Chapter Twelve #2
Javi nodded after a hard swallow. “I did my best to stop him, to remove Jorge from his presence. I used all the money you kept sending us to protect Jorge.”
“Why didn’t you just leave?” Caio thundered, guilt a fresh thorn under his skin.
For so long, he hadn’t even looked back and now, to realize that he could have put an end to all this, that he could’ve stopped Jorge from being hurt as he had been once.
“You never once looked back,” Javi said, pain and even resentment etched into his own face.
“You just left one day, Caio. Without goodbye. Without uttering a word to me or Jorge. And then Mama fell sick. I looked after her while she pined over you. She died of a broken heart, Caio. And all the time, Enzo and Papa kept telling me and Jorge lies about you. Who do you think I’d believe first? ”
Caio closed his eyes, a part of him shying away from meeting his brother’s gaze. “I sent you money.”
“And that was the first sign that you even cared about us, the first communication I had from you after years.” A bitter laugh escaped his brother’s throat.
“We needed you, Caio. Not your money. When Anushka called,” he said, casting a glance in the direction of the house, “I grabbed the chance to come see you. Jorge didn’t want to but I did. ”
“It’s too late to save them, Javi—”
“You think I couldn’t have told Papa that it was you who was masterminding the whole thing from behind the scenes?
” Javi shook his head. “I haven’t come here to ask you for anything, Caio.
Not for me, not for Jorge, not for Papa.
I came to tell you that Mama loved you. That she thought of you every minute, every day after you left.
That it broke her heart that she had to let you go. ”
“She had a choice, she could have—”
“She had me and Jorge to look after. You think Papa would have let us go with her? Can’t you see this from her point of you, Caio? She did her best by us and by you. Did you know that she called Rao and begged him to give you a new direction?”
Caio felt as if someone had delivered another punch. “She asked Rao?”
Javier nodded. “When he did his monthly checkup, yes. She knew the best thing for you was to leave that toxic environment.” His brother sighed. “I...thought you should know. Jorge and I are your brothers, your family. She’d have wanted me to take this step. She’d have...”
His brother broke off, overwhelmed with emotion and left without another word.
Caio stayed by the pool long after darkness swallowed his shadows, wondering at how much his revenge had robbed from him. How much he had willingly lost. How many years he could have had with two brothers.
And he had hurt the one woman who’d cared enough to help him see the truth, despite his bullheadedness.
When Caio returned to the house, a tightness in his chest that he couldn’t swallow past, the living room and the kitchen greeted him with silence.
He made his way to the bedroom to find Nush methodically packing her new clothes into a bag on the bed.
Fear crawled through him like spider legs skittering all over, fisting his chest in a vise grip.
“What are you doing?” he demanded with his usual arrogance.
“Yana’s agent called me. She fainted yesterday during a shoot. Mira, as you know, has just returned to Aristos. I want to spend a few days looking after Yana. You know she’s not that great with managing her type one diabetes.”
“I thought you would at least tell me the truth instead of using what seems to be the perfect excuse.”
Nush whirled to face him. “Perfect excuse for what?”
“To leave me. What else?” Caio didn’t think he had ever felt as hollow and empty as he did then.
“Leave you?” Nush said, her brow tying into that frown that he loved to kiss. Arms folded, she considered from beneath those thick glasses, her hair in a messy knot he wanted to unravel. “You think I’m leaving you?”
“You were right. I set up my stepfather using his own greed to fall. I used all the information I had against Enzo to get him behind bars. For more than fifteen years, all I tried to do was to pay them back for what they took from me.”
Nush stared at him as if she had never seen him before. He wondered if he would see disgust in her expression finally. “Did it feel good?”
It was the last question he had expected and he had no self-preservation left to hide it from himself or her.
He sat down on the bed next to the suitcase, leaving enough distance between them so that she didn’t have to step back if she didn’t want him near her.
“No.” He thrust his fingers through his hair.
“I’ve been struggling with it for weeks, waiting for it to feel good.
Then, I was waiting for it to feel less horrible, less dirty.
I thought bringing them down, showing them what I had made of myself, how powerful and wealthy I was.
..” he couldn’t help the laugh that escaped his mouth, “would take away the pain and loss I felt all those years ago. I thought destroying them would help me gain something of myself back. Instead, it felt like it was tainting me too, all the innocent lives I was walking away from, in ruins. It was their fate with Carlos, sooner or later, but still... In the last day, I’ve been wondering if you were right.
If I should be saving the company instead.
If I should save things instead of ruining them. ”
She didn’t say anything for a long time and Caio wondered if there was nothing left to say. She mirrored his pose and sat down on the bed leaving the bag between them. It felt like an ocean between them, taunting him, mocking him for everything he’d failed.
“I know it was sneaky to go behind your back and find Javier but I had to,” she said finally.
“The more I dug about your father’s company, your stepbrother’s embezzlement, all the shady deals Carlos has been making.
..it dawned on me what you meant to do. I could see it in your eyes, Caio, what it was costing you.
And then of course my curiosity wouldn’t stop there.
I found Javier and called him. I don’t know what I was thinking I’d do if he turned out to be like your stepbrother. But I had to take the chance.”
“A chance on what, Princesa?”
“A chance that you might gain a brother or two back, Caio. A chance for you to have a family again. You brought me to mine when I was struggling. You helped me make right decisions for Mama. You were my strength, my rock when Thaata and Nanamma died. Why wouldn’t I want to do the same for you?”
Caio scoffed. “Are you saving me, Nush? Because I’ve lived with this rage for so long that I don’t know what I would be without it, Princesa.”
She scoffed back. “Save you? You think this is some debt that I’m paying?
I told you I love you, Caio. To see you unhappy, to see you miserable and angry, to see you hate yourself.
..it hurts me. What kind of a life would you and I have if this path of destruction you’ve been on destroyed you too?
” She shook her head. “This was purely selfish. I want a future with you. I want to have kids with you. I want my kids to have a father who loves them with his whole heart. I did this all for myself. For my future.”
Throwing the bag between them down on the floor, Caio rolled Nush underneath him on the bed. “Letting go of all that poison, all that hatred after all these years...it’s terrifying. I’m afraid that there will be nothing left in me. That it has eaten away at anything good and whole.”
She pushed his hair off his forehead, her big eyes stinging with gentle strength.
“You already know that’s not true. That’s why Thaata wanted to stop you too.
You’re your father’s son, Caio. You’re Rao’s protégé.
You’re my fairy-tale knight. You’re the big brother Yana’s always wanted.
You’re the steadfast friend Mira said she’d always needed.
You couldn’t be all these things to all of us if there was nothing good in you.
There’s a reason you’ve been fighting yourself the last two weeks. A reason this was eating away at you.”
“Then you’re my saving grace, Princesa.”
Pushing up on her elbows, she leaned her forehead against his, her cheeks damp with tears.
“No. You just needed a nudge. You... I love you so much, Caio, that it terrifies me every day. I trust your word that you wouldn’t abandon me but I wanted to do it because you love me, because you need me as much as I—” A sob burst through her words.
“Shh... Princesa. No tears. I’d hate myself if I made you cry.”
“I thought I could stick it out, be happy with what you give me, but I can’t.” Her open eyes held his. “I want it all, Caio. I can’t—”
Pressing his face into her throat, Caio said the words that had been battling to be let out of his chest for quite a while now.
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you.
..but don’t walk away now, Princesa. I want that future you’re promising me.
I want to be the husband you deserve. I want our kids to be surrounded by aunts and uncles like I was once.
I can’t imagine a single day without you in my life, Nush.
I’ll spend the rest my life proving to you how much I love you. How much I need you.”
Her hand in his hair tugged his head up and he saw that his clever wife hadn’t missed anything. “You’ll reconcile with Javier and Jorge?”
He nodded, swallowing the tears that had hardened in his throat. “Yes. Javier made me face some choice truths I was too angry and hurt to see. He told me that Mama was the one who asked Rao to take me away.”
Joy bloomed through Nush’s chest at the thread of hope in Caio’s eyes. “She did?”
“It was the only choice left to her. Carlos would’ve taken Jorge and Javier from her if she even tried to...so she made sure I got out of there. And she...”
Hand in his hair, Nush held him as Caio buried his face in her chest, his big, broad shoulders trembling. Mouth at his temple, she kissed him and calmed him and whispered all the things she could.
“I’m so sorry you never got to see her again, Caio. I can’t...” Her own tears beckoned. “But she loved you. And all the anger and rage and pain...it hasn’t tainted you, Caio. It’s hardened you. It’s...”
He looked up then. “You think there’s hope for me then, querida?”
“Hope, Caio? You’re my hero, my knight, my everything. I’d have never fallen in love with a man who found pleasure in hurting others. You and I both know you were already struggling with this. I just wish...”
“That’s because of you and Rao and Mira and Yana and all the love you showed me. If you hadn’t proposed our wedding—” A shudder went through him and Nush giggled.
“Laughing at my pain, Princesa? That’s a cheap shot.”
Any sweet words she wanted to offer evaporated when Caio shifted on top of her completely and proceeded to punish her with hard, demanding kisses. “I love you, Caio,” she whispered, her heart and body both soaring.
“I love you, minha esposa. And if you need to visit Yana, I understand.”
“A part of me doesn’t want to leave you so soon. I’m afraid that—”
“No more than five days, Princesa. You can’t be her keeper. Not when you have a husband you have to keep on the straight and narrow.”
Nush giggled then. “What will you do?”
“I have a lot of reparations to make. Starting with convincing my brothers that I want to be a part of their life. And then, when you are back, you and I will make a plan to rebuild my father’s company.”
“Then we better get busy then.”
“With what, Nush?”
“We need to have five days’ worth of sex before I leave. Or else I might go into withdrawal.”
His hands were moving before Nush had finished talking. She gasped as those fingers began weaving their magic as Caio whispered, “Fast or slow, Princesa?”
“Hard first and then slow,” Nush whispered, taking his mouth in a rough kiss.
Her heart stuttered with joy as Caio drove her body all the way to the peak again.