Indigo Nights (Nights #3)(66)

I let water cascade over me, taking with it my tears. God, I’d not expected to come home like this. I’d let myself imagine that Dylan and I might have something special, something long term. How could I have been so wrong?

I turned off the faucet and wrapped myself in a towel. Someone was banging on my door. Haven?

I opened the door and stood, open-mouthed, as I came face-to-face with Dylan.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. I was pretty sure he hadn’t been on my flight.

“I need to talk to you. To explain.” His jaw was clenched and he looked tired.

I just wanted him to hold me and tell me it had all been a horrible dream or something. I wanted to rewind and pick up in the moment just before I left his brownstone, when my heart only ached at the thought I wouldn’t see him for three days. I didn’t want to be here, standing here in front of him, my heart in pieces.

I shook my head. “There’s nothing to say. You need to go.” I started to close the door but he put his hand out, stopping me. “Really? You’re going to force yourself into my apartment?”

He let go instantly and I shut the door, resting my forehead on the wood as I turned the lock.

“Beth, please. I’m so sorry. You have to believe me. I’ve seen Alicia twice since she called off the wedding. The first time was with you, then when she turned up to my office about thirty minutes before you came to the restaurant. I’m not making this up.”

I started to cry again. I so wanted to believe him. “What about Raine Media, Dylan? Why didn’t you tell me you owned it?”

I heard him sigh. “I don’t have an answer for you. Not a good one, anyway. Raf and I have some history with business and my exes, and I hadn’t told him you were involved in WCIL. It didn’t seem important, at first because we weren’t that serious, and then I never found the right words. Things were so perfect; I didn’t want to ruin it. I should have said something, but we were thinking about selling and I just didn’t want to complicate things, with him, with you. In the end I’ve just made things so much worse.”

He sounded sincere and I so desperately wanted to believe him. I wanted to hear about the business issues with his ex. Did he mean Alicia? But I didn’t want to give in to him. I didn’t want to be the weak woman I’d been with Louis. The woman who believed every lie because I didn’t trust myself. “Dylan, I can’t . . . I don’t know . . . You should go.”

“I love you, Beth.”

My heart urged me to tell him that I loved him, too, but my head wouldn’t allow it.

“I don’t think so. I need the people in my life to be completely honest with me. To be gentle with me. To act like they love me, not just use the words.” My heart felt like someone was ripping it into shreds. I’d finally opened up to someone and it was as if history was repeating itself.

“I know. I f*cked up. I’m not good at this, but it’s new. And you don’t tell me everything, either. Can you tell me you’ve shared everything about your ex?”

He was right. I’d never mentioned my pregnancy and the way Louis had told me to get rid of it.

“You don’t talk to me about your meetings or your sobriety.”

I couldn’t argue with him. Jake was the only one that really knew the ins and outs of my struggle to stay sober. Partly because it wasn’t much of a struggle anymore, but also because he’d seen me at my worst and loved me anyway. I knew he wouldn’t judge, or reject me. But was that comparable with what Dylan had kept from me? My head spun. I wanted him to be right, for us to be able to work through this, but I didn’t want to be made a fool of.

“We don’t know everything about each other. Not yet, Beth. But I want to hear all your stuff and I want to tell you all mine. I want all of you, and I want you to have all of me.”

“Please, Dylan, I can’t. You need to go. I need time.” I didn’t want him to go. I wanted to stay close until the pain passed.

“Can we talk tomorrow?” His voice was small and sad. Despite how I felt, I hated that.

“I don’t think so. I need some space. Some time to heal.” I wasn’t thinking rationally. It would be so easy to open the door and for him to say all the right things, but if I did that, we would never be the same—the trust had gone. A part of what we’d had was destroyed forever.

“Then let me help you, be there with you. Please, Beth, I can’t lose you.”

“You should have thought of that before you lied or hid what you knew would be important to me.”

“I’m not leaving London before I’ve made this right.” He sounded so certain that it was something he could do. But I wasn’t a business deal to be negotiated. Unless he could turn back time, I wasn’t sure how things could ever be right.

My stomach churned. Part of me desperately wanted to open the door and be pulled into his arms. My head was telling me to walk away. “I need you to leave. I’m going to get dressed.” I headed down the corridor, ignoring him as he called my name. I collapsed on my bed, my wet hair soaking the pillow, and began to sob.





Dylan

While Marie’s line rang, I stared out of the window onto the Georgian and Edwardian buildings of Portland Place. The views of the Georgian terraces from the Langham in London were very different from the views of the river from Beth’s hotel room in Chicago. But I knew Beth didn’t stay there for the view. It was all about the cakes and desserts. Even though I was in London, staying at the Langham brought me closer to her somehow.