“What the hell are you talking about? I texted you to come there to celebrate. Why would I do that if I was trying to sneak behind your back?” I asked.
“That’s it!” he said, continuing his rambling. He pointed a finger at me. “You think I’m stupid. You think I really can’t see the way Shane looks at you or the way you smile at him. You still have feelings for him, admit it!” He raised his voice, and I narrowed my eyes at him. I locked my jaw, trying to calm myself down. I knew all too well I was able to spit out the cruelest words when I was angry. I waited a few seconds, but the words came out of my mouth anyway, against my better judgement.
“You’re being ridiculous! When you saw us holding hands we were talking about the baby! Our baby!”
“Awww yeah! I’m sure you wish it was his kid instead of mine.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, Boyd? How much did you have to drink, because, quite frankly, this is the biggest load of shit I’ve ever heard. I’m not going to stand here and listen to you run your mouth like that.” I walked away from him, but he grabbed my arm and turned me around. He reeked of alcohol and didn’t look at all like the funny, sexy guy I knew him to be. The look in his eyes was one I had never seen before, cold and heartless. He stared at me as if he hated my guts. I didn’t like what I was seeing. I didn’t like this side of him at all.
“No, you are going to listen to me,” he said in a low growl. He held my arm so tight, I couldn’t get out of his hold, as much as I tried. He pressed his fingers into my skin even harder.
“Stop it! You’re hurting me.” His eyes widened, and for a moment he seemed to snap out of his drunken state. Our eyes locked and I tried to find a glimpse of the man I knew, but he slipped back into his drunken idiocy, eyes narrowed, lips in a taut pout, finger pointed at me.
“You…you, Red, are a fucking liar! I know what I saw!” he yelled.
“You need to go take a shower; maybe that will clear your fucking head. You’re drunk, and you’ve let your imagination run wild on a fucking stupid misunderstanding! Snap out of it!”
He grunted and lowered his arms to his sides, his fists bunched up. He looked…defeated. He was breathing heavily, his eyes fixed on the floor. For a moment, I was able to look past the drunk, hateful Boyd and I saw the younger man who had suffered a heartbreak bigger than mine.
With caution, I took a couple steps in his direction, and I placed my hands on his chest. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. I couldn’t believe I was about to put all my cards on the table. I took his face in my hands and locked eyes with him.
The angry beast seemed momentarily subdued. It was probably the worst time to say it, but I had to try. I had to pull him out of his black hole.
“I want you. I’ve wanted you for a long time, and I’m sick of hiding it. I care for you.” I took a deep breath. “I love you, Boyd Rivers, and the fact that you think I want Shane makes me sick. I love you, and it makes me angry that you can’t see it.”
He stared at me, petrified. He let out a shallow breath and then looked away. When he glanced back in my direction, I searched for a trace of the madness the alcohol had brought on. He seemed calmer, although his chest heaved under my hands.
My words had shocked him, clearly. I felt like a ringleader trying to tame a lion. I knew it was the worst time to say what I felt, but at least it stopped him from acting like a megalomaniac.
Still, I wanted him to say something…kiss me, at least. Instead, my words had left him dumbfounded. Well, look at that. Now I felt like the caged beast ready to snarl. I couldn’t help it.
“Did Portia fuck you up so much you can’t see when a person truly cares for you?” He flinched when I said her name, and I regretted every word I’d said that night, especially the L word. Things were much worse than I’d thought. Not only was I carrying this man’s baby, but as much as he cared for me, there was part of him that was still not over what had happened so many years ago.
“This has nothing to do with me and Shane. This is all about you and your trust issues.” I pointed my finger at him, angry and frustrated by his ridiculous behavior. “Apparently, it doesn’t matter how handsome, important, and successful you’ve become. It doesn’t matter how many women you’ve seduced through the years—you still feel like that naïve twenty-two-year-old who got cheated on. You’re not that young man any more, Boyd.”
There was so much more I wanted to say. It felt like an unstoppable stream of thoughts and feelings. My mind was unraveling, and my heart was beating erratically against my ribcage. I wanted to talk some sense into him, wanted to tell him and make him understand everything I thought to be true.
We needed to work on a real relationship. We needed to try harder, because this baby deserved a loving family. It would have been different if we’d hated each other’s guts, but Boyd and I had chemistry. We were good together. We worked. We had gone from being strangers to living together. The last two months had been so good. He was acting like a pigheaded asshole at the moment, but if I could make him reason…if only I could make him see…I knew we had a chance. Luckily, not even the crazy-ass pregnancy hormones could make me say all those words aloud, and as I went over my own thoughts, I hardly recognized myself.
What had happened to the cynical, practical, take-no-prisoners attorney?
What had gotten into me? I was turning into a pile of mush.
Thanks a lot, baby.
I WOKE UP WITH THE biggest headache of my life. I lay in the bed for another hour at least, dozing on and off, fighting the urge to get up. My head was pounding as it was, and it was going to feel even worse as soon as my feet touched the floor. As I opened my eyes, I noticed I was alone in bed. The sun shined brighter than it usually did in that room, which meant it was probably later than when I usually got up.
I searched for my phone and found it on the bedside table, plugged into the charger. I stared at the screen: it was ten past twelve. As I looked at my phone, I slowly started to remember how I’d gotten so drunk.
I got a flashback of the day before, when I’d caught Ally and Shane getting cozy in a restaurant. Me, getting wasted. Angry. Feeling betrayed. Hurt.
I got up and used the restroom as my head pounded and the memories kept coming back. I remembered arguing with Ally, lashing out at her, pulling her arm…fuck. I had been a total ass. I remembered more details of our conversation…Portia’s name coming up in passing…and Ally saying that she loved me. Had she really said that? Had she said that she loved me?
I washed my face, trying to wake up. I noticed the bed in the guest room was undone. She didn’t sleep next to me, and I couldn’t blame her, not after the way I’d talked to her. The apartment was quiet; she wasn’t around. I found some ibuprofen on the kitchen island with a glass of water next to it.
She had probably been the one to plug in my phone, too. I had been a total ass. My mama would have been so ashamed.
Ally loved me, and instead of telling her how much I cared, I had shut down.
Did I feel the same? I wasn’t sure, but I did like her enough to be crazy jealous of any other man who got close to her. God, I had acted like a complete fool. Would I have flipped like that if I didn’t care for her? It had been so long since I had been in love with someone, I hardly knew what it felt like any more. The more I tried to think about how I felt, the more my head hurt. I was going to shower, and then I would apologize to her for my asshole behavior.
“You’re up,” she said when I entered her office, acting much like a dog with its tail between its legs.
“I am.” I hesitated, letting out a deep breath. “Thank you. For…the ibuprofen…and for not throwing my ass out.”
“Believe me, I wanted to,” she replied with a small smile.
“I don’t know what got into me. I should have talked to you. I said some terrible things, and I acted like a fucktard. I wouldn’t hold it against you if you wanted me to leave.”
She didn’t answer or look at me. She kept her eyes on t
he document in front of her, her expression somber. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I want, Boyd. What I do know is that I never want to see you act like that ever again. I’m better than that, and you’re better than that.”
“I know. You’re right. I take full responsibility. I completely lost it. It was uncalled for, and I’m sorry.”
She nodded, but she was still quiet—quieter than the Ally I knew, at least, calmer than the feisty woman I was so captivated by. She was still mad at me, and I couldn’t blame her.
“You know I’m flying back to New York tomorrow—”
“I know,” she said, her voice just a whisper. She let out a breath and finally looked up to me, a stiff smile on her face. She shrugged. “Do what you have to do, Boyd. I hope everything works out.”
“Thanks.” I knew she was hurting and angry, but I hated the way the conversation was going. It wasn’t us. I wanted to go back to how things had been for the last two months. She finally looked back at me, and this time she had a more genuine smile on her face.
“Do you want to know what I think?”
“Always,” I replied, and she raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“I know it’s not an easy decision, but you should fire Trey, just as a precaution. That’s my two cents.”
* * *
I had this tight feeling in my chest the whole flight back to New York. I had never been scared of flying, so I knew it wasn’t that.
I was anxious. I didn’t feel good about leaving Ally. She had just won the case, and hopefully the person sending anonymous letters was going to stop now that the judge had absolved Grant, but maybe not. It had to be Ilse’s mother. The woman looked crazy on a good day, and the distraught look in her eyes had only gotten worse over time. I had seen her the morning of the hearing. She looked delusional, like someone who needed help.
Time and time again, Ally had refused to go to the police. I hoped she was going to be okay. I had wanted to talk to her about it before I left, but since we’d just argued the day before and I had been an asshole, I knew nothing good was going to come from me bringing up the threats. I drafted a message to send to Johan so he would keep an eye on her while I was away; I had a bad feeling about the whole thing. Maybe I could get Johan to help me and turn all the evidence over to the police.
I also wasn’t looking forward to dealing with the shitstorm in New York.
In the couple days since I’d found out about Trey’s affair, Page Six and other outlets had published the story. My phone had been blowing up with notifications, and I’d had Aaron contact a social media specialist so we could meet and discuss a strategy for the gym. The scorned husband, Ronald Stump, was a famous Manhattan real estate tycoon and was none too happy about the pictures that were all over the Internet.
Trey and the woman had been spotted frolicking all over New York. There were dozens of pictures, including the ones of her leaving his apartment building. It was much worse than we had imagined. As a reiteration, Mr. Stump gave us an eviction notice, even though we had a lease in place. I hadn’t known this before, but as it turned out, the building of our Manhattan location belonged to one of his subsidiaries.
So, on top of the scandal, I had to try to do whatever I could to fight the eviction notice. Finding a new place for the gym in Manhattan was going to take months, if not a year. I had started out in Brooklyn, and the location in SoHo hadn’t even been open for two years. If Stump was going to evict us, I was going to lose a bunch of fucking money, and it was probably going to be goddamn impossible to find a new place.
I would have to declare a loss. A huge loss.
As soon as the plane landed at JFK, I switched my phone back on and messaged my attorney to schedule an appointment to talk about our options.
The next few days were going to be hell.
DAYS TURNED INTO WEEKS. BOYD had been gone a month, and things between us were back to square one. To be fair, he had quite a few problems to deal with in New York. The scandal involving his employee and friend was everywhere. I had been reading articles and headlines.
Ylenia Stump caught frolicking with handsome Boyd-Building CrossFit trainer, said one of them. The article on Page Six had created an avalanche and pretty soon the sauciest scandal of the summer was on every gossip site…and on everyone’s lips.
In the days following the scandal, Ronald Stump filed for divorce from his wife Ylenia. The couple had a prenup, so Ylenia was probably not going to walk away with much. Her modeling days were behind her, so she was going to have to figure out something else to keep up her lifestyle. Maybe Bravo would come up with a Housewives spinoff. Real Ex-Housewives of New York had a nice ring to it, and Ylenia could probably bring her boy toy along since he was also in need of a job.
Boyd had fired Trey as soon as he’d gotten to Manhattan. I had come to learn after the fact that the day of our massive argument, Boyd’s gym had been served with an eviction notice because the building belonged to one of Stump’s companies. I knew he was dealing with a lot, but I still missed him and wished things were different.
We were still in touch, but our texts were few and generic. They were pleasant, but not affectionate.
He’d ask me how I was feeling, and I’d ask how things were in New York. I knew he had a lot on his mind and that things were still up in the air between us. We never spoke about our fight again, or the fact that I’d told him I loved him.
My phone buzzed, and I saw Ella’s name on the lock screen. I stopped typing on my computer and read her message.
Have you seen him?
Who?
Who do you think, idiot? Boyd. He’s back. He’s back in Amsterdam.
What?
Haven’t you checked Instagram? Social media is not the enemy, Ally.
I groaned. Social media was so the enemy. It was probably the thing that had gotten me addicted to him, but I was never going to admit that to anyone.
You only say that now that your career depends on it, missy.
Touché. Anyway, I think he’s only been back since yesterday. He’s working on the gym. It looks like it’s almost finished. He said it’ll be open by late August?
That was the plan all along. You got all that from his IG?
I might have messaged him after I saw the post.
Of course.
Hey, he’s my brother-in-law. I have every right to text him.
Sure, sure. When are you coming back? I miss you.
I miss you, too. How are you feeling?
Good. Giant, but good. Seriously, you wouldn’t believe my belly. I look like a cow.
I’m sure you don’t…look like a cow, that is…but I have no doubt that baby is getting bigger. He’s probably going to be as impressive as his father.
Ughhh.
Besides, don’t you have four more months to go? Your belly is only going to get bigger.
Please don’t remind me.
Go see him, Ally. Talk to him. Don’t you remember what you told me when Lou and I weren’t talking?
I’ll talk to him. He told me he was coming back, but things have been a bit strained between us…I just want to give him some space. Plus, he was a real ass before he left. He has some groveling to do.
You’re right, he does need to grovel, but try not to be too hard on him, okay? He’s had a messed up month.
I’ve had a messed up five months with many more to come. Why are you taking his side?
I’m not. He did some stupid things and acted like an ass. He was jealous of you and Shane. He was intimidated by him.
I scoffed at the screen.
Oh, please. Boyd hardly seems to be the type to be intimidated by anyone.
I know he cares about you, Ally. I know you two can make it work.
I sighed. I wasn’t so sure Boyd and I could work out, not any more. Everyone around us, however, seemed to disagree. We were just two people who’d had sex one too many times and had accidentally made a baby. I didn’t know what to type back. It was unusual for me
to be at a loss for words. I saw the ellipses appear on my screen, and after a while, her message popped up on my phone.
Just promise me you’ll go see him, okay? If you don’t, he might think you’re deliberately trying to avoid him. You know how Boyd is…he thinks everyone is glued to a phone and constantly waiting for his next picture.
I laughed.
Go see him, Ally. That’s all I ask.
Fine. I will.
Right now.
Stop bossing me around!
I threw my phone on my desk and ignored her next text…and the next one. I rolled my eyes and tried to get back to work, but my concentration was gone. When I picked up the phone again, I saw Ella’s last five texts, a slew of kissy emoticons.
I went up to my apartment and changed my clothes. I made sure my hair was not too much of a mess and refreshed my makeup. It had been a long day, and I didn’t want to show up with bags under my eyes. I was obviously tired, but I managed to make myself look somewhat presentable. I even applied some lipstick. My stomach churned at the prospect of seeing him. Just get it over with.
I wondered if I should call him first, but I decided not to. I grabbed my purse and my keys and left my house.
* * *
The windows of the gym were still covered with dark paper to conceal the work in progress, but I could tell the lights were on.
Not About Love (This Love Book 2) Page 20