37
Kendra
As soon as I heard the knock I opened the door to find Alex waiting on the other side.
She immediately saw the anguish tearing me apart inside. It was written all over my face and I broke down crying. “Kelly left me. He left me, Alex.” I couldn’t hold back. She needed to know. It was the reason I’d called her in the first place.
Frowning, she took me in her arms and pulled my head down to her shoulder. My eyes puffed up and swelled as I broke down, sobbing. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I told him the truth when I shouldn’t have. The truth always gets me in trouble.” I blubbered on and on in an incoherent jumbled mess that even I could hardly understand.
“Slow down, baby girl.” Alex took me by my shoulders and pushed herself away so she could see my eyes. “What happened?”
Her dazzling eyes darted over my face for a second before they lifted, glancing over my shoulder. “Is he here?”
I shook my head. I knew what she was thinking. Why would I go back to his penthouse after he told me to get out of his life? But, technically, this was where I thought he would want me to go. “I had nowhere else to go.” I sniffed away the tears.
Taking her by the hand, I pulled her inside.
“Can I make you some tea?” Alex offered. “Assuming he has tea.”
She gave me a skeptical look and I nodded, pointing toward the kitchen cabinets to the left of the fridge.
“God, this place is amazing,” Alex murmured as she took it all in. “Although having to go through a hotel lobby every time you come home is kinda weird.”
I was still shell-shocked from what happened. I knew that I should be nodding or adding to the conversation by saying everything that came to mind. But I couldn’t. My mind was zoning and my body was numb. It felt like I was living in a dream—an alternate reality, one in which I didn’t even recognize myself.
Alex found a box of herbal tea and set it on the counter before filling the kettle. “I can’t believe he wants you to stay here with him.” She turned to look over her shoulder. “I mean, he did want you to stay with him.” Her voice dropped to an insecure whisper as she broke eye contact and turned on the water.
My feet rooted to the floor. I hadn’t moved.
I had called Alex here because she had the car—the means to get here quick—and I didn’t have it in me to fight my way across the city through public transportation or even hailing a lift. Despite what Kelly did, a part of me still hoped that he wanted me here, waiting for him to return.
I blinked and when my lids opened again, Alex had moved to the bouquet of flowers Kelly had placed in a gorgeous vase on the island kitchen counter. “These are beautiful. Are these the ones he got you?”
The lump in my throat—the same one that was left over from my conversation with Kelly—grew, cutting off more of the air filling my lungs. She was right. They were beautiful. Orchids, lilies, a variety of others that brought color to the modern room. And despite their pleasant aroma, I didn’t want to think of the reason Kelly had them there.
Turning my back on Alex, it was too painful to think of Kelly. I hated being inside his home where everything reminded me of all that I might lose.
I dropped onto the couch and hugged my knees to my chest, regretting having told Kelly anything. Dropping my forehead to the top of my knee, I realized that I should have taken my chances with telling him what the Madam and I were actually talking about. At least then he could be mad at her instead of at me.
A minute later I felt the cushion next to me sink under Alex’s weight. The smells of peppermint tea filled the air and when I lifted my head, she handed me a steaming mug.
Taking a small, hot sip, Alex set her mug down and couldn’t stop feeling the soft leather couch. “I love this couch.” Her gaze traveled the living room. “It’s all so beautiful,” she said.
It was beautiful and luxurious. But it was also Kelly’s. Half of the reason my belly was still tied in a tight knot was because he was here even when he wasn’t.
“Now, tell me what happened.” Alex bent one leg and sat on its calf, letting her other leg fall over the side. She picked up her tea and rested it on her thigh as she fixed her gaze on me.
I glanced at her, wondering where I should begin. And then, before I knew it, I was telling her everything that had happened.
Her brows squished when I told her how I thought Kelly was fed up with my antics, enough to bring me to the Madam. “I thought he was there to dump me.”
“But if he didn’t, then why did he bring you there?”
My shoulders shrugged. “I don’t know. But Madam needed to discuss some things with me so maybe he knew that. She’d called me, after all.”
“So, back up one second.” Alex wrapped her lips around her mug and stole a sip. “But he did break up with you?”
I wasn’t sure. “He left me,” I said, still in denial of what had happened.
When Alex gave me a questioning look, I told her how Kelly and I got in an argument over what he discussed with the Madam and how he demanded he know what the Madam discussed with me. “But I can’t tell him about the deliveries,” I said to Alex.
She lowered her mug and let out a heavy sigh. “Because that’s between you and the Madam.”
I nodded. “And I know he won’t like me doing it.”
“So he broke up with you because you wouldn’t tell him?” The wrinkles on her forehead twisted.
My words tried to keep up with my thoughts as I was talking a million miles per minute. Alex kept nodding, keeping an attentive ear on the details as I told her about my theory on how Madam knew much more about my past than I’d originally thought. “Including something that you don’t even know,” I said, flicking my gaze to hers.
Alex’s eyes popped open.
Running my fingers through my hair, I angled my shoulders to her and said, “I wasn’t completely honest with you about who my uncle was.”
“Okay.” She dragged out the word as if she wasn’t sure she was ready to hear what I was about to drop on her. But it was important she knew.
My tongue moved over my bottom lip. “You know how I’ve been thinking I’ve been seeing my rapist?”
Her head nodded once.
I swallowed back a small sip of my tea to relieve the parched feeling I was experiencing. “It’s because I have.”
Her lips parted and her brows knitted. “Your uncle?”
Fear rattled my insides, knowing that if I didn’t tell her this now—come clean to her about everything—that this would be the one thing that might eventually push her away, too. She was a much better friend then I was, and I couldn’t lose both her and Kelly in the same night and over the same demon from my past. A chill worked its way over me as I nodded.
Alex turned her head, blinking, before touching her head. “If you knew, Kendra, why did you agree to meet with him?”
Looking away, I knew how it seemed. “He’s family.”
“I get that. But if he did those things to you…” Her voice trailed off.
“He’s an old man now.”
“Who gives a shit?”
I dropped my feet to the floor and set my mug on the coffee table. “Deep inside I want to believe that he is sorry for what he did. I want to believe that he’s changed and that he’s here because he wants to make things right.” I paused.
“But?”
I turned and fixed my eyes on Alex. “But no matter how hard I try to forgive and forget, every time I look him in his eyes,” my gaze dropped to my knees as my voice lowered, “I just want to kill him.”
“Oh, hun.” Alex set her mug down and wrapped her arms around me. “And you mentioned all this to Kelly?”
With my cheek against her shoulder, I nodded. “I also told him that he was the one to trigger the flashbacks.”
Her cheek hit the crown of my head and she squeezed her arms around me tighter. “This isn’t good.”
“I don’t know what to do.” There were no more tears to shed. I was dry. Just hollow, like I’d lost part of my soul today.
“First thing you have to do,” she unwrapped her arms from around me and stood, “is get your butt out of his place and over to mine.”
Looking into her eyes, I knew that she was right. No matter how much I wanted to stay and wait to talk to Kelly, deciding to stay here was a bad idea. Alex’s place was the better—safer—option.
Together, we had my things packed in no time, and as soon as I zipped up my suitcase I said, “I’m ready.”
Alex took a step forward and hugged me. “Everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.”
“I know,” I murmured as we marched to the front door. Reaching out to turn the knob, the door swung open just as a slender wrist caught my focus. The balled hand about to knock on the door lowered to a waist. I couldn’t believe who was standing there on the other side.