That simple offer undid me and I found myself talking. Slowly at first, and then quicker. The words came pouring out almost as violently as my tears had, my hands fisting and clenching in his T-shirt while he continued stroking up and down my back.
When I finished, Flynn dipped his head, staring down as though taking in everything I said. Then, after a few moments, he eased me off his lap and stood up.
He paced away and stared outside, his hands on his hips. When he finally spoke, his voice was curiously flat, contained. “I’ll get in touch with Cody, let him know what Mom is doing. He won’t be happy. He’ll call you soon.” Then he flicked a look at me and added, “Be prepared for her to unload, because I’m going to have it out with her.”
Then he went back to staring outside, one hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck. I waited, daring to hope that wasn’t all he had to say. As much as talking to Cody would help, that wasn’t what had me so torn inside, and now that I’d told someone, I needed an opinion. I needed to know if I was out of line, if I was crazy. Women were supposed to want that kind of man, right? The rich, gorgeous man who took care of them and shielded them from everything bad. Was I wrong to not want it too?
Finally, Flynn turned, crossing his arms over his chest. Dark hair spilled into his eyes as he cocked his head. “About Edward…?” His mouth flattened into a line. “Fuck him.”
My eyes went wide. That hadn’t been what I’d expected.
He came closer and went to his knees in front of me, staring at me with an expression so intent, it made my heart start to race. He touched my cheek, a quick, fleeting brush that seemed to sizzle all the way through me.
I felt.
His voice was low, husky. “You’re one of the strongest, most amazing people I’ve ever met, Tennessee. Are you really going to let my asshole brother get in the way of your dreams?” While I took in his words, he rose. Then he bent over me and murmured softly, “If he really loves you, he’d be pushing you to chase them, not trying to keep you from them.”
He left then, not saying another word.
Bowing my head, I covered my face with my hands and struggled to breathe.
I felt.
Chapter 21
I didn’t go to the study I normally shared with Edward.
It was his study, his place. Not mine.
I did make one quick stop to get my laptop and then I went back to the only place in the house that felt like it belonged to me. I didn’t know if it was the view of the garden or the fact that no one really used it, but it was one of the few places where I didn’t feel like I was intruding on Edward’s space.
It was already three and I doubted I’d have much time, but I had to make some headway on the work I’d trashed. Flynn was right. I couldn’t let anyone get in the way of my dreams, not even Edward.
“Miss Gabriella.”
Paul stood in the doorway, his expression calm.
I flushed as I met his eyes. Embarrassment and self-consciousness flooded me, even as gratitude had me fumbling with the words I knew I needed to say. Most people would have called Edward, if they’d thought to call anybody at all. Yet somehow, this man who had become a friend, had managed to make the one call I would never have thought to make. And it had been the perfect one. Flynn had settled the chaos in me and given me back all of the strength and confidence that Edward and Claire had summarily stolen.
“I…um. I wanted to thank you—”
He shook his head, but a ghost of a smile passed across his face. “I’m happy to see you up and moving.” Then he nodded at the computer. “And working. I thought these might be useful. Helen said they’d been misplaced…?”
Confused, I waited as he came over to me, carrying a leather briefcase. It was a beautiful shade of hot pink and immediately, I coveted the bag. It was the kind of thing I would’ve wanted to buy for myself when I made it to a real job. But then I saw what he was pulling out and I forgot about the bag. My eyes started to burn as I realized what it was.
Helen had gotten my work out of the trash.
When I looked up at him, he arched a brow. “Sometimes we get caught up in the chaos of a day and misplace things, don’t we?”
“Yes.” I nodded, swiping at my eyes.
“We thought perhaps this bag would make it easier to keep track of your work.” He held it out and I took it, clutching it to my chest as though it had been made of hammered gold and dreams. My dreams.
“Thank you.” I could barely speak around the lump in my throat.
As he left, I sat back down. I gave myself a minute to calm my thoughts.
Then I got to work.
I had dreams to chase.
***
I set my alarm to go off the next morning ten minutes after Edward’s so he’d be in the shower when I woke up. We’d shared a mostly silent meal the night before and I hadn’t wanted to discuss anything with him then. I’d needed to figure out the right way to approach things. Now, after a night of sleeping on it, I still wasn’t sure if there was a right way, but I knew what the right words were.
Flynn had given them to me.
When Edward came out of the shower, I was laying out my clothes on the bed and I was awake enough to have the conversation.
He paused, studying me. “Do you have plans today?” he asked quietly.
“Yes.” Taking a deep breath, I looked at him. My tone was even, but firm. “I’m sorry. I know you want what you think is best for me, and I appreciate that, but you don’t know what’s best. I do. I’m going out to find work. Not some menial job because I need money, but one that will help me pursue the only career I’ve ever wanted.”
His eyebrows came down over his eyes in a straight line and his jaw tensed. When he opened his mouth—to try again to talk me out of this, to guilt me out of it, I knew—I held up a hand.
“Please, don’t,” I said gently. “If you love me, Edward, why would you try to keep me from chasing my dreams?”
He flinched.
Several moments passed before he spoke and when he did, it was with great care and precision. “I would never try to keep you from pursuing your dreams, Gabriella. I understand your writing is important to you, but why can’t you do it from here? Why does it have to be now?”
“If not now, then when?” I countered softly. “My mom always had plans to go back to school, but life happened. We happened. Look at us. We were supposed to get married, and the wreck happened. And what if that had been it? The end? And I never had the chance to try? This is my chance, Edward. And if you love me, you’ll understand that I need to do this.”
He looked at me steadily for a minute before speaking again, “Why do I feel like I’m being forced into accepting this?”
“I’m not forcing you to do anything.” I shook my head, my chest tightening. I hadn’t truly expected him to change his mind, but a small part of me had hoped for it. Gathering up my clothes, I moved around him into the bathroom. “It just seems like you can only be happy if I’m locked up here, protected and hidden from life. Even if doing that will break me. I can’t be happy like that, Edward. It’s not who I am, and changing to be that sort of person...” I shook my head. “I wouldn’t be me anymore.”
I closed the door without looking at him. I’d made my decision.
Either we could live with it…or there wouldn’t be a we.
***
The good news was that overnight, two people had responded to my inquiries.
The bad news was that only one of them was even remotely interested and that had more to do with my connection to the Bouvier family than my skills. Between being engaged to Edward and having been in the accident with Cody, complete with the overly romanticized coma, I was a bit of a minor celebrity at the moment.
It would pass, but I was too smart not to utilize it.
When the assistant producer agreed to meet me for coffee at the end of the week, I still considered it a win and mapped out a plan for the rest of the day. I knew how things l
ike this worked. I could email all I wanted and send out scripts all I wanted. Sometimes, though, opportunity happened when you made it happen.
I was going to go out and hit some of the smaller production companies in the area too though. I had the names of a few and some minor, casual acquaintances. It was time to start networking. It was sad but true that it often mattered more who you knew than your talent.
Paul was at the door with the car within moments of my texting him and when I walked out, he was smiling at me.
“Were you waiting for me?”
“Yes.” He held out a hand for my bag and I turned it over to him. The thing was heavy and I was already getting tired.
I doubted I’d be able to do much more than a couple of hours, but at least I’d be doing something to move forward. Despite Edward’s lack of support, I was feeling better than I had in a long time.
“How’d you know I’d be doing this today?” I asked him before getting into the car. Maybe Edward had experienced a change of heart while I was getting ready. He’d been gone before I’d come out of the bathroom, but maybe this was his way of telling me that he was okay with it, even if he didn’t understand.
“Because you’re too stubborn to give up on what you really want.” He nodded at the open door and gave me a smile. “Your coffee is waiting.”
I returned his smile and shoved aside the stab of disappointment that it hadn’t been Edward’s doing. I slid inside, sighing in pleasure as I saw the mug of coffee he had put in the cup holder for me. I picked it up and took a sip as he settled in behind the wheel. Perfect.
We were pulling down the drive within seconds and headed off into the canyons of Manhattan within moments. I didn’t know how the day was going to turn out, but for the first time in what seemed like way too long, I was actually excited about being awake.
Three hours and four stops later, I had to call it quits. It wasn’t as much as I’d hoped to do, but I’d made two connections and had one solid appointment, two maybes. Okay, there had been one flat no, but so what? I’d been doing this long enough to know just how good that percentage was.
“I missed this,” I said as Paul merged into the traffic of the city.
“Missed what?”
“This. Going out, talking to other people in the industry.” I laughed wearily and rubbed at my temples. “Not that I’m really in the industry right now. I barely had my foot on the first rung when I quit my job to...do freelancing.”
“Of course.” Paul’s voice was bland. “Freelancing.”
I shot him a narrow look, wondering how much he knew. Considering he’d called Flynn, it was probably more than I was comfortable with, but I wasn’t going to ask. In this instance, I was going the whole ‘ignorance is bliss’ route.
Resting my head against the padded leather seat, I stared out at the rush of the city, brooding. How much time had I lost with wedding plans? Preparing for a wedding that still hadn’t truly felt like mine?
In that moment, I had to admit the truth. I was preparing for a wedding I didn’t even want. A life I didn’t want.
“I’m making a mistake,” I said softly.
“Everybody makes them,” Paul said evenly.
I shot my gaze to his. Haltingly, I said, “I don’t mean my writing.”
“I know.” He nodded, his eyes on the road. He took a left and I looked around, registering where we were.
My heart started to pound.
Flynn’s studio was here. Just a few blocks up. I started to twist the strap of the pink briefcase Paul and Helen had given me. “Paul?” I whispered.
“Most mistakes can be fixed, Gabriella.” He dropped the miss as he pulled up to the curb and looked into the mirror to meet my eyes. He knew he was crossing the line between professional and personal. “But it all depends on when you realize the mistake is there and how long you pretend the mistake isn’t really a mistake.”
I was shaking. “How…” My voice cracked. Clearing my throat, I tried again. “Why did you call Flynn?”
“I’ve been taking care of this family since I was twenty-two years old, Miss Gabriella. I know most of their secrets, and pretty much all of their flaws. I know the good things too. Flynn started to change around you. He became a better man. And I think he makes you better too. There’s only one reason for that.” He nodded at the door. “Maybe you should go talk to him.”
Maybe.
Maybe I owed it to myself.
It couldn’t hurt, right?
Chapter 22
I was wrong.
As I walked towards the door, I remembered the woman with the beautiful golden skin. The woman I’d seen him with...this could hurt a lot.
I almost turned and bolted, but I knew if I didn’t do this, I’d regret it. I had enough regrets, enough things that I wished had never happened. I’d seen the accident as one of those because of Cody, but now I could see the silver lining in it. If I hadn’t been in it, I’d have been married now.
“Married to a man who thinks I should be wrapped up and coddled. That my safety is more important than me being happy,” I whispered. The idea hit me hard enough to steady my heart as I opened the studio door and found myself looking at Flynn.
He wasn’t alone.
That wasn’t a surprise.
If he’d been with some scantily dressed model, I wouldn’t have blinked twice. If he’d been naked and with a model, I’d have been devastated, but not surprised. But he was dressed more professionally than I’d ever seen him. A polo shirt, a pair of khaki pants and loafers that looked expensive enough to have pleased even his mother. And he wasn’t with a model. He was talking to two people, a man and a woman. One carried a bag that I recognized as a camera bag. The other carried a briefcase. They looked between us as I stared at Flynn.
Speak, I told myself.
“Gabriella.” Flynn inclined his head.
“Hey...um…hi, Flynn.” Looking over at the other two, I nodded stiffly. I should’ve called first. “Is this a bad time?”
“Oh, no.” The woman smiled easily and hooked her arm through the man’s. “We’re all done. Thanks for working us in so quickly, Flynn. We’ll take a look at our budget and get back to you as soon as we can.”
The easy, carefree smile I knew so well curved his lips as he shook hands. “Great. Just let me know.”
“Can you hold off showing it to anybody else? A week maybe?” The man flashed him a wide smile, heavily laden with charm.
Flynn shrugged and tucked his hands in his pockets. “I’ve already got a few appointments set up, but I won’t make any commitments until I hear back from you. That’s the best I can do.”
Confused, I looked back at them, but they disappeared through the doorway and left me watching Flynn without an answer. “Ah…” I bit my lip, telling myself to leave it alone. I couldn’t though. “What was that?”
“Business.” He rubbed at his stubbled jaw. He hadn’t shaved this morning. “You look exhausted.”
“I am.” Hesitantly, I smiled. “I went job hunting. Made some appointments.”
“Good for you.” His tone was sincere, but there was nothing else to it. He turned towards the back of the studio.
I took a step after him. “Can I…” Nerves unlike anything I’d ever known slammed into me and I paused just inside the door. “Flynn, can I come in?”
He’d only gone a few steps, so he was close enough that I could see his shoulders tense. I watched as they rose and fell, watched as some internal struggle took place inside him. Feeling like this had been a huge mistake, I started to back towards the door.
“Okay, I guess I’ll just…”
“Come on in,” he said shortly, cutting me off. “I’ve got stuff to do, but I guess I can talk and work at the same time.”
The terseness of his reply caught me off-guard, but as he motioned for me to enter, I came far enough inside for my eyes to adjust to the different lighting.
And then I had to stop and gape.
The
re were boxes.
Everywhere.
“Flynn?”
He cut around me, taking care not to brush against me. “What did you need, Gabriella?”
Staring at him as he strode off into the wide, open space of the studio, I looked from one box, to another, and another. He was most definitely packing up. “You’re moving.”
“Yeah. Time for a change of pace. I…” He stopped in front of a big box—more like a crate—and stared down into it. “I need to get out of New York for a while.”
Out of New York. “You’re leaving the city?” My voice cracked. A sudden spasm of pain ripped through me and I gripped the edge of a counter to keep him from seeing how much my hands were shaking.
“Yeah.” He glanced at me, his face unreadable. “I’ve got a studio out in L.A. I sublet it for the most part, but the tenant was offered an assignment that’ll have her traveling most of the year. Seems like good timing. I need a change, the place is open. Why the hell not?”
“Why the hell not?” I echoed woodenly.
Why did I feel like my heart had been cut out?
As I shifted my weight onto the stool next to the high counter, he levered a few pieces of equipment into the box. It occurred to me in a vague sort of way that he could pay men to do this, but then again, I knew Flynn. He treasured his photography equipment. He wouldn’t trust it to anyone else.
Several long moments passed as he worked and I tried to wrap my mind around the fact that he was leaving. He wouldn’t be here anymore. Wouldn’t be lurking in the shadows. Watching me. Tormenting me. He wouldn’t bother me for modeling sessions. Or for...anything else.
“What about the wedding?” I finally whispered a question that wouldn’t betray my internal turmoil.
A heavy light fell out of his hands and crashed to the floor. As glass shattered, Flynn just stood there and stared at it.
When he finally lifted his head to look at me, there was a look in his eyes that I’d never seen before. Raw, aching misery. But his voice was even, almost flat. “I can’t be there for the wedding, Gabriella. I’m sorry.”