“I’m not.” I sounded dejected as hell, so of course she was right.
“You know, you weren’t even like this after Vivian. You really loved Emilia.” My throat lumped at the sound of her name.
I had to tell myself to calm down, that it wasn’t that serious. But it was. I didn’t even miss Vivian. I wasn’t mad at her anymore. I felt nothing when I thought of her, but when I thought of Emilia, I felt everything.
“I still do. Maybe she’ll answer the phone one day.”
What I couldn’t believe the most was that I opened myself up to this pain again. The heartbreak. I told myself not to get involved with any more women but Emilia forced her way into my heart. I was defenseless, and we didn’t stand a chance.
“I’m sure she will. She just…probably feels bad about blaming you. Because it wasn’t really your fault at all.”
“I don’t know. Maybe it was. I don’t really want to talk about it anymore.” We would be at it all night if I didn’t shut it down now. Her psychoanalysis skills were dangerous, I ended up divulging every dark secret of my life.
“Okay. Well, Kevin has stopped travelling. Maybe one day we can have dinner.”
“I don’t know, I’m real busy with work now. Maybe.” I downed my third beer. For a time, I was getting drunk almost every night. But then I started getting serious with work, and I was getting too old to do that. I did like my liver. So I started just giving myself a good enough buzz to let me get some sleep.
I missed her body against mine. Her softness, and her warmth. I would do anything to get it back.
“I understand. Just try to keep your head up, Tristan. It will get better.”
“Thanks Nat. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Okay, bye.”
My sister, she was kind of the best. Sometimes. I honestly didn’t know what I would do without her. I couldn’t talk to mom about it because she wouldn’t really understand. Her and dad didn’t jump through any hoops to be together.
I kept willing my phone to ring. For Emilia to text me. Anything.
But like every night since Emilia left me in that room, it never did.
Chapter Thirty
Emilia
I wanted to call or text him every day.
I should never have said those things to him at the wedding. It wasn’t his fault I wanted to be with him. Or that I still do.
I loved him so much it killed me more every day. And I think that’s why I couldn’t talk to him. I don’t deserve him. I blamed him when he didn’t even do anything wrong. I blamed him for loving me and after all he has been through, he definitely didn’t deserve that.
I buried myself in work and sometimes that made it worse.
I had referral sheets for every new client, to see where my marketing was going well, and they have all said Tristan Cox under family and friends. He was sending me so many clients, I had the upfront to get a new space and cater to those new clients, all because of him.
My shop was bigger, and while I still grew a lot of the flowers myself, I started outsourcing.
Ivy helped me a lot. She even quit her job to go into marketing and advertising, and I helped boost her resume by having her work for me.
She still loved fashion, but she loved the brains behind making it work even more. She planned on running her own runway shows one day. For the time being she organized everything but the flowers. I would have welcomed the distraction, but every time I looked at a check book I thought of Tristan and I burst into tears.
I had been crying a lot, you’d think I would have run out of tears. But I still cried myself to sleep every night. I’d wake up with swollen eyes and cry through breakfast because I saw all of his missed calls. He hadn’t stopped calling.
When I answered that weird number, I heard his voice and freaked out. I couldn’t talk to him because I felt stupid.
I was stupid to think I could have him. I came home every night, thinking we could be having dinner together. We could be sleeping in the same bed, we could be having breakfast, fighting over the shower and then end up sharing before going off to work. Texting each other and falling more and more in love every day. I was stupid, and I couldn’t face him.
So, I distracted myself with work and the business got bigger than I could have ever imagined, for that I was happy. I wanted to make my mother proud. I wanted to beg for Tristan’s forgiveness, but he was such a good man, I know he wasn’t even angry. But he should have been.