A Sorrow of Truths

by Charlotte E Hart

  “No.”

  “And don’t be petulant with me either.”

  My fingers pick up the plate absently, depositing the whole damn thing on the floor so I can listen to the smash and watch his reaction to it. Nothing moves on his features other than the slightest shift in his seat, but I can feel that tension bubbling in him, see the steam and anger beginning to flow through everything he is.

  A maid comes running in from somewhere, her body blasting through the space to clear up the mess I’ve made.

  “Leave it,” snaps out of me.

  She looks at me, then Gray, probably waiting for permission, or answers, or fucking acceptance about something she shouldn’t need to be accepting of. Maybe she’s one of his women, too. Mad. Fucked up. Insane because of him and his mind fucking. “Another one of the many?” I snarl, looking at him.

  “Why? Are you jealous?” Yes.

  Annoyingly.

  “Leave it and go,” I snap again, at her this time. “Assuming you’re still capable of making your own choices.”

  He does nothing other than stare at me, eyes narrowed as he tries to work out what this is. This is me, is what it is. This is pissed Hannah making her presence felt and her anger palpable rather than internalising it all the time or hiding it under pills and stupid fucking dreams.

  Eventually he waves her off, not once removing his eyes from mine. Good.

  “Truth, Gray. This isn’t a date. We’ve never done that, have we?”

  His hand moves slowly after a while, the palm of it landing flat in the middle of the table on top of the chain. “Did you miss not having this on your skin?”

  “I missed having you on my skin, that doesn’t mean you deserve to be on it.”

  “How much?”

  “What?”

  “How much did you miss me on your skin?”

  “I’m not answering that.”

  “No, shall I then?” He’s so still again. So perfectly still, not the slightest animation or movement. No smile. No smirk of self-importance. “Some pleasant truths to counter the ones you’ll hate me for?” Hate him for? My chin lifts, body stiffening under the possibility of something I don’t want to hear. “Shall I tell you how I slept with this chain, how I had it in my pocket every day, wrapped it around my fingers like you did just so that I could feel you near me?”

  The heart I was trying to harden cracks a little, splinters like the shards of ceramic on the floor beneath me. “Or would you like to know how each night I dreamed of something I can’t have because of my circumstances?” I gulp another swill of red wine, hoping to ignore a passion that I can’t hear from him after those women. “What I should tell you, is how I haven’t been able to concentrate on a goddamn thing other than you since the moment I left you with Malachi, and how much that’s pissed me off and yet made me feel alive for the first time in years.”

  Oh god, no. Don’t do this.

  My lips quiver, hand shaking slightly as I try to control the wine glass and ignore all of it, including the thuds that have started pounding loudly.

  Thud, thud, thud.

  He leans forward, making sure my gaze isn’t going anywhere but directly at him. “Being with you, and having you with me, was extraordinary to me. You’ve made me think. You make me not think.” He smiles solemnly and leans back, his eyes going to his own hand and the chain rather than looking at me anymore. “You’re remarkable, Hannah. I never saw you coming, and I wouldn’t change a second of our time together.” My toes scrunch against the floor, heart beating wildly as it reaches across the space for him. “And now, because of you and all that, I need your guidance.”

  I don’t think I heard that last bit right.

  I gulp wine again, unsure what the hell Grayson Rothburg would need my guidance for. I don’t even know how to guide myself lately, let alone him.

  He stares some more at his hand, his fingers toiling over the chain, and then a sigh falls from him as if the world is about to end around us. I wouldn’t care if it did. Just those words and the rest doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Maybe that’s all I wanted to hear – some honesty, some thoughts that he’s withheld from me even if I felt them somehow when he refused to acknowledge them.

  I’m smiling, smiling for the first time since the horses and that sense of freedom that came with them. I can feel it creeping across my face, concerns of everything else evaporating as it breaks and finds a home in this darkness we’re in.

  “You’re so beautiful, Hannah. Always were. Intriguing, fascinating, and worth everything I have to give.”

  Tears well in my eyes, happiness rendering the time before him, before this adventure with him alone, irrelevant. All this seems to mean more than Rick ever did. It lingers somewhere deeper, burrows in without care for the past. Joined. Connected in ways I never knew possible. “I don’t know who I am out here, though. In the real world. Not anymore. I just wish I’d found you before,” he murmurs.

  I watch his eyes harden at that, watch them drop away from me and down to the table. His smile goes with it, the jaw cutting like glass again rather than softening for me, as he stares downwards. The sudden change makes me cling to staring at his face rather than looking downward with him, some inbuilt fear tunnelling through the thuds that were starting to beat loudly again. It twists inside me, churning and turning. Building a storm.

  Truths.

  They’re coming.

  And I don’t want them now.

  Following the line of his gaze, courage fuelling me there, I gaze downwards until it reaches something that makes everything, every single moment of time I’ve spent with him, rotten and abhorrent. My chair scrapes on the floor, as I push it backwards away from him, the glass of wine crashing to the floor in my despair.

  A wedding band.

  A man’s wedding band.

  He’s married.

  Chapter 17

  Gray

  T he look of horror, of sheer terror and disgust directed at me, is well deserved given her life and how I found her. I stay still and watch her carefully, waiting for the inevitable explosion that will come any minute. She can have it. She can shout, scream, and smash this whole damn house up if she needs to. I wouldn’t blame her, and this place is nothing but a farce anyway – never has been anything but that. Maybe I should demolish it with her.

  Or for her.

  Nothing comes out of her. No movement. No anger or waving hands. Even the tears that were beginning to come because of my honesty seem to have stopped falling now. I eventually stand and round the table, perhaps hoping that if I’m closer she’ll find a way to get it out of her mouth and reprimand me for adultery. I’ll take it when she does. If anyone has that right, if anyone on this planet has the right to chastise me for my behaviour, it’s her, because there’s no way in hell it’s the woman I call my wife.

  “Where is she?” she spits suddenly.

  “Here.”

  Her eyes widen, feet backing away as I advance on her. “What’s her name?”

  “Heather.”

  Both her hands fly to her mouth, as her back collides with the glass doors. “You …” She moves, crawling the glass work to get away from me. “There was heather in our room. Your room. The room I was in when we were …” Her head shakes, body still trying to get away from me. I reach for her, one hand hoping to catch her before she uses those bare feet to full advantage. “Don’t touch me,” she snaps, pushing my hand away. “You’ve got no right. None. Married? How could you?”

  A hysterical shriek sounds out from her, making her small form seem immaterial to anything in this vast monstrosity. “I trusted you. I …” More steps sideways, her eyes wildly chasing everything and anything in the room but me. “And you knew, you knew what he did to me and now you’re doing the same to her.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  Her hands clasp her head, fingers tugging her hair violently as if she’s about to pull it out. “With all of them. You’re fucking everything and you’re married a
nd I can’t-”

  “Not all of them. Only you. I’ve told you that already. I meant it.”

  “Liar. You’re all liars.” She picks up a stone from the ground around the trees, launching it at me so fast I barely avoid it hitting me. “Fuck off. Get away from me.” No.

  Not until she understands it all.

  My body moves too fast for her to avoid, arms wrapping her up into me. “It’s not the same, Hannah. I’m not like him.” She batters and twists, using every bit of her body’s strength to get away from me again, as she slaps at my face. Fingernails shred my skin instantly. I feel them raking lines along my jaw, as if all the anger, betrayal, and ferocity she’s got to give is coming out of them. “If you let me explain-“

  “IT IS THE SAME!” she screams, pushing me away again.

  I follow, chasing down fucking hallways to get to her so I can explain. I need to now. All these years of keeping it secret, of the web being trawled, experts deleting and hunting down information to get it off the open forums before everyone else knows.

  “Hannah, stop,” I shout.

  She doesn’t. She keeps running at pace, her head not even bothering to look where she’s going, as strong limbs and speed push her onwards. More corners, more damned colours that represents nothing about me, and she forges into the main foyer and out the open door into the night. Her bare feet skip down the steps to get out into fuck knows where, dress rucking up around her as she carries on at full pace.

  “Get your ass back here,” I grit out, still chasing her.

  Three more strides and I catch hold of her arm again, swinging her back to me so harshly she yelps at the contact and collides against my chest. Her arms whirl again, hands and nails coming to inflict more anger on me. I grab hold of them, cinching them behind her back until she calms down enough to hear sense. “Stop.”

  “Fuck you.”

  More struggling and twisting comes from her, venomous eyes sending feelings at me I know all too well and shrieks and curses screamed as loud as she can. I lift her and throw her over my shoulder, my own hands clamped on her thighs to keep her still and my feet striding back to the room she needs to see. Angry? Yes. I know that, too. I know all about life getting fucked up in a dark abyss of wanting truths and not getting answers. “You wanted the truth from me, you’re going to damn well listen to it,” I growl, climbing up the steps again.

  Jackson’s at the top of them when I get to the door, his face a picture of puzzlement, as I walk passed him. He’s not the only one feeling perplexed lately. Everything has become a contradiction of wants and desires. Love even. I’m burning inside, twisted up with feelings I’ve never owned before her. I frown and head towards the east wing, unsure what the hell I’m going to say when I get there other than everything I don’t want to tell her. All I’ve got left is truth in the hope that she can help me find an answer there’s only one realistic answer for.

  “Put me down!” she yells, pounding my back with her fists.

  “No.”

  “I DON’T KNOW YOU!”

  Yes she does. She knows more about inside of me than she can possibly imagine. She knows how to wind me up, how to get inside my mind and change everything.

  Beatrice’s head comes out of her office doorway, as I keep walking, her fingers dropping her glasses to look me over. “Gray?” she questions.

  I keep walking passed her. “Nonsensical. Irrational,” I grumble, turning the last corner.

  “Who the hell is that?” Hannah screams. “Is that her?”

  Something hits my head, another wild hand trying to make a point of how much she hates me I expect. I don’t care. She can have all of that when she’s heard the entirety of the truth if she wants. Until then, she’s going to damn well listen and see what’s kept me away from what she wants of us.

  The moment I’m through the first set of doors into the suite, I drop her to the floor and back off in the hope she’ll stop hitting me. My neck cracks, resentment building because of the pain she’s caused on my skin. Her mouth opens, another rally of curses ready to explode.

  “Stop,” grates out of me. “Stop or so help me I’ll stop your mouth myself.”

  Her eyes widen, body probably ready to run for it again. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Good little girls doing as they’re told? More heavy hands Gray?”

  “I don’t give a damn about little girls. I give a damn about you, Hannah. I’m trying to show you that and you’re acting like one of Malachi’s brats. You’re not one. Behave accordingly.”

  She laughs and backs up a few steps, her finger pointing and her breaths heaving. “Oh god, I hate you.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I do. And I’m not hearing another word. I need to go. Leave. This is finished. There’s nothing in your heart. You’re empty. Cold. Barren. I knew that. And now you’ve proved it and I can’t even begin to …” She swipes at the tears in her eyes, smearing them over reddened cheeks and more tears falling. “You’re just like Rick, Gray. Nothing more. You lied and now everything’s bleak and desolate again.”

  Sobs choke out of her, and I watch as her body begins to weaken. She slumps downwards to the ground, knees and hands splaying. “It’s no wonder everything’s dark around you,” she mumbles, looking at the floor. “That’s all you know. Darkness and lies.”

  That’s not true in the slightest. Not anymore.

  And it’s not true because of her and the light she’s brought.

  “Go into that room behind you, Hannah.”

  “No. No more, Gray. I can’t. I haven’t got anything left for you anymore. All the lies. The hidden truths. I just … I just want to go home and rest.” Every part of her gives in, legs scrunching up into a ball and cheek resting on the cold floor. “Dying would have been better than this.” Her fingers start tapping, drumming the floor. “You built me up, helped me change, for what? So you could tear me down again? Empty. Cold. Alone.”

  She’s not alone. Whether I knew it or not, she wasn’t from the first moment I saw her.

  I walk and pick her up again, scooping her this time rather than forcibly trying to contain her. She sags in my hold, eyes closing, as I press my back to the doors and open them. “Look, Hannah. You want your truths, here they are.”

  She sniffs and shakes her head, exhaustion or perhaps self-preservation making her bury her head into my shirt rather than look at anything.

  “Please, Hannah. Look.”

  Slowly, and with a fatigued sigh, she opens her eyes. They blink at the light in the room and then stare. My hands begin putting her down, letting her slide down my body until she’s on her feet again and standing so still everything around her seems to move. I back away from her, giving her the room to assimilate information and process the clinical walls and the bed at the centre of the room. No noise. Barely even a breath from her as she takes it in.

  “Is that her?” she eventually asks, as I watch her.

  “Yes.”

  She moves slowly, treading carefully as if she’s a trespasser in the room. She is in some ways, but I’d have her trespass over me any day of the week. I smile and think about her in my apartment, of feeling her there before I actually knew she was in the rooms with me. “Ten years ago I went to see Rigaletto in Vienna. It’s what the elite kids do, even if they’re not interested. Anything to been seen in the correct circles. But rather than watch it, or be involved in it like I should have done, I got involved with a server riding me in my private area instead.”

  I growl at the thought, and watch as she moves again and sweeps her gaze over the woman lying on the bed. Her fingers clutch her arms, as she looks back at me, a frown on her face. “Heather was that server, Hannah.” She looks back at her, softening her features slightly.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Something I can’t cure, no matter how much I want to.”

  “So, you do have a heart.”

  “Not for her. I want her awake for reasons other than love. But s
he is my wife, and, like you, the thought of adultery disgusts me unless mutually agreed.”

  “You didn’t want to touch me because of something you don’t care for?”

  “The point is the wedding band, Hannah. Of all the faults I have, adultery isn’t one of them. Or wasn’t, before you.”

  Walking backwards, I sit in the chair, and let a sigh drop out of me. A small chuckle follows it for reasons unknown. I don’t know why. It’s not funny. Nothing is about this room or this house. It’s miserable and troubled, angry and rage filled, but just getting these words out, being honest with the one woman who’s changed everything for me, is lightening my sense of morose pessimism.

  “Why marry her if you don’t love her?” she suddenly asks, still looking at Heather.

  My brow arches and I watch some more, waiting for her to work that out on her own. She’s already met the reason why. It only takes a few minutes looking at Heather’s features again, of her staring at the blonde hair on the bed before realisation dawns.

  “He is your son, isn’t he? Charlie?”

  As always, the thought saddens me beyond all rational reasoning, and I find myself looking at her stomach and imagining what the reality of fatherhood could have been if I’d found her before my life happened to me.

  I stand and walk over, ready to clean up the last of those tears if she’ll let me touch her now. She still moves away from me, her ass bumping into the bed. “No, Hannah. He isn’t.” Neither biologically nor by way of me pretending to be. “She lied well. And I believed her.”

  Chapter 18

  Hannah

  I ’m shivering. Cold. Or lost. My hands still grip tightly around me, as if they’ll somehow shield me from the woman behind me and the man in front. They won’t. Nothing will now. Truths? Here they are. A wife.

  He looks lost with me. For once, his whole aura seems less intense than it normally does, as if he’s just a normal man trying to talk and make me understand. He isn’t, though. And I don’t know that I want to understand anymore. What reason is there to understand anything? I glance at his hand, unable to see the imprint of a wedding band, and sigh. There isn’t a future here. Not in this scenario, no matter how much that tears at my heart.