“Yeah,” I whisper, turning my head to look at him because as much as I will myself to not, I can’t stop it.
He wins.
I regret the movement immediately.
He looks at me as if he’s always known me, and I feel unnerved.
“I grew up here.”
“Here?”
He gestures around us. “On the property, actually. In this very structure.”
“So, this is personal?”
He nods. “It’s very personal. This is where I learned everything. Where I became the man you see before you now.”
“Tell me your story,” I hear myself say. “Please.”
“Where did I leave off?” He lifts his hand and runs it through his hair, tugging lightly on the unruly strands that have grown wild due to the wind billowing off the ocean.
“It was going to be the best day of my life.” Tobias’s voice is calm as he says this, his gaze steady. “Yet as so many tragic stories go, it ended up being the worst.”
This time it’s me who steps closer. There is an invisible magnet connecting us, and I can’t pull away.
“This is the building where I learned about the business. Where I met with the cartel. Here, I learned the way to separate distributors from suppliers. For years, our businesses weren’t run that way, but then it changed.”
“Why?”
“Well, that’s a different story. That’s the story of how the man who raised me died, but you didn’t ask for that one. We were talking about my worst day.”
My heart beats frantically in my chest. How can anything be worse than that? But I don’t even need to know the answer to know anything is possible.
Evil exists. I have seen it. Lived it. The horror I lived through . . . well, I would never wish that on anyone. It feels as if my stomach is being ripped apart as I remember my own worst day. My hand reaches out to rub my wrist. To rub the tattoo. And then I remember the boy. The boy . . . who died. I shake my head and drop my hand, pushing the image of the paper airplane away.
“Please.”
“Okay.”
“I think I mentioned it was my birthday; I didn’t celebrate it. Often, we moved around, trying to expand the business. I didn’t have friends, so why have a party. This year would be the same. My father, however, had other plans.”
He had mentioned before that it was just his father and him, but where was his mother? I’m not sure if it’s my place to ask, but I do anyway.
“Where was your mom?”
“She died in childbirth.”
A part of my heart broke. He lost his mother and his father. He is an orphan. Like me.
“That day, my father woke me, and it was so different. That day, he wanted to celebrate me. I always thought that since my mother died on my birthday . . .”
Tears form in my eyes, and I feel myself hyperventilating. I’m choking from the emotions clogging my soul. It’s as if I’m being ripped apart. The pain I see in his eyes is, I’m sure, in mine as well.
“Tobias, I—”
“It’s time. They’re here.” Gideon’s voice rings out through the open air.
I have so much to say. So much to tell him. There are words stuck on my tongue, and I can’t say them now, not in front of Gideon.
I feel devastated because I want to know his story, and I want to tell him mine. There is something about Tobias. He’s familiar to me. He is me. My pain knows his pain.
“We’ll continue this later,” he says, and I nod, but I know we will.
Never before have I wanted to open myself up, but now I want to.
I reach my hand out and touch his. An electric current of emotion tingles when our hands touch. Our gazes are locked, and time stands still as we stare into each other’s eyes.
A million words are spoken. Words that say that everything is about to change between us. I don’t know what this means, but I can no longer pretend that I don’t want to know him.
I don’t hate him. Not even a little. No. Instead, I want to learn everything. I want to see the man he became, and most of all, I want to know how he became that man.
Something tells me there is so much more to this story. My own pain seeps to the surface. My trauma and loss. I take a deep breath, and so does he, then he nods.
“It’s time to go.”
“Okay.”
He drops my hand, and then the look in his eyes change. The moment of vulnerability is gone. The hard façade of the walls he built drops down, and I am no longer the woman he almost confided in. Nope, now I’m a stranger.
I feel cold. It’s a feeling I don’t want to have. He starts to walk, and I hurry to catch up. A part of me wishes there was such a thing as a time machine, or maybe even a way to stop time. I would have frozen the moment for longer. Basked in his trust.
But now, seeing his icy façade, a part of me is afraid he’ll never finish. That he will think twice of what he tells me. Because I know why he stopped talking, but I don’t understand the look he’s giving me.
He looks angry, maybe he hates me again, and I don’t understand what I did. For a second, he must have forgotten himself and let me in, but now he remembers.
I hope that’s not the case because something tells me he needs me to hear his story. And the scariest part . . .
I think I need to as well.
27
Skye
It’s interesting. For weeks, I wanted Tobias to give me space, and now that he is, I don’t like it. Since we got back from Florida two days ago, he has told me not to come into his office.
It’s weird.
Almost all the paperwork is done for the purchase of the building, and we are only waiting on a few more things, but I still never anticipated our working together would be ending so fast.
But I guess it’s official. Or it will be official soon: Tobias Kosta, a legitimate businessman. Owning property all over the world. Investing money and living off the fruits of those investments, but it still seems weird. Why retire?
That question still lingers in the air. The answer feels unattainable, always out of reach. He’s dangling a piece of fruit in front of me but won’t let me take a bite. Thinking about it makes me think of how wrong about him I was. Yes, he’s not warm and fuzzy, but deep down, I know he has a good heart. Take what he did for me . . .
Had he not looked into my father’s health, I would never have known that my father is sick.
Speaking of which, I need to try to get him to talk to me again.
An hour later, I’m walking through his front door.
“Dad?” I call out, making my way through the foyer. I don’t have to go far before I find him.
He’s in the living room, and as per usual, he’s sitting in his favorite chair. Reclined back, clicker in hand.
A woman is talking loudly from the TV. It sounds like she’s bickering with someone. My head turns to see what he’s watching.
The news.
Local.
A brunette in her mid-forties seems to be arguing with some older man.
About what? Who knows?
But it’s obviously entertaining my dad because he has barely glanced my way.
“I brought dinner,” I tell him, lifting the bag up to show that I’m holding food from his favorite Italian restaurant in my hand.