CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO – BECKETT
I woke up feeling terrible. I had fallen asleep on the couch, my neck contorted, my back cramped, watching the path up to the house. I groaned and stood, trying to stretch out the pain in my back. I heard someone walking.
“Coffee, Mr. Sand?”
I sighed. “Thanks, Mrs. Delange.”
She didn’t say a word about my being on the couch. She was far too professional for that. And besides, she was used to me falling asleep in my office. This was the first time I had fallen asleep in the sitting-room. But, then again, there was a first time for everything.
This is the first time I’ve faced something like this.
I still couldn’t quite believe what I was facing. I still couldn’t quite believe that Hayley had run away.
My initial terror—that she had been taken from the house by force—had quickly subsided, settled both by my own intuition telling me that she had decided to leave, and my brief talk with my driver, who had confirmed that he had taken Mrs. Sand to the hotel in town.
He had looked at me like he expected to be shot for treason and then looked away, focused on the garden bordering the drive. I had said nothing. I knew, then, when he said that, that she’d gone. She had left me and gone home.
Beckett Sand, you’re an utter ass.
I knew I was. I knew I had dealt with the whole situation really, really badly. I had put both Hayley and Estella in an untenable situation, then offended Hayley and upset my daughter and hadn’t made peace with either of them. I had played with fire while doused in gasoline and then wondered why I’d been burned.
I could forgive myself all of that if I thought I hadn’t hurt them in the process.
I sighed. My coffee was set on the sideboard by Mrs. Delange, who hadn’t yet said anything, but her rigid posture and stiff face told me she, too blamed me for this.
Hayley was right. All three of them can beat me in a battle of wills.
I chuckled a little sadly. The coffee was sweet and strong and did something to restore my sense of perspective. By then it was utterly and completely ripped in shreds. Like my heart.
Taking a shuddering breath, I stood and put my empty cup back where I’d found it. Of all the things I hadn’t done yesterday, that I could still do, I hadn’t talked to Estella.
I checked my hair in the mirror by the doorway and went slowly upstairs.
“Estella?”
I knocked at the door of her dressing-room. It was eight in the morning and she was probably back from her run by now. Like me, she was an early riser.
“Yes?”
I felt my heart soar when I heard her voice. It sounded sharp, and I knew she was angry yet, but at least she was talking to me. I cleared my throat.
“Is it okay if we talk now?” I asked.
She appeared round the door. Her long pale hair hung in fresh-washed curls around her face, and she smelled of mint-scented shower-gel and toothpaste. I smiled at her.
“What is it?” she asked. She still sounded suspicious, but she came out of the door to face me. I sighed.
“I wanted to say sorry,” I said sincerely. “I know I put you in a bad position with this whole…this marriage thing,” I sighed. “I’m sorry.”
She looked up at me with those beautiful, heart-melting blue eyes. “It’s okay, Dad,” she said softly. “I know you didn’t mean it. Thanks for…for that,” she added quietly.
“For what, sweetness?”
“For understanding. I’m sorry,” she said, sighing. “I know I was unreasonable. But that comment…on top of it all…it just got to me.” She hid her face in her hands.
“I get it,” I said, giving her a smile. “You are a self-determining young lady. And I wouldn’t dream of trying to push you in any direction. Nor would anyone else,” I added, grinning.
She shot me a look. “Now you’re teasing,” she accused me. “I’m not that scary. My temper’s like yours, Dad.”
“Not scary at all,” I said, nodding demurely.
She laughed. “Absolutely not. Quite so.”
We both made our “pious” faces—cheeks sucked in, blank expressions. Then we collapsed in giggles.
“I’m so sorry, Daddy,” she said, wrapping her arms around me in a big hug. “I know it was horrible of me to behave like that. But she got on my nerves.”
“I understand,” I said. “I’m sorry I reacted like I did. I knew it was wrong of her to say that, even though I don’t think she meant it the way you took it. But I get why you felt like that.”
“Thanks for understanding,” she said again. She sighed, then looked up at me. “Had breakfast yet?”
“No,” I said.
“I’ll come down with you. But…is she there?” she asked hesitantly. I could see in the way she hesitated in the doorway that she wasn’t ready to face Hayley just yet. I sighed: it was one good thing about her not being here at least.
“No,” I said slowly. “She’s not.”
I saw my daughter breathe out, relaxing visibly. “Okay,” she said, looking brighter. “I’ll come down right now. Just let me dry my hair off a bit…it’s a bit cold still for sitting around with wet hair.”
“Okay, sweetheart,” I said a little sadly. “I’ll head down.”
“Do that,” she called through the door, voice muffled by the bathroom towel as she rubbed her hair vigorously with it.
Downstairs at breakfast I waited while Mrs. Delange, stiff with righteous anger, brought our breakfast to the table. She didn’t say anything helpful or disparaging, but I could see her disapproval of me in every line of her. She evidently thought I should be out there, persuading Hayley to come back again.
But what could I reasonably do?
I knew where she was. I knew she was safe: I had sent Mr. Hudson, my chief of security personnel, to her house to check she was safely returned to it. I had texted her four times and had not a single reply yet. Besides stealing her against her will, what could I actually do?
She didn’t want to have anything to do with me. Not that I blamed her. I’d treated her badly and I knew it. She had accepted me for who I was—the nice stuff and the decidedly unsavory stuff altogether—and I had told her things I never told anyone. She had accepted what I had done to her—setting her up as I’d done—without a backward look. She had been an angel and I had disregarded her.
“Hey, Dad,” Estella’s voice said from the door. She looked at me. “Dad?”
“Mm?” I asked. “What’s up, sweetie?”
“Daddy, you look terrible,” she opined, coming to sit opposite me on a chair. “What’s happening?”
I sighed. “It’s nothing sweetie, really. It’s just…” I paused. “Hayley left last night. She went back.”
“What?” she stared at me. She had been buttering toast, but she let it fall to her plate, forgotten about. “She went back? Where?”
“She went back to her home,” I explained slowly. “Hayley…she…she was angry with me,” I finished, not knowing what else to say that would not have been unfair. I could have said she had her own problems, but it wasn’t actually because of those that she left me, as justifiable as that would have been. She had left because of me. Because I hurt her.
“So then she was angry with you,” Estella said crossly. “That didn’t mean she had to run off! Where’s she gone?”
My daughter looked so thunderous that I was almost scared to tell her, in case she marched down there and confronted poor Hayley now. I smiled, feeling really moved. I had no idea how much she cared for me.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” I said gently. “She’s gone home. In Montrose,” I said quickly.
“Montrose?” Estella looked at me. “She lives there?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well, it’s so close,” she said. “We could get her back! If you like,” she added firmly.
I laughed. Trust her to see it purely as a matter of distance and time. “I love you, my daughter. I hope you know that.”
She blinked at me. To my utter surprise, her blue eyes filled up with tears. She swallowed, clearing her throat. “Oh, Daddy,” she said, in a voice thick with feeling “Why’d you say that? I love you too,” she added as a casual afterthought. I smiled.
“I said it because I really value how you want me to be happy,” I said, feeling my own throat close up at the thought of it. “I know having Hayley here wasn’t always nice for you…”
“It was okay,” she interrupted. I smiled at her and continued.
“I know it wasn’t always okay. But the fact that, because it might be important to me, you would be willing to get her back, means the world to me. Honestly, it does.” I swallowed hard.
She smiled. “Oh, Daddy,” she said.
I smiled back.
We sat in silence for a while, eating our breakfast while I read the paper and she read the same news on her phone. Then, when she had finished eating, she looked up at me.
“Well, then,” she said firmly. “What are we waiting for?”
“What do you mean, sweetheart?” I asked, blinking, feeling puzzled.
“Let’s go and get her back.”
I smiled. I was touched. I wished it was all that easy. That I could just do that: take time off work, drive to her house; ask her to come back to me. But it wasn’t that easy.
I was Beckett Sand and I couldn’t risk going anywhere near her without taking the whole press to her doorstep. And, even worse, I couldn’t risk going near her without taking the Hill Street gang, the drug cartel who was poisoning my life, to her door either. And I couldn’t do that to her. Not for anything.
“I can’t, sweetie,” I said softly. “But I appreciate that you said that. Really, I do.”
She smiled. “Oh, Dad.”
“What?” I asked fondly.
“You’re sweet. But I wish I could help. Really, I do.”
“I know,” I said gently. “But there’s nothing either of us can do. All we can do, I guess, is wait.”
We would have to wait. For Hayley to decide to forgive me and come back. If she ever forgave me for what I had done to her. All I could do is hope.