Exquisite Betrayal (35 page)

“
Yeah?”

“
It was right after all this broke.
She was… she was in a pretty bad way, Mr. Sinclair. She told me
some things that, quite frankly, shocked me.”

“
What did she say?”

“
She said she never wrote that article
and that she wanted you to sue her. But she also said that if she
won her case against her boss, she wouldn’t take a cent of it. That
she would give it all to you.”

“
Yeah, I’m aware of that.”

“
And there’s something else. She was
very distraught… could barely speak. She wanted to know how you
were.”

I rub my face for the umpteenth time that
day.

“
Thanks, Joe. Call me when you need
me.”

Next on my agenda is Tilly. She comes over
and I show her the letter. As I expect, she’s in tears.

“
How could we have been so blind,
Ryland Thomas?”

“
I don’t know. I can’t figure out how
I could ever have doubted her. Anyone else, yeah, but not Fallon. I
don’t think it’s possible to hate yourself as much as I do right
now, but I have work to do, Tills. I have to make this right. And
it has to be from the heart. If I win her back in the process,
great, however that’s not my sole motivation here. I ruined her
life so I have to fix that for her, with or without me in it. It’s
the very least I can do.”

***

The next day, I put a call into her blog
team. I know they all hate my guts, yet I don’t care. They can do
whatever they want with me, but I need their help and will do
anything to get it.

Kat is the only one who will speak with me.
The others ignore me and Amanda sends me a message that borders on
a hate crime. I don’t blame her at all. I actually respect her for
it.

When I call Kat, she answers with, “I
promised myself I would do this for Fallon, but now I’m not so sure
it’s a good idea.”

“
Hear me out, Kat. Please.”

“
Go on.”

“
I know I’m the biggest fucking douche
bag that ever lived. I know that. And I want her back. But more
important, I want to set her life back on track. And I’m not sure
how I can do that. That’s why I need your help.”

“
I’m not sure I can help.”

“
You can get your team together for
me. I’ll fly to you girls, or I’ll fly you anywhere you choose. But
I want all of you together so we can come up with a plan. I’ll let
you flay me alive, I swear I will. I deserve it all. But I want
Fallon to have a decent life.”

She huffs, “A little late for that.”

“
You should know by now that we men
aren’t the fastest learners when it comes to women.”

“
Ya think?”

“
Will you help? Think of
Fallon.”

“
I am thinking of Fallon, you
jerkoff!” Well, I know where I stand at least. “I’ll call you back
in a day or so. It’s gonna take some persuading, I can promise you
that.”

“
Thank you, Kat. I owe
you.”

“
You owe me nothing. You owe Fallon
the stars, the moon and every other fucking thing in this goddamn
universe.”

Wow. That was quite a tongue-lashing coming
from someone who normally doesn’t swear, according to Fallon. I
certainly know what I’m going to be in for if I do meet with all of
them, however I don’t care. They can have my balls on a silver
platter if they want. I don’t give a shit. That’s how determined I
am to make this right.

***

It takes a bit of negotiating, but by the
end of October, I’m meeting Fallon’s blogger team in the U.S.
Virgin Islands, of all places— St. John to be exact.

I knew they’d make me pay, but like I’ve
said before, I don’t give a damn. They all made a good point,
though. It was just as far for them to fly here as it was for them
to fly to the west coast, especially Andrea who was flying in from
England.

I’ve rented two villas, one for me and
one for them. We’re going to eat breakfast in my
villa
—
it should be arriving
in about thirty minutes
—
and
while we eat, we’ll begin discussing my preliminary plans to win
Fallon back and/or to change her life. After breakfast, we’ll board
the private sailing yacht I’ve rented for the day and sail over to
the British Virgin Islands for a day of fun in the sun and some
snorkeling. That was Amanda’s idea, and since I fear for my life
around her, I couldn’t very well refuse.

When I hear the knock, my gut does a flop
that’s perfectly synced with it. Shit, here it goes.

I open the door to four hostile faces. Not
what I’d hoped for, yet it is what I expect. Right behind them is
breakfast, so I tell the room service man where to set everything
up. It provides a nice distraction, and the girls chat among
themselves while I deal with the food set-up.

“
Help yourselves, ladies.”

They all fill their plates and I follow then
we take our seats around the dining table and begin to eat. I don’t
want this delayed any longer, so I start the painful
conversation.

“
I know you don’t give a rat’s ass
about me asking about your flights and all, so let’s get down to
it.”

I’m met with four sets of raised brows; they
all nod.

“
We all know why we’re here. You want
my balls, sliced, fried and then crushed into smithereens. Fuck,
I’d help you do that if I could. Here’s the thing, I think we all
want the same thing now. I screwed up. Worse than anyone I’ve ever
known. I’ve gone over this whole thing so many fucking times in my
head and I still can’t figure out the why of it, other than I’m
just plain dumb.

“
I’m not inherently mean. At least I
don’t think I am. I don’t really even know
that
any more. Anyway, like I said, I’m the
biggest screw up in the universe. And Kat’s right. When I talked to
her on the phone, she said that I owed Fallon the stars, the moon
and the whole goddamn universe. But I owe her even more than that
because all of that is just materialistic bullshit. I owe her the
dignity back that she lost. I owe her the integrity that I ripped
away from her. And I owe her the life that she had when everything
was in sync for her. I’m not talking about us, either, as in us
together. That’s a completely different thing and separate from
what I want your help with. Am I making sense here?”

They all nod.

“
So, what I’m thinking is
this…”

When I’m done, they’re all grinning. Well,
everyone except for Amanda.

Amanda stares me down for a second and then
starts in on me. “I just wanna say something to you. I still think
you’re an ass and I’m gonna tell you why. Did you know that Fallon
heard your little speech in Vegas… the one where you said you’d
been exquisitely betrayed? The one you gave to over twenty-five
hundred people?”

“
I figured she had because she quoted
a couple of things from it,” I say.

“
Well, did you know that after she
left that sweet, little talk, she roamed the streets of Vegas and
we didn’t know where she was? She wouldn’t answer her phone and she
was missing for hours. Did you know that finally, late in the
afternoon, a nice police officer brought her home because he found
her wandering around with her feet all bloody because she was
bare-foot? Can you imagine walking the streets of Vegas in the hot
afternoon sun without shoes on? Well, Fallon did, and didn’t even
realize it. She lost her shoes somehow and didn’t know it. She was
so upset about that sweet little speech of yours that she nearly
lost her mind. Bet that was something you didn’t know. Her feet
were cut, burned and bruised and she could barely walk for days,
all because of that nice, little talk you gave, blaming her for all
your troubles. And all because you wouldn’t give her a few fucking
minutes of your treasured time!”

I’m holding a stemmed juice glass in my
hand, clenching it so tightly that it breaks, sending shards of
glass into my palm. I don’t notice the pain and only realize I’ve
been cut when the blood starts running down my hand.

I head to the bathroom and run my hand under
the water. It doesn’t take a doctor to realize I’m going to need
stitches. There’s a knock on the door and Kat asks, “Are you
okay?”

“
Not exactly.”

“
Can I come in?”

“
It’s open.”

“
Amanda has quite a way with
words.”

“
She should. I deserved to hear it,
Kat.”

“
That looks bad.”

“
Yeah. I think I need to be sewn
up.”

“
Want me to call the
concierge?”

“
Could you?”

“
Sure.”

While I’m standing over the sink I look at
myself in the mirror. How did I get to be such a rotten fucker? I
can’t let myself think of Fallon wandering around in Vegas like
that because I’ll go as crazy as she did. Bloody fucking hell!

As I’m standing there, blood dripping into
the sink, Amanda walks in and leans against the counter. “I’m
sorry.”

“
You have absolutely nothing to be
sorry about.”

“
Yeah, I could’ve been a little better
about the delivery.”

“
How? Tell me how, Amanda?”

“
Well, I…”

“
There isn’t a way to make that any
better. I’m a nasty bloke. I did the most despicable thing in the
world and I did it to the one that I loved the most and I don’t
have a fucking clue why or even how! What kind of a person does
that make me?” I don’t even realize that tears are coursing down my
cheeks until she picks up a cloth and wipes them off.

“
It makes you human. Now go and fix
your fuck ups. You know, a very dear friend of mine once told me
that someone truly special to her gave her a birthday gift, and in
it he inscribed something. He wrote to her, and I think I’m quoting
this correctly, ‘
We are only bound by our
own limitations
.’ Don’t let
your
limitations keep you from getting what you
want, Ryland Thomas.”

At that, she leaves me standing there with a
whole lot of shit to ponder.

***

I’m quiet the rest of the day. My hand took
quite a few stitches, so I’m stuck on the boat while the girls
enjoy the snorkeling. It’s okay, though. I’m formulating my plan,
and the more I think about it, the more solid it becomes in my
mind. At dinner, I plan to outline it for them. I’m going to leave
them to their own party after that and head home. If they have
anything else they want to add, I’ll take any and all of their
suggestions, although the more I think, the more I know what I need
to do.

That night at dinner, I tell them what my
intentions are.

“
Seems like when we were looking at
fish, you were doing something altogether different,” Andrea
says.

“
Yep.” I’m not very verbose this
evening.

“
Don’t give up, Ryland Thomas. Fight
for it. You know, anything great is worth fighting for.” This is
coming from Amanda, the one who wanted to crucify me by my balls
this morning.

“
This is beyond great,” Mandy
says.

“
I have one request. Don’t say a word
to her. If she asks you what you think she should do, stay neutral.
I want this all to be her decision. Will you promise me
that?”

“
But why?” Andrea asks. “I mean, you
want our help. If we think you deserve another shot, why not let us
tell her?”

“
Because this has to be her decision
this time. It won’t be right for either of us unless it is.
Besides, I don’t want just us. I want to correct all the wrongs,
remember. And that comes before anything. The only thing I ask is
that, if this plan does come together, make sure she sees it all.
Some way, somehow. I know she’ll not want to, so if you have to
send her the video links until she watches them, can you do
that?”

“
Yeah, we’ll do it all right.” They
all agree to help.

I board an early flight in the morning and
start going to work. My hopes are to have everything in order by
Thanksgiving.

The plane lands in Atlanta and that sense of
uneasiness envelops me like a soggy blanket. I hate this town. I’ve
hated it ever since my mom moved here. I bypass the baggage claim
since I’m only staying one night and head to the rental car counter
where I’ve reserved a car. It’s such a pain at the huge airports
these days. I have to get on a bus that takes me to the actual
place where I can pick up the vehicle.

I’m finally getting on the interstate,
heading to my hotel. My mom hasn’t a clue I’m in town. I wouldn’t
stay with her anyway, not after what she’s done to me. I’m here for
my confrontation. And it may be the last time I ever see her, which
is fine with me.

Ryland Thomas hit the nail on the head with
her. She’s toxic and has been for years. She’s my mother, though,
and I’ve tried to keep things right with her. How can I after she’s
pulled this last little shit show with my dad’s will, though? I’m
done dealing with her.

I check into my room and look at the clock.
It’s six thirty. No doubt, she’ll be home getting ready to sit down
to dinner. Yep, she’s so damn anal. Everything has to be on her
exact schedule or she blows up like a grenade. I’ll always wonder
how my dad ended up with her. It shall forever remain the mystery
of my life.