“Natalie? What are you doing here?” I looked around to determine where I was in the city.
She motioned towards the buildings behind us, raising her arm as if it took too much effort, and she was winded when she returned it to her side.
“The hospital,” was her only response.
Something Jackson said back at his apartment dawned on me. He met Natalie at the hospital, where her newborn son was in the NICU. That certainly explained her appearance. A new emotion, one I had felt the week before when Jackson told me she gave birth early, broke through my grief. The woman was clearly suffering. Not a trace remained of the hateful woman I met in France or in the hallway of Jackson’s building. She was a shell, desolate and despairing, and I felt pity for her because I couldn’t imagine what the prospect of potentially losing your newborn baby felt like.
“That’s right. I’m so sorry about the baby. How are they doing?”
People stared at us as they passed in the evening rush towards their homes; some completely ignoring us and others looking at us with confusion and suspicion. We must have made a rather interesting, if not disarming, sight. The woman who looked like walking death talking to a woman with a bag clutched to her chest as if she were lost or homeless.
“He,” she answered. “I had a boy. He’s stable but not great. I have to get back, I can’t leave him. My father made me go to Starbucks and get some air.” She waved a full cup of coffee in my face to show she had obeyed. “But I don’t really want it.”
I nodded because when your heart was broken, the last thing you needed was coffee and fresh air. What her father didn’t realize was that she likely felt that there was no air anywhere and that no matter how many deep breaths she took, she would never feel as if there was enough air. I knew the feeling well; I had been wallowing in it for the last hour. Natalie had been living in it for the last week, and I wasn’t sure how she was standing here before me and not curled in a ball on the ground.
“I’m so sorry.” I repeated the words because I had no other ones to offer.
She bobbed her head sadly and when her eyes met mine, she had tears in them.
“Did you speak to Jackson? I should probably apologize to you as well. I was an awful person for so many years and this”—she waved in the direction of the hospital again—“has taught me that none of what I worried about before mattered. The only thing that matters to me now is Christopher and getting him off those machines. I told Jackson that. I told him to pull his head out of his ass and to open up to you before you walked out forever.”
I looked at her with surprise. Was that what Jackson had been trying to tell me while I was lost in my own thoughts surrounding the three words I had been dying to hear, but didn’t want to believe?
“What did he say?” I had to know what he told her and how he responded.
Natalie snorted. “You know Jackson, he didn’t say anything. He gave me the stoic look, the one he does when he’s trying to maintain his composure, and walked away. I assumed he talked to you.”
Natalie finally took a sip of her full cup of coffee before lowering it back down and staring at it as if it would jump up and bite her.
“He did. I did. I, uh, just left from there.” How much should I tell her?
“That’s a relief. I was so worried I ruined things between you back in France. I could see how much he loves you and wanted to protect you when I was spewing lies and deception. I always wished he looked at me that way, but I know now that I never really loved him. Having Christopher put everything in perspective. I hope he told you everything. I had no right to hold it all over his head that way.”
I was in such a hurry to get out of there, so afraid to stick around for too long and be drawn back into Jackson, I didn’t even wait for him to explain anything to me. Regret, coupled with something else, crept into my chest and I just had to know what Natalie was talking about. I schooled my face not to give away he hadn’t told me before I responded.
“He did.” I was afraid to say too much more because I didn’t know what she was talking about and I didn’t want to give that away.
“I’m so glad he was able to finally tell you. I wasn’t into it. Being restrained and being spanked and everything wasn’t for me. But I told him that you may feel differently. I wasn’t as disgusted by it as I made him think, I just wanted a bargaining chip.” She shook her head again at the person she used to be. “I feel so terrible when I think about what I did to him and how I dragged this whole divorce thing out over so many years. I wasn’t stifling only his happiness, but I was stifling my own as well.”
The words she spoke sank in. Jackson wasn’t keeping anything from me. Not really. He showed me on the plane to France, and when we were in France, exactly what it was that he liked in bed and I was willing to do it. I enjoyed it. And yet, he never spoke the words and we never talked about it because he was still afraid, on some level, of my rejection. And I did just that.
“I’m so glad you two were able to work it out.” I realized then that Natalie was so caught in her own grief she hadn’t really looked at me the whole time we spoke, or she would have known Jackson and I hadn’t worked anything out.
It was my turn to nod and with a backward wave, she walked away, back to the hospital to be with her son. I stood on the street as the waning sun sank behind tall buildings and people streamed around me, and I wondered what I should do next. Natalie’s words made me feel like I jumped the gun too soon. I should have heard Jackson out, gave him a chance to explain. Instead, I ran, the way I always had, to preserve what I had left of my heart. But that wasn’t true either, because the moment I walked out that door, what was left of my heart crumbled to pieces. Without Jackson, I felt like half a person and without the prospect of being with him, I wasn’t sure I would be able to get back the other half of myself. Still clasping the damn bag to myself, I walked back in the direction of Jackson’s apartment, though something told me I was too late.
I slammed the weights down on the mat, drenched in sweat with my muscles screaming. The pain didn’t register in a way that made me want to stop though. The pain was a necessity to make the feeling of loss that was crushing my chest dissipate. So far, it wasn’t working. After Liza left an hour ago, I paced the apartment for a long time, running her words, and mine, back in my head over and over.
What had I said that was wrong? I knew the answer to that and it was nothing. It wasn’t about what I said today—her reaction was a culmination of my fucked-up handling of the whole relationship from the start. The lying and pulling away from her were my fault, she was right on that front. Of course, she didn’t believe me when I said I loved her, when the pattern of pulling her in and pushing her away like the ocean current was blatantly obvious to anyone with eyes.
Grunting, I lay back on the weight bench, reached up to lift the bar loaded with over two hundred pounds, and began to bench press. Sweat dripped in my eyes as I lifted the bar over and over again, pushing and pushing until my arms felt like jelly but still, I pushed further.
The crushing ache in my chest wouldn’t dissolve, no matter how hard I pushed my muscles to fatigue, and I finally placed the weights on their perch and sat up. I retrieved a towel from where I threw it over another bench, wiping at my face to sop up the sweat stinging my eyes. My mind wouldn’t quiet, the physical exertion I normally depended on to help me sleep, to help me think clearly, wasn’t working this time. Silently cursing, I stood up, ignoring the dizziness that gripped me for a minute as I walked briskly from my weight room and back to my bedroom. If I was going to mope around, I could do it at the office where I could at least get something done.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I started the shower. I had no inclination to go to the office today, not after everything that was said and done with Liza. That worried me because I always wanted to go to the office. It was my safe space, even more so than my own apartment. Work, like physical activity, cleared my mind and got me into a better headspace. If I
didn’t want to work, I wasn’t sure what was going to become of me without Liza.
I washed quickly and with a purpose, not wanting to waste any time in my empty and silent home with my own thoughts. Because, if I was being honest, those thoughts were consumed with Liza and what I could have done better to keep her here with me. I fucked the whole thing up, the way I knew I would. I wasn’t sure why it was such a surprise.
I stepped from the shower, wrapping a towel around my waist, and padded into the bedroom, my mood sourer than it had been in a long time. That was saying a lot, considering the bout of depression I suffered in my teens after my mom died. This was different somehow, because Liza wasn’t gone, she just didn’t want me.
I looked up swiftly as the intercom buzzed on the wall near my bed, breaking my train of thought. Who the hell had the nerve to come over right now? It was probably Henry. I was in such a foul mood, I would likely cuss him out, so instead of answering, I ignored it and instead walked into my large closet to begin to get dressed. The buzzer went off again, and I shook my head at my cousin’s lack of respect for other people’s space.
“What the hell do you want, Henry?” I snapped into the intercom, which connected to the lobby elevator. It was the only way someone could have access to the penthouse floor if they didn’t live here.
“Jackson, it’s me.”
Liza.
I closed my eyes for a minute against the onslaught of emotions that gripped me when I heard her voice. It was wrong for me to think she was the only one being hurt in this whole situation if just three words from her could decimate me in a way I never thought another person could. She made it abundantly clear the only reason she was with me, the only reason she went with me to France and even agreed to the sham of a marriage that never happened, was because of the deal we had to dispel paparazzi rumors. Why was she here?
“Why are you here?” I growled the same words out through gritted teeth, hoping she didn’t hear my voice catch like I was thirteen.
“I, uh, I really need to speak with you. I have something to tell you.” Her voice was small and sounded like it was coming from so much farther away than downstairs.
I thought for a minute about her request to come up and talk to me again. Being that, an hour later, I was no closer to putting any of this behind me and, on some level, I was a masochist, I decided to hear what she had to say. Nothing she told me now could be worse than what she said an hour earlier.
“Fine,” was all I managed before I pressed the button to buzz her up.
I frantically looked around my room for something to put on before I heard her knock at the door. Settling on a pair of sweat pants I had discarded on a chair in the corner the night before, I dropped the towel and pulled them on before rushing to the front door just as I heard her rapping.
I yanked the door open quickly, catching her off guard. It caused her to stumble into the room because her arm was still poised to knock.
“I have to get to work. What is this about?” I sounded cold and uninviting, and she flinched at my words. It didn’t matter. We were done.
“I—” She paused and looked around with uncertainty. “Can I come in?”
I nodded, stepping back and out of her way. Liza took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling as she looked around the room before her eyes settled on my bare chest and widened. She cleared her throat and averted her eyes hastily. With her hands wringing in front of her, a nervous tick I noticed before, she paced to the far end of the room and stopped by the window, looking out.
“Jackson, when I left here, I ran into Natalie.” She turned to look at me, remorse and guilt in her eyes.
“Okay.” I didn’t have any other words for her.
She sighed, moving closer to me. “I was wrong, Jackson. I should have listened to you.”
I wanted to believe her but it always felt like the two of us were going in circles.
“It doesn’t matter now. You made it perfectly clear why we were together before. You were right, the month is up. It’s over.” I shot the words out like an arrow, hoping to hit her right in the heart, the same way she had done to me.
Liza nodded softly and cleared her throat, glancing down at her hands before she looked up at me again. When our eyes met, unshed tears shone in her green depths and the pain in my chest I thought I had shaken off came back with crushing clarity.
“Right. You’re right to be angry with me. I didn’t let you speak earlier. I didn’t let you even have a chance to explain. I was lost in my own head after you said you loved me. I couldn’t put together how you could tell me you loved me but walk away from me, time and again, without a word for days. But I understand now. After I saw Natalie, it all made sense.”
Liza moved even closer and I saw something in her eyes that wasn’t there moments, or even an hour, ago—resolve. I watched her as she moved; the sway of her hips, the top two buttons of her shirt undone, showing a slight shadow of cleavage, the way she licked her lips and brushed her disheveled red curls back from her face as she approached me. She entranced me, bewitched me, with the way she looked at me and I knew no matter what she said earlier, I would forgive her because I was so deeply and irrevocably in love with her. The admission cut me straight through, like a knife to the gut, and I moved with her until she was so close we were almost touching. Our breathing was ragged and matched as we stood staring at each other, waiting for the other person to declare what we both knew with every cell of our being.
“Liza, what you said earlier…”
She shook her head, her hands reaching up to rest on my chest. I closed my eyes at the sensation of her touch; soft and rough all at once, as she gripped me in a way that definitely got my attention.
“I didn’t mean it. I said it because I knew you would let me go if I did. And I was right. I’m sorry, Jackson. Natalie told me about what she was holding over you, what she made you believe. But, I always knew who you were, the real you. Couldn’t you see that? In France? On the plane? You showed me what you were too afraid to tell me and I accepted it. Not because you made me or I felt like I had to but because I wanted to. With you. You didn’t have to push me away to prove a point, or to test me. I love you, Jackson Radcliffe, no matter what.”
We stood still, lingering on her words, barely touching but feeling everything. The ache in my chest lifted with her words. Natalie had told her what I was too afraid to say out loud but Liza was right; she knew it all along.
“Natalie made me feel like a monster, like I was ill or deranged.” I was still testing her with my words.
Liza shook her head again. “No, Jackson. You’re not. There’s nothing wrong with the way you love me or want to show me that you love me. Nothing.”
“Are you telling me the truth?” I didn’t want to ask but I had to know she wasn’t just saying what she thought I wanted to hear.
Another shake of her head. “I’m not. You have to know that. It’s not like you’re into full-fledged BDSM. You didn’t hurt me and I liked it. And I love you.”
When she said the words again, my chest ached with a whole different kind of pain. I knew it would remain unless I told her what I needed to tell her. Taking a chance, I wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her by the hips so she was resting against my chest. I wasn’t sure I could look at her while I was speaking, but I needed her close so I could feel how she reacted. She put her head against my chest and wound her arms around my back.
“When I lost my mom, it was easier to keep everyone at a distance, to keep them as far away from my heart as possible so that I couldn’t be hurt again if I lost them. It was a lonely existence but it worked for me because I had a company to run and no time to be with anyone anyway. Natalie and her vitriol solidified it for me, making me pull away from my family, from getting close to any woman ever again. Especially since she made me feel as if I were wrong and dirty for wanting sex the way I did. After that, I’d hire women or find ones who were willing to do what I wanted in bed, but only
for one night, never again. But you, Liza, you changed something in me.
“That first night we were together was amazing, and I almost asked you to stay over right before you walked out of the hotel. It terrified me, the electricity and connection we had after only one night, and that was why I cast you out like that, so quickly. But apparently, the universe wanted us together because when I saw you that night at the restaurant, I knew I would never be free of you.
All of the lies I told from then on out, everything I did, even trying to get you to marry me so quickly in France, was so that I could be with you because the idea of being without you tore a hole inside of me that I hadn’t felt since losing my mom. I didn’t know how to have a relationship or even process the feelings that were there, so I pushed you away while all the time wanting you right next to me.”
I paused, taking a shaky breath because sharing my feelings drained me in a way even a hard workout didn’t, and I needed a minute to regroup.
“I need you, Liza. I can’t breathe without you. I love you.” Those last few words did me in and I felt like I was going to collapse from the relief of finally being free of them.
Liza let go of me and I stiffened, worried I had said too much too soon. But she didn’t run away. She looked up at me, fresh tears in her jade green eyes.
“I know, Jackson. I love you the same way. Without you, there is no air left in the world.”
I never knew another person or their words could fill me up the way Liza’s did right at that moment. Lifting her up to my level, I kissed her, long and slow, as she wrapped her legs around my waist.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner and I’m sorry we wasted so much time.” I had to let her know I wasn’t going to be letting her go anywhere anytime soon.
With a nod, she found my lips again, deepening the kiss even more. This was how we made up; this was how we showed our love for each other. I needed to be close to her, closer even, and carried her back to my room as we kissed, never breaking connection until we were in the bedroom. We didn’t waste time with foreplay or undressing all the way. I pulled off her pants and underwear in on swift motion, tossing them away, followed by my own sweatpants.
One Night Page 28