When the camera guy gave the signal to go, I straightened and put that smile on my face I hoped would warm up the artic temperature.
“Hi, guys. How are you after the weekend?” I asked.
Jesus, Cynthia instantly started crying.
“I got a different hotel,” Bob filled in.
Fuck. That was not good. The show had paid for them to stay in the best. Hearing that Bob had practically jumped ship was a sign of the oncoming defeat.
“What made you do that, Bob?” I asked.
“Tired of this. I can’t do it anymore. In all the years we’ve been together, I think we’ve probably spent a total of two weeks apart with us going on trips with friends here and there. I wanted to see what it would be like on my own. On my own with the plan that I wouldn’t be going back to her.”
My shoulders dropped, and a flash of anger sparked in me. “So, you’ve given up, then, and this is a waste of my time?”
He looked thrown by the question.
“It’s not my intention to waste your time,” he replied.
“Why did you even come here today if you were going to do that?” This wasn’t a situation of reverse psychology. I was actually being serious. “In fact, why are either of you here? Eight weeks. In a few days, we would have been doing this for eight weeks, and we are still at the same place we were on day one.”
“I can’t stand the lies!” Bob cried. “Can’t I be respected like a normal human being and just be told the truth? Why should I have to deal with lies?”
Cynthia started crying harder, and I knew something else had happened.
“What happened now?” I asked, flicking over my palms. “Is there more we need to discuss? A few weeks back, I asked you guys to put everything on the table.”
“And she didn’t. She fucking didn’t.” Bob pointed at Cynthia and shook his head. “She thought she’d tell me last night, away from the fucking camera, that it wasn’t just her asshole boss she slept with. There was someone else.”
Oh God in heaven. I already had my reservations about Cynthia because I hated cheaters, but hearing this now was absolute shit.
“Cynthia, why didn’t you reveal this weeks ago? My intention in asking you guys to do that was to get us to a place where there were no more secrets. It was supposed to be a fresh start.” I looked long and hard at her.
She dried her tears and tried to talk. “I know, and I’m so embarrassed and ashamed. Ten years ago, I don’t know what happened to me. I really don’t know. We found out Bob couldn’t have kids, and I was devastated, but it wasn’t about me. I shouldn’t have felt that way because it was happening to him, not me. I did, though, and I just… I don’t know. I just gave into my boss’ advances, and this other guy.”
Okay, so that was ten years ago.
“Nothing since that time? Have you been with any other man besides Bob since then?” I thought I’d get that in just to be clear.
“No, I swear it. I haven’t. I lied to cover my tracks, and it blew up in my face. When I realized my mistakes, I was so disgusted with myself. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. No one can compare to him.”
It was so hard for me to believe that they were here at this point if she could say something like that.
“So, you told him this last night because?”
“It’s the last week, and I know it’s the last chance. When we go home, that’ll be it, and I’ll lose him forever.”
When I looked at Bob, my heart squeezed when I saw the tears running down his cheek. That was perhaps the most open Cynthia had been about what she wanted.
He pulled in a deep breath and shuffled in his chair to face her.
“Cynthia, last night, you didn’t tell me who this guy was.” Bob’s voice shook as he spoke. “You never said his name. I love you. I am cursed with loving you. Even when I try so hard to hate you, I can’t. If you seriously don’t want to lose me forever, then reveal the rest of the secret. Who was it?”
I looked at Cynthia too and once again knew the answer was not going to be good. If she was keeping this guy’s name out of it, it meant it was someone Bob knew.
Cynthia straightened her shoulders and shook her head. “I can’t tell you.”
“Why? Why not? I deserve to know.”
“I can’t.”
“So that’s it. You actually want to lose me forever. But this is it, Cynthia. I’m done. This is the last secret. There’s no point in moving forward with demons still lurking in the closet.”
He was completely right, and I had nothing to say because he was within his rights to know all secrets and make up his mind about what he wanted to do with the knowledge.
Cynthia was still shaking her head though.
“Cynthia, please answer Bob’s question,” I encouraged.
She started shaking, and I knew I was right. It was someone he knew.
“It was… it was … it was Johnny,” she answered, and Bob jumped up out of his seat.
“No, no… it’s not true.” Bob grabbed his head and backed away. “You wouldn’t do that to me. Not my best friend. Johnny’s my best friend. He was my best man at our wedding. I’ve known him my whole life. You guys wouldn’t do that to me.”
This was turning into an episode of Jerry Springer.
He walked back to her, knelt down, and stared her right in the eyes.
“Cynthia, baby… please… tell me it’s not true. Tell me it’s not true. Tell me it’s not true.” He kept saying that over and over again.
Every time he said it, I kept hoping Cynthia would say it wasn’t. I kept hoping and praying and wishing for him.
It wasn’t meant to be though. My heart broke when he broke down. The whole scene before me of the two of them opened up the ugly side of love. The very ugly side of love. Heartbreak. Deep, dark heartbreak.
Why was it that when I saw this side, it pushed away all the goodness I’d ever witnessed?
My parents, aunts and uncles, Sam and Olivia. All that Ivan showed me.
It was because I never had it good myself, and this here in front of me was all part of the ugly I’d witnessed, and it freaked me out.
When tears started streaming down my cheeks, I stood up and walked.
I got to the dressing room before I realized that someone was calling me, and the same someone caught my arm and pulled me flush against his chest.
No, not someone.
My someone. Ivan.
“Goddess, don’t you cry. I’m here. I’m here now,” he whispered into my ear. His voice was like a gentle caress on my heart.
A gentle caress on my soul. I gazed up at him, and something scary happened to me.
As I gazed at him, I realized in that moment that he was my good person.
He was the guy who was good to me, my guy who was good to me.
The last shred of control I had on my heart left me, and when he cupped my face and pressed his forehead so lovingly against mine, I fell for him.
“Please, can we just go home?” I asked. I just wanted to be with him. Away from the show, away from business.
He nodded and took my hand.
* * *
We went to his place.
By the time we got there, I tried to push the whole upset with Bob and Cynthia to the back of my mind, allowing myself the pleasure of being with my guy.
I got so lost in his kisses that if someone told me I’d made it to heaven, I’d believe them.
I would have definitely believed them.
He swept me up into his arms and carried me up to the bedroom, where we kissed the clothes off each other and fell into bed a tangle of kisses and the mad passion that took us. Just like his kisses, his touch felt different too. More personal, more everything. Enhanced by the thing that carried us and flowed from me to him, and him to me.
It was so powerful I got lost in that too, and it took reality from me. It became reality, and my skin sizzled with it.
I’d experienced a lot with this man, but I never knew this
part was coming.
All the while he spoke of trying to win me over and making me fall for him, I never knew this would be how I’d feel. I never knew he would make me a better version of myself, or that I could experience happiness so pure and rich that when I laughed, I really did laugh from deep in my soul.
This was it, and I was in so deep I couldn’t catch myself and stop myself from falling.
Falling and falling so hard I fell straight into all that he had to offer me, and I wanted it more than anything.
I understood it now. I understood him and his theories now, and once again, I had to agree that he was right.
When you were with someone who could help you get to where you wanted to be the way that you helped them, you both completed each other. That was the type of person everyone should strive to be with. We owed it to ourselves to do that.
That was how I felt with him.
In the passionate lock of us, I realized that we’d gone past the people who were just messing around having sex. We were making love. It was love, and it felt different. It was something I couldn’t quite describe.
The emotion that pulsed through my entire being, igniting in my soul, was love. Pure love that danced in my veins, singing so loud it was like a melodious shout of victory over my heart.
I knew he felt it too, and Ivan being Ivan was never the kind of person to shy away from anything. He always spoke his mind. As the waves of love continued to course through us, he smoothed his hand up my neck and held my face so I could gaze into his eyes.
“I love you,” he told me.
Those were the words that sealed it and brought it home. Since he spoke to my heart, my heart responded. “I love you too.” I told him.
Eleven years…
I hadn’t said those words to any man in just over eleven years. I hadn’t because I hadn’t felt it, and until tonight, I didn’t realize that what I’d felt with Brian was nothing.
I’d thought I was in love, but I wasn’t. It was just a version of it. A very bad version that destroyed me.
In the moment I spoke the words, those pieces of my heart that was so broken started fitting together past the patches I’d used in my attempt to fix it over the years.
He smiled a smile that showed me it meant everything to hear me say that. I knew it would because he’d tried so hard over the last few weeks to get me to climb up the ladder he’d held before me.
Ivan pulled me into his arms, placing my head on his chest, where I listened to the vibrant beat of my lover’s heart. There I stayed until he fell asleep.
I couldn’t sleep because I didn’t want the moment to end. I didn’t want to sleep, wake up, and be graced with my fears.
Fighting sleep didn’t, however, help. The fears came for me. They came for me in the early hours of the morning as I lay on my side, Ivan’s arm around me.
He was still asleep and seemed more exhausted than usual.
I looked around the room and thought of everything. Right from the start.
I took it right to the beginning to the person I was before I met Brian. In terms of personality, I wasn’t that different to how I’d been at twenty-one I was just a more enhanced version of that Jada Dane.
The difference between me then and now was that I’d had a bad taste of life. A taste of how someone could turn from being the person they wanted you to see into the person they truly were.
Ivan wasn’t like that. I knew in my heart he would never, ever treat me that way. But what scared me was that element of losing something good. Losing him in whatever way he would be lost to me.
When I first found out about Brian, it really killed everything inside me. It affected me in a way that still lingered. I knew that came down to not facing what happened. However, it still affected me.
If I’d never fallen for anyone the way I had for Ivan. What would I be like when we fell apart?
When.
It was always when. I couldn’t contemplate the opposite of that and see us being this way forever because history told me that the person I thought I was in love with treated me so badly he could have killed me, and he would have preferred for that to happen over me leaving him in peace and live a life with my baby.
History told me that I was the kind of woman you’d never be serious about. The kind who was a fling, the kind who was a side piece, the kind who you would never want to be with.
I didn’t know what flaw Ivan would find with me as there were so many, and it looked like I’d just accumulated more over the years. My most recent being the bitch who thought most men were dogs with all her revolutionary techniques on finding love.
I turned in his arms to face him, loving him more than I possibly could imagine.
At the same time, though, I realized I couldn’t have him.
I couldn’t have this. I couldn’t be with him, and that was the truth for me.
If I lost this angel-like being, there would be no fixing for me. I wouldn’t make it back.
He was what I wanted, I kept that open mind for him, but I couldn’t take the risk.
I couldn’t take the risk.
So, I became the thing I hated the most and turned to weakness. I became a coward.
“I love you,” I whispered into his ear, then I slipped out of his arms and decided I had to slip out of his life too.
Chapter 29
Ivan
Damn it…
She really did leave.
I’d woken up a few minutes ago to an empty bed. Cold and empty.
I’d lain there for a while thinking that maybe she was in the bathroom, or downstairs in the kitchen. Then I realized it was too quiet. Way too quiet.
Getting up and walking around to look for her confirmed she’d gone. I was so stupid; even when I saw that she wasn’t here, I still did a second sweep of the place and then went out to the garden and the garage.
I sat here now with my phone wanting to call her, but I couldn’t.
Anyone who knew me knew I was very intuitive. I always knew what someone was thinking even before they did something or said something.
Right now, I knew Jada wasn’t here because of last night. Because of saying I love you.
Me to her, and she to me. It was the thing that changed us. It was the thing that changed her.
Weeks ago, when she tiptoed around a label, I knew she didn’t really want to do that. That’s why I didn’t get upset. I knew she just needed to be what we were in her own way. In the time she needed. I couldn’t complain because we’d only been together for… not even two weeks. And in those two weeks, we weren’t together, together. It was the time we’d known each other and went from hate to love, or something more than that.
I’d never told any woman besides my mother and Catherine that I loved them. I’d never felt it strong enough, and for me, those were words best reserved for when you actually meant it.
I may have been a big asshole when I played football and was a player with my groupies in every essence, who took advantage of the fame and popularity, but I wasn’t the guy to tell a woman he loved her when he didn’t mean it.
Look at me now, the poor sap who’d fallen head over heels for Jada Dane, and I knew she’d run off scared because she didn’t know how to deal with this next phase of us.
I put my phone away. Calling her wasn’t best. It would hurt me more if she didn’t answer. It would hurt more if I knew she saw her phone ringing, saw it was me, and didn’t answer.
Seeing her face-to-face was what I had to do. It was ten. We had to be at the studio at noon. We had time to talk and… Well, seeing her and talking was the first step. Then I’d know what to do from there.
Chances were, I could be wrong and maybe she had to leave because of something else. Maybe it was that, and I was overreacting.
I didn’t think so though.
I knew I was right when I got to her place and saw her in her garage, sorting through some stuff on the shelves. When she turned and looked at me, I saw she’d been cry
ing.
Her usual well-put-together appearance wasn’t there. Beauty was still her, even with the swollen, puffy eyes and the blotchiness to the honey-toned hue of her golden skin, but something in her had changed.
Surprise suffused her features when she saw me. She seemed thrown and uncertain of what to say. I walked into the garage and right up to her.
She pressed her pink lips together, keeping her gaze trained on me.
I didn’t need to make the situation more awkward than it already was with pleasantries or by asking her what was wrong.
I knew.
“It was last night, wasn’t it?” I stated. My voice held a rasp and an uncertainty I didn’t recognize.
She glanced down at the concrete floor, then looked back to me with tear-filled eyes. “Ivan, could we maybe talk about this another time? I should get myself together for the show. Who knows what mess I’ll be walking into today.”
She wasn’t going to brush me off so easily, not when I was a mess.
“Jada, this is ridiculous. It’s also not you. Unless you didn’t mean it when you told me you loved me.” Maybe it was that. Maybe she’d said it in the moment because we were both hyped up on the afterglow of love. Maybe she’d pitied me and returned the sentiment when I said it so that I wouldn’t feel bad.
What the hell…
I wasn’t like this. I wasn’t this guy who didn’t know what was going on, or who allowed himself to get sucked into irrational fears. But she was making me like this because I didn’t want to lose her.
A tear ran down her cheek, and another followed.
“You know what’s funny? You were right. Weeks ago, you were so right when you told me I’d never fallen hard for anyone before. I didn’t realize then, when you said that, it would be you. So, last night, when I told you I love you, I meant it, and the worst part was, it was the first time I’d said it and felt it. I’d only said those words to one other man, and it wasn’t real, and you know how that story went.”
My heart squeezed, and my chest tightened listening to her. It was a double effect of emotion where I savored hearing her express her love for me, but at the same time reason out why she couldn’t be with me.
The Love Doctors Page 21