After All - Part Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Five

Matilda felt her eyes snap open before she had conscious control, the sun almost blinded her, and the owner of the voice was a silhouette against that.

She’d known instantly who the voice belonged to, but she still needed that confirmation, the visual. Lifting a hand she shielded her eyes and Dylan came into focus.

                “What do you want?” she snapped as she stared at him. He was wearing jeans, a shirt and a dark grey blazer. Even she could see that he looked shattered.

                “I didn’t know you’d be here.” He offered tucking his hands in his pockets. “I just needed fresh air.”

                “So you came here?”

He nodded, “this is somewhere I remember as being a calm place. I come here if I need to think. I could ask why you’re here.”

She stared at him a moment then knew he was telling the truth, he hadn’t come here to find her, it was pure coincidence. She felt sad at that, but he was coming to their place for relaxation, that meant something. Shaking her head she hated that she felt so needy.

                “I come here when I can,” she mumbled.

Dylan stood in front of her and sighed, “as bad as the past often feels, it was always a great place being here.” She couldn’t help but nod at that. “I have been looking for you all day though. Sarah has hidden your personnel file so I couldn’t find out your address, you’re not answering your phone, I had no idea where you’d be. I was about to give up.”

                “I thought you had meetings in New York.”

Shrugging he lowered himself bravely to the bench along from her, “Matilda I haven’t been able to function since Wednesday.”

Shrugging she took another sip of her coffee, “I think we said all we needed to say then. And it was LONG overdue, I knew things wouldn’t work, we were kidding ourselves.” 

                “No,” he shook his head vehemently, “that’s wrong. I was wrong. I need to say sorry.”

Without looking up she gave a sarcastic laugh, “and it’s all ok again?”

                “I know it’s not that easy.”

She turned in her seat and nodded, “damn right it’s not that easy. You deliberately humiliated me; you made it too difficult for me to stay working there, a place where I was happy, confident...I was GOOD at that job. And worst of all was that you didn’t trust me. I was naively going about my day, breaking myself in two just trying to do everything...everything I had to - to keep YOUR hotel running smoothly and in profit. And the thanks I get was that?”

He sighed, “I have no defence. Not really. I suppose I expected things to deteriorate between us, that meant that I was looking for it...”

For Matilda it was nowhere near enough.

                “I can’t let you ruin me again Dylan, I’m not letting you have the upper hand or any control in my life ever again. I can’t do that.”

He nodded, “I get that...” Sighing, he propped his head in his hands, elbows resting on his knees in a slump, “I’ve always trusted Louise, she’s been a good asset for me, dealing with anything thrown at her. I was torn and I believed her.” When she tutted in disgust he looked up at her and gave a sigh of regret, “I’m sorry, ok?”

She was silent for a moment watching the same women and their errant toddlers trying to once again negotiate the paths in front of them, she sipped at her coffee, then finally looked at him; he was still slumped head in hands. She thought’s he be defensive, angry...anything but pathetic, and she wanted to slap him.

                “I’m not feeling sorry for you, if that’s what you’re doing here. I don’t have an ounce of sympathy for you. ME, that’s who I feel sorry for. I feel sorry for that eighteen year old girl who met you when she was just starting out in life, who believed everything you promised and fell hook, line and sinker only to be screwed over...repeatedly. I started work at the hotel, I grafted hard to build up a reputation, to climb slowly back to my feet. And I was getting there.” She hated that tears sprung at her eyes, “another six months and I would have cleared your debt,” she spat those words out. “But you reappeared, and in typical Dylan Wallace fashion you took over, took every piece of my life into your hands and tossed them in the air, and I’m back to floundering, struggling, fighting.”

She laughed, “I come here to think. I used to come a lot, but I haven’t for ages because I was in control...I was winning. Now...you...you’ve even ruined this place for me.”

She made to stand, but he reached for her wrist held onto her, “don’t go.”

Shaking her head she snatched her wrist free, “no. This is ME, MY life, not you. Why can’t you understand that I never want to set eyes on you again?”

Dylan stood turning to face her.

                “You think I wanted to see you again? You think that having divorce papers arrive on my door six weeks after going to Hong Kong, six weeks when you wouldn’t answer my calls was fair? You think that was the greatest day of my life? I loved you like I’d never loved anyone. I was devastated. I hated you for years.” When she made to protest he shook his head, asking for silence. “When I saw you again, it was like the years in between had fallen away, whatever we were we were a good team Matilda, you were the best friend I ever had, and I always thought we would make a good team, that we’d be a formidable working partnership.”

Mattie was stunned by the emotion in his words, but was nowhere near ready to go easy on him, “until you believed that I was using our history to manipulate that working relationship. Dylan, you are dreaming if you think I’m ready to forget what happened on Wednesday. You are just using every situation to suit YOUR needs. We’re a great team when YOU want us to be, I’m a manipulator and user at that same because YOU feel that way. What happened Wednesday...it was ugly, it was embarrassing and EVERYONE witnessed it.”

He sighed, “I know. I was angry, and I’m stubborn. I get that. And I’m sorry for what I did, what I said, and how I said it.”

                “What changed?” When he looked at her questioningly she added, “when did you change your mind about me? Realise that I wasn’t taking the piss.”

He looked up to the sky for a moment, “I was angry, I thought you were being flippant. I’m having a lot of hassle over taking on this hotel. I’m trying to justify it to my investors and colleagues...but it’s not as easy as that. The REAL reason I bought the hotel wasn’t business acumen, wasn’t to expand my profile...it was an attempt to right a wrong against you, make sure that you were safe.” He looked up to the sky, “all I needed was to make those few changes, then I relax, leave you to it. But you were always blocking things; Louise was bleating on, she couldn’t manage to do the job without your help...” He laughed, “it wasn’t that difficult, when I went back to the hotel I saw the tons of shit you’d done for her and I was angry...” He glanced at her, “then she made some sort of clumsy pass at me.”

Mattie couldn’t stifle a laugh that escaped her lips, “you could NEVER tell when a woman fancied you.”

He wasn’t laughing, a long way from it, “another thing to add to my list of faults.”

                “So you found that and realised I was telling the truth. Phew! Thank God for evidence.” She made to stand, but he reached for her hand, forced her to stay.

                “Before I got on the plane I knew that I had been wrong, but you know me, I was too stubborn to back down. You remember an elderly guy bumping his car in the car park at the hotel?”

She nodded, “Mr Edwards. Yes.”

                “His daughter emailed me, telling me what a wonderful manager I had, how you calling her, saved his life. He had a stroke in the car on the way home.”

Her hand flew to her mouth, “oh no!”

He sighed, “if he’d driven home, he’d have likely died at the wheel.” She was silent for a moment, deep in thought. So Dylan carried on, “that accident was during Louise’s board meeting. The one you left.”

Suddenly hearing him she looked up and nodded, “poor Mr Edwards. I should send some flowers.”

That made Dylan laugh, “that’s your immediate thought. And that’s why I SHOULD have trusted and believed you. Gore Enterprises, the plumbers, your ideas for luxury rooms...everyone is inundating me with your praise, everyone wants me to realise that I’ve made the biggest cock up of my life...only it wasn’t, it was the SECOND worst.”

Mattie snatched her hand from his and cradled it as though it was burned, then she stared at him, “this is all too much Dylan. Too much.”

With that she backed away from him, then turned and ran as fast as she could.

Dylan was frozen, stuck watching her retreat, he had a moment when he thought he should let her go, let her turn away, but he’d spent ages trying to find her, what he wanted more than anything was for her to come back. If he let her go then he may never see her again, and that hurt him more than he thought possible.

He was wearing two hundred pound handmade Italian leather brogues...not that he cared about ruining them, he just wasn’t sure he could run in them, and she’d made a lot of ground on him.

With a groan he set off after her, chasing her over the uneven ground of Hyde Park, in the direction of the lake, and dozens of tourists.

He managed to grab her after a surprisingly long chase through the trees as they reached the Serpentine and the queues of people wanting to take boats out in the afternoon sun.

                “Get off me!” She hissed spinning to snarl at him. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkled and her breath came in rasps from the effort. His eyes took all that in, her heaving chest, the pulse racing at her throat and he was almost floored by it. How had he forgotten how electric she was, how encompassing?  He let go as though he’d been scalded and brought his eyes back to her face.

                “You were right last time; this isn’t a conversation for public. Come over here?”

He gestured to a bench away from the melee. She looked around, already people were staring at them, but he knew they must cut a strange image, dishevelled, sweating...

She gave a curt nod and he led her to the bench with a smug smile on his face.

                “I have nothing more to say.”

He sighed, “I want you to come back, back to work. We’ll renegotiate your contract; make you more secure, part of my company...a director. I need you, not just at the hotel, that goes without saying, but with you in my life...you make me question things, you make me question myself. You’re the only person who both questions me AND defends me, I’m alive with you shouting at me. I need you as a friend Matilda, don’t go. Please.”