by Maisey Yates
Liar.
Her words rang in his ears. Scared. Coward.
She had bared herself to him, given him everything. And still he hid.
You aren’t afraid of what will get out, you’re afraid of what will get in.
And then he let himself remember, really remember, the night at his father’s house. That last night there. The terror of the girl. His own fear. The way the drug had twisted his thoughts, the way he’d been so sick after. The horror. The stark realization of what his father did. Of what he could become. Of the fact that there was good and evil in the world, and if he didn’t do something soon he would be on the side of evil.
In one night, his world had been torn to pieces. Savaged.
He’d looked outside of himself, outside of the reality he’d been presented, and he saw all the pain, all the abuse, all of the ways a person could be destroyed, corrupted and perverted and he shut it all down.
Every desire. Every emotion. For fear he would have the wrong one.
For fear all of that horror, all of that pain, would get him.
He’d tried to get rid of the feeling. Had tried by taking down his father’s organization, but it hadn’t worked. He’d saved the damn world and he hadn’t been able to save himself.
And so he’d built walls, shoved it all down deep, turned it all off. And walked away.
And then came Leah. She’d torn down the walls with her hands tied behind her back, quite literally. And he didn’t like it. It burned. It felt like his skin had been stripped off. Like old wounds had been reopened, scars carved away, leaving all of his tender flesh exposed.
He stalked to the bar and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. Expensive. High quality. But that didn’t matter. As long as it would take away his pain, for a moment. Just a moment.
He thought back to his wedding day, about how tempted he’d been to lose himself then, tempted to cover the disaster in a haze.
But he hadn’t.
He stood for a moment, regarding the bottle. Then he took a glass out from beneath the bar and filled it.
He wouldn’t find answers in the bottom of a glass of whiskey. He wouldn’t find hope or salvation there. He wouldn’t even find a meaningful salve for his pain.
But maybe, just maybe, he would find rock bottom. At least if he landed there, the only way would be up.
He smiled as he raised the glass to his lips.
* * *
There wasn’t enough candy in the world to make her day any sweeter. And seeing those stupid cherry buttons, the kind Ajax had eaten off her skin, just made her want to cry all over again. And if not cry, throw things and sit in the corner with a bar of chocolate. Or twenty.
She hated this. She hated being away from him. She hated how badly he’d hurt her. She hated that, for one blinding moment in time she’d nearly had everything, and now it was gone.
She was an idiot. She should have shut up and kept her marriage. She should have kept sleeping with him every night and said I love you over and over again in her head as she fell asleep. She shouldn’t have said anything to him.
No, she should have. Leah started opening boxes of candy and loading the big glass display jars in the window. As long as she was in New York she was going to spend some time in her flagship store. Working there was therapeutic. Working with candy was therapeutic. As was eating it.
Except those cherry buttons. She was getting rid of those.
She looked up from filling the jars and saw that one of the big foam glitter lollies that normally stood up nice and tall in the display window was lying against the glass. She growled and dropped the candy bag, then stepped over her faux cotton candy mist that was placed around the display floor, trying to get to the lollipop.
She started losing her balance and braced herself, her palm flat on the window. She cursed under breath. Now it would need to be cleaned, and that was just extra work because she was a clumsy idiot who loved a man who just didn’t love her.
Yeah, what if that was all it was. What if he wasn’t lying? What if he wasn’t scared? What if he just didn’t love her?
She felt like she’d just been punched in the stomach. She sank down slowly, in the fake cotton candy, the big lollipop trees overhead. And she just felt sad. A tear slid down her cheek and she wiped it away.
Would there ever be a day she didn’t cry over Ajax? Yes. There would be. Of course there would be. Because wounds didn’t hurt like this forever. But some of them never truly went away. And this was more than a wound. This was like losing a part of herself, a part she hadn’t realized she’d been missing.
A part she didn’t think she’d ever be able to replace.
So no, she wouldn’t always cry. But there would always be a piece missing from her heart.
She stood and exited the display, collecting her purse and coat, avoiding making eye contact with any of the store’s employees or customers. She pushed open the door and went out into the chilly afternoon, tugging her jacket on as she did so.
She pulled up the collar of her coat, and as she did, a female reporter with a recorder advanced on her, along with two men, one of whom held a video camera, the other a microphone.
Every insecurity, every fear, flooded her, oozed from the soles of her shoes and kept her rooted to the spot.
“Ms. Holt, rumor is your husband checked into a hotel last night? Any comment? Is there trouble in paradise? What will you do if you lose him?”
She almost laughed. Because she had lost him. And then because she realized that nothing, after this, could ever hurt her again.
She raised her hand and indicated the building behind her. “I will go to work. Because I’m the owner of a very successful chain of candy shops. I’m an entrepreneur. A businesswoman. I am not simply another Holt heiress. I am not Ajax Kouros’s backup bride. I have my own identity, my own success.”
She was yelling now. She probably seemed completely unhinged. Years of pent-up rage at every member of the press who had ever abused her, pouring out onto this one woman. But she didn’t care. She’d always thought this, but she’d never been bold enough to say it. Ajax had made her bold enough. He’d made her believe she deserved more. That she deserved better.
That she deserved, not to modify her behavior to suit other people, but to step out from behind her sister’s shadow and demand respect.
“I am not defined by my family name,” she continued, “or by how I compare to my sister. I am not defined by my husband. I have a name. I’m Leah Holt, and I’m second to no one. I’m simply myself.”
* * *
Ajax stared at his phone from his position on the floor of his hotel room, at the hazy headline on the entertainment section of the paper.
Leah Holt Declares: I am not defined by my husband!
Good for her. He laughed and the sound sent a wave of pain through his head. Rock bottom was a real place. It was inside of him now. His chest felt torn to bloody shreds. His head felt like it was going to burst. But nothing, nothing matched the pain in his heart.
She’d been right about him. He was nothing more than a coward. He’d done nothing more than hide, than protect himself from any potential pain, any emotion, for so many years. Too many years.
Oh, those whiskey-colored eyes. He’d looked at them, even back when she’d been a teenager, and he’d known that she could destroy him. That she could have power over him, utterly. Completely. And so he had hidden.
He was still hiding. Hungover and hiding. Not anymore. No more.
He wanted to call Leah, but he didn’t know what to say. He wanted to call her father, but he really didn’t know what to say.
That left one number.
He dialed a number he hadn’t used in a while.
“This is Rachel.”
“Do you know where Leah is?” He
didn’t bother with a greeting.
“Yes. And if you don’t, I don’t think I’m in a position to tell you. Especially not given current headlines.”
“I made a mistake.”
“I know you broke my sister’s heart. I can’t forgive that, Jax.”
“I don’t want absolution from you,” he growled. “I want my wife back.”
“I had to walk away from you for my own reasons. Partly because I wouldn’t simply be married to a man who saw me as a convenience. If Leah wants more than that, if she wants love, let her go. Let her have it.”
“I love her,” he said, his voice rough, his body shaking.
“You...you do?”
“More than anything. Please. I need to talk to her. In person. I have a lot of...groveling to do.”
There was a long pause. “Okay, Jax. I’ll help you.”
* * *
There had always been something comforting about the Holt Estate in Rhodes. From the moment he’d first set foot on the estate as an emotionally battered boy, it had felt right. Now, when Ajax walked up to the door, he realized what it was. It felt like home. It felt like home in a way nothing else ever had.
Strange that he could connect it now. And it seemed obvious, too.
As did his feelings for Leah.
No, there were no answers in the bottom of a bottle of alcohol. There was just the headache from hell. But after that, when the pain in his chest hadn’t lessened, when things had only got worse, he’d realized it was too late to protect himself.
And that he didn’t want to anymore.
He only hoped that Leah really was here. That Rachel had been telling the truth and Joseph Holt wasn’t waiting for him on the other side of the door with violence in mind.
When the door opened, he expected to see a maid. Instead, it was Leah, her mouth dropped open, her eyes round, her skin pale.
She started to close the door, and he put his foot in the way. “No. Leah, please.”
“My father isn’t here right now,” she said.
“That’s not why I’m here.”
“Then my sister isn’t here, either.”
“I don’t give a damn about where your sister is, and you know it.”
She opened the door slowly. “Then what are you doing here?”
“I think the real question should be, why wasn’t I here a week ago? Or maybe even, why wasn’t I here to say this a year ago? Why wasn’t it our wedding from the beginning?” He put his hand on her cheek. “Why didn’t I see that it was always you?”
“Because...because...”
“Or maybe I did see. I think I did. I think every time you left me candy, I knew. Every time I listened to you talk about your dreams, I knew. But you were too much for me. For where I was at. So I ran. I made sure it wasn’t you. Because I knew you would ask too much of me. I knew you would demand too much. I was right. You have. You have asked everything of me, and you’ve left me with no more defenses. You are right, you’re second to no one, Leah Holt.”
“You read my rant in the paper,” she said, her voice choked.
“I did. And every word was true. You are not defined by me, by who you are in relation to your sister. You are beautiful. Like no one else. Like nothing else. You’re so beautiful it’s like staring into the sun. It burns through me. It shines a light in my soul. I wanted to hide from the light, because I knew it would expose me. Because I knew...it would show who I was, and if it did...how could you not turn away? How could anyone not turn away?”
All the years he hadn’t felt, all the years he hadn’t wanted, crashed in on him now. Threatened to pull him under. He was overwhelmed. By everything. By how much he loved the woman in front of him, by how much he wanted to make it all right.
“Leah, before you I was in chains. I was trapped in a prison I locked myself in so I could be safe. But a prison is still a prison, no matter whether or not you’re there by choice. You set me free. You made me realize that all of the stuff on the other side, everything that could hurt was worth it, because the good outweighs it. What good is living life with no pain if I can’t feel your arms around me ever again? What good is staying safe if I can never kiss you? What good is anything if I don’t have your love?”
“Ajax...you...you said you didn’t love me.”
“Because I am everything you said. I’m a coward. But not anymore. I’m free of it. Of the fear. There’s no room for it. There’s just love. It’s all that matters. You’re all that matters.”
“Ajax.” She threw her arms around him, buried her face in his neck, tears leaving wetness on his skin.
He wrapped his arms around her, held her tight to him. His wife. The love of his life.
“I thought I knew love,” he said. “But I was wrong. I chose to call something love because I found it comfortable. Because it was something I could control, but Leah, that isn’t love. I’ve never known anything like this. So deep. So real.”
“I thought I knew it, too. But I didn’t really. Not until I knew you. Until I appreciated how strong you were. How amazing. Until I knew the hell you walked through, only to come out on the other side.”
“Damaged,” he said. “I came out damaged. But you...you make me feel new, Leah. You make me feel things in a way that I didn’t know was possible. Before it was like I was looking at everything shrouded in darkness but now...now I see it. Now I understand. I thought I knew love, I thought I knew myself. But you found me.”
Leah closed her eyes tight, held Ajax. Just held him. And he held her, too.
She was whole now. Her missing piece was back.
“Oh, Ajax. I feel like you helped me find me, too.”
“I’m so glad,” he said, “because without you, without all of those things you said to me. Without you loving me when I couldn’t love myself, I wouldn’t be standing here.”
“I love you,” she said. She pulled her head back, cupped his face with her hands and looked at his eyes. Looked at how they shone with emotion. Not flat, deep. Endless. “Now tell me how you feel.”
“I love you,” he said, his gaze never leaving hers. “I love you now and always.”
“So...all things considered...what if we stay married?” She closed her eyes. “Ugh. I proposed to you again. I have to stop doing that.”
He caught her chin with his thumb and forefinger. “No. Don’t stop. I like all your propositions.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“So...will you?”
“Leah, I’m not perfect.”
“I know, darling.”
He laughed, then sobered again. “I will fail you. I will make mistakes. I will...I will still growl sometimes. But even then, I’ll love you. And if you can take that, that little I have to offer, then I will be the happiest man in the world.”
Leah leaned in and kissed him, poured her whole heart into it. When they parted, they were both breathing hard. “Ajax, that’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“What is? The part about me failing you?”
“No. That sounds honest. You’re human, after all. It’s the part about you having so little to offer. Ajax, your love isn’t a little thing. Your love is everything.”
“Oh, Leah, I’m so glad you think so. I feel the same way. Without your love, I would still be chained up inside myself. Without you, I wouldn’t even be living. Not really. Your love took all the broken pieces in, and it put them back together. Put me back together.”
And then Ajax Kouros, the man of her dreams, looked at her in a way that surpassed her dearest fantasies and kissed her. Kissed her as she’d spent so many days hoping he would. And she could feel it, down to her toes. Because that was the freedom of being exposed. She felt it all.
This was all so much better than any fantasy. Bec
ause this wasn’t the perfect Ajax of her fantasies who kissed her, then rode off into the sunset with her. This was Ajax, the man, with every scar, every flaw. And more passion than she ever could have imagined.
“So,” she said. “I have a silk scarf up in my room.”
“I don’t need that anymore.”
“Who said anything about need? The only thing I need is you. The rest is just fun.”
He smiled, the most genuine smile she’d ever seen on his face. “Fun. Something else I was missing, along with love. Leah, I have a feeling with you I’ll never be without either one.”
“That’s a promise.”
EPILOGUE
“IT’S OFFICIALLY TIME to panic.”
Leah walked out of the bathroom and into the bedroom at her father’s Rhodes Estate where Ajax was sitting on the bed, waiting for her.
“Why?” he asked. “Is the bride missing again?”
“Rachel? No. As far as I know she’s ready to walk down that aisle with Alex.”
It had been a long time since the day Rachel had run out on the wedding that ended up being hers and Ajax’s. The best day of her life.
“Then why are we panicking?”
“Well, I know how much you like to plan things. And I know that, after we got ourselves together and thinking straight, we decided to wait a few years to have kids....”
“And?”
“And, well, that’s not exactly happening. I just took a test. I’m pregnant.”
Ajax smiled, and her whole world brightened, the knot in her stomach dissolving. He stood up and put his arms around her, pulling her against his chest and kissing her, deep and hard, with everything he had. With no control. As he always did.
“That is the best news, Leah. The best gift.”
