Bittersweet Memories (Off-Limits #4)(114)
I smile humorlessly. “You won’t win her back this way. You can’t keep up the lies you’re telling her. What do you think she’ll do once she realizes you’re lying to her all over again?”
He looks away, the desperation in his eyes hitting me hard. He knows he won’t get away with his lies, but it’s worth it to him so long as he doesn’t have to see her with me.
“What is it going to take for you to stay away from her?” I ask, my tone defeated.
Ryan glances at me, a calculative look in his eyes. “What is she worth?”
I look away, my heart heavy. “Everything.”
He chuckles, the sound grating. “Then give me everything. Give me everything you took from us and I’ll tell Alanna that everything I’ve told her was a lie. I’ll confess, and I’ll never appear in front of her again.”
I look at him in disbelief. “Ryan, everything I took from your mother should’ve been mine in the first place.”
“Dad never wanted you to have the house or the company. That’s why he didn’t leave it to you, Silas. I’ll give you a week to think about it. If you decline, I’m going to see Alanna, and I’ll tell her you threatened me.”
He smiles as he walks away, leaving me standing in his empty living room. For so long, I’ve been holding onto the little boy who cried at our father’s funeral, the child that needed me so desperately. I’ve forgiven him for so much that he’s done, and in doing so I condemned myself.
Chapter Seventy-Four
Silas
I walk into our bedroom to find Alanna pulling her clothes off the racks in our wardrobe, and panic runs down my spine. “What are you doing?”
She whirls around, her eyes wide. “Si-Silas,” she stammers. “I thought you had a meeting that’d be running late?”
I stare at her in disbelief. “What are you doing, Alanna? Were you seriously just going to disappear without saying a word? Again?”
I walk up to her and grab her shoulders, my thoughts whirling. Does she have any idea what it’d do to me to have her disappear again? I nearly lost my mind looking for her. I’m not sure I can survive it twice.
“Alanna, no matter what happens, please don’t ever just disappear without a word. Please don’t make me worry like that. If nothing else, I need to know that you’re safe. Do you understand?”
She nods, her face marred with regret. “I wasn’t planning on disappearing, Si. I was going to call you after I left. I just… I didn’t… I wasn’t sure if you’d let me go.”
I pull my hands back and look away, my heart shattering. “You’re scared? Of me?”
She shakes her head and holds her hands up. “Silas, I’m really confused, and I… I really do need some space. I need to think. I feel like I’ve been immersed in a world that isn’t real. First with Ryan, and now with you. Most of my memories are based on lies. Do you know how that feels? Do you have any idea what it feels like to find out that every memory you cherish is at least partially a lie? Do you understand how much it hurts to know that the one person I trusted most lied to me and kept things from me the entire time?” She runs a hand through her hair and inhales shakily. “It isn’t just that I’m confused by everything Ryan told me, and despite the compelling arguments he made and my shifty memory, I still… I still love you. What hurts the most is that you’ve been deceiving me when you knew how much it hurt me when Ryan did the same thing to me. I get that you have your reasons, and you seem to think you had my best interests at heart, but you had no right. I just, I’m not sure I can trust you. I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t, and I don’t know how you’re entangled in my past and whether you’re someone I should fear. I don’t know, and it kills me that I can’t trust you to tell me the truth. Even if you want to tell me everything now, I no longer want to hear it, because I don’t trust you.”
Looking at her makes me feel like I’m losing her all over again. It hurts just as much as it did the first time. “Alanna,” I say, my voice soft. “I asked you once if you wanted to know about you past if it came at the risk of your memories being distorted, and you told me you didn’t want to know. I knew I didn’t have the right to keep it from you, so I gave you a choice, and your choice resulted in my silence. I really am the man you dream of, and I wanted you to remember it yourself. Everything you and I have gone through… you have no idea, do you? You’re the reason I am the person I am today. You’re the reason I worked as hard as I did. Everything I’ve done was for you. When I told you that you are Ray, I meant it. It’s always been you.”
She stares at me with such longing in her eyes that I struggle to stay away from her. I close the distance between us and cup her face tenderly. “I’ve waited for you for five years, Alanna. I’ll wait another five years if I need to. I just hope you won’t put us through that. There’s nothing I can say that’ll prove my innocence, not now that my brother has already distorted your memories. All I can do is hope you’ll regain your memories and that they’ll lead you back to me.”
“Si… I don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t know what to believe.” Her voice breaks, and I drop my forehead to hers, trying my hardest to hide my pain from her. The last thing I want to do is keep her from doing what is right for her, even if that means leaving me.