Final Call (Call #2)(64)
Author: Emma Hart

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, looking at my feet. Guilt and remorse—they flood me. Consume me.

Aaron pulls me into him and tilts my face back. “Look at me, Dayton.”

I shake my head. I can’t. Not this time. I can’t look in his eyes and know that everything we have is on the line. Everything he and his father have worked for is now hanging in limbo because of me.

How many reporters have picked that up? How many stories will I see tomorrow? How many news alerts will pop up on my cell?

“Dayton.” His voice is hard. No-nonsense. “Look at me. Now.”

My eyes disobey me. They rake up his body until they find a sea of bright blue.

“We will figure this out. Do you understand me? It’s unexpected and sudden, but we will fix this.”

Tears born of a real fear fill my eyes. “My past could destroy you. How can you even look at me?”

“I can look at you because I don’t see the woman of your past. I see the woman I fell in love with, the woman I love right now. Please, baby, don’t look at me like I should hate you. I can’t and I don’t and I won’t. I love you for who you are today, right in this moment, and I will fight for that woman until the day I die.”

“How?” I whisper. Vulnerability. It’s not something I’m used to.

“How? Because you’re the very air I breathe, Dayton. You’re the one thing that keeps my heart beating.”

“But you could lose everything.”

“I won’t.” He looks so certain, and I don’t understand it. “I don’t pay the best lawyer on the West Coast a shit-ton of money for nothing. I don’t have the best people I know around me to sit idly by while the woman I love is torn to shreds publicly. Regardless of what happens, of who gets this supposed story, I will be standing by your side through it all. Understand that, Dayton. There isn’t a second I won’t be supporting you. Even if I have to lift you onto my shoulders and carry your weight as well as mine, I’ll f**king do it. Do you understand that?”

I nod. “Yes. I understand.”

“Good. Now, please, trust me. Trust me and everyone I have around me. I don’t give a f**k if I have to slap lawsuits left, right, and f**king center. No one who even sniffs this will get away with it. She made a big mistake in telling you just after she posted it. A very, very big mistake.”

“How do you know? How do you know it isn’t already being spread across the country?”

“Because Stone Advertising has a web hosting company integrated within it, and her website is hosted by us. It’s being shut down as we speak.”

I stop as the car does. I look at him. The clench of his jaw, the harshness of his eyes, the tightness of his grip on mine.

“How?”

“Dottie.” He smirks slowly. “She called for a car, then my lawyer, then Miguel, the man who runs the web hosting company. That site will be down within the hour.”

“You’re so confident. How? I’m petrified, Aaron. I’ve never been so scared in my f**king life, and you’re acting like she’s spilled your grandma’s favorite muffin recipe.”

He clasps my face in his hands, his palms rough against my cheeks, his fingers brushing hair from my eyes, and leans in with a deep breath. “Because our love can conquer anything it comes across. It’s strong enough to fight for a lifetime together. That’s why I’m so confident. I know that, no matter what, I’ll still be able to look in your eyes at the end of the day, and that’s all that truly matters.” He slides me across the car and lifts me out, setting me in front of him. “Now let’s go and do some damage control.”

“And sic a lawsuit on Naomi’s ass?”

Aaron’s smirk grows. “Now we’re talking, sweetheart. Now we’re talking.”

With his arm firmly wrapped around my body, he guides me into the elevator and upstairs. When we step into the apartment, it’s alive with ringing phones and voices issuing commands. There’s a heavy layer of tension hovering above everyone, threatening to suffocate us with its intensity.

“Now, you,” Aaron says quietly, “are going to go and sit on the sofa with my mother and you’re going to let me handle this.”

“This is my mess,” I argue.

“And it’s my solution,” he responds without missing a beat. “I have the manpower to solve this. Please sit back and let me deal with this. Let me protect you.”

“I’m not the one who needs protecting. It’s you.”

“Naomi vastly underestimated the power and influence this company has. My father will be in my office contacting everyone necessary and explaining the situation diplomatically. There are twenty people in this apartment right now fighting to make this right because I said so. I know you feel like this is your fault.”

“It is.”

“Not,” he adds. “It isn’t your fault, and as much as I adore your desire to protect me and this company, it’s unnecessary. I need to protect you, Dayton. I need to protect you like I need air to breathe, so for the love of God, please go and sit with my mother and let me do this. I won’t ask you again.”

I take a deep breath and look into his eyes. I see the truth of his words reflected in them, but I have to argue. I want to do something. There has to be f**king something I can do to right this.

“You wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me,” I whisper.

“And you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me. Last chance.” He kisses me hard and turns me in the direction of the front room.

Carly, his mom, is sitting on the sofa, watching me. The compassion in her eyes undoes me, and I let the fear spill over. I let the pressure and the tension and the apprehension of the last few weeks release in the form of my tears, and I collapse onto the sofa next to her. She wraps her arms around me and rocks me gently, whispering in my ear. Just the way a mother should.

I cry silently into her shoulder, savoring every moment that her arms are around me, and let it all out.

I’m helpless.

I caused this and there’s nothing I can do to right it.

I’m powerless, out of control, only able to sit by and watch as everyone else cleans up my mess. Because that’s how I see it. If I’d just told Aaron right away, if I’d just been honest and not so f**king stubbornly independent, this could be fixed. It would be fixed.

My cell pings again, and Dottie swipes the screen to open the message.