I Choose You (The Billionaire Brothers Series) (37 page)

H
e shouldn’t be here.

He knew where he should be, where he belonged. But, was he there? No.

Instead, he was here, imbibing alcohol while watching a nude, voluptuous Brazilian snake her waist in front of him. He couldn’t find it in himself to lift his hand to touch her. Neither would he allow her to touch him. All he could do was watch her narrow waist and wide hips undulate, forcing the pretense things were still the way they used to be.

Before
her.

Before
her
, he didn’t give a shit about the opposite sex for anything more than sexual gratification. Before
her
, he didn’t harbor or encourage attached feelings and emotions. Before
her
, he was so
un
tangled he
would
touch, feel, finger, and he
would
let Miss Big Butt Brazilian touch, feel, suck …

But then, he’d laid eyes on her who shall not be named. And, just like that, he firmly gripped his own lapels and dragged himself down into that ineffable place overridden and bursting with emotions. The place where dumb, muddleheaded idiots tended fall into. Thing was, he hadn’t
fallen
into that place. He voluntarily dove off, head first.

He chose to be in that place.

No one had warned him about the ugly, painful parts of being in love. He learned on his own that, in love, the craziest unrequested load of shit could happen, too. Things that made his heart pound so furiously fast, he thought it would explode. Things that made him see nothing but red and darkness and irrationality. Things that made him want to kill without remorse. Things that made him cry without shame. Things that made him want to fucking die.

Then die again.

He also learned, in love, infallibility was an incapability — people screwed up sometimes. He screwed up. She screwed up. And before either of them could even forgive each other, a part of his screw-up decided to screw both of them.

What a fucking screw-up!

And, even after all those screw-ups, he was, right now, at this very goddamn moment when he should be unscrewing the previous screw-ups,
screwing up
.

Conscience reasoned with him loud and clear, reasoning led to pleading, pleading led to berating, but all Trevillo managed to do was lift his glass of Crown Royal whiskey to his mouth and sip, while his uninterested gaze roamed over the naked Brazilian in front of him.

He was in his V.I.P. room with his buddies, partially — on his side — doing what he once thought was fun and normal, before he’d chosen to love.

Mark and Nardo were over on the far left nailing the same chick, as was their custom. And Zane, even though he had a girl gyrating on his lap, was glaring at him.

The reason behind Zane’s glare was unbeknownst to Trevillo, but he didn’t care to know. He didn’t care about anything, as a matter of fact. He just waited for the whiskey to kick in and start numbing his brain, blurring out those images of
her
from his mind.

He was more than willing to let himself live with the image of her legs wrapped around another man’s waist. But the subsequent image? Swallowing that one was a lot harder. That image hadn’t left a hole in his head like the previous image had, it left a fucking chasm. Not even the large liters of alcohol he consumed over the last few weeks softened the enormous pill of the image so he could swallow it.

His angel. His delicate angel’s feather. Stretched out like a goddamn animal, naked, welted, half-fucking-dead with a gun aimed at her head and a string of strangers watching like it was a goddamn movie. Had it not been for his ‘keep-calm’ brother, he would’ve murdered every last one of them.

Trevillo knew what she sounded like when she was having an orgasm. Not just an orgasm, but a mind-blowing orgasm. And that beautiful sound, which shouldn’t have been heard by anyone but him, was heard by all. No joke, he wanted to slaughter everyone who had ears to hear.

That damn Natalio.

Now, how did he face her when she almost lost her life because of him? How did he comfort her? What would he say? How would he be sure her kind smiles wouldn’t be concealing resentment? How would he be sure her love would be genuine and not an obligation because he ‘saved’ her, even though he was the one who’d put her in harm’s way to begin with?

After that catastrophic disaster, she’d told him she loved him. However, she had revealed those words from a brain bogged in the heaviness of drugs, pain, weariness, and fright. Of course, those words would be automatically told to whomever comforted her after such plight. Therefore, the authenticity of those words was still in question.

Since the incident, he just upped and left her in his home. No word, no sight of him, nothing. On some level, he did it as a test to see if she still wanted him even after abandoning her in such a hard time.

I’m seeking verification
, he told himself, knowing that Krissan was obstinate, overly mature with a mind of her own, and took no one’s bullshit. That little five-feet-one, fairy-voice spit fire was the kind of girl who told him straight up if she thought he was being an asshole. His wealth and status didn’t intimidate her in the least.

He should be there for her after what happened, and he knew she knew that. So he figured when she found out he wouldn’t be around ‘for a while’ from a mouth that wasn’t his, the emotionless, don’t-give-a-shit Krissan Kingston would, of course, leave.

Yet, as the days flitted in an out, she remained there. Never leaving. Gave no arguments about her work being on pause, gave no arguments about anything, for that matter.

She was staying.

With
him.

Even with proof Krissan might still want him, and her love confession was authentic, Trevillo found he couldn’t face her, proving her words true: he was a coward.

Though, he wasn’t sure just what he was afraid of.

No longer able to ignore Zane’s glare, Trevillo raised his eyes and glared back across the room at him. “What, huh? What?” Leaning forward, he angrily shoved the Brazilian across the room to Zane. “You want the bitch? Take her, and take your fucking eyes off me, fag.”

Earlier, Trevillo showed up at the club before Zane and called the new Brazilian up to the V.I.P. room with him. She arrived just two days ago and was already being acclaimed as the sexiest thing in the club. So Trevillo could only assume Zane’s glare was on account of him keeping her occupied. He couldn’t come up with another reason. Zane was the one friend he almost never had an argument with, because they understood each other too well and knew when to back off.

With an exasperated shake of his head, Zane ordered everyone out of the room. Mark and Nardo included.

When the room was cleared, leaving them as the only occupants, he looked at Trevillo and shot straight, “What’re you doing here, man?”

“Excuse me?”

Zane leaned forward in his seat, dropping his elbows on his thighs. “Look, I know you, man, and you’re not yourself. You haven’t been anything like yourself for a while now. In fact, you haven’t been to the club lately unless it’s an urgent matter. Now you’re here drinking yourself into oblivion and I know, I
know
what that is … because I’ve been there.”

Trevillo brought his glass to his mouth and took a drink of his liquor. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”

“No?” Zane said, giving him his famous don’t-bullshit-me glare. “Then who was that girl I heard you blackened Mark’s eye for?”

“Someone.”

“Yeah. Someone. Someone you’re in love with. Someone younger. Someone who’s better than you. And someone who’s heart you’re breaking at the moment.” Zane sighed. “I can tell you, Trev; you’re only gonna to regret it in the end.”

“Still don’t know what you’re talking about,” Trevillo dragged.

Zane’s shoulders jerked up in a shrug. “Go ahead and continue being an asswipe. Now, your obstinacy will not allow you to hear me. But, at some point, whether it’s in the near or far future, when regret starts needling you in the ass, you’re gonna
listen t
o what you’ve heard.”

When Zane didn’t get a rejoinder from Trevillo, he proceeded.

“Axia Victoria Blacksille. I loved that girl with every fiber of my being. The love I had for her wasn’t something that just ‘happened’. I set my eyes on her in college, I set my mind on her, and then my heart. I knew I wanted to love her. Even if she didn’t love me back, it wouldn’t matter, because
I
wanted to love her.

“But for Zane Zekiel, life’s always favorable. Axia loved me back. Harder than I did her. And what did I do when she loved me back with everything she had? I panicked and messed up. It was too much. Too much feelings. Too much emotion. Too much shit I didn’t know how to deal with.”

Zane let out a strangled laugh as he said, “I wanted to compartmentalize. Tone it down a bit. So
I
could control things. Control the overwhelming burst of emotions I got whenever I was around her.

“So, I half broke-up with her. In my mind, I wasn’t leaving her completely. Just toning things down. After all, I thought I was in control of things, her love for me and my love for her.”

Reaching forward for his glass of alcohol, he took a long drink before continuing. “I’d go back to her, and then leave her when emotions started climbing again, and then I’d go back to her, then leave again … Over and over, selfishly not considering how my actions might be affecting her. But I thought … she was mine. I mean, I
chose
her. I thought she would always love me.”

On a weighty sigh, Zane looked across at him. “And you’ve seen how that turned out, haven’t you?”

Trevillo smirked. “Engaged and pregnant with my niece?”

“And I regret it every fucking day!” Zane shouted, his fist slamming down on the table in front of him with a loud thud. “I. Love. Her. And I threw her away. I lost her. Now I can’t find not one single bitch to fill the hole she left inside my selfish ass. Do you think I want to be here with these fucking bitches? No, man, I don’t. I want love. That’s what I want, and I’m not afraid to say it. I was afraid to accept it back then, a coward. But now, I’m not. It doesn’t even matter because it’s
too late
. I have no more chances.”

Holding up one index finger, he punctuated, “One chance, Trev. Just one. That’s all we sinful assholes get. One chance at love. We fuck that up, and we’re fucked for life. We’ll be stuck in places like these, fucking strange and new pussies for the rest of our days. Might sound great to some people. But it sure as shit doesn’t feel so great once you get a taste of love. Love is the ultimate.

“So, if you wanna sit there and ignore what’s going on between you and the one you’re so obviously in love with, you might as well take a look around this room and call it your home. ‘Cause fuckers like us only get one chance, man.
One.

“You and me, we fuck with life like it’s our bitch. We control life instead of letting it control us, and for that reason, life hates the shit out of us and will forever try to find ways to screw us over.
You
need to make the right choice.”

Involuntarily, Trevillo’s eyes flicked around the room, it didn’t look so bad. Yeah, he could call it home.

Obdurately, he slumped back in his seat, knocked back the last of his drink, then said, “Nice speech. But, I still don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”

Shaking his head, Zane got up to his feet. “Tonight you chose to hear. But somewhere down the line — and I’m hoping it’s soon, before things gets unsalvageable — you will choose to listen.”

He left the room.

Trevillo remained in the room for the next two hours, undisturbed, alone with his thoughts and that ugly fucker named Coward who was looming over him.

He thought about how similar Zane’s tale was to his. News to him, Zane had chosen Axia just as he’d chosen Krissan. He, too, had avoided Krissan each time emotions got overwhelming, and whenever he realized he couldn’t breathe without her, he always went back.

Of course he knew he was screwing up. He knew with each day he stayed away from her, he was allowing things to fester. But he couldn’t find the strength to get his ass up and go to her. To be there for her. She deserved that much after what she’d been through. Yet, here he was. Drowning himself in his own fuckedupness. And not even Zane Zekiel, his closest friend, who was ninety-nine times more messed-up than he was, agreed with his actions.

Get up and go to her!

Trevillo poured out another finger of whiskey instead.

His cellphone beeped, and although he already knew what the text message would read, he pulled it out of his pocket and opened it. The same words hit his cellphone at the exact same time each night, and he always read and agreed with them:

You. Are. A. Coward.

Staring at the screen, he sighed. Tonight, he thought, he would let her know he agreed with her. But as he started typing the words ‘
Yes, I am
’, the correct reply to her text message suddenly came to him. Something he was perfectly content with, to his surprise. Something a lot of people in his life would disagree with, thinking it fatuous and impetuous. But he didn’t care. After all, he chose her, didn’t he?

What better way to prove he wasn’t a coward than that?

That was big. Massive. A leap too wide for a coward to take. Since he’d known himself, he’d been called many names, but a coward wasn’t one of them.

Trevillo smiled and jumped to his feet with a sudden flow of energy. Energy that was elusive for the past couple of weeks. He’d just slain the looming asshole in the room: Coward.

O
ver my eyes, went Chanel sunglasses, on the crook of my arm, a Marc Jacobs handbag, and onto my feet, a pair of Prada slippers.

Lori, Trevillo’s stylist cousin, barged into the penthouse during the first week of Trevillo’s abandonment, armed with a stock load of brand named shit. I figured he told her to build me a new wardrobe with the most expensive pieces of fashion out there just to piss me off — another weak attempt to get me to leave.