Chapter 44 #2
He was silent for a moment, his silence holding me in a limbo where I wondered if he was finally going to let me in or shut me out once more.
His eyes were on mine but they weren’t really seeing me.
I longed suddenly for that cold, calculating gaze to come back.
At least then there would be life inside him.
Eventually he spoke and his words shattered my hopes.
“Lola, I have already muddied you enough for one night. I won’t dirty you any further.” He stood, and I held up a hand to stop him approaching but he ignored it and came to stand in front of me, his form phantom-like in the moonlight.
“I’m just trying to understand...” I looked up at him from my twisted duvet robe. I was sitting in a cloud looking up at the empty stars of his eyes.
He tilted my head, forcing me to look at him, and his dead eyes fastened on me as he spoke. “Understand that neither my history, my family, nor my company are any of your concern.”
“Then what is?” I asked, my voice hoarse. He released my jaw, his hand falling to his side.
“Me.” He stood before me, a glorious statue, an ethereal creation. He was offering only himself as if it should be enough, yet he wasn’t as sure of his worth as he might once have been.
“That’s it?” I sniffed, trying to hold back tears. He felt so far away from me and I felt guilty for pushing him so much.
“It’s not enough?”
“No, Alfie. It’s not enough.”
“If it’s the title of Girlfriend you want, you can have it, Lola.” His even tone riled me. I wanted him to shout at me, to get mad and prove he was still in there somewhere.
“Girlfriends know things but you don’t let me in. Why don’t you drink, Alfie? Why won’t you let me pleasure you? Why didn’t you tell me you had a brother? How did you get that scar?” My words came tumbling out, questions that had lain dormant for too long finally breaking their way free.
“Enough.”
“No, Alfie, it isn’t enough.” I straightened my shoulders, showing him how strong I was, how big my shoulders were, that I could carry his weight if he needed me to. “This isn’t a boardroom, it’s a bedroom, and you don’t get to decide what we discuss.”
“I get to decide what I tell you and I choose not to tell you this, so learn your place and stay out of it.”
I winced and stared up at him, barely able to believe he had just spoken to me that way. “That hurt, Alfie.”
“It’s what I do, Lola. I hurt.” He reached out, the pads of his fingers brushing over my jaw as he took my chin once more. I froze, keeping myself perfectly still. He ran his thumb over my bottom lip, his eyes affixed to my mouth.
“I should call Elliot to take you home. I should promise to leave you in peace and let you fall in love with a good, steady man…but I can’t.
” His eyes drifted to mine again, their deadness terrifying me.
He cupped my cheek, and for just a moment I saw a whisper of the sadness he tried so hard to keep hidden. “I have to keep you.”
With those final words whispered as a cursed epithet, he turned away from me and walked into the bathroom, shutting the door gently behind him. A moment later I heard the shower running and the soft patter of water hitting the tile.
I remained on the bed, clutching my duvet, stunned by what had just passed between us.
A thick layer of guilt settled into me. Why had I pushed him so hard?
There was so much I wanted to know about him, and his reaction to the mention of his brother only made me want to know more.
There was something hidden there, something that hurt him so badly he’d had to deaden himself just to cope with it.
It was tied in with his father’s company somehow, the company he now ran, I just didn’t know how the two were connected.
I buried my head in my hands and took a breath.
One day I’d learn all of his secrets, but not tonight.
Right now, the man I cared about was in that bathroom, a hollow shell of the Alfie Tell I knew because I had pushed him too far.
I needed to fix it. More than that, I needed to bring him back to me.
I threw off my duvet toga and climbed off the bed. I was going to go in there and make it okay again. We still hadn’t resolved anything but that didn’t matter anymore. I would kiss him softly and he would kiss me back. He would come back to me.
As soon as I opened the bathroom door I was hit by a thick billow of steam, so thick I could barely see beyond my own outstretched hand. The bathroom had become a sauna and a wave of claustrophobia hit me as I drew in a breath of dense, humid air.
“Alfie?” I called out but he didn’t respond. Maybe he couldn’t hear me over the shower. My foot nudged something soft and I looked down to see his boxers discarded on the floor. I stepped closer until the shower appeared through the clouds of steam.
Alfie was barely visible through the glass separating me from him but I could just make out the misted form of him hunched under the spray.
The shower was large, practically a wet room, and I had to guide my way along the glass until I found the gap.
I stepped in, peering through the steam.
It cleared enough for me to make him out.
I was burning up from the dense heat and sweat beaded over my skin, but everything inside me had frozen as I focused on him.
“Alfie?” My voice was a strangled whimper that he didn’t respond to. I stood there, unable to move, unable to process what I was seeing.
His hands were pressed against the tile, his arms limp and barely holding him up.
His head was bowed as if in atonement for some dark sin and his back was bare under water that was so hot the smooth planes of his shoulder blades were scalded a bright, angry red.
A desperate sound came from his throat, every muscle weakened with his act of contrition.
My vision blurred, my eyes filling with hot, salty tears as I realised that this was what was underneath his mask, what he kept so desperately hidden.
The all powerful Alfie Tell was a broken man.