“It’s bare in here,” I declared. “Like my insides. Scraped out. Gutted.” I pivoted to see her reaction.
“I know. I’m sorry,” she said wrapping her arms around herself.
Sorry? I was empty. I was hollow, and she was just sorry?
“I don’t know how you manage that—that—that ice queen bit of yours, but lucky you. It’s sexy as fuck, how you don’t have feelings.”
“I have feelings. This is killing me.” She said it so quietly it was almost a whisper.
It didn’t matter what she said. What she’d done erased anything else, so I pretended I didn’t hear her. “It will come in handy when you’re ruling your empire. Not having to care about anyone else. Your father seemed to have that figured out. You really are daddy’s little girl, aren’t you?”
“Fuck you.” Her hands were fists now at her sides, her entire body trembling with rage. And with pain, probably.
Good.
I needed to see her hurt. I needed to see her devastated. Like I was.
“You did fuck me. You did.” I spun around to take another look at the stark surroundings and tripped on the edge of the couch.
“Are you drunk?” she asked behind me, the sentence lilting in that way that said my actions might be forgivable if I were.
I shrugged. “Sobering up.” I ran my hand along the arm of the couch, realizing she was likely getting rid of it. That I also had to make my goodbyes with her belongings and the memories they held. I wouldn’t even be able to picture her somewhere far away remembering us when she sat on her sofa or curled up in her bed. She was erasing our entire life together.
“What’s going to happen to all this stuff?”
“My personal belongings have already been shipped. Everything that’s left is going to be sold or donated.” She paused, and I had to give her credit—she was being really patient with me, considering. “Is there anything here you want?”
“You.” I twisted to see her response. The deep frown and the creases in her expression, signs she was on the edge of tears, was almost worth it.
“Weston, you should go,” she was nearly begging. “This is only making us both miserable.”
I stepped—stumbled, maybe—toward her. She backed up. I took another step, steadier this time. She backed up again, hitting the wall behind her. I stopped, a foot in front of her, pleased with how she cowered under my size and dominating posture.
“Tell me you don’t love me,” I demanded, studying her eyes and her lips.
“I told you I wouldn’t say that.”
“Tell me it won’t feel like a hundred razor blades cutting into you every morning to wake up without me next to you.”
She tilted her chin up slightly. “Tell me it won’t slice away a piece of your heart every day that you don’t get to see Sebastian.”
She had me there.
“Look me in the eye, Weston, and tell me a handful of stolen moments every month is going to be enough for you with him. With your parents.”
I almost lied to her. Because there was a part of me that believed it could be enough. That seeing my kid’s face a few hours a day for five days before disappearing again would be plenty.
But the reality was I was already struggling to catch up from my two-week honeymoon at my job. Balancing work and cross-country and intercontinental flights seemed exhaustingly hopeless when I tried to picture it. And after only seeing Sebastian on two occasions, I already missed him like he was a piece of myself that I’d left behind. I supposed he was.
But so was she.
And I was just as hollow inside at the thought of how much I was going to miss her.
It was madness. Fucking impossible. I wanted it all, and not because I was an ambitious guy—that had never been me—but because I loved too much. I’d never imagined that as my destiny. An ironic ending for a player like me.
Maybe it was better to ice it over like Elizabeth, to go numb, but right now I resented her for being able to shut me out. Resented that she could put up barbed fences and stone walls and live safely alone inside her encampment.
I wanted back in.
I inched closer, careful not to touch her. I studied every feature of her face, every tiny freckle, every tiny pore, features I’d already memorized a thousand times over. My eyes traced down the length of her lashes, past the swollen bags under her eyes, along the slope of her nose to the curve of her lips, down her chin and jaw to her neck where I could see her swallow. I lingered at the neckline of her nightgown, silently cursing its presence for obstructing the view of her beautiful, gorgeous form.
“Take it off,” I ordered, wanting it gone, wanting there to be no barriers between us, no oceans, no walls, no flimsy silk material.
“Weston…” She trailed off. She didn’t say no.
“I said, take it off.”
Her hands moved up to push the spaghetti-thin straps from first one shoulder, then the other. She had to shimmy to get it to fall past her breasts, but a few seconds later it was pooled at her feet.
Her chest rose and fell more quickly now, her nipples perked up as though reaching for me. As though begging for my tongue to lave along their peaks, to ease their ache.
I wanted to touch her, to cup her breasts, to squeeze them and fill my palms with them, wanted to hear her moan and gasp and give her relief.
But she’d said she wasn’t mine anymore.
So I kept my hands at my sides, and trailed my gaze down further past the swell of her abdomen to the band of her silk white panties.
“Take them off,” I said nodding to them.
She didn’t hesitate this time, pulling her panties down her long, slim legs, then kicking them and the nightie aside before standing up to her full height.
I stared at the V between her thighs, the sacred cave I’d buried myself in so many times. There was a glint of moisture along her folds—she was wet. Just from my eyes. Just from my proximity.
How could she really say she could live without me? Without me with her? In her?
I placed my palms on the wall at either side of her head, and her breath hitched.
“Undo my buckle. Undo my pants.”
Her eyes were sad and dilated, but her hands began the work immediately, quickly loosening my buckle and unzipping my pants, then pulling down my briefs to expose the rigid steel underneath. See? I had sobered up.
I slid my hands down, and grabbed her under her thighs, the touch of her skin searing my palms as I hoisted her up around my waist, trapping my cock between us. Using the wall I pushed her high and tilted my hips so that my crown was pointed right at her entrance, so that I could thrust right in, but I didn’t do it.
“Put my cock inside you,” I told her.
“What?” Her voice was shaking with need.
“Put my cock inside you, Elizabeth. Put me inside you.”
Her small hands came to circle around my dick, she angled me the way she needed, then pushed her hips forward, filling herself entirely.
Bright lights smeared across my vision, warmth shot through my body, and I had to force myself to breathe in order not to come right then. She felt so good, warm and tight like sex but also like home. She felt like the warm, tight security of home.
I hugged her closer to me, kissed her face—her jaw, her lips, her chin. Kissed her mouth as I moved in her, frantically trying to plant myself as deep inside her as possible. So deep that she could never get rid of me.
I took each whimper and moan from her, swallowed them into my own body, absorbed her sounds and scent and taste. And when she came, my cock vice-gripped by her pussy, I continued to plunge in and in and in. She could push me out all she wanted, try and try, and I would come right back. And I would stay.
I would stay.
I was sure I muttered that as I ground out my own orgasm, bucking into her with a fierceness that I’d never before used on her body. Shooting stars of light and pleasure exploded through me, and I was almost certain that I was putting every bi
t of my soul inside her with my semen as I rode out my climax.
But then it was over, and the adrenaline and the hormones settled. And I realized I was still a little drunk, and we were still just Elizabeth and Weston. I still had my soul inside me. It was dwelling right alongside my broken heart.
I set her down, hoping that this had changed something, afraid that it hadn’t.
“Don’t go,” I said selfishly. Because even I couldn’t pretend anymore that I was going to be happy dividing my life between France and New York. “This proves we belong together. That we shouldn’t be apart. So don’t go.”
She sighed as she leaned down to gather her clothes. “The only thing this proves is that I know how to spread my legs.”
She really was an ice queen. I’d always known she was royalty.
I stepped backwards in a daze as I put myself away, not quite sure what to do next.
Of course she knew.
“This isn’t mine,” she said taking the engagement ring off her finger. She came to me, turned my hand over, and set it in my palm. “You can keep your wedding band. I don’t want it back.”
She’d paid for the wedding bands. What was I supposed to do with mine now?
Obviously I was going to keep it forever.
I looked down at the engagement ring in my hand. “This is Donovan’s, actually,” I said, my head foggy.
“Then give it to Donovan.” She pulled her nightie over her head, replacing the barrier between us. “You’ll be happy together.”
With her panties in her hand she turned on her heel and headed toward her bedroom. Over her shoulder she called, “Turn the lights off when you leave, please.”
She went into her bedroom, and for the second time that day, she shut the door between us.
19
Elizabeth
Even after walking into the lobby, waiting for an elevator, and taking it all the way up to my mother’s floor, I still felt as cold as I was when I was outside. It wasn’t even a particularly chilly day, but my fingers and toes felt numb. And no matter what I did, I couldn’t get warm.
Come to think of it, I hadn’t really felt warm since I’d left Weston’s office the day before. Even a hot bath and the strange goodbye sex had done very little to ease my chill. Was this just how I was now? Permanently cold? Ice through and through? Dead inside?
I wouldn’t mind so much if I were really dead inside. If it didn’t feel like my chest was being stretched and pulled like taffy at the same time.
Crying didn’t help. Sleeping didn’t help—I hadn’t slept well as it was. I’d tossed and turned all night, missing Weston’s body next to me, feeling alone in a deserted bed much too big for one person. I was sure that flying across an ocean wasn’t going to help either, but it was next on the agenda, after saying goodbye to my mother.
It took me a few minutes to find her in her apartment. I’d checked all the usual places before sticking my head into the barely used office.
“What are you doing in here?” I asked, as I pushed through the French doors.
She was out of place behind the giant redwood desk. My mother was not the type to do any work that required a flat surface. My mother wasn’t the type to do any work period.
She looked up from what she was doing and smiled brightly. “I’m signing checks!”
“You don’t have people for that?” I walked deeper into the room, still perplexed by this image of my mother.
She turned the page in her book of checks and went to the next entry, which had already been filled out for her—all except for the signature. “I have people for everything but this. You should always sign your own checks. Oprah says so.” She signed another one in a big flourish of cursive handwriting then paused to admire it. “I like doing it. It makes me feel like a celebrity. Signing my autograph over and over again.”
I laughed. My mother.
She signed a couple more, then shut the book and turned to face me. “How are you feeling today?” she asked, her elbows propped on the desk.
I’d called her, of course, after I’d left Weston’s office, and I’d told her everything. And I’d cried, because somehow mothers made it easy to let the tears out. She’d understood and supported me. Was proud of me, in fact. I hadn’t told her about his later visit, and I didn’t see the need to. It hadn’t changed anything, though I was sure she’d understand it too.
I ambled in and sat on the edge of the desk, facing her. “Okay, I guess. Tired.” I shrugged in case she wanted more of an answer. I didn’t have one to give.
“You can sleep on the plane today. You’re still meeting with Darrell tomorrow?”
“Friday.”
“Good. It will give you a day to recover. Maybe the swelling in your face will go down by then.” She reached up to touch the tender skin underneath my eyes; I batted her hand away.
“Mom,” I groaned.
“Wear an ice mask as much as possible. And remind me to give you my cream. It will help.” She really was genuinely trying to be helpful.
“Maybe I don’t want the help,” I said, pouting. “Maybe I like the souvenir.” Something to prove to the outside world that my heart was breaking inside.
“Sure. If that’s what you’d like.” She patted my hand and sat back and looked at me with an inquisitive eye. “Are you really taking Clarence Sheridan with you?”
“You don’t think I should?”
“I don’t think you need to.”
“That’s sweet, Mom.” It was hard not to laugh. She thought I was Wonder Woman sometimes, that I could do anything. “But even though I know things now, I still don’t have any experience. I’m not going to fuck this up by going in green.”
“You’re trying to be wise. I get it. But Clarence isn’t any older than you. Have you looked at his credentials? Does he really know a lot more than you? Is he going as an advisor or a security blanket?”
Hmm. Well.
I hadn’t really thought about that. I’d just assumed everybody had more experience than I did. And Clarence had been so eager to do anything I asked.
“If you need an advisor,” my mother went on, “hire a real advisor. You don’t need anyone to help you stand on your own two feet. That’s what was stupid about your father and his will in the first place—it showed he didn’t value you. You all on your own. Don’t make the same mistake he did.” She pushed her chair back and stood. “Think about it.”
“I…will.” It was a lot to chew on for some reason. Even though she hadn’t said very much, it felt like her words had a lot of meat.
“And Elizabeth,” she added, “if you are still miserable when you get over there, then turn back around and come be with Weston.”
“Mom!”
“What?”
“You’re the one who said to let him go!” Who was this woman? Giving me one line of advice one day and steering me in another direction the next. She had me twisting and turning and chasing my tail.
“I want you to be happy!” she said as though that explained everything. “That’s all. And if this doesn’t make you happy, and Weston does, it’s okay to change your mind.”
I blew out a puff of frustrated air. “You drive me crazy.”
“Well, now I’m going to have to drive you crazy on FaceTime.” She put her hand up to bop my nose. I grabbed it and held onto it so that when I jumped off the desk I could easily pull her in for a hug.
“I love you,” I said into her neck. I held her for a long time, hugging her tighter than I usually did, letting her hold me tighter than I usually did.
For the first time that I could remember, she was the first to let go.
“You’ve given me a lot to think about, Mom. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, and I love you too.” She circled around me and started to walk around the desk. I turned around, meaning to follow her, but stopped to run my hand across the redwood surface, remembering all my years that I’d spent doing homework sitting in that very spot. I’d moved out
of my mother’s apartment years ago, but I’d still been nearby. Leaving the country was the first time I really felt like I was leaving home.
“You want me to have it sent to you?” she asked.
I looked up. “What? The desk?” I hadn’t been considering it. But now that she’d mentioned it… “It was Daddy’s.”
“Once upon a time. I think you’ve used it more over your lifetime than he did over his.” She fiddled with her earring while she talked. “When he first moved out, you used to sit there for hours. You were so little. The desk was so big in comparison, it practically swallowed you up. I think you were waiting for him to come back.”
Always waiting for him. How much of my life had I spent waiting for him?
“Do you remember that?”
“Sort of.” It was vague. I’d been really young when he’d left and all the memories after blended together. “I used to write him letters. A ton of them. And I begged you to send them as soon as I’d finished.”
“I did, too. I was very good about that. You told him everything in those notes to him. Don’t think I didn’t read them before I put them in the mail.”
Thank God I started mailing them myself when I got older. Half the things I wrote to him were complaints about her. They’d almost been more of a diary than for him. “He never wrote back. I wonder if he even read them. Probably not. I don’t even know why I kept writing them. I guess it made me feel close to him somehow. Made it feel like it wasn’t my fault. At least I was making an effort even if he wasn’t. You know?”
She gave me a sympathetic frown, one that said I feel bad because you feel bad. “I’m sorry he couldn’t be the man you wanted him to be, sweetie. He disappointed me a lot too. But he made you! So I’ve always been fond of him for that.”
I guess he had done that. And not just biologically. In so many ways I wouldn’t be who I was if it weren’t for him—for the person he’d been to me.
“Is it time for you to go yet?” she asked.
I looked up at the clock on the wall, an antique with a cuckoo that ticked audibly. “Almost. I’m just going to make sure I got everything I wanted out of here first.”