The Perfect Plans Series [Box Set] (72 page)

“Oh goodie, I didn’t miss the show,” Julia saunters up the hallway, resuming her position against the wall.

“Can the circus really start without the dancing bear?” I reply with sarcastic hatred.

“Oh, sweetie, you mean the elephant, don’t you? And the elephant in the room is you, dear, Aby. I do enjoy seeing Alex torn to bits every time you cut his heart to pieces,” she rolls her eyes, busying herself with her phone.

“I would never intentionally hurt Alex,” I retort, despite the pang from the memory of running away from him. She snickers, but says nothing. “The question is, Julia, what are
you
planning on doing tonight to hurt him? Are you finally going to grab those balls you hide under your skirt and be honest with him? Because if that’s the case, I think that would be a good thing, he deserves the truth for once.”

“Well, look at you throwing stones from your little glass shack. You’re going to learn a lesson tonight, princess. A lesson at the expense of Alex’s pain.” She hasn’t even glanced up towards me; ignoring me, despite her words, as she flips through the phone in her hand. “I warned you. You don’t have a clue what it takes to live in his world.”

His world? Whore.
“Right, of course…”
Ugh,
I spin away from her in frustration. I’m starting to realize that Julia-sucks-Cox is more fitting in a role as the Riddler than a porn star fluff. Or maybe both.
Oh, yes…
She could pull off a show.
‘Tittle me this’.

Shit. Pull yourself together, Aby.
Sleep deprivation. Guilt. Fear. I’m a lethal combination of shit storms. I need to snap out of it, for Alex. He’s going to need me when he comes out of that room. At least I pray that’s what he’s going to need…or want. Either way, continuing an excruciating bitch-banter with the Queen “B” is not going to help me get through this.

Taking a seat, I take a deep breath at the thought of what I’m about to witness, or aide in, as I notice Alex making his way up the hall towards us. He looks more than pissed. Either it didn’t go well with Ben, or he’s about to continue his questioning of me where he left off.
Shit
.

To my surprise, he walks directly to Julia. “You are one fucked up bitch. Why would you let me think it was Ben? Why the hell would you play out that charade?”

Pasting on the eerily warm smile of a Stepford Wife, Julia touches his arm gently, “Alex, are you sure this is something you want to know the answer to? Some things are better left alone.”

Flinching at her touch, he jerks his arm away, the coldness of it blowing towards me like an arctic wind. “Enough fucking games,” his tone is firm and much too elevated.

“Jesus Christ, Alex,” she whispers, turning quickly towards the nurse’s station, their avid gazes now upon us. “Is there somewhere we can go to talk privately?” she asks them, smiling.

Nodding, a nurse motions for us to follow her down the hall.

“After you,” Alex sneers to Julia, grabbing my arm to pull me from the chair, dragging me along with him. I struggle to keep up.

“You have to understand,” she begins as soon as we’re behind the closed door of the empty room, “…this is not something I ever wanted to discuss, Alex. I need to ask, please, let this go.”

“Do you have any fucking idea how much I want to let this go?” he snarls. “I honestly don’t give a shit
who
you
fucked
, Julia. I don’t relish the fucking sordid details of your cheating ass story. But to lie and say it was
Ben
? My best friend!”

I’m surprised to see Julia flinch - an eerily odd momentary blip of her stone demeanor.

“Don’t you see? This is all on the table - the past pulled out for discussion - all because of her,” she motions towards me as though I were a pile of garbage ready to be put out on the curb. “Ben never outright said he was with me,
she
made that assumption. And to that end, I too, never offered confirmation myself.”

“Ben didn’t deny it! And neither did you!” I argue in desperation.
I’m so fucked
.

Ignoring my presence completely, Alex continues as though I’ve said nothing. “I swear to God, Julia, if you don’t stop dancing around this bullshit…”

“Yes!” she exclaims, interrupting him. “This
is
bullshit. Bullshit we’ve all moved past. Leave it there, Alex.”

“Fuck you. We could have done just that the day I confronted you. You had the opportunity right then and there to correct the implication.”

Julia’s wall of composure instantly crumbles before our eyes, her gaze suddenly crazed with her own recognition, and I, too, see why. She’s just realized that her split second decision to run with the Ben lie has now blown up in her face. Had she just denied it, told him outright that it wasn’t Ben, that I’d been mistaken, Alex would never have asked her to delve further. He never wanted to know the details. Her rash choice led us down this path. It’s a dead end, and there’s no turning back.
Who has to lay in their own bed now, bitch?

“I’m losing my patience, Julia,” Alex growls at her lack of reply. “Why didn’t you fucking deny it?”

She flinches at his harshness, her brave mask no longer a shield, her stone cold demeanor replaced with a contorted gaze of dread and panic. Though, when she looks towards me, I catch a glimpse of the underlying contempt. It’s an eerie sight to see, to witness this woman fighting an obvious inner battle of strength against…compassion? At least that’s what I
think
I see when she looks back to Alex.

“This is my career…
your
career. This should have stayed in the past,” she looks towards me once more.

“God dammit, what are you talking about?” Alex grabs her arms to force her gaze. “
Why didn’t you deny being with Ben
?” Staring into her eyes, his jaw clenches in the silence.

“I saw an opportunity and I took it,” she finally mumbles, almost incoherently. “It was a chance to fill a gap in the story…”

“Just fucking tell me why you lied!” he spits, a slight shake of her in his hold.

“Because I didn’t cheat on you!”

What?

Alex recoils, his body renouncing her proximity with a sudden release of her arms, a step backwards akin to the jolt of a magnetic rejection.

Julia’s hand darts to her mouth as though the admission burned her lips.

What the hell is she saying?
My gaze ricochets between them, torn between Alex’s confused torture and Julia’s twisted battle for composure. You can visibly see the wheels turning so palpably through her desperate mind. I don’t understand it. The woman that warned me that
I
would be the one to learn a painful lesson if this all came out, is now burning in an agonizing fire of her own.

“I didn’t mean…I…” she’s grasping, frantically searching for her mask of control.

I barely recognize the woman standing before me. It’s not the Julia I’ve come to know. She’s suddenly fragile, her soft, almost caring tone foreign to my ears. And the way she’s looking at Alex, there’s suddenly something there that I’ve never seen before. And it scares me.

“You didn’t cheat on me?”

I look towards Alex at his question; spoken with such bewildered calm it sends shivers down my spine.

“Why? Why, Julia? What are you saying?” his anger builds with every word released. “You told me yourself…you told me you cheated on me!”

“Alex, they knew…they knew you’d purchased an engagement ring,” she looks down momentarily, before returning to his gaze. “They…”

“Who?” The word is thrown from his lips on a gutted breath.

“The agency. They said it wasn’t good for your career…not the right time. I was ordered to put my job, your career, ahead of…us. They gave me no choice, Alex! I
had
to end it! I knew you wouldn’t let me go…not unless I gave you reason. Not unless I-I broke your heart.”

Alex stumbles a little, his eyes bulging beneath the enormous strain of his twisted brows. I can’t pull my gaze from him, fighting to hold strength in my own legs against the dizzying pull of the air around me.

“You knew I was going to propose to you?” he asks her, the question slashing through me to reveal the pain she foretold.

“Once they told me, yes. They showed me the photographs of you at the jewelry boutique…”

“Photographs? How did they get…That wasn’t released in the media.”

“They have their own photographers, Alex. You pay them to look out for your career.”

“My career, NOT my personal life!”

“Your image is your career,” her statement is filled with pain. Her own pain.
Oh, God.
She still loves him. She never stopped loving him…

“And you? You ended it, left me…to save
your
career?”

“No! I did it for you! Alex, you have to understand…” she pleads, reaching out to him.

Turning away from her in disgust, he opens the door with enough force to shake it on its hinges, storming out into the hallway.

I bolt to follow him as Julia grabs my arm.

“Are you happy now?” she spews with a lethal cocktail of venom and pain.

Wrenching myself free from her grip, I run to catch up with him.

“Alex,” I call out him as he slams the button for the elevator.

He says nothing as I reach his side, the doors opening in the ghostly silence of the empty vestibule. Stepping inside, he bangs the panel to take us to the ground floor.

Instinctively, I reach for his arm, his flinching shake of me sending a ripple of painful terror down my core. “I’m so sorry…”

“Don’t,” he barks, staring straight ahead. “My best friend could have fucking died. And you,” he turns his crazed gaze towards me, “…you are no different then her...” he trails off, battling with his emotions. I know he’s lashing out at me in pain.

Closing my eyes, I try to fight my guilt. My fear. I’m trembling inside, knowing the role I’ve played in his hurt right now. Not telling him what Julia said about Ben using drugs, regardless if I thought she was lying, forcing Julia’s hand with the cheating scandal.
My God
. I’ve reopened a wound. A wound so deep, its depth of pain so clearly shared between the two of them that I feel I’m falling into its black hole. She still loves him.
Does he still love her?

The elevator doors are barely open before Alex bursts through, heading straight for the front entrance as I follow, my pace to keep up heavy and painful.

“There they are!”

“Alexander!” The camera flashes explode through the evening dusk in a blinding storm.

“Is it true that Benedict Arnold overdosed?”

“Mr. Tate! Mr. Tate! Was it an attempted suicide?”

Alex grabs my arm, forcefully ushering us through the throng of paparazzi to reach his car.

“Did you know that Mr. Arnold was an addict, Mr. Tate?”

Flinching at the question, Alex glares at me, his eyes screaming his unspoken answer,
No, I didn’t know because you didn’t fucking tell me
. He releases his hold of me with a slight shove; so slight it’s masked to those around us, yet enough to slash through my heart.

“Does it have anything to do with your bar brawl last month?” the man in nearest proximity calls out.

Alex turns, slamming his fist at the camera. The damage is minimal, though stirs a cluster of reactive comments. He doesn’t bother opening my door as he usually does, making his way around to the driver’s side.

“Alex…” I begin in the privacy of the vehicle.

“Don’t say another fucking word right now,” he orders, not looking at me. The rage in his face is unfathomable. I’ve never seen him this angry. NEVER.

He screeches the tires pulling out into the road. I’m amazed we aren’t pulled over by police, as he races through the streets. I’m almost afraid to ask where we’re going before I realize he’s heading in the direction of my flat.

After a whirlwind of Nascar-like maneuvers, amid dread-filled slow passing time, he pulls the car up at the curb. For moments, he sits calmly, and I open my mouth to speak, praying he’ll at least talk to me…

“Get the fuck out, Aby,” he orders with venomous spit, still withholding his gaze.

“What?”

I’m shocked at the anger in his eyes as he turns his head to face me. No longer baby blue, they’re a stormy sapphire, burning with a rage I couldn’t imagine he could emit. “I said, get the fuck out of my car.”

“No!” I spurt mechanically, shaking my head, trying to understand what he’s saying, scrambling to find more words of my own.

With an annoyed sigh, he abruptly removes his seatbelt to get out of the car before making his way to my door. Flinging it open, he reaches in swiftly to release my belt, aggressively pulling me out by the arm.

“Alex, you’re hurting me,” I attempt to twist from his grip to no avail as he pulls me aside to slam the door shut.

Grabbing my other arm, he pins me against the vehicle. “Hurting you?” he questions incredulously, his face nose-to-nose with mine, “I thought you liked a little alter-ego play?” Maneuvering quickly, he takes both of my wrists in his one large hand, his other free to grope my behind before sliding his way up to my neck.

How the hell can I be trembling in fear and lust in the same moment?
I’m petrified. Yet so filled with love and sexual yearning, my head is spinning.

Grabbing my chin, he firmly turns my face to the side, his lips brushing my ear. “Your fucking lying is what hurt you. Not me,” he whispers huskily. “And I’m not going to stick around to let you hurt
me
one more time.”

I gasp as he releases me and pulls away, gravity suddenly pulling my entire being as I strain to remain upright.

Adrenaline kicks into gear as he makes his way back around to the driver’s side, and I race after him. “Alex, wait! Don’t do this. We need to talk!” I scream, reaching him.

“I don’t have anything else to say. And I think you’ve had enough time to say anything and everything you should have,” he opens the car door.

I frantically continue pleading, “Alex, please, let me explain…”

Slamming it once more with the palm of his hand, he turns towards me, “What is there to explain? You promised you would never lie to me again. Remember? Right after you promised you wouldn’t leave me, but did anyway.”