Misguided Vows: Chapter 48

The Ricci sisters don’t seem too impressed with me, so I’m assuming they’ve come to the realization that I had a hand to play in all of this. I don’t care. As long as Alina is okay, even if she hates me for it. I wait until they’ve left the room and close the door behind them.

I made sure Alina had the best private room. Every need catered to, and constant attention. From what I’d been told, she hadn’t taken in too much smoke, but I wanted her to stay overnight to make sure.

She’s staring me down as I slowly approach the bed.

“You look like shit,” she says, breaking the silence. I smirk but don’t really find it humorous. I’m just grateful she’s speaking to me at all. She shuffles to the side of the bed to make room for me to sit beside her. “Only for tonight. I can’t be bothered fighting you tonight.”

Tonight. And there’s an edge to her tone that tells me this might very well be the last time I see her. I can’t blame her. I’m a mess. But I’ll take whatever little crumb she’s willing to offer so I can steal even one more minute with her, especially before she finds a better man.

I slip in beside her, wrapping my arms around her shoulders. “I just need to make sure you’re okay. You can hate me all you want,” I begin. “I just need this. Please.”

She sighs, as if defeated, and lets me scoop her into my arms, where she rests her head on my shoulder. “We’re both really fucked up, huh?”

I want to laugh, but we’re beyond that. Behind all the sharp wit are two individuals who struggle to show our true selves—the versions of ourselves we’ve been running from. Only for one night are we keeping it together to have a moment of reprieve, even though we can both sense it’s breaking apart.

“Were you the tracker he hired to find me?” she asks, shifting so she can look into my eyes.

“Yes,” I admit. No lies. No charm. No jokes. Only truth.

She nods slowly before resting her head against me again. “So this was all a game to you?”

“No.” I adamantly force.

“Then what am I supposed to make of it?” she asks. “Were you meant to finish me?”

“No, I would’ve never done that.” I sigh, defeated, and go on. “The only reason I took the job in the first place was because you were already working for my sister at the time, and I became curious. It wasn’t difficult to recommend you return to New York to work for Dawson. They didn’t know about it, by the way. I thought this way I could watch you closely while I waited for him to pay the remainder of my fees, but then I started to get to know you, taste you, be with you…” She was a blessing when she was only ever meant to be a paycheck.

“I’m so mad at you. And I don’t even have the fight in me right now,” she says, sounding defeated.

I sigh, exhausted, as I rest my chin on the top of her head. “Neither do I, love.”

She’s quiet for a moment, then says, “You know, when I left him, I thought I was doing the right thing. Their mother had just passed, and he planned on using all the inheritance and family jewels that were passed down to his younger sister. He’d already bled me dry of all my money, and I’d been stupid enough to let him. His sister, Tilly, though…” She chokes on that. “She was only eighteen at the time. She didn’t have any other family, and I thought if I stole the jewelry, I could get the money back that he took from me. But more importantly, I wanted her to get out of that environment. So I gave them to her so she could get a ticket anywhere and have enough money to set up a new life. I thought I was helping.”

I’m rubbing her shoulder as she talks. I already know the end of this story, that the young woman she’s talking about ended up involved in the wrong scene with drugs and ultimately committed suicide. Some paths are inevitable. Sometimes, you can offer a person the tools they need to escape, but if they don’t have the courage to embrace a new environment, they’ll go back to their old ways.

I can’t help but smirk, thinking about how much that lesson applies to me.

“I’ll replace everything he took from you tenfold,” I tell her, with every intention of doing exactly that. Money means nothing to me. I have more than enough to set her free again. “No plane included this time, though.”

I see the corner of her mouth tilt up. “I really hate you, you know that, right? I’m just too tired to cry or fight right now.”

“I know.”

“I never want to see you again after today.” She looks up at me, and I’m forced to face the carnage of my own making. “Will, you might think you care about me, but I think today you saw more of your wife disappearing again than me.”

Her words pierce straight into my chest. “That’s not true,” I say, but my voice breaks.

“Isn’t it? We can try to make this look like a fantasized version, but the truth is you can’t let go of Hayley, and I won’t make you. I don’t know if I can ever trust you after finding out that all of this was built on a lie.”

“I never lied.”

“But you did, Will—about so many things. I was a target. You orchestrated every part of my life over the last three months. You hide behind smiles and laughs, when, deep down, you’re one of the most miserable people I know. And I want to be with someone who can move forward with me. I won’t be compared to anyone else, and I don’t think you’re able to grow past that.”

My grip tightens around her as I retreat into myself, taken in by the shackles that have kept me beside my wife’s grave all these years.

“I was terrified to lose you today,” I say honestly. “Not because of Hayley. Because of you.”

She twists in my arms and puts her hand on my cheek. “I know, but it’s not enough. And that’s okay. Emotions are high because of what we’ve just experienced, but it doesn’t change the fact that we should still be parting ways on that bridge.”

I go to argue with her, but I can’t. And I can’t let go of her either.

My mind is a jumble of commotion, the thought of moving forward terrifying. But I know come tomorrow, with energy restored, she’ll hate me. Her viper tongue will be back, and it’ll lash at me for the secrets I kept from her. I know everything about her, and there are only small pockets of myself that I ever truly let her see.

She deserves better than me.