“Well?” Ali felt even jumpier than before, the hollow feeling in her stomach anticipating the worst and wanting to get it over with as quickly as possible.
“I won’t keep you long.” He suddenly broke the stare and swung away from her, pacing. “This isn’t going anywhere, Ali. It’s time to end it.”
Ali felt the colour drain from her face. She nodded slowly. Her face felt heavy and immovable, like her features had been cut from stone. “Right.”
He turned to look at her. “So you agree, then? We’ll call it off and move on?” His mouth twisted into a smile. “I know you’ve enjoyed the sex and I don’t imagine you’ll have much difficulty finding someone else to fill the gap, so to speak. But as for me, the experience has begun to pall somewhat. I’ve had enough.”
The stab of his words dug into something very tender and vulnerable, deep inside her. But it was as if she had been frozen on the outside, her face and body granite. She could barely move, could barely talk.
She made herself nod. “Fair enough. Those were the terms we had agreed to at the outset, after all.” Her voice sounded strange and distant.
He nodded curtly. “Great.” His pacing suddenly took him in the direction of the door, and he yanked it open, then paused, his strong shoulders framed by the doorway. “Now that Mason’s better, it might be best if he conducts all further business between the companies.” He spoke without turning around or looking back.
“Fine. I’ll tell him.”
Even after he closed the door behind him, Ali stood, unable to move, barely able to breathe, for several moments.
Paulo must have been wrong. He must have misread Rafe’s behavior. Such things had been known to happen, after all. But still, it hurt so much more, now that she had begun to hope and believe that Rafe might actually be willing to move towards something beautiful, intimate and lasting between them.
When she was finally able to move again, it was like everything about her dissolved, from stone to liquid. Her body sagged and she was curled up in a pool on the floor before she even realised it. Her face, too, lost all its control and she felt her mouth twist into a rictus of pain as her chest burst out with deep, heavy sobs.
“Damn you, Alvarez,” she gasped, amid the hard, painful sobs. “Damn you anyway.”
“Mason Witherspoon to see you, Rafe.”
“Send him in.”
The last two days had been hell. He had avoided the house because that was where they had passed so many easy evenings and passionate nights together. Instead, he had worked late, then headed over to the pub, before taking a taxi home when it was late enough--and he exhausted enough--to collapse on the sofa into a heavy, oblivious sleep.
Better that than having to contend with the memories, though he knew he’d have to do that sometime soon. Just not quite yet--not when they were this raw.
Not when the smell of her still lingered in unexpected corners. This morning, after splashing his bleary face with cold water, he had wiped his mouth with a towel and been transfixed for a moment, the pain almost unbearable.
She must have used it to wipe her hands at some point recently. The perfume she always wore still clung to the fabric.
After a few moments, he had crumpled it up and thrown it in the laundry hamper. But it helped demonstrate what he himself had known--that he still needed time and some distance before he would be ready to deal with the fallout from his breakup with Ali.
At least it was Mason entering his office at the moment, and not Mason’s beautiful, ice cold daughter. You’d think he’d have learned his lesson the first time around. No such luck.
Rafe rose to shake hands with his mentor, glad, too, that Mason bore absolutely no resemblance to Ali. At least he didn’t have to deal with that kind of reminder.
As they moved to sit on the couch and easy chair in one corner of Rafe’s office, the older man’s features settled into unhappy lines.
“I know you two don’t think it’s any of my business, but I just wanted to say how sorry I am that things didn’t work out.” Mason shook his head.
Rafe’s jaw tightened and he was about to make a dismissive comment. But, one look at old friend’s face changed his mind. He shrugged. “Her choice, not mine,” he said, unable to keep the curtness from his tone. “She wanted to keep things superficial and I’d had enough of that.”
Mason nodded. “After the accident, it was like something in Ali shut down. She wouldn’t let anyone in, anymore--not even me. If I asked, she’d just smile and hug me and say everything was fine.”
Rafe had never seen his mentor look so old and frail--not even in the days after the heart attack.
Mason sighed, his expression heavy with distress. “I worry about her still being in denial, even after all these years.”
“Denial? She had a car accident. She almost died but managed to get out of it with a few, tiny scars.” Rafe frowned, not understanding how a car accident, no matter how close to fatal, could continue to hold such sway over her so many years later, given that she had built such a successful life for herself. “What’s to deny?”
Mason closed his eyes and his whole body seemed to sag. “So she didn’t tell you. I had hoped that she might have confided…” He shook his head. “I hoped maybe she had reached that stage, at least.”
Rafe shook his head. “What stage?”
Mason seemed to steel himself. Then, looking Rafe squarely in the face, he spoke, “She can’t have children. After the accident. That’s what the doctor told her.”
Rafe flinched at the news, his whole sense of the situation, the breakup, Ali’s distance, shattering suddenly, before rapidly reassembling itself in a new and entirely different configuration.
Mason continued, “She didn’t tell me--it was the doctor who gave me the news. And Ali’s never mentioned it since. Not once in three years.” Mason shook his head. “To anyone, as far as I know.”
“Sweet Jesus.” Rafe closed his eyes, unable to look at Mason’s ravaged expression a second longer, as he tried to deal with his own rising tide of pain. For Ali, for himself, for Mason.
So, even if something had come of the relationship, they would never have been able to have children of their own. But the realisation wasn’t the real source of his pain--that came from the knowledge that she had never trusted him enough to tell him this herself. When she closed herself off all those years ago, she had done one helluva job and he had obviously made little to no impression on her armor for all that they had been lovers. For all that he had fallen in love with her.
“She didn’t tell me.” It felt like the confession had ripped itself out from somewhere deep inside him. He didn’t even recognize the ravaged sound of his own voice. He opened his eyes to stare at Mason without really seeing him.
“No. I’m sorry, Rafe. I didn’t realise…”
Rafe pressed his temple with the fingers of one hand. “Nothing you could do about it.”
“She always wanted children, Rafe. It really devastated her.”
“Yes.”
They sat in silence a few moments, while Rafe tried to grapple with his own pain--from her lack of trust, but also from the knowledge of how she must have suffered. In those moments, he knew that if there were anything he could have relinquished to give her back what she had lost, up to and including his own life, he would have done it. But there was nothing he could do except mourn for her loss and its consequences for both herself and those who loved her.
Mason’s expression provided only the tiniest inkling of what he must have suffered with his daughter’s agony.
“So, will you go to her? Talk to her, maybe?”
Rafe shook his head, feeling the harsh bitterness of bile in the back of his throat. “You’re right. She’s shut herself down, Mason. She never let me in--never allowed herself to care for me.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
Rafe frowned at his friend. “What makes you say so? Did she tell you something?”
Mason shook
his head and hope that had risen briefly at the assertion subsided once more. “Just… an impression I had, I guess. She seemed happier than she had been in a long time when you two started seeing each other.”
Of course she had been--she had managed to negotiate her no-strings relationship. To have all the sex she wanted, with no consequences. Of course she had been happy--but that didn’t mean she actually cared about Rafe.
But, Rafael managed to refrain from making an observation to that effect. Instead, he sighed impatiently.
“She liked me well enough as a pleasant companion, Mason. But she never pretended there was anything more to it than that.” Which served as a good reminder for himself as well, given that some part of him wanted to rush to her side and take her in his arms. To comfort and protect her. Which, he suspected, would be about as welcome as him taking out a full page ad in the Times that read, “I love you and I’m sorry about the infertility.”
She hadn’t told him because she hadn’t cared enough to want him to know. Because she hadn’t figured there was a future for them. Because, quite simply, she hadn’t wanted his love and his comfort.
The ache in his chest felt almost unbearable as he shook his head. “There’s no point, Mason. I’m sorry.”
“As am I, my dear boy. As am I.”
But, once Mason had gone, Rafe began to have second thoughts. He loved Ali. And she had closed herself off, not just from him, but from caring too much about anything or anyone, if Mason was to be believed.
Rafe sat back in his chair, frowning into space.
Would his feelings even be worthy of the name “love” if he let her get away with this shutting down process of hers? Wouldn’t a man who really cared about the wellbeing of the woman he loved shove aside his own pain and batter against that armor of hers until it finally buckled and yielded?
He sat up, glaring into the distance as he realised that if he walked away now and left her to languish in that damned emotional deep freeze, he wouldn’t be able to look at himself in the eye again. Even if she didn’t want him, didn’t care about him enough to want to spend the rest of her life with him, he couldn’t walk away until he had helped her in every way he knew how. And if she learned to heal, only to walk away from him afterwards, he could accept that, for knowing he had made a real difference in the life of the woman he loved.
Ali stared dully at herself. She was sick of everything. Her career, her body, her life.
It all felt empty, now that there was no Rafe to share it with. But, she had to keep moving, keep working, keep living.
Never mind that each day had dragged. That each aching second of each night had contained an agony of longing.
She pushed herself back from her desk, rubbing the back of her neck. Everyone else had left for the day, and she could hear her father puttering around in the kitchen upstairs, so she pretty much had the office to herself.
She stood and walked over to the glass sliding doors that lined the walkout portion of the basement.
Her biggest regret, she had come to realise in the days since Rafe had ended it, was that she hadn’t told him everything. After all, keeping it all to herself hadn’t made it hurt any less, now that it was over. And if she had told him everything, she would at least have been honest. Though, as things turned out, she had been so shocked that she hadn’t been able to think of anything particularly coherent to say in the wake of his pronouncement.
She frowned out over the lawns and the view beyond. If there were one thing she could have done differently, it would have been that--particularly since it seemed that since she had made the decision to tell him everything about the accident, she had suddenly realised that she actually wanted to talk about it.
For the first time since the accident, she actually wanted to talk about her feelings of loss, of desolation and of slow, painful acceptance. And, though she suspected her father would have lent a willing ear to such confidences, she had also come to realise that it was Rafe she wanted to talk to about such things.
With a sigh, she turned away from the window and headed upstairs to help her father make dinner. She had just reached the top of the stairs when the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” she called, walking across the front hall. She opened the front door and at first wondered if her eyes were playing tricks on her.
Rafael stood there, his hands in his pockets and his back to her. He turned and Ali swallowed as her body yearned towards him. Her hands itched to touch his face, his hair, his arms. Instead, she observed him hungrily, all the while trying to keep her expression casual. He looked tired, but determined. His mouth was set in a grim line as he turned around, but one corner lifted when he saw her.
What was he doing here? He was still wearing his business suit, so he must have stopped by here on his way back from the office.
“Ali?”
“Rafe. How are you?” She felt painfully awkward as she wondered if anything of her longing showed on her face. She felt swamped by it and was suddenly eager to get away from him as quickly as possible. She knew he had met with her father earlier in the day. No doubt this call was just following up on some subject they had discussed.
Though she hadn’t really expected that he had come to see her, her conclusion still evoked a twinge of disappointment as she realised that of course, that must be why he was standing on the front steps, the beginnings of a frown creeping into his expression.
He shrugged. “I was just wondering if--“
“Yes, of course, he’s just in the kitchen if you want to speak to him. Just go right on in.” She had stepped away from the door and was already half turned when his next words froze her in place.
“I’m not here to see your father. I wanted to talk to you.”
She didn’t turn back to face him. “Haven’t we said everything that needs saying?”
She heard him sigh. “No, actually. I don’t think we have.”
“Fine.” She let out a hard breath, then started walking towards the same meeting room where they had last spoken.
“Isn’t there anywhere else we could chat? Maybe we could go grab a coffee somewhere?”
The tension in her body was such that she swung around to look at him with more alacrity than she intended, her expression tight. “You can’t seriously be telling me that you want us to sit down over coffees like old friends who haven’t seen each other for years and ‘chat,’ can you ? Because in all honesty, I’m not in the mood for shooting the breeze with you at the moment.”
His expression hardened and he shook his head. “Fine Ali, let’s just go to the meeting room and talk there.”
She resumed her walk.
Once he had closed the library door behind them, she sat in one of the soft leather chairs and looked at him. He sat opposite her, and as she noted the weariness in his expression she remembered her reflections on regrets and might-have-beens from short minutes ago. Funny, how they had been completely swamped by feelings of anger, hurt and betrayal the moment she laid eyes on him again.
Which was silly, really, given that he had complied precisely with the very terms she herself had outlined for their relationship. That it was hardly his fault if, as far as he was concerned, their intimacy had run its course and he had lost interest in her.
On the other hand, her attraction for him still sizzled and crackled every time she looked at him, so perhaps anger was the best conduit for those feelings--as well as the best way to shore up her defenses.
“So?”
He pursed his lips, seeming to weigh his words before he spoke. “Look, maybe I was a little too hasty before--in ending it like that. I think we should--“
“No. Absolutely not.” Ali shifted in her seat, trying to tamp down her rising temper.
His nostrils flared and his eyes darkened with irritation. “You do not even know what I was about to suggest,” he snapped, his accent thickening.
She glared at him. “With that kind of lead in, what could you possibly suggest th
at might be acceptable to me?” She shook her head. “That we resume things so that we can wean ourselves off the relationship more gradually? Maybe we could throw a break-up party, where we announce the end of the relationship to five hundred of our closest friends?”
She was working herself up into a high fury.
“Are you trying to provoke me with such inanities?”
Ali stood, the anger surging in her and propelling her towards him without any conscious knowledge of what she did. “Gee, I don’t know. What do you think? Let’s look at the situation. You end our relationship--no explanation, nothing. Then you traipse back in here a few days later, claiming to have made a mistake. Well, I’ll tell you what--I made a mistake months ago when I suggested this whole thing in the first place.”
She stood over his chair, glaring at him a few moments, before turning away, too angry to continue looking at him.
“Ali--“
She swung back, her hand raised. “No. Not another word. I’ll gladly admit to my mistake in trying to keep my feelings out of this whole no strings nonsense. I should have known better from the start, but I managed to persuade myself that my need for intimacy was purely physical. That once we did it a few times, that would be it. Problem solved.” She shook her head. “Okay, so ha ha ha. The joke’s on me, fine. But I’ll be damned if I’ll allow you to march back in here and suggest some kind of on-again, off-again deal. Because it’s not going to happen. End of story.”
“Ali, listen to me--“
Ali shook her head. “No. Last time you did all the talking and that led to two days of unmitigated misery--“
“For the--“
“I did have one regret, though.” Suddenly, in the midst of her swirling anger, she wanted to see his face when she told him everything. Some furious, masochistic part of her wanted to see the look of horror in his expression. She wanted the dark satisfaction of knowing that he wouldn’t have been able to handle the whole truth even if she had entrusted it to him earlier.
He gave her a resigned look, though oddly enough, something in his face seemed to have brightened while she had been hurling her words at him. In fact, looking at him more closely, she thought she saw the hint of a smile playing on his lips. Time to quash that, she thought with bitter complacency.
Leaving Rafe Page 12