by A. J. Wynter
“It’s Chase,” I whispered to myself and shook my head. I could hear him in the bathroom running the water and humming to himself. I glanced over the side of the bed where the drawer had toppled onto the floor. There were car keys, pens, and a stack of pictures. I reached down to tidy up the mess and the striking blue eyes of the two boys in the photo stopped me in my tracks. I would recognize those crystal blue eyes anywhere after spending the past few days with the owner of one pair of them. The photo was of two young boys both dressed in tennis whites, posing with their rackets in front of a Rolls Royce.
I knew that it was wrong, but I couldn’t stop flipping through the pictures. I recognized the white-haired lady dripping with jewels as Camilla Titan, but the picture that took my breath away was the one at the bottom of the pile. It looked like it had been crumpled into a ball and then flattened back out again. A smooth-faced Chase Titan stood in front of a Ferrari with a man who could’ve been his doppelganger. I realized that Bruce Titan, Chase and Liam’s dad, would’ve been about Chase’s age in that photo. He was a handsome devil, his hand resting on Chase’s shoulder and Chase grinning and holding out the key to the Ferrari.
“What are you doing?”
I dropped the stack of pictures onto the floor. “I—I was just cleaning up,” I stammered, but I knew that I was busted. “Who are those people in the pictures?” I played dumb but instantly regretted it. Now would’ve been the perfect time to open up to Chase; to tell him why I was really in his cabin, but I didn’t.
He sighed and pulled on his boxer briefs. He slid the wooden drawer back into its home in the nightstand and to my surprise, crawled into bed with the stack of pictures in his hand.
“Emma,” I have to tell you something.
He was gripping the pictures tightly. “And you’re going to be upset with me, but you have to know the truth because... because...” he trailed off.
I held my breath. I knew from experience that when someone was about to confess, you didn’t interrupt them. Chase took a deep breath and gulped as he stared up at the ceiling, but he seemed at a loss for words.
“Jack,” I urged, my throat constricted when I said his name.
“Emma,” he set the photos down on the bed and shifted so that he was facing me. “You’re going to think that I’m crazy, but... fuck...” he trailed off again. He was having a really hard time spitting out what he had to say.
I reached out to hold his hand and gave it a light squeeze. That seemed to break his trance and as he smiled at me, his eyes crinkled, but he looked sad.
I had to tell him what I was hired to do, but I was scared. I was afraid that I would lose this man forever. I knew then, looking into his eyes, that I couldn’t finish this job. I could leave here today and tell Liam and Sadie that it didn’t work. That I couldn’t convince him to leave the bush. I was racking my brain trying to figure out how to get out of this situation without hurting him, and without ruining my friendship with Sadie.
He cleared his throat and then both of his hands were on my face, pulling me to his lips. He kissed me softly and gently, holding my face against his when his lips were done with mine. I reached up and gripped his wrists, while his hands stayed firmly on my face. “Emma,” he whispered.
“My name isn’t Jack.”
Chapter 16 – Chase
I LOVE YOU. That’s what I wanted to say to her, but I knew that I had to tell my truth first. She gently pulled my hands down from her face.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“It’s a long story,” I sighed.
“We’re stuck in a cabin. I think we’ve got time,” she whispered and squeezed my hands. Her calm demeanor had a way of helping me relax.
I picked up the stack of photos and started. “My name is Chase Titan.”
She nodded but didn’t react. “Titan,” I emphasized. When she didn’t respond, I clarified, “Titan International, that’s my family.”
“Okay,” she whispered. I pointed to teenage me in the picture. That’s my brother, Liam Titan. He’s the CEO now. Her non-reaction was perplexing. The woman was a journalist. How could she not have heard of Titan International? It made sense that my name hadn’t rung a bell. I’d been out of the news cycle for over ten years, but Liam and his marriage – that was current breaking news.
“Titan International is a billion-dollar company with offices all over the world,” I added.
“I’ve heard of it.”
“Emma, I am part of a billion-dollar company that I don’t want.”
“Now that’s a story,” she said quietly and started to play with her fingernails. “Why don’t you want it?”
“It’s complicated,” I wanted to tell her the reason, but frankly, I didn’t know how to start.
“You’re telling me that you are a rich billionaire who is living in the woods with a beat-up old pickup truck and a hound dog?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“What’s the big deal?” Her voice was louder now. “I mean, why the name change? Why not just be a reclusive billionaire? Why are you hiding here?”
“Emma, I killed my parents.”
She pursed her lips and then bit her bottom lip. “What do you mean, you killed your parents? Like murder?”
I flipped through to the picture with me and my dad in front of my Ferrari. “This was one of the happiest days of my life. I know that sounds petty and materialistic, but ever since I was a kid, I dreamt of being a race car driver. I had pictures of cars all over my walls, and this one, this was a classic.”
Emma took the picture from my hands, “It looks like the car from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
“It is,” I smiled.
“Look at your smile.” She ran her fingertip over the photo and pulled it closer to her face examining it. “And the car looks exactly like the one from the movie.”
I took the picture from her, “Emma, it IS the car from the movie.”
“Oh,” she whispered. “Wow.”
There was a pause between us that lingered into awkward territory. She wasn’t asking any questions; she was leaving it up to me to spill my guts.
“Emma, I loved my dad, but it was my mom who raised us. Dad made up for his absenteeism by buying us stuff. My mom was there.”
“She was beautiful,” Emma whispered.
“She was a beautiful person, inside and out,” I smiled, remembering how my mom made all of my birthday cakes from scratch, even when we had a pastry chef on staff. How she read to me and Liam every night before bed until we were too cool to snuggle with our mom. “Like you, Emma. You’re stunning on the outside and you’re beautiful on the inside.” I rested my hand on her chest, starting to worry that these might be the last few touches I was going to get.
She rested her hand on mine. “Jack,” she shook her head, “I mean, Chase, you don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do.” I held her hand in my lap. “I have to tell you this story because the truth is...”
I let go of her hands and ran my hand through my hair. “Emma, I love you.”
She inhaled sharply. “I know it’s crazy, but I need you to remember that when you think of me.”
“Stop,” she ordered. I bristled at her cold voice. Not exactly the tone you hope to hear after declaring your love to someone. She looked up at me, her eyes shimmering with tears. “Whatever you did, it doesn’t matter.”
“Yes,” I whispered. “It does.”
“Listen to me, Chase.” She crossed her legs and leaned forward, placing her hands on my knees. “It doesn’t matter, because...” her voice trailed off and when she looked up at me tears were streaming from her eyes, “because, I love you too,” she whispered.
My heart swelled inside my chest and a wave of emotion overtook my body. I leaned in closer to Emma and rested my hands on her shoulders while I kissed the salty tears from her face. “You are an incredible woman, Emma.”
“No, I’m not. She grabbed onto my wrists and
pulled my hands down into her lap. “I have something to tell you too.”
I couldn’t let her continue without revealing the whole truth. I placed my fingertip on her lips. “And I can’t wait to hear it, but I need for you to hear this first.” My hands were trembling, and Emma nodded.
“On the day that my family died, I found out two things that shattered my world. Both were about my father.” Even though he was dead, the tightness in my chest was exactly the same burning anger I felt ten years earlier. “He was a shrewd businessman who didn’t care who or what he ruined, as long as he made money. As far as I’m concerned all of the funds that are sitting there waiting for me... it’s dirty money. Maybe not illegal dirty, but,” I shrugged, “Actually, some of it probably is.”
“Living out here is your protest against how your family made its fortune?”
“Kind of, I guess.” But I knew that didn’t explain everything. “I also found out that my dad was cheating on my mom. He had been for years.”
“I remember hearing those rumors,” Emma whispered.
I couldn’t help but laugh, “Who hadn’t” I took a deep breath and prepared to tell a story that I had planned to keep locked up in its cave of shame forever. “He had another family.”
“What?” Emma’s eyes widened and she leaned in towards me, her first visceral response to anything I had told her.
“Yep.” I squeeze my eyes together tightly, trying to rid the image of seeing the photos of the twin boys, only a few years younger than me, standing in front of their matching Alfa Romeos. “I found a picture of him with them, and when I confronted him – he admitted it.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Yeah, that day will forever be etched in my brain.”
“What about your mom?”
“She knew,” I whispered. “I couldn’t fucking believe it, but she knew, and she didn’t leave him.” I shook my head. “Emma, what you have to understand about that day, is that I was full of conflicting emotions... Well, that’s a lie,” I laughed sadly, “I was full of anger. Of course, I was pissed at my dad, but my mom, how could she put up with that?”
Emma held my hands, “Maybe she had to?”
I knew that Emma was trying to be helpful, but still, after all these years, I couldn’t understand why my mom would put up with that. “Maybe,” I sighed. “Ten years later, I still can’t make sense of it.” I squeezed my eyes shut tightly, preparing to relive the next part of the story. “I was pissed. My dad had treated my mom like shit; had two other sons that, in my teenage mind, he loved just as much, or more than me, and my mom, my strong beautiful mother, was a doormat.”
“Hey,” Emma whispered. “Don’t you think that’s a bit harsh when you don’t know all the details?”
“No.” I snapped. “Sorry,” I relaxed my shoulders. “He had been a philanderer for years and she put up with it. Probably for the money. It disgusted me. She disgusted me.” Telling the story was bringing back the conflicting emotions I had felt. I was devastated at the loss of my parents, but in their final hours, the perfect family illusion had been shattered. “My whole life had been a lie, or at least that’s how I saw it back then.” I paused.
“What happened next?” Emma shifted on the bed, but her eyes never left their hold with mine.
“I found that photo and confronted my dad like I already told you. My mom and his assistant were waiting in the car to go somewhere, I can’t remember where, and I threatened to expose his perfect little family. That’s when he told me that my mom knew. I flew into a rage and threatened to expose their dirty little secret to the press.”
“What did your father do?”
“Hah!” My shoulders shook as I recalled the scene. “He offered to buy me another car to keep quiet. Can you believe it?”
“Wow.” Emma shook her head. “And did you...”
“No,” I interrupted. “Of course not. I was a spoiled little shit, but this secret family stuff... that was another level.”
“I told him to shove the car up his ass.”
Emma smiled. “How did that go over?”
“My dad was surprisingly calm. He had leaned against his desk, his arms across his chest. And then he told me that if I told anyone, he would disown me and cut me out of the will.”
“No,” Emma gasped. “Really?”
“Mmmhmm. He was ready to just throw me away.”
“Chase, I’m sure he was caught up in the moment too. I doubt that he really meant it.”
I would never know if he meant it or not. “I grabbed the picture from his hand and told him that I was going to tell Liam. That’s when he lost it. Liam was his pride and joy. He looked just like my dad and was being groomed to be his little protégé.”
“A mini-Bruce Titan.”
“Exactly.” I raised my eyebrows at her. “You’ve heard of him?”
She lowered her gaze, “I think I remember hearing the stories,” she stammered. “What happened next?” she asked quickly.
My hands were trembling, and I rubbed them on my thighs to try to blot up the sweat. “He hit me.” I reached up to my cheek, the sting from the first full fisted punch from my dad lodged forever deep in my jawbone. “Hard.” I rubbed my beard over my jaw.
“Did you hit him back?”
“I wanted to. I wanted to kill him.” The man who stood in front of me in his office, that wasn’t my dad, he was a stranger. I stood there seething, opening and closing my hands, balling them into tight fists. I could have killed him, I was already bigger than my dad, years of rugby had filled out my frame. “But I didn’t. I snatched the picture from him. I was going to find Liam and tell him who his beloved father really was.”
Emma’s eyes were wide. She was hanging onto my every word at this point.
“He chased me out of the house.”
“Were you afraid of him?”
“Looking back, maybe I was, but at the time, I just wanted to get the hell out of there. I don’t think I would’ve told the newspapers, but I was definitely going to tell Liam. He had a right to know.”
“Did he catch you?”
The woman was a reporter through and through. I was thankful for her questions. They were helping me get through verbalizing an experience I never thought I’d speak of again. “No. I took off in my Ferrari, hell-bent on finding Liam.”
“And did you?”
“Just hold on a minute. There’s more.” I took a deep breath. “That asshole hopped in the Rolls Royce with my mom and her assistant and chased me.”
“Oh, my God!”
“He was honking the horn and right up my ass. I tried to lose him, but I couldn’t shake him.”
“Even in a Ferrari?”
It was a fair question for someone who didn’t know cars. “That Rolls Royce was a one-off. It was just as powerful. “The road from our house was winding, so it’s not like I could get the car going faster than one hundred.”
“Geez. You were going that fast?”
“Emma, I was full of rage. All I wanted to do was get away from him. He was driving just as fast. He was a car guy too. We had both spent time on racetracks. He had skills, better than mine. It shouldn’t have happened.” I stopped. I didn’t know if I could continue.
“What shouldn’t have happened, Chase?”
“The big corner in the road.” I looked up at the ceiling, surprised by the tears welling up in my eyes. I cleared my throat and squeezed my eyes shut, pressing my thumb and forefinger into the sockets to stop the flow of emotion. “He knew the road; he knew that car.” I looked at Emma and took another breath. “He crashed into the guardrail so hard that they went through it. It wasn’t the metal kind; you know the kind with the wires...” She nodded. “There was a cliff there.” It couldn’t stop them. “Oh, God.” I pressed my fingers to my eyes again, but the tears slipped by. “I killed my family.” And then, not only were there tears falling down my face, but I released one loud, uncontrolled guttural sob.
Emma knelt and wrappe
d her arms around my shoulders. My body was shaking violently with my effort to hold in the emotions that had been building over the years. “You can’t blame yourself for that.”
“If I hadn’t taken off that day, they wouldn’t have been driving like that.” My voice shook and I pulled out from Emma’s embrace. “It is my fault and I’m not the only one who feels that way. Everyone blamed me. Liam, my grandmother, and even...” Another sob caught me off guard, “Sadie, the daughter of my dad’s assistant. She was practically a sister to me.”
“But, Chase,” Her small hands were surprisingly strong as they gripped my arms. “Did you tell them why you took off? What you found out?”
“How could I? They were dead, Emma. How could I ruin their names with a scandal like that?”
“But your brother?” she prodded.
“I’d rather he hate me than learn what I learned that day.” I brushed the wetness from my eyes. “But it still doesn’t change the fact that if I hadn’t been driving like a maniac, they’d all be alive today.”
She was rubbing my shoulders now. “That’s why you live out here like this?”
“A self-imposed solitary confinement,” I sniffed. “That’s how I looked at it in the beginning. I had to get away from the guilt, but I also wanted to get as far away from my dad’s lifestyle as possible. The money, the women, the lies. I just, I couldn’t take it anymore.”
Prickles hopped up on the bed and walked in between Emma and me, rubbing each of our chins with her face. “But I grew to love it out here. This is where I’m meant to be.”
“But why the hiding? Why the name change?”
I sighed. “I just wanted to forget who I was. I knew that they would come looking for me and I didn’t want to be found. It’s as simple as that.”
“It’s sad,” she whispered.
“No, it’s not sad. It’s better this way. I’m happy here, Emma.”
“Are you?” she whispered.
“Maybe a little lonely,” I admitted and tucked the strand of hair that had escaped from her ponytail behind her ear.