by Kaye Blue
“What?” I asked, not believing what he’d said, not wanting to give the hope that bloomed in my chest a chance to grow.
I stared at him for a moment, trying to be distant, but that damn curiosity I still hadn’t managed to shake wouldn’t let me send him away.
“Sit. But don’t think I’m going to offer you anything to drink,” I said, hoping that small hint of poor hospitality would help me remember that I needed to keep my distance.
He laughed, and I allowed myself a grudging smile.
“Fair deal,” he said. “May I sit at the table?”
I nodded and then together we walked to the kitchen table and sat down.
“So…” he said.
“Is that how you begin an apology?” I asked, nervous as he began to speak and desperate for some break in the tension that was building.
“I guess not. So let me just get to it. I’m sorry, Mia,” he said.
“About what?” I asked, torn between being pleased that he’d said the words, but also wary.
“For everything. For treating you so badly. For making you think I wanted nothing more than sex. For pretending I hated you, when I love you,” he said.
I sat in stunned silence, his confession making it impossible for me to react. I wanted to believe him, would have given anything for those words to be true, but something stopped me from taking them at face value.
“Why this change of heart?” I asked.
“It’s not a change, not really. More like a realization. I was so fucked up, Mia, thinking about the past, how wronged I felt. I won’t lie and say that I didn’t set out to hurt you, and I won’t say I wasn’t happy when I succeeded. But these weeks without you…”
He trailed off and I could see the pain in his expression, pain that mirrored my own.
“They fucking sucked, Mia,” he said.
We both smiled, but Alex soon turned somber and continued. “And even more, they made me realize how much the rest of my life sucked too. For years I had told myself I wanted to make you hurt the way you had made me hurt, and when I saw you that last day, I thought I had finally achieved it. Except I didn’t feel good for long. Not at all. I was sad, realized that I was as small and petty as all the people I had hated for so long. Realized I was hurting you for something that was in the past, something that I finally understood,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked, not exactly sure I was following him.
“I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before, but Marcos helped me see reason. When I proposed to you, I was young, thought that as long as I had you everything would work out. But I didn’t consider you in the equation. How unfair of me it was to try to put you into a box, make you tie yourself to a person who barely knew where his next meal was coming from, let alone how to take care of you. So I don’t blame you for not wanting to marry me. I had nothing to offer and it was foolish of me not to recognize that. I wish you would have handled it differently, but I understand why you turned me down,” he said.
I looked at him like he was insane, my eyes starting to cloud with tears.
“Is that what you think?” I asked. “That I said no because you wouldn’t have been able to take care of me?”
“Yes,” he replied.
I shook my head incredulously, unable to believe my ears.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Please tell me you’re not that blind?” I asked, halfway between joy and delirium.
But when I looked into his face all I saw was confusion.
“You really do believe that?”
“Yeah. Is that not the truth?” he asked.
I shook my head, stood up, too wound up to stay seated.
“Couldn’t be further from it,” I finally said.
“Huh?” he asked.
He had stood too and was now facing me, his expression still confused.
I reached for him, cradled his face in my hands. “Alex, my sweet, dumb Alex. Do you know I’ve loved you for more than half my life? Loved you for as long as I’ve known what that is?” I asked.
“No. I didn’t know that,” he responded.
“Well I have. And when you asked me that, I wanted nothing more than to say yes,” I said.
“But…” He started and trailed off.
I dropped my hands and looked away, but then lifted my eyes to him again. “But I loved you too much to do that to you,” I said.
“What do you mean?” he asked, looking confused, something I realized was sincere.
“If I had married you, you never would’ve left here. Ever. You would’ve stayed for me, with me. And how would that have gone? You would have swallowed your pride, asked my father for a job, gone to it, worked hard, pretending that you weren’t dying a little bit every single day. You might not have seen it, you would have pretended that everything was good, but I would have known. And I would have been the reason that you were here in the place you hated, living a life that you never wanted. And I couldn’t live with that. Couldn’t be the reason you stayed.”
“But we could have…” He trailed off, seeming not to know what else to say.
“Yeah,” I said. “Exactly that. I guess I could have done something, but what? There’s no answer, so I did the only thing I could.”
I looked away, the shame of that memory back. But I swallowed and looked at Alex. “It’s not fair of me to tell you this, but I hated myself for what I did. The look on your face…it haunted me, still does sometimes. And those people who laughed at you like I did…I hated them, Alex.”
I swallowed, swiped at the tear that slid down my cheek.
“But I didn’t see another way. I could have said no, but you wouldn’t have believed me and you wouldn’t have given up. I would have given in, and I couldn’t let that happen. So I hurt you as badly as I could. And you went off and built the life that you wanted, the one that you deserve,” I said.
“No I didn’t,” he said vehemently.
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
He paused for a moment, looked at me, and then in a sudden burst of motion, wrapped his hands around mine.
My eyes again started to tear at the contact, but I held those tears back.
“You asked me once if I was happy and I gave you some bullshit answer. But the truth is, no, I’m not happy. I won’t ever be happy without you. I have a lot of money, power beyond my wildest imagination, but none of that means anything, not without you,” he said.
I studied his expression, looking for any trace of insincerity, anything at all that might tell me he didn’t mean it.
I found nothing.
“You really mean that, don’t you,” I whispered, unable to speak too loudly, afraid I might somehow break the spell.
“Yeah. I do. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, and certainly didn’t want to admit it to you, but I love you, Mia. Always have and always will,” he said.
I stood there a moment, my mind simultaneously excited and afraid and then finally I gave in to the excitement, deciding I was letting go of the fear and of the past.
“I love you too, Alex,” I said.
I dropped his hands, threw my arms around his neck, and when he kissed me, I knew that after all this time, the pain, the hurt, I was where I was supposed to be.
Knew that we had both finally found our homes.
A Note From Kaye
I hope you enjoyed Lust & Leverage! And thank you for reading.
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I have a soft spot in my heart for second-chance romance, and I had an absolute blast writing Alex and Mia’s story. There’s something about characters working their way through issues to finally find each other that really speaks to me, and getting two stubborn, hurt characters past their pain to love was really wonderful.
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If you missed Dirty Debt, the first book in the series, you can find it here.
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I’m always hard at work on the next book, so join my newsletter to be the first to know all about my upcoming releases!
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Can I ask a favor? Please leave a review for Lust & Leverage. Whether you liked the book or not, your reviews give me and other readers really helpful feedback, and I appreciate each one.
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Check out my website at www.kayebluewriter.com to find out more about my books. And you can always find me on my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/writerkayeblue or on Instagram @writerkayeblue.
Till next time!
xo
Kaye
Kaye’s Books
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THE IRISH MOB CHRONICLES
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THE SYNDICATE: CRIME AND PASSION
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