His fear of being unable to reach people in an emergency or not knowing where they were. His obsession with this project that drove him to exhaustion. It was all such a huge shock, yet the signs had been there all along.
“This is why you took the money from your stupid fucking friends, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Yes. And for the record, those idiots bet on things all the time—football, golf games, if Chip can keep a girlfriend for more than a week—to them, it means nothing.”
“But you take part?”
“Sometimes. More when I was younger.” He shrugged. “But with you, they just assumed I was in.” He glanced at her. “And I never corrected their assumption, and I never tried to stop them. It was wrong, which is why I’ve promised to rectify the situation.” He then pointed west. “If it makes you feel any better, their stupidity purchased everything from there to that ridge—they finally did something good for once.”
“That’s a lot of stupidity,” she said and then turned to him. “But why keep this all a secret? Why not tell anyone what you’re doing?”
He tilted his head. “Don’t you think they’d ask why? Don’t you think people would connect the dots if I went around telling them I grew up here or about my project? The land we purchased and sold is public record. Anyone who looks hard enough will realize what we did to these people.”
She bobbed her head. It was one more piece of the puzzle—the reason he never mentioned where he was really from. “I get what you’re saying, but your father was in charge then. You were only trying to be a good son.”
“No one will care. It’s my last name on the company’s letterhead. I’m in charge now. But the bad PR could hurt Wade Enterprise’s value, and I want top dollar when I sell the company to fund the factory and infrastructure.”
He had it all figured out.
“How long have you been planning this?” she asked.
“Six years. It took me a while to figure things out after Wayan died.”
“I think, Bennett,” she whispered, “that it’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done in the name of saying sorry.”
He shrugged again, the sadness and regret saturating his eyes. “I can say I’m sorry until my last breath but there is no excuse for being the person that I was. None at all. I deserve a shit life for letting my little boy and his mother die like that.”
Tears flowed freely from Taylor’s eyes, and though Bennett’s voice was cold, she knew it wasn’t because he didn’t care—it was because he’d probably mourned enough for a lifetime. There wasn’t anything left. At least, that was her guess.
“You think you don’t deserve anyone’s affection or love.” She looked at him, realizing why he felt uncomfortable being too intimate. “But you’re wrong, Bennett. You just need to forgive yourself.”
“I can’t ever see that happening.”
She placed herself in front of him and smiled, putting her hand on his cheek. She felt so humbled that he’d trusted her with all of this. Especially after what happened the last time he’d told a woman. Her heart swelled with so many mixed emotions now, but wanting to leave him wasn’t one of them. “You just say ‘I’m sorry.’ You tell your son you loved him, and in a perfect world, you would’ve done more, but you were imperfect and fucked up and human. And then you let go, Bennett. But if you continue punishing yourself, a man as strong and smart and determined and caring as you, what good will that do? You’ll die like your father of a heart attack or from exhaustion, and then what? Who’s going to help these people? But if you could just let go of the past, Bennett, if you could just find a way to forgive yourself, you could use your energy to do so much more.”
The line of his strong, unshaven jaw pulsed with tension, and the hard look in his pale blue eyes could easily be mistaken for anger. But that was Bennett just trying to sort something out, something painful he wasn’t comfortable with. She knew that now. It was the same look he’d given her the first time they’d met and the second and the third and every single time he’d been trying in his way to…
Get me here. The epiphany struck her down. He’d wanted to bring her here to Bali all along. She blinked at him. Has he been