The Ruthless Gentleman(79)
“Jesus, you sound like this woman was really important to you.”
I sighed, sliding down in my chair. “She was.”
“Then go apologize.”
I scoffed. “Oh yeah, because it’s that easy. Integrity and loyalty are at her very core and I accused her of having neither.”
Landon winced. “We all make mistakes. Even you, Hayden Wolf.”
“You saying you do too?”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course not. But if I did and I had a way of setting things right, I’d like to think that I would try.”
I groaned, remembering our last conversation. “She’ll never forgive me. I was nasty. Spiteful. I just felt so . . .” Betrayed wasn’t a strong enough word. Vulnerable was how I’d felt, but I wasn’t about to say that out loud. Landon wouldn’t understand. “I’d just thought things were different with her. I mean, we talked. Shared stuff. I thought I knew her and I wanted her to know me.”
Landon nodded, and spared me the shit I’d assumed he’d give me. “Sounds a little out of character for a guy who divided women into two categories: those he worked with and those he shagged.”
I cringed at his accurate reflection of my relationships with women before Avery. Avery had felt like a friend, a partner, a soulmate. She wasn’t anyone to put in a category. “Yeah, Avery was different.”
I had to do something, make it up to her. She’d turned down that money from Cannon only to have me turn on her. And now, because of me, her brother’s insurance was fucked. “I’m going to need you to help me with some stuff. I don’t know how Cannon managed to get to the insurance company, but I need to find a way of setting it straight.”
“I have her address in Sacramento,” he said. “It’s just a private jet away.”
“Why would you want me to chase after this girl? I thought you didn’t understand monogamy?”
“I don’t, but it sounds to me like you have to have this girl.”
He was right. My pull toward Avery was as strong as ever. It had never wavered, even when I suspected the worst of her. But I couldn’t just turn up on her doorstep. I didn’t even know if she’d be there, let alone if she’d agree to see me.
“No, this is about paperwork. She suffered, her brother suffered, and all because Avery was part of the crew on the yacht I chartered. I can’t let that stand. She’s done nothing wrong, and yet her family is bearing the brunt of being associated with me. This isn’t about me getting what I want—even if I do want her. This is about me making things right for her and her family.”
Landon grinned around his pint glass and after taking a sip, set it down. “If you tell anyone I said this, I’ll deny it, but you’re a decent guy, Hayden. I’m kinda proud you’re my brother.”
Landon was a war hero. He’d fought and sacrificed for his country. For him to be proud of me was beyond anything I could hope for. “I won’t tell a soul,” I replied and clinked my glass against his. I might be terrible at relationships with women and I might have become a paranoid control freak, but my brother and I had something in common: we were men of action and we didn’t stop until we’d got what we wanted. I’d make things right with Avery. It was the least I could do.
Thirty-Five
Avery
The bruises on my heart still ached as if I’d last seen Hayden yesterday. I’d expected Sacramento to revive me, to make me forget the weeks that had come before. But a month at home had passed too quickly and I was dreading leaving for Miami later that day.
“Come over here and have breakfast with me and your brother before you go,” my dad said.
I glanced over at them both. “Sure. Has the mail come yet?”
My dad cocked his head to the counter top where a stack of mail lay unopened.
“Dad!”
Since I’d gotten back from France, I’d spent all of my free time on the internet, finding charities that supported people in our situation and talking to them about what had happened, writing to apply for grants from foundations and trusts, investigating what I could do to appeal the health insurance company’s decision regarding my brother’s care. I’d been busy and it had started to pay off. Some donations were just a few hundred dollars, but yesterday we’d received a check for five thousand from a sports injury charity. It wasn’t going to go far, but it had given me hope and more than anything, that was what I needed.
My father had seemed content to accept what had happened, as if he knew the odds had never been in our family’s favor, knew that the house always won. He’d shrugged and done the best he could with what he had.
That was his coping mechanism.
Michael and I hadn’t talked about it at all.
The way I dealt with it was to try to fix it. It was who I was—I fixed things for people and the five thousand dollar check yesterday was evidence I could fix this too.
I grabbed the mail from the counter and dropped into a seat at the table, sorting through the envelopes. Most of them were junk.
“You want juice, honey?” my dad asked as he held the jug over my glass.
“Sure, thanks,” I said, sawing my finger across the sealed top of a brown envelope. “You’re going to have to check these when I’m gone. You know that, right? You can’t leave it for me to come home to in five months. Some of them you need to respond to right away. Those you should just scan to me and I’ll deal with them.” I unfolded the letter. I didn’t need to read the line and a half of writing—anything that didn’t require at least two paragraphs was a no.