One question doesn’t give me a reprieve. How was he blinded by so much hatred? Why?
I can’t erase my love for him, but right now, I can’t be the one to stand by his side and soothe him. I must preserve my well-being.
The look in his eyes, though, the complete defeat shatters me more than all the hurt swallowing me. For once, it’s him who can’t find a way back.
At home, everything turns odd and lacking. There’s no laughter painting the walls, no embraces to warm up the air, and no kisses to ignite a thousand stars to shine for us. His arms aren’t here anymore for me to bask in the feeling of security and love. There’s no him, so ultimately there’s nothing in me, just pieces, millions of them, cutting my flesh to find their path to my heart. I trudge to my bedroom, dragging the feet of a defeated woman who almost had a real opportunity of a second chance.
On autopilot, I undress and put on silky summer pajamas. My head drops on the pillow, and I find an ounce of comfort for my heavy heart and beaten body. The door creaks open, and Alex steps toward me, his hands shoved in his pockets. It must be hard for him to see me this torn. He lays next to me, and I place my cheek on his chest. He strokes my hair, and my strong facade melts. With him, I don’t pretend I am not falling apart. He has always been my rock.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but talk to me. I can’t go through this again. Don’t keep it inside, let it out.”
“I promise I will, but I need time. Time to process, time to recover, and time to heal. Give me that.”
“Planning your next escape, then? Dad would love the idea, but I’m not sure how he’ll take it seeing you like this.”
I squeeze his arm and plead, “Don’t tell him. He’ll only worry.”
“I won’t.”
A small relief flows through me. One less worry for the week. I burrow myself into him, and stammer, “I’m cold, so cold inside. It’s like my whole being keeps shivering. I can’t make it stop.”
“I’m here. Stay here with me. Okay?”
I fist his shirt and sniffle. “I don’t know what I’d do without you in my life. At times like this, I want to keep you to myself and protect us from the outside.”
He shelters me to him, and a sigh rolls from him to me. “If I knew there was a part in your heart, one small part that’s still yours, I never would’ve found it in me to let you go. But he took everything. You gave it freely anyway. You might love me, but you would never look at me like your next breath depends on it. I saw what you look like when love blossoms inside you.” He pauses, his love for me shines in his eyes, and my heart pounds in my chest. His confession, like our love for each other, dangles on a fine line never to be crossed.
“Whatever we feel for each other, Bria, is based on two broken people who found in the other a response to a deep need. He has you as I’ve never even dared to dream.” His lips find my temple, and he drags in a lungful of air, his hands tightening on me.
“The leftovers of your love would be like vapors offered to a thirsty man, just cruel. I never could’ve been the one, but I’ll always have a tiny part of you, and it’s enough. He destroyed himself. I guess it’s what he mostly wanted because there was nothing left of him in your absence. He never could’ve tried to ruin you without him being there holding your hand in your downfall. To be honest, I’m sorry for him.”
My mouth hangs open. “You sound like you’re making excuses for him. I promised him I’d never leave him again, but I barely keep my promise of self-preservation,” I gulp, and Alex chuckles.
“You always do what you want. There’s no need to try to convince you of anything. Just stay away from the darkness and the temptation it brings with it.” He kisses me on my forehead and blankets me in.
I toss and turn, but sleep eludes me.
The day knocks at my window, and I drag the sheet over my head. It’s even worse, as my heart rips with the thought of him.
Hundreds of times I catch myself bolting upright to go to him. What stops me is my lack of understanding his actions. Wrenching pain shrouds me, and my monologues verge on insanity by the hour.
Gratitude fills me as both Alex and Sophia allow me to vegetate in peace.
Days blend in with nights. My state of mind and heart worsens. My muscles turn sore from all the inactivity, and my eyes stare into emptiness. The only thing my mind adores to torment me with is Damien’s name as my arms widen and stretch in the blackness in search of him. My heart becomes my worst enemy as it keeps a feral grip on my love for him.
What’s he doing?
Does he think of me?
Has he come to accept his impending wedding?
Agonizing thoughts leading to agonizing misery and shame over my lack of trust in his feelings for me ripple through me.
Sophia coerces me to take a shower once a day, and Alex puts up with me, no complaints, and thankfully, no heartfelt kind of conversations. He brings me my medicine and something to eat, daring me not to. I know better, so I force the food down and try to show my appreciation to them with my willingness to cooperate. This is all I can give them.
I’m stuck with no intention of moving in one direction or the other. I lay in my bed where I can keep the last remnants of Damien still intact and fresh in my heart—from his smell to his presence, and all the ways he lights me up like a thousand fireworks. As long as I still feel him cocooning me to him, I don’t wish to leave this room. My stubbornness keeps me away from going to him even though I ache to see for myself how he’s doing and ignore the need to find proof that there’s a good reason behind his action.
My phone rings and my heart pounds in my chest when I glance at his name flashing on my screen. Tears leak down my cheeks, and with shaky fingers, I stumble to press accept. Shhh, heart! I whisper to myself.
“Baby.” His hoarse voice turns dead, and my core knots up. I force my mouth to open, but I can’t. “You confessed. Let me confess now.”
“Damien.” His name breaks on my lips, the hurt emphasized with every syllable of his name.
“It hurts. I hurt you again, but hear me out, one more time, baby.” He pauses and inhales a long breath. My heart piques, hoping, forever wishing, to understand and not to give up on him. “I did a lot of thinking. I’m sure I never deserved you. I wanted you because I loved you. Did I offer you a chance to say no? I don’t remember so.”
I open my mouth to interrupt him, say it’s not true, but he continues, “It has always been about me. Me wanting you, me loving you, me needing you. Me.”
“Damien, no,” I shout at him and shut my eyes, but it’s as if he doesn’t hear me or want to.
“Even now, I sound like a fucking selfish bastard. Now, it’s about my pain. I’m pathetic. I’m sorry, baby, for never being the good guy, for wishing to be your damn hero, even though I’ve no clue what one does. I’m torn between rushing and kneeling to you to beg for forgiveness, for another chance, and letting you go to find someone else. What does a good guy do in such a situation? I don’t know, but I love you so damn much even though I suck at showing you.”
I stifle my cries. I’ve witnessed him in many situations but never so vulnerable, so depleted, so hollow. My chest heaves for him. “I came to visit you.”
My heart speeds up, and I cry out, “What? When?” I shoot upright in bed, a thunder of anguish hitting my insides. My heartbeats pierce my ears, and the pain erupting from within swallows me in. His next words prove me right.
“Where do I start?” Sarcastic laughter escapes his lips. “After I thought you cheated on me, your absence altered something in me. I started to drink to forget about you for a while, but not even in a stupor could I forget, still I kept doing it. I missed you so much, nothing helped. From one day to the next, you weren’t there anymore, it wrecked me. The silence, the grief, the sadness surrounded me. I felt your absence so much more vivid than your presence.”
Every word of his holds the weight of a thousand sorrows. “After one year, I couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted to
confront you. I needed to know why. I told myself maybe you needed to try being with someone else to be sure it was me you wanted. Who was I to stop you? Right?”
“Damien, God . . .” I mutter.
“What else could I tell myself to keep hoping? I stopped drinking and punching a bag until my knuckles would split and bleed. Shortly after, I returned to London, and Chloe found me in my bathroom, hunched over a line, nose bleeding while I stared at my reflection in the mirror . . . bloodshot, empty, dead eyes.”
My heart breaks for him, but I’m also angry at him, his name, merely a whisper touching my lips. “Damien.”
“I remember we promised never to try it, but the pain, I had to numb it, and then I took it to function through my days. I was weak. I’ll always be weak when it comes to you. But isn’t that what true love’s about, being weak, so damn vulnerable, and strong all at once? The most fucked-up paradox, and with our love, there was either the top or bottom.” I hear his deep breaths, his hand running down his face as he shuffles in a seat.
“I don’t know if I’d ever stop the cycle.” His confession rips me apart. It’s the pain of the one you love the most you feel a thousand times worse than your own. “Chloe said, ‘This isn’t the guy Bria fell in love with. If you ever loved her, respect her enough to make her proud she once loved you.’”
My body rocks with my cries, and they roll out of my dry throat in silent waves.
“It clicked. Your name, the memories yanked me from whatever destructive road I found myself on. You, my savior if you love me and destroyer, if not. Please, don’t cry for me, baby. It was all on me, never you . . .” He pauses, and I force myself to swallow my sobs. I need to hear this, and he needs to set himself free, to yank and toss aside this so-called weakness he hides so well.
“I cleared my head and focused one hundred percent on my studies again. I was with no one even though I gave the impression I was. I wanted to win you back. I thought if you loved me once, then you could love me again. I couldn’t live without you. I simply couldn’t and can’t. But I proved to be stronger than my new addiction. After months of drinking and consuming, it was pure hell, but I put myself through it and fought my way back, literally and figuratively. I started with it; it was me who had to end it too.” He chuckles, but it’s a low, deprecating one. He hates weakness, people getting wasted, doing drugs. He would always question what would push someone to want to forget, to lose control. I guess he found out. My hearts stills, bleeds, and spills over my insides.
“I flew to New York. I found the address of your parents’ home office. I snuck in when they were in the office. I had to, as whenever I was around, no one would even mention you. That first Christmas, I was so high and your absence, your empty seat, I thought you died. Sweat trickled down my neck, and I would rub my hands down my jeans, but I was determined to get my girl back.” A low, broken groan escapes his lips.
“When I did see you, it sucked the air out of my lungs, and hope emerged. Emotions ran amok inside me. Your image shook me out of my comatose state. You looked stunning in skinny jeans and a yellow blazer, your hair brushing against your waist, shining in the late summer sun.” He pauses as if he’s transported to the exact moment in time, and my heart squeezes. “You held a folder containing your university courses over your chest. There was something I witnessed in your eyes, or better said it was the lack of any sparkle that jolted me from my trance. My heart pounded in my chest, the need to ask what’s wrong assaulting me, but Alexander got there before me, and I broke down. It was then, whatever made me, snapped inside me for good.”
I cover my mouth to muffle the cries threatening to overtake me. Two times he had to see me believing I was with someone else. I fist the sheets, my blurry eyes shooting to the ceiling, asking why?
“Three days, Bria, I watched you with him, you were never alone. He was always there, putting his arms around your shoulder or waist. You looked comfortable with him, even though I never looked into your eyes again afraid they’d be full of him, but I watched his. He drank you in, his shone with love. I crashed on a bench in the park, and an old lady spotted you. She said, ‘Such a lovely couple. They come here every day to feed the swans.’ That was our thing. That was when I realized I’d lost you. Whoever I was before, I lost that part of me too.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why? Damien, feeding the swans was me holding on to the memory of us.”
“I know now, but then it was another betrayal. I flew back to London, went to a party, and took someone with me. That was the first time. I even fidgeted with a condom. We never used one. I had no clue, but I pulled myself together. I fucked her while I strained every muscle in my body to get it over with. Afterward, I stormed from the room, my stomach churning, and I threw up. I never spent the night with anyone, kissed no one. When you said it was a first for you to have someone else with you in your bathroom, it was a first for me too. I fucked, but there has never been any intimacy. I couldn’t.”
With every confession, understanding dawns over me. “You never wanted to be in the position to be vulnerable again,” I whisper.
“When you came back with him, it destroyed me. I didn’t hate you, but my incapacity to move on from you. For me, you were with him, in a three-year-long relationship, while my stomach still heaved after I fucked someone.”
Even though I don’t want to picture it, I can’t shake the impression it was more of desperation that he was with someone else than being the playboy I thought he’d become. He had no connection with anyone except for Monica, who always chose him.
The picture clears in front of me. I grasp his reasons. “Monica was loyal to you.”
“Yes. I thought—”
“You thought you should offer something to her because you stopped believing you had a worth of your own.”
A pause stretches between us, so many thoughts cross my mind, and feelings battle in my chest.
“I needed to tell you, to confess my weakness, why I turned into this man who still loves you, only you, but I’m no good.”
“Will you ever accept that as a saint or a sinner, an angel or a monster, I would take and love you as you are?” I admit. He breaks down in sobs.
When they subside, he ends, “This is my truth, Bria. If you’ll ever find it in you to forgive me . . . if I learned something, it’s that we’ll meet again, our love is like this . . . but I’ll wait for words next time and not misinterpret images. Don’t hate me, baby.”
“I—”
“It’s fine, you need time. Please, take care, okay?”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll find a way. I would’ve left the company for an indefinite time after I’d appointed you as the CEO.”
“What?” I shriek, and he offers.
“Is it such a surprise? This was me offering the only woman I’ve ever loved my greatest achievement. Plus, who else if not you? You deserve to be the CEO. After what I did over the years and ultimately said to you that night, I crossed a line. You still loved me, realizing it broke me. Your pain that night shattered me. You won the war, baby, but in the end, we were both just ruins. My engagement was for you to hate me enough to let go, to give me up. By then, I turned hollow. I knew she loved me, but I was desperate to soak even an ounce of something warm, loyal, beautiful in your absence. I couldn’t give her my heart, so I gave her what I had plenty of and held no value to me—money, a position, and me on paper.”
“I—”
“Bria, baby, nothing has ever changed my love for you. My pain just blinded it. Nothing will ever make me stop loving you. Nothing, never!”
He hangs up, and the lights to my heart turn black, his confession lingering above me. Now I know. It’s the ones who hurt the most, wish to hurt the other, perhaps not to remain alone in their excruciating misery.
ALEX
I pace through my room as I grip my head in my hands. It can’t go on like this. It breaks my heart to witness her like this bordering on becoming a veget
able left to rot. Just a few days ago, she emanated joy, and love painted her beauty in a hundred different shades.
Two people mean the world to me, and I would do anything for Bria and my dad. If her well-being depends on me finding a solution for them to be together, I won’t hold back.
I swallow the lump in my throat, but I have to do this for her.
I grab the phone and call Liam. He’s my only solution.
They think they know all about me, the good guy. I huff remembering trading in favors, balancing the power, and feeding on the influence. I put my phone to my ear and count the seconds until Liam picks up.
The deep voice edging on threatening greets me, belonging to the man who used to be my best friend. “Alex.”
“Liam.”
I ball my hands into fists, this power game he’s far better at.
“I need your help.”
“How can I possibly imagine you called to say hello.”
“Don’t act all wounded. It’s a fucked-up lie.”
“What is it you need?”
“I need something that keeps someone immobile while that one person spills all her dirty secrets.”
“That’s it?”
“There’s a contract, I presume there are three in total, two copies and one original. I want them all. I also want an annulment drafted as a backup.”
“When?”
“As soon as possible.”
“In three days. Meet me in London. Egerton, eight o’clock.”
He hangs up. All I want is to forget everything I need to do in the next few days. I pack a bag, rush to Bria’s room, and tell her I’m leaving for a few days. But she doesn’t acknowledge me, her eyes lost in the pain that leaves more visible marks on her beautiful face every day. I’m sure she won’t even realize I’m gone. I close the door behind me and meet my girlfriend, who’s the perfect combination to fit both the good and the bad in me. She matches me and silently steals my heart, bringing me joy where there was silence.
Will I gain her love, too, though?
Healing Love: A Billionaire Romance (Forever Us Book 2) Page 23