Committed to You

Chapter 5 Sleepless Nights

She had really loved Jet. They were good together in every way, or so she thought. Her mind drifted to being at Ray's, sitting at the table when he slid the box across that had the ring in it. Even now her heart jumped at the happy sensation of loving a man enough to commit to marry him. She still had the five-carat marquise diamond ring, locked away at her bank in Florida. It represented the best of her days and the worst of them. For a while she'd worn it around her neck. When the sad thoughts outweighed the happy ones, she placed it in a safe deposit box and shipped two keys to her mother. One key was to her home. She knew how bad Elise's heart had been broken and wanted her to feel free to visit at any time. Her mother often would surprise her by visiting. The other key was to the safe deposit box. Sloan could not be tempted to view the ring if she didn't have a key. She'd worn that ring three whole years. How could there not have been a wedding?

She shifted upon the bed, trying to shut out the path on which her mind was headed. It was 3:00 a.m. She needed to get some sleep. Sloan had twisted and turned all night. This was not the way things were supposed to go. Her thoughts were supposed to be only for Nora and Robert. Jet was sitting in the middle of everything, making it a muddle. Finally she decided to get out of bed and make a cup of tea. Her mother always had chamomile in the house.

She went to the kitchen and shifted things around in the cabinet until she found the tea. To her good fortune her mother had not only chamomile but also valerian. Sloan decided that if she mixed them together, she'd be in dreamland before she knew it. She squeezed honey and a little lemon to the bottom of the cup and then filled it with water, dropping the tea bags in. The rumble of the microwave and the ding of it unfortunately woke Elise. Her mother dragged herself into the kitchen, glassy-eyed from sleep. She pulled her belt tight around her robe and yawned. "Are you all right, sweetheart? You look haggard."

"Sorry to wake you."

"It's okay, dear. I'm just glad to have a few minutes to spend with you. You've been so busy, helping with Nora and Robert. But I've got the feeling that Nora and Robert are not what has you up at three in the morning." Elise walked over to the cabinet and decided to fix herself a cup of tea. "This is about Jet."

"Mom, he's acting like nothing happened."

"Maybe it's too painful for him to start with the past. He hasn't seen you in seven years; maybe he doesn't want to fight. You will fight him, if you start with the past."

Sloan thought about how he looked in the conference room the day they had the intervention with Robert. He was in pain. She recalled the look on his face the day in the car when he asked to hold her hand to remind him of something familiar; it was remorseful. "You're probably right. But what am I to do—ignore the fact that he strung me along for three years? To forget that in reality he never planned to marry me. He just wanted the benefits. Why buy the cow when the milk is free, right?"

"Sloan."

"Mom, I was for all purposes his wife. I did everything for him. I gave him all of me only to find out ... " Sloan's eyes began to brim with tears. "Only to find out that the ring gave him access to my heart while he eternally postponed the wedding and walked away when Dad finally gave him the ultimatum."

Her mind drifted back to the last time she'd seen Jet. It was a week after Dillon told him that he would not tolerate another postponed wedding date and that three years was too long to still be waiting for a wedding. On the fateful day, Jet's response was to pack in boxes all of Sloan's belongings that she had at his apartment and deliver them to her parents' front door.

The fight between Dillon and Jet was terrible. Elise and Sloan did their best to pull them apart; both of them were bruised in the process. The haunting last words of Jet were now ringing loudly in her ears. I'm sorry, Sloan. I never meant to hurt you, but I can't do this. She could hear her father cursing her for running after him. The bewildered look on Jet's face haunted her even now. It was a toxic mix of love and regret, pain and confusion. Their eyes held for a moment, and then he got in the car and sped off.