Hearing the cheers outside the auditorium, I dug my phone out of my breast pocket and pressed the button, turning it off.
I’d learned a little something over the past couple of weeks. The world would wait.
I swung the doors open and entered, a flood of battle cries and high-pitched instruments surrounding me as I walked in and let the heavy door slam shut behind me.
Jesus. How the hell was I going to find Christian in all of this?
The entire gymnasium was packed, bleachers filled to capacity on both sides of the basketball court with parents, staff, and students, some forced to stand on the sides for lack of seating.
The Friday pep rally, normally held during the morning on days there would be football games in the evening, was being held in the afternoon this week due to testing earlier in the day. Christian had texted, asking me to come.
Most of the parents would be here, and over the past several days he’d been more and more interested in me seeing things that went on at school and meeting his friends.
I’d instantly agreed. I’d come for Christian, but I was doing a piss-poor job of ignoring the small hope that I’d see Easton. I’d looked for her every day I picked up Christian from school, trying not to but fucking failing miserably.
No matter how much I tried to ignore the pull, I always scanned the school grounds for her after school, but she was never there. She didn’t come outside anymore to see the students on their way, and the only glimpses of her I got were online in the social media groups.
I scanned the bleachers, forcing myself not to look for her, but there was no way I was going to find Christian in this mess, either. I almost dug my phone out to text him when I spotted Jack, Easton’s brother, watching the dance performance taking place in the center of the court from the sidelines.
I debated whether to greet him, but not saying hello would prolong the awkwardness.
“Jack.” I stepped up to his side, folding my arms over my chest. “How are you?”
He twisted his head toward me, giving me a genuine smile. I guessed that Easton hadn’t confided in him, or he might have reacted differently.
“Very well,” he replied. “I’m taking Easton to dinner after this. I only hope she doesn’t have to stick around to clean up the mess.”
He laughed, and I just nodded, wishing I didn’t love hearing even the littlest thing about her.
“Thanks for the introductions at your luncheon a few weeks ago,” he said.
“No problem,” I told him. “I hope it was helpful. I know how hard it can be to break into the right circles here.”
“Do you?” he threw back, an amused look on his face.
I breathed out a small laugh, looking him in the eye. “I used my family’s money to receive a good education, but I built my company on my own.”
He seemed to take that in stride, because he turned back to the court and didn’t say anything else.
We stood in silence for a few moments, and I caught Christian’s waving hand from the bleachers.
I held up my hand, waving back, and he sat down with his friends, continuing to clap with the audience as the cheerleaders took the floor.
I let my eyes swing from left to right, but I still didn’t see her.
I inhaled a long breath through my nose. “How’s Easton?” I broached.
“She’s good. Newsweek wants to interview her.”
“Newsweek?” I shot him a look, surprised. “Why?”
“For her teaching methods,” he responded. “She’s gaining some great publicity.” And then a look crossed his eyes, and he turned back to the court. “As always.”
I’d been in Newsweek once. When I was a twenty-five-year-old entrepreneur, as part of a feature on twenty-four other up-and-coming entrepreneurs. She was being interviewed personally?
Jack shook his head. “No matter what she does, she’s always a winner.”
“And how does she feel about that?” I asked, suddenly worried. “After everything that happened, being in the press again, is she okay with it?”
Jack looked at me, suddenly appearing tense. “What did she tell you?”
I shrugged slightly. “She told me about your parents and sister.” And then I dropped my voice. “And that she had a coach who was inappropriate and then fired.”
“That’s it?” he asked, pinching his eyebrows at me. “He was more than inappropriate. He stalked her.”
“What?”
He dropped his arms, sliding his hands into his pockets. “My parents fired him, but that was only the beginning.” He spoke quietly. “For two years, he terrorized her. E-mailed, called, left messages, showed up at her matches . . . He threatened her, broke into her hotel rooms, ransacked her things . . . My parents had to take away her phone, her e-mail, and eventually her freedom.”
I looked away, wondering why she hadn’t told me any of that.
No wonder she was so damn tough.
No wonder she hadn’t looked for me like I’d been looking for her these past two weeks. Turmoil and disappointment were nothing to her anymore.
“She didn’t tell me any of that.” My voice was barely audible.
“Not surprising,” he stated. “Easton hates talking about her problems. She thinks it makes her look weak.” Then he added, “The fact that she told you anything is something.”
I narrowed my eyes, knowing that was true. For Easton to open up to me meant she trusted me.
She had trusted me.
He continued. “She was sixteen and in a constant state of stress,” he said. “But it wasn’t just him. It was me, our parents, our sister . . . All of us hurt Easton.”
“What do you mean?”
“No one even considered going to the police,” he explained. “My parents didn’t want her name associated with a sordid mess, so rather than deal with Stiles, we just did our best to shield her.”
He shook his head, gazing out at nothing. “But all we did was cage her in,” he confessed. “She barely had any contact with her friends. She slept with the lights on, and she always had to wonder if he was in the stands, watching her play. She was disconnected from life, and she was lonely.”
His eyelids fluttered, and I could see the regret he had for her.
“How could your parents let her go through that?” I charged.
“My parents loved Easton,” he rushed out. “They always had her best interest at heart. They thought it would pass and didn’t want the press causing more harm.”
“Does she at least have a restraining order against him?” I shot out.
The last thing I wanted was this guy trying to come back into her life.
“Wouldn’t be much point,” he replied flatly. “He’s dead.”
“Dead?” I questioned, hoping I’d heard him right.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Two years after the stalking began, when Easton was eighteen, she’d finally had enough,” he told me. “She got bolder. She started sneaking out for late-night jogs, leaving her hotel room door unlocked, getting a phone behind our parents’ backs . . .” He looked up, meeting my eyes. “She was daring him,” he clarified. “She was tired of being afraid, and she wanted her life back.”
How long would you stay?
Longer than anyone else.
“Standing in the middle of a burning room,” I mused, remembering how she liked a dare.
“What?” he asked, confused.
I shook my head. “Nothing. Go on.”
“One night,” he continued, “Stiles left a note on her car, promising that she would never forget him.”
I turned my head, trying to hide my anger.
“Later that night, Easton disappeared, and my parents were frantic.” He leaned in, lowering his voice as much as he could manage with the noise. “They took Avery with them but left me at the house in case Easton came home, and they drove around looking for her, not knowing that she had gone to Chase’s apartment to confront him.”
What?
“When Chase never showed up, she came home, but the police were already at our house, giving us the news,” he told me. “My parents had lost control of the car in the rain and swerved into the path of a semi.”
“Jesus Christ,” I whispered under my breath.
Easton and Jack had gone from a family of five to a family of two, and now I understood. Not so much in what Jack told me but in everything Easton hadn’t.
She’d had her heart broken too much and didn’t gamble on uncertainties.
But she’d opened up for me. Even just a little. She had shown me that she cared.
“Why wouldn’t she tell me all of this?” I asked him.
“I’m sure she would’ve,” he assured me. “Eventually.”
“And Chase Stiles? How did he die?”
Jack hesitated, taking a deep breath. “He . . . committed suicide earlier that day,” he admitted. “I’m guessing the note he left for her was a suicide note.”
So Easton had gone to wait outside his apartment, and he was already gone. I was tempted to inquire how he’d killed himself, but if it didn’t directly concern Easton, then I didn’t want to know anything else about him.
“Easton died a little that night, too,” Jack added, getting ready to leave as the music stopped and Principal Shaw wished everyone fun tonight.
I held Jack’s eyes as he continued. “It’s not that I don’t like the woman my sister’s become, but since that day, her heart is a machine,” he cautioned. “She can start and stop it at will.”
—
“Dad?” Christian called, running over to the car, his light blue button-down hanging out of his uniform dress slacks. “Would it be okay if Patrick picked me up after he takes you back to the office?” he asked. “I want to have some friends over.”
I slid my phone back into my pocket. “I’m not going back to the office.”
His forehead creased with surprise. “Really?”
I nodded, pushing up from where I leaned against the car. “I thought we could order pizza and watch the fight.”
There was a match on Pay-Per-View I wasn’t interested in seeing, but I definitely enjoyed spending time with Christian, so . . .
“Are you sure you don’t want to work?” he pressed. “I mean, I appreciate the effort you’re putting in, and it’s the thought that counts, but . . .” He trailed off, glancing back to where his friends were joking around.
“But . . . ?” I inquired.
His arms hung at his sides, and he looked severely displeased. “Well, I wanted to have some friends over tonight without my dad hanging around, you know?”
I scowled. “You’re fourteen.”
And then it dawned on me.
“Are you inviting girls?” I exclaimed.
A nervous smile spread across his face, and he glanced behind him again. I noticed Clyde Richmond’s daughter shifting her gaze over to us, and I immediately started shaking my head at my son.
“I may not be father of the year,” I chided, “but I’m not stupid, either. You’re not allowed to make me a grandfather for at least another fifteen years. Understand?”
He rolled his eyes, his shoulders dropping.
“But nice try,” I allowed.
“Okay.” He groaned. “Can I still have friends over, though?”
“Yeah,” I allowed. “Let’s see how many we can fit.” And then I pointed to him, stopping before I turned for the car. “And no touching my pool table this time.”
Last time he’d had friends over, I’d found a pizza stain on the ten-thousand-dollar table.
“Dad,” he whined.
“I mean it,” I shot out. “I’ll have Mrs. Giroux order pizzas, and you and your friends can have the media room, but no one in my den. And don’t even think about trying to break through the parental controls on Pay-Per-View.”
“How come you can watch porn?” he blurted out sarcastically, and I heard a mother nearby gasp.
I leaned in, pulling him close by the back of the neck. “A. The controls are for R-rated movies, not porn,” I lied. “B. Who says I even watch porn? And C,” I continued, “I went to college, so I can do whatever the hell I want. Now, go get your friends.”
He smiled, brushing me off as he left to go round up his classmates.
I moved to head for the car, but then I looked up and I stopped.
Easton was in her classroom, walking by the window, but as soon as I spotted her, she disappeared.
I tilted my chin up farther, trying to see her again, but she wasn’t near the windows anymore, and I didn’t know what to do.
Leave her alone. For her sake and for mine.
It wasn’t even about Jack and what he’d just told me in the auditorium. I’d always known that Easton was a strong woman and she would be fine.
But my heart was racing, and I refused to think about what I was doing. I walked toward the school and climbed the steps, needing more than anything to look at her for just one moment.
Stopping at her classroom door, I watched her pad around in her bare feet, her heels lying next to her desk, and arch up on her tiptoes to stack books on top of a wardrobe cabinet.
Coming up behind her, I reached up and pushed the book into place for her.
She sucked in a sharp breath and whirled around, the long, sexy bangs of her deep brown hair falling over one eye.
“Mr. Marek.” Her small voice sounded out of breath.
Her red blouse was only one inch from my chest, and her little black pencil skirt only reminded me of how well I’d feel her if I took her in my hands right now.
But I backed up, forcing some distance.
“I owe you an explanation,” I told her.
Her expression turned emotionless. “No, Mr. Marek,” she replied stiffly. “You don’t.”
I had never told her our relationship was over. I’d never warned her I wouldn’t call again. I’d simply stopped. I owed her an apology and an explanation, and I wanted her to hear it.
“My son needs to come first,” I explained.
She walked around her desk and turned to face me, her back and shoulders straight. “Of course he does,” she agreed. “Christian is what’s most important, and we were wrong. You made the right choice.”
I narrowed my eyes on her. Why was she acting like that? Where was the sharp tongue? The temper?
At least yell at me when you tell me you don’t care.
“Are you attending the Greystone Ball on Halloween?” I inquired.
She shook her head. “No. Why would I?”
“Your brother is interning with their firm, right? I thought he’d be taking you.”
“How did you know about the internship?” She squinted her eyes at me.
But I ignored the question. I wouldn’t tell that I’d made the call after the luncheon to get him that position.
She waited for me to answer, and when I didn’t, she sighed. “I’m not going.”
I watched her, wanting her to know so many things. That I thought about her every day, nearly all day. There was hardly a minute when she didn’t cross my mind.
That I couldn’t smell her in my bedroom anymore, and that I wanted to touch her.
If nothing else, I needed her to know how much she had mattered to me and still did.
Stepping up behind her desk, I hovered over her, seeing her breathing turn shallow. “Being a man is making hard choices and living with them,” I told her, “no matter how much it hurts.”
And then I reached out and ran my thumb across her cheek. “I miss you,” I whispered.
Her cold expression slowly started to crack, and her face turned sad.
Looking up at me, she shook her head. “You’re wrong,” she argued. “Being a man is having the wisdom—and the courage—to make the right choices.”
And then she took my hand off her face and evened out her expression.
“And you have,” she told me. “You’re a good father, Mr. Marek.”
So cold.
Her heart is a machine.
She turned away, but I reached out and pulled her in to my body, hearing her breath shake.
“Say you miss me,” I begged, whispering in her ear. “If you say that, then I can leave you alone. I can stop risking my relationship with my son, who is standing right downstairs, and my campaign, knowing that it wasn’t just sex.”
As I spoke, I held her cheek with my hand, turning her lips to meet mine. “Say you miss me,” I whispered against her mouth. “And that you won’t forget me. Ask me if I think about you and miss you every day.”
She softened and let her lips fall to mine, kissing me gently, and then looked at me with pity in her eyes.
“Oh, Tyler,” she lamented, speaking quietly. “I don’t ask questions I don’t want the answers to.”
And then she pulled out of my arms and calmly walked from the room, away from me.
