Chapter 73
Chapter 73
Zander grumbled between deep breaths, “I need myrevenge. II need it. Some bastard masterminds the death of my parents! Matheo fucked myex-wife,e and my friend betrayed me! Those bastards used me! Damn it!”
Elvie halted, “Yes. I heard. Many, many times. So what if they did?” She cut him off, balling her hands into fists. "They did something wrong, which doesn’t give you the right to do something even worse.” She pushed his chest.
Jesus Christ—what was I doing? She thought to herself.
“Matheo was the one who sent Patrick to Asia. He was the one who insisted we keep it from Kristal and keep them apart. Insisted we keep it from my parents, knowing it'd disappoint them. But somehow their death is my fault?” he yelled in her face, as if she were the one accusing him. “Fuck. That.”
“Stop the blame game, Zander. Every relationship you touch wilts. Every connection you make perishes. I don’t want to burn. I want to flourish. I deserve to bloom.”
“Elvie—”
"No, Zander. I know you hated the person who you said killed your parents, but stop."
“Joey!”
“What?” She asked.
“My investigation led me to believe that your brother is behind the bus accident."
“What!” Her eyes went wide. She couldn't believe his words. How the hell was that even possible? NO! Imposible!
“You are lying. That's impossible; Joey will never do that!” Elvie turned around again, heading for the station.
“I don't want to believe it either, Elvie. I tried everything to... I hired every PI in the country, but everything led to Joey.”
With a sigh, she muttered, "No! That's impossible! How certain are you? Was it the reason you divorce me?”
“Yes.”
God!
She bit her lips; pain echoed inside her. “How could you leave me in the dark? Why didn't you tell me first hand?”
“Because I'm not a hundred percent sure if it was Joey. He was under the influence of drugs at that time. It clouded his judgement.”
“How about Matheo? I thought—”
“That too. I'm still investigating, but please believe me, I tried to weigh in every possible reason and possibility.”
This time Zander grabbed her wrist so hard that she thought he was going to yank her arm off. She thinks he realised it, too, by the way he withdrew his hand quickly and gathered her into a hug—a hug she wanted to reject but chose to drown in, a hug she knew would catch her the right way if she ever fell—from a man who’d made no promises to be there when she needed him.
Elvie wrapped her arms around his body, buried his face in her hair, and for a few long seconds, they didn’t say anything. “Im sorry, I didn't want you worrying. I didn't tell you because I knew you wouldn't believe me. I tried. I was a fool. I tried to ignore my feelings for you because I'm too scared. I'm full of pain, hatred, and vengeance; I don't want to hurt you. I'm sorry.” Every bad feeling was crushed between their pressing chests.
“Weren’t you the one who said you couldn’t fall in love?”
He sneered after a few beats, cocking his head sideways.
She asked, “What happened to that? Why did you divorce me in the first place? You ignore me, you hurt me, and you hate me.”
Zander sighed. “I know, and I'm sorry, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care.”
“I care, Zander.”
He took a step back, slapping his fist over his chest. “I should have been spending time with our daughter today. Instead, I took you on a goddamn date." He spat the word out like it was poisonous.
She couldn’t even deal with the idea of him hanging out with her child on a regular basis. When did that start happening? All of this? When? How? Why? She had more questions than answers.
“Do you know when the last time I took someone on a real date was? Seventeen. I'm pretty sure I did that for a hand job. Since then, I don’t have to try. I’ve never tried.”
Elvie snorted, too aware of the fact that an audience had gathered around them.
“Should I feel special right now?”
His jaw locked, and his eyes darkened, like he’d remembered who he was. Who she was.
“At least have the decency to be honest with yourself, Elvie. You don’t want me to care. You want me, period.”
She turned around and gave him the one thing he did not unrightfully yet claim.
Her heart!
“All I’m saying is he’s like a half-priced facelift in an unregistered clinic in Eastern Europe. I would still do it, even knowing it’s deadly.” Gerald tossed a piece of Romaine lettuce into his mouth and chewed loudly. “She is a bitch! God, I hate her.”
Elvie rolled her eyes.
They were sitting at the SBS cafe on their lunch break—her, him, Almera, and Bella. It had been a few days since her failed date—or whatever that was—with Zander, and in a moment of weakness, she’d decided to confide in her close friends about the affair. Although, suffice it to say, they’d already had a pretty good idea.
“Trust me, girl, we can all see Zander’s appeal. Aside from that, what gives? He is your husband! Jesus! If I were you…huh! Ill fuck the hell out of his head until nothing came out from the end, if you know what I mean,” Almera sucked hard on the straw swimming in her glass of diet soda. “But consider it your official intervention. After we got a first-row seat to the shitshow called your relationship, I can honestly say you need to put a lid on that thing before your crazy starts to simmer.”
Elvie bumped her fists together twice, friends-style. “I’m not crazy. Our marriage is nothing but a contract.” She was seventy-percent sure of that statement.
Almera clucked her tongue. “Neither was Kristal. But I know Zander likes you and even loves you. He was just... You know, stupid to admit it. But I think it’s something about Patrick and Matheo’s dick. They make their women unbalanced. I heard Patrick’s mother is not the sanest, either.”
“We’re casual.” Elvie tried another tactic. "I am trying to avoid the topic of the father and son. “I mean, Zander and I are casual. We act for a show.”
Gerald pouted, and Bella rolled her eyes. “Is that why he casually claimed your ass a la Khal Drogo saved his princess from an army of savages when you had lunch on our floor last week? Admit it. You got your boss pussy-spelled.”
“That’s not a word,” Bella pointed out, pointing his sandwich at Gerald. “But it damn straight should be.”
“What do you think about Patrick and Zander? You know more, I know,” Elvie turned to Bella.
She knew Zander had paid Patrick a visit the other day, and she knew he’d ordered him to stay away from her, beyond platonically. A part of Elvie was furious with Zander, and another hoped what she thought he couldn’t admit to himself: that she wasn’t the only person falling around here, and he, too, didn’t have a parachute to save him from the plunge.
It’s just sex.
It’s just a distraction.
You can’t fall in love.
You’ve never fallen in love.
Bella bit the inside of his cheek.
“Hey, are you high, Elvie?” Almera asked. “Patrick and Zander hate each other.”
But Bella looked up and told her point blank, “I think you’re Zander’s atonement. He wants to save you, but you’re the one who needs to save him.”
Elvie did a double take, placing her roast beef sandwich on her plate.
Bella looked serious. “I’ve known Zander for a few months now—since before I started working at SBC. I’ve seen him and Kristal together—even when they were really together.” She lifted his chin, his voice cracking. “Zander looks at you the way I look at my lover, like he would burn the world for you. Just because he doesn’t want to recognise it doesn’t make it any less true. If the rumours surrounding him and his family are correct," Bella averted his gaze to Almera and Gerald, and that’s when Elvie knew she knew about Kristal and Patrick’s father, probably through Matheo, who had his hand and ears everywhere in the SBC building. “Then Zander’s trust in people is nonexistent, and rightly so. He is calloused, distrustful, and hardened, but he is also screwed, and he knows it.”
“He’s never going to leave them, is he?” Elvie rubbed her forehead, feeling a looming headache pushing at the back of her nose. He worry about Joey, about his future, about the truth. About everthing!
“He might.”
“No.”
“Yes.” The three of them spoke in unison.
And that’s when she chose to laugh instead of cry.