by Eden O'Neill
“You know, I didn’t bring you up here to fuck you.” He touched his forehead to my hair, our fingers lacing. “But maybe I should play the lottery since I apparently have a lucky streak.”
He’d normally get punched for less, but since he had my hands, I only got to hear his laugh. I smiled, and he hugged me, kissing my hair.
“I went to see my dad,” he admitted. “But not for closure.”
I turned around, looking at him. “What happened?”
As it turned out, a lot. He’d shifted the focus of his business, at least some of it. He’d decided to pursue the things he wanted while at the same time running his family’s company in his own way.
“He said he was proud of me.” He laughed, but it wasn’t dry or sarcastic. Like he more so couldn’t believe what had happened. He kissed my fingers before looping his arms around me. “That used to be all I ever wanted. He was really hard on me growing up. So, pleasing him used to mean so much. My entire world for so long.”
“And now?”
His chin touched my shoulder. “Now, I’m living for me. For the future.”
He did something next that had me watching his hands, our hands when he took that thick ring he always wore off his finger. The one with the gorilla. I’d never asked about it, figuring it was just a ring.
But now, he took my hand, placing it in my palm.
“I have friends… brothers,” he corrected, shaking his head. “They give these to their girls, and I get it now.”
“What is it?”
“It’s our power,” he said, nodding. “What we believed for so long to be our power. It seems so long ago now.”
He folded my hand around it, kissing my fist.
“I am living for today,” he continued. “For the future and every day with you that follows.”
I opened my hand, looking at the ring. Smiling, I fingered it before looping my arms around his neck.
“I don’t want you to give me your power.” I touched his lips. “I want to share it. Share each other’s.”
He hugged me too, little space between us. Cupping the back of my head, he drew his body on top of me again. We lived in the moment. Those futures. It was the first time I’d ever forgotten about my past, and he did that.
And I had a feeling he would as long as I needed him to.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Bri
Ramses had tickets for the Russian ballet on their tour in Chicago. The tickets he’d gotten from a colleague, and the night out had been a celebration for us both. It was the day before finals week, commencement at the end of the month. We were going to tell Evie soon about us and tonight, we just wanted to be a couple. I wasn’t thinking about consequences or if someone would see us. I didn’t care anymore. I just wanted an evening out with my boyfriend, and since I happened to love watching ballet in New York, that was what we’d decided to do.
Ramses passed the car off to the valet, and after we both checked in our coats, I escaped for a little potty break before the show. I came out to find him standing in front of the grand staircase leading up to the theater, hands in the pockets of his tailored trousers. He wore a tuxedo tonight, a handsome black with the crisp bow tie to match. The hems hit the hard curves of his solid frame, my man never looking so dashing, debonair. He was James Bond with Ryan Reynolds’s boyish charm, sweeping around on his patent leather shoes to find me.
He pressed a hand to his heart, feigning death as if he hadn’t seen me before, as if he hadn’t escorted me inside himself.
I’d admit I cleaned up nice, the dark gown a smooth silk over my body. I also tended to be a fan of slits, and this one cut high.
Ramses wasted no time beneath the paintings of angels and gods donning the vaulted ceiling, one hand to smooth over my thigh while the other darted into my hair. He pressed just a light kiss to my temple, but a purposeful one, his thumb teasing the highest point of my slit. “Have I ever told you how fucking sexy you look in black?”
The growl in his voice held promise, his lips brushing my cheek before finding my eyes. He took my hand, kissing that.
I shook my head at him. “Only about twenty times since you picked me up.”
And that was a guess, his smile a warm one as he laced our fingers. He leaned in. “Then it looks like I’ve got some making up to do. Not nearly enough.”
He placed another kiss to my hand before extending his arm and hiking up my dress, I took it.
Ramses’s tickets turned out to be for his family’s box.
Because apparently, he had one of those.
His client’s tickets hadn’t been nearly as luxurious, but once I expressed interest in coming out, Ramses had decided to give them to his secretary for her birthday gift, I guess.
I suppose she was probably in the vicinity somewhere, and Ramses and I took two out of the six seats available to us exclusively. Once again, he wasted no time in placing his arm around me, and with the box’s curtains drawn, he placed a hand on my thigh. We settled into the first act, and I had to say, I wasn’t really watching all that much.
I played with Ramses’s fingers mostly, the ones hanging off my shoulder. The other time I spent looking at him, and he winked whenever he caught me. This was the first time we’d really been out together, no pressures or worrying about anyone catching us. Not that I really worried about that too much anymore. Times of the past just seemed so far away, and I leaned into him, just enjoying the show. It was lovely, of course, hypnotic. By the time the intermission came, I’d nearly drifted off between the calming nature of the show and Ramses’s heat. Ramses shifted, and I sat right up.
He was checking his phone now that he could and excused himself to take a call since we had a few minutes. I guess he missed something important at work.
“Be right back,” he said, kissing me before taking the call out of the box, and I decided to check my phone during the wait.
“Brielle?”
I angled a look back, and my eyes twitched wide, completely sitting up when Evelyn came in with a man I didn’t know. He wore a tux, like Ramses, older, and Evie herself wore a lovely gown of a dark purple, shimmering crystals on it. She looked completely surprised to me, handbag clasped beneath her gloved fingers, and I had to have looked like a deer in headlights. She frowned. “Dear… What are you—”
“Mom?”
Stopped where he stood. Ramses exchanged a glance between his mom and whoever she’d arrived with before looking at me. His brow arched. “What are you doing here?”
I had no fucking idea what to even say at this point.
Oh, fuck.
Heart like someone reached in and squeezed it just to play around. Evie directed her eyes in her son’s direction.
“Why I’ve come to see the show, of course,” she said, her look curious. “In our family box. Though, we were late and missed the first half. Sweetheart, you know James from the country club.”
This James extended a hand, which Ramses quickly took.
“Right. Yeah,” Ramses returned, his expression also curious before twitching back to his mom.
His mom, who now had her attention directed at me. I stood, and her finger flicked my way.
“Have you two come together?” she asked, placing that out there. Ramses, in a quick step, crossed the distance over to me. I started to say something until he took the initiative.
“Actually, yes.” He hovered a hand behind me, but I noticed not too terribly close. In actuality, he let it fall rather quickly before forcing a hand over the dark fade of his shaven head. “I had tickets. A date that fell through.” He clasped his hands. “Anyway, I ran into Bri on campus. Mentioned them. She said she enjoyed the ballet so here we are. Tickets not wasted.”
Here we were indeed.
He’d lied for me, completely, and I hated it as much as I failed to correct him.
Because in that next moment, I watched his mother and my friend’s expression shift warm. No confusion, her smile quaint and full. This new sc
enario obviously made sense to her, and I was a coward. I was afraid for an alternative.
Whatever that may have been.
Evie’s previous thoughts had obviously been her own, but this situation now appeared to be perfectly acceptable to her. She placed her hands together. “Oh, how nice, Ramses.”
How nice. The dagger dug deeper. Like he was doing me a favor.
Just tell her.
The words itched, but cowardice was something else. It kept me locked in a box, tortured in the fear. I didn’t want things to change, to lose this new awesome life I had. I wanted her in it, and I wanted Ramses too.
Like stated, selfish.
Ramses wet his lips in front of me, smiling without words. He partook in some back and forth with his mom and James before Evie hugged me, and we all took our seats. Ramses and I did sit next to each other, but with his mom and James in the seats beside us, we kept our distance reasonable and our touches nonexistent. We were two acquaintances again.
Like we’d always been a lie.
The second half to the ballet proved to be just as awkward as intermission. Ramses and I did keep to ourselves, and after, Evie talked to me while Ramses entertained James. It appeared James was Evie’s date for the evening and the man she’d been talking to the day she’d left my office.
“I haven’t told Ramses yet,” she said, the men talking beneath the staircase after the show. Evie and I had left the theater in full banter, her talking and me just listening. My attention divided, I gauged it between chatting with her and trying not to look at Ramses.
Currently with James, he’d been doing the same thing, his hands in his pockets. He flicked a glance my way on occasion, and I hugged my arms, pretending not to notice. This was definitely not the precedent I wanted to set with his mom.
I mean, we were supposed to tell her soon.
Tonight’s interception would just be the prelude to more lies. We were already going to have to lie, but now, we really had to lie.
I chewed my lip while Evie went on. She said she planned to tell Ramses about James soon, but it was new just like I hinted to her.
“I’m surprised you didn’t just take Ramses’s tickets and go with your new friend.” She nudged me. “I’m sure Ramses would have sold them to you or even just given them to you, knowing him.”
I was sure he would have, my nod firm. Eventually, we all made it outside and in front of the busy theater.
Evie had hooked my arm, and it was all I could do to fight her on after-show drinks. She and James planned to go to a place downtown, and she pushed both me and Ramses to join them.
“I would, Ma, but Brielle has to get back,” he urged, kissing her cheek when she placed it out. “Long drive. You understand. And I have to be at the office first thing.”
“You work too much, darling.” She touched his cheek. “But I understand.” She waved a hand at me. “Bri, I’ll text you.”
I nodded, giving her a hug before letting her go. In a stiff stance, Ramses offered to head with them to the valet. He said I could wait where I was so I wouldn’t be in the rush of the traffic on the curb.
At this point, I just wanted to bury my face in my hands, and if I smoked, I would have done so then.
How had I fucked this up so bad?
Ramses appeared truly sick when he left me standing there, completely over all this, and I didn’t blame him.
After all, he lied for me.
He’d always wanted to tell the truth, and I placed him in this predicament. Hugging my arms, I wandered outside the theater in thought. A cluster of photographers were around, snapping shots of the theater and the high class clientele. I’d heard a few celebrities had attended the show tonight.
I started to pass them when I was grabbed by one.
“Hey. That’s Brielle Norrington!”
The flashes came first, bodies second as the majority of those photographers descended on me like locusts.
I was surrounded in a frenzy, people literally yelling at me in a fashion so familiar to my time in New York and Jersey, it churned my gut.
Flash.
“Brielle, what are you doing here?”
Another flash.
“Does Alec know? You’re a long way from Jersey, New York?”
Flash. Flash. Flash.
“What do you have to say about the more recent speculations?”
I had no idea what that last pap meant, too busy framing my eyes and fighting the crowds. I elbowed for an out, trying to find Ramses. I started to call for him before a pap grabbed my arm, jerking me back so hard I about fell on my ass. Actually, if it hadn’t been for all the paparazzi behind me, I would have fallen. They blocked the descent, and the pap whipped me around for a picture.
“Eh. Get your fucking hands off her!”
Ramses parted the crowd, a firm tower over a sea of heads. He got my arm too, but when that other pap tugged, he placed me behind him and shoved the guy. He bared teeth. “Back off.”
The guy just wanted a picture. They always did, and where Alec and I had learned how to combat that over the years, Ramses hadn’t. He engaged, and once he had, they did right back.
The pap’s shove came from behind his camera, which Ramses grabbed and shot toward the ground. It exploded and the shutters around us followed, more flashes.
My heart sunk. “Ramses!”
The pap launched at him, roaring but Ramses grappled the guy’s shoulders and slammed him into the pavement.
My breath stole.
Ramses loomed over the guy, wailing on him to keep him down. His fist knocked into him again and again, and my heart shot into my throat, the sweat cold and deadly on my brow. Shaking, I stumbled back which only landed me back into the sea of paparazzi.
“Is this your new boyfriend, Brielle?” They shoved. “The guy from the pictures?”
What… pictures?
I couldn’t ask, too busy watching my boyfriend actually beat the crap out of a guy in front of me. The display froze me in my heels, a deep tremble in my legs. Thoughts from my past triggered, and I couldn’t stop them.
Pain.
Alec’s fists coming out of nowhere, the blind rage in his eyes as he turned into someone I’d never seen.
But that’s not this. He’s not him.
He wasn’t, and I had to physically shake myself out of my head. The harsh severity of my past descended on me like storm clouds, and I grabbed my head, fighting the fear, and what my ex-husband had done. How he’d hurt me, hit me for something that wasn’t my fault.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
“Brielle.”
I opened my eyes to find Ramses, Ramses easing me out of the fear, the pain. He lifted a hand toward me, but I could only see one thing.
His knuckles.
They’d split, an angry red. They bled from his work on the guy who was currently being dragged up by security. Security was pushing him away, all of them away. It seemed they’d seen what had happened and were controlling the situation.
A particularly large one in all back reached out to Ramses. “You okay, Mr. Mallick?”
I shouldn’t be surprised they knew who he was, and thank god, he probably wouldn’t see any repercussions from what he’d done. That should be what I was focusing on, that he was okay, and we were okay.
But all the blood.
His hand when he waved to the guy things were fine. He directed his attention toward me, speaking words I barely heard. I just kept seeing him hit that guy, over and over and…
“Brielle?”
I think he saw the fear in my eyes, how shaken I was. He called out for security assistance, and they kept the crowds back that had suddenly congregated on the sidewalk. It was a combination of more media and curious theater goers, all of which parted with the help of the theater’s security staff. They gave us the room to get to our car, get out of there. Somehow my old life had found me again, and hugging my arms, I wasn’t sure if I could get out of it this time.
I was st
ill shaking after we got on the road.
Chapter Thirty
Bri
“What happened back there?” Ramses asked from the highway. He’d calmed down at this point. I had calmed down, but things were silent for a while. Quiet. His hand drew over his head. “Your ex is Alec Norrington? NFL linebacker Alec Norrington? That’s what they were saying.”
I was surprised he hadn’t figured that out sooner. I mean, if he’d dug deep enough, he probably could have figured it out. Though, the internet knew me by my married name.
Even still, if he’d looked, he probably could have found out, and that was what had been so nice. At some point, it obviously hadn’t mattered to him. My history. I swallowed. “I told you about the NDA.”
The words had his jaw clenching.
“Yeah, I know.” He swung a glance my way. “Are you okay?” he asked, but when he reached for me, I moved my hand away. It was just too soon.
He’s not your ex. You know that.
He wasn’t my ex but seeing him that way tonight certainly hadn’t felt good. I drew trembling fingers through my hair and Ramses noticed.
His eyes expanded. “You’re shaking.”
He reached for my hand again, and this time, I didn’t withdraw. This time I let him, my hand physically spasming like I was coming down from something. My breathing escalated, and I dizzied, so much so that it took me a second to realize Ramses had pulled off the road.
He unstrapped, holding my hands. He advised me to place my head between my legs and I did.
“God, baby,” he said, a worry in his voice I recognized. A fear I recognized, a fear for me.
I hated this, that we were going through this. But what’s worse, I hated that it felt like I had to fight for this so hard, fight myself and everything around us just to make us happen. It seemed if it wasn’t one thing it was another.
I closed my eyes. One thing I didn’t hate was his hand on my back. His fingers pulling through my hair.