Helene walked in between them, stopping the argument before it even got started, and halted in front of Sawyer’s chair. Arms crossed and her expression grim, she shook her head in dismay. Then she got down to giving him the talking to she’d obviously come here for.
“For the past year, I have been so afraid that you’d go through life without having what your father and I had—love,” she said. “You’re so busy with Carlyle Enterprises and your blasted big-picture vision that you miss all the little things that make life important. The small moments that combine to make something great. After what happened with your father, I couldn’t let you make the same mistakes he did. And I couldn’t fail you the way I failed him by not finding a way to make you see that there’s more to life than your damned big-picture plan. So I began pushing wife candidate after wife candidate at you and you barely even noticed.”
“Oh I noticed,” he grumbled.
“Not until Clover came around,” she shot back.
Having her memory imprinted on his brain was bad enough. Hearing her name was unbearable. “If you’re here to talk about her, you can just leave now because she’s gone.”
“We’re all aware of that,” Hudson said. “Irving is a fountain of information.”
To everyone but him it seemed.
Helene went on as if neither of her children had said a word. “When your brother told me about this juvenile little plan you came up with to have Clover pose as your fiancée, I was utterly annoyed.”
He swore he could smell smoke as the creaky gears in his head jammed to a halt. Eyes narrowed, he turned to Hudson. “I can’t believe you told her.”
“When you didn’t show up to work for the first time in your entire life yesterday, Mom broke out the pliers and battery jumper cables.” Hudson shrugged. “She broke me.”
Sawyer sank back into the chair, defeat weighing his shoulder down. “Thanks a lot.”
Still ignoring her children’s sniping, Helene continued, “And then when Linus told me about your absolutely horrible proposal—”
Jesus. Humiliation heated his face to wildfire levels. “Is there anyone who can keep their mouth shut around you?”
“No,” Helene said. “Not even your fake fiancée who told me all about your dates to the flea market. I’ve never met anyone who could get you out of the all-business-all-the-time mindset. But she did. And looking at how you’re handling the fact that she left, I can only come to one conclusion. You are as in love with Clover as she is with you.”
If he’d had it in him, he would have laughed. It would have been a bitter, mean little laugh but a laugh all the same. Instead, he just sat there like a man who’d been slugged one too many times by a heavyweight boxer.
“Try again,” he managed to get out. “She said no.”
“To being your teammate?” Helene snorted, a sound he’d never heard her make before in his entire life. “Color me shocked.”
Why did the women in his life keep getting stuck on that word? Correction. Not women. Woman. Clover was gone. Out of his life. It was just woman now. And that woman was his mom. That wasn’t fucking pathetic at all.
“It wasn’t like that,” he said, the pit of his stomach filling with the kind of dread that only happened when he’d fucked up. “I didn’t want her to think that marriage meant the end of her autonomy, her sense of adventure. I didn’t want her to feel trapped.”
“So instead you made her feel unloved,” Helene said. “Well done. Add to that your brother brilliantly interfering by telling her to break it off with you.”
“You what?” He bounded out of the chair toward Hudson, swinging.
His brother easily avoided his wild punch before connecting a jab to Sawyer’s jaw. Sawyer’s head snapped back and pain vibrated through his already aching head. Not that it mattered. His brother—the one he’d always trusted to have his back—had pushed Clover away. Red leaked into Sawyer’s vision and he struck out with everything he had. Unfortunately, after almost two days of only alcohol and sriracha-flavored chips, that wasn’t much. Hudson bobbed and weaved, then shoved Sawyer hard until he landed back in the chair he’d jumped out of.
“Oh, stop it.” Helene glared at both of them. “Sawyer, you’d already mucked it all up before your brother opened his big mouth anyway. No one wants to get married because their future spouse thinks they make a good teammate. Everyone wants to be—and deserves to be—noticed and loved for the little things that make them who they are, the details that make them special. If you love her, those are the reasons why you do and you have to tell her every one.”
What bullshit.
All the frustration that had been boiling inside him spilled over. “I do notice all of those details about Clover,” he yelled, loud enough that the words reverberated in his head. “The way she chews her lip when she’s nervous. The way the sunlight catches her hair and brings out the red you don’t see otherwise. The way her brain moves so quick in negotiations. The way she owns a room the moment she walks into it.”
His mother lifted an eyebrow but otherwise didn’t react to his outburst. “Then I suggest you find a way to tell her that.”
All the fight leaked out of him as the realization hit of just how much he’d fucked everything up. If he didn’t feel like puking so much, he’d go get the bottle of whiskey from the bar cart and fall back into it.
Helene opened up her purse, reached inside, and pulled out the emerald and diamond engagement ring. “A hotel employee found this in the supply closet and the hotel notified management, who called me. Of course, I immediately recognized it as your grandmother’s ring.” She held it out to him. “I believe you’ll be needing it.”
He kept his hands fisted on his thighs and his gaze averted. He’d fucked up. Clover was gone. A ring wasn’t going to bring her back. “I won’t.”
She harrumphed and dropped the ring onto the red bar cart. “So you say.”
Obviously deciding that she’d driven the sword in deep enough, Helene motioned to Hudson and they both walked to the elevator and disappeared inside, leaving him alone to stew in his own misery and stink. From where he sat, he could see the ring glimmering as the light streaming in from the balcony landed on the bar cart. He should throw both items over the balcony railing. The thing squeezing his chest tight loosened. He’d never had a better idea. Get rid of them and anything else that she’d ever touched. Then, he could create a new big-picture plan on the clean slate that would be left.
Energized for the first time since he’d left the Bayview Hotel, Sawyer leaped out of his chair and strode over to the closet where he had hidden all of the stupid hiking boots she’d ordered. He piled them high on the bar cart. He reached out to grab it by the handles ready to toss the whole lot overboard and— He couldn’t do it. Maybe later, after a shower. That would clear his head, and afterward he’d get rid of anything that even remotely reminded him of Clover. Now that was a big-picture plan.