Get You Good (26 page)

“No,” Sydney said, her voice nasal from her stuffy nose. “It's not OK and it won't be. Hayden and I are over.”

“Don't be so quick to throw in the towel,” Jackie said. “God is in control. Even of this.”

“Not after what I did,” Sydney said. “There is no chance after that.”

“You got that right,” Lissandra said, earning her a warning look from Jackie.

“Why don't the two of you go help your sisters in the kitchen,” she suggested in a way that told them it was not a suggestion.

When they left, she pulled Sydney into her arms.

“Sydney, sweetheart, I don't know exactly what went on with you and Hayden and his sister. And to be perfectly honest, I am not sure I want to know,” she said. “But I do know this. Since your father died, I have watched you let your emotions of hurt, resentment, guilt, and confusion turn you into a shadow of the woman I know.”

Sydney sat up and looked at her mother.

“You have to let those feelings go, Sydney,” Jackie said. “Forgive your father for breaking your heart. Accept the truth that it's OK to feel hurt and disappointed. And for heaven's sake, stop thinking that you have to solve all our problems on your own. Dean's hospital bills will get paid somehow. My mortgage will get taken care of. The staff from your father's store will find work somewhere. And you won't lose this house, either. Even if you do, you and your sisters will be fine and Dean will get over this thing with Sheree. You don't have to solve all these problems to prove that you love all of us. We know you love us and we love you. And you don't have to earn that love.”

Sydney looked down at her hands. She had never realized that that was what she was doing. When had she started thinking she had to earn the love of the people around her? Maybe when she realized she hadn't earned her father's love, not completely anyway.

“I know that it will be a long time before you get over what your father did with that store,” Jackie said, as if reading Sydney's thoughts. “But darling, unless you get over it and get past it, you're gonna keep finding yourself right here. Your father loved you the best way he knew how. You can keep struggling to understand him and what happened, or you can accept it and get on with your life.”

“Today is your thirtieth birthday, sweetheart,” Jackie said, stroking her daughter's hair. “Don't you think it's time you made a new beginning for yourself?”

Sydney did think it was time. She knew her mother was right: she had to let go of her disappointment over Decadent. She had been carrying it too long and it had been keeping her stuck in a place that she knew she didn't want to be anymore. It was time to get up and start moving, start living again. It was time for a new direction.

“O
K, Sydney, where are you taking me?” Maritza asked from the driver's seat of her BMW X3.

“You'll see soon,” Sydney said from the passenger seat. “Turn right at the light.”

“Girl, this better be good.” Maritza's neon pink lips curled up in skepticism. “'Cause I do not drive through midday traffic for just anyone.”

“We're here,” Sydney said, sitting forward. “See if you can grab that parking space behind the red minivan.”

Maritza glanced suspiciously at the minivan. “That soccer mom better not scratch my truck.”

Sydney got out of the SUV slowly and stood in front of the storefront. It looked exactly like it had the day she had come there with Hayden, except now the sign for the bar was gone and it was completely empty. Her grip tightened around the keys in her hand. It had taken her over a week to work up the courage to just come down here. Now that she was here, she wasn't sure she could go in.

This was part of the reason she had asked Maritza to come with her. Though they hadn't been friends for that long, they had clicked. And there were certain things Maritza understood that her sisters couldn't—like what it meant to date a man of Hayden's status. When you weren't used to being around someone with that much money, it was easy to get caught up and miss the big picture. Plus Maritza probably understood the new Hayden much better than any of her sisters did.

“OK, so what's this about?” Maritza asked between smacks of gum as she came up beside Sydney. “Did you haul me down here to look at storefront property? 'Cause if you're in the market, I can think of a couple better locations.”

“You asked me what Hayden got me for my birthday,” Sydney said, her eyes still on the store.

“Uh-huh,” Maritza said, her bracelets jingling as she put her hand on her hip.

“This is it.”

“This what?” Maritza asked.

Sydney glanced over at her friend, then back at the store.

“This,” she repeated, adding a tilt of her head for clarification.

Maritza stopped chewing. “He bought you a store? Dub bought you a freaking store! Girl, what did you do to that man? And can you teach me how to do it to Sean?”

Sydney shook her head. “I didn't do anything. Nothing to deserve him, anyway.”

“Well, he certainly doesn't think so,” Maritza replied, marching toward the door in her eight-inch wedges. “We going in or what?”

Sydney stood rooted in front of the store, staring at the glass.

“Syd!”

Sydney shook her head. “I can't.”

“Well, I can.” Maritza took a few steps back toward Sydney and stretched out her hand. “Keys.”

Sydney reluctantly released the keys into Maritza's hand, then watched as the robust woman sashayed her way over to the door and began trying keys in the lock. It took her less than a minute to get to the right one. Sweat beaded Sydney's anxious forehead as she watched the door swing open easily.

With a glance back at Sydney, Maritza disappeared inside. Sydney wrung her hands as she waited to hear something. She resisted the urge to retreat to the passenger seat of the car even though her right leg, wrapped in a walking cast, begged for reprieve. But even the soreness in her leg couldn't compete with her anxiety as she contemplated whether or not she could go into the store. She didn't know why she was being so weird about the whole thing. Going in didn't mean that she was accepting the store as a gift from Hayden. She couldn't. She had no right to. But she wasn't sure she would feel as strongly if she went inside.

“Well? What does it look like?” Sydney yelled toward the slightly ajar door.

Maritza's voice came from somewhere deep inside the store. “Come and see for yourself.”

Sydney wrung her hands some more. This was silly. She would go inside, look around, and then leave. Plain and simple.

“It's just a store,” she murmured to herself, before closing the distance between herself and the door.

She managed to hold on to her conviction the first few moments inside. The blinds on the windows were down, and it was still too dark inside to see anything clearly. But then Maritza flipped a switch somewhere and light flooded the space.

Sydney heard her breath catch in her throat. The whole space had been redone. Gone was the ugly dark green paint they had seen the first time, and in its place a fresh coat of a soft eggshell color. The hardwood floor was shiny as if recently refinished, and she could see that the lighting fixtures above the counter and around the store had been recently replaced. All the bar equipment was gone, leaving lots of space behind the counter for anything and everything Sydney could have wanted.

Hayden had redone the entire space.

“Sydney, girl, you're gonna want to see this.” Maritza stuck her head through the double doors behind the counter that led to the kitchen. “You're gonna flip.”

Sydney could only imagine what Hayden had done in the kitchen. However, when she finally stepped through the double doors, she realized that her imagination had fallen way short.

The entire kitchen had also been done over, with what looked like new tiles on the floor and stainless-steel cupboards and countertops. But the brand-new industrial oven was what Sydney couldn't take her eyes off of. The thing was straight out of a Bakers Pride catalog. Stainless-steel double oven, gas. It was convection, but Sydney knew that with this model, there was the option to turn off the fan, which she hadn't had in the old convection oven at Decadent. She ran her hand over the sleek, shiny body of the oven before opening both doors to look inside. This was a brand-new oven. She knew how much it cost because she had been salivating over one online the last time she'd had to bake a batch of tarts for her mother, and had had to get through the whole order in three rounds because her oven was too small to accommodate them all at the same time.

“I can't believe he did this,” Sydney said, shaking her head.

“You and me both,” Maritza said. “I don't know much about kitchen equipment, but I know that all of this ain't cheap.”

She had no idea. Sydney's brain was still running the numbers. “He talked about not making the best choices with his money.”

“Girl, Dub may have been young, but he wasn't stupid enough not to hold back anything. He was into his second multimillion dollar contract when he got hurt. So . . .”

“It's too much.” Sydney backed out of the kitchen and into the main storefront. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Hayden's. But it went straight to voice mail. Just like it had the last twenty-three times she had called him since he had dropped the deed on her counter. But this time she wasn't giving up. She called the clinic.

“East York Athletic Clinic—”

“Yes, I need to speak with Hayden Windsor, please,” Sydney said before the receptionist could finish her introduction.

“I'm sorry, ma'am. Mr. Windsor is currently out of the office. Would you like to leave a message or set an appointment?”

There was no point leaving a message. Sydney knew he wouldn't call her back.

“I'd like to set an appointment,” she said.

“OK.” She could hear the woman's fingers tap away at a keyboard in the background.

“Are you a regular client or were you recently referred?”

“Uh . . . a regular,” Sydney said, walking in small circles.

“And your name?”

Sydney cleared her throat. “Maritza Denary.”

Maritza emerged from the kitchen. “You hollered?”

“Oh, Maritza! How are you? I almost didn't recognize your voice,” the receptionist said, breaking her formality. “How are you doing? Is it that knee injury acting up again?”

Sydney cleared her throat and glanced back at Maritza, who was watching her suspiciously. “Uh, yeah, it's the knee again. You know how it gets this time of year.”

“No problem, girl,” the receptionist said. “Look, Hayden has a free spot tomorrow afternoon where one of his clients cancelled. I can slip you in if you want, or if it's too soon . . .”

“Nah, girl, tomorrow's fine,” Sydney said. “What time?”

“Three thirty,” the receptionist said. “I'll book you in right now.”

“OK, thanks,” Sydney said. “I'll be in for my appointment tomorrow.”

“OK, girl,” the receptionist said. “And remember those Chanel fragrance samples you promised me!”

“No problem,” Sydney said. “See you tomorrow.”

She hung up the phone before the conversation could go any further.

“So let me guess,” Maritza said, folding her arms and smirking at Sydney. “I have an appointment tomorrow with Dub.”

Sydney bit her lip sheepishly. “Yup. And you're bringing the Chanel samples you promised the girl at reception.”

Maritza rolled her eyes. “Great. Now I'm gonna have to go buy something at Chanel on the way home. Sean is going to be mad again.”

“Why?” Sydney asked. “You work. It's your money, isn't it?”

Maritza clucked her tongue at Sydney. “That's why you're not married, sugar. You have so much to learn.”

Sydney wrinkled her nose. “Apparently.”

“So why couldn't you set your own appointment?” Maritza asked.

“Because he would never see me,” Sydney said with a sigh as she rested her elbows on the counter. “He won't even answer my calls.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Yeah,” Sydney said. “And trust me, I totally deserve it.”

“So how do you know he won't throw you out when he sees you tomorrow?”

Sydney shrugged. “I don't know. I just hope I can get through to him before he does. We need to find a way to handle this shop thing so that he can get his money back and get on with his life. There is no way I can accept this.”

Maritza's eyes widened. “Now hold on just a minute, Miss Bleeding Heart. I know that you're feeling really terrible about what went on with you and Dub, but let's not get carried away, here. This was your dream, remember?”

“I know, but—”

“No buts,” Maritza said. “Don't you think you should think about this some more? This is what you worked your whole life for, and now it's right in front of you.”

“You're right,” Sydney said. “But I don't want it. Not like this. Dub bought this place for us. This was supposed to be something we would do together. But without him in it, I would just be miserable. Every day in this place would just be a reminder of what I did to him, and what I gave up because of my own selfishness.”

Maritza narrowed her eyes at Sydney. “You love him, don't you?”

Sydney shrugged. “Is that what this is?”

“Putting someone before yourself? Giving up what you want for someone else, even though you know you probably won't get anything out of it?” Maritza asked. “Kind of sounds like that to me.”

Sydney shook her head. “You know, I used to think I knew what love was. I thought it was about me. What I wanted, what would make me feel good. But it's not. Real love is not about yourself. It's about the other person.”

Maritza came over to lean on the other side of the counter. “You know, Syd, you remind me so much of myself when I first met Sean,” she said. “I thought I knew everything, but that boy taught me so much. He always said you can't really love anyone until you know God's love.”

Sydney chuckled humorlessly. “Sounds like something my mom would say. And Dub, too.”

“I can imagine,” Maritza said. She sighed. “When Sean and I first got married, it was rough. I was still looking out for me. Still trying to grab everything for myself, like I was afraid I would wake up one day and everything would be gone. But he was patient with me, and when I would ask him why, he would say because love is patient. I would give him a hard time sometimes, but he would always be kind to me, because love is kind. I thought I loved Sean, but he helped me understand what real love is. Real love comes from God, girl. It's all that good stuff in first Corinthians thirteen. Love is patient, kind; it doesn't envy; it doesn't boast. It's not proud. It doesn't dishonor others, it's not self-seeking, not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”

Sydney closed her eyes as she thought of what Maritza said. Pride, dishonor, self-seeking, anger. It sounded like a complete description of what her life had been over the past few months.

“It doesn't enjoy evil,” Maritza continued, “but rejoices in truth. It always protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres. That's the kind of love that won't fail. If all you're doing doesn't match up to that, then it's not love. I thought I loved my husband, but I really didn't. In fact, I really didn't love anybody. I couldn't. Not until I understood this. Not until I understood who God was and how he loved me.”

This was the other reason why she had let Maritza in so fast. Because there was something she had that Sydney wanted. She had somehow managed to make a real relationship with God seem attainable for Sydney in a way she had never seen it before. Sydney opened her eyes and wiped the runaway tears that had slid down her cheeks.

“I hurt him,” Sydney said quietly. “Really really badly.”

“And yet, he still was selfless enough to do all this for you,” Maritza said, waving her hand around the room. “Sounds like someone who is still committed to loving you. Why don't you try and love him back?”

“He won't let me,” Sydney said. “And I don't deserve him, anyway.”

“Sounds like pride and lack of trust.”