When I reach for his hand he flinches and stands up quickly. He walks out of the room and mutters in a sharp, cutting tone, “I am going to work for a while,” without even curtly glancing my way.
You mean you're getting away from me…
I decide to stop poking and to instead let him cool off, I go to brush my teeth. As I stare at my reflection in the mirror I am struck with the irony that my image looks nearly perfect. I look so polished and together and feel the absolute opposite inside.
I drop my dress to the floor, toss my bra towards the walk-in closet and slide into bed. Before killing the light I turn on my iPod to Evanescence to try and calm my livid temper.
When I wake from a very troubled sleep and move my hand over to Daniel’s side of the bed, I find a disturbingly cold and empty mattress. I shift over to check the time. It’s long past midnight.
Still shaking off sleep, I shrug into Daniel’s abandoned shirt. There are muffled noises coming from the opposite side of the house which get louder as I surface from the night’s alcohol debris, lumbering through the corridor. The blurred noises morph into harsh sounding music as I near the gym. I stop short when I open the door, taking in Daniel’s sweaty image as it appears before me in the predawn light. Frenzied rock music plays in the background while Daniel beats the living hell out of a punching bag. I only manage to register one word from the blaring music: “radioactive”.
I cringe.
As I take a step forward I'm well aware that I'm stepping against an impasse. He's never going to voluntarily address this, at least not verbally.
I would. I'm done ignoring our differences! But I know that for this to work I should first check my ego at the door. When Daniel stops to grab a water bottle from the floor beside him, he notices me. He watches me with his lips tightly pulled together into one frozen line for some tense moments, then raises questioning brows over disturbed eyes. I move to the remote sitting on top of the bench press and turn down the music, then settle cross-legged where the remote had been.
“Let’s talk about it,” I say in a determined yet gentle tone.
“No.”
I take a moment to find the right words to reach him without unleashing his inner tiger. As I do so, I watch his strained face. There is a sweat drop slowly crawling from his temple to his hard-set jaw. His hair is damp and stuck in wet clusters to his face. His chest is bare, tan and covered with a glossy layer; he's still wearing his dress pants, and he's barefoot. A vision of heated, raw masculinity.
“Don’t even say his name,” he warns.
I keep studying him, weary and deeply caught up in my thoughts, still silent.
“Don’t even think about him.” The very next words to come out of his mouth are uttered quietly and incoherently, and I’m sure they're not intended for me, but I still manage to gather something about contaminating my body and bearing his children.
My stare deepens. The color of his voice and his entire air could not be more livid. He is purely and simply infuriated, and me? I couldn’t be more content. I need to fight my urge to smirk at the implication of his words, and knowing fine well that if my lips even slightly pull up right now, psycho here will flip.
Time for scrubbing Hales. This needs to be done with delicacy and in an alert frame of mind.
Disregarding the hazard signs scattered all over his face, I say calmly, “It was a one-time thing.”
He slams an audible punch into the suspended bag and closes his eyes, fuming. I wince at the thud but go on. “After that one incident, there was nothing physical. We barely even spoke after that.”
He holds the bag in both hands and rests his forehead on the black leather, his eyes still closed and the planes of his face hard.
“What was it, did he dazzle you with his extensive polish and guile?”
I disregard the jibe; I will not be dragged into any base, worthless product of his ragged emotions. He turns to look at me, the side of his face still pressed against the punching bag, volcanic emotions in the depths of his stare, and...Something else.
“I slept with someone.” Air is sucked out of me as I try to make sense of this.
And henceforth the testament for you, Hayley, for what he’s been trying to tell you for a while now. My sympathy from a moment ago changes radically. Hell, I think. DIE! To my ripped open eyes he continues in a frost-coated voice, “When we broke up, I slept with someone.”
His revelation hangs thick in the air between us for a few ticking moments, so perceptible it's almost physical. As the weight of what he said sinks in, each word feels as if it is burned onto me with a branding iron. I feel a fracture expending in my gut in tandem with nausea that travels, slow and burning, up my throat. I can’t look at him right now. Just the thought of him sharing an intimate moment with someone else…
I close my eyes trying to stop the tremor building inside, doing my best to shut all this out. I can’t breathe.
And here I was about to serve him my head on a plate, all for nothing.
“And now's the time to tell me that? Are you getting back at me? Is that what you're doing? I did not sleep with Brad to hurt you!” My voice is almost a scream. And in response to my tone something seems to be changing within him. Perhaps it's the logic behind my point, the realization of what he just threw between us. There’s a twist of remorse tugging at his face. For the first time ever, I see Daniel’s eyes grow panicked.
“You might as well have just gutted me. It would have been less painful,” I murmur, and his eyes turn to two dark russet gems of alarm and guilt. I fight the sting in my eyes, collecting all my willpower to not let a single tear fall.
“From one of your catalogs?”
His face cringes at this streak of meanness. He wipes his glistening forehead and rubs his eyes, letting out an audible sigh. I know it's a low blow, but I am not on my best behavior, nor am I really thinking. Hell if I'll be culling my words carefully now. “Who was she?” I say, seething through my clenched jaw.
“No one.”
I raise an incredulous brow; my mouth involuntarily turns into a mocking semblance of a smile.
“Someone I met at a bar.”
I close my eyes. Bile acid burns me as it flows sluggishly up my throat. My intuition deep inside begs me to shut him up, and yet I don’t, as though I have an irrational craving for further penance. You're doing one hell of a job here, Daniel, digging a grave for us.
“I was piss drunk, Hales. I didn’t know my left from my right.”
No circumstance would serve as an excuse here. He rightly doesn’t make any attempt to get closer to me. “And yet you were lucid enough to use your other organs?”
He takes in a deep, repentant breath, gazing at me with his tapered, worried stare.
“Where did you...?” I can’t bring myself to name the actual act. Just thinking of it bites pieces out of my bowels.
“The bedroom.” He gestures toward that part of the house with his chin, and his dry answer vacuums away any air left in my lungs.
The same one I just slept in. The strength of his words is like a wire around my neck that tightens with every syllable he utters.
“Did you kiss her?” Under his creased forehead his eyes flash to mine in surprise, trying to make sense of what my question means.
“Did you or not?” I yell. And his words from when we'd just met ricochet in my head: “I don’t kiss if I don’t mean it.”
“Hales, can you please keep your hand down and stop raising your voice?” he asks quietly. I can see his effort to stay intact but his working jaw gives him away.
“Well, what can I say? You just bring out the very best in me,” I say snidely. “Did you, or did you not?” I tighten the hold of my hand on my chest. He doesn’t answer, but his eyes and his silence speak volumes. I have my answer right there in his face and it is a punch to the center of my stomach.
“I was mad. I thought you'd left for good. I was so hurt. I thought it could somehow take the pain away.” He t
akes a deep breath. “It felt like revenge,” he mumbles wearily.
“Well it sure hurts. You did a mighty fine job at that. Fucking overachiever.” My voice comes out in sheer bitter disdain.
“Don’t say that.” He takes a hesitant step toward me.
“Don’t,” I say, wrathful, my eyes warning fires. “Don’t,” I sigh, now in a strangled whisper, unable to put any strength behind my voice anymore.
He looks at me with shuttered eyes, beat and broken. “What are you telling me, Hales?”
“Do you really want my impulsive response right now, Daniel?” I snap, my face glazed in rage. My heart twinges as though it's being pressed in some medieval torture device. “I can’t be here now. I can’t be next to you. I can’t sleep in your bed,” I say, revolted.
I can’t even look at you.
“I need to be alone and think so I won't do something we’ll both regret. I, as opposed to you, don’t react on impulse, Daniel.”
He nods, knowing exactly what I'm referring to: how he assumed the worst when my conversation with Tasha was published by an eavesdropping reporter and he broke up with me. He reaches for my hand and I yank it away. Our fingers brush as we break contact and to me it feels like a blister. My breaking point is at the starting gun, just waiting to launch.
“Is there anything I can do now to make it better? I’ll do anything! I. Am. Not. Losing. You. Again.” He intones each word staccato.
I can sense he's itching to come closer, but fights it. The swelling in my throat expands but I hold back my tears. I can’t cry anymore.
How can I respond to that? How do I figure out what’s right when his presence is clouding my thoughts? Leave now, Hales. Just leave.
“Don’t go away,” he says, as if he had a direct line to my deepest thoughts. “I'll sleep on the couch, in the guest house, just please calm down.” He almost begs me. For a moment I am overwhelmed. The Daniel I know so well doesn’t do begging.
“Calm down?” I say, venom tinting my words. “I can’t be around you now, Daniel!” And I can’t even go to my own goddamn home now, come to think of it. It’s too late and I don’t really want to be with Ian and Tasha. I don’t feel like discussing the reason for my voluntary exile with anyone. I need to be by myself.
“You want me to book you a room somewhere?” Daniel offers, compromising.
At least he seems to comprehend the severity of my resolution. My eyes shoot to his and in the calmest, dimmest voice I reply, “Don’t you dare. I don’t want you to do anything for me.” I stare at him pointedly. “You’ve done enough.” And as I start dialing, looking for hotels near work, I hear him mumble wearily, “You walking away is getting old.”
My eyes fire up in rage.
I could seriously strangle him right now.
“Perhaps you screwing up is what’s getting old,” I counter, darting a piercing look at him over my shoulder, and resume putting another shirt into my suitcase, with my phone still tucked between my ear and shoulder.
He steps away.
As I confirm my reservation with the Ritz, Daniel returns to the room. Just to add to my growing irritation, there are hardly any available rooms in the city because of some international medical convention. The Ritz again? What an end to this night… The morose irony doesn’t escape me. After inching closer for some time, Daniel ends up sitting next to my suitcase, making it tip with his mass on the mattress. He grabs my hand and pulls me so I'm standing in front of him.
“Look at me, Hales.” His voice is thick with distress. I shift my eyes to meet his and dig into my lips in annoyance.
“What?” I snarl.
“Hales, we broke up. I thought you’d never change your mind. I was crushed. The thought of losing you devastated me. I was bitter and hurt and drunk and yes, acting impulsive, without really thinking, or thinking vindictively. At the time it seemed like something that might make me feel better.” The tail end of his sentence wears thin as he tries to overcome my hostility. I counter his stare with a combination of anger and disgust.
“It meant nothing. I regretted it mid action.” A sour repulsion finally stops at my mouth at the vision he's conjured in my mind with the word “action”, and I have to swallow hard.
“I know it’s something that’s hard to overlook, but again, we weren’t together. It meant nothing. If I could, I would go back and change it.” He sighs, almost defeated.
I remain silent, sawing the hell out of my lips. Tears start to pile at the corner of my eyes and I blink them away.
“What I am asking is please don’t take too long, and Hales…” His thumb grazes my knuckles and a shiver goes through me, a shiver of sadness fused with anger.
Why did he have to go and do that? I don’t want to leave now. I want to roll into a fetal position and have him wrap himself around me, make it all go away, tell me it's just a very, very bad joke. But I know full well that when logic kicks in again, and when I think about everything with a clear mind, I’ll want him far away from me.
“I’ll think about it. Just let me be for now.” My small voice, in addition to clear sarcasm, holds frustration, resentment, and a sense of sour loss. We just got back together. Finally I was in the comfort zone where maybe we’d be okay.
“Why does it feel like you're really leaving?” he says, walls shaking gravely, following me to the door.
“Because I'm stepping out of this house,” I say. I want to say, “I need time away, I need to think, I just need to be alone,” but keep silent. I don’t want to make him feel any better, to give him any hope.
Why should I? Perhaps he’ll feel at least half the pain and betrayal I feel right now if I don’t. I will not make this easy on him. He doesn’t deserve it.
“Christ, Hales.” He slams his hand against the wall and I jump at the loud thump it makes.
I just look at him with tapered eyes, fighting not to move a muscle; I hold my expression blank and mumble, “Goodbye.”
Driving down quiet streets to the hotel, I feel like I'm driving into chaos, yet again. Inner chaos. There is a song crying over the speakers about how love is not a victory march, but a cold and broken hallelujah.
“A cold and broken elegy is more like it,” I snarl to my pain-filled eyes that look back at me via the rearview mirror.
“Don’t take too long… Why does it feels like you’re really leaving?” Daniel’s words echo in my head.
Chapter 15: Mrs. Stark?
“Good evening Mrs. Stark, and welcome to the Ritz Carlton.”
If looks could kill, the young man in the black suit with the golden nametag in front of me would be cruising the streets in a hearse, headed for the nearest morgue.
Mrs. Stark? I gape, annoyed, at the enthusiastic, polished clerk who is, luckily, shielded behind the front desk.
“Here is the key to your room. Your in-room spa treatment is scheduled for eight A.M and a light dinner will be brought to you shortly. If you need anything else, please dial zero for reception.”
“Sir?” I say, wanting to stop his bubbling speech.
“Yes, Mrs. Stark.”
Urgh.
“How did you know I was, hmm, Mrs. Stark?” I almost choke as I utter these words. “Don’t you need some sort of identification?” I raise an accusing, dubious eyebrow.
“Mrs. Stark, your husband was very explicit with his instructions and requests.” Mr. Ginger’s naturally pink cheeks turn a deeper red.
Oh boy, I guess he was the one who had the pleasure of speaking to my alleged husband, and I know just how explicit my “husband” can be. I now feel slightly sorry for the guy.
I can’t believe Daniel took the liberty of messing with my reservation.
“I'll just need your signature here, Mrs. Stark...” He draws my attention to a document, pointing with a pen to my name as it appears above a dotted line: Hayley J. Stark. I can’t help the smile forming on my face as I see the bold black letters on the white paper and repeat it silently in my head.
&nb
sp; Hey there, time to let your backbone play center stage in this spineless mollusk you’ve become where your fictitious husband is concerned, instead of humming the freaking wedding march.
And yet I sign as Mrs. Stark, biting away my goofy smirk. Well, it’s not like Daniel can really see me.
During the elevator ride to my room I think about how I just want to take a long, steaming shower, to get this chaos off my skin. When I swipe my key card and the tinny green light blinks on, I shove open the heavy door and remain frozen at the room’s threshold for a long moment.
What the hell have you done, Daniel? Wasn’t I explicit enough when I told him not to interfere? Swanky doesn’t even begin to describe the extravagant opulence in front of me. Surveying the surroundings I realize “someone” has upgraded my humble booking to an enormous goddamn suite.
At the freaking Ritz!
Overbearing psycho. As if all this pampering would help. If he had only kept his pants intact, he wouldn’t have to go through all this waste and trouble.
Tired, annoyed, and somewhat gloomy, I fight gravity as I get into the shower, after a short chat with the nice server who brings me my very unnecessary 'light dinner'.
It’s around 1:30 am… I shake my head.
Closing my eyes, letting the comforting water ease my mind, I try hard not to think.
My phone chimes with an incoming message as I'm tucked into the unbelievably comfortable, god-sized bed, about to close my eyes in hope of a stress-free sleep, at least in the short hours remaining before I need to wake up for work.
Daniel: Believe me Hales, I am more sorry than you think I should be.
This short message brings me down and makes tears sting my eyes. I don’t reply.
Perhaps I should remind myself that this purgatory does have an expiration date, and only I hold the key to make it stop.
Chapter 16: Cryptic Messages
Inner Core: (Stark, #2) Page 11