Chapter 13
Thirteen
T he hallway was obnoxiously bright compared to the dark of the office.
I leaned against the door, catching my breath.
My head was spinning. Alfie was responsible for the deaths of two people.
His own family members. I couldn’t make sense of it and trying right now seemed stupid.
This was going to take time. A lot of time.
His pain called out to me like sonar, waves of it vibrating over my skin.
I could feel how much he needed me but I couldn’t go back there.
This is why I’d agreed to that first meeting.
Closure. Like a chest falling shut, I finally felt the peace I’d craved all this time.
The shrapnel wasn’t gone, but finally I had answers.
I understood Alfie now. Everything made sense.
The manipulation, the lies, Angie, stealing my birth control, the possessiveness, his fear around my drinking.
All of it. I felt cleansed. I was finally free of the ‘what if this was my fault? What if I’d done something different?
’ Because now I knew the truth. It didn’t matter what I’d done, the damage had already happened and it was nothing to do with me.
Forcing myself away from the door, I retraced our steps until I came to the staircase leading down to the foyer, all the while trying to ignore the deep ache in my chest. This is what I'd needed all this time, then why did I feel so wrong?
Leaving was the right thing to do. I deserved to be free of this but Alfie… what did he deserve?
“Miss? Are you ready to go?” My head snapped up, Elliot was eyeing me from the bottom of the stairs. I paused–was I ready? Lifting my chin I forced myself forward.
“Yes, let's go.” I walked down the stairs, his cool gaze intent on mine.
“Are you sure?” He asked. I gave him a gentle smile. I was so tired. Dancing and drinking with Keira felt like a lifetime ago.
“I can’t stay, Elliot.” He frowned but said nothing. “Do you know what he told me tonight?”
“Yes, I put two and two together. Which is why I’m surprised you’re leaving…” his words trailed off for a moment before he cleared his expression, “…but that’s not my place to judge. You know what’s best.” He turned, heading for the door but I stopped him.
“What were you expecting? That knowing this would throw me back into his arms?”
“No,” he said, his tone gentle. He wasn’t angry with me but the worry for Alfie was etched in his face. “I thought you might help him let it go.”
My chest ached, guilt gnawing at me. I pushed it away. I’d let my saviour complex get the better of me before, I wouldn’t do it again.
“That’s not my job, Elliot. He isn’t my?—”
“—Your responsibility?” he cut me off, surprising me. “He wasn’t mine either, I still took care of him.”
I stared at him, shocked. “He didn’t betray you like he did me.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw, a human gesture out of place on this person who had always seemed more machine than man. “I know what he did to you and why you don’t trust him, but he’s just a person, Miss. A person that needs help and you can help him, so why wouldn’t you?”
Why wouldn’t I? I didn’t have an answer to that.
It wasn’t that simple. Alfie had done so much damage to me.
I had no reason to go up there…other than he was in pain and I could heal that.
He didn’t intimidate me like he did others, couldn’t fool me like he did others.
Healing him would be a massive risk to me and all the progress I’d made to move on but…
I closed a hand around my necklace, rubbing my thumb over the smooth glass. I could feel my mum’s gaze on me, urging me in the right direction.
…but I was Lola Fucking O’Connell. I could handle whatever he might do tomorrow but tonight, he needed me and I had to be there. Not for me, I had my answers now. But for him, I needed to end this for him too.
“Elliot…” I looked up at him, my heart suddenly hammering in my chest. He said nothing, only gave me a small nod. I turned and ran up the stairs.
I paused, breathless outside Alfie’s office. What the hell was I doing? The right thing , I told myself. This felt right. Even the voice that warned me to keep my distance told me this was right. I needed to be here.
I opened his door a fraction. I found him exactly how I’d left him, in his chair, staring into the fire. I stepped into the room, closing the door behind me.
As the door clicked, I watched as Alfie blinked, coming back to whatever place his dark memories had taken him. “You drove her home already?” he asked, still looking at the flames. “That was quick. How did she seem?”
He thought I was Elliot.
“Alfie…” I paused, not sure what to do next. He stiffened, turning slowly. His steel greys found me in the dark and I shivered.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I shouldn’t be anywhere else. Not tonight.” I stepped forward, closer to the man that had caused me so much heartache.
“Lola, it’s not good for you to be here.” I wondered if this was a play. If he was using some kind of reverse psychology to manipulate me. I couldn’t tell but I stepped forward anyway. Tonight, just for tonight, I would take the risk.
“Maybe not, but you need me.”
Slowly, unsure what the hell I was doing, I moved to kneel in front of him. His eyes flashed as I reached up to trace the scar on his brow. Touching him after all this time was a heady experience that lit my body on fire.
“What are you doing?” I’d seen this side of him before. When I’d taken care of him, showed him tenderness, he’d always greeted it with watchful suspicion.
I cupped his cheek, breathing through the electricity that shot through my palm.
Part of me wondered how I could show him kindness after what he’d done to me, but this moment didn’t feel like the time to hold onto that.
I could put the wall up again later, but right now, he needed this and a part of me did too, even if I did feel like I was comforting a dog that had bitten me before.
“I can’t take you back, Alfie, but I can tell you I don’t hate you. I can tell you that I don’t think you’re a monster. I can tell you that it’s alright, I?—”
His eyes narrowed and he pulled away from me, standing.
“—You should go.” He stood and I followed him.
“You don’t want me to go. I’m trying to tell you I understand what happened and why you did it. It’s alright.”
“Stop saying that,” he snapped, his voice like ice.
“It’s over, Alfie. You’ve told me the worst of what you’ve done and you don’t need to hate yourself for it anymore. It’s alright.” I reached for him again but he pulled away with a sneer, taking steps away from me, away from the warmth of the fire.
“It’s not alright. How can you say that?” He scowled at me as if I was the one he hated, deflecting all his disgust for himself onto me. “Didn’t you hear me? I killed them. I killed my own brother and father.”
“That’s not how I see it,” I argued, keeping my voice steady. “I see an abused boy protecting himself. But that’s the problem isn’t it? If you had been protecting me or someone else, you wouldn’t feel so guilty but because you were saving yourself, you do.”
“Stop it,” he hissed but I didn’t, I pressed on.
“Because you don’t see yourself as worthy of being protected. Despite your arrogance, you don’t see yourself as worthy of anything real. That’s why you spent years pleasuring every woman you could get your hands on. It was the only way you could buy worth for yourself. With money, with sex.”
“You think you’re so smart, O’Connell. Why don’t we examine your sense of self-worth? I might have hated my father but at least he stuck around. Maybe your daddy issues explain why you keep going after men that hurt you.”
“You’re deflecting, Alfie, and that doesn’t work on me anymore.
” I ignored his attempt to push me away and took a step closer.
“I understand you now. You panicked that night in the jacuzzi when you didn’t get me off, because I wasn't interested in what you believed was all you had to offer. That’s what your family taught you, that you’re worthless, but it isn’t true. They violated you, Alfie.”
“That doesn’t make it alright,” he muttered through clenched teeth. He looked like he was an inch away from taking my head off.
“No, it doesn’t. But it is alright for you to let it go. It’s been twelve years and you have paid the price.”
“I can’t.” His fists balled up at his side, a twisted tornado of anger and fear.
“Why? Because you don’t know who you are without the guilt?”
“Shut the fuck up!” He was cracking. His frame trembled with the effort of keeping it together.
He didn’t want to break in front of me. He wanted to present a calm front, one that would reassure me and draw me back in, but that had never been what I’d needed.
I’d needed to see what he really was, not what he wanted to show me, and this pain-stricken man was what truly lay beneath his shiny veneer.
“Am I getting too close? What? You’ve let me in and now the reality of that is hitting you?”
“You need to stop?—”
“Or what?” I cut him off. With a strangled cry, he lunged and pinned me against the wall.
My system went into shock. He was touching me.
Alfie was touching me. Two years and four months without it and suddenly his touch was everywhere.
It took me a moment to breathe again and, when I did, his scent swarmed my senses, pouring through me and turning me to liquid.
He pressed himself close, my wrists pinned above my head.
“Do you have any idea what I could do to you?”
I should have been terrified but instead all I felt was him. That cord that had once connected us, linking me to him so strongly was still there, frayed, hanging on by a thread but it was there and the connection was still alive. I looked up into that beautiful face that I knew so well.