Desperation of Love (24 page)

“You love me?” Alex questions with nothing but hurt in his eyes. ”I can’t believe you’re doing this now. Get a clue. You don’t know what love is, princess.” He moves to turn around, and for the first time ever, I feel the desperation of love. The overwhelming feeling of fear as the person you want the most in the world walks away. That feeling can destroy you. I lunge forward and throw my arms around his neck, coming up on my tiptoes, and bury my face in his chest. “Don’t leave me here. Please, take me with you. I don’t want you to be alone right now. Please, baby.” I’m practically begging now, but I don’t care. I can feel everyone’s eyes on us, a mixture of shock and confusion, from what they’ve just learned about Alex and now what they’re hearing from me.

He brings his hands up to my wrists and pulls me off him. “No. You can’t say you love me when it’s convenient for you, not after I’ve spent the last few weeks practically groveling at your feet.” His words are harsh but true. My eyes burn with unshed tears. I can’t let them fall, not here. Alex stares at me and I’m not sure what he sees, but all of a sudden, it’s like he’s having a moment of clarity. His eyes go wide and he shakes his head in disbelief.

“Oh my God,” he says softly. His voice is flat, dead even. “You knew. You knew I wasn’t her son, didn’t you?”

I can feel the bile rising in my throat. I want to lie, to protect myself, because I’m hoping there is still a chance for us, but it would only make a terrible situation that must worse. So I say nothing.

“That’s why you were so chummy at the hospital yesterday, wasn’t it? Because she told you?” He just glares at me as I try to find the words to explain how it all happened, that I didn’t want to keep it from him. “Tell me the truth!” He screams at me and I take a step back. “No, don’t you dare back away from me now like I’m going to hurt you. You tell me the fucking truth now!”

My lip is trembling now. It’s a struggle not to break down, but I refuse to lose it because I know that I haven’t done anything wrong. “I knew.”

“Get the fuck away from me, Jordan,” he spits out.

At this point, I get completely up in his face. “Alex! I only found out two days ago. I wanted to tell you but it wasn’t my story to tell. I thought it would be better for you to hear it straight from your mom and I promised her I’d give her the chance. What else was I supposed to do?”

“You were supposed to tell me, the man who you supposedly love. That’s what the fuck you were supposed to do,” he yells. I can feel Elle take my back, her hand on my shoulder as I drop my head. “Look at me, Jordan,” he commands in his harshest tone. I do what he says, resigned to my fate. I know that I’ve lost him. “We’re done. I never want to see you again.”

“It’s not her fault,” Lucia says through her sobs. “I made her swear not to say anything. Don’t blame her, Alex. She loves you.”

“Do not speak to me about love,” he says, turning toward his mother and father. “You don’t know what love is. Either of you! And, just for the record, as far as I’m concerned, I don’t have a mother or a father.”

He pats Victor on the back and walks out the door, slamming it on the way out. I can’t hold it in any longer. I can’t make myself be strong. The pain is just too much. I’m on overload, devastated and desperate for Alex all in the same breath. I’m broken by the pain that he must feel right now, and for the heartbreak I feel for having waited too long to accept what I was feeling, the love I have for him. All I can do is let it out, let the pain seep through my body over the loss of him in my life. The tears fall freely from my face and I’m so numb that I barely feel Elle’s arms come around me.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were in love with him? I knew you guys were messing around but I had no idea how you felt about him,” she questions, her voice full of concern. I grab onto my best friend and let go, tears streaming and my body shaking. She pulls me away from the disturbing family reunion and leads me to the family room. We sit down on the plush couch as I try my hardest to rein in my emotions.

“I’m sorry, Elle. I should have said something but I was so confused. I was trying to deny my feelings and I kept pushing him away and now he’s gone. I lost him.”

I want to go after him, to tell him that I’m sorry and that I get it, that I understand better than anyone the impact of the blow he’s just received, but I know Alex well enough to realize that he won’t see me. When he said that he was done, he meant it. I’ve just run out of chances.

What do you do when you learn that everything you once believed in was nothing but a lie? I have no idea where to go or what to do so I go home, pack a bag and book the first flight out of New Jersey. My mom … Jesus Christ, I can’t even comprehend the fact that the woman who I thought was my mother is really nothing more than a stranger. She treated me like an unwanted stepchild for so many years and I could never understand why. I never knew what I did wrong to make her look at me at the way that she did, to make her treat me like I was a nuisance. Now I get it, and I wish I didn’t because the truth is, it hurts like a bitch. What’s worse is that my father let me live a lie and when it was no longer working for him, he just up and left, leaving me with no adult to defend me. There was no one to have my back. And if all that wasn’t enough, then there’s Jordan …

I know I shouldn’t have left her standing there like that this morning, but when I told her I loved her and she didn’t say it back, I had to get the fuck out of there. I may have let my own insecurities get the best of me, and because of that, I didn’t even give her a chance to speak. I’ve built up all my happiness around Jordan and to have her make excuses as to why she doesn’t love me was just too much for me to handle. But I know where she’s coming from, because for a very long time, I was just like her. Never getting too serious about anyone, taking what I needed to satisfy myself and then shutting it down. The difference between me and Jordan is that I wasn’t afraid to fall in love, I just chose not to. My life had revolved around my family and work for so long and I just didn’t want to drag anyone into that kind of life. But when things changed and my life finally became my own, getting Jordan was the first thing I set my sights on.

Maybe I should have let her say whatever she needed to say back there, but I just wasn’t ready to hear that she didn’t return my feelings. We could have gotten past that part. I would have been willing to wait for as long as it took for her to come around, but I just couldn’t mask the disappointment I felt. I could see the panic as it struck her delicate features and then the sadness when I turned away. There’s no point in dwelling on it now, it’s over. This was supposed to be a good day, my niece coming home, and I thought that I just had to make it through the day and then I could deal with me and Jordan, but now … Now I don’t know how to feel about her.
God, she knew and she didn’t say anything. How can I possibly forgive her? How can I ever move on from that kind of betrayal? Then for her to blurt out that she loved me at the worst possible time. I don’t know what to believe anymore? Can I trust anything that she even says to me? I’ve wanted her to tell me how she felt for weeks, but shit, that whole scene was like an out of body experience. I had no choice but to leave. Get out of there as fast as I could and clear my head.

It takes me a little more than an hour to make it to the airport. I’m literally just in time to hop on my flight to Miami. I’ve had a small condo there for years that no one really knows about, so I figure it’s the perfect place for me to go and figure out what my next move is. There’re a lot of things that my family doesn’t know about me, things that I haven’t even shared with my brother. Not because I don’t trust him, but because I don’t want to put him in a situation where he would have to lie to anyone for me. I’m not as rich as my brother and I’ll probably never be, but I invested most of the money I made working for Victor on real estate. I fixed them up and sold them for a substantial profit. It’s not glamorous by any means, but it’s certainly made me enough money to live comfortably. It was always very important to me to be able to separate myself from the family business and live independent from them, if necessary. Thank God I did that, because it affords me the luxury of taking this time for myself. As much as I hate to do it, I need to disappear for a while. I’ll handle anything I can for the recording studio via email and telephone. They say that time heals all wounds. I just hope that theory proves true for me, too.

Two weeks. That’s how long it’s been since I’ve seen Alex’s face, since I heard his voice or felt his lips on me. I’ve tried everything I can think of to reach him, but it’s like he fell off the face of the earth. No one knows where he is, not even Victor, who’s usually privy to everything concerning Alex. He still managed the final stages of construction for the recording studio, from wherever he is, and the grand opening was this past Saturday. I thought he might show up, but he was nowhere to be found. I miss him more than I ever knew was even possible. I’ve managed to get my work done, but other than that, I’ve been kind of a recluse in my own home. I barely sleep, I have no appetite, and I have no desire to see or talk to anyone. After the whole fiasco went down, Lucia came to see me. She apologized countless times for putting me in the middle of a family secret. It was clear to me that she never intended to get me caught up in this mess and I can’t hate her for what she did. She had no idea what the repercussions were going to be. I never thought I’d say this, but my heart goes out to her. I could see the devastation in her eyes, the pain and regret that she carries like a weight on her chest for the mistakes that she made.

Aside from my mom and Elle, I’ve dodged phone calls from just about everyone in my life, including Brooke, who’s called me several times. These days, I’d just rather be alone. I did force myself to go see Elle and Ava a few days ago. No matter what’s happened, Elle has never shut me out of her life, so I don’t want to do that to her. Plus, I figured she could use the help with a newborn in the house. She’s been amazing throughout this whole ordeal, making sure to call me daily and listen to me when I need to cry or vent. I’m really mad at myself for ever thinking that I couldn’t talk to her about my relationship with Alex.

My biggest regret is not telling Alex how much I love him when he needed to hear it, before all hell broke loose and it was too late. I don’t fault him for doubting my sincerity. I mean, I chose the worst possible time to tell him the truth, and at that point, I was acting out of desperation, not my undying love for him. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look of disgust on his face when I said the words, or even worse, the look of betrayal that washed over his masculine features when he realized that I knew the truth. If I could just talk to him, I know that I could make him see that he and I are not that far apart. In fact, I feel like no one can understand him better than me. I just pray that given enough time, he’ll be able to forgive me.

I let out a steady stream of curses when my doorbell rings. Why can’t people just understand that I want to be alone? I take my pajama clad self to the front door and peer through the peephole. Victor’s standing on the other side, two cups of coffee in hand.
I can definitely use the caffeine
, I think to myself as I let him inside.

“Hey, Shorty. I brought you coffee,” he says, handing me a cup and giving me a quick hug.

“Thanks,” I say, leading him into the living room and plopping down on my oversized couch. “So, what’s up?”

“He’s back.”

“What? How do you know?”

“I drove by his house on my way home from the studio last night. His car was there and the lights were on.”

“Did you see him?”

“No, I decided to just let him be. It was getting late and I wanted to give him at least a night to get settled. I dropped by this morning but he wasn’t home. I have no idea where he is now.” I’m speechless. I’m not sure what to say. I’ve been praying for him to come home for weeks, but now that he is, I don’t even know what to do next. “Do you have any idea where he might be?” Victor asks, taking a sip of his coffee.