Black Butterfly (44 page)

She looked at him through her tears, thinking of the many times she had lain in his arms, believing that they were really connecting. Why did he have to ruin it all this way? “You told me you had nothing to do with Ben Mendoza’s attack.”

“I lied.”

“No shit!! The first night I met you, you said that you were used to getting what you wanted, and at that moment, you wanted me. It’s always been about having your way. What you did for Portia, and to Mr.

Mendoza, it wasn’t helping. It was just getting me to be yours, only yours.”

“You don’t believe that!”

“Yes, I do! I asked you in Westmore how far you would go to get what you wanted, and you didn’t answer, but now I know!”

“I love you, Sydney, and that’s not going to change. You love me, too, the good and the bad. Nothing has changed, butterfly.”

“Don’t call me that. Things have changed. I can’t be with a man who respects nothing, who values nothing outside of his own needs.” She took a step toward the door.

“Don’t do this,” he said, blocking her way.

“I’m leaving.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything, from the first lie to the last. I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry for keeping things from you. Sydney, don’t do this.”

“I don’t know who you are. You expect me to stay after what you did, after the way you betrayed my faith in you?” A few tears trickled down her cheeks.

“Of course I do! I expect you to stay, to fight and scream all night! Then I expect you to let me back into your heart, allow me to wrap you up in my arms and tell you how much I’ve learned from all of this, how I’ve learned to think first with my heart, not my fear. Then I’ll take you to our bed and make love to you until every ounce of your doubt melts away, along with those tears. Then, we’ll move on, if you’ll just let me back in. If you can, just help me get us through this.”

She looked at him incredulously. “It’s not that easy! You don’t know how to let people in, Nolen. You control every damn thing. I thought I could handle it, but that was before I discovered that you were controlling me too!”

“So what? I love you, don’t you know that? Love is supposed to be enough, or was that just a lie you told me?”

Sydney tried to walk around him. “It’s not!”

Nolen grabbed her arm, forcing her back. “You don’t get to walk away! That won’t happen!”

“You don’t own me,” she shouted, snatching her arm away. “I’m not one of your damn companies or whores! You can’t make me stay!”

“Wait a damn minute!” Nolen shouted back. “We fight, and you run? What kind of bullshit is that? This isn’t over. I won’t let you destroy us over this! You swore you’d never leave me, Sydney!”

“This isn’t my doing. It’s yours.”

“The hell it is. Yes, I lied and manipulated and kept things from you, but what about you?”

“What about me? I didn’t lie when I said I love you. Don’t you see how this is killing me?” In her desperation, she began pulling her own hair.

Nolen began to pace in front of her. “I love you, and that’s enough. That’s more than enough. Why are we fighting over this? I never betrayed you. I was wrong, and I know that, but this is not some big deal-breaker here. It’s a fight. Damn it, Sydney, all couples fight!” He rubbed his eyes with his open hand as if trying to massage away the pressure. “You said you weren’t going anywhere. You said you would be with me, no matter what! You said you loved me, damn it!”

Sydney shook her head. “Nolen, please. I do love you, but you don’t see anything wrong in what you did.

You would do it again.”

“You’re damned right I’d do it again. If I’d told you the truth about Todd, you’d never have gone out with me. I would never have had you. Admit it, damn it! We would never have discovered the best thing that’s happened to either of us. And Mendoza. What he did to you, what he does to girls like you. How could I sit back and not make him pay? You want me to apologize for it, and I won’t! If I had to do it all over again, I’d do it exactly the same way.”

“What’s wrong with you?” She left the room.

Nolen watched her leave, and the anger that gripped him made him want to punch the wall. He threw the desk lamp against the wall, shattering it, and pushed over the chair next to him. He couldn’t lose her. He wouldn’t live in loneliness again. She was everything in the world to him, and he’d fight with his dying breath to protect their love. He entered his office, he went after her, pushing open the door to the bedroom and catching her packing her things.

“I’m leaving,” she said. “I can’t live with the man that you are. I’ll find a way to salvage what’s left of me!”

“What the hell are you talking about? The man that I am? Since when did you give a shit about the man that I am?”

She looked up with those questioning eyes and he wanted to shake her. “I was good enough for you, just hours ago, demons and all! I didn’t try to hide this incident in any way, and trust me, if I’d wanted to, I could have concealed it so you’d have never discovered the truth.” He snatched the bag from her hands and threw it across the room.

“It’s not just the untold truth, Nolen. It’s you deciding that I didn’t deserve to know, controlling my feelings and my friend’s fate by hiding the facts from us. She could have died, and you stand in front of me, telling me you’d do it all again!”

“It had nothing to do with us!”

“Stop saying that! You’re wrong! She’s in the hospital, in a coma, and she may never recover. If I had known about Portia, if Trish had known about Todd, she wouldn’t have been so desperate to kill herself. Don’t you get that?”

“I’m talking about us, me and you, Sydney.”

“Well, there is no more us.”

Nolen’s eyes filled with tears. “You’d leave me?” he asked, stunned.

Sydney looked away. “I need some time to sort it all out. I just can’t think with you coming at me like this.”

“In spite of everything we mean to each other, you’d walk out on me?” he asked, reaching to touch her face.

Sydney recoiled. “Nolen, please don’t touch me."

“You swore that I could believe in us,” he said, choking on his words. “You told me you weren’t going anywhere, and I’d never be alone again. You made me love you.” He advanced on her, touching the side of her neck.

She glanced up at the ceiling to avoid meeting his eyes. “Don’t do this, Nolen. Stop. I need space, time to figure it out.”

“We were supposed to have babies,” he said, looking down and touching her belly. “As many as your body could handle, remember? I said I didn’t want kids, but I do now. We can have kids if you want.” He pressed his face close to hers.

Sydney burst into tears. “Stop it, Nolen! Damn it!”

He brushed her lips with his, and when she turned her head away, he threw up his arm to prevent her escape. Placing his forehead against hers, he let the tears fall. “How do you expect me to let you walk out because of a misunderstanding?” He pushed her jacket apart to slip his hands inside and caress her curves.

“I want to go,” she said weakly, closing her eyes and crying with him.

“You don’t,” he said, kissing her jaw.

“Yes, I do.” She wiped her tears with her hand.

Nolen began to kiss her neck tenderly, inhaling her scent and feeling her soft hair against his cheek. “Let me make love to you. Let me hold you. I swear I’ll make it better. You’ll understand. You’re just confused.”

“Don’t,” she said again, pushing against his chest and knocking his roaming hands from her body.

“Sydney, you love me. Look me in the face and tell me that you don’t. Tell me that what we share is worth being sacrificed over this.”

Finally she did as he requested and he saw her weakening. It was all the permission he needed. He pushed her suit jacket from her arms, letting it fall free.

Sydney shook her head. She opened her mouth to speak, but he slipped his tongue inside and ripped at her delicate blouse, popping the pearl buttons, then massaging her breasts through her bra.

Grabbing his hair, she kissed him back as he pulled her from the wall and scooped her up in his arms, carrying her to the bed. Nolen laid her on the bed, feeling her claw at his buttons and working them loose through her kisses, trying to get him out of his shirt. He removed his belt as Sydney sat up, slipping off her blouse, which now hung open, then her bra. Kicking free of his pants, he slid his hand up her skirt, undoing the snaps at the top of her garter belt, then reaching for her panties and pulling them down her legs. He tossed them to the side and pushed the designer skirt he’d bought her up to her waist as he nibbled her neck. Forcing her thighs apart he pushed himself between her legs and entered her with a single thrust, he lifted his face from hers and saw that her tears hadn’t stopped during their lovemaking.

“Say you won’t leave me,” he said.

Apparently his command had made her change her mind. He grabbed her hands, putting them above her head. Sydney looked at him, shaking her head. She was crying silently again.

“I won’t lose you to this,” he said. “You swore you were mine, and I’m holding you to that. Tell me you don’t love me, that you don’t want this. Tell me I’m wrong about you, that our love is a lie! Tell me to my face that you want me to leave you alone. Tell me, damn it!”

Crying harder, she closed her eyes. “You don’t understand."

“Make me understand, sweetheart. That’s what you do when you love someone. Help me be the man you need because, without you, I’ll never be that man. We have too much to lose, and you have to know that I can’t survive this. I can’t!” He thrust in and out of her, and her hips undulated upward to receive him.

She opened her eyes, her arms still pinned above her head. Raising her legs, she wrapped them around his waist and locked him on top of her. Lowering his face to hers, he ran his tongue over her lips and then along the side of her face to her ear. Sydney gasped and arched her back as she always did when she braced herself to receive him. He stared into her face, still holding her hands as he rotated his hips, driving himself deeper inside her.

“Make love to me, sweetheart. I need you,” he said softly, letting go of her hands as she nodded and bit her bottom lip, breathing softly through her nose.

She pushed at his chest in the familiar way that let him know she would submit. He gripped her hips and rolled over so that she could be on top. Sydney sat up in his lap and wiped her eyes to stare down at him. She moaned. “I do love you. God help me.”

Nolen’s eyes fluttered shut as he held on to her hips, rocking her back and forth, speaking her name and making promises she no longer believed in.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you too, Nolen, so very much.”

She meant it. Those were the words he needed to hear. He was past the point of no return, and if she left him, he didn’t know what he’d do. Grabbing his throat, the way he taught her, she rode his cock, squeezing and releasing until his face was flushed and his body jerking though his orgasm. Exhausted and heartbroken she collapsed against his sweaty chest, listening to his beating heart.

“Go to sleep. We’ll figure it all out in the morning,” he said stroking her back.

She lifted her head, kissing his jaw and shaking her head sadly. Resting her head on his shoulder and sliding her arm across his chest to hold him tighter, she eased off him feeling him sticky between her thighs.

Soon she drifted into a fitful sleep.

At four AM Sydney stood next to the bed with her backpack on her shoulder and her suitcase in her hand, watching Nolen, who lay tangled in the sheets, his creamy skin glistening in the dark. He wore a small, contented smile. He had told her how beautiful she was, inside and out, how he was a better man because of her, how wonderful their life would be. Her tears had stopped, but her fear raged on.

She had left behind all the clothes that he’d bought her, hanging them in the closet and taking nothing but her own things. She had started to lay the pink cell phone on the nightstand, but she knew that where she was going, he wouldn’t find her. She’d hold on to the phone to let him know that she hadn’t completely abandoned him.

Instead of empty promises she needed time and space to work it all out. She had to be with Trish, to repair the damage done to their hearts by the betrayal of their lovers. Easing the phone in her pocket, she walked out of the room, not bothering to close the door behind her.

Nolen heard the phone ringing and sleepily opened his eyes. Sydney wasn’t next to him; he felt a twinge of panic. He’d tried to ease away her pain, but he knew that she was still very angry and hurt. He reached for his watch on the nightstand, and relief washed over him. The time read a little past eight. Sydney had a dance call at eight thirty. Everything would be all right.

The phone’s ringing grew more insistent. He’d forgotten it temporarily, thinking of his butterfly. Falling back on the pillow, he reached for it.

“Yeah?”

“Hey, man,” Todd said weakly.

“What’s up? How you feeling?”

“The same, but Trish opened her eyes last night. They took out her breathing tube.”

“That’s great!”

“She hasn’t spoken. She just stares straight ahead with a far-off look. It’s like she’s retreated into herself or something.”

“What are the doctors saying?”

“They’re waiting for some neurological tests, but it looks like she’ll recover physically.”

“Have you been home? Have you even left the hospital?”

“No. She’s asleep, but I’m afraid that she’ll wake up and I won’t be there. We’re taking her to Sail Brooke Institute like you and Dr. Patel arranged—after she’s cleared, of course. I wanted to thank you, Nolen. You saved her life. And mine.”

“Where’s Hesser?”

“I don’t know. He gave me the guardianship here at the hospital, but he said he still plans to deal with me before he leaves.”

“Don’t worry. He won’t bother you two again. I’ll make sure of it.”

“How? How did you get him to back off?”

“He has too much to lose, and he’s a coward,” Nolen said dismissively. “I simply reminded him that I’m the fox in the henhouse. He didn’t want to negotiate.”

Todd heaved another burdened sigh into the phone. “Will you come to Sail Brooke to see her? Bring Sydney. I know it’ll help.”