Vain - Part Two (The Vain Series Book 2)

by Deborah Bladon

  I know she's talking about my birthday. I've heard the excitement ringing through her voice and we've each always taken on the task of planning the other's birthday celebration but the text that Brighton sent me right before I arrived at Sadie's place is haunting me.

  We're not done. Call me. I'm in Boston.

  The knowledge that Brighton is once again somewhere near me is jarring. Seeing him in Manhattan had unwound me completely and now that I was spending more and more time with Noah, I just wanted Brighton to fade into my past as a horrible decision I once made.

  "Alexa, where are you?" Sadie's standing next to me now, her hand resting on my shoulder. "What's wrong? Is it Noah?"

  "No." I pat her hand with my own. "Noah and I are fine."

  "Will he come to your birthday party?" She doesn't even try to mask the eagerness woven into the question. "I want to meet him so badly."

  "I can ask him," I mutter under a half-breath. "I don't think he'll want to come though."

  "You're dating now, aren't you?" She moves back around the table to sit across from me. "Or is it just one of those casual hook up things?"

  "It's somewhere in the middle."

  "What does that mean?" She scowls. "You're not letting him use you just for sex, are you?"

  I laugh at the bold question. "If anyone is using anyone, it's me using him."

  "He's that good, huh?" She bites her lip. "Better than anyone else?"

  "He's in a class of his own." I wink across the table at her.

  She stares at me, her eyes wide. "Do you see him a lot?"

  "A few times a week," I offer. "I've been really busy with work and we're not moving too fast."

  "That sounds like dating to me. You should ask him to come to your birthday party."

  "I'll ask," I acquiesce. "Don't expect a miracle."

  Chapter 10

  "Have you sold any of the pictures from your show yet?" I sit with a sheet draped around my body, my back leaning against the headboard of Noah's bed.

  "Why? Do you need a loan?" He pulls his head back a touch so he can look at me from his position at the foot of the bed. "You're not making enough on tips with your side job delivering sandwiches?"

  "I never quite get the sandwich delivered, do I?" I cock my head to the side. I'd actually laughed out loud today when Noah texted me asking me to pick up a sandwich for him at the restaurant. He told me to put it on his tab there so I'd ordered twenty and spent the next ninety minutes near the homeless shelter a few blocks from his apartment visiting with the people who could use the food the most. "You ordered twenty sandwiches today, by the way."

  "Twenty?" He lifts his head up so he can look directly at me. "I was starving."

  "You were." I don't dive into an explanation. There's no need to.

  "You're a generous soul, Alexa." His eyes narrow. "Have you always been?"

  "No," I chuckle at the question. "I'm pretty self-centered. I'm like you."

  A slow grin pours over his lips. "I'm self-centered?"

  "Maybe that's not quite the right word." I pull my knees up, wrapping the sheet around them. The heat of the orgasm I had not more than a few minutes ago when Noah was inside of me, is now giving way to a chill. "You're arrogant, or maybe it's more about being in control."

  "I like being in control." His hand brushes against his cheek and over the scar. "I've lost a lot in the moments when I haven't been in control."

  "When you were stabbed?" Tempering the question isn't an option. My curiosity about what happened to Noah has never wavered. I haven't pressed the subject because it's always been obvious that talking about the scar is his least favorite thing to do. All I know with certainty is that he loved a woman who loved another man and that man attacked Noah.

  "I didn't see it coming." He rolls over so he can sit up on the bed. "I had no idea she was living with another man."

  The words hit a place within me that instantly brings up Brighton's image. "How long were you two involved?"

  "Months." He wrings his hands together, forming a firm ball and then letting them slide apart. "He was away all the time. I didn't ask her if she was involved with anyone. Why would I?"

  I don’t answer the rhetorical question. With Brighton it was different. I had researched him online after Sadie gave me his name. I had read all the articles from the papers in New York about how his girlfriend, Liz, was hurt in a serious car accident and how he had dropped everything to take her to Paris to get her the best care possible. I knew about her. I asked about her. In my sordid emotional threesome, Brighton was the liar.

  "You said you loved her?" I whisper, wanting desperately to know about the woman he never speaks of.

  "Very much," he offers. His face is impassive as he stares past me to a spot on the wall behind me. "She's the only woman I've ever loved."

  "What's her name?" It's a detail that I've ached to know. The knowledge of it won't hold any particular meaning to me. That's not why I'm asking him. I want to see if he'll share. I want to know if that barrier that he's built around himself that day will start to fall.

  "It's not important anymore." His words are clipped and terse. "It was a long time ago."

  "How long?"

  "A few years." He pushes his legs out as if he's about to stand but he doesn't. The way he's fisting his hands at his side is a clear indicator that he's restraining his desire to run from the room and hide from my questions.

  "What happened to the man?" My throat tightens as the question leaves my lips. "The man who stabbed you…is he in jail?"

  "He's dead." His dark eyes catch mine, his jaw tightens and he leans forward balancing his hand on the bed. "I killed him."

  ***

  "You look terrified, Alexa." He's beside me now. "You're not scared of me, are you?"

  The words aren't meant to taunt me. He's searching my face for a reaction and judging by the way his eyes keep darting to my legs, he's waiting for me to jump up and run for the hills. "I'm not." My voice is shaky, but the tone is even.

  "You're lying." His finger catches my chin to pull my face towards his.

  My eyes blaze down his cheek, marveling at the understated violence of the scar. The slight growth of beard does little to conceal it, the jagged edge jutting out from beneath it. The marred tissue so damaged that hair can't find its place there. It's become a part of his skin, a permanent fixture on his face. "You don't scare me." The words sound too defensive. If I'm being honest, he's imposing, dark and very intimidating.

  "He was trying to kill her." His hand circles my chin, pulling it into his grasp. "He would have killed her if I hadn't done something. He stabbed me and when he thought I was done he turned around and stabbed her in the arm. He was going for her neck when I stopped him."

  I open my lips to ask. I need to ask. I want to know how.

  His eyes settle on my mouth. I watch in focused silence as he pulls his tongue across his own lips, moistening first the top and then the bottom. "I broke his neck." I pull back slightly but he stays me with his hand. He leans closer yet until his lips are hovering against mine. "I put my hands around his neck and I killed him."

  I recoil sharply and his hand drops from my face, falling with a dull thud into his lap. He stares at it before he pulls his steely gaze back to me. The intensity is still there but it's shadowed by something else. Regret. It might be sadness. It's a veil of something that I haven't seen before.

  I shift slightly, my hand involuntarily jumping to his cheek. I trace the scar with my finger, marvelling at the length of it. I stare at him in silence, the only sound in the room the rhythmic ticking of a clock on the wall behind us.

  "I'll understand…" His breath stalls as his eyes lock with mine. "If you want to go."

  "I'm not going anywhere."

  Chapter 11

  "It's my birthday next Friday." I slip my feet into the boots I left in Noah's living room before he pulled me into his bedroom. "There's going to be a party."

  "With funny hats and strea
mers?" He smiles down at me. The darkness that had settled over his gaze when he was talking about the stabbing has now been replaced by a light behind his eyes. He's more open. I want to ask about the woman and what their relationship is like now but I can't. That window closed back in the bedroom when he pulled me into his arms and held me in silence.

  "Sadie's planning it, so probably." I shrug with a small smile. "Do you want to come?"

  His features soften. He shifts quickly from one foot to the other. "I don't know."

  I reach up to run my finger along the frown line on his forehead. "It's okay if you don't want to." I wince after I say the words. "I mean, if you don’t feel comfortable."

  His shoulders slump forward a touch. "Where is at? Your place?"

  "My place is as big as a closet." I roll my eyes. "It's at Axel. Sadie's husband owns it."

  "Bernie will be there?" He crosses his arms across his chest before sliding his hand up to his face. "I like Bernie."

  "Bernie isn't into me." I grab my chest. "It breaks my heart but I'm not his type."

  "What's his type?" He taps his index finger against his lip. It does little to hide the grin that has spread across his face.

  "You?" I tease. "He's seen you naked, hasn't he?" I nod down to where Noah's dick is hanging between his legs.

  "More than once," he answers with effortless ease.

  "Why don’t you wear clothes?" I've asked him it before but I've never got a straight answer.

  "I don't like clothes." He lifts his brows slightly. "You shouldn’t wear clothes either."

  "I agree," I admit. "I can't exactly work at the school naked though. There is a dress code."

  "Their loss," he tosses back. "Let's talk about your birthday more."

  I glance at my phone, realizing how late it's getting. I have to be at the school by seven in the morning. It's near two now so I only have a few hours to sleep. "Next time?" I touch his forearm. "I need to go. It's late."

  "Tell me what you want for your birthday." He ignores my plea to leave.

  "What I want?" I parrot back. "As in what I want for a gift?"

  "Yes." A dazzling smile carries into his eyes. "If you could have anything in the world what would it be?"

  I scratch my hairline as I study his expression. He's waiting impatiently for me to answer, shuffling back and forth on his heels. I soak in the sight of his relaxed stance, his beautiful body and his joy in asking me such a personal question.

  I look down as I search for an answer. "There's one thing."

  "Anything," he purrs. "Tell me what it is."

  ***

  I stare in stunned silence, my mind trying to catch up to the images my eyes are absorbing. "Noah." His name escapes my lips in a heated rush. "I didn't mean this."

  "You asked for a small print of one of your pictures." His broad arm sweeps across the bright room. I'd noticed the closed door to this room each time I've been here but I've never asked what it contained. I'd just assumed it was another bedroom. "Choose one."

  I reach for his arm to steady my balance. "I can’t."

  "Alexa." His grin is wide and genuine. "Choose one and I'll make a smaller print."

  Setting off I start towards the first of more than a dozen large photographs hung on the walls of the room. Each a different image of me, all of them displaying my nude body but not one contains a hint of my face. I study one before moving to the next, marvelling in the detail, stunned by the beauty of my skin and the softness of the poses. The mole, I've always hated that sits above my right breast, looks perfect. The softness of my stomach that I often berate myself for only adds to the nuance of the poses. The sensuality each photograph exudes is subtle and understated. "These are so breathtaking, Noah."

  "These are beautiful," he says, his breath rushing over my cheek as he leans down to kiss me softly. "The breathtaking ones are over here."

  I turn abruptly and wrap my fingers in his hair, pulling his mouth into a lush, deep and heated kiss. "There are more?"

  "Come." He sweeps my hand into his. "I'll show you."

  I let him guide me to a large desk positioned near the doorway. Several computer monitors sit atop it, each displaying a different image.

  "Look at this one." He points to the first monitor and it's a close up image of me in his bed. I'm smiling directly at the camera. My hair is a jumbled mess. My eyes are dancing with joy. "I took that after you woke up. I was telling you about how I became a photographer and you fell asleep."

  I remember that moment. I look so peaceful in the picture. I look so completely different in it than when I look at myself in the mirror.

  "This one is gorgeous." He pushes his hand towards another monitor on the opposite edge of the desk. "I stare at this one for hours."

  I gaze at it and my breath stalls. I'm on my back, my hands lazily resting over my head, my lips slightly parted. "I look so different."

  "No," he whispers into my neck. "You look exactly like that."

  "That's not my favorite though." He touches a mouse sitting atop the desk and a monitor in the middle pops on. "This is the one I'll never get enough of."

  I lower myself into the chair as my eyes lock on the photograph. My chin is tilted slightly to the left. I'm gazing into the distance and my bottom lip is caught between my top teeth. It's obvious from the angle of the image that I had no idea it was being taken. "When did you take this?"

  "The first day." He falls to one knee next to the chair. "When I told you I was checking the lighting. I saw it that night when I was reviewing our work. That's when I knew you were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen."

  Chapter 12

  "There's going to be a huge surprise at your birthday party." Sadie lifts her head and offers an overly sweet smile.

  "Is it a male stripper?" I bounce my eyebrows up and down playfully. "Can you get him to dress up like a police officer? I have this fantasy about being pulled over by a cop and frisked."

  Her mouth literally falls open.

  "That's not the surprise?" I throw my hands in the air. "Dammit, Sadie. It's not that you baked cupcakes, is it?"

  "You're teasing me." She breathes an overly dramatic sigh. "I can't hire a male stripper. What would Hunter say?"

  "Hunter is coming to my birthday party?" I hope that there's no lingering tease in my tone. Sadie's husband has always been busy when we've hung out. I'm not on his list of best friends and he sure as hell isn't on mine. As much as I've tried to get over my initial misgivings about him, I'll always remember how hard their budding relationship was on my closest friend.

  "He wants to be there," she says it a little too nonchalantly.

  "That's because he thinks I'll trash the place if I get drunk."

  "It's because of the huge surprise we got you."

  I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to conjure up an image of what the two of them could have gotten for me that was so monumental that Hunter was going to forgo an evening with his son to hang out with me. "Give me a hint." I open my eyes.

  Her head shakes seamlessly back and forth. "No hints, Alexa. It's three days away. You can wait."

  I can wait. She's right about that. I don’t even want to go to the party knowing Noah likely won't show. I'd spoken to him on the phone earlier today and with my rushed schedule this week because of parent and teacher interviews in the evenings, we agreed that I'd visit him at his apartment on Saturday for our own personal birthday celebration. He hadn't mentioned my party and I knew that bringing it up would only make Noah uncomfortable and would disappoint me even more.

  ***

  "It's a Brighton Beck original," Sadie screams as I pull on the edge of the patterned wrapping paper.

  "God, no," I whisper under my breath. Please tell me that I misheard that. I rip the rest of the paper free and mutter a curse to myself. It's indeed a Brighton Beck original watercolor.

  What. The. Fuck.

  "Do you like it?" Sadie's arms are wrapped around my neck in what feels like a chokehold. The fact
that I feel as though I can't breathe likely has very little to do with the fact that she's hugging me and more to do with the reminder of the man I wasted a semester in Paris on. I get it fate. This is what a cruel twist feels like.

  "It's…" No. Just no. Please someone knock me unconscious and make this nightmare end. That is not Brighton walking through the doors of the restaurant. Where is the happy part of the birthday? So far, it's been shit. With a classroom of unruly children to manage on my own because Natalie had cramps, Noah's very brief text telling me to have a happy day and now Brighton's presence at my party, I may just give up birthdays all together for the remainder of my sad excuse for an existence.

  "Is that Beck? Your Beck?" Kayla whispers into my ear. "Alexa? You were fucking Brighton Beck?"

  "Don't remind me," I scowl. "Don't tell, Sadie. She worships the bastard."

  Kayla gives me a weak hug from behind as Sadie races over to greet Brighton. His eyes drop briefly to her face before they settle back on me. My mind is telling me to grab my bag and run for the door, but I can't do that to Sadie. I need to swallow my pride, hide behind a mask of fake obliviousness and act like I actually don't know him.

  "This is my friend, Alexa." Sadie holds out her hand to grab mine. "She's a big fan of yours."

  Shut up, Sadie. Shut the hell up. I am not a fan of this man. I can't stand the sight of this man. "Hi," I manage in a weak voice.

  "Happy Birthday, Alexa." He reaches to take my hand from Sadie's and pulls in to his mouth. His lips skirt over my palm before he gives it a tight squeeze. "You're lovely."

  I can actually hear Sadie's heavy sigh at the words. She's never been quiet about her love for Brighton Beck and the fact that she has one of his paintings hanging in the bedroom of her apartment is reason enough for me to understand her deep fascination with him, but this, this is too much.

  "You didn't have to come all the way to Boston for this," I say the words sweetly although their meaning contains a sharp bite. "I wish you wouldn’t have come."