“And as for the company…” He laughs harshly. “I barely managed to graduate high school. I was partying hard, screwing around. I wouldn’t come home most nights. My mother couldn’t control me, and after a while, she stopped trying. I turned eighteen, and it was supposed to be all mine, the company—Segal fucking whiskey.”
He looks at me. “Even with the scandal of what happened, it didn’t affect the business. I was the hoping the disgrace would burn the company to the ground, but it didn’t. It made it bigger, popular. Sales increased. That first year after their deaths, sales went up by fifty percent. Apparently, people like a shot of scandal with their whiskey. Fucked up, right?”
He rubs his face, looking frustrated. “I was eighteen years old, and they were trying to get me to run Segal’s under the guidance of the board. I could barely tie my own fucking shoelaces most days. I was a mess. I just wanted out.” He lets out a heavy breath. “I was just a kid. A screwed-up kid. So, I took some money from my trust, enough to see me through. I packed a bag, got in my car, and drove to New York.”
He lets out a miserable sounding sigh. “I ran away. When I arrived in New York, I dropped my surname and became Tom Carter. For the first year, I just bummed around, partied, got high…slept around. Then, one night, I met Denny at a mutual friend’s party. We got to talking about music. He was into it in a big way. I liked him. He was a cool guy. We just clicked, and it had been so long since I’d had a real friend. The friends I’d made in New York were just people to party and get high with. But Den, he was different. We started hanging out, and he made it his mission to get me on the straight.
“Den was in college, so I decided to go, too. I had no clue what I wanted to do, but I’d always loved music. Den was doing a BA in music, but the thick shit was having to repeat the year as he’d flunked out.” He smiles with fondness at the memory.
“I took the same major as Den, but we took a few different classes. I was interested in musical history, whereas Den was interested in composition. He met Jake and Jonny in that composition class. Introduced us, and the rest is history.” He takes a drink of his whiskey. Leaning forward, he puts the glass on the coffee table in front of us.
He comes back to me and takes my hand in his. “I never thought we’d get famous. We were good. I knew that. But how many bands get signed, right? I was having fun with them, and they felt like family. Steady. Something I hadn’t had for a long time. So, when we started to take off, I couldn’t leave. And I thought, correctly, that no one would give a shit about the bassist who likes to screw lots of chicks. No one would be interested in me or where I came from. And if anyone did ever ask about my family in interviews, I would just downplay it. They were interested in Jake and Jonny, and that worked well for me. I got to be with the guys, doing something that I’m good at, and that I love.” He looks at me with tenderness.
“I was happy, Ly. I hadn’t been happy for a long time. Then, things went to shit when Jonny died. I just couldn’t fucking believe it. I thought that was gonna push me over the edge. I couldn’t see straight. Jake and Den weren’t coping. I thought we were gonna fall apart.
“Then, out of the blue, a month after Jonny died, I got a call from Heather. In all my selfishness, I’d just left her behind. I never even said good-bye. I thought about her every day, but I just couldn’t go back. When she called, it was like old times, when we were kids, before everything happened. She asked to see me, and of course, I said yes. I was living in LA by this point, so she flew in the next day. We met up, and after that, she became my lifeline…that was, until you.
“Heather had taken on running the company as CEO. She’d graduated early, gotten her business degree. She was always smart, way smarter than I ever was. To this day, she’s still running Segal’s. And I make sure to see her regularly. She usually comes here to see me ’cause I don’t like to go out to Kentucky if I don’t have to. Every time I see her, I try to sign the company over to her, and every time, she refuses and asks me to come run it with her.” He lets out a soft chuckle. “I let Heather down all those years ago when I left. But I won’t make that mistake with her again.”
“She sounds really great, Tom.”
His eyes meet mine with warmth. “She is. You’re alike in a lot of ways…spunky, argumentative.”
“I’m not argumentative.” I grin.
“Firecracker.” He presses his finger to the tip of my nose.
“And what about…your mother?”
His eyes darken. “Heather sees her. I haven’t seen her or spoken to her since I was eighteen. I can’t forgive her for what she did. If she never had an affair with Joe, then…”
He stops there, and I don’t push it. I, better than anyone, know how hard it is to forgive and forget.
He puffs out a breath. “Ly, what I said to you that day…when I pushed you away, reacted like I did…after you told me you were in love with me…” He shakes his head, regret in his eyes. “Sure, there’s a reason why I’ve lived my life the way I have, using sex to get by, but I also liked my life. It was straightforward. I didn’t have to care about anyone but me. And after my dad, after what happened, why it happened…I promised myself that I would never put myself in that position. I swore to myself that I would never fall in love. I would never give a woman the opportunity to shred me like my mother did to my father.
“I was afraid that if I fell in love, and she broke me the way my mother did with my dad…that I wouldn’t be able to cope, the way he couldn’t…”
He meets my eyes, and I see it there in his. His fear. He doesn’t have to say it out loud.
“So, I kept an emotional distance from women, taking what I wanted, and then walking away. It was easy…until you.” He touches my face, running his fingertips over my cheek, into my hair. “I couldn’t get you out of my head.”
“Still, you pushed me away.”
“I panicked. What you were telling me…deep down, I knew that I felt the same, but I was fighting it. Fear had me fighting it.” He lets out a soft laugh. “You scare the motherfucking shit out of me, Lyla Summers.”
“You scare the motherfucking shit out of me, too, Tom Carter.” I give him an uneasy smile, baring myself to him again. “What I feel for you…I’ve never felt anything like it for anyone ever.”
A light turns off in his eyes, and he removes his hands from my face, leaving me with a cold sense of foreboding.
He sits forward. I follow him.
I let my feet fall to the floor, the hardwood cold against my skin.
“Ly…I want to be with you, and I hope…really hope”—he gives me a nervous look—“that you want to be with me, too—”
“I do,” I say quickly, cutting him off, afraid of where this might be going.
He tips his head to the side. His eyes meeting mine, he stares deep into them. The look in his greens makes my stomach sink.
“I’ve always been straight with you. Apart from the stuff about my family, I’ve never lied to you, and that won’t change now.”
My heart starts to beat hard in my chest.
“I can’t ask you to start something with me if you don’t know all the facts.”
My hands are shaking.
“After I left you that day…I made a mistake.”
A Heartbeat Later—Tom’s House, LA
No. No. No.
The room starts spinning. Shakily, I get to my feet. I edge around the coffee table, putting it between us.
“You’ve been with someone else,” I choke the words out.
He gets to his feet. “No. Yes.”
“Oh God.” I cover my face with my hands.
Suddenly, he’s here, his hands on mine, pulling them from my face. “This isn’t what you think. I didn’t—”
“It never fucking is with you!” I stagger back, shoving him away. “I’m sorry for you. Sorry for what happened to you, how you lost your family, but I can’t take this.” I’m edging away from him. “I can’t do this. I’m not stupid. I know
who you are. I knew there was a big possibility that you slept with other women these last two weeks, but to know that you were with someone straight after you left me there on the sidewalk in front of my apartment…” I clutch a hand to the pain tearing open my stomach. “After what we’d done hours before…I let you have sex with me there…I let you—” I cut off, the memory of him moving inside that intimate, private place, now sullied by his confession.
My gaze slices to his, my eyes swimming with tears. I can see the fear and remorse on his face.
“That was important to me.” My whispered voice breaks. “What we did…I gave that to you because I trusted you, and to now know that hours later you went out and had sex with someone else…” A sob breaks from me. Tears are carelessly dripping down my cheeks. I move toward the door. “We might not have been together at the time, but it feels like a betrayal.” I swipe at my face angrily.
Tom strides over to me, taking me by the shoulders, and I don’t have the energy to fight him off.
“I didn’t have sex with her. I haven’t had sex with anyone since you.” He’s breathing heavily. “No one since you, I swear. I went to that bar, thinking if I had sex with someone, it would fix me, put my life back the way it was before you. I was feeling too much for you. I was scared. I panicked, so I reacted in the only way I knew how. I thought going back to my old ways would fix it.”
I wrap my arms around myself. “Who was she?”
He shakes his head slowly. “I don’t know. Just some woman in a bar.”
“You didn’t have sex with her. So, what did you do?”
Why am I asking this? Do I really want to know? Will it make any of this better?
No.
But the sadistic part of me needs to hear this.
Tom stares at me, indecision in his eyes. I can see pain tearing at his features.
“Lyla…you don’t want to hear this.”
But that doesn’t stop me. Any rational in me is gone. I’m pain, blinding pain, and it’s in the driving seat.
“You didn’t fuck her,” I say bitterly. “So, what? Did she get down on her knees and—” I don’t get any further than that. My own words hit me hard, like a blow to the stomach, winding me.
Tom grabs my face, forcing me to look at him. He winces at whatever he sees there. “No one is better than you. Do you hear me? No one. I made a dumb fucking mistake, out of fear, but I couldn’t go through with it because of you.”
His words should soothe, but instead, they ignite my anger like the striking of a match.
“Well, I’m so fucking sorry that I’m getting in the way of you and your whores!” I scream in his face, hitting at his chest.
He doesn’t let me go. “Stop it. I want you in my way all the fucking time.” His voice, like his face, is determined. “I want you here with me every minute of every day. I want you more than I have ever wanted anything in my life. I know I fucked up, and I’m so sorry for that. I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. And you’re right. We weren’t together, but in here, we were.”
He taps chest. “I was trying to get you out by reverting to my old ways. I wasn’t thinking straight. But I’m thinking straight now. Thinking is all I’ve been doing for the past two weeks. Thinking about you and the time we had together. God, I’ve missed you like crazy. These last two weeks without you have been hell. I know it’s been my own doing, but I stayed away because I needed time to figure things out. I needed to be sure that I can be the guy you deserve. A guy who can give all of himself to you. Then, I saw you today, and I realized something.”
My mind has suddenly cleared. My anger is dissipating as I hang on his every word, needing to know what he’s going to say next more than I need my next breath. “What did you realize?”
“I realized that you already have me. You’re it for me.” Taking my face in his hands, he wipes my tears away. “I’m in love with you, Ly. I have been for a long time. It just took me a while to realize it. And when I did, I realized that my fears don’t mean shit anymore. In that moment, staring at you across the street, seeing you standing there, I knew…you kicked me on my ass. In that moment, I knew I would do anything to take away the hurt I caused you. I would give up everything, including myself, for you…because I would rather have a moment of everything with you than a lifetime of nothing.”
Oh my God.
He’s in love with me?
I’m choked with tears, stunned at his confession. “You love me?” I whisper.
He presses his forehead to mine, a smile touching the edges of his lips. “I love you.”
The words whisper over my skin, seeping into my heart, filling it…completing it.
“Ly…” He takes a deep breath. “I know I have no right to ask…but I need to know if you still feel the same. Or have I screwed things up? Have I lost you?”
I close my eyes on a blink. My mind is running at the speed of light. I’m trying to grab on to something, anything…
Anger. Pain. Want. Need.
I could argue and fight this, fight how I feel for him. I could walk away because of a mistake he made when we weren’t together.
Or I can forgive him. Put it behind us and let us start from now.
I’m working toward forgiving Dex for what he did to me. The least I can do is try the same for Tom.
I open my eyes. “I’m in love you, Tom. That doesn’t stop just because you act like a dick.”
He moves his forehead down, his nose moving over my skin, as he breathes me in. “I am a dick.”
“Yeah, you are. The biggest dick ever. And I don’t mean that in a flattering way.”
He lets out a soft chuckle. “So…I haven’t lost you?”
“No, you haven’t lost me.”
“Thank God.” His arms come around me, his face buried in my neck. I feel the relief in his body. I hear it in his breaths.
And that’s when I realize just how much I mean to Tom.
The knowledge soaks into every part of me, warming me.
Lifting his head, he slides his fingers around the nape of my neck and up into my hair. “I’ll make it up to you, I swear,” he whispers the promise over my lips.
“I know.” I press my hand to his face.
“I’m nothing without you, Ly. I just don’t work without you. You’ve broken me.” He smiles. “You are everything to me, and I will spend the rest of my life showing you that you didn’t make the worst mistake of your life by falling in love with a mut like me.”
“You’re not a mut. You’re an ex-mut.”
“An ex-mut. I like it. Makes me sound badass.”
“You’re an idiot.” I laugh, slapping his chest.
“And you’re beautiful.”
Then, his hands are on my ass, and he picks me up off the floor, causing me to squeal in surprise. I wrap my legs around his waist.
“I seriously fucking love you, Lyla Summers.”
“Good, because I seriously fucking love you, Thomas Carter.” I trace my fingers over the stubble on his jaw. “But the beard has gotta go.”
He grins. “Whatever you want, darlin’.”
Then, he kisses me. A breath-stealing, toe-curling kiss. I can feel Tom pouring everything into this kiss…all of himself into this one kiss…showing me with his body how much he really does love me.
“So, it’s been two weeks,” he says, coming up for air. “That’s twenty-eight orgasms I owe you on top of the rest still outstanding.”
I bite my lip in thought. “We don’t have that long. I have to pick up Aunt Steph and Uncle Paul from the airport in a few hours and take them to see Dex.”
“So, we’d better get started.” He carries me over to the sofa, taking us both down to it. He slips his hand up my top. “And I’ll come with you to pick them up. Meet your family.”
He wants to meet my family? This will be a big thing, especially for someone like Tom.
“Are you sure you want to meet my family? It’s not too soon?”
His hand st
ops on its path to my boob. “I already met your brother.”
“And you punched him.”
He gives a slip of a grin. “In my defense, he did deserve to be punched.”
“Yes…he did,” I agree.
“So, can I meet your family if I promise not to punch your uncle?”
“I’m happy for you to meet my family.” I giggle as his fingers whisper over my ribcage, tickling me. “I just don’t want you to feel pressured. Meeting the family is a big thing.”
“Nothing is too big when it comes to you.” His mouth drops to mine, his lips brushing gently over mine. “Don’t you get it yet?”
I slide my arms around his neck, winding my fingers into his hair. My heart is so full of everything…full of him.
“Get what?” I whisper.
His eyes stare deep into mine. “That this is it…you and me…we’re forever. You’re my heaven, Firecracker.”
One Week Later—A Huge House, Littleborough, England
“…the luckiest man in the world to have her here with me right now. I’m even luckier that she agreed to marry my sorry ass.”
I watch on from my seat next to Tom as Jake leans down and kisses his bride.
We’re at Jake and Tru’s house in Littleborough for their wedding reception.
Jake surprised Tru with a wedding at their special place called Lumb Falls here in the UK. It was so romantic and a really beautiful wedding.
When Jake had called Tom to let him know about his upcoming nuptials, I had been with Tom. Tom had told Jake that we were together. I’d heard Jake say to Tom that it was about fucking time.