The Truth of Never (The Never Trilogy Book 3) Page 15

  "C’mon.”

  I turned to Carlie to help me but she shook her head. "I just want to know about the ring."

  "Fine." I told Elisa. "He was amazing. He blew my freaking mind. Are you satisfied?"

  "Not really but that will do. Anymore and it'll just be weird."

  "Everything about the both of you being here right now is weird. Is the meeting over?"

  “It ended a few minutes ago, and by the way Dorothy is freaking out. Better tell her that the man is your fiancé and was not planning on attacking you. What gave her that impression anyway?”

  "He was a little upset when he came in."

  "Oh, is he better now? How's he doing?"

  "Stupid question Elisa." Carlie said.

  "He's fine." I replied.

  "The ring.” Carlie complained, so I took it off and gave it to her.

  "Oh God." she said and held it away from her as she examined it with squinted eyes. "This is going to blind me. This is freaking beautiful."

  "Let me see." Elisa said and she passed it to her.

  "It's vintage." Elisa said.

  "Yeah… I love the emeralds on it." I said.

  "Forget about the emeralds look at these diamonds. How many karats is this?"

  "No idea."

  "This should be at least six."

  "Or more." Elisa said.

  I listened to them as they chatted but then my mind went to Nathan. A lot had changed in just two days between the both of us, and it represented the official beginning of an entirely new life for me. It made me excited but at the same time, the pessimist in me was afraid. Would I be able to handle it or would I mess it up? I sighed, and wished to God that I could just stop over thinking everything. I turned my attention back to my friends and the moment they left, lighted some scented candles in my office and hurried over to the restroom.

  *

  I got off work earlier than I’d initially planned to, and paid Damian a visit at his home. I was let in by his housekeeper and went up the stairs to his studio, a little nervous about what the outcome of this visit would be.

  When I walked in, he was seated on his stool, sketching something on a canvas. After a few minutes, he finally got up and went over to the sink to wash his hands.

  "Do you want something to drink?”

  I nodded. "Water please."

  He retrieved a bottle from the small refrigerator he kept in the studio and placed it on the table.

  "Thank you." I said, and lifted it to my lips. As I drank, I decided that there was no easy way to ask for what I wanted so I decided to just get straight to the point.

  "I want to ask for a favor." I told him.

  "What is it?"

  "Please allow Nathan to visit with Elizabeth without harassing him."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Damian, I know it's not my place, bu-"

  "Exactly! It's not your fucking place. How dare you try to negotiate who is to visit my mother and whose isn’t?"

  "Nathan's her son too. I know you’re hurting, but you're both currently in the same boat. Come to think of it he may even have it worse since he just lost his dad also. Please be considerate, I know you might not want to even consider it but you guys are brothers and the last thing Elizabeth would want is you two at odds like this. It's not helping anyone."

  "Lenora you're pissing me off." He said and went back to his stool.

  I sighed deeply, "Okay, I'll drop it but you know that Nathan won't. He'll still want to see his mother and you trying to stop him is just going make everything worse."

  "Don't worry your pretty head about that. Soon enough he won't even be allowed to exist in New York, much less be able to infuriate me."

  I frowned. "What do you mean by that?"

  He didn’t respond, and something about his silence sent a chill down my spine.

  "Damian!" I called and went to stand in front of him. "What the hell does that mean?"

  He stared up at me, his eyes clouded with anger and I couldn't even believe that I'd once been so attracted to him.

  "Why?” he asked. “Are you scared?"

  I didn't respond.

  "Don't worry;” he continued. “You’ll get over it… and him. You're good at that aren't you? Quickly getting over people you claim to love when someone you feel is better comes along.”

  "Damian, stop it!"

  "Stop what?" He said, and got up from the chair. "Stop reminding you of the fact that you broke off our engagement for no reason, and refused to even give me the courtesy of talking about it? Or shouldn’t I remind you that barely a minute after, you were halfway across the world, and sucking up to a man that you claim you'd kicked out of your heart. A man you promised me would never come between us. But in the end you chose him didn't you, and what was the reason? He's more famous than me? He has more money? Well you’re wealthy too so that can’t be it … maybe it's his dick. Is it bigger than mine? Well you wouldn't know that anyway since you barely ever let me touch you but I can-"

  I swung my hand and landed a heavy slap across his face.

  "Don’t you dare talk to me that way." I spat.

  He came closer to me and pointed a finger in my face. "Listen to me." He said. "I don't owe you anything anymore so unless you want to regret ever stepping foot in my home, I suggest that you see yourself out."

  Enraged, I took another swing at him but this time he caught my hand, and was about to fling it away when he felt the ring on my finger. He turned to it, and just stared at it in shock.

  “What is this?” he asked. “You're engaged? Already? You want to mock me in this city don't you?” He seemed so angry so I struggled to pull my wrist from his hold, but he refused to let it go.

  “Let. Me. Go.” I yelled. "Everything is your fault. If you hadn't almost paralyzed me, then I wouldn’t have found out how much of an asshole you really are and then I would have made the biggest mistake of my life in getting married to your sorry ass. I can't believe I ever thought you decent. And for the record, I didn't choose him because of whatever lie you've managed to tell yourself, I chose him because he’s a better person than you are. The moment you heard that I was paralyzed; there you went acting like your whole world had come to an end. All you ever cared about was yourself. Now let me tell you something; I was never paralyzed. I just said that to see how you would react and low and behold, you failed.”

  He stared at me. "What? You weren't paralyzed? You lied to me?"

  Furious, I finally wrenched my wrist from his grip, grabbed my purse from the table and made to storm out, but he caught my hand and pulled me back.

  "Answer me when I'm talking to you." He yelled, but before I could free myself from his hold again, he lifted his hand and struck me across my face. I froze.

  It was probably just a few seconds that passed, but to me it felt like minutes. I eventually straightened my head and when he took a step towards me, I automatically took one back.

  "I'm so sorry." He said. "Lenora I'm really sorry. I didn't mean that."

  "We're done." I told him, and left the room. On my way to my car, I tried to control the anger that threatened to choke me but the burn I felt on the side of my face wouldn't allow me. It took me a while to calm down so I just let Gregory drive around town for a while. I received a call from Nathan to come over to his place, so I made sure that there were no red marks on my cheeks before I headed over. If he were to ask me, I wouldn't be able to lie about it and that would just worsen the situation between him and Damian.

  When I got to his apartment, I found him in front of the stove so I went to give him a back hug. He glanced at me and lowered his head so that I could kiss him, which I did. "How was the rest of your day?" He asked, and continued stirring his stew.

  "It was great." I told him. "What about you?"

  "It was okay. I came home to work. I'll be traveling a lot soon so I had to prepare for that.”

  "Really, when?" I asked.

  "Next week."

  "Isn't it too soon fo
r you to jump back into all of this? You need a little more time."

  "Actually I don't." He said and turned around. "I need you, and work. Being active will help me heal faster.” He leaned forward and gave me another kiss. "Also I realized today that I’m not as interesting in the kitchen as I thought I was. I only know a few recipes."

  "Don’t worry, I'll teach you."

  "Or you could just take over?"

  "Not happening sweetie. What are we eating today?"

  "Beef stew, which I'm hoping tastes decent, and rice. I ordered grilled chicken in because I cannot pull that off, and some cheese cake. You like cake right?"

  I yawned. "I do."

  "Go and lie down for a bit." He said. “I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

  "Okay.” I said, and immediately turned around. I headed to his bedroom and slipped into his side of the bed. By his nightstand, I found a book on politics. I wasn't interested in taking a look at it but I did put his dark rimmed glasses on, and got up to head into his closet. It was quite spacious, and hosted an assortment of suits. What made my eyebrows raise was just how organized everything was. I smiled at the thought of how difficult it would be to keep it this tidy when we eventually got married.

  Marriage. The whole concept still felt mighty foreign to me so I dispelled it from my thoughts. I wanted to take a shower so after taking my dress off, I walked to his bedroom door, and called out to him.

  "Do you want to take a shower?" I asked, and had to repeat myself since he didn't hear me at first.

  "Sure, I’ll be right there.” He replied.

  I felt nervous as I watched him take the pot off the stove, and place it on the counter. He washed his hands and started coming towards me.

  "Hey." I greeted when he came in.

  Since I was only in my underwear, his eyes ran up and down my body. "I couldn't find a towel." I explained, and he chuckled as he pulled his shirt off.

  "You don't need one." He said and lifted me off the floor. We got to the bathroom, took the rest of our clothes off and got in the shower stall.

  I kept turning my back to him since I was really shy and he found it amusing. “So this is for us to just shower." I said, as I found his shower gel and squirted a sizeable amount on my palm. “I just didn't want us to waste water by showering separately.”

  "Neither do I." He said after turning the faucet on. With one arm around my stomach, he drew me to him and pressed my body against his. As the warm cascade came down on us, he slipped his hand between my legs and I gasped. He then bent down to whisper in my ears, forcing me to move with him. "How's the temperature?" He asked, and I just shook my head at his naughtiness.

  Just then a thought occurred to me and instantly, I turned around to face him. Gosh, he was cute, I thought but shook my head so that I could concentrate.

  "We haven't...we've been sleeping together and..."

  It took him a moment to understand what I was saying, and when he did, his eyes slightly widened. "Okay…"

  "I can't believe I’m just thinking about it."

  He chuckled, and I hit him across his stomach. "Why are you laughing? This is not funny."

  "I assumed you were on the pill." He said.

  "Well I'm not." I replied, and he just shrugged.

  "You're shrugging?"

  "Yeah, because it wouldn't have made any difference. I'm not going to use protection when I'm sleeping with you so, get yourself on the pill if you want to, or we can just keep playing Russian roulette."

  "Nathan!" I scolded.

  "Okay I'm sorry, I'll take it seriously. What do you want?"

  "Don't you have any....in your apartment?"

  He narrowed his eyes at me. "You skipped the word condom."

  "Please don't make this weird."

  He laughed, and tried to pull me into his arms but I refused. "Be serious."

  "I don't have any.” He said.

  "What guy doesn’t have protection in his apartment?"

  "I don't bring girls to my apartment… or anywhere else for that matter. I got all of that out of my system in my twenties. I'm an elder now."

  "Funny."

  "I'm serious. I didn't even sleep with Stacy here when we were dating."

  "Why?"

  "Same reason I stayed in a hotel room for the last week. This is my space. It's where I can completely unwind and be away from the world. So I don't allow memories here that I'm not sure that I want."

  I squirted some shampoo into my hands and lifted myself on tip toe so I could work it into his hair. "So, you didn't love her?"

  “I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before that you’re the only girl I’ve ever been in love with.”

  "Fine, you didn't, but Elisa told me you came to New York partly because of me. Why did you date her then if that was true?"

  "Alvaro got divorced, and it made me rethink the seemingly ‘crazy’ decisions I was making all because I wanted to meet you again. So I convinced myself that I was more in love with the idea of you that I'd held in my head for so long, than what the reality would actually be. By then Stacy was attracted to me, so I decided to give it a try and prove to myself that my belief that you were the only one for me was all in my head. But instead, I confirmed that I felt the exact way towards her like I'd felt in my other relationships. Detached and not even certain why I was putting myself through all the trouble. She sensed that too and broke it off. I felt a little guilty though because she didn't understand why I wasn’t as involved as I should have been, and I didn't blame her. I didn't fully understand it either, but now I do.”

  "Really?” I blushed. “So what exactly do you now understand?"

  "I'm tired of talking."

  "C’mon." I said and briefly brought his head towards the cascade so the shampoo could be washed away. "And by the way you need a haircut."

  "I know. I have a photo shoot for my new season tomorrow. They'll handle it for me at the set."

  "Okay, back to my question." I said and he surprised me by picking me up. I wrapped my legs around him.

  "I understand that for me to be fully involved, I have to be obsessed with the person in question."

  I couldn't control my smile. "You're obsessed with me?"

  "What do you think?" He said and I started giggling. He shook his head at my amusement and kissed me deeply and before long we'd forgotten about showering.

  "I've been thinking about this afternoon.” He whispered in my ear. “I never knew you could move like that. You still have quite a lot to learn though but I'm glad I don't have to start from the basics."

  "Hey!" I scolded and smacked his arm.

  He grinned. "Anyway you owe me, and I'd like to be paid now."

  "What do you mean?" I asked innocently.

  He put me down and reminded me of exactly what he was talking about.

  After the shower, we went to have our dinner but I couldn't help but ponder, and worry about what Damian had said. What had he meant by ‘Nathan would cease to exist in New York?’ The more I thought about it, the more worried I became and Nathan noticed.

  When he asked me what was wrong, I shook my head and tried taking my mind off it because I knew that I would have to speak if he noticed and asked me again. In a way I was kind of happy that Nathan would be leaving town. Maybe that would stop whatever trouble that Damian was trying to stir up.

  « CHAPTER 10 »

  Damian

  My lawyer met me on my balcony, and we sat down to discuss what he'd come up with. Lenora's visit had completely ruined my mood. I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that she'd actually lied to me about being paralyzed. I felt like such an idiot. I'd been played all along. No doubt all her friends knew about it and probably had a good laugh at my expense. That was how it'd always been even when we were together- I was always the stranger but now, I felt betrayed and angry.

  "What do you have?" I asked him.

  "A handful of ideas but none of them are fool proof. Everything can come back to you and even though
that doesn't seem to be your top concern right now, it is mine. The only thing that can validate your claims is a witness of some sort but you don't have that so please, let's get him for something else but not this."

  "A witness?" I asked, "Hmm. Give me an example of what a solid testimony to back this up would sound like?”

  "Well, the witness could say something to the effect that he or she was aware of the letters being sent between Mrs. Bach and Nathan Rogue, but in this case that's impossible. It can't just be anyone, but someone that has some sort of connection to the both of them.”

  I thought on this for a few minutes, and then an idea struck me.

  "Will an ex-girlfriend do?" I asked.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Nathan Rogue had a girlfriend a few months ago. She can be the witness and say that she personally delivered the notes between them. She could say that it was probably just supposed to be a onetime exchange but then it became frequent, and because she knew how fragile the situation was she offered to deliver them personally. My mom isn't able to say otherwise, and it’ll be difficult for Roque to deny it since it's his handwriting on the letters.”

  "And how exactly are you going to convince this woman to do this?"

  "I just have to find something that she really wants. Something that is more valuable to her than her relationship with Roque."

  "You do know that no one in their right mind would sit in court and lie under oath. That's a criminal offense.”

  "We won't let the case go to trial. I’ve been thinking and I want to change my approach. I've been pointing the dagger at myself. We might not be able to win this at trial and at any point in time it can backfire and land me in trouble. So, I want to take something away from him- something that he cherishes more than everything. That's the real way to hurt him.”

  “And do you know what this thing he cherishes more than everything is?”

  “I think I do. I need to see someone.” I said, and rose to my feet. “So I’ll get back to you soon. But before that, is there a way you can guarantee that this doesn't go trial?"

  "There's no way to do that, but I do have my contacts in the DA's office. They’ll be willing to help. But then again, if the wrong person gets wind of this it could turn into a media mayhem. You both aren’t exactly ordinary people. And if that happens, nothing will be guaranteed. It could become a full blown disaster.”