Chapter 16
Sixteen
“ A re you crazy?” Keira’s enraged voice hit me as soon as I stepped through the door.
“ ‘I’m staying at Alfie’s. Please don’t be mad.
I’ll explain later.’ What the hell was that about?
” She stood in the tiny kitchenette, the remnants of a failed attempt at spaghetti bolognese surrounding her.
She folded her arms, her chocolate brown eyes fierce, but I could see concern buried underneath the anger.
“I’m sorry,” I apologised, dumping my bag onto a stool at the breakfast bar. “It was late and I couldn’t tell you everything over a text.”
“You could have called me. What were you doing at his place, anyway? Are you going back to him? Lola, I swear?—”
“Enough,” I cut her off. “I didn’t mean to spend the night.
I went to see him to give him his journals back because I wanted to hear his secrets from his own mouth.
He agreed to tell me and took me to his house so we’d have privacy.
” I took a deep breath, my best friend's eyes still narrowed with suspicion. “He told me everything, Keira.”
“What did he tell you?”
“I can’t tell you that. They’re his secrets and I promised him I wouldn’t.” She looked unconvinced but didn’t push it. “By the time he was finished, I was exhausted and he invited me to stay in a room he had set up for me.”
“You’re really telling me you didn’t sleep with him?”
“We didn’t even kiss. He didn’t even try.” From the lift in her brows I could tell she was surprised. She wasn’t the only one.
“Well, he’s good, I’ll give him that.” Her sneer told me exactly what she thought of Alfie’s efforts.
“Stop it.”
“You stop it,” she snapped. “He’s barely stepped a toe back into your life and he’s already got us fighting.”
“We’re fighting because you’re treating me like I’m an idiot.”
“You are an idiot!” she yelled and my eyes widened but she didn’t stop. “When it comes to him, you are an idiot.”
“I was. I’m not any more.” I tried to keep my voice calm, tried to remind myself that I’d given Keira every reason in the world to act like this. “I’m sorry I made you worry. You won’t lose me to him again, I swear.” I implored her to trust me but her gaze barely softened.
“So, you’re done with him now?”
I bit my lip. How was I going to explain the agreement we’d come to without making her crazy?
“Keira, something changed in him last night. After he’d told me his deepest, darkest secrets and I forgave him, it was like the cage he’d locked himself in all this time suddenly sprang open.
The weight keeping him from giving himself to me fully, like a normal, sane person, was gone.
” It was true. He had seemed different this afternoon.
Still his usual, ruthlessly determined self, but he was lighter somehow. “This afternoon, he offered me a deal.”
“A deal?”
“Yes,” I nodded. “I agreed to give him three months so that we could heal the damage we did to each other.” When her eyes widened I hastily continued, “I need to see this through. We’ve both been stuck in this limbo for the last two years.
Neither one of us has been able to move on.
But no matter what he does, I’m not going back to him.
At the end of the three months, I’m letting him go.
” I forced conviction into my words that I didn’t entirely feel.
“You’re setting yourself up for another heartbreak.”
“I can take it.” I could. It couldn’t be worse than what he’d put me through before.
“Keira, I’m not blind any more. Yes, I can see already that he’s changed, but it’s too late.
What he did to me before…he crossed a line.
Even though he’s done good things too, even though I understand him better now, it doesn’t change what he did to me, to my life, to our friendship.
But I need to see this through.” I reached for her hand and squeezed it.
“I need you to trust me.” I watched as her eyes swam with memories of pain I’d caused her, wounds that were years old but still healing, scars on our friendship that would forever remain.
“I need you to remember that this man is the reason you’ve been having nightmares for the last two years,” she said softly. “Lo, I love you and I’ll have your back always but this is going to end badly.” With a very un-Keira-like look on her face, she returned to her room, leaving me cold.
With a sigh, I headed to the kitchen and started cleaning up her mess, just like she’d spent the last two years cleaning up mine.
I felt torn between the two of them, but I was sticking to my guns.
I wasn’t taking him back, but we needed to do this final dance and when it was over, we could both step off the floor for good and find new partners to dance with.
Monday passed me by in a blur, I could barely pay attention to the work in front of me.
My head was so full of everything Alfie had revealed.
Instead of hating him for his involvement in Charles and his father’s deaths, I admired his strength, his resilience.
His compassion and loyalty to Angie. Somewhere deep down, I’d always known Alfie Tell was a good man, his goodness was just buried under layers of abuse and poisoned memories.
I wished I could say that learning his secrets had drawn me closer to taking him back, but I couldn’t.
On that score, I was still firmly settled.
When I got home, before I could get a word out of my mouth, Keira tossed a scowl at me before returning to pinning fabric to a mannequin. I guess she was still pissed about yesterday. Not that I blamed her.
“You got another package today.” Maia’s voice came from the kitchen and I jumped. I hadn’t even noticed she was there.
“A package?”
“Yeah. Well, packages . I think that’s why Keira’s angry,” she whispered. Sure enough, sitting on the coffee table was not one, but three identical boxes with Harrods painted across the lids. I opened the top one and found a card inside lying on a bed of tissue paper.
Trust me?
A.
I opened the tissue paper and found a rich, purple dress inside. Confused, I opened the second box and found another card.
Keira.
And in the third box the card read:
Maia .
“Uh, I guess these boxes are for you two.” They came over and peered inside, lifting almost identical lilac dresses out of the boxes. I pulled my phone out of my bag and texted Alfie.
No, I don’t trust you but now I’m curious.
A minute later, my phone buzzed in response. Saturday night. 8.00pm.
Okay. I guess we had a date. All four of us.
The week dragged by. Alfie was everywhere, hanging in the air like a dense fog I could barely see through.
I struggled to concentrate. Where was he?
What was he doing? Where was he taking me on Saturday night?
I worried about my project, about Keira, about my sister, and after all of that, I had time to worry about me.
Behind the fear, behind the mask I was getting better at painting onto my face everyday, I was excited to see Alfie this weekend.
My excitement, however, was laced with trepidation.
Alfie either got things deliriously right or woefully wrong. There was no middle ground.
By the time Saturday rolled around, I was humming with nerves.
Keira admired herself in the mirror. The lilac dress plunged deep at her cleavage and hugged her lush curves beautifully, but of course, she had modified it.
She had handsewn intricate beadwork along the hem and the waist, setting it apart from Maia’s identical gown.
In the past week I couldn’t say Keira had come around to the idea of Alfie and I spending time together, more that she had decided to deal with it the way she always dealt with everything that made her nervous–with sass and sarcasm.
“I feel like we’re going to be the main event at a virgin sacrifice,” she said, eyeing the pair of us in our gowns. My deep purple dress lifted my breasts and cinched my waist, and a thigh high split showed a generous amount of leg, but the full skirt moved so beautifully I didn’t feel gaudy.
“A virgin sacrifice? Us?” I laughed as I slipped my feet into my shoes.
“Well, maybe just Maia.”
“We aren’t going to be sacrificed, Keira.” I huffed and stood, trying out the shoes in which I’d spent every evening this week walking around the flat to break in.
“Maybe we are. You don’t know. Maybe Alfie is so rich because his Dad sold his soul to some money demon and now Alfie has to sacrifice sexy young things like us forever and ever. What if that’s why he’s so hot? All that demon magic?” She waved her hands in the air and I rolled my eyes at her.
“We aren’t going to be sacrificed.”
“Fine,” she turned back to the mirror to fix an errant lock of hair, “but if I find myself naked and strapped to a table surrounded by kinky-looking dudes I’m going to say?—”
“This feels familiar?” I quipped and the side eye she gave me had me choking back a laugh.
“ No. I’ll say: I told you so.” She gave herself a final once over.
“It would feel familiar though,” she muttered.
I laughed just as the doorbell rang, promptly reigniting my nerves.
I heard Maia answer the door and, a second later, everything south clenched as Alfie’s unmistakeable tones reached my ears.
I caught Keira’s eyes in the mirror. She didn’t want him in our flat.
Alright. It looked like I was on damage control.
I found Alfie in our living room, looking sorely out of place but deliciously handsome in a tuxedo. My mouth watered. His eyes found mine, that gaze raking my body. My skin grew hot.
“Alfie, I wasn’t expecting you to be…holy crap, Maia !” I took in my quiet-as-a-church-mouse room mate. “You look amazing!” I hadn’t known she’d been hiding those curves.
“Thank you.” She smiled, ducking her head. “You look very pretty too.”
“Thanks. Anyway, Alfie, maybe you should wait out—” I winced as I heard my bedroom door slam shut. I knew what was coming next.
“Hello, Moneybags. Steal anyone else’s birth control lately?
” Yep. There it was. My best friend. Subtle as a freight train.
Alfie, to his credit, didn’t even flinch, and surprisingly, neither did Maia despite just getting thrown head first into a drama she knew nothing about.
I guess she had a really good poker face.
“Keira, good to see you again.”
“Uh huh. Remember that time I threatened to cut your dick off if you hurt my friend? Well that’s a debt that still needs to be paid.
Unfortunately, Lola is fond of your dick so I have to leave it alone for now, but trust me, I’m gonna find another way to make you suffer.
” A thick silence fell over the room. Her words were laced with humour but the threatening undertones were real.
Keira hated Alfie and she was making sure he knew it.
“Keira…” I really didn’t want these two to be fighting all night.
“It’s alright, Lo.” Alfie turned to Keira. “I would expect nothing less. For what it’s worth, I wanted to thank you for trying to protect her and for taking care of her after we…separated.” He struggled with the word and I could see the pain it caused him. “I owe you an apology.”
“You didn’t do shit to me,” she snapped.
“I drove a wedge between you and Lo and I did it on purpose.” His blatant acknowledgement of what he’d done caught both of us off guard. This new Alfie kept on surprising me. “I apologise.”
“Accepted. But I don’t trust or like you.”
“I’ll just have to work on that.” He held her gaze, unwavering, as she scowled at him.
“Well, seeing as you’re here and Lola has decided to pursue this bullshit charade with you, I’ll play nice for tonight,” she huffed and I mouthed a ‘thank you’ at her. “So what, are we going to the opera or something?” She gestured at our formal attire.
“No. We aren’t going to the opera.” Alfie’s eyes found mine, sending a delicious shiver down my spine. “Come.”
Outside, two cars waited for us. Keira and Maia got into one and Alfie and I got into another with Elliot as our driver. I grinned at him as he held my door for me. Inside, with Elliot separated by a glass divide, my nerves kicked in.
“So, are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I asked, trying to keep the anxiety out of my voice.
“No,” he answered, a teasing smile on his lips. He looked so handsome I could hardly stand to look at him.
“Will I like it?”
“I have no idea.”
I blew out a breath, fidgeting with my hair, the folds of my dress. Finally, my hand went to my mum’s necklace, my thumb rubbing over the glass.
“You’re nervous.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“Lo, look at me.” His low voice coaxed me to turn my gaze away from the passing night to his grey gaze. “If you don’t like it, we’ll leave. Easy.” Surprisingly, my nerves steadied. In that card, he’d asked me to trust him. I guess I was going to have to try.
We drove for over an hour, the houses growing sparser and sparser before finally, we pulled onto a deserted path.
Large gates loomed and I leaned forward in my seat to make out the huge gold letters stencilled across them.
We pulled up to the gates and my eyes grew wider and wider as I finally took them in.
No…this wasn’t happening.
I looked at Alfie to see a grin spreading across his face.
In shock, I turned back to the gates that were beginning to open for us.
The gates with the letters NTC signed across them.