24. Cole
TWENTY-FOUR
COLE
Alba watched Carrie disappear around a corner, then dropped her arm from around me and shot me a look that was utterly unimpressed.
“What?” I protested.
“You know what,” she said.
“Nothing is going on between me and my assistant, Alba.”
“I know it isn’t,” she said, “but I know that if you had your way, that wouldn’t be the case.”
Her words were a slap in the face. We started walking toward the elevators at the far end of the room. Her shoulders were stiff, and her eyes betrayed her fury.
And she wasn’t the only one.
“Do you really think so little of me, Alba?”
“I think you’re a man, and men cheat.”
“I’ve never cheated on you.”
“You slobber after that woman like I’ve never seen before, Cole.”
I bit back my retort and mashed the elevator button and tried another tack. “I’m engaged to you . That means something to me.”
Alba didn’t meet my gaze. She stared at the numbers above the elevator, her shoe tapping on the tile floor. When the doors slid open, we both stepped through without a word.
All the lightness and joy that had filled me—unexpectedly—over the course of the afternoon dissolved into bitterness. The elevator began to move, and still my wife-to-be said nothing.
“I will not cheat on you,” I started again. “That’s not who I am.”
“Was she really the only option for a golf partner?”
“My father accosted us when we arrived. He didn’t give her a choice.”
Alba snorted. “Right.”
“You know how he is, especially when he and your dad get together. You can’t say no to them when they get an idea in their heads.”
Her lips pursed, and I knew that was as much of a concession as I’d get. Tension stretched between us as the elevator brought us up to the top floor, where the family residences were located, and I found myself gripping my hands into fists and relaxing them in turn just to try to burn off some of my frustration.
We made it inside our room before she whirled on me. “I asked you for one thing , Cole. I said keep it under wraps until after the wedding. ”
Scoffing, I threw my hands out to the sides. “Then what? It’s a free-for-all? Why wait at all?”
“I will not be made a fool of.”
“Listen to yourself, Alba! You’re making up stories about me and my assistant. What part of ‘I’m not going to cheat on you’ is so hard to understand?”
Her eyes burned into mine. “I saw the way you looked at her,” she finally said, her voice so quiet I had to strain to make out the words.
“The way I looked at her?”
“You’ve never looked at me like that.”
“You’re jealous,” I said.
“Of course I’m fucking jealous, Cole! You look at that woman like she’s everything you’ve ever wanted. You didn’t even look at me like that when you asked me to marry you.”
“Oh, please.” I turned away from the truth she flung at me and stomped to the kitchen. I cracked open a bottle of water and wished for something stronger.
“Am I wrong?”
I turned to see her in the entrance of the kitchen, arms crossed, leaning against the far cabinets. Sipping some water to buy myself time, I mulled over her question. There was only one answer I could give her. One answer that made sense to me, because I wasn’t lying when I told her I’d never cheat on her.
My word meant everything to me. I didn’t make vows easily, and I valued loyalty above everything.
So I said, “Yes, Alba. You’re wrong. I’m marrying you .”
The words hung between us, and in the far recesses of my mind, I wondered why they felt like a lie .
Alba’s shoulders crumpled, and I crossed the distance between us to take her in my arms. She rested her head on my shoulder as tears wetted the side of my neck. Her breaths shuddered through her, and all I could do was run my hands up and down her back to try to contain the storm.
I was a piece of shit. Maybe I’d deserved to be given away by my parents when I was born. Maybe the very core of me was rotten, and they could tell. That’s why my adoptive family treated me like I’d never be as good as their biological kids. That’s why I’d always chased my career, why I’d told myself that I cared about loyalty and fidelity.
I was trying to hide who I really was. My loyalty was a thin, brittle veneer covering a black heart.
My word—the vows I’d already made to her—was a lie. My loyalty was hollow. Because as I held my crying fiancée, I realized that the woman I wanted in my arms was on the other side of the resort.
Alba pulled away, her eyes brimming with tears. “I can’t do this, Cole,” she whispered.
“Alba—”
“I can’t do this,” she repeated. “I can’t marry you.”
My thoughts spun out. A high keening rang in my ears as I stood before her, not understanding.
Fine. I was attracted to Carrie. There was some connection between us—but that didn’t mean anything! It didn’t mean as much as a promise. It wasn’t the binding of my family to Alba’s. It wasn’t my father’s pride, and Ted’s beaming smile.
For the first time in my life, I belonged somewhere. I could look at my father and know that I’d come from somewhere. And now Alba wanted to break things off? For the sake of a woman I’d slept with seven years ago?
“I’ll get rid of her,” I said, even though the words felt like broken glass as they tore up my throat. “I’ll fire her, Alba. Anything you need.”
Anything to keep her by my side, because marrying Alba meant truly being part of this family, this business, this life.
But Alba was shaking her head and avoiding my gaze. She put her hands on my chest and pushed me until I took a step back. “Stop, Cole. Just—stop.”
“Alba—”
“I’m in love with someone else!” The words burst from her, loud as gunshots in our apartment.
I gaped at her, breathing heavily, not understanding.
I watched my fiancée gulp, inhale deeply, and straighten her spine. Then she looked me square in the face and repeated, “I’m in love with someone else. I thought—I thought you weren’t capable of loving someone. And so our marriage could be like…like…like a business arrangement.”
There were a lot of things I wanted to say, but what came out was, “A fucking business arrangement?”
“I thought we understood each other. And you could get what you needed on the side, and I could…make things work with…”
“With who, Alba?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“The fuck it doesn’t.”
“Don’t talk to me like that,” she snapped.
“How am I supposed to react? You’re breaking up with me. You’re telling me you’re in love with someone else when you’ve made me feel like I’m the piece of shit for getting along with my employee.”
“Oh, ‘getting along,’” she repeated in finger quotes. “Right.”
We stared at each other. My mind was a hurricane. Nothing made sense.
Alba spoke first, and when she did, her voice was utterly calm. “I thought you were incapable of really loving a woman, Cole, and so I thought we could come to an understanding. I thought this marriage would be…simple. But I was wrong.”
Once again, a thousand different words crowded up my throat. The ones that came out were the worst of the lot: “I’m not in love with?—”
She held up her hand. “Please. Let’s just—leave it at that.”
“Leave it at that? A few weeks ago you were on my case about invitations and floral arrangements, and now you’ve just decided you’re done?”
The woman standing in front of me was a stranger. She looked at me through blue eyes I didn’t recognize, with her jaw set with a stubbornness I didn’t recognize. “Yes, Cole. I’ve decided I’m done.”
Then my fiancée— ex -fiancée—closed the distance between us in a single step, put her hands on either side of my face, and pressed a kiss to my mouth.
I didn’t kiss her back. I didn’t move. All I did was stand there as she stepped back from me, sadness and relief in her gaze, trying to understand where the hell I’d gone wrong.
“I’ll grab my stuff and get out of here before the retreat starts. We can announce the end of the engagement when you’re back in the city. I’ll give my father some excuse—I’ll come up with something.”
When no response came to me, Alba gave me a nod, sidestepped around me, and walked away. I stood in the kitchen, still gripping a bottle of water as condensation dripped off my fingers and down to the floor, while Alba gathered her things and left.