Chapter 24

Bailey

"What are you doing here on Christmas Day?" Tanner glanced up from the bar and smiled at me. "You had off, remember?"

"Yeah, but I had off at Thanksgiving too. I'm good. Seriously. My whole family is back in Illinois, and my mom and dad actually went to Hawaii to get out of the snow this year." I lifted my hands to the side and looked around. "This place is much better than moping around my empty apartment."

"Alright. Well, if you're going to be here," he smiled, "get your ass in gear."

I nodded, forced a smile and walked to the back. With one manager on duty, I would be playing bartender or waitress, one or the other. The events from the night before washed over me and crippled my resolve to keep my chin up.

Ducking into the employees’ bathroom, I locked the door behind me and dropped down on the toilet. Why did what Jeremy's mother think matter so much to me? She wasn't the one I planned on marrying or having kids with.

A groan left me as I pressed my head into my hands. My heart hurt so bad I thought I might be sick.

I'd left him a fucking note instead of talking to him. What choice did I have?

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I ignored it for a little while, but it finally got on my damn nerves. I assumed it might be Jeremy, but it was Rhys.

"Hey. Where you at? You trying to avoid your only sibling on Christmas? What the hell?" He sounded as full of life as he always did.

"No. I just-" I pursed my lips.

"Bailey? Are you crying?" His voice darkened.

"No. Yes. I don't know." I let out a sob and covered my eyes with my free hand. "Jeremy's mother hates me, and she made sure to let me know last night. I'm just a rebound, Rhys."

"Sis. Listen to me, that woman is evil. She tried to get rid of me and Laila. I promise you that her words are not Jeremy's. He just told me yesterday that he was falling in love with you. Please don't let her tear you guys apart." He let out a long sigh. "You just have to talk to Jeremy and stand up to her. She backs off when she realizes that you're not going anywhere."

"What if I am a rebound though? What if Jer thinks he's in love, but really it's just that he needs to start moving on, and I'm the first woman in sight when he takes that first step?"

"Not the case. I've already walked through all of this with him. He's my best friend. There's no way he would do anything like that to you. You know?"

"No." I sniffled loudly. "I don't know, and you know why?"

"Tell me why, boo."

"Because you don't know that you're dating a rebound until you find someone else more compatible or hot or wealthier that pulls you in an attraction toward them. Maybe he thinks he's falling in love, but when he finds someone better or more like Laila, he's going to walk. I can't do this, Rhys. Not with him. He's the man I've wanted all my life." I sniffled again. "Not a man like him, actually him. I've loved him since I was a little girl. I can't do this."

"Hey! Calm down, or I'm going to get my happy ass on a plane and bust his mouth open for upsetting you on Christmas. Now, take a deep breath."

I breathed in deeply and let out another sob as a fresh wave of tears came. I gave him my virginity, my gift. I handed it over without too much thought because it was him for shit's sake. Jeremy. My Jer. Rhys's Jer.

"Bailey." Rhys paused. "Where are you?"

"In the bathroom at work. I came in because I don't want to sit around my apartment and cry all fucking day. I can't do it." I reached up and wiped my eyes.

Someone knocked at the door, scaring me. "Bailey?"

"I gotta go," I mumbled into the phone. "Tanner, one of the managers, is at the door."

"Get yourself together and call me later. Promise?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I love you, Sis. Merry Christmas."

"You too." I dropped the call, splashed water on my face and opened the door.

Tanner was wide-eyed. "Hey, so there's an older lady in our office waiting for you." He reached out and gripped my shoulder. "You okay?"

"I don't know." I crossed my arms over my chest and walked toward the office. With my luck, Edward's true wife was there to scold me for going to an art even with her pervert of a husband. I could hear her calling me a hussy with each step I took.

Much to my surprise, it wasn't Edward's wife. It was Jeremy's mother.

"Bailey." She glanced up and smiled around me. "Thank you, Tanner. Can you close the door, please?"

"Yes, Ma'am." He closed the door, and I took a few steps back and pressed my back to it.

"It's Christmas," I said with an expressionless face. "Shouldn't you be with your family?"

"I need to apologize."

"I'm not interested. You're wasting your time. The damage is done. I can't unhear or unfeel what you said to me. It's impossible." I shrugged and slipped my hand down into my apron pockets. "Jeremy does deserve better. You were right."

She nodded in a knowing way. "Yes. He deserves a better mother."

Her words surprised me a little. "What?" I asked.

"He deserves a better mother." She sat down on the chair closest to her and looked up at me. "When his father and I were dating, my mother was right in the middle of our relationship, constantly bothering both of us." She snorted and glanced down at her hands. "Henry was never good enough for my family." She looked back up. "We were rich, and he was poor, but they had no idea what a business mogul the man was going to grow to be, but I did."

"Henry was Jeremy's father?" I sat down and pushed my chair back, still wanting as much space as I could get between us.

"Yeah. He was everything to me." She laughed sadly. "I didn't marry him because of money or what I knew he would become." Her eyes filled with tears. "I married him because I fell so deeply in love with him, and to be somewhere without him felt like a funeral of sorts."

I nodded, encouraging her to go on.

"We grew into that love for our entire marriage, and I knew that he was my soul mate." She glanced back down at her hands as her voice broke a little. I'd never seen such a strong woman struggle with her words as I sat there and watched her. "His death was too much to bare." She glanced up as tears streaked down her cheeks.

I couldn't help but cry with her.

"He left us all the money in the world, but he took my heart with him when he went into the ground. There isn't another event in my lifetime that could tear my soul in half the way that day did. Standing at the head of his coffin as people apologized and went back to their lives was the worst day of my entire life."

She wiped her eyes and sniffled. I handed her a tissue.

"I'm so sorry, Ms. Bennett." I took a tissue and wiped at my eyes.

"No, child. I am. I didn't like Laila because she was a wild-ass who was in love with Jeremy and threatened to take him away from me, and in some ways, she did." She cleaned up her face before continuing. "But the day she died, I watched my baby lose his soul too." She sniffled again as a fresh wave of tears slammed into both of us. "He stood at the front of her coffin as people said their ’I’m sorries’, and his face aged, his skin paled, his chest deflated, and I knew-"

She was crying so hard that I was compelled to get up and move over to her. I knelt in front of her and wrapped my arms around her as she shook.

"I know Bailey that he too had died along with Laila. That he too would never fully breath again, just like I haven't since losing my Henry."

I brushed my hand over the back of her head and rubbed her back.

She reached up and wrapped me in a hug, standing and moving into my arms as she cried for a few more minutes.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered against her hair. I had no clue what else to say to her, but watching her hurt, hurt me so badly. I couldn't fathom losing Jeremy, and we were just starting our lives together. To have fostered and built that kind of love into an empire only to lose it was more than I could stand to even think about.

It was life-shattering.

"No. Honestly, Bailey." She moved back and reached for another tissue. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to push you as far away as I could, but it had nothing to do with you, dear. It was because I was scared that Jeremy would fall in love again only to have it ripped out of his fingers once more." She reached up and touched my cheek. "He wouldn't survive that. It's the reason I've never taken another husband. I can't do this again. I won't."

I understood completely, and with that knowledge, my chest relaxed, and my hurt dissipated.

"It's okay. Let's move past it because I can't imagine my life without Jeremy in it. I've loved him since I was a little girl, Ms. Bennett. He's been in my life because of Rhys since I was a kid." I moved back and wiped at my eyes. "I'll never stop loving him, and to have to do so from a distance-"

"Is a death of sorts too." She dropped her hands to the side, closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. "Forgive me for putting that on you. I only meant to protect him."

"Then why all the dates and pushing him to find a mother for Austin?" I blew my nose about the same time as she did. We smiled at each other and chuckled.

"Those women were absolutely whores. The worst girls I could find." She blotted her face with her fingers. "They were no threat at all, and my hope was that they would scare him off from women altogether, which worked just fine until fate put you right back in his life.”

I smiled. "I love him so much. Leaving him a note this morning and walking away was the most difficult thing I've ever done."

"And you did it because I convinced you that you were not the best thing for him?"

"Yes." I nodded and let out a long sigh.

"Then I welcome you into my family, and will love you like I love my own children, but only if you can forgive me, Bailey. I was trying to protect my son, and I went about it in the most ignorant manner possible. By meddling in his damn love life."

"I forgive you." I nodded and forced a smile.

"Good. Come to my house with me then. We'll fix a big Christmas dinner and invite Nina, Austin, and Jeremy over. Let's surprise them with this. Would that be okay? Almost like our Christmas gift to each other and to him?"

"I'd like that. A lot." I moved toward her as she held out her arms to me. "I'm sorry for your suffering."

"I'm sorry for causing yours." She hugged me tightly. "Forgive me."

"Already done." I moved back and my heart filled with warmth beyond belief. I didn't have to let go of my dream of being Jeremy's wife. It was back within reach, and nothing was going to stop me from reaching out and taking hold of it.