by Pamela Ann
I was the intruder in their relationship it seemed. Now, for me to be able to finally see the light and move the fuck on with my pointless life, I had to see if Emma had truly thrown us away with my very own eyes. A large part of me was hoping that they’d merely gone to sleep drunk and nothing happened, however the reasonable side of me thought that there was slim chance of that happening.
Still, I hoped that her love—our love—was strong enough that she wouldn’t throw us away like we were nothing.
Loaded with anxiety and trepidation, I got out of the car and moved at a snail’s pace towards the front door where the key was stuck underneath the rug, so I could let myself in, hoping to clear this once and for all.
Since Lindsey was with Dimitris and Taylor and Trista had already left to head back to his place for the rest of the afternoon, the house was silent except for a small gurgle of gasps and laughter coming from upstairs.
Emma’s laughs, I noted, making my stomach sink lower as my insides did somersaults. I inched closer towards the staircase, each step felt like my feet were held with balls and chains. This was probably what a death sentence felt like because you knew what was contained on the other side of the door would eventually kill you, slowly but surely.
Three more steps to go and my heart was gripping me tightly. Breathing became a hardship.
Two more, I almost lost my balance.
Last one, I could barely stand on my feet. Grabbing hold of the rails, Emma’s giggles were drowning me in absolute sorrow.
Moro mou, looks like this was goodbye after all… I thought wretchedly. She sounded so happy, totally apart from the woman I saw last, packing her things to move out of our home.
Passing a few doors, I finally stopped right outside her door, unsure what to do, but when I heard Carter’s voice, my hand gripped that handle so tight that one would have thought that this tiny brass handle was my lifeline.
When my hand pressed down, turning it open, I held my breath, hoping for anything other than the inevitable before I stoically walked in with eyes immediately darting towards her bed.
I knew—of course I knew—what scene I could possible walk into, but never in my life did I imagine I’d see a lot of Carter’s ass as he situated himself on top of her while Emma laughed at something he said while fearing what was going on underneath the blanket.
It was like I had been incapacitated as I watched this horror happening before me. My voice was out of commission and so was my body. I stood there, paralyzed like a capsized fish, letting all the hurt drown me right before my very eyes while the woman I vowed to love—to marry, to spend the rest of my life with—took another man.
I wasn’t sure what was going on, but when I saw Carter shifting—and I just knew what was to come next—with a shattered heart and tear-filled eyes, I tried to silently walk away, unnoticeable just as I had come in.
Maybe I was too numb, or maybe I was too caught up in my own misery that I didn’t realize that my steps were making loud thuds because, just when I was about to walk out of there, I heard her.
“BASS?”
I paused, not wanting to see her face. I momentarily closed my eyes, reliving the memory of her underneath him before I snapped my eyes open and darted out of there. In a flash, my body was full of adrenaline as I hurried my steps, descending the stairs and into the foyer, hoping to leave this house forever.
Opening the door, I heard her scream behind me. “Bass! Stop!”
Unmoving, I tried to make sense of what was going on with my body because I felt like I was being gunned down, bleeding me alive. I felt the pain, the burn, the open wounds, and yet, I couldn’t see a drop of blood in sight. It sure as hell felt like I was going to die soon, though.
When Emma caught up with me, I bent my head down, unwilling to talk as I stared at the marbled flooring. A glimpse of her sheet gliding down on the floor told me that she was naked. She was wrapped in her soiled, fluid-filled sheets that she’d romped with Carter in last night.
She was here, the woman I had been calling on a daily basis, though not one of my calls had been answered nor replied. Emma had finally moved on, and still, I was reeling with pain while having a hard time accepting that she was gone.
“Look at me, please?” she whispered, but I moved my head to the side.
What for? So I could feel more pain? More anger? More resentment? Rejection? I had it all; tripled in spades. Asking me to look at her would be staring directly into the sun, and for the life of me, I just couldn’t look into her eyes and be blinded by pity for me. Most of all, I couldn’t live with the fact that, if I saw happiness there, it wasn’t me who had placed it there; it was the man who was waiting upstairs, naked.
“Emma?” I could hear him from the stairs, making it all worse. “Let it go, baby.”
Not uttering a word, I moved passed and left. I could hear Emma gasping and sniffing as if she was in tears as I left her house, but I didn’t care to check.
It was done. She had finally left me, just as she’d promised she would. Getting inside my car, I raced through the freeway, but my tears and heavy heart were too much of a bother that I had to stop midway and calm myself in Malibu Canyon as I coached myself to breathe.
Emma and Carter. Intimate. His body on top of hers while she squirmed and giggled at something he said, or from something he was doing underneath those blankets.
There were no ifs and whats now. They were fucking. And Emma had looked as though she was enjoying herself really well.
Had I been less broken of a man, I could have fought Carter off her and dragged her with me into the car, but what was the point? Emma had made a choice and that choice had been him. I wasn’t going to barge in there like a sore loser, demanding rights that were no longer mine. I wasn’t her fiancé, I wasn’t her boyfriend. I meant absofuckinglutely nothing to her.
Even though I was crippled inside and out—immobile and still reeling from my shock—I knew one thing. My love for her might live on forever, but it would be in the dark depths of my soul, pushed somewhere in the back of my mind because I would never—fucking ever—put myself in this eviscerating-kind of misery ever again.
I’d rather be a monk than go back to her again.
Emma Anderson, you’re dead to me, I promised.
Chapter 24
Emma
Bass, forgive me, I prayed as I stared at the door that had been left ajar from his departure.
Never in my life did I picture that I would be in this position, but after last night’s activities, I found myself in this terror of a dream, not knowing what to do.
Although he wouldn’t look me in the eye, I knew with ever fiber in me that Bass was hurting, all due to me. Even with all the hurts and outbursts I had thrown at him before, not once had I wanted to inflict this kind of pain on him. He must hate me now, and I should be happy that he did—perhaps this would mean that he would stop calling me—but for some reason, I hated myself all the more.
I broke for him. I wanted to reach out, hug him and tell him that I was sorry, but I simply couldn’t because I felt guilty. Dirty. Most of all, I felt like I had committed the biggest sin of all, adultery. It was absurd to feel the things I was feeling because one thing was for sure, we weren’t married, nor we were going to be; most especially after that debacle. One thing I had learned about Bass was that, when he loathed someone, it was hard for him to be swayed to change opinion from then on.
Another thing I knew was that I was never going to get over the defeated look Bass had; it had been like he was giving up hope on everything. A part of me was screaming to drive to his house and explain. Another was telling me to call him now and meet me somewhere so we could talk, but I couldn’t do any of those things because I didn’t think I deserved to be heard. What I had done was cruel. Awful. Despicable.
In less than a month, I went from an engaged woman to a woman who had nothing left except Carter, who was patiently waiting on the landing as I tried to make sense of what the fuck had
just happened.
I almost jumped out of my skin when big arms wrapped around me, holding me close. “It’s okay,” Carter murmured above my head with his chin resting on it. “It’s going to be okay. Breathe.”
The urge to cry and breakdown in his arms was tempting enough, however I was aware that no matter how much I’d shed tears, it wouldn’t erase the pain that the man I loved was going through at the moment.
Last night, it had been as though I had simply lost it; got too fed up with how much I was being trampled on. It was as if it was my vengeance for Bass fucking Nikki, the whole baby thing, the pictures and the videos. As much as those pained me to the core, seeing how hurt he was earlier had only made things worse for me.
You see, I wanted to die the second I knew he was in that room. Millions of things were running through my mind when I scrambled to go and chase him downstairs. Being so close to him had made me realize how much I’d missed him. And if I had any doubts in my mind about Bass and I, there wouldn’t be any chance for me to feast on that idea because the moment I realized that he wouldn’t even look at me; that was when I knew that he wouldn’t ever look at me the same.
I made my bed, now I had to lie in it.
Did I regret last night? I wanted to say yes, but at the same time, I did have fun. And yes, no one had put a gun to my head to force me to go through the things I did with Carter, so I wouldn’t even dare say that it was the alcohol talking. Yes, the alcohol made it easier for me to make the decisions, but it was all me who did the talking and doing.
I wasn’t sure I was ready to face Carter and what he was after from me. I needed to heal, to come to terms with the fact that I might never speak to Bass again.
Emotionally, I was a damn mess. Mentally, the psychologists would have a field day with me because of the fuck-ups I’d done and that they continually kept on coming. I was my own worst enemy.
Pulling away from Carter, I paused to gather my thoughts, barely glancing in his direction. “Give me a little space. I’m going to make some coffee then we’ll talk upstairs. Give me ten or twenty then I’ll come and join you.”
He nodded. “Take whatever time you need. I’ll be in your room.” Carter kissed my cheek before I watched him climb the stairs, eventually disappearing to my room.
Carter understood because he knew how much Bass had meant to me. Even last night, he apologized for taking advantage of my drunken state, but had said that he simply couldn’t resist me any longer. I didn’t blame him. This was all my doing.
So I took my time making us both coffees while I tried to wipe my tears away, still donning the wrapped sheet around my body. Each time I blinked, closed my eyes, dared to breathe, I saw him; the hurt and the pain I had just caused him.
No matter what I did now, it was going to haunt me day and night.
Now, I had to face another challenge, hoping Carter and I could come to a resolution; find a common ground to stand on. I knew my decisions as of late were not something I was proud of, but dwelling on that would only make me feel suicidal.
One problem at a time. I was going to try and make the best of it.
Hopefully, this talk with Carter would enlighten me as to where to go from here on out.
Chapter 25
Bass
Two weeks later…
It was our last night filming. Tomorrow, most of the people would be flying out and jetting somewhere to recuperate.
It had been fourteen days of hell, and still counting. I had at least stopped myself from drinking, too excessively, because I was aware that I could end up smashing the items close to me—like the entire house. I thrashed the whole damn place. One incident had been enough. I didn’t need another repeat. Though that one incident had happened in my house in LA, I knew my feelings were too raw—emotions running too high—that I could easily have another rage-fest with the things around me.
The house in LA was a mess when I’d left it. It was such a mess that Barbara came to my rescue and had cleaners take care of it. Her suggestion afterward to sell the house had helped quite a bit as well. I didn’t want to be in that house anymore. As much as I loved Emma, each time I entered that foyer now, I was reminded of where my heart had been left for broken. I didn’t want that. It had honestly come to the point where I couldn’t bring myself to go inside the house, so I slept in a hotel room.
Broken relationships were a hardship to get over. However broken engagements were another thing entirely. It felt like no hope was left for me. It was my fault for falling so much and investing all of my time and effort into shaping up our future together. Maybe I had become too complacent after we got back together.
The maybes were endless and the blame game was stuck in my head.
When Kosta called for me to go visit Paris with him for a little while, I didn’t even think twice to say yes.
Since my home was put on the market and Emma had broken off our engagement and immediately run off to the love of her life, I was left empty handed. Even Gus, who I hadn’t spotted in her house, left an empty hole in me. I was a man who had a lot of things, but truly had nothing—nothing that counted for anything at least.
Dimitris was only there for a weekend with Lindsey, but I remained in the city of lights due to the fact that I had nowhere else to go, so I thought, why not enjoy what the Parisians can offer and try to forget the catastrophe that was my life at the moment? Why not, indeed.
So I partied. Hard. On a daily basis. I would wake up, eat, breathe and sleep partying. At one point, I thought that I might just be giving up on life because, heck, what’s the purpose of it anyway? I mean, come on, I tried to play by its rules, but that didn’t do much for me. In fact, it did the opposite, it merely fucking broke me.
Now here I was, a broken man in Paris, fucked inside and out, hating all the blonde women on sight—blue-eyed ones most especially.
It just went on repeat—that scene I had witnessed of Carter and Emma in bed—all day long. When would it stop? I wanted it to stop.
I was hurting too much. So much so that I would wake up screaming at times while sleeping—like a nightmare that lived in me, consciously and subconsciously—it pulled me down, drowning me with it.
Blue-eyed. Blonde. Sweet, honeyed kisses. Angelic voice. And lemons.
Home.
I wanted to go home, however the bare-boned fact that I was now a homeless man killed me each second that ticked by.
Hope diminished. The light was decimated. And darkness was inevitable. And if tomorrow was the end, I wanted to drown in lemons when I died.
If I was going to crumble, I was going to go down the way I wanted to…
Death. Was it looking for me or did I simply wish it was?
Chapter 26
Emma
“Come on, Gus. We need to get in, sweetie,” I urged on, hoping he’d listen immediately because I didn’t feel all that well all of a sudden after our long walk.
Gus whimpered as he trudged towards me before stopping next to my leg to give me a lick. I sighed, smiling down. “I love you, too, babe.” My heart melted, knowing that this was the only thing I had left of Bass.
It had been three weeks since I had seen him last, and for the past week, I had been following him partying mad in Paris, one club after the other. It worried me, but who was I to stop him from his destructive ways?
Each picture I saw broke me all over again. It was absurd since it was me who really ended things, but most of all, it was me who had made that first move to start heading forward, and yet, seeing Bass with women around him made me feel nauseous, so nauseous in fact that I had puked a few times already. Questions like had he fucked any of those women? kept haunting me. Of course, knowing how pissed off he’d been, he probably had gone bonkers with all of them.
It was my undoing, although I didn’t like the repercussions.
Carter’s been around a lot lately, but I haven’t made a decision yet where he was concerned. As always, when it came to that, I didn’t have it
in me to bite the bullet. I suppose, after Bass left the way he did, he hadn’t left me at all; at least not in thought. Now I was suffering, enduring this prolonged battle of letting go of someone I had hurt so greatly.
Reaching for the medicine cabinet, I pulled out two pain reliever tablets to make my headache go away, but three hours later, I was suffering from a chronic migraine and intense stomach pain. I was curled up in a ball when I heard Carter call out for me.
“Emma?”
I closed my eyes, feeling like the room was spinning. “I don’t feel too good,” I grumbled, whiny.
He sat on the bed, reaching out to touch my forehead. “Let’s get you to the doctors.”
My body temperature seemed fine, yet I didn’t feel okay. Did I have food poisoning? Something? “No. It’ll go away.” I hoped it did; this came out of nowhere. I was fine earlier, well, last night, I truly hadn’t been, but then again, I’d been crying a lot lately and hadn’t been taking much care when it came to eating or hydrating my body. Maybe that was what it was?
“Emma, you’re hurting… it could be something serious.” Carter caressed my arm while his voice sounded pained, like he was feeling the agony with me.
It wasn’t the pain that was necessarily making me feel queasy. Something was just off. The more time I pondered, paranoid of the thing, I knew it was best to get some professional opinion before I diagnosed myself from reading up on Google that I might have stomach cancer.
“Okay.” I was starting to worry.
Once we got to the hospital, Carter took charge and had someone help me instantly. He was just as bad as Bass, though then again, both loved me like crazy.
When the nurse asked me questions, I was almost tempted to say that I needed Vicodin or something stronger to make the pain go away. Then again, I didn’t want to look like I was a screwed up, pill-popping druggie.
