Chapter 9
His return walk up to the bunkhouse was filled with self-recrimination.
I used to know how to do this—how to seduce women and keep them around.
Then again, I used to be able to rely on my ability to speak.
Some part of him was convinced that if only he could say the right words, he could convince her that he wasn't the horrible liar she believed him to be.
Inside the bunkhouse, a door slammed.
Leta's closet, he realized as he came even with the bedroom door. He leaned against the doorframe, watching her toss her belongings into her suitcase in jerky motions, her hands shaking as she piled half-folded clothes on top of toiletries, then shoved shoes in haphazardly.
When she had forced the zipper closed, she elbowed past him, muttering, "Excuse me," without ever glancing up at him.
He followed her down the hall and out the door, half-hating himself for not offering to carry her bags to her car for her.
Not that he could say much of anything at the moment, given his stammering attempt at "Wait" earlier.
The old Tor—the man he'd been before his accident—would have raced after her, stopped her, kissed her into submission and demanded she stay.
He couldn't do that now.
Not only could he not trust the words to make their way out of his mouth, but he knew with a certainty he could feel through to his marrow that any woman he could convince to stay wouldn't be right for him. Either she would want him for his money and despise his disability, or she wouldn't mind his speech problems but would loathe the moneyed world he had to move through sometimes.
Maybe it wouldn't matter. Now that he knew he had the potential to get his voice back, perhaps he could start some sort of physical therapy and go back to being the man he had been before.
There was only one problem with that: during the two years he'd been without his voice, he had discovered exactly what—and who—mattered to him.
If I went back to my old life, I could have any woman I wanted, as long as I didn't want anything real.
None of his so-called friends in high society had come to visit him in the hospital.
But several people from Necessity had made the hours-long drive up to Parkland Hospital in Dallas.
When he'd stopped attending their high-society functions, his friends in Dallas had ignored him.
But when he stopped showing up at The Chargrill at least once a week, Ava Jordan and her grandmother had dropped by to check on him. And brought a pie, too.
In the last two years, he had learned that the only people worth keeping around were the ones who came back for you, even when you weren't perfect.
The tires of her silver Kia spun on the gravel, sending white caliche dust up into the air. Tor retreated into the bunkhouse, watching the car from behind the screen door for only a second or two before shutting the main door firmly and heading to his own room to pack up his own hastily assembled belongings.
Time to get back to my real life.
Even if merely thinking about it made him choke, as if all his words were piling up at the base of his throat.
No. He wouldn't allow that to happen.
Even if he never saw Leta again, at least one good thing had come out the last two weeks.
He had his voice back.
Despite his determination to move on, though, a single thought kept echoing through his mind: Maybe I can figure out a way to win her over again.
* * *
Leta parked her Kia in her usual parking spot, checked her makeup in the visor mirror, and swung her legs out the door. For a brief instant, the motion reminded her of that first day on the Stuart Ranch, when she had twisted her ankle. A jagged shard of pain stabbed through her chest, but with a grimace, she shoved the memory back down, and stepped onto the sidewalk.
Her bright red heels clicked sharply against the concrete, the tone changing, but not the cadence, as she moved to the marble floor inside the building. Normally, she would've worn something more comfortable—but she wasn't about to show up looking less than perfect on her first day back to work.
She was glad of her decision to dress up, too, when she caught sight of Brent leaning against the wall next to the elevator bank, scanning the door as people came through, and her steps faltered briefly
The urge to bolt almost overwhelmed her, but leaving now wouldn't change anything. She would still have to deal with him the next day.
And the day after that, and the day after that.
Unless she could avoid him every day.
A visceral image of an infinity of days spent avoiding Brent stretched in front of her.
"Fuck that," she muttered harshly, causing an intern passing by to flinch and scuttle away.
I can handle anything Dr. Brent Smithson can possibly dish out.
Nodding a cold greeting at her ex, she strode up to the elevator and punched the number, perhaps with more vehemence than was really necessary.
"Hey, Leta," Brent said tentatively.
Leta stared. Tentative wasn't really Brent's style.
"Can I talk to you for a minute?" he asked.
Pinching her lips together, she shook her head. "I'm on my way to my office, Brent. I don't have time right now."
"It'll only take a minute."
She blew out a sigh. "Fine. What is it?"
"In private?"
Glancing around, she pointed at the corner of the room, several feet away from the elevator bank. "That's as private as we're getting."
"Okay."
Leta followed him across the room, watching the way he shoved his chest out, as if trying to make himself look bigger.
Like that rooster on Tor's ranch.
The thought made her grin, even as the memory lodged in her chest like misery. When she reached Brent, her tone was even more brusque than she had planned. "What do you need?"
His ingratiating smile faltered. "I…I…"
All the patience she'd had with Tor, no matter how long it took him to get a sentence out dissipated in the face of Brent's inarticulate sputtering.
"Spit it out," she said impatiently. "I have to get to work."
"I wanted to say I'm sorry." The words poured out of her ex-boyfriend in a rush.
"Sorry?" Leta stared at him, indignant.
"Yes?" It sounded more like a question than a statement.
"Sorry's not good enough, Brent." She opened her mouth to continue haranguing him, then stopped and tilted her head. "In fact, nothing will ever be good enough. There's nothing you could ever say or do that would make anything you did to me any better. So don't bother."
Brent's mouth dropped open, as if the last thing he had ever expected from her was resistance to whatever ridiculous excuse he had cooked up in her absence.
To hell with this.
She spun on her heel and marched back toward the elevators.
I guess that counts as 'dealing with Brent.'
By the time she stepped off the elevator on her floor, she had begun giggling. When she finally reached the administrative offices, tears of laughter were streaming down her face. Ducking into the restroom, she shut the door behind her and leaned back against it.
To think she had run away to Necessity to get away from that man.
Closing her eyes for a minute, she leaned back against the door.
So what am I doing now?
The answer came to her almost immediately.
Running back to Dallas to get away from another man who lied to me.
But this time, she wasn't sure that was what she really wanted to be doing.
With a sigh, she wiped her eyes, stood up straight, and opened the door again. She had work to do after being gone for a solid week.
She could go back to considering what to do about the billionaire she'd fallen in love with in that week later.
Maybe over her lunch break.
* * *
I can't let her walk away forever.
Tor jabbed at the screen of his phone, waiting impatiently for his business manager to answer.
Three days. He had wasted three days stewing in his own misery, going over and over what he had done wrong and what he might have done differently.
When he realized he'd been muttering to himself for most of those three days, it had suddenly occurred to him that he might be able to make things right again.
"I need you get me two tickets to the fundraiser ball for Dallas General." Tor practically barked into the phone when John finally answered.
"Who is this?"
"It's me. Your boss. Who'd you think it was?"
"Sorry, Mr. Edwards. I …um … didn't recognize your voice there for a minute." John stumbled, but only for a second. His adaptability was part of the reason Tor's grandfather had hired him a decade ago, and why Tor had kept him on. "Yeah, sure, I can manage that," the manager continued. "We've got invites here already. You want two more, or will these do? I was going to gift them to an employee."
"That's good. Keep them for me. No. Wait. I have other plans for one of the tickets. How long is it until the ball?"
"Three weeks."
"Good. Get a pen. You'll need to take notes."
"Of course." There was a pause, and John said, "It's nice to have you back, sir."
An unwilling grin crossed Tor's face as he got ready to put his brainstorm into action. "You say that now," he said. Who would have guessed that all he needed to get his voice back was the right motivation?
One beautiful, brunette medical coder.
"Who hates rich men," he muttered.
"Sir?" John asked.
"Nothing. Call the hospital's lead neurologist, too. Get me an appointment."
Two years was long enough.
It was time to get back to being himself.
Maybe even a better version than before.