by R. J. Lewis
“What’s the problem exactly?” he cuts in, sharply.
“Why?” I demand again.
“Why what?” he retorts, smirking at me now. The fucking nerve. “Why am I here or why her? Be specific.”
Cheeky fucker.
“Stay away from her,” I tell him, cutting straight to the point. “Stay the fuck away from Ivy Montcalm, Alex. She isn’t a plaything to string along when you’re bored and horny—”
“I’m not bored and horny—”
“She isn’t your concern.”
“Would you rather she wanders around here alone, Aidan? Do you want to isolate her, keep her locked in her suite where you know she is all the fucking time? You certainly don’t give a fuck that she’s in that godawful hovel, don’t give a fuck that on the other side of that door she’s surrounded by strangers almost every night and that it might make her uncomfortable—”
“Don’t pretend to give a shit about her fucking comfort. I see straight through that shit—”
“Is that right?”
“She isn’t another assistant you can lure into your love nest, Alex. This one is none of your fucking business—”
“Fuck you, it is, and I’m not going to stop, so fuck you, Aidan! I’m not treating her like I did with that girl only after you fucking fired her, by the way. Don’t start demanding shit to my face like I’ve done anything wrong. You can’t tell me to back off like I’m a weak fifteen-year-old again—”
“Ungrateful little shit—”
“I’m ungrateful?” Alex’s eyes widen before anger floods his face. “Oh, to fucking forget must be such a luxury, huh? To forget what a fucking CUNT you were to us, to fucking forget the carnage you left behind, the hearts you destroyed and tried to ultimately mend with your fucking money, and I’m supposed to be grateful for it all?!”
The past surges through me as I remember abandoning Ruth—abandoning Alex. I remember all that, but not the asking for forgiveness part. Guilt chokes me, but my temper is too powerful to bite down. I narrow my eyes at him. “If that’s how you feel, Alex, no one forced you here—”
“I wouldn’t be here! Why would I want to watch you turn inside out again?”
“So then leave.”
“Yeah, you know, I might have in the start—”
“If you’re so miserable, Alex, then go.”
His teeth clenches as he points a finger at me, snapping, “Believe it or not, asshole, I’m not sticking around this fucking place for you! I’m doing it for her—”
“Who was she to me?” I cut in, unable to hold back now as I step closer to him with pleading eyes. “Give me that, Alex—”
“I’m not giving you shit,” he retorts, matching my fury.
The door slams in my face, and he locks it—fucking locks it like he wants to tempt me. Wants me to kick that fucking door down to prove his point—to prove I’m turning inside-out—and fuck, I would.
Like I did in the city.
Like I did before coming here.
I don’t make it two steps before slamming an angry fist into the nearest wall instead. Pain explodes up my arm, making my head feel light on my shoulders for a few delicious moments, but not even that wills away the pain.
I stare blankly at the hole I leave behind and drop my forehead next to it, panting. Immense regret floods me. I shouldn’t have done that. Why did I do that?
That woman is breaking through barriers, through walls erected from apathy. I’m hurting so bad, and the feeling is so foreign that it leaves such a sting behind. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Why my chest feels like it’s caving in on itself. Why I have a mountain of pain—years and years and years of it. I don’t know how to sort through it all. Don’t know how to mute it all. All I know is this feeling—this pain—has surfaced the exact moment that blue-eyed-devil walked into my life.
Ruth.
I need Ruth.
I need somebody.
I amble to my room and collapse into my sheets. I fall into a fitful sleep.
I dream of plane seats and red hair and blue eyes.
I dream of Ruth’s lifeless face. I stood alone at her grave and whispered good-bye to her, whispered that I didn’t remember her at the end and that I wished I had.
I dream of pressing my foot down on that gas pedal as I tried to outrun myself.
I dream of this godforsaken home, knowing I bought it for a reason—I bought it with purpose in mind.
When I wake up, I’m back in my vacant feeling prison, back to feeling nothing—and I have never appreciated the emptiness as much as I do now.
Thirteen
Ivy
Work doesn’t get better, and hoping West was jealous about Alex potentially being in my room seems more and more absurd because…well, West doesn’t seem like he gives two shits about me right now.
The next day he’s just…blank.
But I don’t buy the vacant shell. It’s all a front, and I’m trying to see through it.
I study him when I think he isn’t noticing. I notice his teeth clenching from discomfort every time he writes something down, and I follow the movement to his hand. My breath hitches when I see the dark and red bruises along his knuckles. The skin is broken between the knuckles, and there’s dried blood between the cuts.
“What happened to your hand?” I ask, alarmed.
“Nothing,” he answers flatly.
“Doesn’t look like nothing.”
He stops writing and looks at me. His eyes are so dark, so bare, I go rigid in my seat just staring into them.
“You should treat it,” I say quietly, and just what is wrong with me that I’m terrified of his fury and yet I can’t swallow down my words? “It might get infected.”
I saw it one too many times on Derek, fists that broke into walls or skulls or whatever was in front of him when he was pissed. The healing process wasn’t always easy.
Aidan says absolutely nothing in response.
Those walls are mighty high and impenetrable this morning.
Still, walls or no walls, I’m concerned.
During lunch break I ask Tilda where the First Aid Kit is kept. Lo and behold, she doesn’t think Aidan has one. Own a billion dollars but don’t have a First Aid Kit, because that makes total sense. I know that I do in all my impoverishment, but I can’t for the life of me unpack that from the still overflowing suitcase. So, I show up to the office with a bowl of hot water and a clean cloth. I figure I can clean up the site and keep an eye on it over the coming days.
I drop the bowl down on the desk next to West. His gaze slowly travels from the bowl to me. I don’t bother explaining my intentions. I simply bend down and take his hand. He acts like I’ve burned him and pulls his hand away, his frown deepening.
“Just want to clean it up,” I say.
He eyes me warily. Can you believe it? I give him a dry look. “It’s a bowl of warm water and a clean cloth, Mr West.” You’d think I’m going to secretly make him ingest poison, the way he’s carrying on.
“I don’t want it washed,” he argues.
“Tough,” I return, stubbornly. “I’m washing it.”
“Why?” he demands, eyeing me closely.
“I’m your personal assistant—both formal and informal. This is part of my duties.”
West still casts me a look of suspicion as I reach for him again. He doesn’t resist when I take his hand this time, but he remains guarded. I bring my chair closer to his and sit down. I hold his hand for a few moments as I dunk the cloth into the bowl. His skin is warm, rough, still calloused around the edges. I resist looking like a creep by shutting my eyes to savor the feel of him. No, that is too weird, and I’ve already got enough obstacles to overcome with this guy; being that creepy would not suffice.
Dried blood comes away as I softly run the cloth over him. I do it over and over again, allowing the hot water to seep into his skin. He gradually relaxes in his chair, his gaze pinned to me as I wash his knuckles.
“What
happened?” I ask again.
To my surprise, he says, “I punched the wall next to Alex’s room.”
I pause to look at him, my eyes wide. “Why did you do that?”
His face is still hard, but his eyes don’t match it. “I was angry.”
My heart tugs. “At him?”
He looks down at his knuckles. “At myself mostly.”
I wonder what happened, but I have a feeling he won’t tell me even if I asked.
Still, I’m going to ask.
“What happened to get you so angry?”
He runs his teeth along his bottom lip, thinking. “It doesn’t take much these days.”
Nice way to dodge the question.
“At least you didn’t aim for his head,” I then say lightly, and immediately wince at my words. Probably not the best choice of words.
He hardly blinks in response, retorting, “No, missed opportunity for you as you’d have had his face to soothe instead.”
My brows shoot up. So, he is salty about me spending time with his brother. Well then.
I remain light as I reply, “I have a feeling he would have needed the hospital more than this wet cloth, Mr West.”
He doesn’t answer straight away, but his face is like a storm. The clouds are there, and then the rain, and now the thunder is breaking apart the skies. He looks at me sharply and says to me in warning, “Alex is a player. I would be cautious of his intentions, Miss Montcalm.”
“He’s been nothing but friendly,” I assure him.
I can feel the energy change, can feel West bristling in his chair. The lightning strike comes next. “If you enjoy that level of ego, then it speaks volumes of your character.”
My brows come together. “My character is defined by another man’s ego?”
“A person’s character is defined by the company they keep.”
“Coming from the man who allows dozens of drunk strangers into his home.”
If he’s insulted, he doesn’t show it. He just gives me that bottomless stare, and god, maybe I’d prefer a wrathful response.
“I hear,” he muses now, licking that bottom lip, “you were in my bedroom last night.”
My movements pause. I flick a careful eye at him, hiding my panic. “Is there a question in there, Mr West?”
“Trina was very disappointed to be kicked out of my room. She told me of her…naughty intentions.”
I feel like I’m going to vomit, but I resume my cleaning. “Trina was a drunk sorority girl that wanted your dick so she could parade that she fucked Mr Aidan West, the Asshole of the East. I was protecting your image by kicking her out of the room.”
West just stares at me, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “I appreciate how committed you are in your role.”
“Yeah, I am very committed, aren’t I?” I smile sourly.
“I would have kicked her out.”
I can’t escape the next look I give him. “Oh?”
He studies me. “It’s not the first time…”
Red-hot jealousy tears through me. I hate that it’s not the first time, but it’s not surprising. “Right, well, I’m glad I got rid of her for you, Mr West.”
I resume cleaning him up, resume soaking his skin in the water like our words were never exchanged. I do it because I like the feel of his eyes on me, and I like to mend him. There’s a form of intimacy behind it; a level of care that isn’t surface deep. I like the twitch in his hand, the way his fingers come out to lightly graze against mine when I press the cloth against him.
See, he feels it, too.
I stare at him in surprise every time he lightly touches me like he’s tasting my skin.
“Satisfied?” he asks once I’m done cleaning up the blood.
Am I satisfied?
“I did that for you,” I reply, setting aside the bowl and cloth. “You could say thanks, Mr West.”
“Thanks for what?”
I give him an exhausted look. “You could say, ‘Thanks, Ivy, for doting on me, for noticing my injury and promptly asking how I am. Thanks for caring enough to fill a bowl of water and wiping the blood away because it’s an act of kindness I didn’t necessarily earn from you.’ Maybe thank me for that, Mr West.”
I pull away, annoyed, and begin to shove the bowl to the corner of the desk when I feel his body close in on mine. He’s leaning forward, angling himself so that his head is nearly brushing mine.
“Thank you, Ivy,” he says so quietly I might not have heard it.
I look back at him, catching his expression laced with gentleness. I go still, heart stuttering at the sight of it. It’s fleeting, I know that. It’ll disappear in a few moments time and he’ll be guarded and suspicious all over again and proceed to treat me indifferently, but I’ll take this victory.
I’ll take any win at this point.
“You’re welcome,” I eventually say.
We resume work, but it’s sort of tense.
Aidan watches me more than usual, his eyes unreadable. It takes everything inside me not to stare helplessly back at him.
*
That strange tension doesn’t leave.
Not the next day, or the day after that.
It’s like a ticking time bomb, and it doesn’t help I make excuses to tend to his wound once a day. Right before lunch, the bowl is ready, and he doesn’t look at me straightaway, but his injured hand is resting on the arm of his chair, waiting expectantly for me to clean him up.
I begin to think it’s silly because the cuts are healing and superficial and just when I think I can’t prolong these excuses to touch him, the cuts appear fresher and pinker. Like he’s picked at the scabs and had them bleeding all over again. The thought sends a shooting thrill through my chest.
One particular time, I felt bold and confident. I brought his knuckles closer to my face and softly blew at the raw bruises, running the wet cloth along them. His body went tight, his breathing still, and he watched me as I tended to him sweetly. The icy look he’d worn that day faded before my eyes, and something else stirred in their depths.
“What are you doing?” he asked, bewildered, like he couldn’t fathom my intentions.
“We talked about this,” I said in a teasing tone. “I’m tending to you, Mr West. Are you so unused to being looked after?”
“Yes.” His response was so quiet, I almost didn’t hear him say it.
My heart felt sore at the admission.
When I finally willed myself to look at him—into his eyes—I caught the faint sadness lurking there. My stomach twisted; my heart sank. I recognized that melancholy—I could practically see it bursting all around him.
His loneliness.
His cry for help.
Because Aidan is lost—even before his memory vanished from him—he had always been lost.
“Well,” I finally said, voice small, “get used to me.”
“You’ll leave,” he responded quietly. “Eventually.”
I quirked a brow. “Desperate to get rid of me?”
“No, but everyone leaves, Miss Montcalm. Everyone.”
“Is that what you’re used to? People leaving you?”
“I have an uncanny ability to repel goodness,” he said, tensing his jaw. “It’s what I’m good at. And you…you’re too good for this.”
“What’s this?”
“This,” he simply repeated, eyes drilling into mine.
He meant him.
My heart ached at the self-loathing I sensed he felt for himself. I buried it with an easy-going smile. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Why?” he implored, capturing my wrist with his bruised hand. He squeezed it gently, waiting for my response, appearing almost desperate to understand.
I stared at his hand, sad eyes roaming along the bloodied knuckles—he’d never have punched the wall, my Aidan. He would have swallowed away the anger, and I suddenly wondered if that was worse. Imagine containing all that raw emotion, imagine having no outlet.
“Because
…” I worked my throat, swallowing away the ache building there. “Because I’m right where I’m supposed to be, Mr West.”
He looked me over, eyeing my black, short dress and bare legs. I saw the heaviness in his expression, the desire poking through the indifference. But what got to me the most wasn’t when he looked me over in that way. It was when his gaze settled on my hands, tending to him, and lingered there. Lingered for so long, I could feel the warmth knocking down his defences.
A gentle touch, a few kind words, and Aidan was unravelling.
Now that…that spoke of his lifetime of emotional neglect. Because when you’re hurting, when you’re used to being adrift in life, cold and aimless, you cling the hardest to the first sign of affection.
He swallowed hard, trying to mask it, trying to put up his shields so I wouldn’t see it, before he spoke. “I think…I think that’s enough for now, Miss Montcalm.”
I settled his hand down to his side, and then I carried the bowl down to the kitchen, if only to get away from him just for a little bit. I took a few breaths at the sink as I dumped the bloody water down the drain, haunted by the pain he suppressed, already aware of the big shadow following him around. The one he hid from and didn’t want to confront.
Still the same, I think. He’s still the same man, but he’s layered differently now. Unravel him slowly, carefully.
When I returned, it was as though nothing happened.
He was back to being Mr West, my jerk boss with the clipped tone.
I was back to being his helpless, no-good assistant.
Aidan
Apathy is dissolving.
I’m sad.
Intrigued.
Ravenous.
I stare at my hopeless assistant, unable to stop myself from wondering what she would look like beneath me. She touches my hand—she looks so concerned. Could someone be truly that worried of a minor injury? She blew on my hand—her breaths hot, and I wanted that breath in my mouth. Her skin is soft—and I can’t help but wonder how soft the rest of her is…
And just like that, I’m looking inward, trying to chase a faint feeling of familiarity. I’m searching the recesses of my mind, searching for those fragments that come out every now and again, but they’re lost for the moment. They’re scattered in all directions, and I can’t reach for them fast enough.