Page 41 of My Sweetest Obsession
And there were so many things I wished I’d said as she walked away from me on the beach, but I knew none of them would change anything for her—or me.
All saying them would have done is make me seem desperate.
Because I am.
I’m desperate to go back to that night four years ago and do it all over again so fucking differently. I’m desperate to go back to that night months ago and change everything I said to Drew. Instead of threatening to reveal the truth to Ivy, I would congratulate him and drop to my knees to beg his forgiveness. I’m desperate to take Ivy’s pain away…
As if that’s even possible.
There have been so many things I’ve deluded myself about, but that isn’t one of them.
But it doesn’t mean I won’t do anything I can to make it better for her.
Even if it means facing the same anger she threw at me on that beach, which might very well happen tonight.
I’ve walked through this front door so many times over the last few months—uninvited, then welcomed as a friend, as a lover, then uninvited again…yet she hasn’t asked me to stop.
It would be easy for her to ask Mom to tell me to stop, or even to reach out herself and demand I stop intruding into her home and her life. To stop with the meals and the notes about the baby. To stop coming in when I know she’s gone, like a thief in the night trying to get away with something he knows he shouldn’t be doing. But she hasn’t.
And that’s the only thing that gives me any glimmer of hope where Ivy is concerned.
When everything else, including her own words, warns me to stay away, I keep coming back, moving toward that dim light at the end of the vast dark tunnel, hoping that one day, I might finally step into it and be able to embrace something besides this anguish we both seem to be lost in.
And that’s what worries me most tonight—that she’s lost somewhere no one can reach her and doesn’t want to be found.
Because she should be at the shop right now.
She should be busy with Marlo and Trina working on the flowers for the wedding tomorrow.
She should be surrounded by people who love her and support her.
But she chose to come here.
To this dark house.
Alone.
Just like she chose to go to the shore alone rather than asking Marlo or Mom to go with her on a day she knew would be incredibly difficult.
There’s a difference between needing space and wanting some time alone to process things and locking yourself away to wallow and waste away.
And I can’t allow the latter to happen to Ivy.
I promised Drew I would take care of her and the baby, and that is one promise I will never break, even if it breaks me.
Balancing what I brought for her in my left arm, I pull out the key and slip it in, then unlock the door. I hesitate for a moment before pushing it open. That hint of reservation about whether I should be intruding when she made it very clear she doesn’t want me to is enough to make me reconsider what I’m about to do.
But I’ve never been good at self-preservation or doing things that are in my own best interest.
That’s always been my downfall and what has led to just about every shitty decision I’ve ever made.
Which is why I open the door and enter the home Ivy shared with Drew for the first time in months when Ivy is also here.
Her scent overwhelms me immediately, like blossoming flowers in the spring, despite the fact that nothing truly feels alive in this house. The darkness envelops me, everything still and quiet. I inhale deeply, drawing what I can of her into my lungs since there’s a very good chance she is going to kick me out as soon as she realizes I’m here.
I tighten my grip on the items in my left hand and tucked into my elbow before I close the door behind me. Silence lingers as I make my way to the kitchen and place the bag with her dinner into the fridge. I pause for a moment, waiting and listening, but there still isn’t any sign of where she might be.
Unease settles in my stomach, and I take the other item I brought for her and set it on the small end table beside the couch next to the photo of her with Drew at the shore the day he proposed.
