Chapter Fifteen
AXEL WOULD NEVER have described himself as someone who snapped, but this morning that was exactly what had happened. He’d been trying to hold on to Joy since she had confessed her love, but she’d been slipping away from him, bit by bit.
I don’t want things from you. Why keep me here? I don’t know how much longer I can keep pretending.
There’d been such rejection and stark unhappiness in her words he’d arrived at his breaking point. There had always been an expiry date on their relationship. She was right. He didn’t need her. Not the way he had two months ago when he proposed to her.
Even so, he’d been blindsided by the fact she felt trapped and wanted to leave him.
When she had mapped out why she couldn’t, a host of emotions had accosted him: guilt at holding onto her.
Inadequacy that he wasn’t offering enough.
Anger that she was reducing their marriage to money and orgasms. Hurt.
Yes, he’d been hurt by the way she’d been shutting him out, so he’d snapped and told her to go. Then he’d been so stung as she walked away, he’d taken a shot that was fathoms beneath him.
She’d responded exactly as he deserved, by throwing his own words back in his face.
You never even wanted my love. So fine. I take it back. I release you.
She might as well have plunged a knife into his chest. Every breath hurt.
The buzz from the doorman yanked him from his brooding.
“Yes,” he said curtly.
“Frau Severin’s driver is here. I explained that she left an hour ago. She hasn’t answered his texts. Did you have any instructions for him?”
“She walked to the studio?”
“I presume so?”
Axel tried texting her but didn’t get a reply, so he sent the driver to the studio, expecting she would need a lift home.
A few minutes later, the driver informed him she wasn’t there.
“Ask Inga to call me,” he instructed the driver.
“She was here,” the choreographer said when he answered her call. “But she left at least thirty minutes ago.”
“Walking? Did she say she was coming home?” Axel asked.
“I didn’t ask. Although…” She cleared her throat and lowered her voice. “She seemed upset when she arrived.”
Yeah. He knew.
“Let me know if you hear from her,” he said gruffly, thinking, Please. Please let her be all right.
Of course she was all right, he thought impatiently.
It sounded like she had walked to the studio because she was angry with him.
She was probably walking home, still clearing her head and cooling her temper.
She had started to get her bearings in the city and knew which streets to avoid.
She was picking up enough German to ask for help if she needed it.
She was resourceful. She’d grown up in Chicago, for God’s sake.
She was tough enough to deal with anyone who got fresh with her.
None of that reassured him. A sick churn of gravel sat in the pit of his gut, urging him to hit the Undo button and take back those biting words he’d hurled at her. Go. I release you.
What the hell had possessed him?
Restless, he took a quick inventory to see if she’d taken anything more than her handbag. Her dance bag was here. Her passport was in the safe. Her jacket was in the closet.
She hadn’t left him. Even though he’d told her to.
The ache in his chest sharpened. Where the hell had she gone?
When his phone rang, he snatched it up, but it was only Mira.
“Yes?” he said tersely.
“I have to get Otto’s mansion ready for sale.
It occurred to me, there’s so much art there.
I took what belonged to Mom ages ago, so everything there is something Otto bought.
Joy should have a look and take what she wants.
It’s not family portraits or anything, but she should have something of his, even as an investment. ”
“I’ll mention it when I see her. She’s out.”
“You sound mad. What’s wrong?” she asked with concern.
“We had a fight. She went to the studio and should be home by now, but she’s not. And she’s not answering my texts.” And it’s all my fault.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Is that the reason you’re fighting?” she asked dryly.
“I told her to leave,” he admitted. Saying it aloud closed an icy fist around his heart, squeezing it into the base of his throat. How could he be so stupid? So cruel?
“Why? You seemed to really care about her.”
“I do,” he said through his teeth. “But—” I was afraid to care that much. Love was sold as a profound source of strength, but in his experience, it was nothing but a sense of helplessness.
So he’d fought against succumbing to it. Yet here he was. Helpless.
“Axel.” Her voice turned admonishing. “You said Otto was awful to her. I don’t know what it’s like to be adopted, but I do know what it’s like to wonder why someone who is supposed to care about you doesn’t. If you acted like you cared, then told her to leave—”
“I know,” he said through his teeth, barely able to withstand the clench in his chest.
I just can’t help thinking there’s a reason you can’t love me.
He had promised to protect her from Otto, then hurt her worse than anyone else ever had.
“I have to go. I need to find her.”
* * *
Joy had texted Lowell Fontaine that she was coming to his hotel. He met her in the lobby along with his wife, Pascale.
Then he took Joy by the shoulders, and his eyes—eyes that were the same shape as her own—grew damp. “It’s like she’s here, still with me. You look just like her. I didn’t know. I’m so sorry that I didn’t know about you.” He hugged her.
“Oh, chère,” Pascale said. “Perhaps she doesn’t want—”
“Je suis désolé.” Lowell started to release her.
“No, it’s okay,” Joy chuckled weepily and hugged him back. Hard. She closed her eyes and drank up what she’d hoped Otto would offer her: instant, unconditional acceptance.
Somehow Pascale herded them into an elevator, and Joy soon found herself in the well-appointed lounge of a suite. Refreshments arrived, but she barely noticed.
“I didn’t know if any of her family knew about me,” she said. “It seemed like she didn’t want anyone to know.”
“This is true,” Lowell said with regret.
“It didn’t even occur to me Lorena might have had a child, not until Pascale saw the notice about Otto’s death.
Frankly, my only thought on Otto’s passing was ‘good.’ I’m sorry if you feel differently about him, but he treated Lorena abominably.
She was young, thought herself in love. He dazzled her with gifts, but she was his mistress, so he was ashamed of her.
I thought that was the worst of it, but when I learned he had made her give up her child? ”
“He didn’t know about me.” Joy explained how Otto had come to find out. “How did you realize I was her daughter?”
“There was a photo of you and your husband with the article on Otto. Pascale pointed you out to me. She noticed how much you looked like Lorena.”
“He brushed me off,” Pascale said, taking over.
“But reading that Otto was your birth father, I just knew. The timing fit. Lorena missed our wedding because she went to New York. She and I had a terrible falling out over it. She had introduced me to Lowell. She was supposed to be my maid of honor, but she was adamant about leaving. Now I realize she knew she would have been showing on our wedding day.”
“Our parents cut her off when they learned of their affair,” Lowell broke in sadly.
“They wouldn’t have helped her if she’d told them she was pregnant.
I could have been kinder. She asked me for money to help her get to New York.
I was glad she was leaving Otto, but I said she should wait until after the wedding.
I don’t know where she got the money. Sold some of the jewelry he’d given her, I suppose.
It breaks my heart. If I’d been more willing to help her, she might have kept you. ”
“When she came back, things were still strained between us,” Pascale said with equal regret.
“I didn’t want to forgive her. It seems so childish now, to hold a grudge over something so inconsequential.
She must have been so frightened. Heartbroken.
She was different when she came home. Older. Quieter.”
“But she went back to him?” Joy recalled.
“She did. I never fully understood what she saw in him. He was very rich, obviously. And very handsome,” Pascale admitted reluctantly.
“Their second affair didn’t last long. She told me she thought he was ready to leave his wife, but he wasn’t.
She said they’d both changed. That’s when she moved to Heidelberg and opened the bookstore. ”
“Did she marry? Have more children?”
“No.” There were bright tears in Pascale’s eyes. “I always assumed Otto broke her heart. Now I’m sure that giving up her daughter did that.”
“Oh.” Joy covered her trembling mouth.
Pascale moved to sit next to her and rubbed her shoulders.
“We hope you’ll meet our children, though?” Lowell said hesitantly.
“I have cousins?” Joy picked up her head.
“Two boys and a girl,” he said with pride. “We haven’t told them any of this. We wanted to meet you first and see if you were open to it?”
Fresh tears brimmed her eyes. “I would love that.”
* * *
Axel went to the dance studio himself, catching Inga as she was leaving for the day.
“I still haven’t heard from her,” he told her, not mentioning that he could see Joy had her notifications silenced.
The choreographer hesitated, then sighed. “She told me you’d had an argument. I’m sure she’s just taking some time for herself. Let me see if she’s with any of my dancers.” She texted a group chat. “Michael dropped her at a hotel a few hours ago.”
She told him which one, and Axel went there, but when he asked the front desk to put him through to her room, she wasn’t registered.
Had she met someone here? Who?