Chapter 15
Fifteen
H is gaze pierced me and I shivered. “I’ll take it from here, Ada.”
“Alright. It was nice to meet you Lola. I’ll see you again soon.” I managed to smile and thank her before she scurried away, leaving us alone.
Alfie gazed at me, a watchful calm on his face. He looked a different man from the tortured soul he’d been last night. He had a new air about him now, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
“Enjoy the tour?” he asked and I wondered if he really cared what I thought of the house.
“What’s the point in having two wine cellars when you don’t drink?”
“They came with the house. Besides, I'm not the only person that lives here.” A steady silence fell over us again. The air between us felt strange, as if we had stepped into a new plane of existence with a higher oxygen content. I felt high, kind of dizzy in his presence as always. But now, despite the years of distance, Alfie Tell felt tangible to me in a way he never had before. It frightened me and I had to remind myself that, despite showing me his secrets, he was still the man that had manipulated and violated me. He couldn’t be trusted.
“I’d like to show you something.” He gestured to the door and I walked past him out of the library, his body dangerously close to mine. Instead of leading us away, he produced a key and moved to the door Ada had refused to open.
“How did you know I wanted to see in there?” In response, Alfie glanced above my head.
I turned and saw a tiny camera in the upper left corner of the ceiling.
“Always watching, huh?” He flinched but didn’t respond.
He turned the key in the lock and gestured for me to go ahead. “Really? As easy as that?”
“I am an open book.” He stood over me, awaiting my decision.
What was he playing at? Ever since he’d come back into my life, everything he had done had thrown me off.
His newfound openness unnerved me. I didn’t trust it.
Nevertheless, I moved past him and entered. Confused, I looked around the room.
“Am I in a museum?” I asked and he let out a short laugh.
“Of sorts. More like a time capsule.”
The room could have been an office with the large writing desk in the centre of the room, but the walls were lined with shelves and glass cases holding various items. Jewellery, books, ornaments, it all seemed so random and very un-Alfie.
Then I noticed a familiar-looking chest on a lower shelf–his journals.
In a glass case, I saw a violin. I paused there, staring at it.
“It’s the one I told you about.” The one he’d given to the Italian girl. He’d told me about her at Harrington House the day he’d made me wear that awful grey dress.
“It’s beautiful. Why is it in here?” I looked up at him, his watchful gaze ever present.
I wasn’t sure what unnerved me more–his openness or his distance.
Alfie had always swarmed my senses, used touch to mould and manipulate me.
Now, he remained feet away from me, out of my space, letting me see him and breathe. Letting me think.
“This room is where I keep the things that mean something to me. Ada is the only other person with a key. She comes in here to dust sometimes. Other than that, it remains locked.”
“Do you ever come in here?”
“Rarely.”
“Will you play for me?” I gestured at the violin. I would give anything to hear him play.
“Not now, not this instrument, but another time, if you want me to. It’s been a while, though.
I’ll be rusty.” My chest ached at the realisation that Alfie hadn’t worked out that there wouldn’t be another time.
That this was the last time I would be in this house.
The ache grew as I resigned myself to being the one that had to explain it to him. But not at this moment.
I moved on, looking at each item, wondering what the story could be behind each one.
I wished he could tell me. I wished I could spend hours in his arms as he laid all his memories bare for me.
But I couldn’t. I was smarter than that now.
I was preparing to pull away, to make ready to leave, when my gaze landed on something that twisted in my gut.
A pair of deep blue shoes that were all too familiar.
“Those are mine.” He’d kept them. I met his eyes, saw the painful memories matching my own. I wondered if that had been one of the worst nights of his life as it had mine. I picked up the shoes. The indentations of my toes were still there, perfectly preserved.
Alfie…
No . I pushed the rising emotion away. Manipulation.
This was all just manipulation. I steeled myself, until I saw in a glass box next to the shoes, containing a negative pregnancy test. I bit my lip, swallowing back the tears.
The memory of the fear I’d felt waiting for the test to tell me my future had never left me.
I had made so many bad decisions with Alfie, because of him and because of myself.
I replaced the shoes and took down the box. I felt Alfie step closer behind me.
“Do you think you would have ever wanted a child with me?”
His questions was like a knife in my gut. I had no idea how to answer it so I decided to avoid it. “Doesn’t matter now, does it?”
“Doesn’t it?”
My grip tightened on the box. “You really believe last night changed everything, don’t you? That telling me your secrets erased everything you did to me.”
“It won’t erase anything, Lo. I’m not an idiot. But things are different now.”
“Not different enough.” I put the box back on the shelf. “This doesn’t reinstate our future. This doesn’t fix what you did.” I turned to face him, my arms folded. I guess we were having this conversation now.
“What will? Tell me. How do I fix it? How do I bring you back to me?”
“I don’t know that you can. Or that I want to be brought.” It was the truth, but Alfie’s narrowed eyes said he didn’t believe me.
“You’re lying to yourself, O’Connell.”
“Watch it, Alfie.”
“Watch yourself, Lola. Watch your hands shake, watch your thighs clench together, watch your breathing pick up and your pulse race. You might be angry and scared and I take responsibility for that, but don't you ever tell me that you don’t want me. And don’t you ever tell me what I can’t do.
” He took another step closer to me. “I will bring you back to me, I just need to make different moves this time.”
“This isn’t a fucking game, Alfie! This is my sanity you’re playing with!” I yelled, exasperated.
“And what of my sanity? Does that mean nothing?”
“I didn’t do this to us!”
“And I didn’t do this to myself!” His words stunned us into silence.
We panted with the unearthing of emotions we’d kept buried.
This was what lay under the civility–raw, untempered emotion that neither of us could control.
He took a breath, drawing himself back in.
“I apologise, I shouldn’t have shouted at you.
I told you once that I was ruthless when it came to getting what I want.
That hasn’t changed and what I want is you as my wife. ”
Once again, he stunned me. This man had gone from forbidding anyone from reaching out to me to wanting me as his wife–what had happened?
I swallowed, my throat thick. I had happened.
I’d unlocked the door and now he was taking the whole damn thing off the hinges.
But I couldn’t let him. Memories of his proposal had haunted me ever since that night and yet, I could never bring myself to regret saying no.
Now, the idea of being Mrs Alfie Tell was absurd.
“Alfie, you’re being crazy.”
“Am I? Would you rather I skirted around the subject? I don’t skirt.
I state my wants, I always have. I’m not proposing marriage yet, neither of us are ready for that, but this is what I want, this is what I'm working towards.
My mistake last time was that I was ruthless with you when I should have been ruthless with myself.
I won't make that mistake again.” He paused, taking a deep breath, keeping me in suspense as I wondered what would come next.
“I am not mentally well, and I haven’t been for a long time.
I recognise that now and until I am better it is not safe for us to have the same relationship we had before.
I need help, but so do you.” His revelation stunned me–this couldn’t be the same person I’d left two years ago.
Then, I realised, it wasn’t. This was a man who had undergone therapy, had gained perspective and changed.
For me. Yet, I still couldn’t trust him.
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah?” He arched his scarred brow at me.
“Are you still having nightmares?” His steel greys skewered me, reaching right to my core, my core that was swimming in turmoil.
My chest tightened. He knew. Had he always known?
Humiliation burned through me, as hot as a fever.
I couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand knowing that he’d seen me so vulnerable.
“I’m done with this.” I spun on my heel, heading straight for the door.
“Still running, Lo? I’m not going to chase you this time,” he called after me and I paused at the door.
“I’m not going to force you.” I turned and sure enough, he was still standing in the same spot, but his expression told me how hard it was to stay there.
To not prevent me from walking out. “The first night I saw you have a nightmare, I didn’t know what to do so I did nothing.
Slowly, I started to hold you through it.
It helped. I always thought that you didn’t know you were having them. ”
I didn’t want to talk about this. Just as he hadn’t wanted to talk about Charles and his father last night. I decided to try, because I wasn’t a coward anymore. I closed the door and leaned against it.