He raises his brows before throwing his head back as bitter laughter rocks his body. When his eyes return to me, the amusement vanishes.
“I knew you were a selfish bastard. I just wasn’t aware of the extent of it.”
He has to be fucking kidding me with his sanctimonious attitude.
“Alexander, Alexander! In her absence, I turned into the man I am today. She was the best part of me. Without her, there was no reason to be good. But I’m sure that the difference between her and me is clear to you after her speech. She chose my happiness over hers.”
His lips press in a tight line as he mumbles, “And to think she said we could have been friends if the situation was different, but all I see is a broken human being capable of living fuelled only by hatred. I find nothing in me that could even remotely like you.”
“You should give her more credit. I mean, I was her true love, and, oh, yes, let’s not forget her only love. Put on my charms as I made her fall in love to the point of no return, didn’t I?”
My defense mechanism takes over again, and, in a sick way, I am thankful because, without my sarcasm and strongman appearance, he would detect my actual state.
He grits his teeth, and his voice drops low to say, “I will not end this conversation until you are nothing more than a pile of sorrow.”
The space around us feels too small for inhabiting two alphas, both on the verge of a mental snap. I set my elbow on the table, prop my chin in my palm, and flash him a challenging smirk. “I like a good fight, so what do you have to throw at me? Because you’ll never get the satisfaction of seeing me crumple.”
He tsks and adds, “The night is still young.”
I pluck at the cuff of my shirt and give a bitter laugh. “There’s nothing you could say that’s worse than what I’ve already heard, seen, and witnessed tonight.” I have to find her, but what do I say to her? I can’t believe how this night turned out to be. A deep longing for her fills me, and after learning the truth, I can’t fight it any longer.
He leans his head in my direction, his eyes burning with determination.
“I still have a few aces up my sleeve. Let’s begin, shall we? I assure you, in under thirty minutes, your world will shatter all over again because there’s nothing worse than the guilt of knowing you could have saved her, but now it’s too late.”
Sweat beads on my forehead at his acidic words, the firm tapping of his finger on his silver Roger Dubuis watch as he shakes his head, and his lips press in a firm line. This guy speaks in more riddles than the Oracle of Delphi.
“Are you ready to hear a story about the illness, devastation, and self-punishment of a girl who stopped living seven years ago when you left her?”
Damn, no! I don’t want to know, but this sick part of me needs to hear all about it. The questioning has kept me awake night after night. I gesture with my hand for him to continue, even though my chest tightens with fear. He smirks, and it is apparent he enjoys toying with me.
“I don’t know if you have any information about my background, but I think it is worth mentioning because everything led to the day I first met Bria.”
Alexander’s face twists with sadness as he says, “My mother died of a heart attack when I was twelve. She suffered from the same condition as Bria and also because of a man. In this case, it was because of my father. Quinn Hope never found much time for his wife or only child. With an invisible patch on his eyes, he didn’t notice my mother was fading away right under his nose. I spent the years after her death in the best boarding schools on this earth, so I could one day lead a company that caused the death of my mother.”
He raises his glass before gulping it down in one shot.
“My father and I never had a good relationship. I blamed him for my mother’s death, and he couldn’t deny it. He knew it was true. It was easier for us both to be as far away from each other as possible, only seeing each other a few times a year. While we drifted further apart, I didn’t know how ill my father was, and he never confessed either.
“But one morning he called and demanded to see me. The next day, I flew to London. As I trudged through the corridors of Royal Hospital, I stopped as I heard my father laugh, and I plopped on the chair next to his room. After I shook my resolve, I stepped inside only to discover someone else had his full attention.”
His voice stammers, and his face sets in a blank expression with him confessing the last part. His lips turn into a bitter smile in the corner of his face.
Isn’t it true how we boys always want our daddy’s attention and love, and we say women have daddy issues? A bunch of hypocrites, all of us.
“I pulled the door, expecting a man who was living his last days on earth and froze. Before my eyes stood the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. Her slender frame clothed in a casual green body-fitted tracksuit, with her hair pressed into a wayward ponytail. The sunrays peered through the large window, making her hair sparkle with golden tones, turning her cheeks peachy. Her lips transfixed me, full and rosy with light gloss, but otherwise, she wore no makeup at all. Her oval-shaped face, a portrait of unmatched beauty. It took one glance to seal my future.”
He takes a sip of his drink, and I clench my fingers on my glass as I try to rein in the fury brewing inside of me at his blatant admission about his desire for Bria. Clinging to pure will, I release the glass and jostle myself to catch the rest of his soppy story because his is entwined with Bria’s.
“Had I been smart enough to look first into her aloof, hazel eyes, maybe some self-preservation mechanism would have kicked in and spared me the frustration and pain of the next years. Everything appeared enticing and warm about her, and yet, when she raised her eyes, they told of something different. They betrayed her beauty by revealing something hollow inside. It shook me to my core to stare into the abyss of her gaze and glimpse a prison of pain behind long and curly lashes. I thought it was because she was ill enough to be in the hospital, but I soon discovered it was love that had broken her heart to such an extent. Those empty eyes that stared at me then were the same ones staring at me for seven long and torturous years of wanting something so unattainable even the pain it caused me made me feel alive and living on the verge of insanity. Nothing changed it, and now I know nothing ever will. Whatever Bria ignited in me is irreversible.
“Unwillingly and unconsciously, this woman has played havoc with my mind and heart for years, and this is why she will always have more power over me than she will ever realize. At first, I was intrigued and, afterward, too in love to recognize I couldn’t save her because she had already settled herself to lose.
“Still, from time to time, I could make her smile. I counted them all. They were special and too damn rare.”
His face turns red. As if he’s ashamed, he shakes it off while I swallow a lump and reiterate one sentence, Don’t rip his head off! You need to hear this, you moron. This is your punishment. Take it like the man you obviously aren’t. I’m not even my own fan anymore. How the mighty have fallen.
“With every day I have loved her, I focused on patience, on ‘shut your eyes and be there for her.’ Telling myself to smash my desires and meld to her state and hope she picks me instead of her demons one day. In that hospital room, my heart pounded, and I couldn’t make my legs inch further as I took everything in. The two of them sat at a small, round white table playing chess, and she had his king in check. This told me she was not only stunning but smart.”
My lips quirk into a grin at the memory of how good she can play chess, remembering she had won trophies when she was in high school. Bria beat me every time we played. I had my theory that it became one of her favorite hobbies because I didn’t stand a chance at winning against her. Her eyes flashed with pride, and she spun around, clapping as she won round after round. Even after all these years, the memories don’t diminish the euphoria they bring me. Alexander shoots me a displeased look, jolting me out of my trance as I refocus attention to his story.
“They con
tinued their game. I found pride in his eyes and maybe a sparkle of kinship in hers. I made my presence known by clearing my throat, and she introduced herself, Bria du Mont, no handshake, not even a second glance directed at me. She resumed the game. Her poker face didn’t fall even when she won. She only said, ‘Checkmate’ in a matter-of-fact voice while my father whispered in awe, ‘Extraordinary.’
“After the match, she stood and gave my father a peck on the right cheek. Then she leaned on the window wall with her arms crossed over her chest and peered through the large glass leading to the hospital’s garden. I kept asking myself what was so fascinating outside that held her undivided attention. What could have brought up in her stare such an intense longing? Whatever it was, I didn’t know, and I never found out, but she kept doing this. After a small sigh, she added, ‘Mr. Hope, remember our deal. I’ll see you after your heart surgery.’
“The inflection of her voice had a softness, yet the expressionless way in which she spoke was crisp and distant. I thought to myself, ‘Who are you, Bria du Mont?’ I found my answer quickly. She was a contradiction and a conundrum. After she left, her sweet presence lingered in the spot she vacated, our tongues tied. This is what Bria leaves behind when she leaves a room, dumbstruck men, while she seems unaware of it.
“I asked my father to regale me with the reason he summoned me as he crossed one leg over the other and fidgeted with the king chess piece. He told me he developed a heart problem because of stress and long hours of work, about the stroke that left him immobilized in this hospital bed. How he met Bria, and she awoke in him the desire to save her as he couldn’t with my mother. The pause in his speech told me everything. I would not like it. He asked me to look after her if he didn’t survive the surgery. I balled my fists and shouted at him, asking if he had gone crazy in my absence while he drummed his fingers on the table with a poker face on. I promised through gritted teeth, but what had my eyes bulge out were his plans if he survived. The moment she was better, she would come back with us as my dad expanded his invitation to me to move back in his penthouse. Bria would study business and management at New York University, and work by his side in our pharmaceutical company, Holex.”
Alexander scratches his jaw as his lips quirk in a small smile while he shakes his head. Yes, this story is something out of a fantasy, and then he goes on.
“What if we didn’t get along? What about her parents? I asked him if she had agreed to his grand plan. He had thought of everything. He said, ‘I have her parents’ agreement, and we all share the same intention, to see her well again.’
“Dad had one more request, though, not to fall in love with her. He said she probably wouldn’t return the feeling, and knowing would pain her more. Even though I fought with my contradictory feelings for her, I couldn’t stop them. I missed the alarms going off in my head. I fell in love with her, and my father was right . . . she would never respond to my love as I wished. To keep her in my life, I loved her from a safe distance, becoming her best friend and set myself out to make her smile again.
“I asked myself if I hadn’t listened and maybe risked our friendship, would I stand here reliving old wounds and have this conversation with you, or would I have won her over, and the two of us would be together, even in love.”
My hands squeeze into fists at the visual of him with Bria in an intimate relationship. Alexander notices my offensive stance as he smirks and continues, “What stopped me from pursuing her was the fear I would lose her in a more dreadful way. I guess fear and a false sense of what’s right made me a deer instead of a lion. Sick what love does to us.”
I observe Alexander’s hooded eyes, lines etched in the corners, and shrugged shoulders. I toss away my false assumptions for the first time and realize he has always looked on edge. This time, though, it’s blended with an acceptance, and I raise an eyebrow.
As he told me his story, I realized how selfless he was to give Bria what she needed, taking nothing in return. The man lives to see her genuine smiles, for god’s sake! My stupid jealousy screams in frustration. I haven’t had even one fake smile in the last years, have I?
Alexander describes Bria like a man in love with a woman—my woman. My fist crashes on the bar. She isn’t mine anymore, so why this urge to call her so? I’ll shout it until it drills in my skull. I am an incurable, selfish bastard, and I never got over it. I know I don’t have her anymore, but still, a part of me can’t let it go, not for good. It’s the main reason we humans are a miserable race. We may consciously give up on something or someone, but a part of us can’t accept that we let it go. I ask myself if I have ever been worthy of her.
I come back to reality as Alexander continues his story.
“The day my father had surgery was the first time Bria and I chatted and spent time alone. In the years that followed, it would become a constant. We created our own world where she can be herself, and I would be there for her because she became my whole life. Does the sound of her in my life sound even remotely familiar to you, Damien?”
Alexander touched on a sore spot as the veins in my neck throb in a vigorous beat. I pretend to be the mighty and unfeeling bastard he expects and raise my eyebrow, insinuating ridicule as he orders himself another glass of amber liquid.
“No, it doesn’t,” I mumble and take another sip of whisky.
“Where were you when she was in that hospital?”
His question is full of the acid scorching my throat, clutching the whiskey glass in a death grip.
“Deep in a bottle of Lagavulin Twelve trying to forget the love of my life cheated on me. I never knew the truth, not until tonight,” I snarl.
“Would you have been there for her if her family hadn’t hidden it as if it were some dirty secret?”
“What I know is the whole thing would have had a different outcome. These last seven years would have been different.”
My voice quivers and my shoulders drop in response. It is the first semblance of an apology—a hidden vulnerability under layers of guilt.
“Would you have forgotten what you thought she did to you? Of course not. You gave her up as if you never loved her at all,” Alexander says.
I rake my fingers through my hair as I inhale before saying, “Stop acting like the better person. You have no fucking idea how much I have loved her. Don’t pretend to know our love story. Don’t claim to know me. How would you feel if the person you loved with all your heart betrayed you?”
He raises an eyebrow and states, “It’s what I have been living with for the last seven years. I still loved her even though she’s in love with you. What about you and all you’ve done to forget her? Do you remember the women you fucked these last years?”
My jaw twitches while I cringe inwardly, “It’s none of your business.”
“And you didn’t stop there, did you? You gave the final blow by being with and planning to marry her cousin.”
Every one of Alexander’s venomous questions has been the prelude to this one. I tip my chin to congratulate him for the game he played before returning to being stiff and silent.
“You don’t have to answer because nothing can absolve you of your part in giving her more pain.”
“I didn’t know she was innocent, and I never betrayed her with my heart because she is the only one I have ever loved . . . and I will until I die!” I shout the last part, and the power of my voice shakes my core as my teeth clash together—the sound of my despair echoes around us. A glass crashes on the floor with a loud crack, and an angry stare from the bartender follows. I rise to my feet, snatch my wallet from my suit jacket and place some bills on the threshold, mumbling an apology. The bartender glances from the money to me with a gaping mouth and wide eyes, then stuffs the bills in his pocket. I return only to place my elbows on the bar with my head cradled between my hands, shifting my weight from one leg to the other.
“But still, you couldn’t put it past you that she was physical with someone else. She could have said the same thing
, ‘My heart is yours, and it was just my body, just one night.’”
“We weren’t together, and I would not have looked at or touched another woman if she was still mine,” I bellow, and my chest rises and falls with heavy breaths.
“But now, do you recognize the love of your life from my accurate description?” Alexander sneers.
“What are you trying to get at? That my Bria was lost, and I didn’t want to see? Or are you mad because you can’t have her at all? Because it appears I’ve had her this entire time, and she has been only mine. The only thing staying with me after your whole story is how you saw in her only one reaction, and it was because of me. I don’t believe you when you insist I can’t save her.”
“You think you can succeed where my father and I haven’t in the last seven years? Does your ego have no limits?”
Fake laughter erupts from within him. I slump once again into the seat as I stare him straight in the eyes with a request to understand. It is the only time I don’t partake in a challenge. It stops the moment Bria’s well-being comes into the equation. Damien purses his lips at this realization.
“It’s not my ego talking, but neither you nor your father was the love of her life. I will make it my life’s purpose to give her back something, anything, of what she’s lost.”
Alexander scratches his chin, and his eyes drill into mine. “What could you give back to her because no one can return what she has lost, like a normal heart, the love of her life, and the baby? Not even you can give her those. Still, I wish you luck with it if you ever see her again.”
His lips turn into a flat line. My intentions might be good, but he knows something he is too eager to share with me shortly. This irks me as my hand grasps his upper arm in a tight hold.
“Damien, I’m not finished.”
Shattered Love : A Billionaire Romance (Forever Us Book 1) Page 6