Chapter Fifteen
LIZZIE DROVE AROUND for an hour, vacillating between going back and trying to explain and patch things up with Blue and being too angry to see straight. How could he tell her that she was fooling herself? She knew just how low she felt about what she was doing every day, but she also knew how important it was to have a college degree these days. Not to mention that if she’d had to manage her school loans after college, she’d still be working in some crappy little flower shop for ten dollars an hour, destined to be doing so forever.
She’d been innovative, and she’d found a way to climb out from under her debt and help her sister avoid having to do the same. She should be proud of her accomplishments. That was what she’d told herself for all these years, but now none of that held the same weight, and the shame of it all was that she’d never meant to hurt anyone else. Least of all Blue. She never meant to fall in love with him, and she didn’t mean to keep this from him, but it wasn’t exactly something a person brought up on a date.
By the way, I’m the Naked Baker, just in case you were wondering what I did in my spare time. She’d bet that wouldn’t have gone over very well.
She drove up and down the highway, berating herself and building herself up in equal measure, until she realized it was two in the morning and she still had a video to edit.
It was only after she’d edited the video and she’d fallen into bed alone, in her dark, silent bedroom that reality settled over her like a storm cloud, and her insides twisted until she could barely breathe.
She’d ruined them.
She’d lost the only man she’d ever loved.
Now it was six thirty in the morning and she had no idea if Blue was coming over to finish the renovations, or if he hated her and they’d never speak again. She felt his absence in the kitchen where he’d left heart prints, like fingerprints, in everything he did. She ran her hand over the counter, thinking of how many times she’d left him notes, expecting to come home and find them in the trash only to realize he’d taken them with him. How many times had the sound of his truck pulling up in the morning set her heart aflame? How many mornings had she hurried out before he arrived because she worried he’d see her attraction to him written all over her face?
She debated staying home to see if he came over, but the thought of seeing the hurt in his eyes again, hearing the venom in his voice, made her queasy. Even her skin stung with the painful memory. Not that she blamed Blue for his reaction. There was only one way that conversation could have gone down. She’d known that from their first date, hadn’t she? Wasn’t that why she hadn’t accepted the dates in the first place? And once she had, wasn’t that why she kept putting off telling him about the webcast? Because being with Blue felt so good and so incredibly right that the thought of ruining their relationship had made her sick to her stomach. Didn’t she put it off so she could eke out as much time as she possibly could with him? To enjoy every kiss. To revel in the feel of his arms around her. To soak in his heartfelt words until she absolutely had to come clean?
She drove into town feeling selfish for having waited so long and fighting tears at every turn, her anguish almost overcoming her control. She parked and walked down the pier in the early-morning fog, a stab of guilt buried deep in her chest. Normally she loved this time of day, before shops opened and tourists filled the streets, but now it amplified her loneliness. She pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her head and shoved her hands deep in her pockets, warding off the morning chill. Fishermen readied their boats beside the pier, and two older women walked down the beach, bundled up in jackets and hats. Strangers went about their business like normal, while Lizzie tried to hold on to the pieces of her broken heart.
She choked back tears, wishing Blue were with her and willing to talk things through. She could almost feel his hand on her back, see the mischievous glint in his eyes as he pulled her in close—he was always pulling her in close, as if he couldn’t get enough of her. Was. She nearly choked on the word.
She needed to get a grip on herself. She had an entire day to get through and, she just remembered, a string garden class to teach tonight. When she reached the end of the dock, she sat down with her feet hanging over the water and her arms wrapped around her middle, bracing herself against the anguish that gripped her.
This was what it felt like to love someone so much she had to be honest with him. This is what it felt like to be honest—and to lose him. How would she ever go back to being who she was? Which brought her to a more troubling question. Who was she? Was she the good girl her parents had raised? The rebellious coed? The proud business owner? Or was she, really, the Naked Baker? A woman who dressed in nearly nothing for money? She knew who she wanted to be. A flower shop owner, big sister, and Blue’s girlfriend. That was all she wanted.
But what she wanted didn’t matter, and she’d accepted that when she’d committed to helping Maddy.
She buried her face in her hands as an even more treacherous thought hit her.
What would Blue think of her if—when—he watched the videos?
She pulled out her cell phone and sent him a text—I’m sorry I hurt you—and then she lay back on the rough, hard pier and stared up at the sky, praying he’d forgive her.
BLUE CLUTCHED HIS phone, staring at the text from Lizzie, remembering the way the color had drained from her face when he’d told her she’d deceived not only him, but she’d also deceived herself. He shoved his phone in his pocket, unable to deal with the roller coaster of emotions rattling through him.
He’d stayed up half the night watching the Naked Baker videos. There were so many of them that he’d been sick and angry watching one after another, feeling his heart chip away with each one. How many guys had watched her while they pleasured themselves? How many drunk college guys gathered around their computers laughing about all the things they’d like to do to her as she strutted around nearly naked? He had a good handle on the vast number of people who had done just that. He’d surfed message boards and forums for posts about the Naked Baker and had been disgusted by what he’d found. Chat rooms filled with anonymous posts about her breasts and rear and all the dirty things guys would like to do to her. How on earth could he protect the woman he loved from those types of attacks?
He pushed from the chair on his back deck and paced, as he’d been doing all morning. How could she have demeaned herself like this?
Even after watching the videos, he couldn’t reconcile the Lizzie he knew with the seductress on the videos. His Lizzie was seductive and sexy, but the woman on the videos brought it to a whole new level. Or maybe brought it to a whole new low. All those muffins and treats she’d left for him in the mornings were just leftovers from the dirty shows she’d taped the night before, made for the enjoyment of some other guys. And not just some other guys, but probably thousands of perverted guys.
How did she live with that? How could she uphold such a wholesome image in her daily life and slip into this other persona at night?
And why?
He still couldn’t wrap his mind around the why of it. He should have let her explain, but he couldn’t have listened to another word last night if his life had depended on it.
He stormed into the cabin and headed for the bedroom, stopping cold in the doorway. He couldn’t look at the bed without seeing Lizzie lying with him, looking up at him like he was her everything. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to move across the floor to the dresser. Yanking open the top drawer, he took out the notes she’d left for him over the last few weeks and clenched his fist around them. He wanted to burn every last one of them, to rid himself of her memory. He strode into the kitchen and turned on the gas stove, clutching the notes over the flame. The heat seared his shaking fingers.
“Damn it!” He threw them on the kitchen floor and turned off the flame, unable to burn them. Burning them wouldn’t change a thing. He loved her more than life itself, and he didn’t want a stupid empty memory. He wanted Lizzie, but he had no idea how to deal with this mess.
His cell phone rang and he pulled it out. Trish’s smiling face flashed on the screen. She was in Los Angeles. What was wrong that she’d call at this hour?
“Hey,” he answered sharply.
“Whoa, B. Are you okay?” Trish asked.
“Yeah, sorry. What’s up, sis? Something wrong?”
“No. I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about Jeremy and Susan. What did you get them as a gift?”
“You’re thinking of gifts? What time is it there?”
She sighed, and he knew something was wrong. He rose to his feet, his protective urges surging forth.
“Trish? What’s wrong?”
He hated that she lived so far away from him and his siblings.
“Nothing.”
He exhaled loudly. “I suck at this figure-it-out stuff. You know that. Do I need to come out there and put some jerk in his place?”
She laughed. “No. Geez, B. I can do that myself.”
“Then what’s going on? And don’t shrug, because you know I can’t hear that.” They both shrugged when they were on the phone and it drove their siblings crazy.
She laughed again. “I’ve been working on this film night and day and just realized that I haven’t gotten them a gift, and I need to get them something.”
“Well, I suck too, because I haven’t gotten them anything either. Call Gage. He always gets stuff like this done. He can hook us both up.”
“Oh, great idea. He’ll figure something out for sure.”
If only his problems were so easily solved.
“Duke told me that you’re dating someone. Are you bringing her to the wedding?” She sounded more like herself now.
His chest tightened with the memory of asking Lizzie to go with him to the wedding. She had to have known how he would react once she revealed her secret. Why would she agree to go?
“I’m not sure.”
As much as he enjoyed chatting with his sister, he wasn’t in the mood for talking right now. In fact, he wasn’t in the mood for anything, except maybe beating the living daylights out of something. But he had a commitment to fulfill, and he wasn’t about to be the guy who blew off his commitments. He ended the call with Trish, took a cold shower to wake himself up after not sleeping all night, and drove over to Lizzie’s. Maybe they could talk through this so he could better understand why she’d done it.
He arrived to an empty driveway again, and he was disappointed and relieved in equal measure. Walking into her house was unsettling. He realized, as he stood in her kitchen, that from the very first day he’d begun working on her renovations, he’d hoped they’d come together. How could everything feel so right between two people when one of them was hiding something so big?
How could they ever move past this? He wanted to. Man, how he wanted to. He loved her so much, but he was hurt. Stunned and hurt that she had waited to tell him.
He set his tools down and caught sight of the picture they’d painted together hanging on the wall in the living room. He crossed the room in a daze and stood in front of the painting. Though he was staring at the image they’d painted, he saw Lizzie’s face, the light in her eyes when they’d gone to the festival, the way her smile radiated straight to his heart when they were dancing, and the raw sensuality she exuded when they were making out behind the stage. And then the image of her crying as she told him about her webcast and the devastation he’d heard in her voice. His heart shattered in his chest, but that wasn’t the worst of it, as his thoughts turned to her sexy lists.
Did they stem from the same place as the Naked Baker? Had she shared those with the world, too?