Chapter 23 Barcelona, Spain #3
Normally this would be when he’d pull me into a hug, but he’s eyeing me cautiously. I’m not silent for the sake of drama. I just can’t get any words out. I thought I had it sussed, what I’d say, but it collapses into scraps of sentences that dash around in my head like unruly children.
He tries again. “Is it your back?”
“No.”
For shit’s sake, one word and already my voice cracks. How will I do this? Not trusting myself with more, I unsling my bag and fish my phone out, then search the article. I set the phone on the kitchen island. Alexander peers at it. I watch his face for the reaction.
He takes in the headline, then murmurs, “What have I done?” before resting one hand over his mouth.
His words, confirming what I didn’t want to believe, hit me like a midrace collision. I manage a flinty smile. “Oh, you’ve done plenty, babes.”
“Fuckin’ hell, that’s not what I… I didn’t… It… it truly isn’t what you think,” he stammers.
He’s panicked enough that for a half second I almost buy it. But no one else knew these details. It had to be him, unless I’m willing to entertain the absurd idea that my mother or Priya conspired with my fucking enemy.
“Not what I think?” I jab a finger at the phone. “Take a nice close look, dickhead, and try selling me that. Who else knew this, about Thailand, and Jules abandoning me?” My eyes blur with incipient tears and I fan the anger to burn them away. “I told you. And days later, this happens.”
He grabs my phone and scans the article, pacing toward the balcony and closing the open doors, probably in case I scream at him. He scrolls to the end as he slowly walks back my way, then sets the phone down.
“I don’t know how she got this information, but it wasn’t from me, on my honor.”
“Your honor is obviously shit, Alexander. Priya was right about you.”
He shakes his head as if struggling to focus. “It could’ve been someone from the treatment facility.”
I snort. “The fact that Jules is there maybe. But not the specific personal shit.”
“The personal bits too—yes! He might’ve revealed something in a counseling session. Anyone looking to sell such information would need only search your name to find this woman with a history of slagging you off.”
My smile is harsh. “In the six weeks you’ve set up this…
this long con with me, you couldn’t construct a better excuse?
” I angle stiffly toward him, my voice rising.
“You just fucking said, ‘What have I done?’! And I’ve seen pictures of you and that plastic surgery disaster all touchy-feely at the publishing gala!
Don’t bother with denials.” I stomp toward the bathroom to collect my things.
“Sage, please! Let me explain what I meant.”
“Yeah? Go ahead and have fun shitting out more lies in the next two minutes. You’re wasting your breath.”
He stands in the bathroom doorway, gripping the jamb in a martyr’s pose as his words tumble out in a fevered rush. “She did ask me to ‘get dirt’ on you when I spoke with her at the gala. It was my intention to tell you about it when I arrived in Melbourne.”
“Yeah? And why didn’t you?”
His head drops, and when he looks back up, his hair is hanging in that way I’ve come to love, but instead of softening me toward him, it just enrages me. My attraction to him is what fucked me from lights-out, and he knew it, and he used it.
The night in Bahrain when he bought the vinyl record and we shared food and made the Christmas lights video, he saw that I’d warmed up to him. Once he clocked my weakness, he must’ve run straight to CJ Ardley and hatched a plan to tear me apart for getting him fired.
And I fucking fell for it. His sad gray eyes and floppy hair and cute boyish freckles… it’s all been part of the swindle.
The sex? The “I love you”? All these nights talking for hours, sharing our fears and insecurities and favorite things?
Sharing our secrets…
Holy shit, I’m a moron.
What could be a better revenge than fucking me over while he fucks me literally?
I zip up my toiletries bag and barrel toward him, ducking under his arm to exit.
“You’ll think it bollocks,” he continues, following close on my heels, “but I didn’t want to worry you.
I feared it might make you more guarded if I told you what she’d asked of me.
I know that’s selfish. But I felt confident I could manage the situation myself and keep her from posting about you by promising some big payoff if she waited—”
“And then you obviously fucking gave her one!” I viciously throw the bag I’m holding toward the open top of my duffel bag, but it bounces off and rolls away.
“I didn’t. I was keeping her contained, protecting you!”
“That’s bullshit and you fucking know it, Sandy.”
Hearing my stupid betraying mouth say his nickname startles the tears out of me quick as a slap. To hide it, I kneel and grab my toiletries kit and cram it into my bag, avoiding his eyes.
He drops to his knees beside me with a clunk that sounds like it hurts.
“I was afraid to say anything. I didn’t want to upset the balance of… whatever this is between us.” He puts both hands over his face and slides them off, and it shocks me to see from the red of his eyes that he’s near tears too. “I was playing her.”
“You’re a fucking liar and I hate you for making me trust you,” I seethe. The pain that spills through my chest when I say it is overwhelming, and the muscle in my back is a knife twisting. I yank the zipper on my duffel bag and the tab breaks off and I’m so pissed that I half snarl, half scream.
“It’s true!” Alexander insists. “Then last night she told me she’d—how did she put it?—set her sights elsewhere. I assumed she meant she wasn’t targeting you anymore, but it’s clear now she meant she’d found another source.” He scrambles to his feet. “I’ll show you the message.”
I pluck at the broken zipper, both relieved and infuriated by the delay. Part of me is dying for him to produce something that’ll change my mind. I want to fall into his arms and we can kiss and laugh with relief and everything will be fine…
From the bedside table Alexander groans and says, “Fuck me, I deleted it.”
“That’s convenient,” I snap.
I get the zipper closed and push to my feet, and the pain in my back is so sharp I can scarcely stand straight. Alexander tosses his phone onto the bed and hurries over.
“You must believe me,” he begs.
My tears are hot, poisonous, and I know I look awful. My nose is running and without giving a shit I lift the neck of my shirt and wipe it. I’m beyond caring, fully wrecked.
How did I get suckered by some posh fuckboy? I gave him my secrets; I gave him myself.
“Would you believe you, Alexander?” I ask bitterly.
His head drops back, looking toward the ceiling, and a small animal moan escapes him. He meets my eyes again. “I suppose I wouldn’t, no. Given the evidence, and my history. I know it looks bad.”
I study his face. Finally, in a miserable, almost childlike voice, I say, “You straight up jobbed me for revenge. This whole time—everything we’ve talked about—you’ve just been hunting for scraps you could use to break me.”
“Never. Never ever, Salvi.”
His dark eyes are like river rocks viewed underwater, glossy with tears that are probably fake, and I want to fucking slap him for it.
Because even though I suspect he’s full of shit and this was a scam and he fucking won…
part of me wishes I believed it. I could’ve fallen asleep in his arms and had a great race tomorrow.
Instead, I’m going to suck, and after that, I’ll go back to screwing hot strangers and playing the Spitfire Sage role, the irrepressible agent of chaos.
I shoulder my duffel bag and he takes a step toward me, cupping my elbow. I windmill my arm away from him and feel the muscle in my back tear. Prickling numbness shoots down my arm.
“Please don’t do this,” he implores, clearly struggling to keep his voice level.
“You did it, Sand. Not me.”
He dashes the heel of one hand against his face, wiping away tears, and I remind myself that spoiled, malignant liars are very good at this shit. It’s a performance. It always was, and the sooner I accept it, the sooner I can get back to being myself.
I head for the door, and he follows.
“Once your… your anger wanes,” he falters, “can we discuss this? We can’t just end things.”
I wheel back toward him, furious. “Once my anger wanes? Please ram that condescending bullshit directly up your ass, Laskaris. I won’t give you time to fine-tune your setup with a better lie. Congrats on the payback for me getting you fired. Take your fucking W and choke on it.”
I flip the door open hard and it smacks the wall. A framed black-and-white photograph of a pigeon smacks the floor, level as a guillotine, and I hear the glass crack like river ice.
He braces himself in the doorway as I start down the steps. “If I’d been hiding something, conspiring with that woman,” he tells me in a rush, “would I have volunteered my mobile to you—the photos of Badrick? I was in another room when you looked. I’d not’ve risked that with something to hide.”
I pause, one hand gripping the iron railing hard, then keep going.
Fuck, I want to believe him so much…
When I reach the bottom step, his words float after me, and he sounds wrecked. “I’m not giving up. This is real.”
My shoes bark with my abrupt stop. I turn, yanking the iron railing in my frustration, and it rings with a metallic echo like fake thunder on a stage. He moves to the top of the steps and grasps it too, and it strikes me that we’re connected now, like a completed circuit.