Hustle Him (Bank Shot Romance #2) (21 page)

I grabbed her hand and pulled her over into my arms. “I am so sorry, Vessa. I just don’t want to lose you.”

She cried even harder. “I don’t either. This hurts so much. I know it’s what has to be done. I just don’t know how to say goodbye to you, not when I know that you’re everything I want.”

“I never imagine mysel
f loving someone again. I don’t care what we have to do, or how long you make me wait, I’m not giving up on us.” My phone started to ring again and it was the same number as before. “I gotta take this. Hang on.”

Hello?

Is this Ramsey Towers?

Yes, it is.

This is Mayor Calvin Vance, I think you and I need to have a man to man talk about your future in this town.

I can be there in an hour, sir.

My office, one hour. See you there.

“Who was it?” She asked.

“That was the mayor
. I think I just lost my job.”

Chapter 18

Vessa

I didn’t understand how one perfect afternoon could turn into my whole world being turned upside down again.
After years of being in a terrible marriage, with the most selfish person in the world, I’d fallen in love with someone that had more compassion than any man I had ever known. Unfortunately, in order to win custody of my kids, I couldn’t be with Ramsey.

My heart was ripped apart and I knew his was too. We’d spent so much time building up to, what we thought was going to be, our future. This hurt so much different than being cheated on by Gavin or anything else that we’d been through in our marriage. I guess I never had hope that things were going to last forever with Gavin. Maybe deep down inside I knew he was going to disappoint me.

At any rate, keeping my distance from Ramsey was tearing me apart.

Fearing that someone could access phone records, he mailed me a pay as you go phone. Our time to talk to each other also got cut in half. Ramsey’s meeting with the mayor didn’t go as bad as he thought, but he was on probation. He was suspended a week with no pay, got his second cover story in the local paper and six months of probation pending the verdict of his trial. Yes, he was actually being sued by my husband.

To say that it didn’t cause a major strain in our relationship would have been a lie. Even the kids knew something was going on.

After the whole fight in the back yard, I
sat down and talked to the kids about their feelings. They were both very scared and upset at what Ramsey had done to their father. It was hard to explain to child that their father had instigated it to happen and that Ramsey was only protecting me. Then of course, they wanted to know why Ramsey was protecting me the way he was.

My aunt was great support, but even she couldn’t work miracles
.

On one of Gavin’s weekends, I decided to take the kids to meet him without my aunt. Ramsey wasn’t on board with my decision, but
with our relationship consisted of mostly phone conversations, I knew there was little he could do about it. Besides, with his job on the line, he seemed focused on making sure that he was always available for anything that may come up.

Ramsey kept blowing up my phone every five minutes, begging me not go into the Lion’s den alone. I would be fine. After dealing with this shit for as long as I had, I knew just what had to be done. When we pulled up at the house, all of the memories of the night I left Gavin came rushing back. I don’t think that I’d ever felt so angry with someone in my whole life.

The house still looked the same on the outside. Of course he’d patched up every place that I shot out. The kids ran up to the door, while I took my time, looking around at what was once mine. Gavin came outside when I was walking up the porch steps. He held the door open to let me in.

“Thanks for bringing them all the way here.”

I looked right at him and wondered what the hell I ever saw in him. There was nothing appealing about Gavin when I had Ramsey to compare him to. “We need to talk, Gavin.”

I walked past him and saw his girlfriend quickly duck into the back bedroom with a baby in her arms. I looked back at Gavin and he scratched his head.
“Yeah, she had it a couple weeks ago. I meant to tell you.”

I held up my hand. “Just save it. I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to talk about our kids.”

We sat down at the kitchen table facing each other. He reached over to grab my hands, but I pulled away. “I still love you, Vessa.”

“How can you even say something like that when the mother of your newborn is right down the hall? Do you even think about the things that you say?” I felt so sorry for that poor girl. She was too young to see that in a few years, she’d be right where I was; raising kids and separated.

“You’re my first love.”

I raised my eyebrows and shook my head around, covering my face with my hands. “Please stop. I don’t care what load of bullshit you want to throw at me. I’m never coming back to you, Gavin. I thought that I loved you and the life that we built, but it turned out to be a lie. The whole damn
town knew what you were doing behind my back. How do you think that made me feel?” I put my fist on the table and stood up. Then I started pacing. “I’ll tell you how I felt. I felt betrayed. I felt like everything that I’d ever loved was a fucking lie. I felt like the one person that I trusted more than anyone in the world had let me down. It wasn’t just me either that you betrayed. Those two kids in there, well, you betrayed them too. You broke up this family, not me. I never cheated on you, shit, I never even looked at another man until we were through.”

Gavin stood up and walked over to me. He corner
ed me near the stove in the kitchen. I didn’t want to be so close to him. Nowadays, he scared me. I wasn’t really certain what he was capable of. “Do you hate me, Vessa?”

I looked him right in the eye. “Yes, I really do.” My tears were angry tears. I wasn’t crying for being honest with him
. I was crying because I’d wasted so many years of my life with the monster standing in front of me. I was crying because he was taking Ramsey away from me. “I wish you could see who I really am. You treated me horrible. Do you even have a clue how hard I worked to save our marriage? All I ever wanted was for you to love only me. I wasn’t asking you for much. You stood before our family and God and promised to love only me for the rest of our lives.”

Gavin wiped his own tears out of his eyes. He leaned back on the counter next to me. “I will love you forever. I didn’t lie.”

“You don’t know what love is. You think manipulating someone is love? You really think sleeping with other people behind my back was love? You think blackmailing me out of finding real love is the right thing. After everything you’ve done to me, after claiming you still love me, I have to ask you. Do you love me enough to let me be happy, Gavin?”

He shook his head and sighed. “You can’t ask me that. Not after what that dick…”

“Stop! That man that you’re talking about lost his wife and daughter. How would you feel if me and the kids died? Would you just go on living normally like we never existed? Could you just forget about us and find replacements?” I walked up close and got up in his face. My heart was beating out of my chest and I was pretty sure that I was about to pass out. “You have no idea what kind of man he is! You have no idea what he’s been through. You can accuse me of whatever the hell you want. I don’t even care anymore. You and I both know that I haven’t been with enough people to be called a whore, So save your pathetic comeback attempts. Stop ruining my life! I know you don’t want to raise our kids. You’re doing this to get back at me for leaving you, but you can’t see that it was exactly what you deserved. I’ve been the only parent that those kids could count on every minute of every day. You really think they be happy living without me? You think they will love you more when they find out they can’t see me anymore?”

I had to walk away and grab a
paper towel to wipe my eyes. While facing the kitchen window and wiping the wetness off of my face, I felt his hands reaching around me. I turned around suddenly. “I’m sorry, Vessa. If I can’t have you then he won’t either. You want me to drop the custody case? All you have to do is leave your boyfriend and move back to this town. You forget all about your life there with him and you can keep the kids without me ever fighting you.”

I moved further away from him. “You do know that I can’t stand the person you’ve turned into? You would do all of this to spite me?”

“Yeah, I guess I would.”

I slapped him across the face. “How dare you! You selfish son of a bitch!”

He held the side of his face and smiled this arrogant smile, while pointing to the door. “I think you need to leave.”

I grabbed my keys off the table and pushed past him. “Gladly!”

“See you in court, bitch!” He slammed the door behind me.

I had planned on staying at a hotel for the night, but after my heated argument with Gavin, I just wanted to go home. Except, that wasn’t where I drove to.

When I pulled up at Ramsey’s place, all of the lights were turned off. It was nearly midnight and I knew that he was probably asleep. Since he was finally able to start sleeping in his bed again, he liked going to bed earlier. I knocked two times before I heard the latch releasing and the door opening. He was wiping his eyes and standing there in just a pair of pajama pants. I threw myself into his chest and started crying.

To be honest, I don’t even remember him shutting the door. He pulled me by the hand into his bedroom, where he proceeded to undress me down to my underwear. We said nothing to each other. It wasn’t like I could talk anyway, since I was still busy bawling my eyes out. Once he got me tucked into bed, he climbed in the other side and pulled me into his chest. His strong arms held me tight while I continued to let my emotions overwhelm me.

I’m not really sure exactly which one of us fell asleep first. I woke up in a dark room, still in Ramsey’s arms. He was snoring, but it was comforting knowing he was there with me. Being there with him, feeling so safe, made me realize just what I was considering giving up. Was I really willing to let go of this wonderful man because Gavin wanted to be in control of my life. He wanted me to suffer and I already was. Just imagining never seeing Ramsey again ripped through my heart. I couldn’t believe that I had to choose.

I knew what I had to do, what I had to choose, but it didn’t make the decision any easier. I started crying again and Ramsey began to stir. He looked over at the clock to see it was three in the morning. “You crying again?”

“I didn’t mean to wake you up. I’ll just go out to the living room.” I leaned over and kissed him before getting up. He tried to grab my hand, but I was already standing.

I should have known that he was going to follow me. It was still
hard to get used to someone caring so much about me, especially considering the kind of man he was when we first met. He kneeled down in front of me and put his hands on my knees. “Talk to me.”

“I can’t tell you this. It hurts too much to talk about.”

“Whatever it is, we can work through it. I promise you we can.” I ran my hand over the whiskers growing on his cheeks. He smiled and kissed my fingers as they passed.

I shook my head and the tears really started coming down again. “I can’t tell you this. You’re not going to like it. It changes everything.”

“I can handle anything, except losing you, Vessa.” He used both thumbs to wipe my face and then he kiss me softly. With our foreheads still together, he kissed me once more. “I’m so in love in with you.”

His beautiful words ripped through my heart like a sheet of shattered glass. He was everything that I wanted. I could see our future together in my mind. I wanted to be his rock and support him
emotionally for the rest of our lives. I hadn’t known him my whole life. It wasn’t love at first sight. It wasn’t even a beautiful love story, but it was our story. All of it brought us to this very moment, where my one decision could make all of our happiness disappear.

I already knew my choice. For me, it was never an option. I think that’s why it hurt so much. As a mother, I had to make decisions everyday. The most important decision I could ever make for them was to be with them. There was no way I was going to let anyone else raise my children, even if it cost me my own happiness with Ramsey.

“I’ve never loved someone the way that I love you, Ramsey. You’ve showed me what it’s like to be at the lowest point of your life and find that one light that guides you back to happiness. Now I know that it’s possible to be happy after you felt like you’ve lost all that you were living for. I think that’s what makes what I’m about to tell you so hard. It isn’t what I choose for myself.”

“I’m not following you, Vessa. You’re talking weird. What is it? Just tell me.”

“I have to leave town.” The words almost didn’t come out. I found it hard to talk without losing it.

“When will you be back?” He rubbed my shoulders, waiting for me to respond.

I shook my head and looked away from his concerned face. “I’m not coming back. “

“What are you saying? You live here. I live here.” I could tell that he was getting worried about what I was telling him. Deep down I think he knew this was coming. Our struggles to stay together had been weighing on both of us.