“Are you in love with Alexis?” Matt asked.
“No, he’s not, but the two of them should never be allowed near each other,” Meghan scoffed.
“Thanks for answering for me,” I retorted. “Do I even need to be present for this conversation?”
“Alexis has always had a thing for my brother,” she continued, ignoring me. “And Jared—whether he wants to admit it or not—plays into it. It was even before their little fiasco in Vermont. One time I watched them at a press conference and I seriously thought they were going to rip each other’s clothes off right then and there.”
“And this bothered Anabel?” Matt asked quietly.
“I don’t think it was just that,” I assessed. “I think it shook her pretty bad that Alexis was about to kill her, and then I came in and started kissing her—”
“—so it broke Annie’s trust,” commented Meghan thoughtfully.
“And then the poor girl remembered watching her father die,” put in Charlotte.
“So it’s all too much for her,” finished Kevin. He turned to Matt. “Plus, there’s this.” He pointed to a line that read, Why? He’ll probably leave. I’m not good enough for him.
“Is that really what she thinks?” He shook his head.
“She’s always thought that,” I replied. “She told me as much.”
“Did she?” he asked, and I heard the anger in his voice.
“It was a passing comment, Matt. In the same breath she informed me that I had no chance with her while you were around.” I looked at Kevin. “So what should we do?”
“Give her some space,” he suggested. “Let her sort this out. She’d never do anything to cause the baby harm, and what she’s been through is a lot for any person to stomach.” He turned to Matt. “You can try with her, she might respond to you.”
He hesitated. “I don’t know. She wouldn’t even answer the door earlier.”
“Get creative,” Charlotte urged.
“Maybe she just needs some space,” suggested Phil. “Like Kevin said. She has been through a lot.”
But it was killing Matt; I saw it on his face. At that moment, I had to admit to myself that this definitely was not an act— he really did love her. I watched as he stared at me, at Meghan, at Phil, and then he just nodded and slowly walked up the stairs, and we heard his door close.
Charlotte and Phil exchanged a glance, and then Charlotte said, “I made some spaghetti.”
“That sounds excellent,” announced Meghan. She grabbed my arm. “Come on, let’s go spoon up some spaghetti for everybody.”
“I’m not hungry, Meg.”
“Do I look like I care?” she snapped. Then she pulled herself together. “Come on, Jared. You need to eat.”
I followed her into the kitchen, and she got to the point. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Stop trying to ruin everything for Matt and Anabel,” she ordered. “They love each other. Deal with it.”
“I just told him she said there’s no us with him around.”
“Yeah, and that’s quite charitable of you, but you also need to remember he’s wondering right now about what’s going on in her head after watching your little display with Alexis.” Meghan sighed. “Matt’s wondering if Anabel’s having second thoughts, and the fact that she won’t talk to him isn’t helping things.”
“I shoved her over the edge,” I lamented.
“It was bound to happen sooner or later.”
“Thank God they caught Charlie,” I commented. Once news of Alexis’ arrest had been leaked to the press, he had tried to make a run for it, but they caught him trying to catch a flight out of Dulles. A K9 unit had brought him down, and it had been all over the news. In confidence, Charlotte had told me that Marilyn was devastated and had called, begging to talk to Anabel, but Anabel had shoved a note under her door that read, Forget it.
“I can’t believe he and Alexis were working together,” remarked Meghan.
“I know,” I replied. Once certain that I really had betrayed her, a broken Alexis had confessed the whole thing: Charlie had contacted her a few weeks after Anabel’s arrival to the States and explained how he had murdered Jonathan—and why he thought Alexis was the person to assist him in finishing off his daughter. Alexis agreed the best way to salvage Sam’s political career and keep Anabel and I apart was to get rid of her, but the chance hadn’t presented itself until I had left her alone at the hospital.
And if I hadn’t gotten back when I did, Anabel and Emma would both be dead. And it would have been my fault. Once Sam had gotten over the fact that Alexis had made an attempt on his sister’s life, he felt the need to remind me of this fact over and over again. At least Matt had the decency to not say that right to my face.
“Did she say why he killed Jonathan in the first place?” Meghan asked.
“He thought it was the only way off the island,” I told her. “He thought that if everything came out, about Caereon’s existence, he could get off and be with Marilyn. But then Anabel saw what happened, and so he’d been biding his time with her. When he found out that she had been having nightmares—and I, of course, was the one who told him that,” I continued, shaking my head in disgust, “he realized there wasn’t much time left before she remembered.”
“And Alexis offered to do it,” she whispered.
“I had no idea she felt that much for me,” I replied.
“I did, but I didn’t factor in the dose of crazy that accompanied it,” Meghan shook her head. “What a mess, Jared. Well, look at it this way. At some point Princess will run out of paper.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s over now,” I stated. “Whatever chance I did have. She’s been holed up in her room for three days. She won’t talk to me.”
“Or Matt,” Meghan pointed out. “What do you think that means?”
“I don’t know for him, but I know what it means for me,” I said.
Strike three.
Chapter 45—Anabel
I couldn’t talk, and nobody understood why.
I know that they didn’t understand because they kept knocking at my door.
“Anabel, it’s Charlotte, dear. I’m leaving your tray and some water outside. Make sure you take your vitamin.”
And then: “Hi Annie! It’s Meghan. Just wondered if you wanted to go for a walk.”
A very pained voice said, “It’s Jared.” And then nothing.
A few times Matt knocked, and for those I actually went to the door. But even for him, I couldn’t find the words.
Everything hurt too much.
So every day I took a shower and washed my hair. I would comb it and dry it, and then I would check Emma’s kicks to make sure she was moving around properly. I would eat my breakfast and do some prenatal yoga.
Then I lay in my bed, lost in thought, getting up every hour to stretch my legs and do my exercises. Occasionally someone would knock and ask something that required a response, so I would write them a note and shove it under the door.
Twice Kevin had showed up and I permitted him to come into the room and check me out, listen to Emma’s heartbeat, and ask me questions, the answers to which I wrote down for him. Most of the time I would write down the answers to questions I knew he was going to ask me in advance, and I would hand the paper to him and his visits were short.
I was being selfish. I knew this. But I didn’t want to see any of them. I didn’t want to see Jared, because I couldn’t get the image of him kissing Alexis out of my mind. I didn’t want to see my brother, because I knew he must be devastated. I didn’t want to see Meghan’s caring eyes, or Charlotte’s compassionate smile.
However, I desperately wanted to see Matt, but I couldn’t summon the courage.
It was November, and I was ridiculously pregnant. I was now so round that I couldn’t stand myself. I felt puffy and swollen and as much as I loved my little girl, I was not a happy camper.
On the seve
nth day of my self-imposed exile, I heard a knock at the door. I heard Charlotte’s voice call, “Breakfast, Anabel.” I waited about a minute, and then I opened the door and came face to face with Matt.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he greeted me.
I bit my lip and stared at him, shaking my head.
He bent over and picked up my tray. “Listen, I know you don’t feel like talking right now.”
I nodded cautiously.
“But I thought maybe, if it was okay with you, I could read to you. Would that be alright?”
I wanted to say no, I really did. I wanted to tell him to get far away from me because I would ruin his life. I wasn’t what he deserved—he deserved someone who was at least somewhat sane.
But my feelings for him overwhelmed me, and I nodded and stepped back.
He carried my tray into my room, and I almost smiled when I saw what he had brought. It was a beautiful leather-bound version—just like one I had had on Caereon—of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. The book’s presence made me think of a conversation we had once had.
We were headed to a hearing and had been riding in silence when I got annoyed. “Why won’t you talk to me?” I had asked.
“On what particular subject would you like to converse?” he had asked lazily, taking a turn in the truck. “Shoes and ships and sealing wax?”
“No,” I had rejoined with a smile. “Cabbages and kings.”
“Excellent. Then we can discuss next why the sea is boiling hot.”
“And whether pigs have wings,” I had finished. Then I had spontaneously kissed him on the cheek. “You’re fun sometimes. When you’re not being a total jerk.”
His hand flew to his face, and then he grinned at me. “You’re fun sometimes, too.”
It was that memory that gave me the courage to drop onto my bed and eat my pancakes and cantaloupe while Matt sat down in the armchair and read to me for two hours. Then he closed the book and asked, “Is it alright if I come back tomorrow?”
I had nodded, and he stood up. “Is there anything I can get you?”
I shook my head.
“Tomorrow at breakfast, then,” he promised, and showed himself out.
This continued for several days. We finished Alice and then moved on to Harry Potter, and he read to me for increasingly longer periods of time. When he got to the part about the three-headed dog, I thought I caught a twinkle in his eye, but then it went away and we finished Sorcerer’s Stone.
The following day I wondered what book he would bring next, and he carried my breakfast tray in along with a small binder. “I thought we’d do something different today,” he announced.
I looked at him.
“You haven’t said a word to me in over two weeks, Anabel,” he commented. “That hurts more than I can say.”
I scrambled for a pen, but he placed his hand over mine. “Let me finish.”
I nodded again and sat back on the bed.
“I thought about what I wanted to say to you, how I could comfort you, but I know that nothing I say will make you feel any less than what you currently do,” he continued. “I wish you would let me be there for you, but since you won’t, I need to find out something.”
I pursed my lips together and tugged on my hair. “Don’t do that, sweetheart,” he implored again. So I took a deep breath and met his eyes, and he went on, “Just let me read to you, okay? And if you can’t say anything to this, then I doubt you’ll have anything to say to me ever again, and I’ll leave you alone.”
So I sat there, and a smile spread across my face when he read Buttercup’s speech to Westley, proclaiming her love for him. When he finished with the door slamming in Buttercup’s face I looked at him, my eyes full of meaning, but he then launched into Shakespeare’s 116th sonnet. Then he read to me the discourse between Emma and Mr. Knightley as the two of them realized they were in love with each other. And just when I thought he had outdone himself, he launched into this:
“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men.”
Then he stopped and looked at me, begging me with his eyes to speak. I opened my mouth, and willed myself to be strong. Taking a deep breath, I managed, “Have you even read Persuasion?”
“My mom made me,” he admitted, sitting next to me. “In case I ever needed to bring out the big guns with a girl.”
“Matt,” I began.
“It’s good to hear your voice,” he cut me off. “It sounds a bit out of tune.”
“I suppose it would.”
“Why won’t you talk to me?”
“Because I love you,” I told him. “But I don’t know if we can make this work.”
“Why?”
“Well, for starters, I’m having a baby in eight weeks,” I pointed out. “One that isn’t yours.” I stretched my legs out.
“That doesn’t bother me,” he replied.
I looked into his eyes, probing. “You sure about that?”
“It did at first,” he admitted. “But Emma’s a part of you. And I love all of you.”
Why was he so good? I looked away. “There’s another big problem.”
“What, honey? Tell me, and we’ll fix it.” He sounded sincere.
“I can’t have sex with you.” I flushed and looked down.
Now he put his arm around me. “Never?”
“Well, no, not never. “But I don’t know when I’ll be ready.” I sighed. “If I’ll be ready.”
“So you think that’s a problem?” he asked.
I met his eyes. “I’m not stupid, Matt. I know it’s probably a deal breaker.”
He nodded, and we sat there in silence. Then he finally said, “Not all of us are like Jared, you know.”
“You aren’t like him at all,” I responded. “But that’s not it.” Then I paused. “I have to tell you, I’m starting to wonder if there are any women in the DC area he hasn’t slept with.”
“He didn’t sleep with Alexis.”
“You should have seen them,” I shuddered. “I felt like I was intruding.”
“So you think he loves her? Is that it?” I couldn’t read Matt, but I figured I may as well be honest.
“No,” I admitted. “But she loves him. I know it, because she kissed him the same way I kiss you.” I started to wring my hands. “That’s what killed me, Matt. And I think that’s what would happen if Jared and I were ever together. It would always be one-sided.” I searched for words to try and explain. “He was completely convincing with her. So how do I know that it wasn’t all an act with me, you know?”
“He’s devastated that you won’t see him,” he confided. “I haven’t had the heart to tell him I’ve been spending time with you, even though you wouldn’t say anything to me.”
“He just doesn’t get it.” Now I started chewing on my nails. “Here’s my problem. We had this conversation where even though I told him I loved you, I got the impression he still had feelings for me, and then I saw him with her. And it just took everything out of me, because that just twisted me up inside. Why did it have to be Alexis?” I
moaned.
“What are you saying, Anabel?”
“I’m saying that’s why it’s so hard for me,” I explained. “Facing him, it’s too much. I know why he did it, but they have something, Matt. Something real. Like what you and I have.”
He rubbed my arm. “I know, honey. I know.”
“I know how much you love me,” I told him. “I really do. But I also know that I can’t give you what you deserve.” I sighed. “It will take me a really long time to get to a place where I can do that, and it’s not fair for me to ask that of you.”
“Anabel,” he said. “Sweetheart, I’ve never had any expectations from you in that regard.”
I looked at him sharply. “You haven’t?”
“No, honey,” he soothed, stroking my face. “Look, you are right in that it is a deal breaker, but not now, not any time close to now. Down the road sometime. But you need to recover emotionally before we even try to go there.” He pulled me to him. “Is that really what all of this was about?”
“Just with you,” I almost laughed. “I can’t talk to my brother because his life is in shambles because of me. I can’t talk to Charlotte because she’ll ask me a million questions. And I can’t talk to Jared because he broke me again.”
He pulled away from me then, and put his hands on my shoulders. “Look at me, Anabel.” As I met his eyes, he sighed. “Let’s not stray from the subject, okay?”
I nodded again.
“I haven’t forgotten that you’re almost ten years younger than me, you know. And unlike Jared, I haven’t been with half the population of DC, and I would never push you into anything that you didn’t want—and weren’t ready—to do.”
“What if it takes a long time?” I asked in a small voice.
“Then I’ll wait.” He smiled at me.
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