"You won. You can let go of me."
It was only seconds, his hesitancy in releasing me, but for a man as disciplined as him that small hesitation meant something. Trouble was, I didn't know if it meant he wanted to kiss me too, or snap my neck. Looking at him, it seemed the latter was more likely.
He put space between us. "I'll take you to the nursery."
"What?"
"Maureen. She's expecting you at noon."
"Yes. Maureen." And thinking of Maureen had thoughts of Janice and how I had tried my hardest to burn that bridge. "How do you know that Janice will still offer me the job?"
"She'll give you the job."
"And you won't share whatever the hell it is I don't know."
No answer.
"You say you want me, all of me, well that's a two way street Damian. We won't work if you won't do the same."
I didn't wait for a reply I knew would never come and went back to my room.
It was the longest day of my life. Maureen had been very gracious about me turning down the job. And as predicted Janice had hired me, but I think that was only because Damian also got a job working as a bouncer and the idea that I would get to watch them every night was worse than the silence I was running from.
I didn't leave my room after we returned from town. I lay on my bed trying to distract myself with a movie but it wasn't working. I needed air. I grabbed my robe and stepped outside on the balcony to find Damian sitting there, looking out at the darkness.
"Sorry." I turned to head back inside but he stopped me.
"It took her years to get this place the way she wanted."
My heart cracked open at the pain I heard in his voice, the anguish.
"Amelia always loved it here. I didn't know she was sick. She had kept it from me. I was off saving the fucking world and she was here dying. She called when there was no time left, just enough for us to say goodbye."
Amelia. The love he found after me. I couldn't breathe past the sob that caught in my throat.
"She was only twenty-seven when she died. We only had a few years."
She had been so young. I ached for her and him, but what completely broke me was the painful truth that I only had him now because she had died. No wonder he hadn't shared, I wish now that he hadn't. God help me, but I couldn't comfort him when I was dying inside. My legs were unsteady as I stood. Our gazes collided and I couldn't control my emotions any better than him.
"Thea?"
"I'm so sorry … so, so sorry."
And then I fled, down the stairs and right out of the house-trying to run from his words, from his pain, from his past that hadn't included me. I only got a few houses down when I doubled over in pain, the weight of my despair too much to handle.
Seconds later I was lifted and pressed against a familiar chest. He grabbed my face and forced my eyes on him. "Amelia was my sister." He looked almost as destroyed as me. "You thought she was my wife?"
The house, the way he mourned her, the affection … I did. I thought he had married someone else and the idea of that shattered me.
He pressed my face to his chest and held me so tightly. "It has only ever been you." The floodgates opened. Happy tears, sad tears, I cried for Damian and his sister, I cried for losing all the years I had with him, I even cried for my dad. He carried me back inside and settled on the sofa with me in his lap. He said nothing, just let me cry it all out and with the tears the vice that had been squeezing my heart eased and all the while he watched me with those beautiful eyes.
In a whisper, I said, "I thought you were married and I can't even describe how it … "
"I didn't need words, your expression said it all." He touched my chin. "It has always been you."
"For me too."
He kissed the tip of my nose. "I know."
"You had a sister?"
"Half sister. She lived for a time with my dad growing up, but sought me out when she learned of me."
"Your father never told her she had a brother?"
Pain moved over his face, like an old wound that never healed. "No."
"They didn't deserve you, neither of them. Why didn't you tell me about Amelia?"
"She died around the time you lost your dad. You had enough to deal with."
"And now?"
"You didn't even know I had a sister and I'm going to tell you she's dead. I know you, Thea. You would have mourned her, a woman you didn't know because of her link to me."
He wasn't wrong.
"I didn't want to put that on you with everything else going on."
"And Janice?"
A dark look swept his face. "Janice now owns the bar. She worked for Amelia, managing the bar, and now she owns the place."
"Wait? You think she … "
"Conned my dying sister out of it? Yeah. She didn't know about me so she was very surprised to see me at the reading of the will. That's where I learned she had been given power of attorney over Amelia's interests and the addendum to her will."
"An addendum?"
"Leaving Janice the bar."
"Holy shit."
"I didn't think much of it at the time, it made sense that Amelia would leave the bar to her manager who was also her friend."
"So what made you suspicious?"
"When I was making arrangements for Amelia's funeral, I reviewed her will for her wishes regarding her burial, and it was reviewing the will that I learned I originally had been left everything, including the bar. Janice was in the will. She was left money and her position as manager was hers for as long as she wanted it. And then an addendum is added to the will leaving the bar to Janice right after Janice is given power of attorney, but it was the timing of Janice being given power of attorney that raised a flag. Amelia would have been highly medicated."
"You would have thought the lawyer would have been suspicious of the addendum and Janice's gain from it, given the circumstances."
"He was a neon sign over the door kind of lawyer. He didn't know Amelia or Janice only that they were close enough that Amelia had her in her will, so trusting her with her estate wasn't a leap. There was no one else but me to question it. I suspected Janice had abused her position, but she was keeping Amelia's dream alive. Underhanded and illegal, yes, but Amelia's went on."
"But it's not Amelia's anymore."
"And not just in name. It's time to shake it up."
"That's why you wanted me to work there."
"Two birds."
It all started to make sense. They hadn't introduced themselves that day at the bar and his expression hadn't been interest, it had been contempt. "So it wasn't lust I saw in your eyes, it was hatred." Talk about a twist on the expression a fine line between love and hate.
"I've only ever felt this emotion toward one other woman, but yeah to manipulate a dying woman for personal gain, I fucking hate her."
Janice was a lot like Damian's mother, I understood the hatred, but we weren't going down that dark road. "Thank you for telling me."
"Don't ever run from me." He spoke the words so softly but it wasn't anger that fueled them, it was pain.
"I promise."
"And I won't keep anything from you."
I touched his chin to hold his gaze on me. "Not ever."
"Promise."
Damian was on a run when I woke. He had lost his sister. That news was more devastating than believing he was married. He had family who had wanted him, had loved him, who had sought him out, and he lost her. I had to believe that everything happened for a reason. I had to believe watching someone like Damian constantly getting knocked down and kicked in the gut, that there was some cosmic scale that would balance so that he would know love and happiness to the same degree he had known heartache and pain. Maybe I was his scale, because I loved him to the very deepest part of my soul.
I was putting on the coffee when Damian came back from his run. He was on the phone that he handed to me on his way to the shower. "Anton."
I seriously needed an Anton fix after learning about Amelia.
"Hey, Thea."
"Hi."
"You sound funny, what's going on?"
"I just learned about Amelia."
There was a note of surprise in his voice. "Damian told you about her?"
"Yes. You sound surprised that he did."
"Her death hit him hard. They'd only just found each other and then she was gone. After the funeral he kind of closed that part of his life down, but considering who you are, you're the only person he would open that old wound up for."
Even hating what we were discussing, I loved his thoughts on it. "Was Amelia the reason Damian's dad left?"
"Yeah. He'd fallen in love with Amelia's mother."
I squeezed the phone so hard I was surprised it didn't break. "So that's why his mother kept Damian because his father started over with another and she couldn't torture the man, so she tortured his son."
"Exactly."
"If she wasn't dead, I would kill her."
"Get in line. I've got to go. Damian will fill you in on what we've learned."
"I miss you."
"Ah, love, I miss you too."
I needed to bake something. Baking always soothed me; it was my form of yoga. I pulled out the ingredients for oatmeal raisin cookies. Damian came in while I measured out the dry ingredients.