Unbreak Me (26 page)

“Fuck it all, Gina,” she said, shrugging. “I need this for me.”

“Then why not just take a short break, but come back home,” Regina suggested.

Scoffing at the idea, Molly raised a hand into the air. “No… Not this time. I can’t bear to spend another moment here. This room. That bed… Everything reminds me. I have to go.”

“Okay,” Regina said, her face completely unreadable. “If leaving will help, then do what you have to.”

Molly stopped in her tracks, waiting for the ultimatum, but it didn’t come. Not like how she expected it. “I’m not doing this to hurt you.”

“I know, which is why I know that I have to let you go.”

Molly suddenly came to the conclusion that any happiness that she thought she was once entitled to was all, in fact, a pretense. None of it had been real, not in the sense that she could have forged a future from their brief liaison. And since she had kept her heart alive by hope and sheer will, her delicate qualities and intangible emotions had been jeopardized. She no longer felt the surge of optimism. It was gone, and so was her silver lining.

Molly sniffed as her eyes filled with tears. She zipped her case closed. “Have I let you down?”

“Oh, honey,” Regina said as she walked up to Molly. “I’ve never been prouder. You’ve come through so much, and you’re still here, fighting—albeit a little wounded—but you are no quitter.”

“I feel like the world’s biggest loser.” Molly broke down again.

“Molly, what was the one thing Aggie always told you?”

“To follow my heart.”

Regina took Molly’s hands in hers, squeezing them gently. A reassuring touch to let her know that she wouldn’t be judged for leaving. “There’ll always be a home for you here, no matter where you go. This will always be your home.”

Molly hugged Regina tight. Frightened and unsure of where she was going, but leaving was the only thing she felt she had control of.

“I need this. I need to find myself,” she whispered as she rested her head on Regina’s shoulder.

“I know, baby, but before you go, at least let me cook for you,” Regina said, touching the side of Molly’s face.

“The last meal, very poignant. I’m not Jesus and about to be crucified,” Molly tried her hand at a joke.

“That’s blasphemy.” Regina hit her playfully on the arm.

“Sorry!”

Molly followed Regina back to the kitchen where she made them an omelet and spicy couscous. The two women ate, talked and were the most relaxed they’d been in recent times.

In the back of her mind, Molly replayed Connor’s words over and over again. Trying to ignore the inner echo, she indulged in lighthearted conversation with Regina. Anything that meant she didn’t have to stomach the words.

“So now that you are sure you want to go, where will you go?”

Molly knew the question would be asked again. There was no avoiding it. “Montana.”

“Montana?” Regina replied in shock. “Why Montana?”

“Remember Jenna’s mother, Adelaide? She has said that I am more than welcome to visit any time, so I think I’ll take her up on the offer. A break from all of this… It’s the right kind of medicine.”

Sighing, Regina swallowed hard before she spoke. “I guess we’d better get you sorted with travel arrangements. I think we ought to let Jenna know.”

Nodding, Molly stood and kissed Regina on the cheek. “Thank you.”

Molly walked back to her room. The weight of the world bore down heavy on her shoulders. Her head ached from all the thinking, the unwanted memories, the bad taste that it all left in her mouth.

Once inside her room, Molly paid a little more attention to what she packed. She made sure she had the necessities, a few trinkets that reminded her of home, but, more importantly, the album she and Aggie had put together shortly before her death.

With a heavy heart, Molly tied up her hair, applying a little makeup to cover the heartache she wore on her face. If she wore a mask, then no one would know or suspect that everything she had ever wanted was now gone.

The sound of the door knocking pulled her out of her pensive thoughts.

Jenna.

“So Montana, huh?” she said as she leaned against her bedroom door.

“Yup.” She avoided having to look at her. Instead, she pulled on her light denim jacket.

“Mom will be glad of the female company. The farm could use an extra pair of hands.”

“She always said any time I needed the break, I’d be welcome, and I figure no better time than the present.”

Molly checked her room one last time, making sure she hadn’t forgotten a thing. She lifted her bag from the bed and turned off her lamp. Walking to the door, Jenna held her hand out to her. “Let me take that for you.”

“Sure.”

Following her up the hallway, she could hear Regina putter about the kitchen, keeping herself busy.

“I made a few calls, you can catch the six-twenty,” Regina said as she filled up three cups of coffee.

“Okay, that sounds fine to me. I need to stop at the bank, sort out some cash,” Molly replied as she lifted the hot cup into her hands. “Are you able to find out what services are available to me, you know, AA wise?” she asked Jenna.

“You know I will, and besides, with Mom being a teetotaler, you’ve no worries about temptation there,” Jenna said, trying her best to keep the mood as light as possible.

“Excellent,” Molly muttered.

As she sipped at the coffee, she looked over the cup at both Regina’s and Jenna’s faces. They were evidently distraught, how could they not have been? The girl they had helped restore from the broken and pitiful state she had once been in was now fleeing the nest. Molly’s false smile hid a thousand wounds, some so deep she had convinced herself she’d never recover from them.

Now the awkward conversation was forced, each one of them trying to fill the void. The insecurity of having to let go and say goodbye.

Molly hated goodbyes, but new beginnings meant a second chance, something she needed. Time to heal, time to learn to forgive and time to find her true path in life.

Chapter Forty-One

One year later

To hate oneself was a horrid disease. One Connor was learning to live with fast. He found himself slipping into a world fueled by alcohol and pointless dates with women who meant nothing to him. He felt dead inside. He existed simply to run his father’s company. Whatever came after that was jaded and clouded with drunken outburst and blackouts.

Hong Kong lived up to his brother’s stories. Women who loved Western men with money, and men who loved showering their little conquests with lavish gifts, all to keep their silence.

Edward walked into the office, looking at his watch. “My flight leaves in a few hours, you sure about staying here? Running things solo for a few weeks?”

“Absolutely, Liao will be back on Monday and I’ve a ton of work to catch up on,” Connor answered as he rubbed his eyes.

“You look tired. Maybe lay off the juice for a few days.”

Connor scoffed at his friend’s advice. “No can do, I’ve a dinner date in an hour. I need something to make it through.”

“Then why bother even going out if she’s that bad?” Edward asked.

“Because anything is better than spending a night on my own.”

Connor had slipped into bad habits. A ritual of bad decision making and countless hours spent hating himself. It was how he saw his future. If he didn’t wind up dead by the age of forty, he’d be surprised.

“Enjoy the pity party,” Edward said as he walked to the door. “But before you pull the trigger, maybe you should count your blessings. You have a great job, a secure future, you are a king compared to some. You dumped that girl. So what? Those kinds of wounds heal, but, man, this shit, it’s going to destroy you, and I can’t stand back and watch you do this, not while your name is attached to the sign on the top of this building.”

“I can always count on you being blunt,” Connor replied, sighing as he looked out over the breathtaking city. Standing, he popped his hands into his pockets and stared at the symphony of lights twinkling.

Connor was a million miles away from everything he’d left behind. No matter how hard he tried to find himself, or something worth living for, nothing compared to what he had thrown away. It was slowly destroying him one day at a time.

“Well, you know me. I say it like it is,” Edward replied. “Anyway, I’ll see you in a few weeks. Just, you know… Look after yourself.”

Connor did not once make eye contact with his friend. Instead, his mind was off somewhere else. A familiar place he wanted to return to—Molly.

God, he hated who he was becoming. He couldn’t stomach the pretense, the façade, the mockery he was making of his own heart. A never-ending undercurrent of regret and sadness that no amount of medication could fix.

The evening went by in a blur.

Ning chatted over dinner, her words drowned by the wine Connor drank. But the busty girl didn’t seem to mind. Connor had tried to avoid calling her, considering their disastrous first date, but she was an easy distraction and he needed his mind on something other than the past. “You wanna get out of here?” Connor asked as he tried to focus on her face.

“Yes, okay. I don’t mind.”

Throwing down his card, he drunkenly raised his hand and called the waiter over to the table.

“Check!”

Once they were in the back of the car, Ning giggled as Connor ran his hand up the insides of her thighs. Connor slid a finger in through the side of her panties, teasing Ning, as he kissed the back of her neck.

Gasping, Ning trembled as he slipped a finger inside her, twirling it around, opening her a little more, so he could stick in another.

“We should stop…” she moaned.

“Why?” Connor bit on her ear, his tongue touching the flesh of her lobe.

“Driver…watching.”

“So what?” Connor grinned. “Give him a show.”

Before Ning could respond, Connor was kissing her hard, their tongues dancing together as Ning trembled from the building orgasm.

“Come for me,” he whispered in her ear.

As he rubbed her clit, Ning held on to the seat, her warm breath brushing against Connor’s cheek. Sighing and moaning, she threw her head back against the headrest. “I’m coming,” she moaned out.

Connor didn’t stop. He stared at her face, watching it scrunch up as the wave of pleasure took over. Her hot wetness seeped over his fingers, dripping down in between the cheeks of her buttocks. Warm musky moisture that left a scent in the air.

Giggling, Ning looked at the driver. His eyes stared back at her from the rearview mirror. But there was no surprise. Little did Ning know that this was something he’d become used to.

“Good girl,” Connor said as he wiped his hands on his handkerchief. “Where do you want to be dropped off?”

A look of horror spread across her face. “Pardon me?”

“We are done for the evening. Where would you like my driver to take you?”

Ning was lost for words. Connor was sure she thought a night of passion was on the cards for them, but no, Connor had no intention of allowing her near him, not in that way. He didn’t want that kind of intimacy. He was more than happy to give a little, have some control, but sex was never on his agenda.

“You can let me off here,” Connor directed to his driver. “I will walk back. Please take Ning home.”

The driver nodded, slowing the car. Connor opened the door, then looked back at an angry Ning. “I’ll call you.”

Before she had the chance to shout at him Connor closed the door. He inhaled the night as he walked to his apartment complex, completely disgusted with himself and ready for a heavy night of booze and regret.

* * * *

The phone woke him shortly after nine a.m. Groggy, and worse for wear, Connor reached over, knocking an empty bottle of whiskey onto the floor.

“Hello!” he sleepily said, not once lifting his head off the pillow. “Mark, it’s Saturday.”

“So, did you forget?”

“What?”

“Ollie’s first birthday?” Mark sounded pissed.

“Ah shit…” Connor said as he sat up, holding the back of his head as the headache made the room spin. “Fuck!”

“You’re his godfather, you know how these things work.”

“I didn’t know you wanted me there as in, fly back.”

Connor stumbled out of bed naked, walked to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water and chugged down half the contents before belching.

“You could still make it,” Mark insisted.

“I’ll feel terrible if I miss it…but, man, I’m…”

“Hungover?”

“Yes.”

Connor walked to the large windows. The hazy sun shone in on his face, the unshaven shadow a mess.

“Cassie and I understand the whole issue with coming back, but you’re family, it won’t feel right without you.” Mark was sincere.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks, man.”

Once Connor hung up, he rested his hands behind his head. His self-destructing behavior was now in overdrive. It had manifested into something he never knew he was capable of. He’d used Ning, made her feel like a cheap whore and he sickened himself to the core because of that.

“Fuck!” he roared.

Simpering down, he showered, washing away the effects of the booze from the night before, knowing he’d have to make the journey back home, and to the place that brought too many memories to the surface.

Once he was freshly dressed, he tidied up his condo. The whole while the thought of Molly flashed through his head. He still found it hard to believe that a year had passed, and he missed her more with each new day. Yet the more he missed her, the more he abused himself, never allowing himself a chance to recover.

Knowing all it would take was one phone call, he made contact with his father, who was surprised to hear from him.

“What can I do for you?” John asked.

“How are you fixed for flying me home in time for Ollie’s birthday?” Connor asked, swallowing his pride.

“I can have a plane ready for you in a few hours.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Connor?”

“Yes.”

“You know Marissa will be there?”