We walked to Upper Slaughter and back in silence, appreciating the old-world, gorgeous scenery. What a charming little village.
As we returned to the car, my purse buzzed. It startled me so much that it broke me out of my peaceful mood. I dug inside and found it, my heart sinking. It was Ben. Why was he calling me?
“Who is it?” Will asked.
When I blushed in answer, he stepped closer to me and tried to read the screen. I answered the phone, ignoring him. “H—hello?”
“Hey, Natalie.”
I gulped at the sound of his voice and tried to turn away from Will, who seemed keen on listening in. “Uh—this is a surprise.”
He cut right to the chase. “I saw pictures of you at the airport with a guy. Then I called your parents and they told me you have a new boyfriend. What the hell, Natalie? Is this what you meant by ‘maybe’?”
Well, fuck. I wasn’t aware that there were photos of us. “He’s not really my—hey!”
William snatched the phone out of my hands and pressed it against his face. I tried grabbing it back, but he was too tall. His expressive face was animated with energy, like a hound that caught scent of a rabbit. He sneered into my phone.
“Why don’t you leave her alone, you pathetic loser.”
Ben’s reply was so loud that I could hear it. “Who the fuck is this?”
“I’m William Pardini, who the fuck are you?”
“I’m her fiancé!”
His low voice chuckled into the phone. “Yeah, well, I don’t see a ring on her finger. She’s with me now. I suggest you take a hint and move on.”
“I’ll kick your fucking ass!”
Will bent his head back in mirth; his eyes glittered with savage triumph. “Oh, please try me. I beg you.”
I leaped for my phone again and wrenched it from his hands. “Ben—Ben, it’s not true.”
But there was nothing but dead silence on the other end. I looked at William, fury shaking all of my limbs. He was smiling as if he did me a favor.
“Why the hell did you do that?” I yelled, completely shattering the quiet, peaceful environment.
Several passersby looked at me in alarm, but I didn’t give a shit. William was still laughing. I grabbed the scruff of his collar and couldn’t decide whether I wanted to shove or punch him.
He ruined any and all chance of ever reconciling with Ben forever. I never wanted that. I certainly never wanted someone to make that choice for me.
“What did I do?” he said, shrugging. “You two were on your way out anyway.”
I released his collar. “You do not get to make that decision for me! You—you piece of shit!”
He backed away when I swung at him and a scowl narrowed his eyes. “Dammit, Natalie. Calm down.”
“You deserve it and I am pissed off.” Suddenly, the gravity of losing Ben forever made my shoulders curl forward. I clutched for the door of the car as I drew a shaky breath. “You’re a bastard,” I said in a thick voice.
I didn’t want him to see me crying so I opened the car door and sat in the backseat, which was scattered with Tom’s fur. I don’t know why I felt so out of control. Ben just felt like my last lifeline, the man who’d always made me feel loved. Safe. He wasn’t perfect, but at least he made my parents happy. Then I thought about how fucked up that was and cried like a baby, burying my face in my hands.
The car door opened a crack and I whirled to him, expecting to see a gloating smile on his face. Instead, he looked scared.
“Natalie, can I come in?”
I looked away from him and shrugged as if I didn’t care. I heard the sound of him sliding inside the car and closing the door. The air felt stifling.
“I’m really sorry.”
“Duly noted.”
The leather squeaked as he turned towards me. “Why are you so upset? I thought you and him were over. I was just trying to—”
“To what?” I exploded. “To mess with him? I was happy!” I slammed my fist into the leather seat in front of me. “I was doing fine. I had everything I wanted and then Jessica just had to get Luke. And Ben made a mistake and I threw six years of us away. Why? Why the hell did I do that?”
It all came crashing down on me. The possibility of being alone forever felt very real. I felt like a ticking clock—already twenty-six. I’d never felt loved by my parents but I finally found someone who loved me. I had Ben and I should have kept him.
“You did it because you weren’t in love with him.”
Will’s voice was smooth and self-assured. That made bile rise in my throat. What did he know about any of it?
“I did love him!”
“If you did, you wouldn’t have come on this trip with me. You wouldn’t have kissed me.”
He took my arm and I wanted to jerk away, but I made the mistake of looking into his eyes. He refused to let me look away. I was trapped and he was drawing me into his sticky web, towards certain disaster.
“You’re scared of being alone.”
My eyes watered. He always said things that no one else would dare say out loud. I couldn’t deny it. “Yeah, so what?”
“Natalie, you’re better than him and you deserve better. He doesn’t love you, if he did, he wouldn’t have fooled around right after you broke up. He would have fought for you. That phone call was just him pissing on his property.”
I didn’t want to hear this shit. I knew that every word he said was probably true, but I didn’t want it. All he was doing was twisting the knife.
“Who else is there?” I asked hopelessly as tears slipped down my face. There was no one else. Where would I find another guy? On a dating website? I made a face. My own mother told me that Ben was the best I could’ve gotten. “I’m nothing special.”
I stopped short of calling myself nothing, but I think Will sensed that I had been on the verge of ending the sentence.
Will slid closer to me and pulled me onto his lap. My chest shook at the sudden contact, as if my body had been craving human contact for months and was now finally getting what it needed. With his arms around me, stroking my hair, I sighed into his chest and felt my muscles unknot.
“Natalie,” his voice boomed through my back. “Your worth doesn’t depend on any man or woman. It’s through our actions that our worth is defined.”
“I’m not brave. I know that if I get the chance, I’ll go back to him.”