Page 77 of The Wexley Inn
“I’ve been observing people for seventy-five years. You learn to recognize patterns. Listen, I think you’ve probably been on the run your whole life, especially after Thomas left you. You didn’t get any explanation or anything, and I’m sure that shook you to your core. That’s why you never stay long enough to build roots. Roots make you vulnerable.”
“Like you said, Thomas left me once. Thirty years ago. Just left. No explanation, really, no closure. And even though he apologized and explained, he did the same thing again this week. He made decisions without me and treated me like I couldn’t handle the truth. So why should I trust him not to leave again?”
“Because he ain’t leaving, child. He’s standing right there, right here in this inn every day, working himself half to death because he can’t fix what he broke and he doesn’t know what else to do.” Luella leaned forward. “You’re already gone, aren’t you? You’re physically here, but emotionally, you’ve got one foot out the door, protecting yourself and not committing fully. It’s just another way of running.”
“Then I guess I don’t know how to stop,” Isabella said.
“You choose. You stop by choosing to stay even when you’re scared. You stop by telling him the truth, that you’re terrified, but you want to try anyway. You stop by actually committing instead of thinking of ways to leave.” Luella stood. “Love ain’t safe, honey. Real love requires risk in everything. The question is whether you’re brave enough to take that risk or if you’re going to let fear make you leave before anyone can hurt you. Then you’re going to spend your whole life alone.”
After Luella left, Isabella sat in the kitchen for a long time, thinking about whether or not she actually had the courage to stay and stick it out.
CHAPTER 20
Isabella spent Saturday morning with Daphne doing a final walk-through. The Christmas decorations were being delivered on Monday. Of course, it was period-appropriate greenery, some simple candles, and elegant touches that would make the inn feel festive without overwhelming it.
“Everything looks perfect,” Daphne said, checking off the items on her tablet. “The opening is going to be amazing.”
“If there still is an opening,” Isabella murmured, still wallowing in her sadness.
“Oh my goodness, there will be.” Daphne’s voice was firm. “You and Thomas will figure this out. Even if you don’t, even if you end up hating each other, this inn is still going to succeed because you’re brilliant at what you do, and this place is extraordinary.”
By evening, the workers had all left, and the inn stood quiet. Isabella waited in the library, the room where so much of their partnership had been built. Watching through the window as Thomas’s truck pulled into the driveway, she rehearsed what she wanted to say a dozen times, but as she watched him walk toward the entrance, all her prepared words evaporated.
He looked terrible - drawn, exhausted, older than he had just days ago - but when he saw her through the window, his expression shifted into something that looked terrified and hopeful all at once. This was it. This was the conversation that would either save them or wreck them.
Isabella took a deep breath and went to open the door.
Thomas stood in the doorway of the library. For a moment, neither of them moved. They just looked at each other across the space.
“Hey,” Isabella said finally, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Hey.” He stepped inside and closed the door. “Thanks for agreeing to talk.”
“I almost didn’t. I’m still so angry with you, Thomas, and I feel hurt and confused. I don’t know how we could ever come back from this.”
“I know.” He moved to the window and looked out at the grounds. “I’ve spent the past five days thinking about why I did what I did, and not the surface reason of protecting you, and helping you, and using my connections, but the real reason.”
Isabella waited, her heart pounding.
He turned to face her. “I’m terrified of being helpless. I have been that way my whole life, ever since my father’s crisis at least. When his business collapsed, and he faced bankruptcy - and potentially jail time - I felt powerless. I was twenty-two years old, you know, about to graduate, planning a future with you, and suddenly everything was falling apart, and I couldn’t fix it.”
He sat in one of the leather chairs. “Sarah’s family offered me one way to fix it, a terrible way that cost me you, but a way, and I took that because doing something - even something that destroyed my own happiness - felt better than doing nothing, felt better than being helpless.”
She remained standing, listening.
“Then Sarah got sick, and I spent seven years watching her decline, trying everything, controlling every aspect of her treatment and Emma’s care in our household, and desperately believing that if I just managed it all perfectly, I could keep her alive, but I couldn’t. She died anyway. I felt helpless all over again. That soul-crushing terror of watching someone you love suffer, and then being unable to fix it.”
“Thomas—”
“Please, let me finish.” He looked up at her. “I’ve spent fifteen years since then being with Emma alone, building my business, helping clients, serving on boards, and through all of it, I’ve been doing the same thing - controlling the outcomes, managing situations, making decisions for other people. Because at least then I’m doing something, and I’m not helpless.”
He stood and paced to the bookshelf, tracing his fingers along the restored wood.
“Then you came back into my life. You - the woman I had loved and lost, whom I’d made decisions for once before - and then Grayson threatened your project, and when you called me scared and asking for help, every instinct I have screamed at me to fix it. Screamed at me to protect you, and to use everything in my power to make it disappear so you didn’t have to suffer through it.”
“So you guaranteed my loan without telling me.”
“So I guaranteed your loan without telling you,” he confirmed. “I told myself I was protecting you from unnecessary stress, that you needed to focus on the opening and not worry about your finances, and that I was being helpful and loving and supportive.”
