by Caro LaFever
Instead, he’d glanced over her once and then, ignored her for the rest of the night.
“Thanks.” She managed a stiff smile and grabbed a full glass of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray. “Alex chose it.”
“He has superb taste, your fiancé.” Her producer nodded her head wisely. “Just look at this magnificent penthouse.”
A place he didn’t fit in. An image flashed through her brain of him riding his horse: his head thrown back in laughter, the brown wool hat fraying at the edges, his blue eyes blazing with freedom and fun.
“I mean, the elegant lines of this kitchen are stunning,” Freddie continued.
Other images sped by: the simple lines of his hideout, the rugged lines of his pool, the welcoming lines in his drawings of family homes.
“The only thing I don’t like about this place is that strange aquarium in the dining room.”
“Actually, it’s a terrarium. And it’s the best part of this whole damn place.”
The older woman gave her a look of astonishment. Maybe it had something to do with the way Sophie had said the words. Stinging and enraged.
She’d tried to keep her spirits buoyed for hours now. She’d tried to be the fiancée she’d promised him she’d be. She’d greeted all his guests and hers. She’d put on the red dress. She’d put on a happy face. Still, suddenly, it was just too much.
Turning, she paced out of the kitchen.
“Sophie,” Freddie cried, but her voice was soon swallowed by the chatter of the crowd circling the center of the room, propping themselves on the ugly leather couches and crazy, spacey chairs.
Her cozy, warm apartment would be empty now that her mom and dad had left for Florida. She’d go back there and sulk. Perhaps, God help her, even cry for a while.
“Sophie.” Melanie and Jack materialized from the crowd, both smiling like everything was right with the world.
Their world. Not hers.
“Hey.” Her teeth gritted as she plastered on another fake smile.
“You need more champagne.” Jack glanced at the empty glass she gripped in her cold hand. “Let me take care of that.”
“Everything okay?” Melanie turned back from smiling at her departing boyfriend to eye her with a skeptical gaze. “Why do I think all is not well between you and Alex?”
“Why would you say that?” Mel had been her confidant from the moment they’d met in college, but her best friend didn’t see the real Alex and she wouldn’t understand her fears for him.
“I don’t know.” Mel slid her hand down Sophie’s arm, a worried look crossing her face. “Maybe the fact that I haven’t seen you together all evening?”
“Neither of us cling.” She kept the smile on her face. “We like to mingle.”
“You are both independent.” Her friend focused on her face with a keen gaze. “And did I mention, perfectly suited to one another?”
“Yes.” The smile began to give her a headache. What she really wanted to do was escape the fact she couldn’t reach Alex. She couldn’t help him and she couldn’t heal him in time to save him from the disaster he was heading towards. “I believe you have mentioned it.”
“Don’t give up on that.” Mel squeezed her arm in encouragement. “I know with Jack, we went through some tough times, but it was worth it in the end.”
“Here we are.” Jack’s eager grin and held-out champagne glass effectively stopped the counseling session, much to Sophie’s relief. A few more moments of Mel’s affection and concern, and she’d have begun a weepfest.
“Thanks, Jack.” She hid behind her glass, taking a long sip of the sweet, zippy liquor.
“Mel, I wanted us to be standing by the windows when the midnight clock ticks down.” Jack glanced at his watch. “We better head over there now.”
“Go on.” She waved them away, keeping the headache-inspiring smile on. “I’m fine here.”
“Go find Alex.” Melanie threw at her as she was whisked off.
Because of her stilettos, Sophie could see over a few shoulders. It didn’t take much to spot him once more. Now he stood with Henry by the glass-enclosed pool, both laughing and joking as if everything was right, everything was perfect.
The darkness behind him, lit only by the muted blur of the lighted pool, seemed ready to swallow him whole. His golden hair gleamed from the lights above; his broad shoulders filled the custom-made tux; his tall, lean length exuded surety and strength and stamina. But the only thing she saw was the vulnerable man, the man who couldn’t see himself truly and so was throwing himself into a bottomless pit for at least four years.
And horribly, there wasn’t anything she could do.
The tightness in her throat, something she’d been fighting all evening, all day, for weeks, the tightness swelled.
She needed to leave. Right now.
Sophie wove through the crowd to the front door, keeping her head down, blocking any further conversation. Attempting to muscle through to the closet to get her coat, she was stopped by a firm grip from a small hand. “Where are you going?”
Away from here. Yet evidently, sneaking out wasn’t going to be easy. She turned to meet Alex’s sister’s concerned face. “Hi, Ceci. Happy New Year.”
Dark brows crunched and the resemblance to Alex’s caramel frown made her want to cry right here instead of waiting until she got to her apartment.
“You don’t look very happy,” Ceci said. “What has he done?”
“Alex?” She pinned one last determined smile on her face. “Nothing. Everything’s fine.”
Black eyes bored into hers. “He can be a dick.”
A choked laugh burst from her mouth. For the first time tonight, someone besides herself saw something in Alex other than his cool perfection. “Yes. He can be.”
“And my bet is, currently, he’s being one to you.” His sister’s grip tightened. “Isn’t he?”
“Not to me.” A strong yearning came over her, a yearning to lay her head on the younger woman’s shoulders and surrender all of her emotions. Rather than making that mistake, she allowed herself a tiny slip, a small confession. “To himself.”
Ceci’s expression went blank. “What?”
“Never mind.” She patted the hand on her arm. “It’s nothing.”
“If you’re worried, and you obviously are, it’s something.” Deep, dark eyes stared at her.
The memory of the photo of Alex’s father washed through Sophie. These were the same eyes, the same gleam, the same determination. “Ceci—”
“If you say there’s a problem with him, then there is.” The younger woman’s wide mouth, so like her brother’s, firmed. “You need to fix it.”
The weight of the demand settled on her shoulders like a large boulder. “I can’t.”
“I knew the moment I saw you—you were what my brother needed.” His sister’s claim blazed with assurance. “I also know a fighter when I see one.”
“I don’t think—”
“There must be something you can do.”
Ceci’s words rang inside her head like a gong. Boom. Boom. Boom.
There must be something you can do.
And then it hit.
A terrible idea. A perfect idea.
“You’ve thought of something. I can see it on your face.” His sister’s voice rose in excitement. “What is it?”
What it was was a betrayal. What it was was breaking a promise.
What it was was Alex’s escape.
She wavered on her golden stilettos. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
Ceci’s hand tightened on her arm, not letting her get away. “You can do anything.”
Sure you can, Sophie. You can do anything.
His sister’s words echoed Alex’s own. The memory of his confidence in her rolled through her like a wave and precisely as before, it melted her heart and stoked her courage.
She could do this.
For him.
“I’ll do it.”
“I don
’t know what it is, but by the look in your eye, I know it will work.” Ceci gave her a brilliant smile. “Go do your thing.”
Her thing.
It means firecracker. As in, everything you touch, everything you say, blows up everybody’s plans. Everybody’s dreams.
Her heart trembled. Because she would be doing it again, being exactly what he’d accused her of. Destroying his plans and blowing up his dreams.
Yet these weren’t his dreams. They weren’t. She knew this in the core of her being and if she didn’t step forward, if she lost her courage, then she’d lose her heart’s true love and he’d lose his soul.
“Go on.” Ceci pushed her at the center of her back. “Go find my brother.”
And blow him up.
Sophie walked through the crowd in a daze. Her heart jumped in a crazed dance, emotions jangling in a discordant mess. All the consequences of what she was about to do thumped into her brain in a wild march of falling dominos.
Alex wouldn’t forgive her. Not for a long time, and perhaps not forever. He would be extremely angry. In that anger, he’d strike out. At her. At her bakery.
Her steps stuttered to a stop.
She could lose the bakery. She could lose her business.
I need you.
It was as if he called the words to her in this very room. She felt the need, the pain inside him as if he’d transmitted them into her as they made love.
She loved him. Even more than her business.
The crowd suddenly surged, and parted, and right before her stood her fake fiancé. The man she’d fallen in love with forever and the man she’d be betraying in a few seconds.
If she had the courage.
“Sophia.” He waved his brute hand her way. “Come over here and meet someone.”
The man standing beside Alex was blond too. And sleek too. Almost perfect except for the way his dark gaze held only coldness and the way his mouth was edged with cynicism. Walking toward them, she tried not to notice her lover’s eyes were just as dark and his mouth just as cynical.
“Sophia, this is Aetos Zenos.” He tugged her into the place right between his arm and his body. The place she felt as if she completed. The place from where she could so easily stab him straight through his heart.
“Aetos, this is Sophia, my fiancée.”
He’d switched back to her full name. She knew what that was. He was pulling back from her, pulling away from her unspoken anger and unexpressed worries for his future. The wall between them came at her, impossible to climb, impenetrable to cut through.
“A pleasure.” The man reached over with a polished, smooth move, his Armani coat sleek and silky, his manner a combination of charm and glamor. He took her hand in his and looked straight at her. “Stravoudas has found a treasure.”
Yes. He had. But he was about to lose it.
Because what she saw in this man’s eyes was enough to have her courage soar back into the stratosphere.
The man’s eyes were dead. And deadly.
She was not going to let her Alex become like this man. Not if it was the last thing she did in her life.
“Aetos buys buildings.” Henry boomed into the conversation.
“Does he?” She showed the man her teeth.
Zenos arched a gold-tinged brow and stepped back. “Nice to meet you, Sophia.”
He left.
He might be a dead man walking, but he was smart.
At his departure, her anger dissipated, replaced with regret. She couldn’t protect Alex from predators like Zenos forever. Even when she’d done her dastardly deed tonight, he could simply pick himself up and find another doting woman to hang on his arm. He could surely figure out a way to get another thousand architectural contracts worth millions and still build his enormous, ugly dick buildings across the entire world.
She peered at him and confronted the bland blueness he’d used when they first met. She wanted to find her biggest rolling pin and bang him on the top of his head, but what good would it do? Perhaps she should stay quiet and hope for the best.
“Sophie!” Henry boomed again from the other side of Alex. “Your timing is impeccable. You’re here with your fiancé just in time for the countdown.”
A numbness, a cotton-ball stupor, fell over her. She cut the frustrating contact with Alex’s gaze and stared at his red power tie instead.
Could she do it? Could she blow them both up?
Would it end up saving him after all?
“Ten!”
The crowd roared the number out. Laughter and the clinking of glasses competed with tiny horns and thrilled chatter.
“Nine!”
“Come here.” His arm, warm and strong, came around her shoulders. He fit her right into his side, his heat and scent swirling around her.
“Eight!”
Henry said something to Alex, yet Sophie didn’t understand, couldn’t take it in. The only thing she could take in was this could be the last time she’d be here by his side, in the place she was meant to be. The solid knowledge of this realization sank into her being like a lead weight.
“Seven!”
He probably wouldn’t forgive her this time. This time she wasn’t only blowing up an engagement, she was blowing up his entire career. A career he held onto with a desperate grip that involved his father, but how?
She still hadn’t figured that out and now, likely never would.
“Six!”
“Smile, Sophie.” Henry’s grin was wide and happy. “A new year is about to be born.”
She didn’t glance at Alex’s face. Either he’d be frowning at her disobedience or have that fake smile on she’d come to despise. Instead, she stuck her nose into his chest and closed her eyes. She had seconds. So she’d take those seconds.
“Five!”
Her courage slipped as she took in Alex. Took in the way his muscles tightened under her cheek. Took in the smell of him, rich and elegant. Took in the way she fit into his side, like one flesh.
“Four!”
A well of tears threatened to wet his shirt. She sniffed it back. Only a few more seconds and she’d lose this, him. Her heart cracked into tiny little pieces.
“Three!”
His hand tightened on her arm as if he sensed the struggle inside her. And the thought of these hands—these bruising, ugly hands she now saw as beautiful—stopped her sliding courage. Because these hands made magic, created love when they did what they were supposed to do. These hands needed to be free to design what he was born to imagine and not what he had to do to protect his reputation.
“Two!”
Sophie straightened in his arms and forced herself to look into his face. His eyes were filled with ugliness and torment. So much so that the blue appeared fogged into bitter black.
“Alex,” she whispered. “I love you.”
“One! Happy New Year!”
Her words were drowned out by the roar of the crowd. Horns blasted, a cheer rose, and the couples around them fell into each other’s arms with hugs and kisses.
“We need to kiss.” His lips twisted in a wry grimace. “Even though you’re mad at me.”
“I’m not mad at you.” She put her hand on his heart, asking it silently to forgive her. “But you will—”
Dipping down, he caught her words with his mouth. A flutter of hope beat inside her as she took him into her. He sucked her lips as if he’d gone without water for weeks. His tongue stroked the inside of her mouth as if he’d dreamed of kissing her for days. And the way his arms encircled her, pulling her into his body made her feel like he’d missed her as much as she’d missed him.
She’d lose all this. In a few short seconds.
Her courage, her knowing this was the right thing to do, withered inside.
“Sophie.” He leaned back, ending the kiss, yet keeping her tight in his arms. “I know you don’t understand,” he murmured into her ear, brushing the sounds of the crowd aside. “But I have to build this skyscraper.”
&nb
sp; His voice, the voice she’d come to know well in every one of its variations, shot right through her like a steel sword. Her courage reared forward, ready to do battle.
For him.
Because his voice was raw and weary. An edge of fear, of desperation, curled on the end of each word, as if he begged her to save him.
So she would.
Perhaps this explosion wouldn’t save him forever, but at least she’d buy him some time. Time he might use to figure out who he really was. Time to find his soul and embrace it. Time to realize he only had to be himself, not someone straining to fulfill everyone else’s image of who he was.
She placed a kiss right in the center of his chest and then straightened from his grasp.
“Sophie?” His arms dropped to his sides.
Looking down, she slipped his ring, the big, clunky thing that now was so dear to her, off her finger.
“Sophia?” His voice went hard, implacable.
But she knew the inside of him. She knew.
“I’m breaking up with you.” She met his gaze and held out the ring.
The crowd around them, in the inevitable way of humans sensing a train wreck or a car crash, stilled and went quiet.
“You promised.” His eyes retained the ugly, although the hot fire of anger now bubbled in the center.
The ugly pushed her forward.
“I’m breaking my promise.” Grabbing his hand, wanting this to be done, she placed the ring in his palm.
“This is going to ruin the deal with the emir,” Henry exclaimed at Alex’s side. “We’ll have to postpone the public—”
“Shut up, Henry,” his partner snarled, his heated gaze never leaving Sophie. “That’s not what’s important right now.”
The crowd murmured around them.
“Correct.” She never let her focus waver from Alex. “Maybe you’ll finally figure that out once and for all.”
A shiver went through her because she saw in his blue eyes what she’d never wanted to see again. Hate. Pure hate.
The hair on the back of her neck told her to beware.
“You’re doing it again.” His mouth, the wide mouth that had given her so much pleasure and so much pain, went from tight to a sneer. His lean body changed, too, going from taut and tense to the easy, languid pose he showed the world when he wanted to pretend everything was fine, everything was perfect. “Making all the decisions for everyone, right, Sophia?”
