CHAPTER THREE
Kristina
As I turn on to the road the directions say Ian’s cabin is on, the sky seems to open up and snow falls like someone in the heavens is dumping the stuff by the truckload. I can’t see more than five feet in front of me, and everywhere is pure white. The road underneath the over half foot of snow is filled with ruts and potholes which make driving even more treacherous. One moment the Range Rover is rolling along fine, and the next moment it’s all I can do to keep it on the road at all.
I creep along, hoping Sienna’s SUV can handle the conditions to get to the top of the hill, and finally I see what looks like a building just as I reach the crest. Leaning forward toward the windshield, I watch as I get closer and see a car parked in front of a cabin. Smoke drifts up toward the sky from the chimney, and I see the yellow glow of a light coming through a window.
My heart leaps in my chest at the thought that I’ve found him. Slowly, I come to a stop next to a BMW and hope if this isn’t where Ian is that the people inside might be willing to help me find him. Blizzard or not, I have to get to him.
I step out of the car into snow deep enough to cover my feet and halfway up my calves. My first thought is to run up to the front door to get out of the cold and wind, but the snow makes that impossible. It’s a heavy snow and I can barely walk through it, but finally I make it to the porch. Shivering, I knock on the front door.
As I stand there waiting, I look in through the windows at my eye level and see a blazing fire but no one nearby. Knocking again, I say loudly, “Excuse me. Is anyone there? I’m here from the city and I’m stranded in the snow.”
For nearly five minutes I knock, but no one answers. Finally, I hang my head in disappointment and turn to go back to my car, unsure of what to do now. I can’t drive in this weather, and I have less than a quarter of a tank of gas left in Sienna’s Range Rover. If I have to spend the night huddled up in the driver’s seat with the engine running to have heat, I won’t last until morning. But what choice do I have?
My foot hits the first snow covered step when I hear, “What are you doing here?”
Ian’s voice thrills me, and relief flows through me that I won’t have to spend the night freezing cold in the Range Rover. Turning around, I smile as I see him standing in the doorway, but quickly I realize he’s nowhere as happy to see me.
“I came to see you, but I got caught in this blizzard. I got here just in time.”
“For what?” he asks, glowering down at me like never before.
“May I come in, please? It’s freezing out here and my legs are wet and ice cold just from walking from the car.”
He narrows his eyes to a nasty squint, and for a few moments, I don’t think he’s going to let me in. Desperate to get inside the cabin and warm myself in front of the fireplace, I add, “Ian, do you want me to freeze to death out here? I know you hate me now, but even that doesn’t make it okay to let me die all alone in a blizzard.”
Slowly, he steps back to let me in, and as I walk past him he says in a low voice full of anger, “Just until the snow stops.”
I hadn’t expected him to be overjoyed to see me, but his frosty reception surprises me. Everything I rehearsed on the drive all the way there flies out of my head as I reel from how unhappy he is to have me in his presence. I’d had all these romantic notions about what would happen, and with just a few words, he’s dashed them all to pieces.
Without saying another thing, he closes the front door and walks into the living room to sit in front of the fire. Feeling particularly unwelcome, I begin to strip out of my jacket, boots, and wet clothes, realizing I left my bag in the car. Not wanting to go back out into the storm, I stand at the door in just my sweater and underwear sure I don’t know what to do now since he’s clearly ignoring me.
“My clothes got wet, so I’m going to just let them dry by the fire,” I say in my best chipper voice as I walk in front of him to arrange my pants and socks on the hearth.
He sits silently behind me, and when I turn around, his eyes are closed and his head is back. Has he fallen asleep? Taking a seat on the opposite end of the couch, I rub my blotchy red legs to get the blood flowing so they’ll heat up. Never before have I felt so unwanted in his presence.
“This is a nice place,” I say feebly, desperate to find a way to get him to talk to me.
It really is a nice cabin. I wouldn’t have pictured him as someone who’d own a cabin out here, but like his apartment in the city, it’s all modern. No log cabin look with antlers on the walls for him, not surprisingly. Instead, the kitchen has stainless steel appliances with deep brown and cream granite countertops, and the room we’re sitting in has walnut hardwood floors and contemporary style furniture.
He doesn’t move in response to my statement. All this silence makes me uneasy, which makes me feel like I need to fill the empty space with more talking. I tell him about my ride there and how Sienna’s SUV handles well in the snow, except on the road to his cabin, my thoughts drifting into a nervous tangent when he doesn’t even open his eyes at my mention of how I worried I might slide off the road and down into the ravine on my way there.
“The fire is very toasty,” I mumble, hoping to see some reaction from him before I begin to ramble incoherently again in hopes of getting some response.
But I get nothing but more silence.
Finally, he opens his eyes and stares for a long moment, practically looking through me, before saying, “You shouldn’t have come here.”
His words aren’t exactly what I’d hoped to hear, but at least he’s talking.
“I had to, Ian. I couldn’t let you think I betrayed you like I know you do.”
He narrows his eyes again as the rest of his face turns stony to match his voice. “You didn’t sleep with that guy, Kristina?”
“Yes, but—”
Before I can get the rest of my sentence out, he interrupts me. “So you did betray me.”
“You slept with someone else too, but I had to forgive you. Why can’t you forgive me?”
His look hardening even more, he says quietly as he stands up from the couch, “When the snow stops, you should leave.”
I reach out to grab his arm to stop him, desperate to explain what happened and how much I love him, but at the touch of my hand he lurches his body from my reach and storms away, leaving me there sitting in front of the fire alone. I so want to tell him how sorry I am and how I need him to understand how this all happened, but I can’t penetrate the walls he’s constructed.
I know I deserve his anger, but I just never expected him to be able to be so cold. The Ian I know and fell in love with wouldn’t be able to shut me out when I’m in the same house as him. Thousands of miles away? Yeah. But not with me just feet away from him.
Does he still love me or even care for me? My stomach drops and I feel empty inside as I think this might be the end of us. I can’t let what we were—what we still can be—just slip away with him closed off in a room not one hundred feet away while I sit there unable to figure out what the right words are to show him if we can forgive each other, we can overcome this.
As I try to muster up the courage to fight for him, I see a page of notes on the coffee table in front of me. Sitting down, I pick up the sheet of paper and begin to read over what he’s written about the film of Silk. His agent is close to sealing the deal for the movie, and in the margin next to where he’s written potential actresses for the part of Kate, he’s written one name.
Kristina Richards
My eyes fill with tears that after all that’s happened between us he still thinks of me as the only actress to play the character he’s written so beautifully. I want to believe this means he still cares for me, that we still have a chance to save us.
But when did he write this? It might have been a week ago or six weeks ago. He might have written this while he was in rehab.
While I was busy feeling sorry for myself and selfishly sleeping with another man.
Oh God! I need to find a way to fix the mess I’ve made. I need to convince him he can believe in me again. But how?
I walk to the room he’s hiding in and knock on the door. Even if he tells me to go away, I have to try.
“Ian, please talk to me.”
All I hear is silence from behind the door, but I can’t give up.
“I saw what you wrote about the Silk project. You still think I’m the only actress who should play her.”
His shoes make a heavy noise on the wood floor as he walks toward the door and stops. I brace myself for his anger when he opens the door, but it remains closed. I know he’s standing there just on the other side of it hearing what I say.
Now’s the time to make my plea.
“Ian, please listen to me. I’m sorry I slept with Gavin. I should have been thinking of you while you were going through that hell. I know that. I knew that when it happened. Please forgive me.”
The door opens and I see the rage in his dark eyes. Swallowing hard, he says, “I can forgive you for that. I don’t believe you care about him at all. What I can’t forgive you for is betraying me and ruining my career. I trusted you, and you didn’t keep our secret.”
Everything in his body language screams how he blames me for all that’s gone wrong in his life, and for the first time I realize how hurt he is. I didn’t betray him as a girlfriend. He thinks I betrayed him as his muse.
I touch his arm and even though he wants to jerk his arm away, he doesn’t. Seeing the tiniest chance to get through to him, I plead, “I never told a soul who you were or that Silk was our story. I swear it, Ian.”
“You’re the only person other than me who knew I was T. Anderson and knew about Silk, Kristina.”
“I know, but I never told anyone. I swear. All I told Sienna was that I was dating T. Anderson. That’s it. Maybe someone saw us and figured it out.”
I knew that made no sense, but how could Cilla have pieced together that Ian and T. Anderson were the same person?
“Kristina, someone would have to know you and I were together. You told your friend and she sold her story to that website.”
I lower my gaze and know I have to tell him the whole truth. In a quiet voice, I say, “You’re not wrong about me telling Sienna I was dating you, but I swear I only told her I was with T. Anderson. But my other friend overheard me saying that, and it was Cilla who sold the story. All The Dirt must have done some digging and found out.”
“How? There was nothing to connect my Ian life with my T. Anderson pen name.”
I hate what I have to say now. “I mentioned to Sienna about how I cheated while you were in rehab. Cilla wouldn’t have known that part was important, but that could be how that website made the connection. I’m so sorry, Ian. I just felt so terrible about what I’d done and needed to unburden myself. I never meant for any of this to happen.”
The frown he’s worn since I arrived deepens and his voice falters as he says, “So you told someone about how you fucked another man while I was in rehab and that’s how this happened? First you cheat on me and then because you have to make yourself feel better, you ruin my life.”
We stand there looking at one another and not saying a word because he’s right. Everything that’s happened to hurt him is my fault. I can say I’m sorry all I want. It doesn’t make up for how much he’s lost.
Hanging my head, I nod as he silently closes the door in my face. I have to find some way to fix this.
I slowly walk back to the living room and sit down on the couch again to warm myself in front of the fire. God, if only I hadn’t messed everything up. Why did I have to ruin what we had?
I want to remember when we weren’t so lost. Before I cheated on him and betrayed his trust. Before the drugs. Before I lied.
Closing my eyes, I think back to the night he asked me to be his muse. How special I felt that night. No one had ever thought so much of me, and now I’d smashed all that to pieces with my foolishness.
If only I hadn’t felt so vulnerable and alone that night Gavin came to cheer me up.
So much of Ian and me can be summed up in that tiny phrase. If only. If only I was stronger when he needed my strength the most. If only he hadn’t turned to the one thing he loved more than me.
If only what we are wasn’t so full of madness.
I know I have no right to expect his forgiveness, but deep in my soul I know I can’t give up trying to find some way to convince him that even though our love is crazy and destructive, it’s worth fighting for.
He’s worth fighting for.