Chapter 06
B y the time I’m parked in front of Lex’s building, my determination and anger have severely decreased. What if they were wrong? Maybe Lex never loved me. Maybe Michelle misunderstood. Maybe Lucy doesn’t know her brother that well… That scares me so much, but them being right scares me even more. What if Lex confesses he did, in fact, fall in love with me? Then what?
The answer is right there, less than five minutes away. All I have to do is grow some cojones and ask him. Then I’ll know if I imagined everything or if what we had was real. Either way, I’m leaving Kelex, so I’m not risking much.
And if I don’t ask, I’ll wonder forever. The thought makes my stomach twist. I’m not living the rest of my life with that.
That’s all I need to build up the courage to exit the car and walk up to the massive door of his building. The doorman greets me with a smile as he opens, and my chest tightens as I enter the luxurious hall.
No going back now.
Should I ask to go up, or should I just do it? Maybe I’m still on Lex’s list. He can’t refuse to have a talk with me if I suddenly appear on his doorstep. Taking him by surprise also gives him less time to prepare.
I force a smile on my face as I walk up to the concierge, propping my arms on the high counter, ready to chat up the man.
“Good afternoon, miss. How may I help you?”
“Hi, I’m here to see Alexander Coleman. I’m on his list, Andrea Walker.”
“Of course.” He types something on his computer and asks, “May I see an ID, please?” Once he confirms who I am, he allows me to proceed with a polite nod .
The mirrors surrounding me in the elevator remind me I’m abnormally dolled up. Shit, I hope Lex won’t think all this is for him. I’m not here in a pathetic attempt to win him back—not this time. I’m here for the truth.
With each passing floor, I lose another chunk of confidence. This is the stupidest shit I’ve ever done, isn’t it? But I’m not walking past the guy in the lobby so soon. And I’m not telling Michelle I got cold feet either. I’m fucking doing it.
There’s a drive, deeply hidden in me, that has my feet walking through the familiar corridors all the way to his door. It’s the same drive that raises my hand and makes my finger push on his doorbell. The one that forces me to remain right there instead of turning around and running away like every cell in my body wants to.
A noise on the other side of the door causes a mix of anger and fear to rise in me. He’s right there, probably looking through the peephole. The asshole who potentially broke my heart for nothing is right there.
The heavy metallic sound of the lock is reassuring and terrifying, but it’s nothing compared to the wide panel finally opening.
Lex is right there, wearing a gray T-shirt and black basketball shorts, his handsome face veiled with worry and surprise. He has his glasses on, but I see how his eyes course over my shape, analyzing my outfit from head to toe, lingering for a split second on my red lips.
He’s so handsome in his casual clothes, so effortlessly attractive, that it sends a swarm of butterflies fluttering in my stomach. The injustice of his effect on me only adds to my anger.
“Andrea, what are you—”
I don’t let him finish, inviting myself in before he either offers or denies me access. My boldness shocks him, but I don’t care. I’m not ready for the nostalgia that hits me when I rediscover his apartment. We spent such wonderful moments here, isolated from the world like no one else existed but us…
A noise to my left startles me. And when I realize where it came from, my stomach churns painfully. There’s someone in his bedroom. Almost manic, I look around to find traces of the unknown guest. There’s a red trench coat and a matching handbag on the rack by the entrance.
A woman is here. In his bedroom.
Although he has every right to have moved on, I can’t hold back the look of pure betrayal I send him as the green monster crawls inside my head. He found bliss in the arms of another. This was a bad idea. I never should have come. Barely a minute in, and the little that was left of my heart already broke into pieces.
“Katya, that will be all for today,” he says loudly, eyes still on me .
“I’m almost done!” the woman replies, her Slavic accent impossible to miss.
In the corner of my eye, I see her come out. I don’t want to look, but I need to. Forcefully, I turn around. What the—
Katya isn’t a goddess-like sexual creature. She’s a plump middle-aged woman, about as short as I am. As if that wasn’t enough to reassure me, her lavender-blue dress and the white apron over it give away her role here.
She’s here to polish Lex’s floors, not his knob.
I feel like an imbecile as I watch her walk to us with a hamper full of sheets and towels.
“Hello,” she greets when she passes me.
We wait in awkward silence while she disappears into what must be the laundry room. I don’t look at Lex directly, even when he removes his glasses and folds them. We both stay utterly silent until the maid returns, removes her apron to slip it into her bag, and puts on her red coat.
“Sorry again for yesterday,” she tells Lex while opening the door. “I can work next Friday again, no problem.”
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Thank you for coming today,” Lex answers, giving her a brief nod.
She smiles in response, and her attention focuses on me. “Nice to meet you, miss. Have a good weekend, Mr. Alexander.”
As soon as she closes the door behind her, I kinda wish she’d come back. This was always going to be awkward, but now… it’s almost unbearable. I can tell Lex feels the same, trying to find a way to ask why the fuck am I in his apartment on a Saturday afternoon, uninvited.
“Your sister says hi,” is what comes out of my mouth first.
That only deepens his confusion. “My… sister?”
“Lucy. I had lunch with her and Michelle. I didn’t get to eat, but we had an enlightening talk.”
“You did?”
I nod. “They had an interesting theory about your feelings for me.”
I actually see the blood leave his face. If that isn’t an admission of guilt, I don’t know what is. “Whatever they told you, it wasn’t their place to—”
“You’re so full of shit,” I cut him off, exasperated. “Do you know how many people are worried about you right now? Your sister changed her flight to talk to me. That’s how much she fucking cares, you dickhead.”
“I never asked for it. I can take care of myself.”
“You’re such a pompous asshole… You can’t expect people to not care about you,” I retort, hating how detached he’s trying to sound .
His eyes darken, and the side of his jaw flexes. “Did you come all this way to throw insults at my face?”
“It was part of the plan, yes,” I sarcastically answer. Fuck, this isn’t going how I imagined.
To give myself a few beats to breathe and calm down, I remove my coat and set it over the backrest of an armchair near me. All I need is an answer. Then I’ll leave, knowing if he actually loved me.
“Is it true?” I blurt out once I’m in front of him again. He doesn’t seem to understand what I mean, so I add, “What they seem to believe about your feelings for me. What Kevin apparently confirmed to Michelle. Is it true?”
My question hits him hard, and I can almost taste his irritation. Alexander Coleman doesn’t like people probing into his head. Too fucking bad because it’s precisely what I’m here for.
He doesn’t answer, his face an impregnable mask of neutrality. Oh no, I’m not falling for that trick again.
“Staying silent won’t work this time,” I insist, squinting at him as I get closer. “You tell me yes or no, Alexander.”
I’m not leaving until I know the truth, so he better give in or buckle up for a siege.
T he moment this is over with, I’m calling Shelly, Kevin, and Lucy to tell them to get the fuck right out of my business and mind their own.
I realize they’re worried about me, but I’ve always been good at taking care of myself on my own. But maybe I’ve been too much of a wreck lately, so they decided to get involved and ruin everything.
We were so close to finally being done with this, and now here she is, asking questions I’d rather not entertain. Had she paid a little more attention, she’d realize she already has the answer. Of course, I fucking fell in love with her…
But she doesn’t know that, so she’s standing right in front of me, looking too pretty for me to resist, her dark eyes sending daggers at me. While I’ve never sought to anger her on purpose, I’ve always found her terribly attractive when she’s in such moods. It’s as if her personality shines the brightest in those moments, making her even more irresistible than she already is.
After clearing my throat, I say, “I don’t know what they told you, so— ”
“You want me to spell it out for you?” she interrupts me. “They collectively seem to think that you did , in fact, fall in love with me and that you’ve let me assume wrong.”
I might actually call them right now to ask them what the fuck is wrong with them. They know how much I dislike having my personal life meddled with, but they went and did this…
“Would it change anything?” I ask.
Her eyebrows twitch, doubt flashing in her eyes. “It would change everything .”
“How?”
“At least I’d know I wasn’t completely crazy, Lex. I’d know I didn’t imagine something that wasn’t there.”
There’s a pause, a moment of heavy silence, where I try to think of a way to get out of this unscathed. “Andrea, you have to believe me when I say I’m doing all this for you.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“No, it’s what’s best for you.”
“You don’t know what’s best for me.”
“I’m not what’s best for anyone. Especially not you. You deserve more than this. You deserve to have everything I can never give you.”
“Fuck you, Lex. What if I don’t want more? What if I don’t want whatever you can’t give me?” she argues. “You can’t decide for me what I want and need… It’s my decision. My life.”
“And it’s mine, too. You might think you know who I am, Andrea, but you don’t.”
“That’s because you don’t tell me anything! I learned more in fifteen minutes with your sister than I did in weeks with you! And in spite of that, I know plenty. I know you can be cold, and I know you can be so fucking arrogant at times. You hate being around people, and crowds make you uncomfortable. You love being right, which you almost always are, and you hate having to argue to prove your point. I know you’re loving and caring, even though you pretend to be so detached all the time. And you’ll sit with me for a three-hour movie because it makes me happy. Oh, and you will let me believe you enjoy disco music for the same reasons.”
Every crack in her voice is a tear in my resolve. The way she looks at me, with so much hurt and pain, is unbearable. It was hard enough to stay away from her when she thought I didn’t want her. But now…
“I know a lot of the bad, Lex,” she continues, with a small, broken voice. “But the good always outweighed it ten times over.”
“But it won’t last, Andrea. As much as I want to, I can’t change. I’ve been trying for over twenty years. It’s in my fucking brain, it’s the way I am, and I won’t let it hurt you again,” I explain, confessing my greatest, deepest shame—the painful reality of my divergent brain.
“You hurt me more when you rejected me over and over, Lex. That’s life. We get hurt, and we move on. But we learn from it, and we do better.”
“I have too many flaws, too many issues, too many problems. It’s better if you get over me now, when it’s still easy.”
“But it isn’t easy. Getting over you has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”
Fuck… I don’t know what to say to that. My heart aches for her because I know exactly what she means. I’ve been living through the same pain.
“Do you want me out of your life forever?” she asks.
“It’s what’s best for you.”
“That’s not my question, Alexander. What do you want?” She steps closer, pulling me a little deeper under her spell.
“What I want doesn’t matter.”
“So, if what I want doesn’t matter, and what you want doesn’t matter… Then what does?”
“That you’re okay, and safe, and happy.”
Her pleading eyes grow shiny with tears, and while I command my feet to take me a couple of steps back, my body won’t obey.
“I’ve never been happier in my life than when I was with you,” she confesses, a single tear rolling down her freckled cheek. “And I’ve never been more miserable than without you.”
She wipes the tear away with her palm, squares her shoulders, and meets my eyes with a newly found determination. “So, you tell me, Lex. Tell me you don’t want me in your life, and I’ll respect that. You’ll never see me again after today.”
No, that wasn’t the deal. Casting her out of my life was never an option. I can’t live with that. My lack of answer has her anger rising from its ashes.
“You’re such a fucking coward,” she angrily mutters, shoving my chest with flat hands. “Say it!” she demands, slamming her hands onto me harder. “You say it, Alexander!” Another tear topples over with her next shove. “I’m not letting you take the easy way out. You need to say it!”
My hands act before I can stop them, grabbing her wrists to hold them out of harm’s way. “You think any of this is easy?!” I roar, all my contained emotions releasing at once. “It’s taking everything ! But I can’t let my feelings take over and ruin you! ”
“Then fucking say it!” she fights back, her wrists still trapped by my iron grip. “Say you want me out of your life forever, and I’ll fucking go!”
“I can’t!”
“Why?!”
“Because I fucking love you!” I blurt out, pushed to the precipice by her stubbornness. Her eyes widen with surprise at the words, her lashes fluttering. I should never have said that, and I shouldn’t say more, but it’s as though she tore down the dam that kept everything in. “I should tell you to go, I should beg you to, but I can’t because I’m a fucking coward! And I wish I could make you leave and never look back. But what the fuck do I have to look forward to, then? My life has no meaning unless you’re in it, even from afar, even—”
She tugs at her hands with strength, forcing me down several inches since I’m still holding her wrists, and in the same motion, she rises to her toes. I’m not ready for it when her lips crash with mine. But then, when have I ever been ready with this woman?
It’s as though the kiss wakes me up from a deep, numbing slumber. For the first time in weeks, I don’t feel wooden inside, like the shadow of the man I used to be, like a puppet merely surviving. I’m alive. I’m real. I’m me.
And still, it isn’t enough.
Releasing her wrists, I wrap my arms around her and pull her onto me, adjusting our angle to kiss her deeper. She reaches up, grabbing my nape and clutching my hair as she tugs me closer. I feel her lips part under mine and then the wet warmth of her tongue. I don’t need more to unlock my jaw and give her what she wants—what she needs as much as I do.
We’re not subtle or tender. We don’t take our time rediscovering each other. This is hungry and desperate. We take what we thought we’d never have again, kissing like it’s the first and last time wrapped together. It’s intense, dirty, greedy, sinful… And it’s the most beautiful, most incredible thing I have ever experienced.
My heart hammers a primal beat, my chest swelling, expanding to make room for all the emotions wrecking me. She’s in my arms again. The most perfect creature who’s ever graced this Earth is plastered against me, her needy little tongue sampling me with ravaging intensity. Lost in the moment, she bites my lower lip, making me groan at the sting of it. My hands lower down her back, filling up with her extraordinary ass and pulling her closer. The thin fabric of her pretty dress allows me to enjoy its softness, my fingers digging into it.
She moans in my mouth, greedily pressing herself harder onto me, her hands grazing down my sides, only to slither their way back up under my T-shirt. I grunt her name and feel her weight increase in my hands, her knees giving out.
I’d say we’ve lost control, but I’m not sure we ever had it.
I almost forgot how untamable and flammable this thing between us is. There’s never been anything like it before her, and I know I’ll never find it again with anyone else. Not even if I lived for a thousand years.
She pulls me down in her need to get more, making me lose our balance just a little. Before we can stumble over and hurt ourselves, I grab her behind the thighs and lift her. Her legs part with the fluid motion, and I settle her against me, right over my aching cock. I can almost feel through the layers of our clothes how fucking wet she is for me. Always so fucking wet…
A few steps later, I’m by the couch. I carefully sit, keeping her right on top of me as we never break our kiss.
She’s everything.
She’s mine.
Eager to experience her taste again, I rip myself away from her lips and drop my mouth to her throat, sampling her skin there. My hands are clutching her hips, which undulate in small but undeniable sways over me. Her moans, now free of obstacles, fill my ears as I kiss and lick every inch of skin I can access.
I’m traveling back up to her jaw when she moans my name, her hands pressing against me.
“What?” I grunt.
“We can’t do this,” she protests, pushing harder to set some distance between us.
I let her go and lean back, admiring the small details of her overheated face. “Why?”
She stays right there, pressed where I need her so fucking much it hurts, looking at me with glassy eyes full of need and frustration. Her lipstick is smudged, and I’d venture I have some all over me as well. I pass the back of my hand over there, hoping I’ll get most of it. It makes her do some damage control on herself, wiping away the redness.
“We can’t because I only came here to get answers. I wanted to hear you say it, to know I wasn’t completely delusional. I’m still… I’m still leaving Kelex, still moving on.”
“You want to leave?” I ask.
“You fucking broke my heart, Lex. It would take a lot more than one kiss to fix that.”
Her earlier mood, her fierce determination, has returned. When she tries to get away from my lap, I prevent it, keeping her right there. My hands are on her hips, under her dress but over the thin pantyhose she has on, and I graze its texture with my thumbs .
I was okay with protecting her by keeping her away. I was fine with watching her bloom from afar. But I can’t accept her leaving. If my options are either that or being with her, then I don’t really have a choice, do I?
“What would it take?” I gravely ask.
“To fix us?”
I nod. She thinks about it for a moment, her eyes gliding over my face. “We’d need to go slow. And I’d need to trust that you won’t panic and pull that kind of shit ever again. I’m a fool-me-once kind of girl, not a fool-me-twice. So, if you can’t convince me of it, we won’t move forward.”
I squeeze her hips for a brief moment before letting go and finding a more proper position for my hands—over her dress and along her thighs.
“And if you do, then maybe, just maybe, I’d let you have another shot at my heart, Lex. But you’d need to mend it back to the way it was. I wouldn’t accept anything less. You’d have to glue every single piece back together, one by one.”
Again, I nod. My hand travels up the blue fabric to rest right under her left breast, over the organ I tore in half. I want to fix it. I want her to trust me again and to give me a second chance. But I’m still not entirely confident this is the best thing I can do for her.
“Are you sure you don’t mind the way I am?” I ask, balanced between hope and worry.
“I’m not the issue here. I’ve always known what I wanted, Lex—and it was you. All of you. But I don’t think you know what you want.”
“It’s because I know what you’d be getting yourself into.”
“Then tell me. Lay it all out for me to see. I can’t guess any of it if you don’t talk to me, Lex. And I can’t keep relying on others to learn things about you,” she explains.
“What if I tell you everything, you’re fine with it, and then you change your mind later on?”
“Unless you pull all that shit again, I don’t see the bad overcoming the good. I never minded it. It’s part of who you are.”
There’s a moment of silent pondering there, where I try to evaluate the pros and cons of giving this another shot. I was ready to sacrifice the only future I’ve ever wanted for her. But it seems she’d rather have that future with me than the sacrifice, so it looks like my calculations were way off.
The sound of something grumbling between us distracts me. Andrea’s cheeks redden while her hands flatten over her stomach. “I haven’t eaten yet,” she explains.
I’m not ready to let go when she carefully gets herself out of my lap to stand up on wobbly legs. She adjusts her dress, smoothing it down her wide hips. “I’ll let you think everything over,” she says. “If you want to try to fix this, you can join me at the empanadas place two blocks down the street. If you don’t join me, I’ll know what it means. But you’ll have to let me go all the way, Lex. If you don’t want this, then you can’t have me at all. Not even from afar.”
She’s right. There can’t be any in-between. We’re either all in or all out.
“Got it?” she asks.
I nod. “Yes, I got it.”
“Good.”
I watch as she picks up her coat and slips it on. When I stand, I have to fight the urge to pull her to me again and kiss her senseless. Wordlessly, we walk to the door together. She doesn’t say a thing, but when she looks up at me, I guess all the things she wishes she could tell me.
She wants me to join her there. Despite everything I did to her, despite how much I messed up, she wants me to come to the restaurant and fight for us. And I want exactly the same. I need to decide if it’s what I should do.
I open the door for her, and she offers me a single nod before twisting to face the inside of my apartment. “Goodbye, Iris,” she lets out with a clear voice.
“Goodbye, Andrea. It was nice seeing you again.”
The look she gives me is full of amusement. Were the moment not so tense, I know she’d say something witty about me not removing her from my home AI.
Without another word for me, she turns on her heels and walks away, her silhouette retreating through the cold light of the hallway.
Maybe I didn’t remove her from Iris’s code because, deep down, I always hoped she’d come back. Or perhaps I knew I’d open my eyes and shake myself back to my senses. She’s probably the only person out there who knows just how much of an idiot I can be and who’d never hesitate to remind me. I finally found someone even more stubborn than I am, and I think I’ve needed that my entire life.
I’ve needed her my whole life.