With our food on the table, I can't leave. But I also can't pay. There's no way I can afford it. I sit there in silence for what feels like an eternity. Just when I thought I could trust him, he walks out on me. Not that I should expect anything from him. I try to convince myself that he was a fling and nothing more. Just a fun time in another city, far, far away from here.
Just because a piece of paper says we're legally husband and wife doesn't mean we actually are. Truth be told, we are nothing more than strangers. A few glorious days does not a relationship make. We may seem compatible, but I have no way of knowing that we really are. Being caught up in the moment can really distort your view of a person. Make them seem better and brighter than they truly are. Make them seem more important to you than they should be.
Even as I run through the list of reasons why Brayden and I are nothing more than a fling and why I shouldn't feel anything for him, it sounds even more hollow than usual. I'm having a tougher time convincing myself of the truth of any of it.
My eyes fill with tears and my heart fills with sorrow and regret as I sit at the table, alone, scared – and trapped. The ring on my finger is the least of my concerns right now. The baby growing in my belly, the one I haven't told him about, is a worry so large, I might as well be carrying the world on my shoulders.
If he reacts like this to something he's clearly misconstrued, how is he going to react to that bit of news?
Chapter Twenty-Five
Brayden
I push open the heavy door leading to the back patio. It's empty, as it's too cold for anyone to eat outside this time of year. But, as the freezing air hits my skin, it feels nice. It focuses my mind. Helps me think. It centers me.
I pace around the empty tables lined up on the back patio, letting my anger consume me in a red, hot rage. If Holly lied to me, if the real reason we got married was to get her out of some shit marriage arrangement to square her father's debts, why does it matter? Does that change the way I feel about her? About the woman I got to know?
I have the annulment papers with me and she's willing to sign them. Ultimately, the result is still the same. No harm, no foul. But that means she used me to get out from this fucked-up arrangement her father made. Or did she? That's the real bitch of this all. I don't know if our getting married was what it seemed – a spontaneous drunken act of stupidity, or some calculated, pre-arranged act of deception. Had she come to Vegas looking for someone to take her away from her problems? Or had she come there simply to get away from them?
I slam my fist into the brick wall, my knuckles aching from the beating they'd just taken.
“Why does it matter if she used you?” I ask myself aloud.
Because. It does. It shouldn't, but it does.
Her face flashes in my mind. When I asked her the question, the look of surprise seemed sincere to me. Either that, or she is a damn good actress.
My mind is a whirlwind of thought and emotion. Our wedding night is a blur and I cannot recall if it was her idea to get married, or mine. We'd both been far too wasted to make any kind of decision like that. Yes, she had as much to drink as I had. There is no way she could have made a logical, calculating choice like this. There was no way she knew we were going to meet in the first place, which means that she couldn't have planned out snaring me into a marriage I didn't want.
But again, why does it matter? She's willing to sign the papers, allowing us both to walk away from one another and get on with our separate lives. Again, no harm, no foul.
And shouldn't the fact that she's willing to sign the papers, allowing both of us to go our separate ways, prove that she wasn’t trying to use me? That Holly was simply looking for an escape from the fucked-up situation her father has thrown her into the middle of?
It should, right?
My insides coil up tight inside me, and I feel like an absolute mess of thoughts and emotions and shit that doesn't have a name. I've never been very good about dealing with my feelings, and that isn't about to change now. But, Holly has managed to stir up a lot of crap within me and it is clouding my head. Affecting my judgment. Making it so I can't see or think straight.
The reason it matters is because Holly makes me feel something. Her very presence is like a breath of fresh air in my lungs. She has a knack for breathing life into me when I seem to need it the most. No one has ever made me feel so alive or been so willing to let go and experience life and everything it has to offer. Nobody has ever made me feel as safe and comfortable as she does.
Yet, we hardly even know each other.
It's all so crazy, but in the end, does it even matter? Had we not rushed ourselves into getting married by a fat Elvis in Vegas, wouldn't I still have wanted to spend time with her? Of course, I would. I'd want to spend a lot of time with her and get to know everything there is to possibly know about her.
Taking a deep breath of the cold, Colorado air, I let it out slowly, feeling my head clear and my emotions falling back into check. I turn and head back inside the restaurant. I see Holly sitting in the booth still, mascara streaking down her pale cheeks. My heart breaks in that moment and I feel like an absolute asshole knowing that those tears are because of me. I may be pissed, but I never want to see her hurt because of me.
When she sees me walking toward her, she quickly wipes her eyes and sits up straight. She looks away and I can see her trying to compose herself. It's as if she thinks I won't be able to see the makeup smeared across her beautiful face.
I did this to her. I made her cry.
And it kills me.
As quickly as the rage consumed me, it dissipates. And in the void left behind by the rage, the guilt comes flowing into me with the power of a tsunami. When I reach the table, I don't sit down. Instead, I walk over to her and pull her from the seat and into my arms instead. I kiss her, hoping to take the pain from her and somehow absorb it all into me. She gasps but doesn't fight it. Instead, she relaxes. I feel her body melt into my arms as she kisses me back.
Stroking her hair, I whisper to her, “It's going to be okay. I promise you, it will.”
“I swear to you, I didn't –”
“Shh,” I silence her with another kiss, a gentler one this time. “I know you didn't. And I'm sorry I reacted the way that I did. I act crazy sometimes.”
With her in my arms, I feel calm. Relaxed. Focused. Knowing that she's told me I need to work on my anger – and wanting to be a better man for and because of her – I keep my emotions in check. And find that it's not actually all that difficult with her.
I feel as if I know what I have to do to make this okay. I have the power to fix things for Holly, and whether she chooses to stay with me or not in the end – that doesn't matter. All I care about is making sure she doesn't have to marry some creep because of her dad's selfishness and lies. All I care about is making sure she doesn't bear the burden of somebody else's poor, selfish decisions.
We sit back down at the table, and the color almost instantly returns to her cheeks. The tears are gone, and a tentative, unsure smile touches her lips. She's not necessarily happy yet, but we're certainly moving in the right direction. I dig into my steak, blood oozing out on the plate as I slice into it. Holly takes a small bite of her Chilean sea bass. We eat in a companionable silence for a couple of minutes and then I drop the bomb on her.
“I'm going to talk to your father, Holly.”
She's in the middle of taking a drink when I say those words, and she stops, almost spitting out what's in her mouth. She freezes and stares at me for a long time.
“I don't know if that's a good idea,” she says slowly.
“It's what I have to do,” I say. “I'm not going to sit back and watch you be forced into a marriage that you don't want. No matter what happens with us, you don't deserve that.”
“Why?” she asks. “Why would you do this for me?”