Chapter 28
J
“What brings you here today?”
I revel in the spooked flicker that appears in her green eyes. She shifts on her seat, knowing that we’re done with the small talk. It has been more than four years since the last time we were alone in a room together, and that evening did not end well.
I rejected her, thinking I was being responsible and right in my actions, and she took it harder than I ever could have expected. She was ready to storm out of the house, fighting me even when I ran after her, literally holding her back by force. It was dark and I knew she had nowhere to go in Newport. She was too drunk to drive and too irritated to be left alone.
It was only after I promised her not to say another word or even look at her that night, that she agreed to stay. My Petal has always been a stubborn girl, so I wasn’t all too surprised when she refused to sleep in any of the guest rooms, but preferred the couch downstairs. I let her, if only reluctantly.
She was gone by the time I came downstairs, leaving a little note with an apology and the promise that she will do her best not to disappoint me.
I feared that she would feel obliged to refuse my generous offer to pay for her college as long as needed, but she was smarter than that. She may have hated me for it, but she understood that I only refused her to make it easier—for both of us.
I was the only one who didn’t let his love for her stop her from doing what she needed to do back then. Despite my pride of her, it almost felt like a slap in the face when she received a scholarship and was no longer dependent on my help, just a few months after she left. I had her to thank for my success and the wealth that came with it, yet she feels like she’s the one owing me. I knew that a big burden was lifted from her shoulders the day she could tell me that my money was no longer needed. My congratulations on the scholarship and her short but friendly reply was the last time we had any contact.
Until a few days ago.
And now she’s sitting in my office, looking lost and nervous, fidgeting with her fingers in her lap as she tries to come up with the right words to tell me the reason for her surprise visit.
“Your business really flourished,” she says, casting me a coy smile. “You seem to be really good at what you do.”
I hold her gaze for a few moments, still waiting for her to come out and say what she wants from me, even though I’m beginning to have a pretty good idea of what it’ll be.
“I’m the only who can do what I do,” I tell her. “That’s why people come here from all over the country to see me. And that’s why they pay as much as they do.”
She nods, pressing her lips together before she continues. “You’re expensive.”
“Very.”
“Too expensive for me, that’s for sure,” she bursts out, followed by nervous laughter.
My chest tightens, as does my hand around the pen I’m holding out of habit, not because I expect to have to write anything down.
I don’t let her see how much her words get to me, how much they stir the desire to tell her everything, breaking an oath and crushing her feeble soul.
“Is that why you’re here?” I want to know, jutting my chin forward. “Because you want to avail yourself of my service?”
She looks caught, her eyes widening as her shoulders move up to her ears.
“What if I were?”
“Then I would ask you why,” I say. “I would ask you what it is that you want to forget. And why you want to forget it.”
She sighs, nodding as she swallows hard.
“Is it that boy?” I probe. “You want to forget about Kade? About the way he treated you when you were ready to sacrifice everything for him?”
I’ve always had a way of giving voice to the uncomfortable truths that most people don’t even dare to think about it, and I usually do it in a way that makes it even more painful than it has to be. I’m a “no bullshit” kind of man, and as it turns out, even my Petal is not safe from my somewhat cruelly honest way of doing things.
But she just shakes her head.
“No, it’s not about him. Well, not only about him. It’s more than that.”
Her eyes find mine, silently pleading, as if I could read her thoughts so she wouldn’t have to say it out loud.
But even if I could, I wouldn’t let her get off the hook that easily. She will have to speak, no matter how hard it is for her.