My heart jumped. “Did they?”
“Yeah.” She laughed and cried at the same time. “They did.”
I went silent. The sobbing laughter was too overwhelming. Then she started crying again. “How did this happen?”
“I don’t know, Mom, but whoever it is, he’s a saint.”
“Yeah,” she said. “He is.”
All I could think was how I didn’t deserve this. I broke it off before he could hurt me, and now he was the one that got his heart broken. That wasn’t fair. He just spent nearly a million dollars on me.
When I got off the phone, Brenda stuck her head out the door to check on me. “How are you?” she asked.
“Okay,” I sniffed. “I don’t want you to have to worry, Brenda. I know I’ve been trouble.”
“What happened?” She stepped out.
“I just called him and broke it off with him.”
“Good. You did the right thing. Come on, get yourself cleaned up.” She held the door open for me to come inside and sighed when she walked back into her office. It was starting to become clear that I couldn’t keep this up at the office. She was probably ready to fire me.
Chapter 33
Jake
The days went by like a prison sentence. I felt a sense of hope and even a little excitement after I spoke with Andrew. When he left, I showered and put on my best clothes, then walked back down to the garage.
When I got in the car, I tensed up. If Mercedes wanted to see me, she would’ve called me instead of blocking my number. It had been more than a week, and she still hadn’t called. That meant that things hadn’t changed, and they wouldn’t unless I did something.
Mercedes was too proud to just give up when she got like this. Something as ballsy as showing up at her house would just drive her away. I had to ease my way in and make sure that I didn’t go too far. I knew that I could come off strong and that my feelings were far too intense. I couldn’t let her see that.
The problem with that was that I didn’t have any idea what was going through her head. I begged her to explain herself, but she wouldn’t. She was a stubborn woman, and that stubbornness could easily blind her.
She probably had everything twisted in her head. I was a pig that fell in love with whores, or a pervert that couldn’t control his impulses. Whatever it was, it was enough to push her away from what we both knew to be one of the most powerful relationships either of us would ever experience.
It had been beautiful, something that I had never thought possible. I’d been living alone for a good portion of my life. I never had a chance at love; at least, I didn’t think so. Then she came around.
Andrew was absolutely right. I couldn’t give up on her, and if I did, I’d regret it for the rest of my life. There was nothing I wanted more in this world than to have a family and a beautiful woman beside me. If I didn’t find a way to bring her back, I’d never have that, and I didn’t think I could stand being alone any longer.
I couldn’t hide away in my bedroom forever, either. The people at the company had been calling nonstop, literally one call after the other. They tag-teamed me. One person would call. Another one would send a text, while 16 of them spammed my email. I had to reject all calls from work, or else my phone would’ve been rendered completely useless.
That would’ve mattered had it not been for the board. They had the power to push me out of the company, and I couldn’t forget that. I had to maintain some level of dignity and prowess when I was around them. If I didn’t, they’d hop on my weakness.
Every day I was away was another day that Samantha went around trying to turn people against me. Even the more established members, people I’d known for years, would start to lose patience after a while. There was no way the board would put up with my absence much longer. I had to be better than that.
Even if she left and I never saw her again, I still needed to find a way to survive. How could I do that if I couldn’t even leave the house? How could one woman affect me like this? I was the guy that people wanted. Girls thought I was the one. Guys idolized me. I thought I was invulnerable, but Mercedes had crashed through my walls like a wrecking ball.
She blossomed when she was with me. When I first met her, she was a shy, innocent girl. She was so scared she could barely talk. Now she was a confident, beautiful woman, and her natural strength shined through.
This whole rift between us was just her doubt seeping out. She had such profound self-doubt, something I could never understand. It was like she simply couldn’t believe in herself. Nothing good could happen to her, and if it did, it was too good to be true. Something had caused her to start questioning the most beautiful thing I’d ever experienced. I still didn’t know what it was, but I knew that she was wrong. It was just like the way she couldn’t accept how beautiful she was. Something kept her from seeing the truth.
I spent the next few days mulling
over the problem. I couldn’t just walk out. I had to find something to say, but figuring out what was a serious issue.
I needed to know what to say to melt her icy core. At this point, she was frozen solid, and there was no getting past her stubbornness. But I didn’t know what she needed to hear. I knew my faults, and I knew some of the things that bothered her, but this was different.
She’d developed a complex based on things that she wouldn’t talk to me about. If I said the wrong thing, it could reinforce whatever twisted crap she’d come up with, but I had to find a way to address the issue. If I didn’t prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that her concerns were unfounded, she wouldn’t even consider taking me back.