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“Will you be truthful with me?” A small crease appears between her eyes.
I don’t need to think about that answer. “I always strive to do the best by you.”
She releases a breath and holding my gaze she’s asks something I knew was coming. That big imaginary elephant was always between us and stopping the conversation from being brought up. “Why?” She exhales and looks in my eyes again. “Why did you treat me like you did, before I left for uni?”
CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN
EMILY
The question hangs in the air. It’s an innocent enough question but one that my teenage heart never got the answer to. The adult in me now though seems to think she can handle it. She’s a businesswoman, she made it for years without anyone’s help, she can do this now. Suddenly I’m a third person in my mind.
While I’m internally scolding myself for my thoughts, Troy stands, pulls on some joggers and goes over to the window, looking out. He obviously needs to put some distance between us for this. He turns his head my way. “Remember when I said last night that everything that I’ve ever done has been for you?” I nod but don’t speak because I don’t want to ruin his train of thought. “You’ve got to understand Em, I was in a tough place. I wanted to be somebody.” A deep frown creases his brow, “Your father always said that a past doesn’t define a person but their future and how they handle it, does. You and Mitch you were the like the Angel and Devil fighting on each of my shoulders. You were the angel that kept me grounded, taught me to see that I had a heart and that I could care for someone other than myself. Mitch was the devil who could only see the future, money and a standing where everyone would respect me. And they did.”
“Okay.” I interrupt him briefly, but it doesn’t give me much of an answer. He turns back to the window. Leaning over the side of the bed I grab his shirt and throw it on while he’s opening his heart and swiftly slide my knickers back up my legs.
“The devil pressed down on me to be harder, more ruthless, more respected. The angel, well she never changed her opinion of me, she looked at me with innocent, powder blue eyes like I hung the moon and could do no wrong.” He turns around, his hands shoved in his pockets and a look on his face like it’s causing him physical pain. “But I did do wrong. I put your father’s opinion of me over you,” he pauses, his eyes turning sad, “but sweetheart, I didn’t have a choice.” He shrugs because there’s obviously nothing else that he can say.
Dropping my chin to my chest I keep my eyes from him.
“All I had when I met Mitch was a poxy little council flat, working my fingers to the bone and trying to make ends meet in a cheap supermarket suit. Because if there was one thing I could do I it was to make a living by talking. It was a given talent, I had the gift of the gab, I was that good.”
There’s that cockiness I love him for so much… he was right though.
“Good at talking shit because that’s all it was. Making empty promises and not giving a fuck about that person if I broke them. I was still getting paid, right? Who cares?” he shrugs.
“Your dad saw that. He saw me, he knew I had something. I was part of a company that was going under. I was sat in the meeting with him and the Managing Director, I tried to get your father to go easy on the staff that were there. Unlike me, they all had families, mouths to feed, kids to clothe, without their jobs they wouldn’t be able to do that.” He exhales, and his shoulders sag but he goes on. “I guess my remorse ended there. After the meeting, and once the MD had told everyone they no longer had a job, I steeled myself to not care about anyone but myself in future. It was me against the world. I didn’t have a family anymore,” Wow. How did I not know this? I fix my gaze on him, but he doesn’t look at me. I can’t tell if he’s sad or just bitter. His eyebrows pull together, his whole face tightening with a scowl, his body tensing as he remembers, “My mother abandoned me at just a couple of weeks old or so I’m told, and I never met my father. The only people who I cared about in this shitty world were my grandparents and they were gone within months of each other because they didn’t know how to live apart.” And in just a matter of words his voice breaks slightly, filling with untold emotion. His body sags again like all the fight he had within him has left his body. I want to go to him and tell him that everything is okay, he has me. As I look up his eyes gill with tears. Chewing on the inside his mouth for a moment, he goes on.
“Your father came up to me as I was putting my belongings in the car, my head was full of questions about myself more than anything else. I needed to know where I was going to be in a month’s time. I hated the thought of living and not knowing where my next wage was coming from.” He threads his hands into his hair as he sucks in a breath and exhales, “he told me to come here and meet with him. Just from that meeting inside that conference room, he said I had what it took to be a successful businessman. It made me feel good that finally someone saw me for who I could be. My efforts would be recognised, and I could finally get out of that stuffy high rise flat.
His head shakes and finally he looks at me, “I came here and loved what I saw. I fell in love with this place as soon as I saw it. Your dad and I sat and talked and then you came into conversation.” With my eyes widening, I glance away. Feeling his fingers soft on my jaw, he tilts my head back and fixes me with a loving gaze, a loving smile stretches his lips.
“He explained to me how headstrong you were and how he wanted you to be a part of the business, but in his words, he said that you cared more about a stupid hobby than you did about anything else. He also told me how you defied him at every turn, but above everything else, he loved you. A lot.” He inched forward, sits on the bed pressing his lips to mine in a sweet kiss and rubbing his nose tenderly with mine, and as he goes on, our breaths mingle, becoming one. “Hearing him talk that way about you and not even meeting you made me think you were nothing but a spoilt brat who just disobeyed her father because she could.”His one eyebrow shot up, a smirk forming on his beautiful mouth.
“Spoilt brat?” My voice hit a high pitch. I’m hurt he would even think that. “But then I met you and in fairness, as far as first impressions go, I take that as a failure. But remember all I saw was what you had and compared to what I had – you had everything.” He strokes my cheek with his thumb, softly soothing me. I should be the one soothing him, not the other way around. “I was wrong to believe him. When Mitch found out I was living in that shitty little flat in a bad part of town, he gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse. It was then I knew I was wrong. I shouldn’t always trust first impressions, but you know what, the only first impression I do stand by is how beautiful you were in such a natural and innocent way. I had no idea you would have the power to swallow me whole.” His head shakes briefly.
“Me?” I poke myself in the chest. Hearing his past devastates me but I have no intention of turning this into being about me, although it is but I just want to hear him talk; I’m well overdue an explanation.
“Yes, you. Even from the first argument I heard you having, I knew you didn’t want this life, but Mitch, he couldn’t see it. It’s about commitment, hard work and not the kind of job you can leave at the door at five p.m. it wasn’t conventional and from the first time I saw you in the garden painting, I knew. You were your own person. It made you, you. As we spent more time together it made it harder to walk away. Mitch called me to his office one night, it was late. He knew I’d been with you. He saw how we got along. You’d talked me into watching a crappy chick flick movie in the living room. It was just one of the many times you made me sit through boring girlie movies,”
I smile through the sadness, sighing, “God, I remember that night.”It was a clear as day. Troy’s work was over for the day and as he walked through the room, he saw me sitting on the couch, my legs drawn into my chest and resting my chin on my knees. He sat by me as I just stared at the telly. I’d already been accepted to Oxford University. I hadn’t told Dad though.
“Penny for your thoughts?” he asks as he sits next to me. I turn my head and place my cheek on my knees instead and shrug.
“I’m okay. Don’t let me keep you from whatever it is you’re doing.”
“You look like you need an ear to listen to you.”
“Ugh, it’s just my dad. He doesn’t want me to go to uni, but I need to. I need to be away from here.”
“What is it you really want, Emily?” he asks.
“I don’t want to be like him. If I stay here and let him teach the ins and out of his business, I’ll turn out like him.” I shake my head at myself, Troy’s eyes soften as I speak, he knew.
“You know, that was the first time I’d admitted that I didn’t want to be like him. I felt so guilty because he was all I had in the world, but I wasn’t built like him.” I admit. I loved my dad more than life itself and for quite a while it was just him and me. I know that I was hard to control, and thathe had to learn how to be a mum and a dad, but the mum part never appeared, he was hard. He didn’t try. He never understood me, I don’t think he wanted to either. I just had to adhere to his rules. Troy takes his place next to me, picking up my hand and threads his fingers through mine.
“It’s why you had to leave.” he sighs heavily. “That night he called me to his office, he said he knew how I felt about you and that you were just a kid who didn’t understand her own feelings. He was wrong, I knew that, but he just didn’t understand you or how big your heart was; he told me I had to make a decision. It was you or him.” He tries to tug his hand out of mine, but I hold onto it a bit tighter. “In one way, I wanted to say screw you. You can’t tell me who to love or how to live my life but then in another sense, I owed him everything. So, I chose him. But I knew by choosing him, I was giving you a chance to succeed, to be the best version of yourself. And you are.” He smiles sadly, “But I’m a selfish bastard Em, I didn't want anyone to take what belonged to me. You were mine, and in my head always would be, no matter what. So, I took it without any consequence,” his gaze softens again as he cups the side of my face, “You know what they say, if you love someone, let them go.” He brings his forehead to rest on mine, “That's what I did.”
“But…” I interrupt,
