| |
Ethan
I scoffed as I sat down on the couch in my hotel room. It was lavish. Too lavish. Then again, that was what I got for entrusting the booking of my hotel room to Liam. His tastes were always too extravagant for his wallet. I expected him to book me what I always booked myself—a functional and inexpensive room. But instead, I was sitting in the middle of the damn presidential suite. It wasn’t as if I couldn't afford it. I simply didn’t like it. I didn’t like openly boasting of money and buying things just to showcase my wealth. The presidential suite didn’t offer me anything I couldn’t already get in a regular room. It had a bed, a bathroom, and a microwave.
What else did I need while on the road?
Still, I was too tired to change it. Or bitch about it. Or even seethe over it. Hell, I could buy out the whole damn block if I wanted to. What was one hotel room in the scheme of things anyway? I propped my elbow up onto the arm of the chair and settled my chin onto the palm of my hand. I mindlessly stared out the window. Out of the floor-to-ceiling windows that surrounded the entire front-end of the suite. The view was nice. I sat there all damn night watching it. Looking out at the city. And every time I thought about the darkened chaos below, the only thing that came to mind was Diana.
Stumbling.
Drunk.
Allowing her body to be in the hands of yet another man.
I scoffed as the morning sun began to rise. I closed my eyes for a few minutes here and there, but it didn’t do me any good. I felt adrift. Empty. Alone. And every time I opened my eyes, the beauty of the view in front of me only served to remind me of Diana’s beauty.
And suddenly, the view from my presidential suite didn’t seem all that beautiful after all.
For so long, I’d been inured to pain like this. Conditioned to accept it, and walled off so it could never set me off course. But now that it was crashing back into me, it was agony. It felt like my limbs were being ripped from their sockets. It felt like every atom of every cell in my body was filled with too much electricity all at once. I was dying. This was surely what death must feel like. I watched the sun rise over the city as the sunlight poured onto my skin. Illuminating it and filling my suite with a light I wanted to immediately shut off.
I pulled myself up from the couch after sitting there all fucking night. I needed to try and shake this somehow. I needed to get Diana off my mind. I walked over to the windows and clasped my hands behind my back, staring out over the expanse of a city I had no passion for or desire to be in. I talked myself through what I saw. Central Park. Billboards. Towering skyscrapers in the distance. The smallest hint of water if I squinted just right.
Then Diana would invade my thoughts.
Everywhere I looked, there she was. In the beauty of the park and in the colorful vivaciousness of the billboards. Her amber stare reflected in the sunlight streaming through my windows and her smooth olive skin tainted the dark buildings surrounding me. She was so beautiful. Graceful, in her own way.
No wonder she could easily replace me.
Just a crook of that woman’s finger and a man would be lost. I knew I was. From the moment she first put on that dumbass little fashion show of hers. Every time she came around a corner and gave me that mischievous little stare, I caved. Every time she came at me with her barely-there nightgowns on, I felt my hands tingling. Yes, she could have any man. Crook her finger and have them drooling at her feet. But damn it, I wanted to be that man.
Not some drunken frat boy.
My hands fell to my sides as I turned away from the window. I couldn't look out at the city any longer. It was wholly tainted by her, and I’d never be able to shake it. Anger overwhelmed me at the memory of last night. At the way that little boy reached out so easily for her when she fell. So many emotions buzzed through my veins. Jealousy. Bitterness. Disappointment.
I should have known better. I should have been stronger.
My cell phone vibrating against my hip pulled me from my depressing trance. I pulled it from my pocket and looked down at the screen, sighing when I saw who it was. My mother. Of course, my mother was calling. It was as if she had a radar for either the most inconvenient or the most emotionally-charged moments of my life. I debated on whether or not to pick it up. Was I really in a mood to talk with her right now? But if I let it drift off to voicemail, I knew she’d call back.
She’d call and call, until I finally picked up.
“Hello, Mom.”
“I knew something was wrong,” she said.
“What do you need?”
“I’m not the one that needs anything. But I felt in the pit of my gut that you needed something, so I called.”
“I don’t need anything.”
“Yes, you do. I can hear it in your voice.”
“I just need some time alone to think.”
“Then I’ll give you that, after you talk,” she said.
“Mom.”
“Ethan, you’re my son. And you haven’t been yourself now for days. Weeks, even. Did you get to the city okay?”
“I did, yes.”
“Did you find Diana?”
I gritted my teeth together and sighed, which was all the signal my mother needed.
“What happened, honey?” she asked.
“Mom, I really can’t do this right—”
“Sit down on a couch, or in a chair, and walk me through what happened.”
I groaned and my head fell back before I made my way to an armchair in the corner. I turned it so I could keep gazing out into the city. Torturing myself with the memories of last night. With the memories of Diana. Of her kiss, and her touch, and her smile. And the way she came so beautifully around my cock like the perfect woman she was.
Running my hand down my face, I righted my thoughts before I launched into everything.
“I did find Diana, and I informed her that the case was a wrap. That she could go home,” I said.
“And—that’s it? That’s why you sound like you’ve been moping and haven’t gotten an ounce of sleep?” my mother asked.
“I’m not—fine. Look. I found Diana at Ollie’s place. He gave you the right address. I didn’t get into town until around two in the morning, but I needed a code to get up to the penthouse from the elevator. So, I sat in the lobby. But, I didn’t have to sit long before Diana came stumbling into the damn place with some guy all over her trying to help her stand up.”
“Oh gosh. Ethan, is she all right?”
“Mom, she was fine. Apparently, she had her best friend come into town and the two of them went out drinking. They picked up a couple of guys they were lugging back to Ollie’s penthouse.”
My head lobbed back into the cushion of the chair as my mother sighed.
“How do you feel about that?” she asked.
“I don’t have a right to feel any certain way about it,” I said.
“Try again.”
“Mom.”
“Ethan.”
“I should have known better, that’s how I feel!”
I closed my eyes and tried to calm the angry tone in my voice as fury pooled in my gut.
“I should have known that the second she left, she’d go back to her old life. Back to bouncing around between men and racking up debt on credit cards and living her life on other people’s money. I should have known she’d go back to partying and getting drunk and staying out at all hours of the night. I mean, that was how we first met, Mom. I had to go dig her out of some party in an abandoned hotel complex.”
“You don’t think she can change?”
“She’s had plenty of opportunities to do that, Mom. And instead, she’s tricked us playing the good girl to get her way. Every single time. And anyway, none of that matters. I was meant to be alone, and I knew that the day Layla passed. Alone is how I need to remain. I decided to test that boundary and this is where it got me.”
“You’re wrong, Ethan.”
“Oh, really? I’m wrong. You think I’m wrong. Fine. Then, look at this situation and enlighten me as to how I’m wrong,” I said.
“I know you are capable of great love, and it’s a waste for you to keep that bottled up inside.”
“I don’t have my person, Mom. My person died when I was in high school.”
My heart clenched in my chest and it became hard to breathe.
“Layla’s death was a blow to the entire neighborhood, Ethan. It was tragic, and terrible. It hung a cloud over this town for months. But it happened, and we coped, and we all got through it.”
“Not me, Mom. I never got through it. I never got over it.”
“I know, son. I see that now, at least. But you can’t keep clinging onto a ghost.”
“Mom.”
“You can’t block yourself off from the world because you lost one person,” she said.
“She wasn’t just a person, Mom. She was the woman I was going to marry.”
“At seventeen, sure. Ethan, you’re thirty-two years old. You’re a grown man, living a grown life. I saw the way you looked at Diana while she was here. I saw the way you longed after her. You used to look at Layla like that, you know.”
“Don’t say shit like that. Diana is nothing like Layla.”
“No, she’s not. She’s nothing like Layla. But that doesn't mean she’s bad, baby.”
I heaved a heavy sigh out into the room as the sun grew higher in the sky.
“Have you talked with Diana? Told her how you feel?” my mother asked.
“She was too fucked up last night, Mom. I’m not even sure she’ll remember the fact that she saw me. But even if I did talk with her, it isn’t as if she’ll ever change.”
“Maybe no one’s given her a reason to change.”
“If her life being threatened isn’t enough of a reason, Mom, then she’s not capable of change.”
“Then maybe no one’s given her the right reason to change,” she said.
“What?” I asked flatly.
“Until you tell Diana how you feel and she rejects you, you’ll never be able to truly know how she feels and what she wants. Until you sit her down and actually have a conversation with her, you’ll never know where either of you stand. Individually or together. Have the two of you done that?”
“I can’t be disappointed again, Mom. Not by her.”
“Sure, you can. I raised a strong son who goes after what he wants. Are you telling me you’re really going to let a girl get the better of you?” she asked.
I chuckled and shook my head before sliding down into my seat. My mother always had a way of putting things into perspective, and this time was no different.
“You know, Ollie mentioned something interesting to me when I finally pulled that address from him,” she said.
“Oh, this ought to be good,” I said.
“He mentioned that he was going to be back in town today.”
“For what?”
“A fundraiser event in uptown Manhattan. It’s a charity event, and he mentioned taking Diana to it.”
“He what?” I growled.
I heard my mother giggle on the other end of the line as I sat up straight in my chair.
“It just so happens that I was able to pull a few strings and get a ticket in the name of our foundation. And you’ll never guess where the fundraiser is taking place.”
I stood up from my chair and pressed my hand against the glass of the wall. I looked down and, for once, really took in my surroundings. The buildings around me were posh. Expensive. The cars below my presidential suite were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. I closed my eyes and tried to remember last night. Tried to remember how far I had driven to get to my hotel. It hadn’t been far. Ollie’s place was smack dab in the middle of Manhattan, and I had driven—
Shit. I had driven uptown to get to the hotel Liam booked for me.
“You can thank us later,” my mother said, giggling.
“I swear, the two of you need to open your own service,” I murmured.
“Why don’t you go get a lay of the land? The ticket will be at the front desk in the name of the family’s foundation. And Ethan?”
“Yes?”
“Talk to her,” she said.
Then, my mother hung up the phone.
I turned around, my eyes falling onto the door of my hotel suite. I considered my mother’s words and the plot Liam and she had dropped me into. Did Liam know? Holy shit, did the entire team know?
Did it really matter?
I slid my phone back into my pocket and sighed. If my mother and my best friend wanted me to try one last time, then I owed it to them to at least try it one last time. If they had gone through all of this planning just to get Diana and I in the same building, then I should respect their efforts to give this one last go. I had no idea how it would pan out and I didn’t know if things could work, but I found myself slowly gravitating to the front door before reaching down onto the side table for my wallet.
I didn’t simply need the lay of the land. I needed a fucking tux.
