by Kahlen Aymes
Her smile softened at his outburst, his face turning red at the speed of light.
“Thank you.”
“I think I’ll just shut up now,” he murmured.
Angel laughed and took the bouquet into the apartment but the boy lingered in the doorway, her delight at Alex’s thoughtfulness and the boy’s compliment bursting forth. “Come in, please.”
His eyes took in the size and elegance of Alex’s foyer and he didn’t move. “Uh, no, it’s okay. Have a good evening, Dr. Hemming.”
“Wait. I’ll get you a tip.” She set the crystal vase down on the mahogany entry table and reached for the card, unable to wait even a moment to read it. It was written in Alex’s own bold handwriting, and his words filled her with pleasure and an incredible rush of love. She inhaled deeply as she read them again.
Remembering the night that changed my life
Warmth spread through her at the implied meaning. Yes, tonight she would make sure he would know she loved him.
The boy called after her. “No need, remember? Have a nice evening.”
Suddenly, the idea of a crowded restaurant wasn’t as appealing. It was nearly six o’clock and she still had time to change their plans. Unsure if Tru offered take-out or delivery, she paused before closing the door. “Wait!”
“Yes, ma’am?” The boy loped back down the corridor away from the elevators to the door.
“Um… can you wait a second? I’m going to call the restaurant to see if they offer take-out, and if so, would you mind running to pick it up for me?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am! I’d be happy to!”
“Great. Will you hold on a second? I have to call to see if it’s possible.”
She left him in the foyer and proceeded down the hall into Alex’s study. The room was much like the man, very masculine and strong. The furniture was solid but elegant and there were bookshelves lining one complete wall, some of the books clearly first editions, old and worth a great deal of money. The fireplace on the opposing wall was constructed of large Italian marble in dark browns and more of the large leather furniture that seemed to be his preference was sitting in the middle of the room.
His laptop was on the large desk and she fired it up, hoping she’d be able to find the menu online. Her eyes scanned the top of the desk. It was mostly unadorned, save for a leather desk protector, a few photos, and a makeshift award of one octave of piano keys mounted on a wooden and metal base. A metal plate on the front was engraved in cursive:
“Neither a lofty degree of intelligence, nor imagination, nor both together, go to the making of genius. Love, love, love… that is the soul of genius.” – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Angel’s fingers traced over the words, perplexed at this obvious contradiction to Alex’s self-confessed feelings on love, and her heart contracted in response. Maybe he’d been hurt. He’d never mentioned anyone breaking his heart, but it wouldn’t be like him to admit to pain.
“Oh, Alex,” she said softly, running her fingers over the words.
The shuffling in the other room, reminded her that the boy was waiting.
She wanted to write down the address of the restaurant, in case the young man didn’t know where it was, but there was no paper on the desk. She pushed the massive chair back and turned toward the printer positioned behind her on the matching credenza situated beneath the only window in the room. She rolled her eyes when, pulling out the paper tray, found it empty. “Figures,” she huffed in amusement.
She quickly began rummaging through the top drawer but found nothing but expensive pens, Alex’s passport, a calculator, and nail clippers. She moved to the other drawers and quickly rifled through them, her fingers and eyes searching. When her fingers passed over something silken in the bottom drawer, Angel stopped dead.
A pair of blush and black silk panties stared her in the face. Her panties. She flushed, remembering how she left without them the first night she’d been with Alex, the same night he referred to in his note. Her fingers ghosted over the soft material as she pushed it to the side, chuckling; she decided to tease Alex about hoarding women’s underwear later in the evening.
The only other occupant of the bottom drawer was a red file folder. Angel pulled it out, hoping to find the needed paper, but was instead confronted with a copy of her driver’s license. Confused, her fingers sifted through the other contents, her movements slowing as what she was holding registered in her mind.
“Uhhh…” Angel’s breath left her lungs in a whoosh. Heat burned in her cheeks and her heart thudded sickeningly in her chest as she saw her name repeated over and over again on the documents. Her eyes scanned the letter that was the second item in the folder. After registering the date, her vision blurred, anger and pain rising up inside. Her entire life was there; high school and college transcripts, her Ph.D. dissertation, a list of her old addresses and lists of friends, an article she’d written, her birth certificate, an old picture of her mother and father… and pictures of Kenneth along with his résumé.
When her eyes found mention of her mother’s location in the letter, she couldn’t read any more and slammed the folder shut. “What the fuck?” she breathed out.
Her lungs constricted, and she leaned back in the chair while it felt like a gaping hole was rapidly replacing the heart inside her chest. The blood pounding through her veins thudded loudly in her ears.
“Dr. Hemming?”
Her hands covered her face, and she inhaled until she thought her lungs would burst, the air rushing in and out of her lungs in shallow pants.
“Dr. Hemming? Did you still want me to run to the restaurant?”
Tears pricked at the back of her eyes, and her throat tightened painfully; the beautiful evening she’d planned seemed like a lie now. Her elbows rested on the desk, her head still in her hands as she willed herself not to lose it, not to cry or scream out loud. Shaking, it felt like the earth opened up and swallowed her whole.
How could Alex do this? Who in the hell was he? How can I love him when I don’t even know him?
“Excuse me? Is everything all right?” he called.
She pushed back from the desk and walked on shaky legs back toward the boy who waited in the other room, blinking rapidly and swallowing down the emotion threatening to choke her as she tried to smile at the boy.
“Um, change of plans. I’m sorry I made you wait. You can go. Thank you.”
He took in her flushed cheeks and the glisten in her eyes, uncertainty flitting across his features, but he slowly turned to leave. “Okay. Have a nice night.”
“You, too.”
When the door closed, Angel leaned against it. “Oh, my God. This isn’t happening,” she murmured softly, before yelling. “This isn’t fucking happening!” Her fist slammed into the door beside her thigh.
Angel hurried back into the study once again and still glaring at her from the top of Alex’s desk were all of the documents that summed up her life. It was like some stupid scene from “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” where the thing you despise most comes at you in an oversized, 3-D cartoon. She felt disgusted and betrayed. Amazing how one’s entire existence could be reduced to nothing more than a meaningless paper trail. Her eyes darted from the desk to the fireplace. All of the hopes and dreams she had of a future with Alex had just gone up in smoke. Just like the contents of that file were about to do. Without trust, there was nothing. The first broken sob finally erupted and filled the room.
* * *
Alex glanced at his watch. It was eight o’clock. An hour past the time Angel was supposed to meet him at Tru. After three glasses of Chivas on the rocks and a lot of inquiring glances from the staff, he’d gotten up and left the restaurant. Angel wasn’t answering her phone; in fact, it wasn’t even going to voicemail. He tried Cole and was unable to reach him either. His heart filled with sickening dread, and his stomach burned.
Alex tried her cell phone again, and, finally, he was able to leave a message. “Angel, where the hell are you? I’m
on my way back to my apartment. For Christ’s sake! I’m going crazy with worry. Call me the minute you get this.”
When Alex’s driver dropped him off, he paused briefly with the doorman. “Brody, did my brother and Dr. Hemming leave?”
“Mr. Avery left a few hours ago, sir. He was smiling big. Said he hadn’t had a night off in three months and he’d be back to pick Dr. Hemming up but never came back.”
Alex’s mouth thinned into a hard line. “Thanks.”
He had no choice but to wait for the elevator that took him to the penthouse though he itched to burst through the stairwell door and take them two at a time. Seventy-four stories and double that many flights of stairs were impossible on foot and definitely wouldn’t be faster than the elevator. He swiped his keycard that allowed unrestricted access to his penthouse.
The floors that usually whizzed by seemed to take forever, and he cursed as the elevator stopped on the 52nd floor and an old lady, carrying a purse with one of those unrecognizable hybrid dog breeds sticking out of it, hobbled on.
“Hello, young man,” she said pleasantly.
Alex tried to smile, but his guts were twisting into knots. “Good evening.” He nodded and smoothed down the front of his jacket impatiently. Fuck! He closed his eyes as she rambled on about a bridge game on sixty-seven.
The car stopped again to let the woman off, and Alex prayed he’d have no more interruptions. He sighed as the elevator opened with nothing between him and the door to his place. He quickly walked to it, swiped the card again, and opened the door.
“Angel?” he called before he’d even gotten through it. “Angel!” The apartment was dimly lit with no sound coming from anywhere. Alex walked briskly from the empty kitchen into the living room, past the open door to his study, and down the hall.
“Angel!” he hollered again, panic seizing his chest. “Fucking answer me!”
He opened his phone and pushed her speed dial number, running up the stairs toward the bedrooms. Her phone began ringing then and he heard it in the other room. He moved toward the sound and his bedroom as it continued to register, the sound echoing strangely in his ear and the room around him. The door to his room was ajar and he pushed through it, eyes darting toward the ringing phone. His bed was strewn with clothes, a red file folder sitting in the center.
His heart fell and his steps slowed as realization hit him, and he flipped open the folder. Inside, there was nothing but the ringing phone he’d given to her. He sank down to sit on the edge of the large bed, his hand running through his hair, and heat infusing like poison beneath his skin. “Son-of-a-bitch! Un-fucking-believable.” He rummaged through his contacts searching for the number to Angel’s other cell phone and frantically waited for her to answer. It went straight to voicemail.
“This number will change so please call my office tomorrow, and if you’re on the list I’ll be giving to my assistant, she’ll give you my new contact information. If this is Alex…” her voice cracked on the pause, and she cleared it. “Please, just leave me alone. We’re over.”
Alex’s mind reeled and his heart raced with anger. How could I be so fucking stupid not to get rid of that fucking file folder?
“I never even looked at the goddamn thing, for Christ’s sake! Aaarrrggggghhhh!” he yelled and flung his own phone at the wall with such force it shattered into a hundred pieces. “Fuck!”
15
Hear Me
“Alex! Are you listening?” Allison’s shrill question made Alex jump and brought him out of his reverie. His concentration was lost outside the glass windows at the back of his parents’ large estate, past the deck to the large, manicured lawn, to the flock of geese swimming around in the lake.
His fingers scratched along his chin in introspection until her screeching caused his brow to furrow, and he sat up more into a sitting position with a grunt. His head pounded and his eyes burned from lack of sleep.
The house smelled of roast pork, spiced apples and the faint lingering aroma of expensive cigars. He wondered how in the hell his dad got away with smoking in the house because his mother had never allowed it during the time he was growing up.
“Alex!” she demanded again.
“Stop that infernal squawking, Allison,” he said flatly, shooting her a bored expression. “You’re giving my migraine a headache.”
“I’ve been speaking to you for ten minutes or more!” she began but was interrupted.
“Yeah, that’s the problem. I’m not in the mood.”
Allison frowned and pursed her lips. She adored Alex, and the closeness she felt with him made her well aware he was not himself and far from his best form. She snorted shortly.
“I don’t know what your problem is, but you’re being rude!” Her eyes skated over her brother, and while he was immaculately dressed and his hair perfectly combed, he hadn’t shaved, and there were suspicious purple shadows beneath his bloodshot eyes.
“You asked me to be here. I’m here. I only came to shut you up and yet there is still more of your endless screeching.” He stood up and walked to the built-in bar on the far side of the great room. It was salvaged from an 18th century mansion and fit in well with the stone fireplace and dark olive walls. The house was built twenty years earlier, and his mother had taken great care to create Old World elegance from two centuries past. The ceilings, painted a light eggshell, and the plush carpeting added the only modern touches. He loved the surrounding grounds, but he preferred the contemporary minimalist décor of his place… or Angel’s, he thought, disgust making him grunt.
Can’t she leave my head for five fucking minutes? Would a five-minute reprieve be too much to ask? His hand closed over the decanter of amber liquid, and he splashed three fingers into a glass before loudly replacing the stopper and shoving the crystal back from the edge roughly. “Shouldn’t you be helping Mom frost a cake or something?” he asked casually.
Allison scowled at him. “You’re being a dick.”
He stopped and turned around, shoving one hand deeply into the pocket of his slate grey dress slacks. Jeans weren’t the attire his mother preferred at her Sunday dinners, but on this occasion, he had forgone the tie and left his dark blue dress shirt untucked and rolled the sleeves up beyond his elbows. His brow shot up. Allison never used profanity with such casualness. He only knew one woman who did. He took a big swallow from the glass and grimaced as the liquid burned its way down into his stomach as he willed his mind to shut off, yet he couldn’t help but ask. “Been spending time with Angel, I see.”
He watched his sister’s expression change from anger to surprise. “Um, well…” she stuttered.
“Enough said.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Alex leaned against the bar, facing her, his bland expression said he knew what she was hiding. “Don’t fuck with me. What’d she tell you? About us, I mean.”
Allison’s features softened at Alex’s subdued distress. If he was suffering, it wasn’t showing other than his excessive drinking and pissy attitude. He’d always been moody when something bothered him. She shook her head sadly and walked toward him to lean on the bar beside him. Her lips thinned and her shoulders lifted in a slight shrug. “Nothing. Other than she didn’t want to talk about it.”
He swirled the liquid in his glass, watching it as if it kept him in rapt attention. “Yeah.”
Allison reached out and laid a hand on his strong forearm. “Do you want to talk about it?” When he hesitated, she continued. “What’s it about?”
“Misunderstanding.” He pulled away as if her touch burned him and walked back toward the chair he’d just vacated. “It’s ridiculous, really.”
Allison pushed for more. “What did you do, Alex?”
“Nothing I don’t always do. I did a background check.”
Allison’s mouth formed a small ‘o’, yet no sound came out. She was aware Alex made it a habit to find out about anyone he got involved with in advance, from business partners to relatio
nships. But, after getting to know Angel, Allison understood that it wouldn’t go over well with her.
“Hell,” he said, exasperated, “it isn’t like I singled her out!”
A slow, sad smile spread across Allison’s delicate features. “Of course you have, Alex. Anyone that you sick Bancroft on has been singled out.”
He could hardly argue with her. She was right. “When did you see her last?”
“Yesterday. She’s helping with the last minute details of the benefit. She’s extremely resourceful.” The unspoken question lingered in his eyes with an unbidden hunger to know every detail of the time the women spent together, every word of their conversation. “Have you tried to talk to her yourself?”
Alex shook his head. “No.” His answer was harsh and simple, but Allison knew that tone. He was not just hurt, he was mad as hell.
“I can see that you’re upset, Alex, but doing nothing will not get the result you want. Call her.”
His face twisted, and he swallowed more of the liquor he was holding. “No, Allison! Since we met, all I’ve done is chase after her, and that’s not me. She made it plain she wasn’t interested in my perspective when she left without giving me a chance to explain. Begging has never been in my repertoire.”
“Pride is a funny thing. You’ve always had it too easy with women. Whitney still calls daily asking me to get the two of you together.”
“Yeah, and Angel doesn’t give a fuck, so can we please change the subject?” he asked angrily and started to walk from the room.
“You’re wrong. She’s upset too. She seems—”
Alex stopped and turned back around. “What?” His exasperated and anxious attitude evaporated as a small ray of hope bloomed in his chest. “How does she seem, Allison?”
Allison sighed, her eyes soft and concerned. “Sad. Just, very, very sad.” She watched her brother raise a hand and rub the back of his neck wearily. She wasn’t used to seeing him so… lackluster and broken. “You’re coming to the benefit, aren’t you?”