Chapter 37
Caden
Through the entire drive back to Manhattan, I couldn't even look at myself in the rearview mirror.
I was a bastard.
A lowlife.
Scum.
If only I'd had the balls to explain to Lizzie the real reason I had to leave. Maybe if I'd told her the truth, she would have understood. Telling her about Louise and Charlotte was easier than taking the risk and telling her about her father's blackmail. When she said we could have a baby, I wanted to haul her into my arms and take her to bed. For the first time since losing Charlotte, the thought of having a baby didn't fill me with horror. But a baby wouldn't stop Beaufort. It would mean he had three lives to ruin and not two.
The tortured look on her face when I left would haunt me forever. I would never forgive myself, and she would never forgive me. Not now. Not ever.
In time she would find someone else, but me? I would never fall in love again. When she cried, I all but fell to my knees. Every cell in my body screamed in pain. And more than anything, I wanted to drive back to Sundown Sands and lose myself in her and beg for her forgiveness.
A car in front of me broke without warning. I smacked the steering wheel and then rolled down the window.
"Learn how to drive you fucking idiot."
The driver stuck his finger out of the window and blew me off. I hit the horn again. Anger boiled my insides. Getting out of my car and giving the driver a mouthful burned inside of me.
The traffic moved again, and the car in front went straight while I turned right. I glimpsed a kid's face peering wide-eyed from the back seat. I shook my head. What was I doing?
I'd driven the narrow streets of Manhattan enough to know how traffic worked. Every man for himself and be prepared for anything. I was angry at myself. Taking it out on other people wasn't the answer. Drinking my sorrows away was preferable than getting pissed off at people I didn't know.
After parking in the garage beneath my building, I jumped in the elevator to my thirtieth-floor apartment. The place wasn't what I remembered. The cold, almost sterile rooms didn't feel like home.
None of Lizzie's perfumes or oils scented the air. We'd lived in Cliffside Cottage for less than two weeks, and the place felt more like home than five years of living in my apartment. Nothing here held any value or laughter-filled memories.
My phone rang. I slid it out of my pocket hoping it was Lizzie. I wanted to know if she was okay.
Beaufort's name showed up on the screen. I didn't want to talk to the fucker, so I let it go to voicemail. The poisonous snake of a man had gotten his way. I was out of Lizzie's life. In the morning, I would email to my lawyer instructing him to sign everything over to Beaufort. I would pay the investors back from my own money. The money didn't matter but losing face with my investors was a punch in the face. Since I'd started renovating old hotels and country clubs, I'd never let them down.
I would chalk this up to experience. Soon enough, I would have the property in North Carolina to keep me busy. Things happened in business—that's what I'd tell everyone. No one needed to know the real story.
I grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge and climbed out of the kitchen window onto the fire escape. The sounds of the city that never sleeps assaulted my ears. The first time I came to New York, those very same sounds were like an orchestra. The most beautiful sounds in the world. The sounds that once energized me. But not tonight. Tonight, they left me feeling tired and deflated.
I didn't want to be one person in a sea of millions. I wanted to be one person in a beach town where the locals went to the bar for game show nights. Where real estate agents told your business to everyone who would listen. I wanted to be where she was. But I could never go back.
I wouldn't blame her if she reported me to immigration and said I'd fooled her. But she wasn't that vindictive even if her father was. I took a slug of beer, but there was no taste to it. I slid down the wall until I sat. I rested my forearms on my knees. The beer bottle dangled from between my fingers.
I glanced up at the cloud-covered night and inhaled. There was no scent of brine or sounds of nature anywhere. The only thing I smelled were millions of bodies crammed into small spaces.
Maybe after the North Carolina deal went through, I would look for a place by the shore. Somewhere I could go to when I had a few days.
I huffed out a laugh. Who was I kidding? I would never give myself a few days off again. I didn't want any space in my brain for anything other than work. I didn't want to think about what I'd lost and what I could have had.
My mother would rip me a new one. My sisters, too. I'd broken Lizzie's, heart. Not just broken it, I'd stomped on it and left it a bloody mess. I couldn't tell her I'd meant it when I said I loved her. That would have been worse. She didn't need to know my true feelings.
I wanted to jump in my car and go back and tell her but I couldn't. Beaufort was a dangerous man. Behind the booze haze was a calculating manipulator. I'd been in business long enough to know not to trust someone like him, but I'd been blinded by Lizzie.
Maybe she was in on it the entire time. I shook my head at that stupid thought. There was no way she was scheming with her father. The way her eyes and face reflected her pain told me that.
I climbed back into my apartment and threw the remainder of my beer down the sink. I needed sleep before any more ridiculous thoughts reared up in my mind. Lizzie loved me, and nothing would make me think any different.
After getting undressed and throwing my clothes in the hamper, I glanced down at my finger and frowned. I still wore my wedding band. Funny, it wasn't the noose it once was. I slid it off, put it into the nightstand drawer, and locked it away forever.