I tried to breathe steadily. I opened my eyes slowly, almost afraid of what I would see before me. My dream about Tom had seemed so real, I thought I had died and he’d come to get me. I wouldn’t have minded that. I missed him. Now, more than ever, I missed the brother who had always brought the sunshine with him. God knows I needed a ray of sunshine in my life right now.
But he wasn’t real. He was a dream. And in my dream, he promised I would live a long and happy life. So I couldn’t be dead. I was still breathing.
When reality finally dawned on me, I realized that I was in a huge, dark room. There was light coming from the fireplace. A storm was still raging outside. A bolt of lightning would sometimes illuminate the room, followed by a bellow of thunder. I shivered even though I felt warm. I almost felt scared. And then I remembered that I wasn’t alone.
I gently pulled away from the person holding me. The room that I was in was very unfamiliar to me. I hadn’t been there before.
I looked up to see the face of the person who was comforting me, making me feel warm and safe. The fire coming from the fireplace and the lightning outside gave very little light in the room. But it was enough for me recognize his face.
My heart pounded in my chest, and I forgot to breathe. I should have known. The warmth of his arms around me, the comfort that his body provided, and the intoxicating scent of his skin were all too familiar to me. So familiar, yet he seemed so unreal. He was so close, and yet he felt so far away.
“Travis…” I whispered his name. The feel of it on my lips brought up so many of the emotions I had been bottling up inside me. Pain. Anger. Love.
He didn’t say anything. He stared at me for a while, and then he pressed his palm against my forehead, feeling my temperature.
I pushed farther away from him. This time, he let me go, allowing me to put some distance between us. I sat up on the bed.
“Take it easy, Brianne,” he finally said to me.
I found that I was dressed in one of his pajama bottoms and shirts. They were too big for me, but they were enough to keep me comfortably warm.
I looked around the room. It was massive, with a matching couch and coffee table beside the fireplace. Were we in a hotel room again? How did I get here? And what was Travis doing here with me?
“Where are we?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
“In my room. In my grandparents’ house,” he replied.
“How…how did I get here?”
“You fainted yesterday,” he answered. “I was just right behind you. What were you doing bathing in the storm?”
I shook my head. I remembered flying home and walking toward Tom’s resting place. I remembered what I told Tom in the graveyard. I was setting Travis free…not only of the promises he’d made me, but also of the promises that he’d made my brother.
“I need to go home,” I said.
Travis took a deep breath. “You are home,” he said. His voice lacked the trace of anger or coldness. It was steady, and somehow there was a trace of anxiety.
I raised a brow at him.
“Remember, you’re still married to me. This is your home, too,” he said in a low voice.
I shook my head. “Not for long, Travis,” I said to him. “I’m sorry for all the trouble.” I took a deep breath and willed all my strength to be able to speak the next words that came out of my mouth. “You’re free of your promises to me or to Tom now. You can live your life as you please. It’s time you made your choices without considering any vow or promise you made my brother or me all these years. We haven’t been fair to you. It’s time to set you free.”
I slowly stood up from the bed.
“I’m not going to bother you anymore,” I said to him. “I will consult with a lawyer and file a divorce. Don’t worry—I will not take anything from you. I’m keeping my part of the bargain. I don’t want your money.”
He didn’t say anything. I had my back on him while I was saying those words. I was afraid to look at him. I was scared that I would lose my courage if I looked into his eyes.
“Th-thank you for everything you’ve done for me, Travis,” I said. “I want you to know, I will not hold any grudge against you…after all this ends.”
I bit my lip to keep from crying. “And I h-hope…someday…we can still be…friends…but I cannot keep holding you hostage to your promises, to your guilt, or your conscience…and likewise, I can’t allow myself to be hurt by you anymore…I think it has to end. Here. Now.”
There was silence. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I willed myself to be strong. I didn’t want him to see me cry. This was harder than I thought. But I knew that I was stronger than I gave myself credit for. I stood up on my own two feet those months that Travis wasn’t with me. I would be okay. And I’d always wish for Travis to be happy.
When I finally looked up at him, I found that he was sitting on the bed, his back on me. He was looking down at the floor, lost in his own thoughts, taking in every word that I’d just said to him.
I took a deep breath. “I was at Tom’s grave…to tell him that I was setting you free…of the promises that you made him before he died. You’ve fulfilled more than that already…it’s time to let go, Travis. It’s time to move on. It’s time to unbind your fate from mine…so you can live your own life, the way you want it…the way you were supposed to live it.” God! I didn’t know where I’d gotten the courage to say those things without breaking down on his bedroom floor.
Then I remembered seeing Tom again…after many years. He was just as happy, just as positive as he was when he was alive. And he promised me that things were going to be okay. That I would be happy. I guessed I could hold on to that hope. After all, Tom was also one guy who could keep promises.
I stared at Travis’s finely sculpted back. He just sat there. He didn’t move…didn’t say a word.
After a couple minutes of silence, I turned to look at the couch, trying to see if my clothes and shoes were somewhere in the room.
I heard Travis’s sharp intake of breath. Then finally, he said in a sober voice, “You released me of my promises to take care of you…but don’t you remember? You promised to take care of me, too.”
I bit my lip. I remembered making that promise, too. But with Travis shutting me out of his world, I guessed that was impossible to keep. We were too broken. I’d hurt him deeply. I didn’t trust him completely when I thought I trusted him with my life. He hurt me terribly when I thought he’d betrayed my trust and when he said hurtful words to me. He risked our baby’s life, when I would have given everything to keep it safe. I wouldn’t be able to give him the family he wanted when I knew it was the only thing that could save him. I’d tried to fix us…but he didn’t give me a fighting chance.
How else could I keep my promise to save him? To take care of him? I know they were impossible now.
Finally, he stood up from the bed and faced me. His face was as dark as it was broken. “You can go now, Brianne,” he said in a low, sober voice. “But I promise you, no matter where you go, no matter where you run…I will find you. And you know that when I make a promise…I will die to keep it.” He took a deep breath. “Because while you released me from the vows I made to Tom, I will never release you from the promises that you made to me…if that’s the only way to keep you…to make you mine forever.”
Tears welled up in my eyes. I didn’t try to hide them from him this time. I shook my head. “But you don’t want to keep me forever, Travis.”
Anger, pain, and desperation crossed his face. “Dammit, I do!” In a few strides, he was in front of me, snatching me to him, enveloping me in his warm embrace…crushing me against his bare chest.
“I…tried to see you. I called you about a hundred times,” I said to him. “You didn’t even want to see me or talk to me.”
He gave out a sigh of frustration but kept me prisoner in his arms. “I was afraid, Brianne!” he said. “I was afraid of what you were going to say to me…I wasn’t strong enough to hear you say the words you are saying to me now. No matter how much I pictured a happy ending for us, I couldn’t see you ever forgiving me. I knew you were going to ask me to set you free. I couldn’t think of any other reason why you would want to speak to me…except to say the words you just said to me now. I couldn’t hear them. I couldn’t hear you say that it was over…so I avoided you instead. I stayed out of the country most of the time, because I was afraid that divorce papers were on their way. And I couldn’t face it.”
“But…that’s not why I wanted to talk to you, Travis.”
There was silence for a while. Travis kept his arms tight around me, refusing to let me go even for just a moment. Then he asked, “What were you going to say to me then?”
“I was…going to tell you that I remembered everything that happened that night. That I was sorry for hurting you, for calling you a beast! That…I wanted to try again.” Tears rolled down my cheeks, soaking Travis’s chest. “But I realized…in the end, it was better to let you go.”
I felt him shake his head. “Even if you let me go…I won’t let you go!” he said in a rough voice. “Remember I told you that you are the air that I breathe!?”
“You avoided me these past few months. And you breathed just the same.”
“No,” he said. “I died the moment I walked out the door of your apartment…that day you told me you were pregnant.”
I savored the feel of Travis’s arms around me. I felt home…I felt safe again. But I realized that, just the same, this did not change anything between us.
“We said hurtful words to each other…that destroyed us forever,” I said.
He shook his head. “No. It could never destroy us, Brianne. We’re stronger than you give us credit for.”
“How can it not destroy us, Travis?” I asked. “I called you a rapist, a beast! I accused you of raping me to get an heir to win your battles with your father.”
“And I forgive you. I know now that you didn’t mean those words. You were angry and hurt. And you were right—I did betray you…I should have told you what had happened between us before we got married. Damn! I shouldn’t even have left you in the room that night. I should have waited for you to wake up.”
He was right. He should have waited for me to wake up. But I understood now why he didn’t. He’d promised me over and over that he would protect me from himself. I was conscious that night, but I wasn’t entirely myself. He couldn’t forgive himself for letting go of his control. He felt angry with himself for slipping…even though I prevented him from making the right choice.
I remembered the most hurtful words he’d said to me that day while we were fighting. “You said…you shouldn’t have married me at all! You felt this was a mistake.”
He laughed bitterly. “No. That’s not what I meant at all. Marrying you was probably one of the few things I did right,” he said. “When I said that, I meant I shouldn’t have married you without laying all the cards on the table. I felt like I’d cheated you. I should have told you before the wedding…that we’d made love…that you’d told me you loved me…and that I loved you too. And when I married you, I no longer intended just to buy you time to find the man you were going to spend the rest of your life with…because I intended to let you spend the rest of it with me. You should have known all that before you married me…I should have left you with a choice.
“I knew you could still choose to marry me after knowing what I really felt…and what my new conditions were. But I realized that when you were sober, you hadn’t even figured out how you really felt about me. So I also knew there was a fifty percent chance that you would choose not to marry me at all. And I didn’t want to take that chance. So I chose not to tell you about that night. I married you…without telling you what you were binding yourself to.” He paused for a moment and then he said, “I felt that I had started our marriage with lies…and treachery. I was a manipulative man, Brianne…and I felt ashamed because I felt I’d manipulated you to get what I wanted…into the ending that only I might end up winning.”
I listened to his every word, trying to accept the apology behind them. His arms tightened around me once again. “But without all those complications in the way, Brianne…I would marry you over and over again. I’m sorry if I made it sound like I didn’t want to marry you at all. I think I’ve wanted to marry you since your sixteenth birthday…after I took you out on our first date. I’ve always known I wanted you…but I always told myself I was forbidden to have you. Maybe all these years, I was hoping you wouldn’t find another guy to settle down with. Because I knew that when the time came for you to call in my promise…it might be the only chance for us to belong together. And that night we made love, I realized why I was waiting for you…taking care of you all these years…why you meant the whole world to me…why for years you’d been the meaning of my life. It wasn’t just because of my promises to your brother, Brianne.”
I closed my eyes and more tears slid down my cheeks. Yesterday, I would have been jumping up and down to have Travis say those words to me. But today, I realized the intensity of the damage in our relationship. Apart from the night I thought he had betrayed me, a lot of things had happened that could put a wedge between us forever. And I couldn’t take him back now…and risk losing him again in the future. I was stronger now, but I wouldn’t be able to recover from this the second time around. “I lost your child, Travis. You gave it up,” I said. “I wouldn’t have risked his life. I would have fought.”
“I know,” he replied. “But the choice was left up to me. And it killed me to make that decision. I loved you both. I knew you would fight for our baby’s life. But I chose to fight for yours.” I could hear the tears in his voice. He took a couple of deep breaths, trying to keep his voice steady. “It tore me apart to make that choice, Brianne,” he said. “That reduced me to the cold, ruthless devil I was before I married you. Because I would have to live with myself, knowing I had sacrificed our child…but I couldn’t bear to lose you, too…to not see you again…not see you smile again…even if I couldn’t have you…I still wouldn’t be able to live in a world where you did not exist. And I know you won’t be able to forgive me for that. But I’m really sorry, Brianne. I just love you too damn much—I just won’t live without you…regardless of whether we are together or not.”
I remembered waking up in the hospital that day. I wasn’t prepared for the pain that would greet me. I thought about our little angel once in a while. He would have been a couple of months old by now. I always wondered what he would have looked like and how he would be when he grew up. The biggest pain of losing a baby is confronting the hundreds of questions about what could have been if he or she had survived. Knowing that you will never know breaks your heart every time you think about it.
And I knew…just like losing Tom, the only other person who felt the exact same pain I felt when I lost my baby was Travis. And knowing him…he would deal with his pain on his own. I understood now why he ran away from me. Why he was not at the hospital when I woke up, even though I knew he’d held me during the times I was unconscious. He was broken because we’d lost our child. He was angry because it was his decision to risk it. He couldn’t face me because he knew I was blaming him for all of it.
I heard his sharp intake of breath. “We cannot be over, Brianne…” he said in a desperate voice.
“Th-there was a woman…you were with a woman, the last time I saw you.”
He pulled away from me. I stared up to look into his eyes. I found that his cheeks had been streaming with tears. He gave me a broken expression.
“What woman?”
I took a deep breath. “The one you were with when I went to your apartment.”
He thought for a while and then finally, he remembered. “Blonde?”
I nodded. He smiled at me. “That was Sarah Atkins,” he said. “For your information, she’s fifty years old, and I don’t fancy older women. She’s almost like a mother to me. She’s our old art teacher, Mr. Atkins’s, sister. She’s been my art broker for years.”
“Art broker?”
He nodded. “Sometimes I buy paintings. If she has a good find that’s worth buying, I buy it. This time, I asked her to check something out for me, and she came to deliver what I asked her to buy.”
“There was no other woman?” I asked.
He smiled at me wistfully. “I promised you I would never cheat on you, Brianne. You still are my wife, remember?”
Tears kept streaming down my face. I was having new hope again. Hope that all is not lost. Hope that there was a chance Travis and I could get through this.
“Do you want to see what I asked her to buy?”
He didn’t wait for me to answer. He motioned his hand near the couch where a painting in a golden frame was sitting. It was still partially wrapped, but I recognized that painting. It was mine. The one I’d replicated from his work in high school.
“How…how did you…” I stared at Travis.
“I didn’t miss any of your dances. Did you really think I would miss your art show? I asked Ms. Atkins to photograph all your pieces so I could see your work, and see which ones I wanted to buy,” he replied. “When I saw this…” He stopped and took a deep breath. “This completely tore me apart, Brianne. And it made me realize what I needed to do. It made me realize that it was time for me to find the courage to face you…because regardless of what you would say to me…it would not change the ending I wanted.”
He gently pushed me so I could sit on the bed. He kneeled in front of me. “I realized that no matter how many times you ask me…I cannot stop fighting fate for you.” Tears rolled down his cheeks, and in his eyes, I saw that his soul was torn and broken, too. “We cannot be over, Brianne. We can never be…I won’t let it.”
I struggled to find my voice. “Travis…you must remember…I…may not be able to conceive anymore. And I know you have dreams of having…kids. Lots of them.”
He chuckled bitterly. “I’m not going to have them with another woman, Brianne. The doctor said thirty percent, remember? We’ll work through that percentage. We’ll keep trying. And if we can’t be blessed with one, then we can look at other options. But I would rather be childless with you…than be the father of some other woman’s children.” He shook his head. “I already chose you over my heir once, Brianne. I will still make that choice now. And I will make that choice over and over again.”
He held my face between his palms. I couldn’t stop crying.
“You told me once that you were tired, Travis.”
He shook his head. “I said I was tired of not getting it right…every time, I only wanted to do what you and Tom asked of me. But somehow…in the end, I always lost, I always ended up eating my heart out. Tom asked me to take care of you, and I ended up feeling something for you. You asked me to take your innocence from you…I was stupid enough to agree…not knowing that I would end up craving you like a drug!
“You asked me to marry you…as your safety guy, and I ended up not ever wanting to let you go. You asked me to make love to you that night, and I ended up realizing I was madly in love with you, that I had been in love with you all those years. I was tired of doing you all those favors and risking losing you forever. I’m not saying I was tired of taking care of you, Brianne. I will never be. I will put my masks down for you a hundred times over…but I’m tired of being afraid of losing you. I need assurance that I never will…that you’re mine forever. That’s all I ask.”
I pulled his hands away from my face and rested them on my lap. I realized that he was wearing his wedding ring again.
“You’re wearing your wedding ring again!”
“I never took it off.”
“I saw a picture of you recently, in a magazine. You weren’t wearing your wedding ring there.”
“That was taken months before we got married,” he said. “If they took a picture of me now, after we’ve been apart, I’d be in a much worse shape than I was in that picture.”
I stared at him. I could not believe what I’d been hearing. And slowly, I was beginning to trust again. To believe in Travis…to believe in Tom.
Is this what you meant, Tom? That I would live a long and happy life? With Travis?
He pulled me gently by the nape of the neck and kissed my forehead. “You see? You can let me go all you want. But nothing is going to change because I choose not to let you go. And if I have to spend the rest of my life chasing you, running after you…then so be it. As long as in the end, I know you and I will be together.”
“Travis…” I stared up at him. “Have you forgiven me? For what I did to you? All that I said to you?”
He smiled. “Forgiven. Forgotten,” he said. “If you forgive me for hurting you, for avoiding you…for saying words that I know must have hurt you…if you give me another chance, I’ll spend the rest of our lives making up for it all…I’ll spend the rest of my life making you happy…”
“There’s nothing to make up for, Travis,” I said and this time, the tears I cried were tears of happiness.
He pulled me to him. “God, I love you, Brianne!” he said. “I love you so much; I died the moment I thought I lost you! And I swear to God, I’m never going to lose you again!”
“I love you, too, Travis! And I will never doubt your intentions, or your love ever again.”
He pulled away from me and smiled. Then gently he leaned his face forward and kissed me on the lips. He kissed me gently, and then more passionately.
He pushed me down the bed and continued kissing me. He kissed me as if he couldn’t believe he was doing that…as if he couldn’t believe he could still do that.
We were lost in our passion. When he finally joined with me, we were both crying. We held each other, as if we both couldn’t believe we were back in each other’s arms…as if we had both just woken up from a very bad dream.
“I love you, Mrs. Cross. Very much!” he whispered to me, in a voice that made me cry even more.
“I love you, too!”
Even after we’d both reached our peaks, Travis didn’t let go of me. He kept kissing me, nuzzling my neck, tracing my lips with his tongue. Moreover, he kept whispering how much he loved me.
When he finally pulled out of me, he lay on the bed and gathered me in his arms.
“God, I missed you, love!” he whispered. “I think I only realize now just how empty I have been. And just how broken my soul really was.”
“Me too,” I whispered. “It’s like you have to live again, to realize that you’ve died…and now is your second chance at life.”
“I’m not going to waste it anymore,” he said. “I want to treasure every single moment of my life with you.” He took a deep breath. “I have been…an empty soul for so long, Brianne. I did not have the warmth, concern, and love of a family. Is it too much to ask for those things now? From you?”
I propped up on my elbow so I could look at him in the eyes. I shook my head. “It’s never too much to ask for those, Travis. And of course! As much as I can, I will give you those things…I will nurture this little family that we have.”
He pulled my head to him so he could give me a kiss on the cheek. Then he leaned his forehead against mine. “Thank you, love.”
“Thank you, too, Travis,” I said. “Because you’ve made me whole again.”
He smiled, and the boyishness returned to his face again. “Thank you…because you’ve made me live again.”
I lay on his shoulder, both his arms wrapped around me.
“How did you know I was here?” I asked.
“Eric. Karl told me he saw you with him. So when I finally made the decision to stop running…I called him. He told me that you had just boarded the flight home. I went to your house. When I found that you weren’t there, I knew there could only be one place you would be. And I was glad I’d found you just in time. You could have hit your head or fainted with no one to find you.”
I sighed. “At that moment, I didn’t really care.”
Travis squeezed my shoulders, and I felt him kiss my forehead. But he didn’t say anything. I knew that he was sorry for making me feel the way I did. But it didn’t matter now.
“Travis…yesterday, I went to your apartment. I called you. You didn’t see me or hear me. I wasn’t allowed to enter your building. Did you ban me or something?”
He tightened his embrace of me again. “Of course not. I’m sorry. I introduced you to Mr. Ferguson. But the building underwent management changes and shuffled some of their staff. I was asked to update my tenant list to prevent any hassles like that. Back then, I was dead to the world…I just didn’t get around doing the things that I was supposed to be paying attention to. I’m sorry, Brianne. But next time you come to the building…you won’t be questioned anymore. Brianne Cross will be on the list…as one of the owners of an apartment in that building.”
I sighed contentedly. After so many months of pain…after feeling almost numb, I never thought I would feel this happy again. I knew…only one man could make me feel this way.
Travis kissed me passionately. He turned so that he was on top of me again.
“Travis!” I laughed. “We just…”
“Sorry, love. I told you I’d make up for everything. This included! And I’ve got months I need to make up for!” My laughter died as he covered my mouth with passionate kisses again.