“No! I can’t do that! He’ll hate his dad, and I just can’t…I mean, there was this whole other bit to the threat where his dad said that if I told Kayden what he said to me that day, he’d go ahead and ruin my parents anyway.”
“See, in a good thriller, this would be the perfect case for revenge. You’d have spent the past eight years plotting it out, and then you’d ruin Kayden’s parents’ lives, wreck all their businesses, turn his father into a penniless nobody, make your own parents rich in the process so they could retire and never have to worry about money, and somehow, you would also still get the guy. You’d get your happily ever after. You know, after all the battle and blood and gore and dust had settled.”
“Christ,” I snort. “This isn’t a book.” I have to get serious here. “Kayden’s really close with his family. You know that. He just…it would seriously hurt him to find out his dad had done something like that. Aside from the threat to my family, it would probably ruin his relationship with his dad forever.”
“Who wants to have one with someone that evil?”
“He’s not really evil. I don’t think he is. He just…he was worried about Kayden, and he wanted to protect him in his own fucked up way.”
“Protect his family name more like it,” Sadie scoffs. “That was just a straight-up asshole thing to do. He had no right. The fact that you can see any good in it at all just proves you’re seriously the best person in the world. It also proves how much you love Kayden, even now.”
“What?!” My mouth hangs open in panic, and I realize I’m also flapping my hands like a chicken, so I ram them under my legs and sit on them hard to keep them still.
“It’s so obvious.” Sadie’s voice is far dryer than how my mouth feels at the moment. “You still don’t want to hurt him, and you don’t want to wreck his relationship with his family. That means you care. And right now, it’s written on your face like someone just stomped it there with printed boots in fresh snow.”
“What a simile.”
“Similes are best.”
“Anyway, I’m not going to tell him. He’s just going to either have to stay or leave. If he stays, I’ll leave, and if he follows, I’ll leave again.”
“Until what? Until you’ve moved six thousand times, and he’s followed every single time? Aren’t you forgetting something? Like your job and me? You better not move and leave me behind!”
“Maybe we could just go on the run together. Wouldn’t that be romantic?”
“No. I like my place, and I like it here. You also like it here. Besides that, you have an amazing job, and you’re settled. He should be the one moving. But even if he does, and he’s not here anymore, I think you’ll regret it. I don’t think anything will be the same now that you know for sure he basically came here for you. He wants another chance. It’s so freaking obvious. I think if you don’t give it to him, you’ll regret it forever.”
“But if I do, and his family fucks with my family or us, then I’ll regret that forever too.”
“Maybe his dad’s changed his mind. And anyway, Kayden isn’t fresh out of college or relying on his parents for money anymore. He’s made his own, and he has a lot of it. I looked up his net worth, so I know that’s a fact.”
“Sadie!”
“Well, I’m just saying! He’s his own person now. If you’re worried about his dad ruining your parents or you, don’t be. He can’t do that anymore. Kayden wouldn’t let it happen, and he has the means to back that up. He wouldn’t be ruined either. Sure, telling him might strain his relationship with his dad, but what his dad did wasn’t right. It wasn’t right at all. The bastard should own that. He should have to make things right with his son and with you. So, I think it basically just comes down to this. Do you still love him?”
I can’t answer that. It feels somehow wrong to answer it. I’ve been living under the black cloud of Kayden’s dad’s threat for so long that it’s hard for me to just move out from under it and learn how to see the sun again. Although, I know if I mentioned that to Sadie, she’d compliment me on my use of metaphor.
“The asshole!” Sadie suddenly mutters, breaking the silence. “Are you going to talk to him? Please tell me you’re going to talk to him.”
“I don’t know.”
“Please tell me you’ll at least consider it then. The man loves you. He never stopped loving you. And I don’t think you ever stopped loving him either. Jeez! It’s so romantic that I can barely handle it!”