The Girl of Diamonds and Rust (The Half Shell Series Book 3) (27 page)

“What do you want?”

He runs his hand through his hair and then holds the black waves in the clutch of his fingers. He lets out a long exhale of breath. “Christ, I wish you’d read my letter. I don’t know how to say the things I have to say to your face.”

My brows shoot up. I’ve never heard Alan sound so anxious and unsure before. I feel a crack in the wall around my heart and I don’t want to.

“Then don’t say them. Whatever you think you need to say to me, Alan, don’t. I’m happy. I don’t want to hear it.”

He looks amused again. Amused
and
sad. His expression confuses me and I lower my gaze to focus on my hands resting in my lap.

“I don’t doubt you don’t want
this
any more than I want to be the one to do it to you,” he says quietly.

Oh no, what does that mean? Do what?

“I care about you, Chrissie. No matter what’s happened between us, I will always care about you. I would never want to hurt you. And I would never lie to you. You believe that, don’t you?”

My thoughts are spinning and I nod. I don’t know why, It’s crazy and I don’t even know why he’s here after all this time, but I do believe Alan. When he talks to me this way I know in the center of my being it is the truth.

“I will regret not calling you back last year as long as I live,” he says in a rough, desperate sort of way. “I’ve hurt you in inexcusable ways. I was angry. I was hurt. I behaved horribly to you, but not one time did I ignore you because I’d stopped loving you.”

I don’t look at him, and I stare hard into a vacant space in the pool house because I can feel myself weakening. If I look at him, I will fall to pieces.

“You’re the only person in my life that matters to me,” he says. “It’s why I’m here, Chrissie.”

I take in a deep, shuddering breath to steady me. “Only I’m not in your life, Alan. Not anymore. You shouldn’t have come here. It would have been better for us both if you hadn’t.”

“Better for me, yes. Better for you, no, love.”

I feel on the verge of tears and I don’t trust my voice to ask him what that one means.

“There is not a thing that happens in your life, a thing you do, that I don’t know about,” he says.

Everything starts to run frantic and loose inside me.

“I never meant for my anger to hurt you,” he continues. “If I had known before I would have stopped you.”

Oh no. Is that why he’s here? He knows about last April? How does he know?

I can’t breathe. I can’t feel my legs, I can’t feel my arms, but somehow my body rises from the chair and moves toward the door.

“It doesn’t matter, Alan. If you had called me I wouldn’t have changed my decision,” I whisper with more injury in my voice than I want to show. “I don’t want to talk about this with you. Not now. It’s too late.”

I’m almost to the door when he stops me. He whirls me around to face him. Those potent black eyes lock on mine directly and the lockbox breaks open. It all tumbles out. My hurt. My regrets. My love for him. In leveling waves, real and present and consuming me.

He takes my face in the palms of his hands. “Please, stop hurting yourself because you hate me. I can’t bear knowing that all this has happened because you hate me.”

I say it before I can stop myself. “I don’t hate you, Alan. I love you.”

“Then don’t marry Neil. It’s in all the trades. It’s why I came here today. Don’t marry Neil because you hate me. Don’t hurt yourself again because you hate me. I couldn’t live with that. I swallowed my pride to come here. I couldn’t let
you
hurt
you
again.”

He pulls me against him, surrounding me with his flesh, and he is trembling with his emotions, as frantic and despondent and in pain as I am.

I don’t know why I do it. Maybe it’s because this is goodbye. Maybe it’s because I want to stop this. Maybe it’s because Alan is crying.

I lean into him and join my mouth with his. His mouth moves on mine tentatively at first, only gentle contact. Then it deepens on its own, and I can feel it changing, that we are both changing what this is.

I pour all my hurt and heartbreak of the last year into our kiss, and it happens as it always did—the second I touch him, I am lost in him and we are lost in each other.

I shouldn’t do this…
And then the words in my head are silenced as Alan puts me on the bed.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

We lie together, not touching or kissing. Disconnected and yet really connected in that way we share and haven’t shared for too long for the both of us, I think. It is
us
. Connected in the disconnect. Sexually spent, emotionally messy and raging internally.

I turn in Alan’s arms so I can see him. His eyes are midnight black and guarded, and he is unnerved by what we just did, too. I can tell he didn’t intend this.
This
was not why he came to the party to see me.

My confusion and distress kicks up. No longer able to meet his gaze, I roll away and my eyes lock on my ring. My simple gold band on my left hand.

“I’ve got to go,” I whisper, barely able to push the words past the lump in my throat.

I pull from his arms, climb from the bed and gather my clothes. My shaking hands make feeble attempts at securing my clothing back into place. Why did I do this? How could I be unfaithful to Neil? What power does Alan have over me that I could forget everything good in my life just to screw him in the pool house? That in a flash, everything inside me is turned upside down. That the strongest impulse I can feel raging through my veins is to trash my marriage and go back to Alan?

Alan sits up and settles on the edge of the bed. There is something on his face that makes me anxious and afraid. The room fills with heavy silence.

“Stop dressing, Chrissie,” he whispers, his raspy voice with an edge again.

More heavy silence. I continue to move, dressing like I’m numb. The lump in my throat is strangling and I can’t look at him because if I do I won’t ever be able to say and do what I have to.

“I have to go, Alan.”

“I don’t want you to leave,” he whispers, his voice raw. He crosses the room, stopping my hands, stopping me. “You are not walking out that door until I’ve said everything I came here to say to you. Not this time, Chrissie. It is too important.”

“I love you,” I whisper, almost unable to push the words out of me. “I always will. But whatever you have to say to me doesn’t matter. Not anymore. Let it go, Alan.”

I lock gazes with his intense black stare. His face changes in a flash from passion-kissed to alarmed. “Doesn’t matter? What the fuck are you trying to tell me, Chrissie?”

I struggle not to drop my gaze. I step back from him and continue tidying my clothing.

He grabs my arms again. “What are you saying, Chrissie? Answer me.”

I twist out of his hold. I quickly step back. If I stay too close to him, I will crumble. I have to get out of this room and away from Alan.
Soon…or I will crumble…

Alan scrambles from the bed. “You are not leaving, Chrissie. I have not said everything I need to say to you. Baby, don’t go.”

I move to the door. My fingers tighten around the doorknob. “You’re too late, Alan. I’m married.”

The look on his face—
what am I seeing in his eyes?
—is not the reaction I expect to see and the way those black eyes stare at me catapults my world into a shaky, shadowy mess.

Quickly, before Alan can say anything else, I slip through the door.

There is no one on the patio and, while I’d rather run into the house and hide there, I hurry back to the party, desperate to get Neil away from here.

I spot Neil still sitting on the white couches where I left him. I cross the yard to him, unable to look up even though people occasionally speak to me as I pass.

I don’t wait for a break in conversation. “I want to go, Neil. I’d really appreciate it if we could leave now.”

He sets his drink down, and when he looks at me his eyes fill with alarm. “What’s wrong? Are you OK, Chrissie? What’s happened?”

The worry in his voice makes shame flood my veins and I can feel that I’m starting to shake. Damn, I just want to hold it together until I’m out of here. Then figure out
somehow
how to explain to Neil what I’ve done. Beg him for forgiveness. I don’t know. My thoughts are spinning out of control, and all I can think of is to get away from
here
.

My shaking intensifies and I can feel heavy stares on me and I know I must look more of a mess than I thought.

“Stay right here,” Neil says in an urgent and anxious way. “I’m going to tell Jack we’re leaving. Don’t move, Chrissie. Wait here.”

I stand there numb for a few minutes, but it feels like an eternity. Finally I see Neil cutting through the party guests back toward me.

He places a hand on the small of my back and starts guiding me across the lawn.

“What happened?” he asks. “Can you tell me that?”

I’m so ashamed.

“Not now, Neil. I promise I’ll tell you everything. Just not here. Not now.”

He shakes his head in aggravation. “Fuck, Chrissie, what is going on? You’re scaring me.”

I ignore him. I can’t talk. Not now. I’m going to break down if I do and I don’t want to do it surrounded by people. That would be even crueler than what I just did to Neil and our marriage.

We’re almost to the patio when Alan exits the pool house. The two men lock eyes, and Neil’s body goes rigid beside me.

I look up at him and I know with sinking dread that Neil has put the pieces together. He knows I was alone in the pool house with Alan and what happened is why I’m dragging him from the party now.

Panic overwhelms my senses and I feel him start to move away from me. Frantically, I lock my hands onto his arm to try to hold him back.

“What the fuck did you say to her?” Neil shouts, enraged.

Alan calmly arches a brow and locks simmering black eyes on green. “We didn’t get a chance to talk, if that’s what you’re worried about, Neil,” he snaps in a pointed and dismissive way.

The earth falls from beneath my feet. There is absolutely no way to misinterpret
that
statement. Not from Alan. Not with how he says it.

I try to keep hold of Neil, but my fingers lose their clutch on him. Before my anxious eyes, I see him shoot across the yard toward Alan.

“You asshole,” Neil hisses. “Do you have to fuck up every life around you? You stay away from her.”

My heart stills in my chest. I have never seen Neil look like this. Not in his most angry moments. Oh no, not like this. If there was a speck of doubt in me before today that Neil fucked up Andy as severely as the rumors claim, it died with what I see on his face. If he lets loose a punch it won’t end with one punch. He’s going to screw up his life again, only this time it will be my fault.

Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck.

I move quickly, trying to get to them before Neil hits Alan, and then, out of nowhere, Len Rowan appears between them, his hands planted on Neil’s chest. Even through my panic-dulled senses, I can tell by the motion around me and the stir in the air that everyone at the party is fully aware of this hideous confrontation.

“Settle down,” Len says, struggling for air as he quickly maneuvers to hold Neil back. “You don’t want to do this. Not here. Not now. You’ll fuck up your life. One punch. Everything you’ve worked for gone, over. Get it?”

Neil shoves him back, but it looks like some measure of control has returned to him. He is shaking with rage, raking a hand through his hair over and over again, but he’s not charging at Alan anymore.

“Would you please go?” I whisper anxiously, my eyes imploring Alan.

He looks at me and something in his gaze turns me ice cold. He starts walking away.

“I’m sorry, Chrissie,” he whispers as he passes me.

Neil erupts again, moving his body between me and Alan. “You don’t fucking speak to her. Not now. Not ever.”

Alan stops walking.
Oh shit. Neil, why didn’t you let him go?
I try to move between them again, but Neil won’t let me.

“How could you marry her?” Alan exclaims, his timbre carrying to the four corners of the yard without effort. “How the fuck do you live with yourself?”

Numb with disbelief, I frantically try to make sense of what I’m seeing in Alan’s eyes and hearing in his words, but before I can do either he turns to leave.

Then everything happens all at once, so quickly my mind can’t keep up: Neil grabbing Alan by the shoulder; whirling him around; the sound of his fist landing in Alan’s jaw; the explosion of flashes as the press runs toward us, cameras snapping pictures with each step; the shouted questions from every direction.

“You fucking stay away from her,” Neil growls, standing above Alan. “You don’t talk to her. You don’t try to see her. You stay the fuck away from my wife and from me.”

Stunned, I can’t find my words.

For some reason my gaze desperately moves to Alan and not Neil. Our eyes lock. Alan says nothing. He stares at me and my heart jumps into my throat. Why are those great black eyes so full of pity and anguish as they look at me?

Before I can make reason of it, Neil is dragging me to the house, shouting
no comment
with every step. Inside he pulls me with him to a bedroom, slams the door and locks it. I stare at him, afraid and unsure how to manage this.

His fingers drop away from my wrist and he moves to the bathroom.
Oh crap, he’s bleeding. What have I done?

“We should go to the hospital, Neil. You might have broken something.”

His jaw clenches and unclenches as he holds his hand under running water. After a few minutes he shuts the tap off and wraps his hand in a towel.

In the bathroom doorway, he stops, staring at me with eyes wild with pain and something else I’ve never before seen. The knot in my throat becomes strangling.

“I don’t ever want to talk about this,” he says with a quiet voice that makes me jump. “I don’t want to know what you did in there with him. Not ever.”