Scared of Forever (Scared #2) (24 page)

The next morning, as
I’m racing around to prepare Sadie’s bottles and trying to pull
on my jeans for work, I hear a knock at the door.
Fuck!
Nothing fits the way it used to. I curse as I shimmy into
the tight pants, pull a tank over my head, and walk over to the door.

I open the door with a
murderous scowl on my face. And then my stomach bottoms out, my jaw
drops, and my heart sinks all at once, when I see Tyler standing
there. I almost want to reach out and touch him, believing that I’m
still dreaming. That soon, I’ll wake up and realize that this never
happened.

So I reach out and
pinch his arm. Hard.

“Ow!” he says,
rubbing the spot, looking confused.

“Sorry,” I mumble.
“Just checking.”

We stand face to face,
on opposite sides of the threshold. The metaphor of our physical
stance is not lost on me. For a moment, I can’t steal my eyes away
from him. I search his eyes. Those same, familiar eyes. After all
this time, I still find myself at home in them. Just as I open my
mouth to ask the requisite,
what
the hell are you doing here?
Mac walks in with Sadie.

Tyler casts a look over
at them, then back at me. Confused, shocked. I can’t decipher the
reaction on his face. So many emotions are all barreled into one
split second. So I do the only thing I can. “Tyler, I don’t think
you being here is a good idea.”

He’s still reeling
from the shock of my baby, ten feet away from him. “Emily,” he
looks at me with pleading eyes. “What happened?”

I choke back a laugh.
“I think it’s pretty apparent what happened.” The reply comes
out laced with sarcasm.
And
anger
. My bottled up anger has finally bubbled to the
surface. “Mac sure as hell didn’t give birth to her.”

“Why didn’t I know
about this?” he asks quietly.

“Because you left!”
I shout, sounding even louder after his nearly whispered question.
“How dare you show up at my doorstep? After all this time. You turn
up here uninvited, and you have the nerve to ask me why
you
weren’t told about anything that was happening in
my
life!”

Mac takes Sadie back
into the bedroom, and I stand face to face with all of the pain of
the last year. “God, I had just convinced myself that I was fine.
It took me a whole fucking year! So what are you doing here?”

For a split second, I
feel sorry for Tyler. His face is bleached out. His hands tremble at
his sides. I think he may need a blood sugar boost before he passes
out on my doorstep. “Well, come in,” I spit, moving aside.

He walks in slowly, and
I gesture to the worn sofa. He sits, still wordless, still pale as a
ghost.

“I presume you didn’t
come here to faint, so why are you here?” I ask again.

He composes himself. He
still looks like my Tyler. Same shaggy dark hair, same captivating
eyes. Same simple tee and jeans, clinging to the same chiseled chest.
Same sun kissed skin. A warmth courses through my body, and I curse
myself silently for allowing myself to feed into the lust. But he’s
different, because now, I’m different.

“Emily, I didn’t
know about any of this,” he says softly.

“Because I didn’t
want you to. Jesus, both of you Carson brothers are a piece of work.
You didn’t know because I didn’t want you to,” I scoff.

“Why?” he asks
simply.

“Oh, I don’t know,
Tyler. Because you left me, after your grand gestures and
proclamations of caring for me so much. And not only that, you sealed
the fate of my relationship with Blake on your way out the door. You
sent me on a mission that you
knew
would shatter my heart, and you didn’t stick around for the show
afterward.”

“I was trying to show
you that you were making a big mistake in marrying Blake!” he
rebuts.

“Well done. You did
that. And for that, I sincerely thank you. But what was the point in
destroying my world, if your intention was to just leave me? All
alone? What did you have to gain from breaking us up? From my vantage
point, it seems like all you really wanted, was to best your
brother.”

“That’s not true,”
Tyler says softly. “I didn’t think you’d actually leave him. I
really didn’t think you believed me. I wanted you to be happy,
whether you were with me or not. And I knew what you were getting
yourself into by marrying Blake. I couldn’t let him hurt you like
that. I thought I was protecting you.”

“I get it,” I
laugh. “Hurting me was reserved for you.”

“That was not my
intention!” His face is so remorseful, so pained.

“Yeah, well, that’s
what happened. Do you know the only feeling worse than hearing Blake
tell Aria that he was marrying me out of convenience? It was the pain
of walking into your apartment and finding it empty. It took me a
whole damn year to stop thinking about you every night before I fell
asleep. Every night.”

“And you don’t
think I did the same thing?” Tyler argues.

“Then why weren’t
you here? You ran away. Your freedom, impulsiveness, the things I
loved about you. Now I realize that they were just excuses for when
things got difficult. Your mother warned me—”

“My mother? What does
she have to do with anything?”

“She has been the
only member of your family that has supported me through this whole
thing. I kept thinking, month after month, that you would come back.
Only you never did. I had to deliver Sadie alone!” The tears
involuntarily stream down my face.

“That’s not fair,
Emily. You didn’t tell me about her. You didn’t give me the
chance to be there for you.” Tyler walks over and tries to wipe the
tears away. I swat his hand away furiously. “And where was Blake?”

“Who the fuck knows
where Blake is, and who the hell cares? So you’re back. Now what?”
I say through sniffles. “Now we live free and happy, forget
everything? Spend our lives eating hot dogs and living for the
moment? Sounds charming. But some of us have responsibilities now.
Some of us don’t have the option of leaving when things get hard.”

“Emily, please just
listen. I loved you then and I still love you now. I thought I was
making things easier for
you,”
Tyler pleads. “Giving you space to think. I thought you
would have called me. When you didn’t, I assumed that you had
worked things out with Blake.”

“Love should have
stopped you from leaving. Love should have stopped you from ever
leaving me,” I say through tears. “But it didn’t. And now, I
want
you to leave.”
I walk over and open the door, standing expectantly, waiting for him
to go. Fighting the urge to hold onto him and never let him go.
Fighting the urge to forgive this man. Trying desperately to keep my
hands from reaching out. He gives me one more desperate look, eyes
pleading. Imploring me silently. I stare resolutely at the wall.
Avoiding those beautiful brown wells and all the false promises they
bear.

He walks out moments
later, and I slam the door hard behind him. Violent sobs wrack my
body. I remain standing there, rooted to the spot. Head in my hands,
tears staining my cheeks. Rage, joy, and about a million other
feelings are all rolled into one confusing, convoluted mess. Mac
takes Sadie for a walk in her stroller, and I resign myself to the
couch. The hurt of last year that I had pushed so far down has now
risen to the surface, all at once.

My head reels as I walk
through the busy Manhattan streets. I had tried to mentally prepare
myself for Emily hating me. For her having replaced me. I never quite
succeeded completely, but at least I had some contingency for that. I
never, in a million years, expected to see her with a baby. I also
never expected to see the anger and hurt that was clear in her eyes.

Blake.
Where was Blake? If that’s his child, where is he? I
can’t even be angry at him anymore. That would be wholly
hypocritical of me. Judging him for leaving her alone, when I was no
better. I walk up to my apartment and collapse into one of the pod
chairs. I can’t stop thinking about Emily alone this year, alone
for a whole nine months of pregnancy. Alone, because I was too much
of a coward to stick around and wait for her. To just be patient and
trust that she would believe me. And the more I think about it, the
more I hate myself.
The more I
torture myself
.

If I could just get her
to listen. Get her to talk to me. To explain, plead, beg. I don’t
know.

So I go to my next best
option. The only other person who can fill in the gaps for me. I
catch a cab to the penthouse of Eliza Carson. I dread this reunion
more than the last. But I need answers.

My mother answers after
three attempts at knocking, elegantly dressed and paparazzi ready, as
usual.

“Tyler,” she says
with a small smile.

“Hello,” I say.
This is awkward.
I
haven’t called this woman ‘mom’ in years. But now calling her
Eliza seems, well, kind of disrespectful. I’ll try to have this
conversation without using proper nouns of any sort. She insists that
I join her for a late lunch. I agree, and we make our way to the
expansive dining room. In the hallway hangs a huge canvased
photograph, a picture of a newborn baby.
Sadie
.
I don’t comment, not yet.

“I assume you have
more than a few questions,” she says to me as we sit.

“I do,” I say as
politely as I can manage. This civil conversation thing between her
and I is foreign territory for us. “What happened to Blake and
Emily?”

“Well, Emily
discovered that Blake was having an affair. Although I suspect that
she would have left him anyway, even if the mistress situation had
not been made public.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because she had
fallen in love with someone else.”

“Oh,” I say,
sliding slices of Camembert around my plate in an attempt to avoid
eye contact.

“Your brother has
since disappeared. So has his tattooed girlfriend. I sold his
apartment, and from what I understand, she no longer owns that tattoo
shop, either.”

“Does he know about
the baby?”

My mother drops her
fork loudly onto her plate. She glares at me, irritated. “The
baby
has a name. Her name is Sadie. And yes, he does. He made quite the
song and dance about Emily’s pregnancy. Suffice it to say, I am now
ashamed to call him my son.”

“What did he do?”

“Aside from claiming
that Sadie wasn’t his? Aside from calling Emily a whore? Make no
mistake, she isn’t innocent, but I don’t think for one second
that she deserves a title like that. I froze all of his access to my
money and forced him to do a paternity test the minute she was born.”

“And?” I ask
impatiently.
She’s telling the
story like it’s the fucking financial news!

“Sadie’s not his
daughter. She shares some common DNA with him, but not enough to make
him her biological father. Enough to say, with no uncertainty, that
he is related to the child’s biological father. Closely related.”
She eyes me warily, hoping that I’m intelligent enough to
comprehend

“So, she’s my
daughter. And you didn’t think I might want to know?” I ask,
raising my voice.

“I did what Emily
asked of me. Seeing her so upset after she found out about your
brother was difficult, but witnessing her heartbreak when she lost
you, was infinitely worse. I suspect that’s why she greeted you so
harshly today. Yes, she called me and told me you were back.” Eliza
glares at me angrily. “She insisted on having that baby. She was
determined. Alone. Scared. But determined nonetheless. She dealt with
your brother’s reaction, and was still determined. I saw something
in her that I have yet to see in either of my sons, and that’s
strength of character! Might I remind you, Tyler, that you left her?
Or are you just a younger version of your brother, blaming the rest
of the world for your problems?”

I bow my head. “She
must hate me,” I say despondently.

“No, she loves you,
very much. But she doesn’t trust you. Can you blame her?”

“Not at all,” I
reply. “So, what do I do?”

In a strange twist of
events, Eliza Carson has now become the person I ask for advice. And
she seems to know Emily better than all of us.
I’ve
landed in one hell of a fucking parallel universe here.

“Tyler, if I could
choose you or Blake to be Sadie’s father, I would pick you. For all
of your reckless abandon, you are nothing like your brother. I was
thrilled at the result of that paternity test. She is my
granddaughter, and you are her father, and Emily is her mother. Why
don’t you start with being civil? Then take it from there.”