Unchosen (Chosen #2) Page 16

  “Thank you,” I muttered. “This was really nice of you.”

  He smirked at me and gave me that familiar look that clearly said, “Why are you thanking me?” It’s the same look my parents would give me when I thanked them for making dinner. It’s a family thing. You say the niceties and they look at you like you are crazy. Already Nick had it in his head I was a part of him and his home. His grace, his easiness, his casual demeanor didn’t intimidate me. But his apartment most absolutely did. Put Nick and I in a diner and we were all good but in that beautiful city apartment? That wasn’t us.

  “You have a lot of money,” I whispered. He nodded as he started to eat his Chinese food. He didn’t even look at me. Why didn’t he care I thought he had a lot of money? This kind of changed the game for us, didn’t it? I could barely pay the five thousand dollars in oil to keep my apartment warm in the winter.

  My voice became a little louder. “You never told me.” He nodded and still didn’t look up. He was really starting to piss me off. Didn’t he know I was uncomfortable?

  “Why?” I yelled at him. I hadn’t even touched the stupid Chinese food that cost less than twenty dollars. Was he freaking joking with me?

  He sighed. “Lizzie, does it matter? Yes, I have money.” He put his fork down on the plate and looked at me with admiration. “I came from money. I was a trust fund kid. My parents are invested in oil down in Texas. They groomed me at a young age to make money. I had two thousand dollars in an investment account by age ten. But I didn’t care about oil or energy. I liked computers so I designed a few software programs that help people manage their day to day finances.”

  He shrugged and picked up his fork and started to eat again.”Now I am a partner at Frost.” I felt like I had just sat in on an interview with my jaw dropped wide open. This guy was way out of my league.

  “Partner?” I nearly jumped off my chair. “You are a fucking partner? How did I not know this?”

  He shrugged. “Didn’t you ever look up our website?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No, why would I look for a guy named Nick who was supposed to be a cubicle geek on the Frost website?” I huffed.

  “I came up here as a partner of the company because New England seemed like the right fit,” he said and then continued to eat. “I didn’t tell you because you didn’t really have to know. I mean, the girls I have dated knew but I am pretty sure that was why they were with me. Jessica has her own money so it wasn’t a big deal to her but there was still something off about that relationship, too. It says something when you ditch your date for another woman.” Nick scoffed and looked up to me, trying to make me see he would drop everything to be at my side.

  I was having none of that. This whole money Mr. Warbucks bull shit was not cool. I was not only out of my league but out of my game. There was no more mask. He was seeing Elizabeth O’Malley, the crunchy, tree hugging, bar hopping crass girl that would live out of a tent in an instant. I was who I was but Nick needed a woman who had been groomed to be his wife. He needed a partner who knew how to shop on Fifth Avenue and examine oriental rugs. Shit, all rugs looked the same to me unless Niall hadn’t puked on one.

  “Why is there something off about two wealthy people joining ranks to make more money?” I half laughed, half accused.

  He had to know I really did care about his future and his lifestyle. I didn’t need any of that. In fact, I would rather spend the night in a cabin in Maine than overlook the Boston Commons. I wasn’t that girl that knew how to spend money. For fuck’s sake, I felt bad when I put more than a half tank of gas in my car. I had a notepad in my car that showed how many miles I got to the gallon and even though it remained the same the past four years, I still did it. In fact, I probably still had all the gas receipts since I bought that car. Who does that? Oh! A poor person!

  “Two people with money, trying to make a life together can be hard. I have watched many of my friends go through tough times. Trust fund babies marrying trust fund babies makes for whinier trust fund babies. But you? It was actually wonderful you didn’t know. You like me for who I am,” he said, poking his foot into mine.

  “You like me because I make you laugh and dance and sing. That has opened up a whole new world for me. You know, I’d never danced on the lawn at Phish. That was my first time ever in the crowd. I had four VIP seats that night. I was all ready to impress you by us just using two of them but, well, Drew and Caroline jumped on me to let them come with us. When we played Scrabble together at your place, I didn’t have to wear a suit or ask you if you wanted the $300 bottle of wine. Shit, you took me to that awesome diner with ripped seats and it was the best date I’d ever been on.” He smiled, remembering that day.

  “But that day we picked you up for Phish, remember that? We were supposed to be at your apartment. This wasn’t the place,” I said, baffled.

  I pressed him further. “You had VIP tickets for Phish? Are you mad? I would have said yes to your marriage proposal and headed to the courthouse just because of that alone. But I never would have married you because of all this!” I smacked him on his arm.

  He rubbed his arm and shook his head. “Baby, that afternoon before Phish, I had Drew pick me up at Caroline’s place. She called me that morning and I was, I don’t know, still thinking she may have been someone I would want to spend more time with. I didn’t realize she was more hung up on Drew. I think she just called me because she knew Drew was going to be there.” He rolled his eyes.

  I nodded with understanding and then glanced at him, feeling a bit deceived. I looked off to the windows and fell silently in love with the depths of Boston’s beauty. Nick did have an incredible place and I hadn’t even appreciated it yet. I was sitting there, giving him shit because he was wealthy. I was a reverse snob and I didn’t want our relationship to start off with me being so scornful. I felt terrible for ridiculing him for his financial status. In reality, this was life and not three hours ago, he had walked in on Freddie and me naked in a pile of beer cans.

  “Why now?” I asked. “Why did you bring me here now?”

  “You told me you loved me, Lizzie. You said it again and again these past few months. You said you had feelings but you were fighting them. Then you said you couldn’t fight them anymore. Tonight was the final impasse. It was all in after I saw you with Freddie. I was so fucking pissed because you belong to me. You belong to me and only me, baby. God, you even told Freddie you were in love with me.” He grinned brightly.

  “I want you here with me and I want to be your future. I want it all from you, Lizzie. I will take what I can get but you need to know there isn’t any other woman out there except you. You are the girl I have always dreamed of.” He chuckled a little and looked into my eyes. “You are raw and independent. You don’t need me to live your life. You share things with me I cherish and hold on to.” I wanted him to say that all over again. I looked at his beautiful face and I couldn’t comprehend how we had finally gotten to this place. Nick Sawyer was completely head over heels in love with me and ready to live life with me.

  “What about Niall? I come as a package deal,” I asked cautiously.

  “Baby, Niall is the reason I wanted you from the moment I sat down with you at lunch. I saw no engagement ring. You didn’t warn me off because of another man in the picture. When you first showed me his picture, I felt this pull in my core. I felt like that kid was supposed to be part of my life. I want you and Niall here with me, every day, every night, and all the time.”

  I slowly shook my head as his words resonated with me. “You want us like that?”

  He put his food down, grabbed my untouched plate to put it down, and then pulled me onto his lap. “I want you like everything,” he said as he lowered his lips to mine and kissed me with unconditional love and promise.

  TWENTY FIVE

  I sat back on the ottoman as the reality of Nick's lifestyle sunk in. I didn't know what to think. On one hand, I was proud he wasn't just a man working his way to the top. N
ick was on top of the world. On the other hand, that lifestyle wasn't me. Sure, my parents never left me or Conner wanting for anything but this... this apartment on Boston Commons, the doorman and the expensive cars were too much for me.

  Affluence was never a goal of mine. I just wanted to get by and live life. If my passion included making a lot of money then I wouldn’t protest. Conner felt the same but his music would have probably bought him a place like that one day. I wanted to see Conner make it because of his music not because of fame or the money that would come with it. I took my plate back from Nick and noticed he was looking at me thoughtfully. "What's going on in your head, Lizzie?"

  This was not a time to offend him or make him feel bad but he had to know that all this did not change the way I felt about him and the man that I had fallen in love with.

  "You know, when Conner wrote his first song, I made him sing it to me five times." I smiled. "The song was about living out of your car and loving every moment. I cried the first time he sung it to me. He had such a rich, sultry beautiful voice it probably made every girl wish she could have lived in a car with him. His striking fingers played over the strings of the guitar like a magician. I had never been in awe of someone like that ever in my life. He had such great talent. By the time he bitterly sung it to me for the fifth time, I was jumping for joy. I knew he would be famous one day. I already saw his future in my mind," I sighed and looked out the window, not exactly sure I knew why I wanted to continue my blabbering speech.

  "But, when I met Teagan..." I looked directly into Nick’s eyes. He flinched. He needed to know I would live in a box with him, not in a palace of an apartment or a mansion in Wellesley.

  "When I met Teagan, I was driving my shit box Geo Prism. I loved that car. It had no heat and the windshield was cracked in four different places before my dad finally grumbled enough for me to get it fixed. It got like 35 miles per gallon. Teagan and I went everywhere in that car. When I lived with Teagan and his four Irish roommates in a two bedroom apartment, he and I slept on a pad in a walk in closet for months. We didn't buy anything but food and drink. I mean, we weren’t poor,” I twisted my lips, feeling like I wasn’t getting my point across.

  “He made good money but it wasn’t about that. It was about living each moment to the fullest. We wanted to have a good time. And even before Teagan came into my life, sometimes, when I lived in Oregon, I slept in my car after parties out in the Gorges. I would park at a lookout lot and wake to nature. I never felt more alive.” I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes, remembering those times when nothing else mattered but just breathing.

  Nick smiled at me, as if he was envisioning those moments of total freedom from responsibility and passion for the moment.

  “Growing up in Wellesley, we were far from poor. My parents asked us if we wanted to go to boarding school but we didn’t. My parents made sure we both had enough to live on. I think they were hippies themselves back in the day and remembered that the early twenties are a time to find out who you are, not what you are supposed to contribute to the world.” I smirked.

  “I never had the desire for money until I had Niall. I didn’t want my parents’ financial help anymore. Sure, sometimes I felt like my wallet was a bit thin but things just worked out and I kept breathing without money to make me content. Money doesn’t matter. Life’s moments, wherever they are, matter, Nick. When I see all of this, it scares the fucking hell out of me.” I pointed around at the beautiful stone fireplace and leather couches. “If I had known about this, I think I might have shied away from you because you deserve much more than a grimy girl crawling out of her car to smoke a cigarette and look at where she ended up that night. I don't know how to live this lifestyle. I don't do gowns and I don't do diamonds. I mean, hand me a scrunchy and I will make any girl’s hair look amazing in a crunchy hippy way." I laughed. I looked down at my ratty Oregon pullover and ripped jeans and sighed.

  "I love you," he whispered. He smiled at me brightly. “None of this matters without you. It is nothing to me unless your smile lights the place up. It is nothing if I can’t hear your sarcastic mouth every day. I have been waiting for you, Lizzie. I have been waiting for a woman that would live in that box with me.” He took my hand and kissed my palm.

  "I know with all of my heart I love you, too. Without sounding petty, it is a different kind of love than I had with Teagan. I think I was in lust for him. I wanted him to want me and he didn’t. I guess that made me want him even more. I think I have waited a long time for you.”

  Nick was so unbelievably secure with himself. He jumped to be by my side because he knew I needed him without even asking. But, I didn’t need the apartment or expensive cars. This was just so overwhelming. I don't know how to act or what to say. I want to swear and throw shit. I didn’t want to know what to do at the table to keep my manners. I wanted to make love to him on the bathroom sink or even the toilet.

  I pointed my finger up in a revelation. “I don’t want 1500 thread count sheets and the proper sleep attire. Do you understand what I am saying? How can I be with someone as established and wealthy as you?" I asked, perplexed. "I will embarrass you." I put my head down and sighed at the food that looked like shit to me.

  He groaned. “For fuck’s sake, Lizzie. Don’t you see I don’t care about any of that? I see you. I see the person you want to be. I see you are willing to give your whole heart to someone and yet, no one will ever understand your quirks. You are so fickle. You can be so fucked up, but in good ways. You make me laugh and you make me think. You are raw and you live life because you care about those moments. If I thought for one second you would be the perfect model housewife, you wouldn’t be here. You are here because now I can cherish you for who you are. I can share my life with you. I want you to feel safe and yes, money does help with that. All you have to do is try. Just try to be with me. This is me, baby. This is the same Nick that sweated all over you at a Phish concert. We are in love and that is all that matters. The rest of this is just… it’s just a bonus. Please… Just trust me.” He looked so adamant that I couldn’t with a whole heart tell him he had lost his mind. He clearly had.

  “So then, what now?” I asked timidly.

  “Well, we eat dinner. Then, tomorrow, I think we should go see your parents. I believe they are worried about you, honey. I also think it would be a good idea to look for a nanny. Your mom is going through a real hard time, Liz. She can’t take care of Niall. I want him spoiled with love and attention. You can have whatever you want for him. Anything. We can sign him up for social things; we can have a baby cam or whatever you want. Most of all, I want you to get back to that big office in the city and live the life your brother wanted for you.”

  “Nick,” I stated. He looked up to me with expectation.

  “Nick, I want to play music. I need to play music. For Conner,” I said solemnly. He nodded in agreement. “I don’t know who I am without music. I won’t like who I am if I can’t play.”

  He took my plate from my lap and went into the kitchen. I watched his backside, his jeans hanging down off his hips, his beautiful tattoo sticking out from his white v neck tee. He was so comfortable in this palatial apartment. Damn it. I wanted to be back on my couch playing Scrabble with this man. I wanted his hands all over me. I wanted him.

  A few moments later, he came back into the living room with two beautiful old Gibson guitars. “Those are so beautiful,” I said in awe.

  “I bought them for us. When I saw you play on stage and then jump in Freddie’s arms, I bought them sort of as a dream of mine. I wanted to be the one you played with on stage, the arms you jumped into after a show,” he sheepishly grinned. I laughed at him and playfully grabbed the tan guitar and started strumming.

  “What do you want to play?” I asked. “I honestly can’t think of anything right now. Actually, I can’t think when you wear those sexy jeans and your tattoo is just begging me to lick it.”

  He leaned over both of the guitars and kissed me. I mo
aned into his open mouth and felt his warm tongue searching for mine. He pulled back abruptly and I sat there like a pile of mush. “Ever heard of “Fake Plastic Trees” by Radiohead?” he asked.

  I composed myself, still wishing his tongue was in my mouth. “I don’t know the chords,” I stated.

  “Follow my lead,” he said confidently.

  I had heard Nick sing Phish lyrical snippets here and there but he was never as passionate as he was that night. His voice was unlike anything I had ever heard. It was just like Sting’s but he added more edge to his words. It was so freaking hot, I just wanted to jump him. His voice was mesmerizing and flawless. His eyes were slightly closed as he played the first part of the song. When I started to play the chords with him, his eyes twinkled up to me and I joined in on the chorus. I belted out the last line about being worn out and Nick watched me.

  It was magic, the way we played together. Soon, we were embraced in the song, laughing and singing to each other. He winked at me with pride. “You know your brother played this song with me when he was here. That guy could really sing. He asked me to join him on stage to cover this song.”

  “Conner didn’t like covering songs,” I disagreed. A knot burned in my chest as I thought of Conner playing with Nick. I looked down at the guitar wondering if he had played this actual guitar. I wanted him there. I wanted him to explain why I was learning so much about him from Nick and everyone else. Was I selfish to him, too? Was I not a good sister? “I am here, Lizzie,” Conner said in my head. “I will always be here.”

  Nick took my guitar, knowing I couldn’t play anymore. He led me by the shoulders to what I presumed was his bedroom, helped me undress down to my t-shirt and panties and placed me under his sheets. Being tucked in by Nick was surreal. I had never felt so pampered. He left to clean up our dinner and said he would be right back. I fell asleep long before he reemerged.