by Malone, Nana
"Those were my decisions to make. I took pride in being able to do it on my own and you took that away from me.
His head throbbed. How had this gotten so fucked up? “Maybe we need a break."
She head snapped back as if he’d slapped her. “Fine. Maybe we do. Because it’s clear that neither one of us knows what love is.”
Thirty-Five
After her fight with Xander, she’d gone home. It was where she belonged anyway. She’d only been playing house with him. But it was nice to pretend. It should have been a relief to sleep in her old bed. The smell of vanilla filling the apartment. Her first stop had been Fe’s, but he hadn’t been home. Likely he was at Adam's.
She'd slept fitfully and woken up just after eight. Her schedule was mostly clear until five when she had to report to the theater for their second show. All morning she waited for an angry call from Charles or Ryan, but nothing. And frankly she was too chicken shit to call them. She’d have to sweat it out until it was show time. No matter what, her imagination went a little wild imagining exactly what Xander had done to Ryan.
She rambled around the empty apartment trying to find things to occupy her mind, but her mind kept going back to their fight. For nearly two months she'd lived with him. She'd fallen in love with him. He claimed he'd fallen in love with her. But fundamentally they were different. He would always try to solve her problems for her. Always want to ride in and save the day. But maybe he has a point. She tried to shove the thought out of her head, but it wouldn’t go. She had been keeping him at arm’s length. That way he couldn’t disappoint her. Like your father.
But he didn't let her love him either. The whole thing was just so fucked up. He’d acted when she couldn’t. He’d taken charge of his life, and hers. But she could see that he was still hurting. That his past still haunted him. The things he’d told her last night. She should be worried. Should be sickened. Should be running in the opposite direction. But she didn't care. Alistair deserved to be strung up by his balls. Hell, she wished she'd been with those Russians when they’d gotten his location. She wanted to hurt him for what he'd helped do to Xander. Alistair might have just been a boy at the time, but that boy had grown into a man who’d deliberately tried to hurt him.
Her phone chimed and she pulled it out of her bag. The text was from Abbie.
Great job last night. Do you want to go shopping today?
Imani smiled. At least she'd made a friend out of this whole mess. Maybe she didn’t have to feel alone, didn’t have to be on her own.
Do you mind if I come over instead? I’m looking for
something low-key.
The response was quick.
Sure thing. Come over any time. I’m in Chiswick today.
After a shower and a train, Imani walked along the cobblestones and past the mansions to Abbie and Tamsin’s. Chiswick was full of multimillion-dollar mansions perched right next to regular homes and flats. When she arrived, Abbie swung the door open with a grin. "What’s happening, movie star?"
Imani laughed. "Hardly. I'll settle for working actress."
"Yeah, but not as fun to say. Come on in."
"You and Tamsin just hanging?"
Abbie laughed. "Let’s just say Tamsin is sleeping off some of her overindulgence last night. Max and Sophie are in Scotland for the day. I think he’s looking at new property. Not that she’s here that often anyway. I wonder why she just doesn’t give up and say she lives with him."
Abbie led the way through the darkened foyer and eyed her. "So what's up? You seem quiet."
Imani shook her head. "I'm fine. I—"
Abbie's brows drew up. "You gonna bullshit me?”
She sighed. "I guess not. You've spoken to Xander?"
"No. But he called Alexi last night. He was a bit of a mess."
"So he told him what happened?"
Abbie grabbed a couple of sodas and handed one to Imani. "Why don't you tell me?"
Imani followed her into the living room. Once she sat down across from her friend, she unloaded every fear she'd had over the last several weeks and the play-by-play of their fight last night, leaving out the sex.
When she was done, Abbie sat back.
"Holy fuck."
"I know." She scrubbed a hand through her curls. "I don't need this right now. I've got another show tonight."
"And you need to focus on that."
"And what about Xander? I can’t even deal with him right now. Even if I could, I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to him. Maybe neither one of us is capable of love or being in a relationship."
Abbie blew out a breath. "I don’t think that’s the case. He's complicated. You have to remember that he has no idea how to have a relationship. None whatsoever. The one person he loved abandoned him when she saw a potential chink in the armor. I love him, but he’s selfish by nature. He has no experience with how to deal with someone else's needs, but you’re the first woman he’s tried with in years. He's going to fuck up."
Imani sagged. "I know, but I can’t believe it. He deliberately took away my ability to make my own decisions. After Ryan, that‘s really important to me. Having it stripped from me feels shitty. I mean, I’m not an idiot. I know he flew in Ebony just for my show and he wants to be there for me, I just don't want to end up in a situation where I have no say.”
"It is fucked up. And I wish I could apologize on his behalf. But you have to know he loves you. He just has no idea how to show you properly. Did you tell him what you told me just now?"
“Probably not very effectively.”
They sat silently like that for several minutes. Finally Abbie asked her, "What do you want to do?"
"What I want to do is run to him and hold him and forget all this other stuff, but I don't think I can do that. He took my choices away from me."
"You guys have to talk in order to work it out. You can’t ignore it and make it go away."
She had to figure it out. "I have a show to do. Then I'll figure it out." It was all she could manage for the time being.
#
She hadn't come back in the morning. Xander had stayed up the rest of the night hoping she'd come home. Because that’s what it was to him. Their home. But when she'd walked out the front door, she hadn’t come back.
He'd tried calling and texting of course. He mostly just wanted to know she was safe. Who the fuck was he trying to kid, he wanted to call and beg her to come home.
He'd really fucked up this time. He knew it, he just had no idea how to fix it. Once he took care of some work in the morning, he went by her place in Kingston to see her. But she wasn’t home. When Felix opened his door, taking out the rubbish, he looked none too pleased. "You fucked up, didn't you?"
Xander scrubbed a hand down his face. "Look, mate, I just want to make sure she’s physically okay."
"In that case she's fine."
"Is she with you?" He jammed his hands into his back pocket.
"No, but she sent me a text earlier. What did you do, anyway?"
Xander shook his head. "Something I promised I wouldn’t."
Imani’s best friend narrowed his eyes. "You realize how hard trust is to come by for that girl?"
"I know, okay? If I could take it back, I would. And at the time, I honestly thought I was helping. But all I did was cock it up. And I have no idea how to fix it."
"You need to let her work it out." Felix crossed her arms over his chest. "She'd already been through enough when you came along. I knew it was a mistake, her whole plan, but she wouldn't take money from me and, well, she's hard to dissuade when she makes up her mind."
"Yes, I've met her." He had no idea where to go now. What to do. All he knew was that that empty hole in his chest, the one he'd filled with Imani these past few weeks, it burned. The hollow feeling spreading through his whole body. "Can you do me a favor?"
"I'm not inclined to do you any favors, mate." The way he said that word made it abundantly clear they weren’t friends. Would never be fr
iends as long as Xander was in Imani’s bad books. "If I had my way, Imani would be living home. Not playing happy homes with you."
"I know. Look, just tell her I’m sorry. I just want to talk.”
After he left Imani’s he battled the central London traffic to the barge. He'd asked Alexi to meet him there. When he arrived, his brother was on the deck waiting with a Guinness.
Xander approached warily. "What's the matter?"
Alexi took a sip. "You tell me. All Abbie did was text me and tell me that you'd had a rough morning and to give you a pint when you arrived."
Abbie. There she was still trying to take care of him. That meant Imani was with her. Or that she'd at least seen her.
"Yeah, she's right. I could use it."
His brother inclined his head. "You want to go inside and talk about it?"
Xander nodded and followed his brother into the barge's open interior. When the sliding doors were open, it had a great indoor-outdoor feel to it. It had cost Lex a fortune to have the exterior walls built of reinforced glass on weather-proofed tracks. When he opened the glass doors, it looked like he lived on a completely open boat; when he closed the doors, the heat stayed trapped inside. And the glass frosted to give him a sense of privacy.
Xander wondered if he'd keep this place once he and Abbie got married. His brother didn’t waste time. "Imani left?"
Hearing the words out loud made Xander's heart squeeze and he rubbed at the hollow part of his chest. Was it supposed to hurt this much? "Yeah, I fucked up."
Lex listened intently while Xander talked. When he was done talking, Alexi took the beer out of his hand and handed him a glass tumbler of something dark. "Screw that; it’s only two in the afternoon, you need a stronger drink than that."
"That's what I'm trying to tell you."
"So you took over her life when she was adamant on doing things on her own. But you refused to let her help you? You realize you took away her choice."
"She's clearly better off without me."
"If you really believed that, you wouldn't be here."
"I'm fucked up, mate. You were right. The whole Alistair thing has been eating me up. I've been consumed with it and it's shadowed my judgment. And the worst part is, I can’t blame what I did to her on this other shit. That was just me. Being me."
Alexi nodded. "The good news, Xan, is that you’re capable of change if you really want it. But first you have to believe that people are capable of anything. You don’t have to be like this. You can take real steps to heal. But that’s entirely up to you. I can't force you, cajole you, bribe you. If you say you’re fine then you’re fine. But we both know you’re not fine. Alistair proved that. Just to best him and make his life hell, you proposed to a woman. Granted she was probably the only sane choice you made in this whole thing. You can’t promise not to meddle because that's who you are. She's also right. You were manipulative. You did it to control her like you need to control everything else. The problem is she's a human being. She can’t be controlled."
Xander sank into Lex’s couch and dropped his head into his hands. "I just want her back. I’d do anything to fix shit between us."
"Then maybe for once you need to take a serious stab at fixing the shit inside you."
Thirty-Six
"Imani, thanks for meeting me."
She squared her shoulders. The last thing Imani wanted to do was meet this asshole. But she needed to do this. Everything that happened that night would forever control her if she didn't. "Ryan. Let's make this quick."
He flattened his lips. "Do you see what your boyfriend did to me?"
She refused to wince at the mention of Xander. This meeting wasn't about Xander. It was about them. It was about her. It was about something she should have taken care of years ago.
"Is that why you asked me here? To look at a black eye?"
"Two. That thug gave me two black eyes. I'm not going to work for a month thanks to him."
He deserved far worse. "Not my problem, Ryan. You did this to yourself. For starters, I wasn't there. I don't know who gave you those black eyes. And secondly, you likely deserved what you got."
"I'm going to sue him. But you can stop that from happening."
He really was a total slime ball. How had she ever even compared the two? While Xander was overbearing, he didn't really try to control who she was as a person. Ryan, on the other hand, only wanted to serve his own agenda. "You do whatever you think you need to do. But let me go ahead and tell you this. There is nothing I'm going to do to intervene."
"He has a lot of money and he'll need to pay. But you can stop that. If you just sign some papers stating you'll never slander me, then we can be done with this whole mess. We’ll never have to see each other or talk about it again."
She blinked at him in surprise. He looked completely self-assured of his request. It never mattered what he’d said at the time about being sorry. All he cared about was covering his own ass. She rolled her shoulders and met his gaze levelly. "I can’t do that, Ryan, especially since I'm pressing charges as soon as I leave here today."
The genial mask slipped and he looked thunderous, his brows snapping down. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"The best part about this country, Ryan, is the statute of limitations on rape never runs out. And you should probably know your attempts to intimidate me and now blackmail me will be noted."
He took a step toward her and she had never been happier that she'd insisted on the coffee shop right next to the police station. "No one will believe you."
She shook her head. "It doesn’t matter. I'll report it. And since you did it to me, I know you've done it to someone else. I'll tell the truth and you won't be able to hold it over my head. Threatening to tell the world. You told Xander and I didn't die."
"You’ll ruin my career."
"Well, you tried to ruin my life, so I guess we're even."
He reached a hand out and she avoided his touch. "Don't do this."
"I made a mistake believing you when you said you were sorry. I won't be listening to you again.”
Thirty-Seven
Things used to come easy for Xander. But none of those things mattered until he met Imani. For so long all he’d cared about was revenge, now all he wanted was her. But for the last three months, Xander inhaled the dry New England air. It smelled different here than in London. Late summer heralded a slight changing of leaves that he knew would be stunning. He'd photographed a shoot in Connecticut years ago. But he wasn’t here for work today. He was here for love.
He'd never been so nervous in his life, but he had to do this. If she still didn’t want him, that was fair enough, but at least he’d given it his best shot.
It was Imani who answered the door. She yanked it open with a half-smile, which contorted to shock when she saw him. "X-Xander. Are you okay?"
He shook his head. "No. I'm not okay. I'm a ridiculously fucked-up mess, and the woman I love has been away from me for three long months. But I couldn’t be without her anymore and I was hoping she'd be willing to talk to me." He also wanted to kiss her desperately.
"Xander," she breathed.
"I've missed you. When Abbie told me you'd left, I couldn’t believe it."
"I wanted to help Ebony pack and spend some quality time. Also help Dad out a little." She inclined her head toward the house. "I don’t think I ever said thank you, but he’s been going to counseling. Stayed sober for three months." She shrugged. “It’s a start.”
“That’s great, Imani. I’m happy to hear that.”
He cleared his throat. He needed to say his piece so he could run back to the safety of his city. "I know I made a huge mistake with you. And I can't change it. My heart was in the right place, but it was wrong. I had no right to move you around the chessboard and treat you like a pawn. It's a bad habit and I’m working on fixing it. I know I took away some of your strength and I’m sorry for that." He cleared his throat and kicked at the welcome mat. "I, uh, also st
arted therapy with Lex. It's been helping. Fewer nightmares now."
She reached out her hand to him. "Oh, Xander."
He ached to have her touch him. But he understood she probably wouldn't want that. Her eyes shimmered and it nearly broke his heart. “I just want to say that I love you. It was real for me in more ways than I ever knew could be possible. For the first time I had someone besides Lex and I liked it. You challenged me, made me mad. You were in my space and I loved every minute of it. From the moment you asked if I was singularly an asshole or not, it's been impossible for me to get you out of my head. I love you so completely and I'm sorry I hurt you. It was never my intention."
"Xander."
"Sorry, if you could just let me finish. I only want to give you what you want, but if you saw fit to give me another—"
She interrupted him with a kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck and squeezing tight. The blood rushed in his head. She tasted of apples and cinnamon and her. He sank into it, holding her tight, not daring to believe this was real.
When she pulled back, he was reluctant to let her go. She licked her lips. "I missed you. I'm so sorry. I just needed some time to think where everything about my life wasn’t consumed by you. I was coming back in a few weeks and you were my first planned stop. I was a little worried you might have moved on."
Moved on? Was she mad? "I dream about you every night."
Imani blinked dark eyes up at him. "I want to tell you I filed charges against Ryan."
A spike of pain pierced his gut. She hadn’t called him for him to go with her. “I’m really proud of you.”
She nodded. “The prosecutor isn’t too optimistic, but it’s okay. He didn’t think I’d have the courage to do it. And thanks to you, I did.”
He nodded. “No, thanks to yourself. You’re strong. Always were. And I might be able to help the case if you’ll let me. The club is wired for sound. I might have gotten him on tape.”
