Chapter Twenty Six
Noelle felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders after telling James about her past. It was cathartic in the way, that for the first time she acknowledged how her aunt, cousins, the school bullies, and Walter had treated her wasn’t her fault. Letting go of that was a freeing experience and she hoped it would do the same for James.
Noelle could no longer lie to herself anymore. She still loved him. That didn’t necessarily mean the two of them would end up together and have the happy ending that was in the movies, but at least this night would set them both on a path of much needed healing.
As they rode in silence, Noelle took that time to reflect. Occasionally, she’d wipe away a tear, feeling relieved that she’d finally been about to talk about her past. Not even Simone had known the full depths of Noelle’s pain. She felt as if she could really breathe again.
When James pulled his car up to a large gate surrounding a mansion, he gave a verbal command to his vehicle’s dashboard computer and the gate opened.
“Is this your house?”
“Do you mind? I promise I won’t try anything. I thought we’d get more privacy here. And this may be my only chance to show you my home. I should have done this a long time ago.”
“James…”
“I know. This will change nothing.”
She didn’t disagree with him and instead focused on the huge structure in front of her.
“You live in this house all by yourself?”
“I have a live in housekeeper but she’s off for the next couple weeks to handle a family emergency.”
“It’s huge. It must have a lot of amenities.”
“This house has a home theater, a gym and a bowling alley. I’ll give you the tour if you’d like.”
“That’s okay. If you have your own private gym, why do you have a gym membership?”
“I use my home gym when I wake up in the morning and since the gym membership is a perk for all the executives at my company, I usually go there when I get off work.”
“That makes sense.”
They fell silent again as he pulled into a garage. He led her through a side door. “Wow, this place is nice.” It was something right out of Dynasty. And she thought her penthouse was pretty fancy. She was aware of his wealth but it still amazed her that people actually lived like this. “It’s pretty big for one person.”
“Yes, but I’d always intended to marry and start a family.”
“The average family can do quite well with a house one-tenth of this size. Not that I’m knocking it. It’s a beautiful home.”
“It’s not a home; this place is just somewhere to rest my head. It’s really just a status symbol that appealed to my ego at the time I bought it.”
“You make it sound so bad. You have the money to purchase it. It’s not like you’re living beyond your means.”
“I guess, but I’m just telling you this place doesn’t really hold much meaning for me. Can I get you something to drink?”
“What? No butler to take care of that?” she teased him.
He smiled but shook his head. “I’m not home enough to appreciate a butler and I never really figured out what their purpose was. How about that drink?”
“No thanks.” He led her to a sitting room that was elegantly decorated.
She chose a seat on the edge of a leather arm chair, and James took the seat at the end of the couch catty-cornered from her. Their knees almost touched and she quickly repositioned herself. The man affected her in ways she couldn’t control. She was just here to talk. “So,” she prompted him to start as he continued to stare at her with that impenetrable gaze.
“I’m sorry. I can’t help staring because you’re so beautiful.” It had only been recently when Noelle was able to view herself as an attractive woman, but it was still difficult to take a compliment at face value. When James said it, however, she knew he meant it. She could feel it.
“You’re stalling.”
“Sorry,” James said again with a grin. “But I’m sure you understand how difficult it is opening up about a difficult past.”
“Of course.”
“My childhood wasn’t pretty either. My mother was a drug addict and I didn’t know who my father was until I was nine.”
Noelle gasped. “Oh, James, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not as bad as you think. She was more neglectful than abusive, even though she had her moments. I had her father, my Grandpa Lou. Like your mother, my grandfather was my best friend. He took care of me and looked out for me. He was my hero.”
“He must have been very special.”
“He was. But he worked a job that involved hard, back-breaking labor which eventually debilitated him. He was wheelchair bound after an accident on the job, probably when I was around eight. At that point the line was kind of blurred on who was taking care of whom. My mom would disappear for weeks, sometimes months at a time, mostly on drug binges or because she found some new man to fund her habit. But getting back to when I learned who my father was, I learned his name was Stephen Alexander of AlCore. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it but it was a pretty big deal. They were industrial suppliers. The Alexanders had money, status and the whole nine yards. I found out about Stephen at his funeral.”
“That’s awful, James.”
“I couldn’t feel something for a man I’d never met but I was always curious about him of course. What kid wouldn’t wonder about his father? My mother would mention him from time to time but it was never kind words. So one day she takes me to his funeral and tells me that man is my father. It’s the day I meet Sheldon Alexander, excuse me but I refuse to call that evil son of a bitch my grandfather. Anyway, there was no denying I was an Alexander, I looked just like a younger version of Stephen. Anyway, when Sheldon and I first meet, he looked at me and called me a bastard.”
“That’s so cruel. You were just a child.”
“I guess in his opinion it was never too early to put his inferiors in their place. I would later learn when I got a little older that my grandfather had been the Alexanders’ gardener and that’s how my mother and father had met. My father was already married and his wife fell pregnant around the same time my mother did. From my understanding she was told to abort me and when she didn’t my grandfather lost his job. My mother wasn’t the maternal type so I can only assume she thought she’d get a steady stream of funds if she kept me. But it didn’t quite turn out that way for her. I think my father may have given her money from time to time but Sheldon controlled the purse strings in that family. He also made sure my grandfather wouldn’t find decent work around town. He had to resort to taking menial jobs, under–the-table jobs, until he hurt himself. And even though we struggled my grandfather made it seem like we were the richest family in the world. I never considered us poor until I attended the Goodwell Academy. That’s a private academy for the children of the very wealthy. Turns out after my father died, he’d left money for my education to go the academy he’d attended as a boy. That’s when I realized we weren’t rich at all. Not only weren’t we wealthy, I was a nobody. From the time I attended that school, I was made aware that my shoes weren’t designer-made. I didn’t have a two thousand dollar back pack and I couldn’t afford to go on the expensive field trips. And David, my half-brother who also attended the school, led the charge.”
Noelle raised her brows in surprise. “The David you’d told me about before was your brother?”
“Yes. I suppose tormenting me was his way of distancing himself from me. I got the nickname ‘welfare’ because the other kids saw me as a charity case. There wasn’t a day that didn’t go by when I wasn’t taunted or beat up in the adolescent years. The headmaster looked the other way because he was essentially an employee of these kids’ parents. Once I hit my growth spurt and learned to defend myself, the physical bullying ceased but the social torment continued. I tried to fit in by excelling in class and joining sports teams, and though I did well, the kids still talked about my drug addict mother and called me white trash, most of the time when they knew I was within hearing distance. They’d pretend they didn’t mean for me to hear it but I knew that wasn’t the case.”
Noelle closed her eyes as she listened to his story. Hearing how badly he’d been tormented in school brought back some of the meaner pranks the kids had pulled on her. The one she remembered most vividly was when she’d worn a pair of light-colored pants to school. One of the girls who happened to be dating her cousin Derrick had poured some chocolate pudding on a seat, knowing Noelle would inadvertently sit in it. The kids laughed at her and said she crapped her pants. It was a joke to them but she’d cried herself to sleep that night. It saddened her to know James had suffered a similar torment among his peers. “I’m so sorry, James.”
“Thanks, but I’m not telling you this to gain sympathy, it’s just how things were. Despite all that, I still tried to fit in and get those people to like me and they never did, but one day I got partnered with Gillian Jamison in chemistry. She was probably one of the more popular girls in school. She was gorgeous and sweet, or at least I believed she was. And the best part was, she liked me too. She didn’t care about my background. I fell head over heels. We dated most of our senior year. She made school bearable. I thought things were looking up but they took a turn for the worst. My mom, who had been missing for almost a year, was found dead in an alley from an apparent overdose. The kids were ruthless. I didn’t really love her as much as a son should but she was still my mother. We didn’t have much money to bury her but my grandfather borrowed against his whole life policy to give her a proper burial. I think the only reason her death affected me was because it was so hard on Grandpa Lou. To shorten this already long story, one of David’s cronies kept pushing my buttons until I snapped. I beat the shit out of him and broke his nose. I was expelled with only had a semester to go.”
“Didn’t they understand the other guy started it?” Noelle asked, outraged at the injustice.
James smirked. “You forget, I was a nobody and this kid’s family was old money. I was actually quite lucky not to end up in jail. I’d had a scholarship lined up at Yale but I lost it because of my expulsion. I had to take the test for my GED instead of getting that prestigious Goodwell diploma. It broke my grandfather’s heart because I know he was looking forward to seeing me walk across that stage.”
“That’s terrible.”
He grimaced. “It actually worked out the way it was supposed to. My grandfather became really ill with an aggressive form of cancer. The cost of treatment alone exceeded his Medicare coverage and while I’d picked up a few jobs to help us make ends meet it wasn’t enough. Now mind you, I’d never asked the Alexanders for anything but for my grandfather, I was willing to swallow my pride. So I made an appointment with Sheldon. I was actually kind of surprised that he agreed to see me. I found it odd that he wanted the meeting to be at one of the apartments he kept and not at his office. I didn’t think too much of it because I was focused on asking for financial help for Grandpa Lou.”
James gulped and his hand began to shake.
“Do you need a moment?” Noelle asked softly.
“No I have to get this out or I never will.” He hesitated for a few more seconds before continuing. “I made it clear to Sheldon I’d pay back every penny and then…he told me nothing in life was free. Before I knew what he meant, he grabbed me by the neck and slammed me against the wall. I was surprised at first because I didn’t expect it. He took my arm and twisted it behind my back until I thought it would snap. He was so strong and the more I struggled the tighter he held on. Next thing I know he bent over a table and he’s calling me these names, vile names, variations of what my school tormenters called me but more sexual. But I’m not even sure if it was about the sex or more about humiliating me. He wanted to show me he had the power and I was nothing. He said as much to me.”
“He raped you?” Noelle whispered in shock. What kind of person would do something like this to his own flesh and blood?
“He didn’t penetrate me if that’s what you’re asking but it wasn’t from lack of trying. He almost did. I still have nightmares about his cold hands on my body and his old shriveled dick on my back. I fought harder than I ever had and broke away from him. I got out of there as quick as I could but not before belting him in the face. And as I ran, I hear him chuckling because he knows my grandfather will die without the care he needed. I also think he laughed because at the end of the day he knew there was nothing I could do about it. A few months later Grandpa Lou died. On the night I sat in the hospital with him, as he took his last breath, Gillian called me to break up. She ended up with my brother subsequently. I think when I buried my grandfather a part of me died. That’s when I set my goal to never beg. I wouldn’t beg acceptance, I’d demand, I’d have the best of everything: money, power, women, and the perfect trophy wife”
“Everything was going according to plan and then I met you and I was confronted with that boy I was and it angered me because I didn’t want to feel that helpless again. You made me feel vulnerable, and I fought and raged against it. I was nasty to you because I didn’t want to be weak for anyone. But the truth is, I was already weak because I wasn’t really in charge of life like I believed I was. I used my past as excuse for becoming a dick. And, truth be told, all the material things I thought would make me happy don’t mean much to me. And now that Sheldon is gone, I hope he’s roasting for what he’s done, to all the people he tormented, but it doesn’t change anything. There comes a point in a person’s life when they have to stop blaming other people for their life choices and start taking responsibility for themselves. I’m halfway there I think, but like you said earlier, healing takes time.”
There was so much pain and heartache in his story she couldn’t imagine how he felt. Though she didn’t excuse his treatment of her, she now had a different perspective. She reached out and touched his knee.
He placed his hand over hers and their eyes met.
“Noelle….no matter what happens between us, I’ll always love you.”
“I love you too James.”
“What happens now?” he asked tentatively.
“We heal.”