What hurt so badly was I didn’t want to. I’d wanted to think the best of him. Wanted him to be the man he’d shown me he was yesterday.
His lips pursed, and he nodded twice, as if he needed to accept what I’d said. Then he turned on his heels, strode toward the door, and pulled it open. He paused halfway out, looking at me from over his shoulder, his expression like a straight kick to the gut.
Pain.
“That’s too bad, Lillith, because it only took three days for you to mean the most to me.”
Then he tossed the door open wide and disappeared out into the glinting sun that shone through the frigid winter air.
I stood there gasping for air as I watched him go, trying to hold on to reason. To my senses and resolutions and the reality of who he was, all the while my spirit burning and aching, my insides twisting in two.
How had I let him hurt me so badly?
Off to the side, movement caught my attention, and I turned to find Addelaine wringing her hands where she stood in the archway to the sewing room in the back. “Child,” she whispered like a loving reprimand.
Angrily, I swiped at the tears that started to fall when I saw her standing there. “He’s a bad man, Addelaine. A big, bad man.”
She shuffled forward, her head angling to the side as she did. “You didn’t tell me.”
I looked to the papers in front of me, pretending as if I could actually make out the words printed on the page through the bleariness that suddenly clouded my eyes. “There was nothing to tell,” I said as offhandedly as I could muster.
She clucked in disapproval. “Lily, child. Come now. Do you think I don’t know you better than that? That right there had nothing to do with this old building and everything to do with the expression you’re wearing right now.”
I jerked my attention back to her. “I made a mistake, Addelaine. A foolish, rash, horrible mistake, and because of it, I let you down. But I promise you, I won’t fail you.”
Addelaine peered up at me with her weathered face, and my breath caught somewhere in my lungs, my heart a tangle of pain and devotion.
This woman meant everything to me, and I’d let someone threaten that.
“Maybe it’s a sign that we need to let this go. You’ve been fightin’ a good fight, but maybe it’s not the right fight. Maybe winnin’ this one just isn’t meant to be.”
“How can you say that? You belong here. This is your home,” I pleaded, pushing the papers that held the complaint across the counter toward her in a bid for her to sign them.
Her attention danced around her store like a loving caress. She turned back to me with a soft smile. “Yes, it’s been my home.” She tapped a finger at her temple. “But I hold the memories right here. And more importantly”—she tapped her fingertips over her heart—“I hold them here. And even if it scares us, sometimes change is okay.”
She angled her head to the side as she reached out and set her hand on top of mine. “It’s time you asked yourself why you’re fighting so hard for this. You’re no longer that girl who walked through my door lookin’ for a place to hide. That girl needed walls to keep her safe. Are you going to continue to make her a prisoner to them?”
Tears clouded my eyes. I blinked, setting them free. “You know that girl was someone I never wanted to be.”
She tenderly cupped my face, and even though I was much taller than she was, somehow I felt as if I was a little girl as I stared up at her motherly face.
“Yet, that girl is still a part of you, and she’s always gonna be. She’s important. She taught you the lessons you needed to know. She became the smart, successful, caring woman you are today. But she’s also holdin’ you back. Refusing to let you trust, even when the truth is right in front of you.”
A frown twisted my brow, and I blinked rapidly. “What do you mean?”
A shot of air puffed from her nose. “You really think that man walked in here wearing his heart on his sleeve because he wanted to gloat about winnin’? If he did what you think he did, then he already won. That man came in here wearing remorse, plain as day.”
My head shook, wanting to believe her so badly it vibrated in my spirit. But when I trusted, it only led to pain. “He’s been foolin’ us, Addelaine.”
My words slipped into the casual tongue of my childhood, the hours I’d spent in this place sewing at her side, listening to her talk, strength growing each day as she instilled hope and belief in me.
“He’s nothin’ but a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
She almost smiled. “Child, that man doesn’t look nothin’ like a sheep. Think he’s wolf through and through. But I think he just might be your wolf.”
“How…how could I ever believe him after everything?” I tossed the papers across the counter, the stack of them sliding and separating. “After I found all of this?”
Addelaine sighed before she began to shuffle through the stack of papers, pulling out the two different contracts she’d signed that were hidden beneath the stack of evidence I’d printed.
She pointed at the two signatures. “Look at this, child. Look closely.”
Confusion knitted my brow while heartbreak trembled my lip.
She jabbed her index finger between the two of them. “Those signatures aren’t close to bein’ the same.”
She looked up at me with a flash of fear in her grayed eyes. “And the men who came in here…they were…mean. Cruel and without compassion. I recognized it the second they stepped through my door. Just the same as I recognized the compassion in him when he first came here, too.”
I blinked as I studied the signatures that were clearly different even though they both bore Brody’s name. Broderick Wolfe III. A fact I had missed in my quest to find him guilty. In my mission to prove his betrayal, I’d overlooked the obvious.
Guilt built up inside me.
She lifted her chin. “You feel something for him?”
That feeling bubbled again. The affection and warmth I’d felt in his arms. The possibility that had become something tangible. I tried to resist it. Refute it. But it didn’t matter. My own truth came flying out. “Yes. I feel so much, Addelaine. More than I should. It shouldn’t be possible, but I do.”
She smiled. “Then you need to ask him why you should trust him yourself. Give him a chance to explain and see where the heart leads. It’s time for you to let it run. You’ve been holding it hostage for a long, long time. See what happens when you decide to trust.”
The tears came unchecked, and I pressed my fingers beneath my eyes and wiped the moisture as I struggled for a breath.
“Oh God…I think I messed up.”
In such a different way than I’d been accusing myself of all day. Because the thought of hurting him ripped me in two.
“What do you want?” she asked with a knowing smile threatening on her mouth.
Realization settled over me. Something powerful. Overcoming and overwhelming.
Unmistakable.
“Him. I want him.”