Gage and Sadie

Chapter 20: Sadie

When I told Gage the third time better be the charm, I felt both stupid for saying it and strangely hopeful. Perhaps it made me naïve for believing him yet again. But sometimes, that's what it came down to. I was faced with the choice of believing Gage or not; my future happiness was on the line, and since that horrific scene with Galen in Gage's office, I'd been thinking hard about what I stood to lose if I didn't take that leap of faith and what I stood to gain if I did. Was it worth my potential happiness to believe him? Was misery better than taking one last risk?

"Sweetheart," he'd said with a serious look on his face in response to my threat, "I don't think you've figured out yet that I'll do anything for you."

I actually had realized that the minute he'd signed over his company to me. That hadn't even been on my list of possible responses to the agreement; I had, in fact, warned Lorry that giving him those papers would force him to finally be honest with me about his motivations.

But he'd signed. He'd signed after just asking me the one question, and I hadn't known what to do I'd been so shocked. Thinking quickly, wanting to get out of that room, I'd asked Lorry to talk with me privately. When we were outside the conference room, she looked at me sharply.

"You weren't expecting that."

Tears were so close, I could only shake my head.

"What do you want to do here, Sadie?" she asked gently. "Right now, you own his company."

"I don't want it," I managed to respond finally, pushing the words past the huge lump in my throat. "I didn't think he'd do that. I didn't think he'd sign the papers."

"I know," she said gently. "Tell me how you want to proceed."

"I want you to shred those papers, but...Lorry, I can't go back in there with him right now. I'm sorry, but I can't."

"OK, OK, you don't have to. Would you like me to tell him that you'll send the final settlement requests by the end of the week?"

"Yes. Thank you. I'm going to...I need to leave. I need to leave."

Lorry gave me a look of such sympathy that I don't know how I didn't fall into her arms right then and there.

"Go," she urged me. "I'll handle everything in there."

"Thank you," I said gratefully, right before I bolted for the door.

For my car.

For my home. Gage's home.

He'd come straight to the house once he left Lorry's law office. And now here we were.

"You'll do anything for me?" I asked him. "Does that include telling me the truth going forward and being completely honest with me no matter what?"

"Yes. I've seen what not being completely transparent cost me. You left me. Losing the company was always my biggest fear, and I was willing to do anything to keep the company, maintain my position." He leaned toward me. "I wish I'd fallen in love with you the right way the very first time. The traditional way. An initial attraction, then dating, then feelings, then love, then marriage. I wish I hadn't been such a shit that all I could see was a way to achieve my goals and not the wonder of the woman right in front of me. I wish I'd cared for you the way you deserved to be cared for. But, Sadie, even more than that, I wish I'd been a different man. A man who knew about love, a man who respected people, who fucking saw people. A man who could have been worthy of you from the start."

"I heard you sometimes, you know. At night, when you thought I was asleep."

Don't leave me. I can't live my life without you.