Learning to Let Go (21 page)

I didn’t know how to ask what I wanted to know. I scrunched my lips to the side, trying to figure the best way to approach it, but just decided to throw caution to the wind. “Why the double entry? I thought you either do one or the other.” As I asked the words, I realized the possibility, having heard about some of Hannah’s observances visiting some BDSM clubs out of curiosity. “You’re not going to try and share me, are you?”

His face was now nose to nose with mine as his fingers went down to my center and shoved back inside. The expression on his face told me I had said something wrong. He fought to keep himself in check as he replied rather coldly.

“You are MINE. I’m a greedy man in regards to a few things and you’re one of them. You are too precious to me to share.” To prove his point, he captured my lips in a consuming kiss as his fingers flexed into me, causing me to shudder at the feeling. “This belongs to me; don’t ever forget that.”

Garrett hadn’t touched me, other than a kiss or hug, since that night in his theater room nearly a week ago. Any time I tried to entice him, he just pulled away. I gave him his space for a few days, believing he needed time to deal with the recent events with Chase and just needed time to process them. But, the more time went by, the further he pulled away, leaving me feeling alone in the world.

He would fall asleep with me nestled inside his arms, telling me he’d protect me, but I would wake a couple hours later, needing the bathroom, to find him gone. One night, in frustration, I walked around the penthouse trying to find where he had gone only to discover him in his office, passed out on top of the paperwork he was reviewing with a bottle of scotch on his desk and an empty tumbler beside him.

At the office, he would communicate with me, but only in terms of the project we were working on together. At home, we sat in silence as we ate before retiring to more nights of falling asleep in his arms and him collapsing on his desk in an exhaustive and sometimes drunken stupor.

I would often sneak out to the living area outside his office and sleep on the sofa, just to feel close to him. Apparently, he’d caught me, because most times I would wake up back in the comfort and warmth of his bed, but still without him. My heart was ripping in two. Why was he doing this? Was he only interested in me as long as he could protect me from Chase or was I nothing more than the flavor of the month and would quickly be discarded as soon as the drama was over?

My will to push forward was crumbling, knowing that I was losing Garrett for some unknown reason. The only thing that gave me strength was the self-defense lessons I was getting from Thompson and Dillon. Garrett had started teaching me, but lately he was too busy, so his security detail took over. I knew that Chase wouldn’t leave me alone without a fight and I would be prepared to deal with him next time. I might not be very big or strong, but I could at least try and disable him enough to give me a head start against him.

Thompson had told me to focus on what kept me grounded and what built me up, to find a song that spoke to me and let it be my mantra. The Katy Perry song, “Roar,” spoke volumes to me. I might be pushed down, but nothing was going to keep me there and anyone who tried would hear me scream out with a roar!

I must’ve fallen asleep on the sofa thinking about the last defense session where I accidently punched Dillon in an area that made him scream out in agony. I had apologized, but he just dismissed it and congratulated me on a good hit.

I bolted upright, believing I heard the same cry in reality as I did my sleep, when the words, “No, no, NOOOOO!” pierced the air. It was Garrett. I ran like crazy around the room to his office and saw that he was struggling against his dreams, his arms thrashing about on top of his desk.

My steps were guarded, knowing that it was unsafe to wake a person having a nightmare, but this one needed to be squelched before it had a chance to grow. I placed my hand gently on top of his and squeezed it, hoping the contact would be enough to wake him. He calmed a little, but kept yelling out, “No!” I moved to his shoulders and gently shook them, making my voice as soft as a whisper and talking to him like my mother used to talk to me when I had unpleasant dreams.

He jolted upright in his seat, his eyes searching frantically around the room for what, I didn’t know, until a spark of recognition passed over them as his face landed on mine. He grabbed me around the waist and hauled me into his lap. “Thank God you’re okay,” he murmured. “I thought I’d lost you.” His mood darkened as he pulled me close. “Don’t ever walk away from me.” His body shook uncontrollably, apparently at the thought of me being gone.

“I’m not going anywhere, Garrett,” I assured him. “I’ve told you this time and time again. I won’t leave until you ask me to. Even if I’m totally ticked at you, I’ll still stay.” I let him hold me, but he still shook around me, causing me to ask what exactly he dreamed about.

He closed his eyes tightly before reopening them and glancing at the clock. “Shouldn’t you be in bed? It’s the middle of the night and we have an early morning.”

I knew he was trying to avoid the subject and change paths with me. “I couldn’t sleep because the bed is too lonely without you beside me. You’re my safety blanket at night and if you came to bed more often, you’d see that I’m yours as well.”

As expected, he scowled. He wouldn’t broach the subject about his dreams. He wouldn’t open up to me.

I had finally had enough. “You forced me to confront my fears at the beach!” I practically yelled. “An intervention, you called it. If I have to, I will lock us in this room until you come clean about what’s going on with you.”

“This doesn’t concern you, Laurel.” His words were sharp, making it feel like a slap across the face.

I got up and stomped my foot on the ground. “That’s bullshit and you know it. You wouldn’t let me get by with that lame ass excuse on the boat and you’re not getting by with it here! Either you tell me what the hell is going on with you about everything, or else I’m walking out that door as soon as the sun comes up!”

His pushed up from his chair immediately, eyes wide in panic. “You wouldn’t.”

“I don’t want to do this, but if you force my hand, I will. I’ll go live with Donny or see if Jonathan has an extra room, but I will not stand by and let you push me away, holding me at arm’s length and closing off every part of you.”

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as he sank to his knees on the floor, shoulders and head slumping forward in defeat. “Fine, I’ll talk,” he moaned. “I wanted to save you of this impression of me, but I have nothing more to lose if I don’t have you.”

I hated seeing him this way and tried to coax him onto one of the chairs in his office or out onto the sofa, but he refused to budge. I locked the door as he requested and then sat down in front of him on the floor.

“Your office is locked. We’re alone, so spill it. What has you pulling away from me? Is it something I’ve done or said? Is there something I don’t know about in regards to the investigation with Chase? What gives, Garrett?”

“I had a nightmare that you were dead. I reached you too late. That bastard had killed you and I took the blame from everyone. I’ll always be a fuck up, always causing loss and pain wherever I go.” His eyes filled with tears and his voice shook as the words flowed freely. “I want you to be in my life so badly, but I’ll just hurt you like I’ve hurt everyone else. The sad thing is that I’m a selfish bastard who can’t seem to let you go, no matter what his threats are.”

I swallowed hard as the realization hit. He had threatened me somehow and Garrett found out. “What did Chase do?” I demanded.

Garrett was silent, not saying a thing until I started to get up and head towards the door.

“So help me, if I take one step out this door, we’re through,” I warned. “Now talk, damn it!”

With some reluctance, he took a deep breath in and began to speak, his eyes staring aimlessly at the floor. “He sent me a note the day your brakes were tampered with. I was told to leave you alone because he would rather see you dead than to see you with me. We immediately tried calling you and Dillon and couldn’t get anyone to respond, so we pulled up the tracking on your vehicle and drove to the lake.” He took a quivering breath in and finally looked up at me. “My heart was filled with panic that I’d lost you. Everything I dare to love gets taken from me.”

I sank back down on the floor and reached a hand to his face. I was thankful when he leaned into my touch and wrapped his hand over mine, pulling me closer. I couldn’t understand why he kept saying everyone he loved was taken from him, but then realization slammed into me. The car accident! Both his parents and his Aunt Lydia had all died in car accidents.

“Oh my God!” My hand pulled away from his and flew over my mouth.

“What?” His look was puzzling.

“You’re reliving the past because of the car accident, aren’t you?”

His hand came up and pinched the bridge of his nose before sweeping back to his neck, where he grabbed hold, trying to massage away obvious tension. I was surprised when a soft “Yes,” escaped his lips.

“Will you ever tell me what happened?”

He shook his head side to side and I began to feel defeated until he finally whispered, “It was all my fault. My parents, my aunt, they all died because of me.”

I couldn’t understand why he blamed himself. “That’s not possible, Garrett. You were so young. How can you even think that you had any part of your family’s death?”

“You know that they were in a tragic car accident when I was five, but you don’t know what led up to it. My father was working his way up in one of the top security design firms in the area. We didn’t make enough to survive on just his salary, so Mom used her accounting degree to work at a bank. It was their hope that he could get promoted and one day make partner so my mother could quit her job and stay home with me. He had his work cut out for him because he had competition for the new management position he was after.”

He paused, his hands starting to shake uncontrollably. I enclosed them in my own and held them close, making him look up, seemingly surprised that I was still there.

“Go on,” I encouraged. “What happened next?”

“My dad had been working on some new designs for some top of the line security systems for hotels and big corporations. He’d been spending late nights and some weekends putting the final details on things. When he wasn’t working for his company, he was at home running over a plan my Mom and him came up with. With the increased use of computers in banking, she’d discovered that if some computer extremists had the ability to skirt the back door of computer banking systems, they could easily skim a few dollars off of each account and make off with millions of dollars without anyone being the wiser. She’d proposed a computerized security system that would alert the organization if multiple accounts were being hit by the same computer IP address. Since his sister was a computer genius, Aunt Lydia and my dad wrote the software while my mom showed them all the potential areas where the bank’s computer system was weak.”

I could tell the weight of the discussion was causing him some major grief, because his hand kept clenching inside of mine and the tick that formed on his jaw when he was anxious about things was spasming like crazy. But I knew I had to get at the root of the problem in order to help him resolve it. I knew his behavior had to be about more than just me.

He took a look into my eyes, gauging my response, before continuing on. “They felt bad about all the time they spent at work and promised, once word of the promotion came through, that they would take a couple days off work and make it up to me by taking me anywhere I wanted to go and doing anything that I wanted. All I cared about was their time, not what they gave or did for me.”

His body shuddered at the thoughts that were now obviously filling his mind. “I woke up to a man screaming harsh words at my parents. It was late in the evening and the man sounded a bit drunk. I crept downstairs to see what all the yelling was about. I watched as the man screamed, ‘You stole my chance at the promotion! I needed that to prove myself, to get what’s rightfully mine. Step down and let me have it.’ My father refused, saying he had earned every cent the new job gave him. The man’s fist raised toward my dad and I ran in between them, begging him to stop.”