Page 86 of The Candlemaker

“Chandler.”

I lifted my head out of my hands, my thoughts and worries making the weight of it like a thousand pounds on my shoulders.

I hadn’t slept well for two whole months. Some of that was because hospitals weren’t known for their hospitality, even for a billionaire, but most was because worry and rest didn’t make good bedfellows. But when I did sleep, it was full of restless, regretful dreams of her. Her sun-spun hair. Her candy lips. Her cinnamon scent. And the fire she’d lit inside me wouldn’t die, no matter how long and hard I tried to tamp it out.

Tom sank into the seat next to me, his face mirroring the ravage I felt on my own. We’d spent the better part of the lasttwo months in these chairs. Waiting. Fearing. Hoping. And fearing again.

“She’s going to be okay.” He placed his hand on my knee. “We’re going to be okay.”

He stared at Mom lying peacefully in the bed as he spoke the words he’d said a thousand times over the last unending weeks. Sometimes, they were for me. Sometimes, they were for himself.

“Yeah,” I agreed because there was no other option. Not for me. Not for her.

I slid my gaze to him, watching his jaw quiver as he nodded, and then a tear rolled down his cheek. He brushed it away with an apology. “I’m sorry?—”

“Don’t,” I urged. Both of us had cried so many times in these seats. Separate. Together.

“No, Chandler.” He shook his head, insisting as his hold on my leg tightened. “I’m sorry I let it go this long. I should’ve told you—we should’ve told you so long ago…I love her,” he confessed brokenly.

I stilled, slowly releasing the breath in my chest when his watery gaze flicked to mine and then back to Mom.

“I’ve loved her for as long as you’ve been alive.”

If I’d had my suspicions before, the last two months had without a doubt revealed the true depth of Tom and Mom’s relationship.

“Tom…” I didn’t know where to start.

“I’m sorry, Chandler.” He wiped another tear away.

“Don’t be sorry,” I said, my voice hoarse. “I know you love her…knew…”

His head turned to me. “You did?” He swallowed. “Did Laura…”

“No.” I shook my head. “I didn’t know—didn’t realizeuntil Frankie—” I broke off with a groan, a sharp pain cracking through my chest like a wound being split back open.

I’d never realized the extent of Mom’s feelings for Tom because I’d extended the blinders for my own life onto hers. Onto theirs. Until Frankie made me want more.

I’m yours.

God, how those words haunted me.

“Chandler.”

Air hissed through my lips. “I’m fine.”

This was the first time I’d said her name in months. I’d thought of her—dreamed of her—in every moment, in all the small spaces between all my massive worries, but I never brought her up.

There were so many reasons we shouldn’t have been together before I left, and now that I had, they’d only multiplied.

“You need to go back to her.”

I flinched like he’d struck me. “I can’t. I left.”

“So—”

“When Mom’s discharged, I have to go back to Boston. We secured that last property from GC Holdings, so it’s finally time to make my play. After all this time, I’m on the brink of destroying his legacy.”

“Oh, Chandler.”

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