Page 52 of From West, With Regret (NYC Billionaires #2)

The Next Day

“We don’t have to do this today,” West offers, grunting as he stabs the tip of his crutch onto the curb, lifting himself up and out of the car while trying to put as little pressure on his broken leg as possible.

I roll my eyes and hook my hand under his arm to steady him. “I know, my love.”

His blue eyes shoot up. I’ve never called him that before, but I think I like the sound of it. So does West, apparently. His face lights up and he gives me that panty-melting grin I’ve fallen for a million times over.

We’ve spent nearly all our lives feeling like outsiders, navigating life alone, never belonging. Others have caused us pain, never allowing us into their worlds. But now we have friends that treat us like family, and we have each other.

West is the love of my life. He always has been. Ever since that day in the foster home, when he pressed his finger to my cheek. He’s fought for me every second since, even when I had no memory of him.

“So, why are we here?” he asks, closing the car door behind him. Alden moves around the front of the car and stands along the curb.

I don’t bring myself to look at the lane where the bus hit Heath. I don’t think I’m quite ready to look at it just yet.

“You gave me this idea last night,” I tell him, turning to face The Veiled Door. “At dinner, when you were talking about how we didn’t really get a chance to enjoy the reopening of this place.”

We’d also talked about other things. Like how we know we want to get married someday soon, and how we want children of our own. Though not before looking into adopting a child from a foster home, giving them the life our adoptive parents gave us.

Talking about a future with West, unplagued by darkness, is a feeling I’ll hold onto forever.

“I did?” West asks me.

“Yep.” I cross my hands in front of me, fingering each of my rings, then I turn to face West. “The last time we were here, a nightmare unfolded. Our last memory of this place is dark and ugly. I want to take all that back. I want to walk through and look at what we created here.”

“London…”

Tears sting the corners of my eyes as I turn back and look at the man I love.

“Seeing the foster home in Albany brought back my memories. For years, that house held them captive until I faced it, forcing it to give them back. It brought me back to you.” A tear slips from my eye, and I’m quick to wipe it away, my mouth lifting into a soft smile.

“We deserve ownership of our memories, West. We deserve to give them a proper space where they belong, or else what’s the point of it all? ”

He doesn’t speak a word.

I clear my throat, thinking back to the past two years of my life. “It wasn’t just the house that held my memories hostage. It was Heath, too. ”

I’ve tried not to think about my ex-husband these past few days.

While his death was tragic, it doesn’t erase the pain he caused West and me.

How he tried to kill us, lurking in the shadows, stalking us.

My marriage to Heath was failed the moment I said, “ I do,” and Heath was willing to do whatever it took to keep me, all the way down to his stupid fucking plan of faking his own death.

He expected me to mourn him until the time was right to show me it was all an illusion to put off the threat he’d faced from the Irish mafia. The Irish fucking mafia.

West lifts his hand to my cheek, and I place mine over his.

I feel his warmth wrap around me. “Heath’s power came from making me feel as little as possible.

He’d clipped my wings and made me feel like I couldn’t survive without him.

Maybe part of him was afraid that I would regain my memories if he gave me freedom…

but it isn’t like that with you.” I move my hand to West’s brow, where I trace the dark hairs arching over his blue eye.

I study him like a painting I have yet to create. “You allow me to fly, West.”

The corner of his mouth curls under his growing beard. I love that he’s growing it out again. “Always.” He leans in and presses his soft lips to mine.

I moan against it, pressing against West with my whole body. I grip his shirt, pulling him closer to me.

When he grunts against me, I pull away.

“I’m sorry.” My eyes wander over his body, falling to his foot. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” he chuckles under his breath. “My ribs are still sensitive, but that just shows the affect you have on me, London Walker.”

My stomach flutters. “Come on.” I laugh, wrapping my hand around his bicep and turning on my heel to face the front of The Veiled Door. “Let’s see this grand reopening the way we should have seen it last week.”

Once we step inside, all our friends are gathered near the back of the bar.

The group turns around, Julianna, Charleigh, and Selene lifting their arms enthusiastically in the air, shouting congratulations like we’ve stumbled into a surprise birthday party.

We all laugh, and I keep my hand wrapped around West’s thick bicep as we make our way over to join them, loving how they came here to show their support for us, ensuring we gain new memories of this place.

After grabbing a few drinks for ourselves, the group walks around the bar and looks at every piece of art I completed, even discussing the new pieces of furniture and flooring Lewis helped West pick out.

The Veiled Door hasn’t opened back up since the night of the reopening event, but seeing it the way it is now, eerily quiet and void of life, aside from our friends, I feel like not only are we ready to move on, but the bar is as well.

Decked out in a mix of black, gold, and rich, dark shades of green, it’s the perfect homage to old town New York City and deserves to be celebrated.

I take a moment to listen as Julianna tells me about the new prank she’s pulled on Rome, and Charleigh asks me to be her bridesmaid.

I happily tell her yes, knowing there was no other answer I could have given her.

Selene is mostly quiet. She doesn’t mention her relationship with the date she brought to the reopening the other night.

She’s always held her relationships close to her chest that way.

Afterward, I find West talking with Holt behind the bar. Holt’s expression is nearly vacant, and when I drag West away, I can’t help but feeling like I interrupted a serious conversation. I decide not to pry or ask questions, though.

When we’re finished walking around the bar, the group leaves the two of us to enjoy the place we’ve poured our work into the past several months.

I tell West I’m going to pop in the bathroom before we head out ourselves, but when I step out, I hear him working his way up the stairs leading to the storage room.

My old workspace.

An ice-cold chill slithers down my spine.

I round the corner to the base of the stairs to find West hopping from one step to the next.

His crutch is propped under one arm while he grips the rail.

The wood creaks beneath him, and when I look down at the steps, I’m thankful the splattered blood has been cleaned up.

The memory of watching West and Heath tumbling down these stairs causes my stomach to sour.

“What are you doing?” I ask, rushing up the stairs to catch him.

But he’s already made it to the top and is pushing through the door.

When I reach the landing, he’s standing in the middle of the room, looking down at the pieces of crumpled-up parchment lying on the floor.

I clear my throat, my stomach suddenly performing somersaults. I cross the room and bend down to pick up my drawing. “These are…” I shake my head and begin to fold the papers.

“Wait,” he says, placing his hand over mine, stopping me.

I slowly open them back up, and West takes them.

The top paper is of his necklace, but he shifts them, revealing the drawing underneath.

He ghosts his finger along the sketched lines of his own hand, recognizing each curve and line.

I don’t know why, but I feel nervous. Exposed and raw.

They represent the most vulnerable parts of my brain.

Heath found this piece the other night, and West was too wrapped up in the chaos to focus on my drawing or the meaning.

His hands .

His necks bobs as he swallows, taking it in. “London…” My name tumbles out of his mouth, and my gaze drops.

We’re suspended in time, letting the heaviness of this moment weigh down on us.

“When…” he chokes out, his voice thick with emotion. He clears his throat, then looks up at me with glassy, blue eyes. “When did you draw this?”

“This one?” I raise my eyebrows. My pulse is racing, but a blanket of comfort wraps its arms around my heart. “A few months ago, but it wasn’t the first.”

“It wasn’t?”

I shake my head, biting on the inside of my cheek.

“How long?” he asks, searching my face for answers. “How long were you drawing my hands?”

I shrug, despite knowing the answer, and I look away, unable to tell him the full truth. It’s amazing how my mind was trying to give me clues to my memories, using my art to help me remember. But in the end, it didn’t matter.

I was drawing my memories of West without knowing they were him.

“Since I could start drawing again after the accident.” A tear slips from my eye. “After I lost my memory of you.”

“Hey,” he hushes, resting his hand on his crutch. He uses his free hand to crane my head back up to face him, and I wrap mine around his, using him as an anchor. There’s worry deep in his cobalt blue eyes. “Why are you crying?”

I blow a heavy breath through my lips. “I drew you for fifteen years, and I never remembered. How, when I our love is so strong? How could I have possibly forgotten you?”

The guilt and shame swells inside me, thinking back to that day at Coney Island. I’d looked right at him. He’d had hope in his eyes, holding his breath as he waited for me, but I gave him nothing. I forced him to walk away, heartbroken .

Realizing where I’m going, he drops my drawings on the floor and closes the small gap between us.

“My art didn’t bring my memories back,” I confess, my lip trembling. “My art didn’t bring you back to me.”

“No.” He frowns, then traces his free finger against my soft cheek, pressing it into the space where he knows my dimple will form when I smile. The corner of his mouth lifts, despite my sadness. “It didn’t bring you back to me.”

I close my eyes, shame filling my gut. I shouldn’t feel it, but I can’t stop the torrent of waves coming.

With how strong my love for West is, I still can’t comprehend how easily he was stolen from my mind, and how it took this long to get him back.

I’m caught up in my spiraling thoughts when he ghosts his thumb across my bottom lip, causing me to open my eyes again.

This time, I’m looking directly into his that always bring me back.

“Your art didn’t bring you back to me, London,” he whispers. “It couldn’t bring me back because I never left.”

Emotion overtakes me, and I shudder in his grip.

“I’ve always been with you,” he adds. “I love you, London, and I will give you the life you deserve. I will spend every minute reminding you that you are worthy of someone’s love.

I will always be your light when you feel lost in the dark.

I will love the fucking hell out of you for the rest of our lives. ”

“I love you.” My mouth pulls into a smile, and everything clicks into place.

I may have spent years trapped in the dark, but West has always been my light.

He was my past. He is my present. And now he’s my future.

“You promised you would find me again, but you’ve always been here.” I point to my temple, then I move his hand to my heart, placing my hand over his. “And here.”

West leans in, letting his crutch clatter to the broken floorboards of the storage room, the memories of all the drawings I created in here alive and breathing in these four walls.

“I found you,” West whispers against my mouth. “Now, I get to keep you.”

He twists around and picks up a small piece of charcoal I’d left on one of the shelves. Rolls of toilet paper now cover the shelf, and I wonder, even after all these months and the clean up after Heath destroyed this room, how my piece of charcoal remained here.

Holding my left hand in his, West singles out my ring finger.

Tears build behind my eyes, and I look up at West. His gaze is gripped on me as he holds the tip of the charcoal to the end of my finger, just above my gold ring. He has the same look in his blue eyes as he did that day at the funeral when he’d written his phone number on the inside of my forearm.

“I know we talked about this last night, but I want to officially ask you.” His voice drops, and heat pools in my belly as he drags the charcoal across my skin. He draws a thin line, then flicks his gaze back up. “Will you marry me, Dimples?”

I look down at my hand, at the ring he’s drawn on me. I’ve never felt more at peace or more whole than I do today. I’ve barely nodded my head and uttered the word “Yes” when he wraps his hand around the back of my head and crashes his mouth against mine, sealing my answer to his.

“Yes,” I breathe.

Then he kisses me like he knows he gets to kiss me this way forever.

And he does.

It seems my heart wasn’t broken after all.