by Maisey Yates
That night a limo picked them up at JFK and they drove in yet more silence back to Alex’s place.
Up in his apartment Chelsea walked quietly around the open space. She stopped in front of the blown-up black-and-white photographs that adorned one exposed brick wall.
“Did Sarah do these?”
Surprise—and panic—flashed through him. “How did you know?”
“I don’t know. They just seem so...sad.”
“The subjects became sadder closer to her death,” Alex admitted. “Looking back, I feel like I should have known.” Because she as good as told me. He swallowed the words, looked away.
“You always do,” Chelsea agreed, “looking back.”
There was too much quiet sorrow and regret in her voice for Alex not to say something. Trouble was, he had no idea what to say, and even if he did know he still wasn’t sure he wanted to say it. “Chelsea—” He stopped, helplessly, and she turned to him.
“I want to tell you some things.”
Shit. What could he do now? Her expression was both remote and determined, and unease crept along his spine, soured his gut. “Okay,” he finally said, and he heard how reluctant he sounded. Knew Chelsea heard it, too, saw the hard glitter enter her eyes as she lifted her chin, threw her shoulders back, every inch the icy and elegant Chelsea Maxwell.
“I slept my way into my first job.”
It wasn’t what he’d expected. He felt a mild surprise, a twinge of censure, but overall an acceptance, almost a relief. That’s it? “Okay.”
“I walked into the interview and offered, point-blank, to sleep with the boss to get what I wanted. He took me up on my offer, and I got the job as weather girl for a local news station in Huntsville.”
“I guess you knew what you wanted.” The words felt like marbles in his mouth, unfamiliar, uncomfortable. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what she wanted or needed to hear, and frankly he just wanted this to be over.
Something flashed across her face, too quickly for him to know what it was. “I guess I did. Look me up if you want, on the internet. Aurora Dawn Jensen. That’s who I was. Who I am.”
A different name? He was surprised, but still not really affected. It just didn’t seem like that big a deal. “I don’t need to trawl the internet, Chelsea—”
“I didn’t grow up the way I let you believe,” she cut across him, her voice hardening, sharpening. “I lied about that. I don’t know who my father was, and my mother was useless. Her string of boyfriends were even worse. I was your classic trailer park trash.”
She waited, and Alex shrugged, still not sure where she was going with this. “Why did you lie?” he asked, and she flinched.
“Because I wanted to believe it. I wanted to be someone different.”
Well, he could understand that. Hadn’t he wanted to be different at Walkerton Prep? Not the poor kid from the Bronx in the secondhand uniform who came to school on a bus rather than a limo or helicopter. And yet somehow he couldn’t find the words to tell her that he understood, that whatever she was telling him was okay, he could take it.
Maybe he couldn’t take it. Maybe he didn’t really want to know all this, because it would throw all his deficiencies into the light. This was why he didn’t do relationships. Because he had no idea how to handle someone else’s pain. Because he couldn’t stand the thought of that person seeing his own.
“I lied about everything, Alex.” Her words came faster now, too fast for Alex to process. To know how he felt, much less how he should respond. “Chelsea Maxwell—the woman you think you know—doesn’t exist. I made her up when I moved to New York, to have a new start. But she isn’t real.”
“You’re real, Chelsea,” he finally managed, but his voice sounded feeble to his own ears and she just shook her head.
“You think so? Well, I think I’m still the stupid girl who thought the only way she could get a job was if she got on her back. Or on her knees, as it happened. Or in a broom closet, on a desk, in the elevator, in a parking lot—”
Alex flinched, held up a hand. He did not want those images in his head. “Chelsea. Stop.”
“Why?” Her eyes glittered, although with tears or defiance he couldn’t tell. “This is the real deal, Alex. Are you ready for it?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I had an affair with Brian Taylor for three years. A sick, sordid little affair that I chose, because I wanted to be on TV that much.”
He could hear the loathing in her voice, but he didn’t understand it. She’d never apologized for her choices, and he accepted that about her. But now he didn’t know what she wanted from him.
“And then what happened?” he finally asked.
“Things got a little out of hand. Brian always liked to inflict a little pain, but he got carried away and I ended up in ER with a smashed-in face and this.” She gestured to the scar on her breast. “He’d caught some guy looking at my chest and flipped out.” She drew another breath. “Dragged me out of an office party by the hair. He took me into his office and no one intervened. No one called the cops or so much as knocked on the door while he beat me to a pulp and then went at me with a knife. So I know how it feels to be pushed into the pool, in a matter of speaking. I know what it feels like to have everyone watch you drown.”
He stared at her, his mind spinning with all this new knowledge, this terrible, new understanding. Now he got why she chose one-night stands. Why crowds gave her anxiety attacks. Why she acted hard and cold and in control because she knew what it was like not to be.
And yet he didn’t say anything. He couldn’t.
“No one knows all that,” she said quietly. Her face was still shuttered, blank, and she wouldn’t look at him. “No one knows the whole story except for you.”
She waited then, waited for his words, for something, and he came up empty. What the hell was he supposed to say? That it was okay? It obviously wasn’t. That he didn’t care about her past? But he did, because it mattered.
Maybe he should just hold her, but he couldn’t move. And he knew why.
Because he hadn’t wanted to know this. Didn’t want to go this deep. Hell, if Chelsea said all this, he’d have to say his shit, too. He’d have to admit to his weakness, and he knew where that led. Nowhere good.
“Say something,” she said, and her voice broke. Alex just stared.
“I’m sorry—”
“Oh, Alex.” She shook her head, wiping at her eyes before the tears spilled. “You know, your mother was afraid I’d hurt you. She saw through me that night in Miami. She saw how much I was hiding. And I was afraid of hurting you, of not being good enough for you. Not strong or whole enough. But in the end maybe it’s you who will hurt me.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said quietly, and meant it. But don’t want was different from won’t.
“I know you don’t. But I can see on your face you don’t want to deal with all this.” She gestured to the space between them, but he knew what she really meant. With her. “It’s more than you bargained for. I get that. And the truth is...the truth is...” Her voice wobbled. “I need someone who does want to. Who’s willing to take the risk.” She drew herself up, threw her shoulders back like the woman he’d first seen striding out of her apartment building, the world served before her on a silver platter. “I want someone to think I’m worth it,” she finished quietly, and before he could form a response she turned from him, opened the elevator’s grilled door, and was gone.
* * *
Alex stared unseeingly at the latest headlines scrolling across the top of his computer. The world could be going to hell and he wouldn’t know. Didn’t care.
His world was shot.
It had been fourteen endless hours since Chelsea had left his apartment. Since he’d listened to her pour her heart out without a single word of sympathy in response.
What the hell was wrong with him?
It wasn’t until she was gone that his mind had kicked into gear and he’d sprung from the
sofa, ran down the stairs and wrenched open the steel door to the freezing February night. She must have run like hell to get out of there so fast.
He took a cab to her apartment and asked the doorman to ring up. No answer. He called her mobile, texted her a dozen times, nothing.
Too little, too late. He knew that, felt it in the emptiness that whistled through him. He remembered staring down at Sarah’s broken body, confusion replaced by a dawning horror.
A growing realization that this was all his fault. Just as it was...again.
“Alex?” His assistant’s voice through the intercom interrupted his nonperusal of the news headlines. “Hunter Grant and Zoe Brook for you.”
Alex frowned. Hunter had never visited him at his office before, but he could guess the reason why he was here now. He wanted to talk about Treffen.
And maybe he needed to focus on that, because at least he could redeem one broken situation.
He pressed the button on the intercom. “Send them in.”
They entered together a minute later, holding hands. Alex eyed the way Zoe clung to Hunter, how every finger of his was threaded through hers, and decided Hunter must have figured out that love thing. They both looked rather grimly determined now, but there could be no denying that they cared about each other. Loved each other.
Too bad it didn’t seem like he was capable of something like that. But maybe it was for the best. He didn’t deserve Chelsea; at this point, she’d be better off without him.
Alex greeted them both before settling back in his chair. “This is a pleasant surprise,” he said, “but I sense this isn’t a social call.”
Zoe spoke first, her voice low and firm. “No, it isn’t.” She gazed steadily at Alex, her hand still encased by Hunter’s. “I want to come forward with my story. I’ll speak to Chelsea, on TV if need be.”
Alex knew he should feel triumphant but instead he only felt weary. He nodded slowly. “I’ll put you in touch with her. You’re sure you want to do this?”
She nodded grimly. “I need to set the record straight about Treffen. About myself.” She took a deep breath. “It started out so innocently, or so I thought. I didn’t think anything of it when he asked me to go to dinner with a client, and suggested I wear a cocktail dress because he was an old guy who liked to flirt. Harmless, he said.” Her voice choked. “Harmless.”
A look of anguished concern crossed Hunter’s usually sardonic features. “Zoe, you don’t—”
“No, Hunter, I do. You know I do. I’ve lived with this for what feels like forever, because I’ve felt so ashamed at being so stupid, so easily manipulated.” She shook her head. “Treffen is a monster. He’d threaten us all—his girls, he called us—and he loved to see us flinch. Cringe. Beg.”
He thought of Sarah, and then, suddenly, with an understanding that was painful in its clarity, he thought of Chelsea.
He thought of all the things she’d said, as well as the things she hadn’t said. The things she’d implied.
I know I’m still the stupid girl who thought the only way she could get a job was if she got on her back. She didn’t believe in herself, because no one else ever had.
Brian liked to inflict a little pain. She’d suffered abuse of the worst sort for three years.
I don’t know who my father was, and my mother was useless. Her string of boyfriends were even worse. And maybe even abuse as a child.
God, why hadn’t he seen it? Heard what she was really saying? He’d been so consumed with his response that once again he’d failed to really see and hear what was going on. What someone was trying, quite desperately, to tell him.
He should have leaped up from that damn sofa and taken her into his arms. Kissed away the tears she still stubbornly refused to shed.
Instead she’d walked out on him, before he could push her away, which was what she’d assumed he would do, what he had done in his silence.
Somehow he managed to bring his focus back to Zoe and Hunter. “I’m sorry for what you endured, Zoe. I know Chelsea Maxwell will want to talk to you.”
Zoe’s face was pale but she nodded resolutely. “Just tell me when and where.”
* * *
Somehow she’d made it through another day. Three days since she’d left Alex’s apartment and every hope of happiness she’d ever had. Three days since she’d looked into his eyes and seen the shock and fear, felt his silence as the rejection it surely was.
Three endless days.
She’d get over it, Chelsea knew, just as she had before. How many sorry relationships had she had, after all? The string of no-hope boyfriends as she’d drifted through Alabama looking for someone to love her. Brian Taylor, whom she’d convinced herself she loved even as he humiliated and hurt her over and over again.
And now Alex. But Alex was different from every other man she’d known. Completely different, and so was she, because she actually did love him. She loved Alex with every fiber of her being, every shard of her broken heart. She loved how safe and special he made her feel, how beloved and desired. She loved his ambition and his sensitivity, his kindness and his humor.
Too bad he didn’t love her in quite the same way. Too bad she’d seen in his face that he wasn’t ready for the real deal, the messed-up, no-holds-barred version of herself. And the good thing, she told herself, was that she’d figured that out—and knew she needed more.
Avoiding him now was her only option, because the thought of seeing him made her feel as if she were being flayed, every nerve ending exposed to air and pain.
She knew he might want to apologize. Then again, maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was thanking his lucky stars that she’d walked away before he had to. But if he did want to explain, she knew she’d be too weak not to take what little he’d offer. She’d forget that she’d seen the truth in his eyes, heard it in his silence.
And the simple fact was she was afraid. If this felt like agony, what would it feel like a week, a month, a year down the road, when Alex decided he’d had enough of her crazy? He might not turn on her like Brian had, but it would hurt even more. He wouldn’t stab her in the chest; he’d shatter her heart.
So she deleted his messages and texts without even reading them. Gave instructions to security at work and the doormen at her building. Cut him off completely.
Eventually he’d give up.
Three days after she last saw him she left work and was about to step into the private town car waiting by the curb at the back of Rockefeller Plaza when a shadow disengaged itself from the wall, and suddenly he was there, right next to her, arms folded, face set, yet looking so wonderful she wanted to rush right into his arms.
She didn’t move.
“Hello, Chelsea.”
His husky murmur of a voice still had the power to make her want. Yearn. She shook her head. “Why are you here?”
“I had to figure out some way to get you to see me. Hear me. Because you didn’t give me much of a chance last time, Chelsea, but I admit the chance you did give me I blew. Big-time.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Can you really say that? Mean it?” He took a step closer. “Or are you just afraid?”
“You keep asking me that.”
“And you keep telling me that you’re not.”
Frustration boiled over. “Fine, I’ll tell you now that I am. I’m afraid, Alex. I’m afraid of a relationship with you because I’ve been burned before and it hurts. And I don’t have the strength to go through it again.”
Even in the darkness she could see the anger blazing in his eyes. “Are you comparing me to that scumbag of a boss? Brian Taylor?”
“No, I’m not. You’re totally different. It’s me who’s the same.” Her voice wobbled and then thankfully hardened. “I’m still messed up, Alex. I’ve tried to act like I have it all together but I don’t. Not remotely.”
He let out a huff of laughter. “You think I do?”
She shook her head, wanting to be clear. Needing him to know. “I get
panic attacks. I stockpile Band-Aids. I haven’t been honest or real with a single person in my life in ten years.”
His voice lowered and he took a step closer. “You were real with me.”
“And look where it got me. You didn’t want my real, Alex.”
“I admit I didn’t respond as I should’ve,” he answered steadily. “I failed you. I was—I was scared, Chelsea. I don’t like to admit it, but there it is. You were trusting me with all this truth, just like...” He took a deep breath, let it out. “Like Sarah did.”
Chelsea frowned, shook her head. “What do you mean?”
“She told me, Chelsea. Sarah told me about Jason. She didn’t spell it out, but it was enough. It should have been enough. Except I didn’t listen.”
She stared at him, opened a mouth to say something, but didn’t know what.
“I was consumed with my career,” Alex continued, his voice now ragged with pain. “With proving myself. That last night, the night she died, she tried.” His voice nearly broke. “I was the last person she saw, Chelsea. The very last. And she tried to tell me what Treffen was doing to her, but I just wanted a fucking news story. I asked her...” He stopped, swallowed, and started again. “I asked her to give me a quotation for a story on sexual harassment. A quotation. And about ten minutes later she left me and went up to the roof of her building and threw herself off.”
Chelsea felt everything in her soften in sympathy. “Oh, Alex—”
“I didn’t want to tell you that before. I didn’t want to admit to it, to being that kind of man. But you trusted me with your truth, Chelsea, and I pretty much acted the same way as I did with Sarah. I’m sorry, God, I’m so sorry, that I didn’t handle it right. That I didn’t know how, and that I didn’t even want to, because if you told me your secrets, I’d have to tell you mine.” He held his hands out, palms up. “So here they are, Chelsea. You can choose what to do with them.”