Still Into You (53 page)

His mouth broke into another grin when Mia returned with a plateful of food for him and a beer. “I love you,” he said, sitting down at the desk. He smelled the food.
Heaven,
he thought. “Thank you, suga! Can’t wait to try it.”

While he ate, Ethan observed Mia on the other side of the desk. She seemed very preoccupied with whatever was on her laptop screen.

“Did you try this?” he asked, trying to engage her.

“No. Do you like it?” she replied, looking up from the computer.

“Try a little,” he offered, holding his fork in the air.

She smiled, her tired eyes lighting up. “Okay,” she said, leaning forward and opening her mouth for his fork. He stared at her mouth as she chewed. Feeding her was always erotic. The way she swiped her tongue across her lips, making sure there was nothing left behind.

“Mmm, I am good!” she smiled.

“You are! God, I missed your cooking.”

“No, you didn’t,” she countered.

“Oh, yes, I did. You fed me well. You’ll make me fat and I won’t care. I’ll be in heaven.”

She laughed as she looked up, imagining it. “I would miss your abs . . . so maybe I should stop cooking for you . . .”

“Is that the only reason you love me . . . for my looks?” he said, feigning anger.

“Not the only reason, but a pretty big one,” she said, her voice filled with laughter.

“What are the other reasons then?” he asked, continuing to eat her delicious food.

“Hmm . . . let me see,” she paused dramatically. Was she seriously thinking? His mouth dropped open and she had the nerve to laugh.

“I love your voice, your sense of humor, your strength, your integrity, and your beautiful, strong body.”

“Continue,” he said happily.

With a chuckle, she stood up from her desk and made her way around it and to him. “Let’s go outside,” she suggested, reaching for his hand, her fingers dancing upon it. He wiped his face with his napkin and then enveloped her hand in his, letting her lead them to the balcony.

He sat down on an oversized lounge chair with white cushions and motioned for her to join him. She sat between his legs, scooting up to him. Wrapping his arms around her little body, he rested his chin upon her shoulder, regarding the sunset before him. What a gorgeous evening! The awesomeness of the ocean, the sunset, plus the presence of the woman he loved.

Resting her head back against his chest, Mia looked up at the sky. She’d seemed deep in thought all day long, all those far off looks. To be honest, it scared him a little because it reminded him of the time right before she broke off their engagement.

“Mia?”

“I remembered what you said about assuming too much, so I’m going to assume nothing. So, please bear with me,” she asked, turning around in his arms. Sitting between his outstretched legs, she crossed her own.
So she did have something to say,
he thought.

“All right.”

She placed her hands on his knees. “Umm . . .” she started, her voice without its characteristic lightness. “Did you know I haven’t seen my mother in over twenty-four years?”

“Mia . . .” It was all he could say. Her admission shocked him. This wasn’t what he’d expected her to say, but now he understood why she didn’t say much about her mother. She simply didn’t know.

He couldn’t imagine not seeing his mother for one year, let alone twenty-four. How old did that make Mia when this happened?

“Um, she left my father and I when I was eight . . .” Mia started and went on to tell him her story. He regarded her, not seeing his lover, but the poor, little girl living through this, her pain still fresh. He never thought what happened to her would’ve been so dramatic—so heartbreaking. What kind of woman left her child and had absolutely no contact with her? Ethan wondered what their relationship was like before her mother had left. If this woman didn’t want children, did she ignore Mia? Was she mean to her? From her pain now, Mia obviously had loved her mother, looked up to her, then her world was crushed when she found out she wasn’t wanted and was then abandoned by her mother. How does an eight-year-old process that?

She probably thought she was unlovable. Not worth the love.

Holy shit!
Didn’t she say that the night of her overdose?

All this was mixing with everything he knew about her. He was trying, in warp speed, to see how this event had shaped her.

Her fierce independence.

Her keeping things close to her chest so she didn’t get hurt.

Her insecurity.

Her inability to cope.

Her fear of abandonment.

Abandoned. That’s exactly how he’d made her feel when he didn’t show up in New York all those years ago. Pushing him away was her way of protecting herself.

Fuck,
he thought at that realization.

“Eventually, my father came up to my bedroom. When my father told me what happened, I thought I would be okay with just my Papa. That night, he stayed with me until I fell asleep,” she said, toying with a stray string on his shorts as she continued her story. “My father changed after my mom left. He used to be so carefree. I was daddy’s little princess. I used to love going to his office and being a part of that, the smell of the old books. He would sit me on the floor with a few of his books and I would just devour them. God, I still remember how I could do no wrong. He
spoiled
me rotten. My papa was everything to me, but he slowly became bitter and angry, and more controlling of my life. But after a while that changed too. I barely saw him. And with that, I began acting out—desperately trying to get my father’s attention. Any attention was better than none. He wouldn’t allow me to date while I was in high school. I
hated
that. But I had learned how to sneak out of the house. There was this time when I went to a frat party on campus. A guy that I had met playing Frisbee was there. I had such a crush on him and he actually remembered me. I was so happy about that. Things were going well, I thought, when he kissed me. He somehow maneuvered us upstairs. One moment he kissed me and the next we were in an empty bedroom and he began to kiss me more urgently. His hands were all over me. I told him to stop, but,” she paused, her voice faltering, “he wouldn’t. He pulled at my clothing. He had my skirt up around my waist, my underwear and tights were torn off me. I screamed for him to stop. That’s when he hit me, but it didn’t shut me up. I kept screaming, hoping someone would hear me, but he kept hitting me, yelling at me to shut the fuck up. One of the punches finally silenced me, the one that caused this,” she said, pointing at the scar beneath her eye, the scar he barely noticed anymore.

Oh, dear God, he raped her! That fucking asshole beat and raped Mia. Ethan wanted to kill the fucker. His blood boiled with the need to wrap his hands around this guy’s neck, but he kept his arms around the woman he loved as she resumed her story.

“I woke up momentarily to a stranger’s voice, telling me help was on the way. I passed back out after that. I was taken to the hospital. My father, of course, was called since I was still a minor. He was livid—at me. He actually blamed me, said I had asked for it. If I had only listened to him . . . he basically said that I had asked to be beaten up and almost raped!”

Ethan breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn’t actually been raped, but he was still sick at the thought that she went through that experience, that some asshat touched her, hit her.

“He said that I had wanted that to happen. How fucking ridiculous is that? I didn’t want to be attacked like that. I just wanted to be . . . wanted.”

She started to cry, sobs wracking her body. He turned her around to face him.

“I told you, I am a complete fuck-up,” she said with a sniffle.

“Shh . . .” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “No, you’re not.”

“After the night of the party, I started using pot to deal with all the madness in my life. It helped. I didn’t think about my dad or my mom. I didn’t think about getting the shit kicked out of me. I started to become me, the Mia you met. I started to write a lot. I guess subconsciously I was able to deal with some things, but others, I had pushed deep inside of me.”

“Like what?

“My fears of abandonment. I was terrified of being abandoned again. I controlled my relationships. I controlled who and what hurt me. That’s why I broke it off with Luke. The thought that if we did stay together and he decided that he really wanted to have a family with Taylor and would leave me terrified me. I could not handle that, so I ended it. But with you, it was different. I felt safe. But when I wasn’t with you, I felt lost. And when you told me about Kristen, I . . .” She got up from the chair and walked to the patio wall. The worst mistake he had ever made still reared its ugly head. “I gave up. I lost my fight.”

And he found her with Todd. Right now, he saw her reliving it in her head. He needed to pull her back from the dark, needed her to tell him how she handled the years without him, how she changed and discovered the answers to the problems that had plagued her life.

“Mia . . .”

She turned on him. “Seriously, Ethan, I think back on that night more often than you think. I would have slept with Todd and then I would’ve felt so guilty. I would’ve used more drugs to try to forget what I had done and then I would’ve spiraled out of control. And I don’t want to think of what could’ve happened. That night, though one of the worst days in my life, actually saved it . . . for a while anyway. Here I am, three years later, telling you this, thinking the whole time that I would’ve given anything to not have missed those three years with you. But I also know that if I didn’t have the time by myself, the time to think, to sort through things, I might not be here in this spot, talking to you.”

“Mia . . .” he said, not liking where this was going.

“No, it’s true, Ethan. Don’t tell me you didn’t think about it, not once?”

He closed his eyes because she was right. After her overdose, he had thought about it a lot, scared that one day he’d wake up to the news that she was dead.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” she said, her eyes locked on his. All he could do was nod.

The tears rolled out of her eyes like a flash flood. “I’m sorry for putting you through that. I have so many things for which I’m sorry. But that’s my mission now—to apologize and make things right, if I can.”

She didn’t need to make things right with him. Mia was with him—that made it right.

He wanted to move away from this topic and forward towards her therapy, to how she got better; how she got the strength to come back to him. “Your music was your therapy, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it was. It saved me.”

“There were so many times I wanted to pick up my phone and call you, to make sure you were all right. I’d listen to your music and I would ache for you, and all I wanted to do was make the pain go away.”

“Why didn’t you?” she asked, a desperate tone to her voice.

“You told me to stay away, and when we did talk, you weren’t ready yet.”

“I was ready, but I didn’t want to get back together with you while I was in the midst of all that chaos—the movie and the tour. I didn’t want us back where we ended. I wanted a fresh start. I’m sorry it took so long . . .”

“Mia, I’m glad you’re here with me now. I would’ve waited longer. Hell, I would’ve waited forever.”

She sighed contentedly and rested her head against his chest. “Don’t be mad at me, but I loved creating all that music. I challenged myself so much those three albums we made while you and I were apart. On that fourth album, except for one song, I did not touch my piano. I tend to hide behind it and I wanted to stretch myself, see what I could do.”

“I liked seeing you rock that guitar.”

“I was hot!”

“‘Am.’”

“What?” she asked confused.

“You misspoke. You should have said ‘I am hot.’”

She rolled her eyes at him and they both laughed. “You’re biased.”

“Oh no, it’s the truth! I think every male on Earth will agree with me.”

“I think that’s going a little overboard.”

“God, even after all these years, you still can’t see it!” he said, exasperated.

“I don’t think of myself like that. I see myself as the short girl with a lot of hair and the ugly scar on my face who likes to play music and write. I’m pretty much an introvert except for the whole making my living in the spotlight thing. I’m awkward.”

“Mia, I do not find you awkward—not at all. You’re so beautiful—your heart, your mind, your body, and your soul. That’s what I see. The person who loves me, the person who loves a certain ten-year-old despite the fact that her very existence disrupted your life. The person who can write such beautiful music. The person who despite all she has gone through decided to fight for her life and what she wanted.”

He regarded her and grinned at her dopey smile. It seemed he’d seen that on her face daily since they’d reconciled and he loved it.

“So, tell me more about
Undone?
” he asked, curious about the album after her overdose.

“I wrote that here. It took a long time. I was writing for months, just trying to organize how I felt, trying to figure it all out—who I was and the beginnings of what I wanted. This was all before the guys even showed up. It’s my favorite album. I’m very proud of it.”

“You should be. It’s a great album . . .”

“But?”

“I hear your pain in that album.”

“There’s a lot of it,” she agreed. “But I worked through it. After I made the movie and we finished the fifth album, I realized what I wanted.”

“And what was that, suga?”

“You. I’m tired of not being with the people I love. I’m tired of touring. I’m just tired of being tired,” she said, looking up at him and he saw it in her eyes. She was exhausted.

“Let’s take care of that right now,” he said, lifting her into his arms and carrying her back inside and up to her bedroom. After placing her in the center of the bed, he hovered above her, her hands still clasped around his neck.

“Ethan, make love to me,” she whispered, against his ear.

“Are you sure? Aren’t you tired?”

“I need you,” she said, tugging at his clothes.