“Nothing to worry about. Typical wedding jitters we’re working out.”
Once she’s settled, content enough with our responses, we move a few more steps down the hall.
“Please, Victoria,” Simon tries as I pivot around, my gaze fixed on the doorknob of my bedroom and the idea of escaping behind the barrier it’ll provide.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I snap, picking up my pace. “I need time to process and figure out where I’m at.”
Simon’s stubborn as ever, his footsteps heavy as he follows-damn him for refusing to let me walk away. Doesn’t he recognize a dramatic exit when he sees it?
Maybe that’s something a billionaire like him doesn’t understand.
Like it or not, he has to let me go.
Even if it’s what he wants, I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to be his again.
In one fluid motion, I open the door and fling myself inside the safety of my bedroom.
The slam of the door as I pull it closed behind me isn’t as satisfying as I hoped. I go ahead and engage the lock, my chest heaving with ragged breaths as I press my back against the wood.
As the crying jag hits, I kick off my shoes and slide down the door, all the way until my butt hits the floor. There I sit, the night before my wedding, crying my eyes out in a beautiful red dress.
My rapid pulse throbs through my ears.
Tiny little pieces of my heart crumble within my chest. As much as I wanted him to leave me alone, the fact that Simon’s already gone cuts deep, intensifying my damaged feelings.
But then I hear the lightest rap of knuckles. There’s a soft thud, I’d guess where he’s lowered his forehead to the plywood.
He’s still here.
Out there waiting for me.
I don’t know how to face him, and I don’t know what’s real anymore. I’m not sure how much forgiveness I’m capable of, and I tend to bestow it on the wrong people.
Since I have no earthly idea how I’m going to recover from this, either, I drop my head in my hands and let the rest of my tears fall.
Simon
I stand outside Victoria’s bedroom door, my racing pulse leaving me a tad dizzy. It’s also pumping extra hard. Loud enough I wouldn’t be surprised if Victoria’s mom and her grandma hear it reverberating through the hallway.
With my head rested against the door, the resounding slam of it still ringing in my ears, I’m utterly clueless. Possibly for the first time in my life.
Even worse than the slam-than the barrier between us-is the silence that follows.
I brace a palm flat against the wood, as if that’ll allow me to reach her somehow. How could she believe any of my feelings for her were a lie?
Because you didn’t tell her the truth in time, you asshole.
I didn’t mean for it to go that way-all I’ve ever wanted to be is her hero. But I’d made my own bed of lies and now, I’d have to find a way to fix it.
My gut drops to the floor.
What if I can’t fix it?
Fear like I’ve never felt before floods my body. Until every inch of me is terrified I’m about to lose the best thing in my life.
Fuck the billions. The cars, planes, and mansion on the hill.
None of it means anything without Victoria. I can’t return to that life again, not unless she’s by my side.
I refuse to give her up without a fight. I have to do something.
Even if my earlier explanation came up too short.
“Victoria,” I say gingerly, begging her to listen for just five more minutes. “I’m so sorry. People have fallen for my name and my money before, so this time, I did things differently. As shitty as it is that I put you in this situation, the truth is, I did fall for you at first sight. From the day you brought me that burger.”
I pause, straining my ears for signs she heard me.
More silence.
“But for some reason, I couldn’t seem to find the right time to tell you everything.”
I shake my head. “Anyway, that’s what I managed to convince myself. Now I realize I was too scared I’d lose you. Scared telling you would ruin the most incredible thing I have in my life, something money can’t buy.”
With a lick of my suddenly dry lips, I press my palm flatter and confess the rest, “You.”
I swear I hear a sharp intake of air, a hint my words might’ve hit their intended target.
I raise my voice louder, speaking more firmly, not caring if the entire house hears. “I fell for your beauty and your compassion during that rough stretch living on the cold, unforgiving streets. Where most people passed by me without so much as a pity-filled glance.”
“Every day since that first day,” I continue, “I fell more and more in love with you. And each of those days, I planned to come clean.”
The confession tastes bitter on my tongue. All this time, I’ve been telling myself that I was waiting for the perfect moment. That I didn’t want my money to change the way she looked at me. That I wanted her to fall in love with me before she found out who I really was.
I’ve finally gotten what I wanted, and it cost me her belief in me. The one thing I never, ever wanted to lose.
“But I see now that it hurt you, which was never my intention.” Despair claws at my insides, a sensation I’ve never experienced before. I don’t like it. “Please at least believe that, Victoria. I’d do anything for you, I hope you know that.”
Each second that passes feels like an eternity, elongated silence that pokes holes in my hope.
I’ll never give up, but there’s only so much I can do tonight. With a heavy heart, I resign myself to leave her alone.
Just as soon as I finish laying it all on the table.
“Your kindness, your sunshiny warmth and personality-they changed me.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.