Leo (A Sign of Love Novel)(57)

"I tore out of there, taking my new car, driving like an idiot, tearing around corners, accelerating to speeds I knew were dangerous, suicidal even. I lost control, side swiped a semi and flipped my car six times. Or so I'm told. I don't remember any of it. The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital with a head wrapped in bandages and tubes sticking out of me."

I suck in a breath.

"I had a fractured jaw, had shattered my right cheekbone and broken my nose all to hell, I had an eight inch gash across the back of my head, three cracked ribs, a ruptured spleen, two broken arms and a broken leg. I was in the hospital for six months while they rebuilt my face and my body healed."

"Oh my God," I breathe.

"I had nothing to do but lie there and self reflect, so in one sense it was the best thing that could have happened to me. A part of me actually had died and was being reborn. I almost had no choice but to face my demons. The unfortunate part was that Lauren came to see me every day and there was nowhere I could run. One day after I had been there about a month, she came by to tell me that she had convinced them to let me come home with her after my next couple surgeries so that she could nurse me back to health. I protested, got angry, told her I was over 18 and there was no way I was letting her get near me. She tried to convince me by throwing back the covers and going down on me. There was nothing I could do. I was literally helpless to stop her, although I was railing at her to cut the shit, that I wasn't going to stay quiet anymore. That's when my dad walked in. She jumped back and we all just froze, stunned for several minutes and finally he said, 'This is why? All these years, this is why you hated us both.' It was like it all finally just clicked into place for him. Then he started clutching his chest and Lauren screamed and pressed the button for the nurse. He had had a major heart attack."

"Oh God, Leo," I whisper, more tears coursing down my cheeks.

He continues but he sounds tired, almost monotone now. "He regained consciousness the next morning and we thought he was recovering but he got a blood clot five days later and that's what killed him. It can be common after a heart attack. The morning that he came to, they wheeled me in to him and he put his hand over his heart and told me how sorry he was and that he didn't blame me. I cried like a damned baby."

I squeeze his hand again.

"The day after that, his lawyers came to the hospital and he changed his will to give me full ownership of the company. Lauren has all she needs to live the life she's become accustomed to until the day she dies. But the company is 100% mine."

We're both quiet for a minute as I consider something. "Was it Lauren who came to your hotel room in San Diego and answered your phone?" I ask quietly.

He runs his hand down his face again. "Yeah. She found out I was in town and surprised me in my room. I basically told her to leave or I'd call security. I know from experience how ugly it could have gotten and I wasn't up for it and so I told her that I was going to get in the shower and lock the door and if she wasn't gone by the time I got out, I'd have her thrown out. I wasn't ready to give you details about her at that point and so I lied. It just felt like the lies were piling up and I didn't know how to deal with it without telling you everything. What a f*cking mess. And it was all my fault."

He pauses for a second and then continues. "She also came to the club we went out to that night with Landon and his friend. Joe, the lobby deskman told her where we were when she told him who she was. He won't make that mistake again. But that's the point when I decided I needed to come clean with you. I just needed to figure out how to do it."

He takes a deep breath, seeming to rally a little bit. "Anyway, after my dad died, they sent the hospital psychologist up to see me the next day and I liked him, a real straight shooter, we hit it off. He started to come see me regularly after that and I opened up to him, the first time I had ever talked about my past, the first time I had talked about you.

"One of the things he said to me that really hit home was that, 'Looking at the past can be painful, but you can either run from it, numb it, or you can learn from it.' I had run from it and I had numbed it. Neither one had worked. It was time for me to learn from it."

I close my eyes for a minute and when I open them, we are both staring at each other with tears in our eyes.

"I realized that I couldn't remember a time when you weren't the first thing I thought of in the morning or the last before I fell asleep at night. You own me, Evie. You always have.

"It took almost dying to realize I needed to do something about that, f*ck my fears. I couldn't deny you anymore. I was terrified though and I didn't know how you'd react to me. They had had to rebuild several parts of my face, nothing so drastic that I don't recognize myself, but enough so that, along with the other things that had changed about me since I was 15, I wondered if you'd recognize me right away.

"First time Gwen saw me when I moved here, she said she loved what the doctor had done to me, 'perfected me' she said. As if I had almost killed myself so that I could get some free plastic surgery. She's a piece of work."

We both actually manage a small smile.

"Do you have a picture of yourself before the accident?"

He thinks for a minute. "I have my old license. Hold on. He pulls his wallet out of his jacket and pulls it out and hands it to me. I see what he means. His face before the accident was still devastatingly handsome but almost more rugged, less Hollywood perfect. Truthfully, he doesn't look that different, but I think I can see a little more of the boy that he was in it. I wonder, though, if that's just because I know who he is now.