The Price Of Success (Fighting For Fireworks)

by Lee, Corri

  “Just let me ride it out until he gets bored, Nathaniel- until I know that he can’t hurt you. I’ll take this every day if it keeps you safe. Even if it… Even if he kills me.”

  Nathaniel stepped back from me suddenly and scowled, his face twisting between contempt and abhorrence. It was the first time I had seen his beautiful sterling eyes, that usually burned and emanated heat and power, set and harden to slate. It felt as though gravity shifted as the weight of the earth centred into his rage. He harnessed every ounce of power he held over his universe and drew it in to himself selfishly, sparing no single atom for anyone else.

  “No, damn it, Cecelia! I won’t lose you to him again. He’s not taking you away from me- not this time.”

  He stormed from his office- his feet barely touching the ground as he flew like a demi-demon, possessed by his fury- and left me standing alone in command central to sit on the throne from which he ordered his pawns to do battle for his dominion. I had access to it all- his laptop, his desk and the email account he’d left open, but the desire to snoop was over-ridden by the frightful coldness in the room despite his constantly roaring fire. When he had left, he had taken all of the warmth with him.

  The man who made it his mission to fill me with hope and happiness, ready to die for me, was not the man who left that office. The man who left was dark and cruel, and looked ready to kill.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I didn’t hear from Nathaniel again that day. Hours upon hours with no correspondence were normal, but he was somehow conspicuous in his absence this time in that I didn’t feel his love with me. The connection had broken- I had somehow done too much in laying myself out at death’s door to protect him.

  I muddled through the hours until my shift at the bar- a quick call to the boss, David, confirmed that I still had a job, but there were only so many diva mood swings he would tolerate. With at least one piece of good news under my belt, I dove into writing- venting my feelings of abandonment, loneliness, and the crushing feeling of suffocation. So much from my novel had become a reality, and I made a mental note to never write fiction again. Whoever said that the pen was mightier than the sword was dead on, although they probably hadn’t been strangled by an Italian to reach the conclusion.

  The closest to a conversation I had with Nathaniel was a short note he added to the end of an email sending my changes from the previous day.

  Don’t go to work.

  There was so much that I wanted to ask in response- why he’d vanished, why he’d ignored my calls and messages, if he still loved me- to name a few. None of my questions seemed appropriate though, so I only addressed his comment.

  I have to, I’m lucky to still have a job.

  While I would have loved nothing more than to tell him to send his driver to collect me after my shift and whisk me off to his riverside loft, back to the place where I felt that there was only one other person in the world other than me, I knew that I had to make the sacrifice. I didn’t know how long it would take for Cole to relinquish his control over me, but I hoped that Nathaniel had meant it when he said that he’d wait for me. If the distance served only to make him think twice about the value of fireworks, then at least I’d have some wonderful memories and photographs. It didn’t really seem like an adequate second prize, but who was I to be ungrateful?

  Plus there was the jarring possibility that he wouldn’t even want me to go back there, that he needed distance between us now as much as I had needed it after my nightmare. He wasn’t talking to me for a reason, and I had to entertain the idea that the reason was me. I had given him back his mother’s engagement ring after begging him to never let me push him away, but that defeated look he’d worn haunted me and suggested that maybe I wasn’t worth the pain of all the rejection. The man had his limits, and they were limits that I’d pushed too far.

  I wandered around in a daze mostly, parting ways with my laptop every twenty minutes or so to stare at the various curios Nathaniel had bestowed upon me. My claddagh ring was still missing, and it seemed almost relevant that such a tether would be absent when our bond was broken.

  Distracted by so many emotional triggers in the house, I adorned my scarf and sunglasses once again and took to the streets with my laptop tucked under my arm, sighting out a quaint English tea room as a ‘thinking space’, as Nathaniel would have put it. I could have gone back to the office, but I didn’t want to push my luck. Besides, it didn’t feel the same when he wasn't there. I wouldn’t have focused if I’d sat alone in the grandeur- I would have watched the door constantly- and if he’d been there I would have fallen to pieces.

  I had a task to complete and a point to prove- that despite everything, I was worth his efforts and investments into my novel. And not just his investments, but his sibling's too.

  “Room for one more?” A voice pulled me from my vacant stare at my laptop and took a seat opposite me with my mumbled assent. “Is it as bad as he says?”

  “What?” I glanced up and went lax at the sight of Isaac sitting opposite me with a cup of black coffee in hand. I shoved the sunglasses firmly up my nose and slumped down in my seat with my arms crossed. “Are you here to provoke another orgasm by inflicting emotional angst? Because I don’t think I can handle it today.”

  He raised an eyebrow at me, presumably in surprise at the absence of my usual spunk, and leaned forward to remove my sunglasses. “Bloody hell, he wasn’t joking.”

  “You’ve seen him?” I sighed shakily and snatched my sunglasses back, not keen on the idea of him seeing me cry again. “He hates me, doesn’t he?”

  “What?” Isaac spluttered into his coffee and laughed at me, rolling his eyes in disbelief. “Hates you for taking a strangling for him? Not likely, Cecelia. He hates himself for forgetting his key, knowing that he was standing outside while it happened.” If he’d just looked through the letterbox, he would have seen it all. I was both glad and disappointed in his lack of common sense. "What were your last words?" I stared at Isaac, fascinated by the morbidity of his curiosity.

  " 'I don't want to go to Hell'. And yet, here I am anyway, sitting in Satan's tea room. Yesterday I woke up to the London Eye, the love of my life and a pocket full of dreams- today I woke up with a fat lip, a psychopath and a suitcase full of designer clothes that I can't look at without crying. I did intend for my last words to be the Lord's Prayer, but hey, what are ya gonna do?"

  "I didn't think you were religious."

  I reached for my cup and took the biggest sip that my sore face would allow. "I'm not. You should read the closing chapters of my novel- it's dripping with irony." Isaac stared at me sympathetically, eyes boring into my woolen bound neck. I knew that he wanted to see but was too embarrassed to ask. "Yes, it's that bad."

  "Do you regret it?"

  I stared at him over the rims of my sunglasses and sighed. "No. I regret that your brother chose an easily misinterpretable turn of phrase to suggest his interest in me. I would never have gone with Cole if he'd told me to take my 'calculated risk' on him and we'd probably be shagging in a bridal suit right now."

  He snickered and covered his mouth with his hand. "Who said romance was dead?"

  We fell into an awkward silence, the type that occurred between two friends who'd reunited after parting ways on a row. It was a tenseness I couldn't tolerate- the feeling that he was pitying me from behind his mug. I didn't need pity, and I didn't need company. I needed some head space- a place in which to mope. "With all due respect, Isaac," I said, leaning forward on the table, "why are you here? They don't spike the coffee with Tia Maria- I've already asked."

  He sighed at me and scrubbed at his face, clearly irritated by being so transparent. "Nate wanted me to find you and convince you to skip work."

  My eyebrow rose. "And you found me how?"

  "Uh, social networking, Cecelia. You may want to consider changing your privacy settings- anyone with a brain can find your open profile and get a vague idea of your location from your wall posts." Wow
, I'm an idiot. It was no wonder that photographers found me at every corner.

  "How did I know that there'd be an ulterior motive?" I shook my head wearily and loaded the web browser on my laptop. "I can't goof off to spend the night with him, Isaac. He knows that I can't be around him right now." Even if I'd been able to, I doubted that the night would have been much fun when I looked so horrendous. I didn't want to suffer the atmosphere and be viewed as a victim when I was definitely a survivor. The fact that I was still breathing was proof enough of that. "The more time I spend with him, the more likely it is that he'll be picking my coffin."

  "He knows that, Cici." I narrowed my eyes at him as a warning- something he responded to with a mischievous grin. He chose his moments poorly. "He won't be at home tonight, he has something he needs to oversee. He's not asking for a rendezvous, he just wants to protect you." There was something undeniably ominous about the statement, but I just couldn't place what it could be. There was nothing at work that he could possibly need to protect me from- the management and the regulars were all extremely watchful over the staff, and nobody would ever let me come to harm on the premises.

  My eyes flitted down to the clock in the corner of the screen and revealed that I was cutting it fine on time. "Nothing is going to happen to me at work, Isaac." I stood up and closed the lid of my laptop- I was going to have to take it to work with me. "If Nathaniel has something to say to me, tell him to grow a pair and pick up the phone, and stop sending messengers to do his dirty work. I get it, he's had enough. But he can't stalk me to pacify his guilt."

  "You were really going to leave with him, weren't you?" Isaac jumped up and grabbed me by the elbow to obstruct my exit. "You were going to give up everything and get on a plane, even if it led you to disaster."

  I glanced down at his hand on my arm and pursed my lips. What difference did it make whether I had planned to or not? I'd had enough opportunities after Cole had left to run into Nathaniel's arms, but I hadn't. "My bags were packed, Isaac, but something always stands in our way. Fireworks obviously aren't enough." I pulled my arm free and paused for a moment before I turned to the door to leave. I wanted to part by saying something scathing and insightful, but I drew a blank. My wit had dried up and my humour had fled. I was too tired to put on a brave face any more- the will to fight had gone. Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

  "Out." That was David's immediate response when he first set eyes on me standing behind his bar, no sunglasses or scarf to hide my injuries. I wasn't ashamed by the way I looked- if the world wanted to see what I would do in the name of love, they now had a perfect view. The bar was the only place the cameras couldn't reach me other than my house, and if people wanted to know what had happened, I would be honest. "You look like road kill."

  "Cheers, Dave." I smiled at him weakly and resumed my furious scrubbing of the fridge doors. Excessive cleaning was the least destructive coping method in my repertoire and currently the only one at my disposal. The impending rush of bodies required a sober mind and a steady hand, so drowning my sorrows was not up for consideration.

  "You'll lose me custom looking like that, Cynthia." Six years and the miserable old sod still got my name wrong. "Unless you're going to let me advertise you as a sideshow."

  "Go for it," I laughed, "because the only way I'm going to leave this side of the bar is if I'm sat on the other side and you're paying me double time." He grumbled and waved a hand at me, muttering under his breath as he slunk up the stairs to his flat over the pub, knowing when to accept defeat.

  My chest swelled triumphantly, but it went no way to filling the tremendous void that I felt inside. A huge part of my life was gone now that I couldn't live in hope of a sarcastic message or token of love from Nathaniel, and I wasn't sure that I could ever find anything big enough to gauze the wound. Everything seemed so boring and lacklustre, including myself. I wasn't the snappy young sophisticate I'd been moulded into any more, I was just a twenty-four year old barmaid who'd gotten lucky for a couple of weeks. I didn't know how long it would be before I could show my face in public without obscuring it with accessories, and the media hype that surrounded me would undoubtedly have dissipated by then due to my lack of association with the Alexander's. My career was over before it had even started.

  I sent a text message to Aiden, hoping to draft in as much moral support as I could before the Thursday night bedlam broke lose. The more people I had around me to shield me, the less attention I'd face from nosey strangers.

  His reply did little to improve my mood.

  Not tonight, sugartits.

  He offered no explanation or compensation- something that wasn't at all like him. When I needed him the most, all he could provide me with was a two word brush off and a crass endearment. I knew that he had probably given up on chasing me as a lover, but had hoped that he would at least value our friendship enough to keep in touch. All I had now was exactly what I'd had three weeks earlier- just Bethany. I should have been used to it, but it still stung as much as the daggers that tore my muscles if I turned too quickly.

  When she entered the bar, Bethany gave me a look that implored me to cover my 'shame'. I couldn't possibly imagine why my war wounds would bother her more than they bothered me, I'd been stood in the bar for an hour and nobody had looked at me twice. The likelihood was that their brains were too addled by alcohol to notice, but a win was a win.

  It wasn't until the door opened behind her that I understood why she was horrified. Adam sloped in and headed straight to the men's room, looking sheepish with 'atomic pink' lipstick smears around his mouth, that I presumed weren't the remnants of experimental cross-dressing. I didn't know whether to be more surprised that they'd arrived together as a couple, or that he'd stared at me like I'd sprouted a second head.

  I grabbed her hand when she reached the bar and pulled her towards me so her ear was at my lips. "Are you giving him the mushroom treatment again?" Her look in response was the perfect depiction of ignorance. "Kept in the dark and fed on bullshit."

  "Oh thank god, I thought it was some crude sexual act that I hadn't heard of!" She gave a little whoop of relief and settled down on a stool, giving me the stare that told me she'd say no more until she had her usual tipple of vodka and cranberry firmly gripped in her hand. "He's been with Cole since the college doors closed," she said as soon as the glass was in front of her, like I'd crossed her gypsy palm with silver, "it hardly seemed appropriate to call him at work and inform him that his best friend is an attempted murderer while he was teaching, particularly in light of 'recent events'." She held up her fingers to air quote her final two words and then heaved a reminiscent groan. "I have got to seek help for my suit addiction."

  "I'll be right there with you, sister." There was no denying that a crisply pressed blazer would turn my head in a crowd, no matter who I was walking with or what I stood to walk into. "But you two are okay now?"

  "Not by a long shot," she sighed, "I'm rota-ed down for daily blowj-..."

  "Ah, no!" I whined, holding up my hands and stepping back. "Please don't talk about the three lettered word I'll never enjoy again." There was no single inch of me that desired sex or planned to for the foreseeable future. If it didn't come in the form of the man who'd woken up the previous morning and proposed, and then delivered on his every promise to send me spinning into orgasmic utopia, then I wasn't interested. "Nathaniel doesn't want me any more, Bethy."

  She jutted her lip out candidly and hugged me loosely over the bar, taking extra care not to let any part of her body touch my throat or face. She knew that there were no words to remedy the hurt, so she didn't humiliate herself by trying.

  Adam, on the other hand, had more than enough words for the both of them. I closed my eyes and tried my best to drown out the sound of his rambling questions over the state of my face and what had happened when I'd stormed from the bar. It was easier to just stand there and let his words bounce off me than to bore him with the details of how i
t felt to know that I was about to die at the hands of a man I'd pushed to murder. My hands stroked at my tender bruises as the memory of the way it felt to have the life squeezed from me consumed my mind, and when I opened my eyes, my executioner was the first thing I saw.

  I felt nothing when I saw Cole standing in the midst of a heavy stream of newcomers swarming into the bar, nothing but shame for the mistakes I'd made that had led to his mania. His eyes seemed to glaze as he stared at me and silently plead for forgiveness. But I had nothing to forgive him for. I had known that he was a madman in the face of his feelings for me, but that hadn't stopped me from selfishly pursuing Nathaniel. I should have been the one apologising.

  His hands shook when he reached me and stretched out to the prominent finger-length marks on my skin, retreating at the last moment with his fist clenched.

  "Go ahead," I tilted up my chin, "I can take it." Whether I meant the throb of his fingers on my bruises or another brush with death didn't matter, because he stepped back in shock and gasped as though I'd told him to rip out my jugular.

  "Why aren't you scared of me?"

  I looked down over my elevated jaw before I lowered my chin and shrugged. "Why would I be? You did nothing wrong."

  "Nothing wrong?" Bethany spat out her drink and glared at me. "How can you say he did nothing wrong? He nearly killed you!"

  "You did that?" All eyes fell on Adam and I immediately felt sorry for him. He was always the last to know, always out of the loop.

  I shook my head slightly and blurted out, "it was erotic asphyxiation. I asked for it." My face twitched deceptively with my words, I had asked for it- I had essentially begged for it. "I told him to do it and it just got out of hand."

  "So you two are cool?"

  My view slipped back to the dog-eyed gaze of Cole and locked with no abandon. "Cool. On ice. Glacial." He nodded once in understanding, knowing that I held the right to call the shots. "I'd appreciate it if you could give me back the claddagh ring though, so I can return it to its rightful owner." It hurt too much to say the name out loud, knowing the power it had to drive a man wild with jealousy.