Change of Heart (27 page)

Rich puts his arms around me. He holds me tight. I sob into his shoulder like a wreck. He doesn’t press me. He doesn’t judge me. He just holds me, stroking my hair, whispering soothing sounds in my ear.

“It’s all I have left of him,” I cry weakly.

“Shh,” Rich coos. “Shh. It’s all right, Penny. Let it out. I’m here. I’m here for you.”

Those
words send me bawling all over again. The sobs rock my body. It’s humiliating. I’ve always prided myself on holding myself together. On being strong. On always, always staying in control.

My whole life, I had done my best not to let myself feel. I’d never trusted anyone enough for that. I sure as hell didn’t trust myself.

But with Rich, I feel safe. With his arms around me, I feel protected. Everything we’ve gone through, all the experiences we’d shared… they make me feel I can confide in him.

“I never met him,” I say between sobs into Rich’s chest. “I’ve never even seen my dad.”

“We can find him,” Rich assures me. “I know some people…”

“No.” I pull away from him, wiping the tears from my eyes. “It’s no use. He’s dead.”

“Oh.” Rich’s face crumples. I can actually
see
the turmoil play out on his features. There’s a flash of shock, followed immediately by…
sympathy
. Not the fake kind, either. The real, genuine kind. The kind I’d never seen on anybody’s face before.

“Shit, Penny, I’m sorry. I must look like the biggest asshole to you.” He sounds all kinds of guilty. “Fuck! I had no idea. And this whole time, I’ve been going on and on about how much of a dick my father is… just… Fuck!”

“It’s okay,” I tell him, feeling more in control of myself. “You didn’t know.”

“Still, I should have asked, or realized something was wrong, or…” his hands curl into fists and he punches his thigh. “Fuck! You must hate me now.”

I start to laugh. Just a little, at first, but soon it turns into full-bellied laughter. Rich looks at me like he thinks I’m insane. I probably am.

“Hate you?” I say. “Of all the reasons I could possibly have to hate you, you think I’d pick
that
out?” God, it feels good to laugh. “After you lied to me, drugged me, kidnapped me, and pawned me off as your sister? After you made it impossible for me to go back to my old life? After all that, you think I’d hate you because of something you had absolutely no clue about?”

Rich smiles tremulously and chuckles a bit. “I guess when you put it that way… so, we’re good?”

“Yes,” I agree. “We’re good. I don’t hate you, Rich. Not even close.” I wrap my arms around him in a hug. “And lord knows I have more than my fair share of reasons to.”

Rich laughs at that. “You’re right. Still, I’ll try to avoid mentioning my father. Since it’s a sensitive subject for you.”

I let go, then hit him on the arm. Hard, so he knows I’m serious. “I’m not some glass doll, Rich. I can handle the truth.”

“But—”

“There’s nothing I hate more than when people start patronizing me.” I give him a stark look. “So don’t you go doing that.”

He smiles. “Deal. You know Penny, I’ve said this before.” He pushes himself up. “But it doesn’t make it any less true. I think I’m starting to really like you.”

With that, he turns and starts toward the path in the forest.

“Thanks,” I say long after he’s out of earshot.

Despite all the things I’d told Rich last night outside the bar, despite everything I’m afraid of happening… he’s growing on me. All the things I said about us being wrong for each other had been me saying the “right” thing. It’d been me chickening out, trying to chop off the feelings growing inside me at the head before they had a chance to take hold.

Well, it is too late for that now. After the way he’d made love to me beneath the stars and the way he listened this morning, those feelings had taken full root and blossomed.

The way my heart skips a beat every time he’s near tells me it’s way, way too late to fight those feelings now.

Chapter Seventeen

As I sit across from Rich in some blue collar breakfast diner, I’m starting to understand that, no matter what happens, I want to spend more time with him.

Real, one-on-one time. Time where it’s just the two of us, locked away from the rest of the world, talking about absolutely nothing while falling deeper and deeper in love. Time where we’re not rushed, or hurried, or afraid of what comes next. Where we’re not being pursued. Where there’s nothing to escape. Time where, for a long but ephemeral moment, the rest of the world simply forgets we exist.

The clatter of dishes thrown onto our table by the waitress jerks me back to reality. I sigh. I’m being stupid. I know nothing like that will ever happen. Rich and I will never have that chance.

Because in real life, there is no happily ever after.

Rich digs into his food right away. I’m just as hungry, but I want to watch him eat. I want to learn his little intricacies.

I sit back and study his face. I love the way his brows come together in concentration as he looks at his plate, the way his jaw tightens just a little when he chews. This is as close to wish-fulfillment as I’ll ever get.

Rich seems oblivious to my observations at first. He dumps nearly half the bottle of ketchup on his eggs, follows it up with some Tabasco, and mixes it all together in a strange type of red-and-yellow stew. He uses his
spoon
to eat, shoveling in huge mouthfuls. He swallows before even chewing twice. I decide that whoever had taught him table manners should be ashamed. He eats like a caveman.

Finally he notices me. He looks up, then down at my breakfast. “Not hungry?” he asks.

“No,” I say wistfully, “just thinking.”

“Oh. About what?”

About you. About us. About how I know, deep down, that we can never be together.
“I’m just wondering if what Amanda said is true.”

Rich narrows his eyes. “And what was that?”

“What your father did to your mother.”

Rich understands immediately. His tone turns serious. “She told you about that, huh?”

I nod.

“It’s something I suspected and shared with her when we were together,” Rich says. “Nothing more.”

“But do you believe it?”

He looks up and meets my eyes. “Yes.”

***

We’re on the road again. I’m huddled behind Rich on Amanda’s bike. He’d called his sister and found out that she was still waiting for him in the location they’d agreed upon before. Where that is, he doesn’t tell me. He says it’ll be a surprise when I see it.

Rich takes a highway exit and starts toward a distant city. He stops the bike in front of a tall, grey building. “We’re here,” he announces.

“Here?” I ask, looking around skeptically. Even though it’s midday, the streets are empty. The lot across from us shelters the charred remains of an old building’s skeleton. I take it there’d been a fire recently. “Where’s here?”

“My apartment,” Rich says, swinging off the bike and leaning it against one wall. He motions at the tall building. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“I didn’t know you had another place,” I tell him. “Isn’t it risky coming here? I mean, wouldn’t Tam and Victor know exactly where to look next if this place belongs to you? The way you made them sound…”

“Penny.” Rich stops me mid-phrase with an even look. “This is my apartment, but nobody knows it exists. Only me, you, and Min. I bought the building with cash so it couldn’t be traced to me. I wanted to distance myself from my father.”

I gape at him. “You own the entire
building
?”

Rich shrugs. “I’ve been buying and selling properties on the side for a few years. I bought my first place using the money I made fighting. It was a ramshackle, little shed. I renovated it, sold it for a nice profit. I did the same thing a few more times, until I ended up with this.”

I look up and down the abandoned street. Rich and I are the only people present. “It doesn’t look like you have many tenants,” I note.

Rich smiles. “Using your eyes for once, huh? You’re right. I don’t have any. I was planning on coming here this summer and hiring a construction crew to work on the inside. I got the building cheap after the fire across the street made the land value drop. It had been vacant for years before, anyway. I figured it’d be better to wait until people forgot what happened before renting it out again.”

“Smart,” I tell him. A gust of wind blows my jacket open. I shiver and snatch it closed in a hurry. “So I take it Min has been waiting here for you?”

“Yup.” Rich looks down and kicks at a rock. “Penny, I meant what I said before. I wouldn’t have brought you here if I had any other choice. I promised to keep you safe. Well, I know you’re safer away from me. You know, I thought coming back for you was the right decision. Now I’m not so sure. If I had just left you behind, Tam and Victor would have eventually realized you were not Min. Hell, you’d probably be on your way back to college by now.” He sighs. “This way, you’re stuck with me, and in even more danger because of it…”

“Rich.” I step up to him and take his hand. “I’ve come this far with you without complaining, haven’t I? I don’t regret anything.”

Rich runs a hand through his dark ruddy hair. He looks much more like an uncertain young boy than the confident, steady man I know. “It’s hard for me to say this, Penny. But I just have this feeling that once I take you inside—” he gestures behind him, “—once I introduce you to Min, there won’t be any going back for you. You’ll be stuck with me. And even though you already know how I feel about you, it’s just… well, it’s still not too late for you to turn away. Go home. Forget about me. If things go well with Min, I will come and find you. And if they don’t, you won’t be stuck in a situation that is outside of your control.”

Rich sounds so genuine and conflicted that it breaks my heart. It tells me he truly cares about me.

“I’m not leaving, Rich,” I promise. I can’t abandon him to himself, not after everything we’ve gone through. “And I’m not going to weigh you down, either. I’m going to help you however I can. I mean that.” I give him a stern look and harden my voice. “And don’t you dare tell me to forget about you again.”

Rich chuckles. The doubt lifts from his face. “Stubborn as always, huh?” He reaches out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “All right. I won’t say that again. You ready to meet my sister, then?”

“I was born ready.”

***

I feel a little nervous as the elevator climbs to the top floor. I hadn’t considered this before, but what if Min doesn’t like me? What if she ends up being angry with me for derailing all her plans? No matter what Rich said, I
had
caused trouble for him. For him and Min both. Would she resent me for that?

I wonder if she knows that Rich had fought Victor for me. Or that he has a row of stitches on his leg because of me.

I shrug uncomfortably. Min could easily hate me for putting her brother in danger. I hope she doesn’t, but I can’t hold it against her if she does. After all, I was the one who ruined the plans she’d made with Rich.

I really want her to like me. Normally, I wouldn’t care. But, this is different. Min is Rich’s
sister
. She is the only family member whom he loves.

Because of that, her opinion means the world to me.

The doors slide open. We step into the hall.

“Rich!” a girl’s voice cries out. I turn in time to see a dark blur streak in front of me. It collides with Rich. The next thing I know, he’s swinging his sister round and round, laughing as he does so.

I take a small step back to let them have their moment. Rich sets Min down and embraces her again. All I can see from here is the back of her head.

“Min,” Rich says to her when they part, his eyes shining, “I want you to meet Penny.”

His sister turns and looks at me. I see her face for the first time. She’s pretty. Really, really pretty, with the type of large doe eyes that boys go crazy over.

“Hi,” I say, smiling as I offer my hand. I don’t want to make a bad first impression.

Min surprised me by foregoing the handshake. She launches forward to wrap her arms tight around my neck.

“Thank you for looking after my brother,” she whispers, so low I can barely hear her. When she pulls back, I see that her eyes are wet with unshed tears.

“I’d say he’s the one looking after me,” I quip.

Min laughs. She has a vibrant, beautiful laugh. She dabs at her eyes to clear the tears.

“I’ve been worried about you,” Rich says, walking up to us. “I didn’t know how well you’d be holding out on your own.”

“On my own?” Min says. “I’ve been on my own ever since you left home all those years ago!” She sounds like she should be angry, but there’s a playful vibe in her voice. She hits Rich on the arm. “
That’s
for thinking I’m still the helpless little sister you left in New York,” she accuses.