: Chapter 33

THE ENVELOPE FALLS ONTO my shoes as I open my office door. I know it’s from her. I don’t even have to read her writing on the front to know.

The way my heart lifts when I open the door and catch a trace of her perfume tells me—delicate yellow flowers—she was here.

It’s been two weeks of hell since I last saw her.

Two weeks of hell waking up without her every day.

Two weeks of questioning everything I thought I ever knew about myself.

I take the envelope over to my desk and grab a bottle of scotch from the minibar in my office before sinking down into my chair.

I yank my tie loose with one hand, and raise the bottle to my lips to take a huge gulp with the other.

There’s no need for a glass.

Not tonight.

Whatever is in this envelope is going to sting like a motherfucker. I know it.

It’s the evidence she told me she would get. Proving her innocence. And cementing what everyone around me has been trying to tell me.

She didn’t do it.

But if that’s true, then it means I fucked up and lost the best thing in my life. I lost her. The only woman to ever make me feel like I was both flying and drowning at the same time.

I hope to God this envelope contains a confession instead. Something… anything that means I haven’t screwed up.

But that’s a load of bullshit.

I have screwed up. Either way, I have royally screwed up. I’ve either allowed myself to be betrayed again, or worse… I’ve betrayed myself by letting her go.

Pushing her away. Blaming her.

Not trusting her.

Because despite everything, I wanted to. God, did I want to trust her, more than I’ve ever wanted to trust anyone in my life.

I take a swig from the bottle again, embracing the burn all the way down my throat.

Then I rip the envelope open and start reading.

“Come on, come on, for fuck’s sake,” I hiss under my breath, pacing the floor in front of my office window.

It goes to voicemail, so I hang up and call back immediately.

“Mr. Parker?” a voice finally answers, stifling a yawn.

It’s not even that late, it’s only—Fuck. I glance at my watch. It’s after midnight.

I’ve spent hours reading the contents of that envelope, drinking more scotch, and reading it all again. Over and over until my eyes have blurred.

“Where is she, Harley?”

“Gone,” she says without missing a beat.

She was expecting my call.

She knows.

Everyone knows.

They could all see what Maria tried to tell me herself.

She didn’t do it. She didn’t do any of it.

“Where?” I bark.

“Um…”

“Look, I know I’m an asshole. But I need you to tell me where she is right now!” I squeeze my eyes shut and pinch the bridge of my nose, my head swimming with the half bottle I’ve drank. ‘Please, Harley. I have to see her.”

“I’m not trying to stop you.” She sounds more awake, and there’s rustling as though she’s sitting up in bed. “But she didn’t actually say. Just that she needed to get away, and she has a flight tonight from JFK. I assume, back to LA.”

“Thank you!” I go to press the end call button, and then take a deep breath and bring the cell phone back up to my ear. “Harley?”

“Yes, Mr. Parker?”

“How was she? Did she seem…?” I run a hand down over my loosened tie, which looks like a string of shit dangling around my neck, all screwed up. “Will she forgive me?”

There’s a pause before Harley exhales a long breath. “I don’t know. She was heartbroken when it all happened.”

Was? Is she over us already?

“Harley?” I press.

“I just… I don’t know. There’s a lot of hurt there. You really did a number on her.”

Fuck.

I fall into my chair and sink my head into my hands.

“But—”

“But?” I spring upright, pressing the phone hard against my ear.

Harley sighs. “But she loves you. Really loves you. You’ve read what’s in the envelope, right?”

“Yes.” My eyes cast over to the brown envelope sitting on my desk. Everything placed neatly back inside it. Bullets in a casing, ready to fire out their truths on the world.

“She thought about not giving it to you.”

“What?” I screw my face up as my mind races, knowing what’s inside, what each of the documents proves.

“Yeah.” It sounds like Harley’s smiling, a sad smile, the sort that doesn’t reach your eyes. “She was so worried about what it would mean to you, what it might do to you. She considered letting you continue thinking it was her. She would have done that for you. That’s how much she loves you.”

I squeeze my eyes shut as they sting and fire claws at my throat.

That’s how much she loves you.

I nod, swallowing down nails, dry rusty nails that scrape all the way down to my core, shredding me to pieces from the inside out.

“Thank you, Harley.”

I hang up the call, grab my jacket, and race out of my office. If only I hadn’t been such a fucking sorry-for-myself idiot and drunk half a bottle of scotch, I could have taken the helicopter to JFK. It would be so much quicker.

I race past Earl who calls “Go get her!” after me as I sprint into the Manhattan traffic. I let my driver go home early, not expecting to be going anywhere tonight.

Another stupid mistake.

A car blares its horn and I jump back to the sidewalk, scanning the street. It’s after midnight and it’s still busy. But maybe someone is looking down on me for once, because a cab with its light on, indicating it’s available for a fare, sees me and pulls up to a stop.

“Kennedy Airport!” I yell as I dive into the back seat and slam the door. “I’ll pay double. Just get me the hell there as fast as possible!”

The driver doesn’t bat an eyelid, just nods at me in the rear-view mirror and then steps on the gas.

Despite his best efforts and me breathing down his neck the entire way there barking out orders on which route to take, it still takes almost fifty minutes to get there.

Each one sets my blood pressure climbing.

I can’t be too late.

Please say I’m not too late.

I grab a wad full of bills—enough to buy the damn fleet of cabs—and thrust them at him as I throw the door open wide, practically tripping over myself as I stumble out and get my jacket snagged on a latch inside the door.

I yank at it as I scan the outside of the terminal for any sign of her.

Who am I kidding? It’s been hours. She will be inside by now, if not worse.

“Fucking come on!” I yell as I tug at the base of my jacket.

What the fuck is it stuck on?

“Hang on, I can—” The driver opens his car door.

“Forget it!”

I perform a ridiculous semi-drunken spin, which attracts giggles from a couple of young tourists taking their cases out of the cab next to us, and manage to extract myself from my jacket, slamming the door shut and leaving it hanging there like a dead bit of skin as I tear off through the doors and into the departure terminal.

My head spins from side to side as I search the check-in boards.

There!

There’s a flight leaving for LA in thirteen minutes.

I race to the desk, which is deserted. Everyone must have checked in already. I spin on my heels, panic rising in my chest as I fist my hands in my hair.

Boarding gate!

She will be boarding now, if they haven’t finished already. I race to security and am stopped by a sullen looking female officer.

“Passport and boarding pass please, sir.”

“What?” My eyes widen.

My heart is pumping so hard in my chest as I try to look past her toward the boarding gates.

Looking for a glimpse of her.

Her favorite red dress.

The bag I bought her—if she even kept it.

Her long, dark hair.

My Maria.

“Sir?” The officer looks me up and down and inhales slowly. “Have you been drinking?”

“Look, my girlfriend is about to board the flight to LA. I have to stop her. I have to—”

She raises an unimpressed brow.

I meet her eyes. “I fucked up, okay? I know I did.” I point behind her in desperation. “But if she gets on that plane, then she’s gone before I can tell her I’m sorry. Before I can tell her I love her and that I need her!”

The officer seems to ponder as she looks at me again.

“Please?” I plead. “She’s everything to me. She has to know that. I have to tell her! I’ve been an idiot. A fucking idiot. She’s all I want. She’s all I will ever want.” My voice comes in pants as my heart hammers in my chest.

Maybe my sorry ass pulls at her heart strings. Or maybe—unlike me—she’s just a decent human being who believes people when they’re telling the truth, because she nods and tips her head toward me.

“Okay, but you can’t come through without a ticket.”

I stare at her, and she clicks her tongue and points. “Go! Go buy one and get your girl!”

I nod frantically and follow her direction to an open ticket counter.

“Thank you!” I cry, wanting to kiss her.

Thirteen hundred dollars later, one ticket to Cleveland—it was the first one available—and I’m racing through the boarding gate lounge, sweat making my shirt stick to my back.

I reach the gate for the flight to LA as the gate staff are chatting and closing up.

“Wait! The flight to LA?”

But they don’t need to answer me.

I follow their gaze out of the window, which overlooks the runway. The wing lights of the Atlantic Airways’ flight shine brightly as it takes off into the night sky.

With Maria on it.

No.

Nausea rolls in my stomach, and I fall to my knees and stare out of the glass.

I stay there until it’s only a tiny glimmer in the sky.

She’s gone.

My cell beeps in my hand, but I’m too busy staring out of the car window to look at it.

I’ve thought about this day a million times. Played it out in my head.

What I will say. What I will do.

But now that I’m sitting here, I’m numb.

You always think knowing the truth will set you free. But I feel more trapped than ever.

My cell rings and I glance at the screen before answering.

“What?”

“Mr. Parker. What do you think?”

He sounds pleased with himself. Pleased that he finally worked out what the fuck’s been going on. It only took him the best part of a year.

Maria did it in two weeks.

My amazing, incredible love did it in two weeks.

I always knew she was capable and tenacious. And she’s proved it time and time again.

Why the fuck couldn’t I have trusted her before it was too late?

“Mr. Parker?”

“What?” I ask again, scanning the building beside me for signs of life.

“The email I just sent you. You can clearly see their face this time. Along with the other evidence I have, I think we can say without a doubt that—”

“I know. I know who it was. I’ll have your account settled by the end of the day.”

Before he can say anything about using his services again, I end the call.

I open his email, already knowing what it contains.

There it is, clear as day.

The face of the person who has caused so much shit in my life.

The face of the person who made me into the mistrusting asshole I am today.

The asshole who sent the only woman I’ve ever truly loved away.

I needed concrete evidence before I believed Maria. And she provided me with it, in spades. How she managed it just astounds me.

She has always amazed me.

I should have known she was telling the truth.

I should have done better.

I run my hand down over my tie as I look out at the building again. It’s early, so they won’t be expecting me. It’s the last place I expected to be today.

Harley has arranged for the jet to take me to LA this afternoon. Maria might have gotten away from me last night, but I’m not letting another night go by without telling her how sorry I am.

How much I screwed up.

How much I love her.

But first, I need to do this.

I signal to my driver that I’m heading out, then I exit the town car and head into the building. The concierge tips his head in greeting, and it doesn’t take long before I’m standing on the other side of the door.

Behind it, the truth about what’s been going on all this time.

It opens before I can even knock.

“Griffin!”

Arms embrace me, and lips graze my cheek. The light in their owner’s eyes fades as she looks at me.

“What is it? You look like someone died.”

I look back at her.

Maybe that’s because it feels like someone has.

“I know what you’ve done, Em.”

She frowns, jerking her head back as the tone of my voice slaps her in the face.

The color drains from her skin. She looks like when a wave hits you when your mouth is open and you aren’t expecting it, saltwater forcing its way down your throat, making you gag.

Knowing it was her all along makes me want to gag. Throw up my entire past and all I’ve known, right here by her door.

Everything I ever knew was a lie.

She stands back, closing the door behind me as I walk inside.

I don’t even wait for her to face me again before I shout, causing her to jump.

“Why, Em?” My anger flies out like a missile. Of all the people, I never expected it to be her. “You’re like fucking family to me. What the fuck?!”

I wish I was wrong. God, how do I wish this wasn’t real. But it was all there in that envelope.

My friend.

The person who has stood next to me all these months, watching what the deceit has done to me.

One of the few people in my life who I have trusted.

It was her all along.

And for what?

Why would she do this?

Emily’s eyes meet mine, and there’s a harshness there I’ve never seen before. She stalks past me into the kitchen, and I stride after her, needing answers.

Desperate for them.

“Tell me, for fuck’s sake! You’re the last person on earth, Em!” I slam my fist on her kitchen counter, making the mug on it jump up and clatter back down. “Did you need money? Is that it? You should have just asked. I would have given it to you.”

She snorts and looks at me in disgust.

“Don’t give me that, Griffin! Like you don’t know why.” She rounds the counter, placing herself on the opposite side to me.

“I don’t!” I roar. “How in the ever-loving fuck could I possibly know why you, of all people, would do this to me? How could you?”

Rage burns in my heaving chest as I stare at her.

“Please,” she says, her voice laced with venom. “Don’t play the victim. You’re perfect, remember?”

My mouth drops.

She’s gone mad.

Raving fucking mad.

“What?!”

“Perfect Griffin, with his line of tarts,” she mutters to herself.

“What the hell?” My eyes bulge in my head.

She sounds nothing like the Emily I grew up with. The detest in her eyes, the poison pouring from her mouth… she doesn’t even look like the Emily I know.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Someone you’ve never even seen!” she shouts, her eyes wild. “Someone you’ve never even noticed. Too busy with your cock out, sticking it in your staff!”

Blood rushes in my ears as I glare at her, my fists twitching by my sides. Fuck, if she was a man, I would have torn her limb from limb by now, childhood friend or not.

“Don’t you dare talk about Maria.”

She laughs, a crazed sound as she rolls her eyes and tilts her head back.

“Does it hurt? Knowing the person you love will always look at you with disappointment in their eyes?”

“What?”

I search her face for a sign of the Em I know. But as she wrings her hands in front of her body, fidgeting, chewing on her lip and alternating between frowning and smiling, I can’t even make out a ghost of that Em anymore.

She looks batshit crazy, and I’m treading on water, struggling to keep my head above the waves as they threaten to drag me under.

Em? What’s happened to you?

“You were the one who stole the spa formulations and tried to make it look like Gwen did. Tried to sell them to a competitor in exchange for a job offer for Gwen. Why?”

She focuses again and meets my eyes.

“You weren’t supposed to find out yet.” She shakes her head to herself, curling her arms across her chest.

No shit!

“Well, surprise! Because I did! I know everything. Harley spoke to someone who you approached. He didn’t take you up on your offer, but he sure remembered you.”

My blood boils in my veins as I recall the sound of his voice on the memory stick recording Maria had put in that envelope. Smug as shit that one of my closest friends was going behind my back. Being in the business I’m in, it’s easy to not have many friends, especially from rival hotel chains. Always competing. Always wanting to come out on top. Always happy to see you fail.

Emily sighs as though it’s an effort to talk.

She’s put me through almost one entire year of hell, and she can’t be bothered to speak to me.

“She was wrong for you, Griffin. So wrong. The spa was never going to go anywhere with her running it. And you were too blinded by lust to see it. You were better without her. Trust me.”

“Trust you?” I splutter, making Emily bristle and stumble back a step. “I don’t even fucking know who you are! You let me think one of my staff stole from me?” I can’t keep my voice from rising as I press my palms into the counter and lean over it. “You even told me you thought it was her!”

“She was never good enough for you. I knew you needed some help to see it.”

“My personal relationships are nothing to do with you! That wasn’t your call to make!”

God, I’m shaking. Every muscle in my body is tense to the point of fucking shaking. This is deceit on another level.

“I knew you’d do better, and that The Songbird would do better without her managing the spa. Then you chose Maria. And she seemed great. But then you had to go and stick your dick in her, too.” Emily rolls her eyes and I almost pounce across the counter to wring her neck.

“Don’t you dare fucking speak about her like that!”

Emily snorts back a laugh.

“I even told you I had met someone. Wondering if it would make you jealous. But she already had her claws in you by then. Figures that you’d choose her over me, someone you’ve known your whole life. All because she spread her legs for you.”

“Enough!” I yell, slamming both hands down onto the counter. “Is that what this is about? It’s all because you’re jealous? You set her up? You were going to let the police think that she almost poisoned someone to death? That she was stealing money, syphoning it off to an offshore account?”

I lean over the counter, dragging big breaths deep into my lungs.

I cannot believe this. Emily, who I have known my entire life, was the one behind it all along. Because what? She’s jealous?

“I was so careful. You weren’t supposed to find out like this. Not before…” She screws her eyes shut. “How did you work it out?”

Her shoulders slump in defeat as she stares at me, and for a moment, a glimpse of the Emily I thought I knew emerges. The kind one. The one who raises thousands of dollars for charity. The one who thinks of others first.

“I didn’t.” I grit my teeth.

Her brows shoot up her forehead. “You didn’t—”

“Maria did.”

Emily stills, then nods, dropping her eyes to the floor.

“I had a private investigator working on it for months, and Maria still worked it all out before him.”

I’m still so amazed by how she did it. I know she had help and wasn’t doing it entirely alone, but still. She’s diligent. I know her. She said she was going to prove her innocence, and she did. She looked for the flaws and found them, just like she found in the contract with the grower on her very first day at The Songbird.

And she exposed my flaws at the same time.

My glaring, ugly flaws that cost me her.

“It’s all on here.” I take the memory stick out of my pocket and place it on the counter. Emily’s eyes land on it. “It’s a copy, before you get any ideas.”

“I see.” She sniffs and folds her arms across her chest.

“Everything is on here, Em.” I jab my finger over the stick. “The CCTV footage from the night of the gala. I know Todd went into that room after me and Maria and found her necklace. Only his drunk, stupid ass lost it. Then you found it and handed it to Earl, saying you’d found it in the ladies’ restroom. But that was a lie, wasn’t it? You didn’t want Earl to know that Todd had told you about finding it in the meeting room. I saw the two of you chatting on the cameras and him showing you something. I just couldn’t make out what.”

Bile rises in my throat as I recall reading that piece of evidence in my office last night. It makes sense now why Emily insisted to Earl that she found the necklace in the ladies’ restroom. She didn’t want him, or me, knowing that she knew Maria and I were in that room together. She wanted us to think she didn’t know about our relationship at that point.

Even then, she was already planning something.

“Then you called Maria the next morning to ask if she had found it. And when she told you about Todd and that I had canceled his contract, you suggested the new suppliers to her. She even fucking told me you had called her and recommended them!”

I shake my head in disgust at myself. She told me. I had that piece of evidence right in front of me the whole time, but I was too distracted by what Todd had done to her. I didn’t listen. It’s only afterward that I now remember her saying it at all.

I’m an idiot.

A fucking idiot.

“True. I recommended them. I know how they work, how their systems operate.”

She’s not going to deny it. At least she’s going to give me that. At least she’s not going to lie to my face.

Not anymore.

“You emailed them during the filming, asking them to change the ingredients to lower quality ones. You took Maria’s ID and used her log in. Earl remembers you going inside.”

Earl has always had an incredible memory. He remembers the exact time Emily passed through the main doors. She was gone when the emails were sent. Their time stamps prove it. Maria was still outside, caught up in the enormous crowd of fans when the crowd barriers gave way.

“You knew exactly what you were doing. You have cyber knowledge from your father’s business. You had the skill to hack into Maria’s account and send the emails. And you made the phone call to back them up. You told them you were Maria, and they believed you. I just don’t understand why. Maria did nothing to you. Neither did Gwen. The Emily I know would never do something like that.”

She stays mute, staring at me.

“God, Em! Fucking say something! Do you hate me? Is that it? Do you hate me that much that you wanted to ruin everything I care about? Josanna could have died, for fuck’s sake!”

“I didn’t know she had an allergy, okay? That was never… I never planned that.”

“So that makes it all okay?”

She winces. “I just wanted Maria to leave. I could have run the spa for you. We could have been so good together,” she whispers.

“Jesus Christ!” I fist my hands in my hair. A vein in my neck pulsates hard, threatening to explode.

Good together? Me and Em?

“We grew up together. What the fuck are you talking about?”

Her eyes fill with tears, and she shrinks into herself, her shoulders rounding in over her chest. I’m struck by how small she suddenly looks.

How broken.

“You know me better than anyone, Griffin,” she whispers. “You’re the only one who really knows me. I’m not a bad person. I was just protecting you! I… I… I want what’s best for you. What’s best for both of us. I thought if we were… but then I saw the way you looked at her and I knew. You have never looked at me like that in all these years. Not once.”

She looks to the ceiling, tears running down her cheeks.

“My father… he loves you… I’ve seen how proud he is of you and your brothers, but mostly you. You’re the golden boy, Griffin. You heard him say it yourself. He always wanted a son. But he got me.”

“What?” I screw my face up. “What has your father got to do with any of this?”

“I was never going to be good enough for him on my own. But you… he loves you…” Emily’s voice cracks as she topples, and before I know what I’m doing, I race around the counter and catch her in my arms as she falls.

“I’m sorry, Griffin!” she sobs, giant, wracking breaths taking over her body. “I’m so sorry. I just thought that… I thought that if we were together, if I was with you… that he might… he might…”

“He might notice you?” My voice betrays the anger that’s still fizzing inside my chest and comes out flat, dull, and lifeless, just like my heart.

“That he might love me,” she whispers, clawing at my shirt and collapsing into me. Her sobs turn into full-blown wails against my chest. “I was never good enough. He looks at me like I’m this enormous disappointment.”

I hold her in my arms, all the years of friendship stronger than the hurt and anger I have for her right now.

And I understand.

Her shaking body, weak in my arms, tells me.

It was never about betraying me.

It was all about feeling worthy of him.

“He’s a complicated man. He doesn’t show his emotions well.”

I don’t know why I’m defending him.

It’s all true. Every word she said.

He has said he wanted a son in front of Emily. He has praised me and my brothers when we are all together, and played down Emily’s achievements, as though they mean less, as though a woman can’t possibly reach the same levels in business as a man. But she’s always laughed it off, bounced back, worked harder at her charity as a result, poured herself into her work. I thought she loved it, that it brought her fulfillment.

I never realized she was doing it for him.

To prove to herself she was worthy of his love.

‘You don’t know him, not like I do,’ she whispers. ‘Nothing I did was ever enough. But you? He thinks the sun rises with you. I thought if we were together, he would finally take me seriously. I would finally be enough. The two of us could have been perfect. You were always the one who was there for me. But then Gwen appeared, and you started dating her. The spa wasn’t thriving with her running it. I just wanted her gone. I didn’t think the formulations were a big loss. I knew you’d make new, better ones. And you did. Well, Maria did. I didn’t count on you falling in love with her. I was hurt and angry that you’ve never looked at me the way you look at her. Never spoken about me the way you speak about her… no one ever does.”

“This is all because of your father?” I draw back to look at her tear-stained face and she lifts her hands to pull me back to her. Her sleeves ride up and something white wrapped around her pale skin peeks out.

“What’s this?”

She tries to take her arms back, pulling her sleeves down.

“Em?” A warning tone creeps into my voice as I take her arm in my hand and push her sleeve up over her wrist. “Jesus.”

I suck a breath in through my nose as I check her other arm. It has a matching white bandage tightly woven over it as well.

“I thought you’d all be better without me. I’ve caused so much pain. I’ve seen what all this has done to you. I never meant to hurt you. I thought my charity work would repent me for my sins. But I’m beyond redemption, Griffin. I shouldn’t be allowed to live anymore.” She breaks into sobs again and I tighten my arms around her, looking up at the ceiling as my eyes burn.

I’ve known Emily my whole life. She’s like a sister to me. Despite how livid I am at her for what she’s done, to me, to Gwen, to Maria, I can’t stop the helplessness creeping over me.

She’s sick.

Her father’s lack of love and attention has changed who she is.

It’s warped her beyond recognition.

It’s turned the kind, fun friend I’ve known for years into someone who will lie and cheat, and prevent other people’s happiness, all because of her own pain and bitterness.

It’s turned her into someone who’s hurting so much that she wants to end her own life.

She’s attempted to end her life.

All because one stupid man didn’t know how to show love for his daughter properly and couldn’t be a better man.

“You must hate me so much, Griffin. I’m so sorry. I would never have let Maria go to jail for it. I had everything written down. All of it. My confession. I had it ready to be found when…” She breaks into a fresh round of sobs, her slender frame feeling weak and fragile in my arms. “I couldn’t even get that right.”

I reach into my pocket and pull out my cell phone.

“What are you doing?” Emily cries as she clings to me.

“I’m calling my doctor.”

“Why?”

I look down into her eyes, the depth of the sadness in them enough to swallow me whole if I let it.

“Because you’re like family to me, Em. And I’m getting you the help you need.”