Chapter 7
Seven
W e stewed in our silence. I found myself wishing I’d ordered dinner just so I would have something to do with my hands.
I kept my expression cool and my gaze on him.
Looking away felt like a sign of weakness and I couldn’t afford to show any cracks in my armour.
He gazed right back at me, his expression warm and tired.
“I never got the chance to tell you how happy I was that you got into college. I regret that I put you in a place where you knew you couldn’t tell me.” His words surprised me.
“Would you have interfered if I had?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
“Probably,” he said, his tone thoughtful. “Is it everything you dreamed?”
“More.” I smiled, thinking of my first day, how nervous and excited I’d been.
“The Kew Gardens, Alfie, they’re so beautiful I can’t tell you.
They—” I cut myself off. No. I couldn’t do casual conversation with him.
I couldn’t share that with him. He gave me a small smile.
He understood, and that smile cut me inside.
It had me wishing he would dig my words out of me like he used to.
“Your Mum would have loved it, I’m sure. I can’t imagine how proud she would have been.” I nodded, swallowing hard, and was grateful when he moved on. “I saw photos of the new Imani Kishi sculpture. It was exquisite.”
“Thank you.”
“What will you be working on next?” I thought of my project, this next phase of my career that meant so much to me, and I felt the urge to shroud it in an invisibility cloak to shield it from his gaze. Alfie gave another smile. “It’s alright, I understand why you don’t want to tell me.”
“Alfie, what’s going on with you?” I snapped, my words suddenly bursting free no matter how hard I tried to reel them back in.
“I’m sitting here trying to figure out what this is.
This new you. You’re Mr Amenable now? Mr Calm and Understanding?
” I folded my arms and sat back in my chair, feigning a repose I didn’t feel. “It’s an interesting tactic.”
“It’s not a tactic. I’m trying to give you what you need,” he answered and I snorted.
“What I need? It’s about two years too late for you to give me what I need.” Calm down, Lola. Don’t let him rile you.
“That doesn’t mean I can’t try to mend some of the damage,” he said gently.
“Besides, I didn’t just damage you, I damaged myself too.
I don’t sleep, Lo…” He stared at me, his gaze vacant yet still fixed on me, as if he couldn’t bear to look anywhere else.
“A little, here and there. I thought it might get easier but it hasn’t. ”
“Don’t guilt trip me Alfie. It won’t work.” I kept my tone stiff, my barrier working hard now to keep him out.
“I know. None of my tricks work on you anymore. That’s a blessing and a curse. But that isn’t what this is. The thought that you are out there in the world somewhere and thinking badly of me, that’s what keeps me up at night.”
“So, that’s your motivation for seeing me again? To get a better night's sleep?” I watched as he paused, his jaw clenching and releasing as he fought so hard to stay in control.
“It’s not my only motivation. I want you back, Lola. But you already knew that.”
I had known that but it didn’t stop my words from stalling in my throat. I had been down this rabbit hole before and it was a hell I didn’t ever want to go through again. I lifted my chin, determined to keep my cool.
“That was clumsy, Alfie.”
He gave another wry smile laughing at his own ineptitude. It was unnerving to see. “I know, but when I sat down to wait for you I promised myself I would be as honest as I could be. You ask me a question, I’ll answer it.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, wondering if this was some kind of joke. I decided to test his words.
“Have you slept with anyone since me?” I asked and immediately regretted it. He gave me a look that said ‘I thought you’d moved on, why do you care?’
“I’ve had sex with other women but none of them have shared my bed. If it’s any comfort, I kept things strictly anal. The idea of being inside a cunt that wasn’t yours was…unpleasant.” He spoke as if he was talking about the weather. My mouth fell open but he didn’t even flinch.
“You’re unbelievable.” I shook my head and took another sip of water, wishing it was the wine.
“I know.”
I let the silence settle around us for a moment and he allowed it.
He really was letting this be my show. I ran my gaze over him again, scrutinising.
He was itching to talk, to use his pretty words to bend me, but he was holding it back and it was bending him instead.
He looked pinched, wound up too tight, a man on the edge.
This was not the cool and aloof man I’d known.
This man was tortured and tired and it was killing me to see him this way.
Yet, I wasn’t the person I’d been then either.
I wasn’t insecure or frightened. I knew my strength now.
My vision had been clouded with Alfie then, but now I saw clearly.
“Have you tried to move on at all, Alfie? Or have you just spent the last two years wallowing in guilt?”
“That’s a trick question, O’Connell. I say yes, you get jealous. I say no, you accuse me of holding on and keeping us trapped.”
“Just tell me the truth,” I said. He narrowed his steel greys and I watched his cogs turn.
“No, I haven’t tried to move on. What I have done is tried to improve myself.
To fix the things about me that broke us in the first place.
” I wondered what that meant. What had he tried to fix?
And how? “The truth, Lola, is that I am just not interested in any woman who isn’t you.
I don’t have to seek women out, they find me, but I am not interested in them.
They don’t talk or walk or laugh like you.
They don’t smell or feel or touch like you.
They don’t make fun of me or make me watch dumb movies. They just aren’t you.”
“Maybe if you gave them a chance…”
“Why should I waste my time with second rate when I have already found what I want?” he snapped, and my stomach turned over at the sight of the Alfie Tell I’d known.
He took a deep breath, calming himself. “I apologise, that won’t happen again.
If you’d like to leave now I won’t stop you.
” He was trying. He was trying so hard and it was killing me not to go to him.
Instead, I straightened my spine and kept my mask firmly in place.
“Alfie, I know that you’re hurting, I know that you think your future is with me, but my answer has to be no.” I kept my voice strong, determined that he wouldn’t see my hands shaking or hear the tremble in my throat.
“It has to be? Why? Because you’re afraid?”
“Because you’re bad for me.”
“As I’ve said, people can change.” Maybe that was true, but the power he could have over me, that hadn’t changed. I didn’t trust myself and that was the truth, a truth I didn’t need to share.
“I’ve moved on, Alfie. My life is so different now, I’m so different. I’m sorry that you’re in pain, I wish that you weren’t. I know that you didn’t do what you did because you’re vicious, but that doesn’t change the fact that that’s in you. I won’t go back to that.”
“I won’t go back to that either.” I didn’t know what was worse, that his words were a lie or that he really believed they were true.
“I don’t believe you.”
“I know. I’ll have to show you.” I stiffened.
I’d been waiting for this. Waiting for the slow, intoxicating, mind-melding seduction that he had done so well to me.
“Please don’t look so afraid of me. I meant show you by keeping my promises.
I won’t contact you again unless you invite me to.
I won’t show up on your doorstep. I will leave you alone until you tell me otherwise. No matter how long that’s for.”
I sighed in frustration. He was trying to do a good thing but it was all wrong. As always, Alfie didn’t understand how a healthy thing was supposed to look and once again the responsibility of teaching was falling to me.
“That isn’t fair, Alfie. You can’t put your inability to move on on me. It’s not my responsibility to make you happy. You need to be full without me.”
He eyed me as he turned over my words, trying to make sense of a concept that was so simple to everyone else. “How do I do that?”
“Find something that matters to you that isn’t me. I care about so much outside of you. My work, my friends, my family, myself…you need that. What’s important to you? Apart from me?”
He frowned, thinking hard. “I don’t know.” He was lying. He did know, he just didn’t want to tell me. So much for answering all of my questions. I sighed. It wasn’t my job to fish answers out of him anymore.
“You need to figure that out. I won’t be responsible for your self-esteem.
” I took another sip of water. I needed a moment to catch my breath.
I’d let him see too much tonight. “For what it’s worth, Alfie, you really did make me happy.
Some of the time anyway. Forgive yourself for what you did to me because I forgive you.
I don’t trust you, but I forgive you.” I was mentally preparing to say goodbye and he knew it.
“Before I go, I do have a request to make of you.”
“Anything.”
“Please reinstate the work on Harrington. There were so many people depending on that income. You don’t have to keep the Evergarden but don’t let other people suffer because of us. It isn’t fair.”
Alfie’s brows knit together in an annoyed grimace.
“I admit I hadn’t thought about them.” He hadn’t thought about stealing away income from hundreds of people because he was upset. Yeah, that sounded about right. “That was an oversight on my part. I’ll have the work reinstated immediately.”