Chapter Fifteen #2
Axel ordered a drink in the bar, wondering what the hell he was going to do if she refused to come back to him.
He had ignored a dozen calls today along with countless texts and emails, all to do with Vorstoben and projects that meant nothing to him.
How could anything hold any meaning for him when the one person he cared about above all others was hurting and avoiding him?
The best case was that Joy was giving him the silent treatment because he’d hurt her. The worst case was that she was looking for somewhere to live because he’d broken her heart.
He had never wanted to feel this powerless, and the worst part was, he’d done it to himself. She wasn’t doing this to him. She didn’t think he cared about her, but he did. He cared so much it sat as a lump in his throat and was a hard stone lodged in his chest.
He loved her. That was what this agony was. He loved her, and he didn’t know how he could push through the life he’d made for himself if he didn’t have a reason to be in it.
His phone pinged.
He flipped it over, and his heart lurched when he saw it was finally a text from Joy.
On my way home. Will explain when I get there.
He threw a few bills onto the bar and walked out to the lobby in time to see her hurrying from the elevators toward the revolving doors. “Joy.”
She jolted and turned, staring at him in shock as he crossed toward her. “What are you doing here?” she asked with astonishment.
“Looking for you.” He looked to the elevator as though he might catch a glimpse of whose room she was leaving. He had never felt so nauseous, so jealous, so terrified in his life. “Who were you with?”
“My uncle,” she said with a bemused blink.
* * *
There was a taxi outside the hotel. They stepped into it, and Joy nervously relayed the story to Axel on their short drive home. He barely spoke, but he listened intently.
“They live in Lyon,” she finished up as they entered the penthouse. “They have children. I have cousins.”
“How did you get to the studio this morning? Did you walk? You didn’t even take your jacket. Are you cold? Do you want to shower? Rest?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Hungry?”
“No, I had coffee and sandwiches with Lowell and Pascale.” She dropped her bag onto the sofa, then lowered to the cushion beside it, blowing out a long breath. “I’m a little talked out, though.”
“Good. Because I have a few things to say.” Axel paced across her line of vision, then halted to glare at her. “Don’t you ever worry me like that again.”
He didn’t raise his voice, but Joy jumped at his vehemence and pushed herself deeper into the sofa. “I didn’t—”
“I’m not finished.” His hand made a crocodile bite with fingers and thumb, telling her to shut her mouth.
Rude.
“I don’t care how angry you are with me or how big of an ass I’ve been, you will text me proof of life when I ask for it.”
“It was two hours—”
“Four and a half. You went to a hotel to meet strangers without telling me—”
“Are you being serious right now? This is an example of you being an ass, by the way. Should I text that to you?” She pretended to reach for her purse.
“I have been an ass since the day we met,” he said angrily. “You had no business marrying me. And you claim to have had the bad judgment to fall in love with me. How can I possibly trust you to have any judgment where strangers in hotel rooms are concerned?”
“You’re going to throw that in my face again?” She picked up the cushion from the corner of the sofa and hugged it, growing teary and stressed all over again. “I won’t have that fight right now. I’ve had a really emotional day, Axel.”
“I know what you’re going to say.”
“No, you don’t!” She didn’t let him cut in.
“Because I don’t. All I know is that I want to dance, and I promised Inga she could count on me.
I know that ‘show must go on’ attitude sounds ridiculous or…
I don’t know how it sounds.” She squeezed the cushion.
“I only know that I can’t let whatever happens between us cost me my chance to dance.
Not again. So I’m staying in Berlin. I don’t know what to tell you about whether I’m continuing this marriage or staying in this apartment because I’m really hurt. ”
“You are hurt,” he scoffed, glaring at her with outrage, then shoving his hand through his hair. “Do you have any idea what has been going through my mind since the doorman told me your driver was here and you were long gone? You didn’t even take a jacket.”
That was the second time he’d mentioned that crime. She wasn’t sure why he was so incensed about it. The April day had been quite pleasant.
“When I saw you’d turned off your notifications, I thought you were dancing. Maybe punishing me a little. Which I deserved, but I thought you would come home after you were done at the studio. You didn’t take a jacket. You hadn’t actually left me if all you had was your phone and a credit card.”
Oh. She was starting to see why the lack of a coat was such a big deal.
“What other reason could there be then, when time wore on and you didn’t come home? I was actually relieved to hear you had gone to a damned hotel with a male dancer because at least if you were having an affair, I knew you were alive.”
“I wasn’t having an affair.”
“No, but if your aim was to show me how empty my life would be if you left me, mission accomplished.”
“I’ve told you where I was. Are you really going to say I shouldn’t have gone to meet my birth mother’s brother?”
“No. But you didn’t have to go alone. I would have gone with you if you’d asked.
What does it say about where we’re at that you didn’t even think to call me and ask me to meet you there?
You didn’t trust me to be your support in that.
Did you?” He ran his hand over his face, but not before she saw the anguish that flashed across his expression.
“I was just reacting,” she murmured. “It felt urgent. Like they would disappear if I didn’t see them right away. I know that doesn’t sound rational.”
“I understand why you went, Joy. I do.” He dropped his hand.
“And I’m glad it went well, but what if it hadn’t?
What if it had turned out like it had with Otto, and you were rejected all over again, and I wasn’t there to absorb some of that blow?
You didn’t even know that I wanted you here.
” He pointed at the floor. “For as long as we both manage to live.”
Well, why did he have to say that? For someone who was being mostly an ass, he was also being sweet enough to make her blink back tears.
“I never should have told you to leave.” His voice thickened with remorse.
“It was stupid. Mean. I’m sorry I said it, and I hope you’ll forgive me.
But, Joy, I want you to be with me because you want to be with me.
When you said you wanted to leave, I had to give you that.
I don’t know how to show how I feel except by giving you what you seem to need.
” He held out his open palms, helpless. “I feel a lot. I love you.”
“Don’t…” A knot formed behind her breastbone, but a tiny, tiny hope began to unfurl inside her. “Don’t say that word if you don’t mean it.”
He came to sit on the coffee table and clasped her hands. He looked into her eyes, and there was such a fierce light there, her heart lurched toward hope, but she held it back, fearful.
“Refusing to say it doesn’t make it not true,” he said with disgruntlement.
“But you think love is something that makes you weak. That hurts to carry. You don’t want it.” Her voice wavered.
“I said that,” he acknowledged. “And it does hurt. It’s a terrifying emotion, Schatz.
It means that this…” He scanned his gaze all over her.
“Any little harm to you might as well be a knife to my own heart. I can’t stand when you’re hurt.
That’s why I was so eaten up today when I didn’t know where you were.
I had hurt you, and I felt it so deeply.
It was a self-inflicted wound, and I couldn’t fix it because I couldn’t find you.
I love you,” he repeated, hands tightening on hers.
She searched his face, very frightened she was dreaming and would wake up heartbroken all over again.
“I can see you’re having trouble believing me.
Look. The kind of love I grew up with was obligation and responsibility, but that’s not what this is.
I thought love was something that was imposed on you.
Some entity I could choose to bring into our relationship or not.
But it is our relationship. I realized that when you said you would take back your love.
I knew you couldn’t do that because I couldn’t keep from loving you. I want to marry you again.”
“What?”
He ran his thumbs across her knuckles and caught the pad of his thumb against her wedding rings. “I want to marry you for no reason except that we love each other. I want you in my life forever, Joy. We belong together. Do you think you would be willing to marry me again? For real this time?”
It wasn’t just the words that made her vision blur with tears. It was the pledge. The emotion. The truth. The profound belief that settled over her that she really did have a place in his life, with him. Forever.
She had to bite her quivering lips as sweet love tumbled through her. She placed her hand against the side of his face, barely able to speak past the elation swelling her heart.
“I do.”