58. Isabel
Itook my time to absorb those words, my fragmented thoughts twining around the possibility of the question Roman posed.
Do you want me to leave this all behind?
My gaze never wavered from his. “What would happen if you did?” I asked.
A shadow fell across Roman’s features, as if he were weighed down by the awfulness of it all. A shudder ruffled his frame. “I’ll lose everything I”ve worked for and the Belmont Trust would be managed by someone outside of this family, because Byron’s not capable of doing that. The Belmont legacy would be destroyed. And I will be disowned.”
And with that, any hope that was left splintered into small unworkable bits. I internalized a gasp. “Jesus Christ.”
He bit a pained, melancholy smile. “Jesus Christ is right.”
His talking vein was pounding furiously, seemingly on the edge of bursting. All I wanted to do was soothe him and tell him I loved him more than life itself. Even if I knew I was nowhere near accepting any of this. And doubted that I ever would be.
“But if I leave now everything will be fine,” I whispered.
“You can’t leave.”
“It will make everything easier for both of us.”
“No, Isabel, it wouldn’t make it easier. It would destroy us both. I’d rather leave Belmont Trust.”
I teemed with bitterness. “And if you left the trust, how long do you think it would be before you started missing all this and blaming me because you didn’t have it anymore, Roman? What about the day you wake up and realize it was the biggest mistake of your life and there’s no going back. And if I were to stay, how long would it take for me to lose my mind. After your first child with Geneviève is born, or after the second? Or maybe if I survive that, how long before I resent the fact that if I stay with you I can never have children.”
“Of course we can have children. I’d love nothing more.”
“You mean kids who won’t bear their father’s name. What would you tell them? That they weren’t important enough? That it was business before family?”
These were not real questions I was posing anymore. They were all facts I desperately needed as sound reasons to walk away from him, from all of this…insanity. Attempting to salvage the tiny shreds of my dignity, I had to ask one last question. “What would you do if you were me, Roman?”
Despair stole over his body, and for an eternal heartbeat the question hovered, and I knew that Roman wasn’t going to be honest. He was going to bend the narrative to suit his will.
He leaned over and his harrowing gaze burned into mine. “If you love me even half as much as I love you, you’ll stay,” he said softly, unashamedly placing the burden entirely on me. As if my making this sacrifice was all that stood between our happiness and eternal grief.
I felt rebellion push up inside me, even as every cell in my body endeavored for calm. My breath stalled. “That’s incredibly unfair. Expecting me to prove my love to you by falling in line with the most fucked-up scenario imaginable.”
And as I said those words every drop of blood drained from Roman’s face. As if he was watching his life, frame by frame, returning to what it used to be, before he met me one rainy night. “Isabel,” he said, his voice breaking. “Please don’t leave. Please.”
His plea was so simple, so earnest, and my heart was breaking into a thousand pieces and I had to keep reminding myself that he knew what he was dragging me into. Had known all along. And he waited until I couldn’t see myself living without him before telling me. No, it was worse than that because he didn’t tell me. His fucked-up brother did. In what world was that fair?
Our gazes barely held under the tension, and all that kept the terrible silence at bay was Henry’s vital signs beeping away like a metronome. Breathe in, breathe out, I reminded myself. I mustered a weak smile and steeled myself against the overwhelming desire to simply surrender to Roman’s impossible expectations.
Suddenly a long tormented groan erupted from the bed. Roman and I froze, both staring at Henry in complete shock. “Henry!” I jumped into autopilot, pressing the red button next to the bed. The button that alerted the medical team and Emily of an emergency. And I had no idea what that emergency was.
A medical team rushed in out of nowhere. I was shoved aside, Geneviève’s picture fluttering to the floor. Roman dragged me away to the other side of the room and pulled me against him, his body vibrating with stress.
Emily darted into the room, immediately taking in the scene, eyes moored to the neurologist examining Henry. He turned around, expecting Emily to already be there, and smiled. “It’s all fine. It seems Mr. Belmont has decided to wake up. I’ll have the helicopter here shortly to take him to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.”
It might have been a sob that tumbled out of Emily, but when she turned to Roman and me she was smiling with tears in her eyes. I slipped out of Roman’s arms and went to Emily, hugging her.
Roman went to talk to the neurosurgeon, and his body language expressed hope that his father would be okay, and would return to Belmont Manor a changed man.
At some point Steven arrived, reading the room. And observant creature that he was, his gaze landed on the fallen picture of Geneviève. His gaze clashed with mine, and for the brief exchange it was, I could swear I saw a scintilla of compassion reflected in his eyes. He simply picked up the picture and folded it up before burying it inside his pocket. As if to show his solidarity with the absurd choice I had to make.
The next half hour was a blur as the medical team prepared Henry for his flight to Rochester. Throughout it all Emily remained by his side, holding his hand. I wondered what impossible situation she had to accept many years ago to be with Henry, the love of her life.
Eventually the helicopter with Emily and Henry thundered off into the distance and only Roman, Steven and I remained in the room. After the overwhelming commotion, it was eerily quiet. Roman watched as the helicopter became a disappearing beacon of hope in the sky.
Steven found Francis the Bear discarded next to the bed. He scooped the bear up and handed it to me. “Are you all right?” he asked.
My throat clamped up, making it tough to speak. I nodded and managed a whisper. “I’ll need a ride home, if that’s okay.”
Roman turned away from the window, those deep blue eyes sweeping over me. “You are home, Isabel,” he said softly.
All I could do was shake my head and refuse to meet his gaze. I ignored the terrible need I felt to crawl into Roman’s arms and hear him tell me everything would be okay. And that this was a nightmare from which I’d soon wake.
Steven cut Roman a sharp glance, and then looked to me. “When you’re ready, we’ll go.”
Roman cleared the distance between us and pulled me into his arms, holding me so close I could feel his heartbeat thumping against my chest. His lips grazed my temple, his warm breath caressing my skin. “Can I call you later?”
I gently severed myself, avoiding the temptation to stay. “No, please don’t. I need time to think, Roman. I really do.”
He stood back, giving me space to leave. “I love you, Isabel. More than you know.”
I nodded to Steven, who led me out of the room and downstairs, to where a Range Rover was waiting. He opened the door to the front passenger seat. “I’ll be taking you home myself,” he said.
If I was curious why Steven wanted to take me home, my curiosity was met as soon as the big black gates closed behind us.
“Roman is a good man,” he told me. “For all the pressure put on him to continue his father’s legacy, he’s proven extremely resilient and dependable, the two traits instilled in the heirs since Roman Henry Belmont I breathed life into this empire. The only time I ever saw Roman falter was after meeting you. At first I was against anything that could distract him from the path he was set to follow, but now I think you’re the best thing that ever happened to him. And to this family. I’m sorry you’re faced with a challenge no young woman in love should ever have to face, but I’ll say the same for Roman. He didn’t ask for any of this, and yet he never questioned what he was asked to do. The only difference between the two of you is that you can walk away from all this, and he can’t.”
The silence prolonged itself. I peered out the window at the world flashing by, digesting Steven’s words. “We’ve come a long way since that night at the penthouse, haven’t we Steven?”
He might have tried to smile, I couldn’t tell. “We have, Isabel, and I have the grey hairs to prove it. But I can’t say I’d want it any other way.”
* * *
Meg was waitingin the apartment with two cocktails, freshly delivered pizza and a box of Kleenex. “I’ll have you know that we’ve gone through a lot of Kleenex since that first kiss in the bookshop, but I’ve stocked up so we’re cool. Let’s comfy on the couch and have a little chat.”
Predictably Meg’s only mission was to convince me that I’d be better off in this arrangement with Roman than say, turning into a bitter old woman growing a cobweb between her legs.
“You do realize that I’ll basically be his girlfriend, or mistress or whatever the fuck you want to call it, forever,” I countered.
“Going by what Roman says, once he has the chairman thing in the bag he can change some rules.”
“He’d still be having a little heir and a convenient spare with someone else, Meg. She’s very beautiful by the way. And by very beautiful I mean drop-dead gorgeous.”
“She’s also into women and her and Roman’s babies are going to be made in a lab.”
“Are you pleading his case because you’re scared he’ll cancel the contract you have with the Belmont Trust?”
“Isabel, if he canceled that contract I’ll take his ass to court and I’ll be sitting pretty for life. So no, that’s not why I’m pleading his case. I’m doing it because the two of you have something most people can only dream of having in their lives. You belong together. As much as I don’t understand this till-death-do-us-part kinda love, there’s no denying that it was invented for the two of you.”
We drank and talked until midnight, with me occasionally giving in to tears. It turned out that stress, cocktails and pizza made for strange bedfellows because to make this day even more of a dumpster fire I started feeling sick. Meg was kind enough to hold my hair back while I threw up. It took two full days before I could even think of eating again, the raging ball of tension in my stomach refusing to play along.
And it took every ounce of willpower I had not to text Roman. For all the times I typed a message and didn’t press send, I could have written a book.
Meg was doing her part by making terrible soup and pretending to talk me off the ledge while actually trying to sway me into believing that I was making more of this whole deal than I should. The worst part was that it was slowly but surely starting to work.
* * *
By the thirdday I felt better, and texted Sergei to find out when he wanted to practice the Bolero again. Normally he’d reply within seconds, but this time an hour went by before my phone dinged.
Sergei:Got principal in NY. Moving in a few days.
Conflicting emotions played havoc with my heart. I was ecstatic for Sergei, and I was sad about losing him as a dance partner. But I knew one day he’d be back to run the dance studio and we’d pick up where we left off.
Me:Congrats! I’m so happy for you, luchik! Call me! I want to hear all about it.
That call never came, nor did I get a reply to my text. But even as I tried to convince myself that Sergei was probably overwhelmed with the move and that he would call the minute he could breathe again, something nagged at me. He didn’t use his nickname for me, he sounded detached, and he didn’t sound like Sergei at all.