CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
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Calder
I stood and stared incredulously at Ella as she clutched the glass railing of the patio and nodded her reply to my question. I couldn't wrap my head around her acknowledgment of those unexpected words. She loved me? I gaped at her now, opening my mouth, but unable to speak. A wave of elation struck me, followed by angry resentment. The emotions flooded my head, and I didn't know what to feel, what to do. I wanted to go to her, enfold her in my arms and kiss her, claim her and make her mine forever. I wanted to rail and scream at her, demand to know why she ever left me in the first place if she claimed to love me so much. I was paralyzed by my warring emotions.
Ella sobbed again and turned away to face the dark woods that surrounded my home. Her body hunched forward, her shoulders shaking violently as she wept bitter tears. I watched for several long moments until I could speak again.
"Then why?" I asked in a sharp and biting tone, the angry resentment finally winning out. "Why did you leave me? How did our love mean so little to you that you could just walk away?"
"I...I was stupid, and scared," she answered between sobs without turning to face me. "You...you were gone all the time doing God knows what, and...and you were drinking again. I...I guess I panicked."
"I wasn't drinking," I snarled out fiercely, the anger flaring hotter at her bullshit assumptions.
My eyes began to sting at the remembered pain and anguish of coming home to propose and finding her gone. I used to fantasize so many times about finally getting a chance to confront her like this, to let her know exactly what she did to me, what she left behind. I thought I let the anger go. I was wrong.
My voice turned bitter and accusing. "And I was gone all the time because I was working extra hours to save up money for an engagement ring. The ring I bought the very day you left me. The same day I was going to propose."
Ella gasped loudly, and whirled to face me, her body rigid and her face horrified. I'd be lying if I didn't admit to some measure of satisfaction at her reaction, but then her hands flew up to cover her mouth, and her eyes filled with pain and anguish. A loud wrenching sob tore up out of her body as she dropped to her knees. She began to weep hysterically, her body curling in on itself. I thought she looked lost and defeated before, but now she looked completely destroyed, obliterated. Seeing Ella like that wrecked me, ripped my heart wide open to bleed and ache for her. Her pain was my pain now. What had I done?
I rushed forward to drop down next to her. I heedlessly sat on the wet concrete and gathered her onto my lap. She struggled in my grip, trying to get away from me as I cradled her close, but I held fast to her, stubbornly refusing to let go. When she finally realized that I wasn't going to relax my hold on her, she stopped fighting, but continued to sob violently in my arms. I held her tight and rocked her, desperately trying to comfort her.
"I...I should have...have stayed," she somehow managed to force out. "I should have t...talked to you. I'm s...sorry, so so sorry." She gasped in a shaking breath, and continued in a steadier tone. "I'll...I'll leave you alone. I'll find another job somewhere else. I promise I'll leave, and you'll never have to see me again. I swear. I've...I've hurt you enough already."
Her voice held so much pain, so much remorse. How could I be angry with her now? How could I do anything but admit the truth that I now knew down deep in my heart? I knew the reason her distancing herself from me for the last few days had hurt so much and brought on the drug cravings. I loved Ella, had always loved her, even when I thought she blackened and destroyed my heart. It wasn't dead, and even when I drowned out the bitter pain and anger with heroin, then suppressed it with iron control and sheer will after I was sober, my heart had remained hers, and always would. It was the reason I'd never found another, the reason I'd been incapable of an emotional connection with any other woman since, and the reason I needed contracts with my subs to keep things merely physical with them.
"I don't want you to leave me alone," I said hoarsely.
"What?" she quaveringly asked. She sat up enough to meet my gaze, her eyes grief stricken and confused.
"I don't want you to leave."
Her confused expression deepened. "But I...I don't understand. I hurt you when I left you. I've been hurting you by being around you now. I made you want to use drugs again."
"No, Ella." I shook my head.
"Then...then why were you going out to get high?" she asked.
"When you pulled away from me after we played together, I thought you were rejecting me again. It hurt just the same. I didn't want you to leave me again. I wanted you to stay."
"Why?" she asked with a tiny edge of hope in her steel blue eyes.
I gasped in a fortifying breath and forced out what needed to be said, no matter the risk to my heart if she did indeed reject me again, "Because I love you, Ella," I whispered as I cupped her face in my hand.
"You...you do?" she whispered incredulously.
I nodded. "I always have." I wiped a few of her tears away with my thumb. "I never stopped."
"I don't understand." She frowned deeply, her voice thick from crying. "I hurt you and almost ruined your life."
I shook my head. "No, baby. You may have hurt me, but I'm the one who tried to destroy myself. I'm the one who took the heroin my mom offered me that first time."
"What?" she asked indignantly as her brows furrowed. "Your mom gave it to you?" She shook her head. "What is wrong with that woman? Didn't she hurt you enough as a kid? What kind of mother could do such a thing? If I see her again, I'm going to give her a piece of-"
I put a finger to her lips to quiet her tirade. I appreciated her vehement reaction and desire to defend me, but her indignation was a wasted effort now.
"She overdosed eight years ago, Ella," I explained in a subdued tone. I steeled myself to tell her the painful secret I'd only told Scott and Rex. "She...she had a stroke, and she's been in a vegetative state ever since."
Ella's eyes swam with empathy. "Oh, Cal," she whispered and placed a gentle hand on my cheek. The sound of my old shortened name didn't upset me for the first time in twelve years. "I'm so sorry."
"Don't be," I said in a strained voice. I blinked back the threatening tears that angered me every time I mourned my mother. "Molly did it to herself, but one good thing came out of it. It was the catalyst that finally pushed me to get clean for good. It was the only decent thing she ever did for me."
"I'm still sorry," she said sincerely. "She should have been there for you, no matter what. You were still her son, regardless of who your father was." Ella was the only person on earth I'd ever told I was a child of rape. "You deserved better. You deserved a mother who looked out for you and took care of you."
I smiled wanly. "Like you take care of Violet?"
She averted her gaze with a sorrowful expression. "I don't know about that," she said in a dejected tone.
I touched her chin and tilted her face up to look at me. "That little girl up there is strong, and loving, and fiercely loyal because of you. You made sure she was loved and cared for, despite who her father was and the horrible situation you found yourself in."
She snorted out a bitter laugh. "A horrible situation I brought on myself by being stupid and naive. I should have seen Ray for the monster he was that day I met him in the diner where I worked, but he seemed so sincere and said all the right things to win me over. He kept coming in, flattering me and buying me gifts. I fell for all of it, and I was a fool for believing him. I should have known that it wasn't real, that he didn't really love me.
"When I finally figured out the truth, he already had Violet to use as leverage to keep me from leaving, and it was far too late to come back to you." She hung her head in shame, her next sentence grief stricken. "I never should have left you, and I got what I deserved for walking away from real love."
"Ella, no," I said fiercely. "Don't say that."
"But it's true, and you know it," she said with a soft sob. "You should want nothing to do with me. You...you should hate me."
"I can't hate you, Ella," I told her firmly. "I was angry, yes, resentful still to be honest, but hating you is something I could never do." I caressed her cheek with gentle fingers. "You need to stop punishing yourself for the past. You need to let it go, baby."
"I don't know how, Cal," she said in a desperate tone. "The guilt eats me up inside. How do I let it go? How?" She gasped in a shuddering breath. "And where do we go from here, if I can't?"
"Shh," I soothed her, holding her closer. "You will, baby. You will. We'll figure it out together. Okay?"
"We will?" she whispered with true hope in her eyes for the first time.
I nodded. "You came back to me, and this time I'm never letting you go."
"But-" she began, but I crushed my lips against hers and cut her off with a deep fiery kiss.
She needed to stop thinking, stop worrying, and let it go for now. I knew just how to help her do that. I knew how to let go of some of the lingering resentment in my heart too. It wouldn't assuage it completely, nor all of Ella's guilt, but I knew it would be a step in the right direction for both of us. It would help bind us back together and begin to heal our wounded hearts.
I kissed her into insensibility before I ended it with a low growl, then stood with her nestled safely in my arms and walked into the house. I carried her through the living room to the stairs, and when I headed down to the basement instead of upstairs, Ella questioned where we were going.
"I'm going to make you mine now, Ella," I explained in a deep rumble that was heavily laden with lust and love. "I'm going to claim you in every way, make you forget about the past and stop worrying about the future. None of that matters right now. The only thing that does is the here and now, and the pleasure and the release we can give each other."
"I need that, Cal," she replied as relief flooded her eyes. "I need that more than anything right now."
"I know, my lovely Ella," I replied as I carried her down the stairs to the playroom that I hadn't touched in so long, that now inexplicably seemed to be meant for just us all along. "I know, baby."