Page 147 of Mr. Aster
“Well—”
“Don’t you dare say that I did it first,” he taunted with a hint of that damn bashful smile I’d missed for the last time four months ago.
“Well, I would be lying if I insisted that I wasn’t going to say that, wouldn’t I?”
“The Darcy I fell in love with would’ve called my ass out for not leaving her a message or returning her missed call. She wouldn’t have waited even half a day to do it, either.” His expression was a mixture of sorrowful repentance and hopeful pleading, like a dog who’d been punished and was slowly creeping up and wanting to be loved again. “I had no idea why you never called me back or texted. I thought you hated me by that time, which was why you left for Los Angeles before the grand reopening of the winery. Because the Darcy I met when I first came to the winery—the one who hated my guts and never wanted to see me again—wouldn’t hesitate to blow me off like that. You were so unhappy before you left, and I didn’t think there was any other way to interpret that.”
“Well, the Darcy you first met turned into a soft-hearted chicken shit who was afraid to lose you. If I’m honest, that alone should be the real reason not to forgive you.”
“That is something I truly have a hard time believing,” he half-smiled.
“Well, believe it because that’s why I never bothered to call back. Instead, I waited for you to realize how important I was to you rather than picking up the fucking phone and giving you hell. I mean, what the hell was I supposed to think? Not even the holidays prompted anything from you,” I said.
“I heard nothing from you?”
“Well, I guess this is just a circle of immature bullshit and detrimental miscommunication, prompting the doom of a relationship that probably never should’ve happened.”
“I don’t believe that,” he said, his brown eyes searching mine, probably looking to see if I still had a soul from the way I was treating him currently. “You saved my life and changed me for the better. I wouldn’t be the father or man I am today without your influence. I’m just sorry it took me hurting you to the point of never forgiving me for me to get that better version of myself.”
I stared quietly as he went on, letting my anger take a backseat as I listened.
“Darcy, I’ve desperately missed you. There were so many times I could not sleep at night, wondering what you were up to, who you were with, or how you were doing. It was like an endless reel running through my mind, knowing that you must’ve been so much happier with someone else than you ever could’ve been with me.”
“Why would you think I would be happy with anyone but you?”
“I just—I know how much I work. I can sometimes seem unreachable because I’ve buried myself in trying to solve a problem. All I could hear was Melissa’s constant criticism of me and how my distraction made her miserable and ruined her life,” he said. “I know it sounds like I’m blaming her, but I’m honestly not trying to. I just learned through this that I’d been projecting Melissa’s discontent with me onto you, assuming that you would feel the same, and I didn’t want to do that to you. You deserved so much more.”
“Don’t you think I would’ve vocalized that loudly to you?” I asked. “If I thought you were ruining my life or whatever, don’t you think I would’ve told you myself?”
“That is what I had to learn the hard way,” he said. “I was deciding things preemptively before you could express your feelings.”
“And what exactly did you decide on my behalf? You know, other than leaving me without an explanation?”
“That you wouldn’t want a life with a man like me,” he said in a way that sounded so sad that it made me want to throw my arms around him. I could almost feel the years of compounded pain that his wife’s comments had caused by insisting that he’d ruined her life.
“I knew who you were from the moment we met, so it’s not like I didn’t know what I was getting into. I used to call you the devil, for Christ’s sake.”
“I know that, but that was before we became serious,” he said.
“So, then tell me what you are terrified of that will ruin my life the way you apparently ruined your wife’s.”
“I’m always working, sometimes for months at a time. I have missed big occasions like birthdays over business transactions I had to be involved in, and I work long hours—” He stopped while I waited for him to finish. “Say something. The look on your face tells me I should just walk away and let you live your life without me.”
“The look on my face has to be one of disbelief,” I answered him, unable to even shake my head at how stupid his logic was. “To think any of those things are enough toruin my lifeis ridiculous. Would it suck for you to miss the occasional special occasion? Yes. I can’t say I wouldn’t be disappointed with months’ long business trips and all that, and I know I would miss you like crazy, but it’s your job and who you are. If it’s what you love to do, then who am I to tell you to stop doing it? I’m more dumbfounded that your wife expected things to be different than I am by you assuming I didn’t know things would be that way. I can’t believe you’d think I would expect you to be the architect of my happiness or that I would judge you for continuing to live the way you always had. I wrote articles about you crazy billionaires, so of course I knew what I was signing up for. Why didn’t your late wife?”
“She was raised to support it,” he said, “but she wasn’t fond of putting that into practice. You said you didn’t expect me to be the architect of your happiness, and I suppose that is the crux of the issue. That is what Melissa expected, and I couldn’tdeliver. Or maybe I wouldn’t deliver. Either way, the result was her unhappiness.”
“Well, I’m not her,” I said. “I’ve never expected you to bend to my will or change anything about yourself to make me happy. You being yourself is what makes me happy. I fell in love with you, knowing how dark and ugly it could get, and because I already loved myself, I wasn’t looking for that from anyone else. I didn’t need someone to entertain me or be at my side all day to validate my existence, nor would I have wanted that. I’m secure enough to know that, as long as we would’ve been doing what makes us happy, it would’ve only strengthened our relationship. I would’ve supported you in everything. I knew that was part of who you were, and I’m not in the business of changing people to make me selfishly happy.”
“Shit,” he said with remorse. “Titus was right.”
“Titus? Titus Hawk?” I questioned, my brain switching gears. “Ishethe reason you’re here?”
“Part of it. Jim gave me your work info so I could hire you,” he smiled and shrugged. “But Titus was the one who knocked me upside my head and told me it was foryouto decide whether you wanted a man like me. It wasn’t up to me to decide for you.”
“Funny, I didn’t have him pinned as a relationship expert,” I chuckled. “Funny that he has it more figured out than you do.” I rolled my eyes, knowing now that one of the most powerful men I knew was actually a major chicken shit, and because we were both too cowardly to communicate, we had lost what was most precious…each other.
“Hethinkshe does,” Sebastian said. “But if he hadn’t snapped me out of my pity party, I believe I would’ve gone the rest of my life believing I’d done you a favor by not putting you through a life with me.”
