Chapter 45 On The Yacht #2
Something ugly.
I studied his face carefully.
There was no drama in the way he said it.
No attempt to make it sound tragic.
Just… fact.
That somehow made it worse.
“Is that what he told you?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“How old were you?”
His fingers tapped once against the table.
“Six the first time I remember.”
I blinked.
“Six?”
He nodded.
“That’s the first time I understood what was happening.”
My throat felt tight suddenly.
“What do you mean?”
His gaze finally lifted again.
“There’s a difference between pain and punishment,” he said quietly.
I didn’t answer.
He continued.
“When you’re little, you think punishment means you did something wrong.”
His voice had gone softer now.
“And when it keeps happening… you start thinking you must be the problem.”
The ocean air suddenly felt too thick.
“What would he punish you for?” I asked carefully.
Alexander leaned back slightly in his chair.
Not relaxed.
Just… bracing himself.
“Everything.”
The word came out almost hollow.
“If I spoke too much.”
“If I didn’t speak enough.”
“If I lost a fight.”
“If I didn’t fight hard enough.”
His jaw tightened again.
“If I cried.”
He paused.
“That one was the worst.”
I swallowed.
“What would he do?”
He hesitated.
For a long moment I thought he might stop there.
But instead he said quietly,
“He’d tell me crying meant I needed another reason to cry.”
Something inside my chest twisted painfully.
“Alexander…”
“I’m not telling you this for sympathy,” he said quickly.
“I know.”
He studied my face like he was trying to see if I meant that.
“I hate sympathy,” he added.
“I know.”
That seemed to calm something in him.
“So when you feel something now,” I said slowly, “you react the way he taught you.”
“Yes.”
His answer came immediately.
Too immediately.
“When something feels out of control,” he continued, “my instinct is to punish it.”
I didn’t interrupt.
He leaned forward slightly, his elbows resting on the table.
“And when you walked into that room…”
His voice trailed off.
I waited.
“You saw something I don’t let anyone see,” he said.
His eyes lifted to mine again.
“And you looked at me like you understood.”
My voice came out quieter than I expected.
“I felt sorry for you.”
His jaw flexed.
“I know.”
“And that made you angry.”
“Yes.”
“But that’s not the whole reason, is it?”
For a moment he didn’t answer.
Then he shook his head slightly.
“No.”
“What was the other reason?”
His gaze held mine now.
And this time he didn’t look away.
“You made me feel something.”
My heart skipped once.
“What?”
He hesitated.
I could see it.
Actually see the struggle in him.
Alexander Kingsley—who usually controlled every room he walked into—looked like he was trying to force words out of a locked chest.
“I felt… attached,” he said slowly.
The word sounded unfamiliar in his mouth.
“Protective.”
Another pause.
“And something else.”
“What?”
He ran a hand across the back of his neck.
Like he was embarrassed by the answer.
“I liked that you saw it.”
That surprised me.
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“But you hurt me because of it.”
“Yes.”
The honesty of the answer stunned me.
“I didn’t know what to do with that feeling,” he continued. “I didn’t know how to deal with it.”
“So you punished it.”
“Yes.”
That answer told me enough.
I looked down at my bandaged hand, then back up at him.
“So when you’re angry,” I said slowly, “when you feel cornered or out of control…”
He finally looked at me.
“That’s what I know.”
There was no pride in his voice.
No defense.
Just fact.
And somehow that made it worse.
I held his gaze. “That doesn’t make it okay.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I do know.”
“Then why did you do it?”
The question sat between us.
He looked away first.
For a while I thought he might shut down again. That he would retreat into that cold, impossible silence he always used when something got too close.
Instead, he spoke so quietly I almost didn’t hear him.
“Because I didn’t know what else to do.”
I frowned slightly.
He gave a hollow laugh and dragged a hand over his mouth.
“That sounds insane when I say it out loud.”
“It does,” I said.
A tiny, broken smile touched his mouth, gone almost instantly.
“Fair.”
I should have stayed hard. I should have kept the wall up. But there was something about the way he said it—without arrogance, without control—that made me listen.
He looked at my bandaged hand again.
“When you walked into that room…” he started, then stopped.
His throat worked.
“When you saw that part of me—” He shook his head once. “Something in me snapped.”
I didn’t interrupt.
He seemed to be forcing every sentence out one at a time.
“I felt exposed,” he said. “Cornered. Seen in a way I can’t stand.” His eyes flicked to mine and then away again. “And then you looked at me like…” He stopped.
“Like what?” I asked.
His voice dropped. “Like you felt sorry for me.”
I blinked.
“I did.”
“I know.”
He said it immediately.
Too immediately.
“I know you did. And that was the problem.”
I stared at him. “You hurt me because I felt sorry for you?”
“No.” His answer came sharp, almost panicked. Then he steadied himself. “Not because you felt sorry for me. Because you made me feel something.”
My heartbeat stumbled.
I didn’t say anything.
He took a breath, slow and clearly controlled.
“That room is where I keep everything I don’t let matter,” he said. “The reports. The videos. The reminders. All of it locked away. Contained. Controlled.”
His gaze came back to mine.
“And then you saw it.”
The table between us suddenly felt too small.
“And I couldn’t control what I felt after that.”
My voice came out quieter than I intended. “What did you feel?”
He stared at me for several seconds.
I could actually see the hesitation in him.
Alexander Kingsley, the man who intimidated everyone in every room he entered, looked almost… uncertain.
Then he answered.
“You.”
That wasn’t an answer, and we both knew it.
I held his gaze. “That’s not good enough.”
He exhaled once through his nose and looked down.
“You made me feel attached,” he said at last. “Protective. Angry. Exposed. Restless.” His jaw tightened. “Wanting things I shouldn’t want.”
The words sank into me slowly.
“And I don’t know how to deal with that.”
There it was.
The truth, stripped down and ugly.
My hand tightened in my lap.
“So you punished me.”
His face tightened instantly. Shame, sharp and unmistakable, moved through his expression.
“Yes.”
He didn’t dodge it this time.
He didn’t soften it with excuses.
“When I feel something I can’t control,” he said, voice low, “my first instinct is to kill it. Shut it down. Punish it until it goes away.” He swallowed. “That’s what I was taught. That’s what I know.”
My throat felt tight.
“That’s not love, Alexander.”
He flinched at the word.
“I know.”
Silence stretched between us again.
Then, unexpectedly, he leaned forward a little.
Not enough to crowd me.
Just enough to make the next words feel more personal.
“I am sorry.”
The apology was quiet.
Careful.
Not polished. Not rehearsed.
Real.
“I know that doesn’t fix what I did,” he continued. “I know it doesn’t erase it. I know you have every reason to hate me.”
I said nothing.
He kept going anyway.
“I cut you,” he said, and his voice roughened around the words. “I scared you. I made you afraid of me.”
His eyes lifted to mine then, and for the first time since I met him, I saw something almost boyish there.
Not weakness.
Not exactly.
Something rawer.
“I hate that.”
“So why did you ask me here?” I asked.
He looked down again, then back up.
“Because I needed to say it while you were still willing to sit in the same place as me.”
That hit harder than I expected.
His fingers moved once, then stopped.
A nervous habit.
He looked strangely uneasy, like every polished instinct he had was gone and he was left with nothing but honesty.
“I like you,” he said suddenly.
The bluntness of it caught me off guard.
He looked almost annoyed with himself for saying it that way.
Then he tried again.
“No. That’s not—” He broke off and rubbed the back of his neck. “I really like you.”
His voice had gone quieter now.
Less certain.
“I always liked you.”
My heart gave one hard, stupid beat.
I shouldn’t have reacted to that.
I definitely shouldn’t have let him see it if I did.
But his eyes were already on my face.
Watching me.
Searching for something.
“You barely know me,” I said.
A faint, crooked smile touched the corner of his mouth.
“You’d be surprised.”
I raised an eyebrow slightly.
“Is that why you were such a jerk to me when you first showed up at the café?”
He didn’t even try to deny it.
A slow smirk appeared on his face.
“Yes.”
I stared at him.
“You have a very strange way of showing that you like someone.”
The smirk faded a little.
His mouth tightened slightly, like he was aware of the truth in that statement.
“I know.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“I know,” he repeated quietly.
For a moment I just watched him.
Trying to read the man sitting across from me.
The same man who could be cruel, dangerous, impossible to understand.
And yet…
Sometimes looked at me like I was the only thing in the room.
Finally, I asked the question that had been sitting in my chest since the moment he handed me that note.
“What exactly do you want from me now?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
His gaze dropped briefly to the table before lifting back to mine.
When he finally spoke, his voice was so quiet I had to lean forward slightly to hear him.
“A chance.”
I didn’t respond.
He didn’t look away.
He just held my gaze.
“A real one,” he added. “Not for the cameras. Not for the contract. Not because I cornered you into this.”
His fingers curled, then flattened again against the table.
“I want a chance to treat you right.”
There was something almost shy in the way he said it, and that more than anything unsettled me.
Alexander did not sound shy.
Alexander did not sound nervous.
But right now he did.
“I want to work this out,” he said. “If you’ll let me.”
I let out a slow breath.
“You think you can just say that and I’m supposed to believe you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He nodded once.