Chapter 9
CHAPTER 9
ALISON
I woke up feeling rested and strangely at peace. When I was suffocating by the thought of being alone, the only person I wanted to avoid helped me right out of that slump. Sometimes it’s better to be alone than in unwanted company, right?
I told myself that again and again until I fell asleep, convinced it was the truth.
As usual in the last couple of months, I was the first to arrive at AD and would be the last to leave. The silence and stillness of the unpopulated office helped me organize my thoughts and priorities for the day just before the building was buzzing with life, every seat being occupied. As people slowly arrived, they filled the space with vibrant activity, which would normally thrill and energize me, getting me pumped for a new day.
Not today.
Today, I oddly preferred the silence.
I let the pen in my hand run wild against the sheets of paper, scribbling and sketching new ideas, completely lost in my own mind. I was the odd one who still used such rudimentary tools instead of the state-of-the-art programs that would sketch an entire building in less than a couple of hours.
But this was where I thrived. Imagining and drawing the images in my head into realistic portraits of what didn’t yet exist.
“Good morning, Miss Battaglia.” That deep, low voice pulled me out of my reverie. I looked up, my eyes climbing all the six foot-something of his toned body, perfectly wrapped in a fitted black suit, before resting on his alluring blue eyes. Damn them.
Max.
What the hell is he doing here?
“Good morning, Maxy Max. To what do I owe this unexpected visit? Again.”
“I was on my way to meet Mr. Dornier and thought I’d pass by here first.” We all knew to keep up appearances at the office. Max didn’t mean my father. He meant my brother, Liam. Here he was, an up-and-coming architect and nothing else. Not a glimpse of his darker shades between these walls.
“Oh, okay…” More checking up on me?
“Non è l'uomo per te!” Despite all the other things we’d said to each other yesterday, those were the words that my brain decided to pull up right now?
They were ominous. As loud as I had heard them when they came from Max’s mouth, settling deep in my gut and messing with me just as much as they had yesterday.
“Stop seeing him.” More mind pollution, hazing my view of the man I wanted him to be instead of the soldato he was. I was suddenly hot, my cheeks blushing. Maybe rage? Maybe from the heat of that scrutinizing gaze so intently set on me right now.
“I just came to apologize. I was out of line yesterday. I’m not even sure I remember the extent of it. ”
“Is that right?” I was certainly expecting something else. More taunting, maybe. Not that he didn’t remember what he said to me. How close we were to breaking that line again. How much of a clusterfuck that would have been this time around. Still, I wasn’t sure I bought it.
I rested my elbows on the desk, leaning forward, my lace bra most surely on display. The darting of his blue irises was nearly imperceptible, but I caught it. “Anything else?”
“No, that was it.” He held my gaze, sure and steady, without so much as a blink.
“You’re right, there’s nothing else to talk about. But it’s okay. If you’re worried about your job, don’t be.” I turned my eyes back to the pile of drawings, tapping the pen on my cheek, pretending to concentrate on work again.
I wasn’t about to let him see just how much his lack of honesty bothered me.
“I wasn’t. I just wanted to clear the air between us.”
“Consider it done. Clear and fresh like mountain air.” I infused my voice with dry sarcasm and pettiness. Let him squirm, this was my turf. His tongue had been in my mouth, he’d seen me exposed in every way, and now, all I got was stiff formality and regret.
Fuck him. His comfort was not my concern.
“So why do I sense you are still upset, Alison?”
“I’m not, Max, okay?” I blurted. “Just…isn’t my brother waiting for you?” I looked straight into his eyes, defying him to carry on with the circumstantial conversation that I was sure didn’t even slightly graze what he was really doing here.
“He is,” He calmly replied, but I could see his fist balled up tightly. I wanted nothing more than to push his buttons further, see what else I could unravel. But Max was the epitome of a good and loyal soldier. He would hold on to his truth until the last consequences. There was just no use .
“Fifty-fifth floor.” Shit. That reminded me I was supposed to be there, too. We had a morning briefing every day, and as usual, I had lost track of time and was already running late.
“I know.” It was his turn to let his words absorb his annoyance, but he still stood there, not moving, watching me as I got up to leave. I walked past him, rushing to the elevator, but Max grabbed my arm and pulled me back.
My heart was suddenly hammering against my ribs while I tried to breathe calmly, my eyes landing on his and never deflecting. I had managed to stop my stumble mere inches from his body, but this proximity was enough to make me nervous.
I swallowed nothing but dry air as I watched him slowly taking his thumb to his mouth, licking it, and swiping across my cheek.
“You have some ink on your cheek.” He roughly rubbed it off with his wet finger, just one swipe, leaving it to trail across my bottom lip.
I fought the urge to suck it into my mouth, knowing he was trying to prove the same point I had earlier and not wanting to lose this little game we had apparently entered. Who affected who more. Why couldn’t our mouths speak the truth?
I was losing just as hard as he was. My cheeks were warm, and my pussy pulsing. Never was such a small gesture enough to turn me on the way I was right now.
“Fifty-fifth, right?” He said with a dirty smirk on his face. My mind filled with all sorts of things, but no coherent thought in sight. His grin grew wider at my silence, his victory clear on the curve of his lips.
“Dickhead,” I said, setting myself free from his spell and turning my back to him .
“I’ll consider us even.” He mumbled, just loud enough for me to hear.
How I managed to unhinge myself from the spot in front of him was beyond me, but I had and was now darting towards the elevators.
Late and flushed.
I decided to take the stairs to avoid his presence with me in such a confined space, running up them in pairs, trying to get to that damn meeting as fast as possible.
It was only three floors up, and I was not that out of shape. But for some reason, as I got higher, so did my sense of uneasiness, slowing my steps as the feeling got heavier. It was a gut feeling that something important was about to happen. Not necessarily bad or good, just… something.
I quickly brushed it off, because really… What do you think you are, Alison? Psychic? I chuckled at my own stupidity, rolling my eyes in the process before arriving at the top floor of the AD building.
“Good morning, Michelle!” I greeted the receptionist to the stars. The Architects Dornier’s superstars all depended on her to manage their agendas, amongst other stuff. She was cute and good-looking in a supermodel wannabe kind of way. Her fake boobs and bleached blonde hair didn’t leave much of a doubt that there was a lot more plastic than meets the eye.
“Good morning, Miss Dornier,” She answered, sporting a smile just as fake as the rest. Yes, she called me Dornier. My last name was Dornier, after my father, the clean part of the family. The Battaglia and Italian side of me was left outside of this building as per his very strict orders.
From what I could spot from the corner of my eye, the only Battaglia he couldn’t quite manage to banish from the perimeter was Teresa Battaglia, my mother, who was oddly walking into his office at that very moment.
That wasn’t strange. That was almost a hallucination. My mind and gut quickly brought back the uneasy feeling I felt just moments ago as I climbed those stairs. Michelle was still blabbering about God knows what, but I found myself gravitating towards my father’s office, leaving her to speak to herself.
My parents have been happily divorced for over twelve years. It was not a peaceful break-up, despite my mother’s best attempts at making it look like it was.
I felt it.
I felt it hard.
On the most vulnerable days, I still did.
I was only fourteen when they finally cut the link completely, but the whole process took over two extremely long years. I especially felt the distance that quickly grew between my father and me after that.
That truly gutted me, especially once I found out that he hadn’t even applied for custody. He didn’t want me. At least, not enough to fight for me. Not enough to file a damn piece of paper. Not even for every other weekend privileges. Nothing.
Apparently, I wasn’t even worth the effort.
I remember feeling that deep in my bones for many years after that. I still do sometimes when I let my fun mask down and allow myself to dive into that rabbit hole and be vulnerable.
I stood outside the slightly ajar door, doing my best to steady and silence my breathing. Calm my heartbeat and eavesdrop for the first time in my life.
“Teresa! To what do I owe this unexpected and unpleasant visit?” I heard my father saying in a thicker-than-normal French accent.
That was his tell. The way I knew he was bothered or nervous.
My mother made everyone nervous just by existing, never mind if she was actively searching you out. Even after years of marriage, my father was still not immune to her.
I knew in my bones that I should be running in the opposite direction right now, but something was rooting me to my spot. I just needed to know why the hell she was here when they had barely directed a word at each other since the last reading of the settlement.
My parents had this slow-burning hate kind of thing going on between them, taking joy in hurting each other with every shot they got. My mother being at AD in my father’s office only meant one thing – trouble with a potential for disaster.
“Adrian, caro mio ,” my dear. My mother practically sang, her compliment dripping in acidic sarcasm, “I haven’t missed you at all. Time has not been kind to you!” And so the dance of the vipers began.
“Likewise, chèrie . Italy has surely sped up your aging process. Well preserved is certainly not in your dictionary.”
“That’s because I’m here, having to face you.” I’m not sure, but should I be keeping scores on each blow?
“What do you want, Teresa ?”
“Nervous, Adrian?”
“No. I have a colonoscopy scheduled for today, and right now, I’m looking forward to getting to it just to get away from you.”
My mother laughed, and right there, I knew she had dirt on my father. She wouldn’t be so amused otherwise .
“Who has led a more honorable life?” I could hear my mother’s high heels rhythmically tapping on the wooden floors, as if she was circling her prey, letting her words sink in, allowing a few moments of silence so every word could be assimilated. “Me? Owning who I am, living my life and crimes out in the open for the world to see, or you? Hiding and concealing in the corners of high society, afraid to be found out for who you truly are? Nothing more than a fancy rat in tailored suits. Careful, Dear. Your disgusting tail is sticking out of your Tom Ford.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Your past trespasses are catching up with you now, Adrian. Ann… I’m afraid to tell you Ann is dead.” Ann? Who the hell is Ann?
I could hear a pin drop in that office, such was the deafening silence that had fallen between those walls. I could only imagine that this Ann was someone important to my father. It took a while before my mother resumed, making me sharpen my ears again to make out what they were saying.
“Cognac at nine-thirty seems fitting for the news I’m here to deliver. Make it a double while you’re at it because I’m not finished yet. Apparently, her last will had a clear instruction that I was to be contacted. As it seems I am the honest one here. Ironic, right? Want to guess who was on the other end of that call?”
I couldn’t make heads or tails out of their conversation, but I stopped breathing for a moment so I could listen better. I had the feeling this was the big news my mother had deemed important enough to deliver firsthand.
I could feel the tension in that office skyrocket, the sound of my heart thumping in my ears louder than the bustling activity of the office around me. This apparently had nothing to do with me, but my hands now had a new coat of sweat, and my stomach a knot that stubbornly wouldn’t untie .
“One Adrianne Smith. Curious name, no?” Another silence was ringing in my head, my breathing speeding up unconsciously. “Why, oh why, would Ann name her child that? It boggles the mind, does it not?”
Adrianne? ADRIANNE? I was hyperventilating as the realization was starting to sink in, trapped tears stinging my eyes as I fought to keep them from spilling.
“I beg your pardon? It can’t be! I would have known... It can’t be...” My father shouted, outrage and perplexion clear in his desperate tone.
“And yet, ‘can’t be’ has nothing against what simply is. You know who I spoke to, Caro . You know exactly who that girl is.” The paradoxical glee and accusation were evident in my mother’s voice. “Cheating on me just wasn’t enough for you, was it? You had to go around having unprotected sex with random women, too.” She accused.
“Even you know that’s not true. It was anything but random. I love…” He suddenly stopped. His voice broke as his present words were met with a new reality. “I loved Ann.”
I heard the ironic chuckle my mother released, the undertone of pain and a broken heart evident only to those who knew her well. Somehow I was sure it hadn’t escaped my father’s radar either. That crack on her pristine armor stung me with her abnormal vulnerability.
Those words were still a tough pill to swallow, even after all these years. I could feel her pain as if it were mine.
“Oh! So this is your love child? What is ours, then? We were pregnant at the same damn time!” My stomach sank all the way to the floor, feeling like I was suddenly the illegitimate one, the lump of panic burning my throat as I fought the urge to burst into that room.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know this! I tried to tell you! But you wouldn’t listen to me! Always keeping appearances.” My father countered.
“I was fighting for you, cazzo ! Against my own family that only saw you for the stuck-up French embarrassment they would have to carry into a legacy you didn’t even want.” My mother shouted, all her cards lying bare on the table. “I was fighting against… her.”
“Maybe you were at some point, chérie , but not then! Not when this happened. You were only fighting for your image then… Being married to an embarrassment was still better than being left by one. Your father thought the same.” A heavy silence rang loudly in my ears again before my father broke it with a harsh, tainting truth. “Don Battaglia made it clear that he would take care of my multiple choice problem if I didn’t take care of it myself. I was well aware of your father’s ruthless reputation. I knew what taking care of something meant in his dictionary. Some family legacy.”
Both their thoughts were louder than anything they needed to say, an ice-cold quietness settled in that office while I sat in shock just on the other side of those walls.
“My daughter…” A recognition in a low exhale from my father freed my unshed tears. “This girl, if she is mine, she was born out of nothing but love.” Yet I was not.
“I was pregnant with your daughter, too.” My mother whispered, but somehow her words were like screams inside my head, my thoughts too loud to register any other word that came from the office.
“I never wanted that. And you know it.”
“My daughter is not a mistake.” My mother retaliated in my defense, but my castle had crumbled, and I was plunging into that dark thing again.
I was his only daughter. Yet the one he never wanted.
“My daughter…” Just two simple words and I was fourteen again. The most insignificant person in this world. Only, now it was much worse because I heard what I’d felt my whole life. Confirmation was bitter and raw. How could there ever be closure after this?
My parents carried on their conversation, but I’d had enough. My heart had just been ripped out of my chest, and all the few fond memories I had of my childhood were nothing but a lie.
Happiness never leaves a scar, and I fear this one would never heal.
I needed to cry, I needed to scream, I needed someone to hold me tight and squeeze my pieces back into place.
This, he, was my Achilles heel. I was strong, but when it came to my father, I would forever be a little girl in search of his love and acceptance. Instead, all I ever seemed to get was rejection, and now I have a good idea of why. He never wanted me.
Rationalizing feelings was my way of coping, but right now, I couldn’t hold a clear thought in my mind. I needed someone to tell me this wasn’t true, that my father wasn’t a lying cheat. That he didn’t have another child. That I wasn’t the unwanted one.
How could I feel so betrayed?
I ran back down the stairs, my tears now in a free fall I couldn’t control. I would let them run until they tired and find a way to pull myself back from that fragile teenager into who I am today. I deserved this reprieve.
I darted across the floor to my desk, grabbing my keys and bag. Flying back towards the elevator, I pressed that button so hard and so many times that I wasn’t sure how it didn’t get stuck. There were so many thoughts crowding my mind that I couldn’t make heads or tails out of any of them.
My brothers .
Do they know?
I can’t talk to my brothers about this. Not just yet. This is an issue they don’t need to deal with right now. I grabbed the phone and dialed Jackson's number, but it went straight to voicemail.I knew myself. I needed someone to keep my emotions at bay. Someone who could pull me out of the darkness of my own past rejections. This fall wouldn’t be pretty without a cushion.
“Fuck,” I hissed in exasperation, feeling the sting of unlawfulness harder than I’ve ever felt in my life.
I got in the empty elevator, wanting nothing but the floor to open below and swallow me. I had no one in my corner right now. No one I could call.
How did I let it get to this?
I couldn’t breathe. I was trying so hard not to break right here that I couldn’t even draw a single breath.
I... I… I need air!
I was feeling this whirlwind of familiar feelings that I still couldn’t label or understand, hate predominately surfacing. I did not like recognizing that one.
I couldn’t help feeling the betrayal personally. We weren’t enough for him.
I wasn’t enough. Why wasn’t I enough? Why wasn’t I…
I made it to my car, locking myself inside, finally opening the latch for the real dam of sadness and sobs. I shut my eyes, the tips of this darkness staining my soul with an overwhelming need to explode.
I finally let my body unapologetically shake with each hiccup of unyielding sadness. He didn’t want me. He never wanted me. And all I ever did was hope for his approval. For his love.
Suddenly, I heard a knock on the window, startling me. I tried to steady my breathing, cleaning my face before I looked up and saw Max standing on the other side. I shut my eyes as tight as they would go and shook my head, hoping he would be gone by the time I opened them back up, but he insisted, knocking harder.
“What do you want, Max?” I asked, my voice breaking as I still kept my eyes from meeting his.
“Open the car, Alison.” He ordered, his voice was soft but commanding.
I stared at him for a couple of seconds before I pressed the button and unlocked the car. Max opened the door almost immediately, not taking any chances.
“Jump over to the passenger seat,” He ordered again, not bothering to ask what was happening. I looked up at him, still rooted in my spot, before he ushered me to do what he said. “Don’t worry. I’m taking you out of here. I’m taking you home.”
At the sound of that, my tears started falling heavily once again as I turned my face to the window, trying but failing to conceal my sobs while Max drove me home. I felt his strong hand covering my own tightly clenched fists resting on my legs.
Max brushed my skin with the pad of his thumb while he took us through traffic, holding his silence for my relief.
I looked out the window during the whole drive, avoiding Max’s gaze as much as possible but finding some comfort in his soothing strokes. My shaking body had stilled under his touch, but my tears were relentless, and they still hadn’t gone dry. The view was nothing but a smudged blur under the crystal of every drop of sadness. I was sure that blur came from my mind, too.
Max parked the car in front of my apartment and turned off the ignition, breaking me from the flooding trail of thoughts I could neither stop nor rationalize .
“Alison?” He finally broke the silent spell that had lingered during the whole drive, making me look at him.
His ice-blue eyes pierced my soul, his furrowed brows showing concern for my unspoken problems, but he still didn’t dare to pry. His hand cupped my cheek as I bit my bottom lip to stop myself from shedding even more tears as I faced him. I couldn’t hold them, though. I leaned into his caress, new drops falling onto his wrist before he softly whispered, “Come. I’ll take you up.”