Mr. Ruin

by Maya Hughes

  “Where’s my cupcake, young lady?”

  “You can have a bite of mine.” Emma offered him her cupcake and he took a huge bite.

  “Daddy!” she squealed. “You almost ate the whole thing!”

  “I’m sorry. It looked so good I couldn’t resist.” Emma pouted with her arms crossed over her chest and peeped up at Gabe with her bottom lip sticking out. “I guess this means we’ll have to buy another one and split it,” he chuckled.

  “Yes! Yes!” Emma hopped up and down and followed him to the counter to order another cupcake. She was more than happy to share if it meant she ended up with more cupcakes.

  They had a leisurely morning wandering around before they got back on the train for the four-hour trip back to Edinburgh. Emma was bouncing around the train car and Alex let Gabe handle it like she said she would. He would have to learn that you didn’t sugar a kid up before putting them in an enclosed environment unless you wanted to invite some serious trouble and angry glares from anyone else occupying your space.

  She eventually took pity on him and pulled a coloring book and crayons out of her emergency stash. He shot her a grateful look and they all ended up spending most of the trip coloring and playing I Spy, which was a little tricky when they were speeding past scenery, but they made it work. Emma’s sugar rush ended about fifteen minutes from their station and he carried her into the car.

  They pulled up to the cottage a little before dinnertime and Emma spent most of the meal attempting to chew her food in her sleep. When her head hit the table, Alex called it quits.

  “Okay, missy, it’s time for bed before you choke on your food.” Alex stood and moved to pick Emma up.

  “I’ve got her.” Gabe stood and hoisted Emma up onto his shoulder. She barely moved even though she still had a little bit of spaghetti hanging out of her mouth. Alex chuckled, following him up the stairs. They got her changed out of her clothes and into her pajamas. He grabbed a wet washcloth and wiped the spaghetti off her face as she grumbled in her sleep and swatted his hand away. Putting her hand over her mouth, Alex had to back out into the hallway to contain her laughter.

  He came out of Emma’s room, threw the cloth into the bathroom, and took Alex’s hand as they walked down the stairs.

  “Remind me never to feed her that much sugar before we travel anywhere again,” he said wearily.

  “I tried to warn you,” she teased.

  “I know, I know. I will forever defer to your expertise when it comes to sugar consumption and Emma,” he said, chuckling. They gathered the dishes and began cleaning up. This was all starting to feel normal. A normal family life. This was how it should be, always.

  *

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you, Lesley’s going to stop by set tomorrow. It will be great to catch up,” he said, then there was a crash from behind him.

  Alex was crouched on the floor picking up broken pieces of the plates she’d been carrying to the sink. She looked up at him with daggers in her eyes. Not just daggers, but tears.

  “You’re going to have Lesley come here tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, why? I haven’t seen here in a while and she’s down in Glasgow filming for a new TV series.”

  “You would actually have her come up here knowing that Emma and I are here?” Alex gritted out as she moved jerkily around the kitchen. She seemed unable to decide what to do with herself.

  He stared at her bewildered. He’d remembered that Alex and Lesley had gotten along the last time they’d seen each other.

  “I saw those pictures Gabe, the pictures of her leaving the hotel the night after we broke up. I saw her leaving the hotel in a shirt of yours that I’d worn back when you were filming Stargazer and she was in a pair of your boxer shorts,” she said, standing up with the pieces of broken plates in her hands. She stomped to the trashcan to throw them away.

  “Alex, that was just publicity. I told you what the studio wanted. They wanted the press coverage and for people to speculate about if there was something going on with us.” He hadn’t even thought about the pictures that had been in the tabloids after Lesley left the hotel when he puked on her. It was yet another screw up on his part, because—of course—Alex would have seen them.

  “Did the studio also want you to fuck her?” Alex spat out with such venom that it made him recoil.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I saw you, Gabe. I saw you the day after I left; I came back to the hotel.”

  His head whipped back like he’d been slapped.

  “You did?”

  “Yes, I did. And I heard Lesley in the shower and I saw you sprawled out on the bed in nothing but your boxers. She was saying something about how dirty she’d gotten,” Alex said, tears streaming down her face.

  “Alex, no. NO! I did not sleep with Lesley. We’ve never been more than friends.”

  “I saw you, Gabe! I saw you lying there on the bed we’d slept in, made love in, and not less than twenty-four hours later, you were in there with another woman,” she accused. He closed his eyes. He now realized exactly what had happened. He moved to Alex to try to pull her to him.

  “No, don’t touch me. You have no idea how hard it was for me to know that I mattered so little to you that in less than a day you were in bed with her.”

  “I wasn’t. I didn’t. I drank myself stupid the night you left. When I woke up the next day, I was completely hung over. Lesley came over to talk about the press tour and I puked all over her. She was covered. She asked to take a shower because it was rank and she was gross. I gave her some clothes to wear after.” He pleaded with her to believe him.

  “And then to know I was pregnant and you wouldn’t even speak to me. Do you have any idea how humiliating that was for me?” She completely ignored everything he’d said. “To call day after day to try to get through to you? To email for months?” she said through her tears that were flowing down her cheeks and dripping off her chin.

  “No, I can’t imagine, but Alex, I didn’t cheat on you. I didn’t. Why didn’t you come to see me once you were pregnant?” He attempted to wrap his arms around Alex.

  She moved out of the range of his arms, pushing him away. “Why didn’t I come to see you? I did come to see you. Even after what I’d seen with Lesley. I knew you had a right to know about Emma. So, I came to see you.”

  “What? When? And Alex about Lesley—,” he sputtered, stunned.

  “I don’t know, I must have been, twenty-six or twenty-seven weeks pregnant. I just couldn’t believe that you wouldn’t respond to me. I scrounged up the rest of my savings from the fall and I bought a ticket and I flew to LA.”

  “I waited outside of Aaron’s office building for four hours. They finally set security on me and told me if I came within one hundred yards of you, I’d be arrested.” The stress of everything finally came crashing down and she broke down in sobs and fell to her knees. “Do you have any idea how horrible that was for me? To know that you would screw me, cheat on me, and then just throw not only me, but our unborn child, aside?” His heart broke even more knowing that getting involved with him had caused her so much heartbreak.

  He dropped to the ground next to her and wrapped his arms around her. “Shh, shh, shh, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry; you have no idea how sorry I am. Not just about Aaron, but about everything,” he said as he began to rock her back and forth.

  She calmed a bit and started to wipe the tears from her face. “When I finally got home, there was a check waiting for me. It was for three hundred thousand dollars. There was a no-contact agreement saying that I wasn’t to come within one hundred yards of you in exchange for the money.”

  He gaped at her, completely unable to believe that Aaron had been so underhanded when dealing with her and that he hadn’t seen through him earlier. He was kicking himself and trying to figure out how he could convince her that he hadn’t cheated on her with Lesley.

  “I know some people will think it makes me a terrible person, but I cashed it. I ha
d one year left of school and I knew if I was doing this on my own—finishing school and making something of myself—I needed that help,” she continued.

  “I don’t care about the money! I don’t care; I’m glad you took it. You both needed it.”

  “Yeah, we did. I used enough to get me through school, pay for Emma’s daycare, and then I put the rest in a trust for her. It’s at more than five hundred thousand now. But I didn’t touch it after that first year. Not after I graduated from school.” Alex’s eyes started to tear up again. “I got a good job and was able to support the two of us.”

  He pulled her to him and ran his hands down her back and caressed her hair.

  “Alex, I’m not mad. I’m not upset. I don’t care about that money at all and I’m glad that at least there was a little help for you when you needed it most and I couldn’t be there with you.”

  “It wasn’t until her first birthday that I knew you really weren’t coming,” she said, almost zoned out as she continued. “That’s when the letters started becoming an annual thing. I thought that if I could just get you to see how beautiful she was,” her voice started to crack again, “how amazing she was, that you wouldn’t be able to resist and would finally come to meet her.”

  “I did, I did as soon as I saw those letters, as soon as I saw her, I knew I had to find you both and be a part of your lives,” he said, pulling her face to his and looking deeply into her eyes.

  “A part of her life. You need to be a part of Emma’s life,” she whispered, correcting him, while wiping the new tears from her eyes.

  “Both of your lives,” he said, still holding her face in his hands.

  “Gabe, that ship sailed when you cheated on me in LA. I thought I could deal with it and put it behind us, but I can’t. I was all for doing what we were doing while we were here in Scotland, but I can’t do this beyond our time here. I won’t stop you from being involved in Emma’s life because she needs her dad. And as long as you plan on being consistent with your time with her, I won’t keep you two apart. But there is no you and me beyond being parents. We—”

  “Alex, I never cheated on you. You have to believe me,” he said, now that they were back to that again. “I admit that what I did about the studio contract about our relationship was wrong. It was completely wrong—it was probably the biggest mistake of my life—but I never cheated on you.”

  “It was less than twenty-four hours after we had a fight and you were already sleeping with Lesley. Someone who was glamorous and fit in with your lifestyle. The lifestyle the studio wanted. I was nothing in comparison—”

  “Don’t say that, your love was everything to me, I was blinded by the lifestyle at the time and didn’t know how to get out of that contract without owing a lot of money, but I shouldn’t have agreed. I know that. I was wrong, I was so wrong, but I never cheated on you. Ever!” he said, emphatically. She pulled her head from between his hands, walked across the room, and hugged her waist as she tried not to break down again.

  “The day after our fight. When I came back to talk things out with you and I saw you were in your boxers on the bed and Lesley was in the shower,” she spat. “It had barely been twenty-four hours, Gabe, and you already took her to bed,” she accused. “Then I saw the paparazzi pictures of her leaving the hotel in your clothes. Walk of shame was all over the papers.”

  He went to her grab both of her arms to get her to face him.

  “Alex, you’re not hearing me. I didn’t cheat on you,” he repeated. “I swear. I swear on Emma’s life. I didn’t cheat. I drank a lot that day you left. A lot, and when I woke up the next day, I was in terrible shape. Lesley came over to talk about the press tour the next day and I puked all over her. It was a mess, it was everywhere.”

  Alex looked up at him, trying to decide if she believed him.

  “She asked if she could take a shower and I let her, and lent her some clothes because hers were ruined.”

  “I would never have cheated on you. No woman has ever been able to compare to you. I know we weren’t together for long. And I know that it’s crazy to say this after all this time,” he said, gazing into Alex’s eyes as she shook her head. He pushed on, knowing he had to get this out.

  “But I loved you Alex. Love you even more now after seeing how you’ve raised our daughter on your own. Emma alone would be enough to make me love you forever, but combine that with how you make me feel and the kind of man you make me want to be? Alex there is no one who can compare to you; please believe me.” He held her face in his hands and stared into her eyes, imploring her to believe him. He didn’t know what he would do if she didn’t. It seemed that everything had been going so well and now it was falling apart.

  “You can talk to Lesley tomorrow. She’s happily married with a little boy of her own. She wouldn’t lie about this. I wouldn’t lie about this. I know there have been so many issues that we’ve had and I know that it’s been difficult for you to trust me and my feelings for you, but please believe me when I say this. I never, ever cheated on you.” He knew that if she didn’t believe him, they were over before they had even really started.

  Chapter 27

  The bombshell that dropped yesterday about Gabe and Lesley was still replaying through her mind. She’d told him that she needed a little bit of time with all of this and had gone to bed. He’d slept in the other bedroom and Alex was grateful. It had taken her hours to finally fall into a fitful sleep.

  He hadn’t cheated on her. All those roadblocks she’d been putting up were built on something that hadn’t happened. Why hadn’t she just confronted him in that hotel room when she thought he’d slept with Lesley?

  Because she was a chicken, that was why. She’d been afraid that if she confronted him, he would have been able to woo her back. He would have woven his spell over her and she would have forgiven him and he would have done it again and again and again, and she would have ended up like the one person in her life she vowed never to be like. The fear had made her heart race and her palms sweat as she envisioned herself sitting at home while he was out on the town sleeping his way through co-stars and fans alike, and she would keep taking him back.

  So, she’d run, run away from him and away from the horrifying vision of the future she’d painted for herself. And because of that and the mistakes he’d made, they had both robbed their daughter of a relationship with him. Aaron deserved a boatload of blame in all of this, but if they had been upfront with one another from the beginning and not so damn scared, he wouldn’t have even had the chance.

  The front door opened downstairs and Alex sat up. She could hear Emma’s voice bouncing off the walls and Gabe’s deep voice, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. They were talking to someone. She got up, walked to the dresser, and pulled out some clothes. The front door closed and Emma was running around outside.

  Thinking that he was giving her some time to herself and taking Emma to the park, she wanted to hustle and get dressed and get some food in her before they returned. She was still feeling raw and ragged inside and needed some coffee or something else to perk her up. She wasn’t exactly looking forward to this day. Things had ended on a strange note last night. Not knowing where things stood with him made it even more difficult.

  She got dressed and headed downstairs, and she caught the lit-up screen of a phone in her peripheral vision. Letting out a cross between a squeak and a scream, she gripped her hand to her chest before she realized that it was just Lesley sitting in her living room. Lesley turned to her and put her arm along the back of the couch, looking as radiant as ever. She put her phone down on the table.

  “Hey Alex! Gabe said you would be down soon. I hope you don’t mind that I’m waiting here on my own.”

  “No, of course not. Not at all. Did you want something to drink? Some tea or juice or something?”

  “Sure, some tea would be great, thanks.”

  “Come on in the kitchen. I have a pretty good idea why you’re here.” Alex waved Lesley
into the kitchen and grabbed a couple of mugs from the cabinet, filled the electric kettle, and turned it on. Lesley slid into one of the stools across the counter. She put two teabags into the mugs and turned back to Lesley, resting her butt against the stove.

  “So, I take it Gabe told you about what we talked about last night.”

  “Yeah, Alex; I don’t even know where to start. I did not sleep with Gabe. We didn’t sleep together ever and other than kisses done in front of about a hundred crew members, we have never, ever done anything intimate at all.”

  “I know,” Alex said, and a stunned expression passed over Lesley’s face. She couldn’t hold back her laugh. “Wasn’t expecting that?”

  “No, not at all. From the frantic way Gabe called me last night, I fully expected to come here and see a pile of Gabe’s clothes burning on the front lawn.”

  “I had a lot to think over last night and I think I freaked him out. It wasn’t just about the fact that I thought he cheated, but also what was going on with me that made me run away when I thought he had. Walking in on the scene I saw with the two of you was rough.”

  “I’m sure, I can’t imagine,” Lesley said, reaching across the island, and giving her hand a squeeze.

  “But I didn’t have to react that way. I was more worried about what I would do once I confronted him than I was about the actual cheating.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was worried that you would have come out of that shower and he would have seen me there and told me what happened, and I might have still taken him back. That I would have loved him so much and not wanted to be away from him that I would have settled for whatever scraps he wanted to give me until he was through with me and tossed me out.”

  Lesley’s eyes got wide and her jaw dropped. “Alex, no way would Gabe have ever done that. Not just the cheating part, but any of that other stuff. He was ga-ga for you, still is from what I can see. If it weren’t for that contract and the lawsuit they could have filed against him, there’s no way things would have gone down in LA like they did.”