son has finally overcome something. He thinks I don’t know about Amsterdam, and every day I wait patiently, hoping one of us will work up the courage to talk to the other. But I can’t face Nash, not after what happened.

  This move will be good for him, a fresh start. He’ll have the chance to learn from someone new and he doesn’t have to feel so bogged down by what I want for him. And without him taking over anytime soon, I’m still stuck here, no retirement in sight.

  I can’t fucking retire. I’m not even fifty-one.

  “Mr. Wilde?”

  “Yes?” I answer.

  “We need your approval before we can move on, sir.”

  “Yes, I’ll sign it. Thanks.”

  “Are you sure you’re happy with this proposal?” someone else on the call asks, and I pause.

  Happy with it? My mind goes back to that night at the ballet, standing on the stage with Zara, the bright lights illuminating her face as I held her in my arms. That was the first moment in a long time I could claim I was happy. The fear I would never be happy again, should never be happy again just dissolved with her. I should have told her then. I should have come clean about what happened, begged her to forgive me, been a fucking man about it.