Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Matthew

I don’t want to live anymore.

I thought life was bleak and colorless before she came into the picture, but every minute without her now that I’ve breathed her air is unacceptable.

A trial.

I haven’t been able to leave this office since she walked out of it, because I don’t want to look at the outside world. Don’t want to face it without her. Kaylee gave me a reason to live, she stole the loneliness and now that her life-affirming presence is gone, I’m depleted. I’m raw and miserable and I deserve every second of it.

The hurt I caused her.

She wasn’t going to betray me. If I’d listened to my heart earlier, I would have known.

She was so brave and incredible, standing up to her father, and what reward did I have to offer? A video of me defiling her. In the place she holds sacred, nonetheless. I’m a monster.

I stare bleary-eyed at the computer screen, the words and numbers in a senseless jumble. It’s the middle of the night. She left me three days ago and I’ve been working on this project ever since. I meant what I said—I won’t live without her. But I’m going to leave this world a better man than she found me. So I’ve spent the last three days signing over assets to the people I’ve wronged. I’m doing it in Kaylee Hale’s name. I’m taking apart my empire, because none of it matters anymore.

I’ve been to heaven in her arms.

Now I’ll send myself to hell. It’s as simple as that. It’s where I was always heading.

In an ironic twist, the anger inside of me is gone. I’ve been holding on to it for so long, this self-directed rage. I started Borden to get revenge in its purest form. Somewhere along the line, I lost myself and simply became corrupt like the people I swore to bring down. Corrupt like my parents, too. It’s all a cycle and I’d let myself become a part of it.

But with this final act, I’m separating myself from the festering dishonesty.

I’m making myself worthy of her, even if she doesn’t want me anymore.

Even if maybe it’s too late to be good, like she deserves.

I make sure all of the pertinent documents are attached to the email to my attorney, then I hit send. And I stand up on legs made of vapor, beginning a slow climb to the roof, whispering her name over and over again as I go.

* * *

Kaylee

I wakeup to the world exploding.

There is someone banging on my door.

My phone is ringing off the hook. It’s my father.

I haven’t gotten out of bed for three days, except to use the bathroom. My heart rattles inside of me like puzzle pieces in a box, my temples pound and a layer of dread cloys me at all times. Squeezing me until I feel nothing but lifeless. Even though I knew my bond with Matthew was vital and gigantic, I underestimated what it would be like living without him. It’s torture. I can’t keep food down and I’ve run out of tears. I’m sick enough to be admitted to a hospital if I could bear to leave the darkness of my bedroom.

And now someone has come to shatter my hideous solitude.

It takes me long minutes to get out of bed and walk downstairs to the door. My robe hangs off my body and I can barely see straight, but I open the door and find a man in a suit staring back at me.

“Kaylee Hale,” he says in a rush. “I need you to come with me.”

“What?”

My voice sounds like it’s coming from a great distance away.

All at once, he seems to notice that I’m barely clinging to life.

“Jesus, are you all right?”

“Who are you?” I whisper, because it hurts to talk. The sunlight in my eyes is an assault.

“I’m Randall Hobbs, CFO at Borden Enterprises.”

Borden Enterprises. Everything comes into sharp focus. Absently, I remember my father was calling me upstairs. I can’t hold on to a single thought. “What are you doing here?”

“Matthew…” He shakes his head, visibly shaken. “I don’t know what to do.”

I don’t think I can sink any lower into the mire. Until his grim tone of voice registers. Until now when the ground seems to rise up and threaten to swallow me. “Where is he? What’s going on?”

He uses the doorjamb for support. “He was seconds from jumping off the roof of Borden Enterprises last night, but he was thwarted by security. It took five men to keep him from leaping and…he’s been brought to a mental health facility uptown.”

Black is bleeding in from the edges of my vision and I’m growing dizzy.

I’m wracked with shivers, stomach pitching wildly.

No. No, no, no. No.

The man is still talking, his words like swords driving into my ears.

“He’d been locked in his office for three days. I assumed he was working on a deal, but…no. He was offloading company stock and transferring titles of some of our biggest real-estate holdings. Half of his fortune is gone. He’s unhinged…”

Our last conversation occupies my mind. A full-bodied echo.

The truth is, Matthew, you haven’t been a good man. If my father is right and you’ve been bleeding people dry and forcing them to sell, maybe you deserved to have your business dismantled.

You’re right, Kaylee Hale. And you deserve far better than me.

“I’m here because the security guards said he was calling for you,” Randall says, breaking into my storm cloud of thoughts. “Before he attempted to jump.”

Sound and light wink out. Back in and out. I sway, sick, broken. He was trying to make everything right, wasn’t he? For me? He…when he said he would die without me, I didn’t take it literally, but I should have. Oh Jesus, obviously I should have.

A cry of denial rips from the deepest recesses of my body. I trip forward, catching myself on the arm of the suited man. “Bring me to him. Please. Now.”

* * *

The driveto the hospital is a blur.

All I can do is focus on the beats of my heart. One after the other.

Deep breaths.

I’m disoriented when we arrive. Voices sound like they’re coming from a carnival funhouse and walls swell in and out as I run down the hospital corridor. I was brought to the correct floor by Randall, but ran from him as soon as the doors opened, directed by some internal compass that knows where he is. Knows where to find Matthew.

I’m unprepared for the sight that greets me when I skid into his room, realizing vaguely that I’m barefoot and wearing a nightshirt and robe. Matthew is restrained in a bed. A nurse is shining a small flashlight into his eyes, but he’s staring straight ahead into the light without blinking or responding to her questions. His gaze is hollow, as are his cheeks, his hair matted.

When I make a broken sound, however, a jolt passes through him and his head turns toward the door, his eyes showing a sign of life. And that life roars back in when he sees me, his arms jerking at the restraints.

“Kaylee.” Alarm transforms his features. “Kaylee!”

Until he bellows my name at the top of his lungs, I don’t realize I’m collapsing. Sideways against the door and down, down, the dizziness finally gaining enough strength to knock me over, my legs giving out entirely. Medical personnel rush to aid me, but I can’t look away from Matthew. He’s frantic, shouting, ripping at the restraints with all of his might—and when one of them finally breaks, he pulls his wrist free of the second, hurtling through the gathering crowd to pick me up into his arms, rocking me while shouting hoarsely for help.

* * *

I wake up warm,unlike the last three mornings when I woke up feeling as if I’d slept on the floor of a crypt, ice permeating my bones. Not now. No, my face is pressed into something warm with a pulse. When I inhale and snuggle closer, arms wrap around me tightly and the pulse beneath my nose begins to hammer faster. Faster.

“She’s awake,” chokes Matthew, kissing my face, my hair. “You’re awake. You’re awake.”

I crack an eyelid open, noticing in between kisses that I’m in a hospital room. A bed. None of that really matters, though, because I’m with Matthew. I’m home. I’m in the right place no matter where we’re located.

“You were starved and dehydrated, baby.” He buries my face in his neck and I take comfort in the beat of his heart. It matches my own. It always does. Same tempo, same everything. “Why? Why did you do this to yourself?”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to be apart,” I whisper, sounding dazed.

“You don’t think?” He crushes me closer. “I barely made it seventy-two hours. If I’d known you were in the same shape, nothing would have kept me away. Oh God, Kaylee. Don’t ever do this to me again. Please. Don’t ever neglect yourself like this again. I can’t fucking breathe knowing you were in pain.”

Moisture overflows my eyes. “You tried to jump off a roof.”

He’s already nodding. “Next time, I’ll make sure you’re all right first.”

“Next time?” I pull back from his embrace enough to look at him. To study the deep grooves of strain around his mouth, the purple bruises beneath his eyes. “If there is a next time, I’ll end up right back here. Don’t you see?”

His blue eyes are turbulent. “I see nothing but you leaving me. Over and over again.”

I take the sides of his face and press our foreheads together. “I’m back now. I was wrong to think we could live apart. We can’t. Once our hearts met, that was it. They’re on strike unless we’re together, Matthew. Don’t you ever do this to me again.”

“You’re back?” he croaks, his eyes searching mine with a growing fire. “You’re coming back to me after what I did, Kaylee? After the monster I’ve been?”

“Yes. You’ve suffered enough. We have. And what you did…turning over your investments to the people you’ve taken advantage of…that’s the man I love. That’s the man my heart recognizes, beat for beat. I forgive you. I love you.”

“I love you, too. I’m made of love for you. Every piece of me.” Color begins to return to his face and he seems to take the first breath I’ve heard since waking up. “I’m not dreaming?”

I shake my head and burrow myself into him, my soul rejoicing when his arms band around me like they’ll never let me go—and I know they won’t. Neither will he. “It’s all real. As real as us.”