Chapter Twelve

 

 

 

She exhaled a slow, deflating breath. “Yes.”

His jaw tightened and she could see his throat working as if he was having a hard time swallowing the information.

“I suppose you had people look into my story.” Of course he would. Alex was careful. Meticulous.

His eyes scanned the ocean, searching. “You weren’t exactly forthcoming. I needed confirmation that you weren’t a liar.” He clenched and unclenched his hands. “My father brought my things from school out of storage.”

Her lips curved downward. “And now that you know everything?”

He turned to glare at her. “How can I know everything? Anything? I don’t remember any of it! All there is are a handful of photos and a few notes…”

Maia fought to find her voice. “Most of the photos would have been on your phone.”

He choked back a wry laugh. “The one that got destroyed in the accident.”

She sighed. “The only number I had to contact you.”

Alex pressed his forehead against the glass a moment before he spun and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Did I know? I must have if my father was able to figure it out from my things…”

She nodded as she remembered the awed joy her news had brought to his face. The optimistic plans they’d made…

“And you thought I abandoned you and our child.” He dropped his head to hers. “No wonder you attacked me the way you did. I’d have done much worse.” As if he had just realized what he was doing, he dropped his hands from her shoulders and stepped back. His voice was choked as he said, “But no one has mentioned you having a child.”

Maia let her gaze fall from his as tears threatened to fill her eyes. “You weren’t the only one involved in an accident.” She would never forget how tired and sick she had been for the first couple of months, then he’d disappeared. Two months of worry on top of the pregnancy had taken its toll on her. On the fateful day, Maia had passed out and fallen down a flight of stairs. She had been nearly four months along at the time. “I wasn’t as careful as I should have been. I didn’t take care of myself and paid the price for it.”

“Mon Dieu,” he muttered. Alex sounded utterly devastated as he gripped her to him. “You suffered so much alone.”

“It was a long time ago.” Maybe for her, but she could see the pain he was in. For him it had to be as though he’d just taken a knife in the chest.

“And I can remember nothing of it! Nothing of us!” Alex let Maia go and prowled a line between her and the window. “The things I accused you of being. How will you forgive any of it?”

“This is why I didn’t want you to find out. It’s in the past. There’s nothing you can do about it now.”

His burning gaze pinned her. “How can you be so forgiving?”

“It obviously didn’t come overnight.” Maia stepped in his path and cupped his cheeks with her hands, making sure that he looked her in the eyes. “It wasn’t your fault. I understand that now and so should you.”

“I’m so sorry.” Alex closed his eyes briefly before opening them to search hers. “Will you tell me everything about our time together?”

The thought of having to walk him through what they’d had like he was an innocent bystander made her chest ache. “Can you answer a question first?”

“Anything.”

“I tried for months to contact you after you left. To find out why you hadn’t come back. To find out if you were okay.” She stopped when her breath hitched. Back then, the fear that he’d abandoned her was almost as bad as the thought of him lying dead in a gutter somewhere. “But I couldn’t find you. It wasn’t until I got here that I learned that you had given me a fake last name. Why would you do that? Why lie to me?”

He took her hands and pulled her over to the couch. This time, however, he didn’t drag her onto his lap but he kept hold of her hands as they sat. “Growing up with my name…was hard. The Girard name has been both a blessing and a curse. The money opened no end of doors, but I felt as if I was being coddled because of my father—because of my name.” Alex caught her eyes with a glance. “I wanted to go to school abroad where no one knew who I was. I’d wanted that for as long as I could remember.”

“But why not tell me once we’d gotten serious?”

He shook his head sadly. “I don’t know. I would guess that I planned to. I was probably about to. Once I knew that you loved me for me and not for my wealth or connections.” Alex lifted his head to look at her questioningly.

“I did.” She’d loved him more than she thought she was capable of loving anyone.

“But not anymore.”

Maia wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She was falling for him again, of that she was sure. But they were both very different people now. Who knew if they would able to make things work? Should they even try? Perhaps this was better off as closure to a bad phase of her life. Something that she should enjoy for now then just move on. She had become so bad at gauging relationships that she couldn’t say what was going on between them.

“That’s so unfair. We’ve only just become reacquainted. And until now, you didn’t even truly believe I was telling you the truth.” And that hurt. She’d hated him for a very long time. But knowing that hate was based on a misconception… It changed everything. But even a place like this and fantastic sex with the one man who she’d ever truly loved wouldn’t erase the pain that quickly. In her mind, they might as well be starting from square one.

He regarded her silently.

Because she already knew the answer was no, Maia asked, “Do you love me?” Alex clenched his jaw, but no reply was forthcoming. Just as she’d expected. “Then you can’t expect me to be able to say that I love you, can you?”

Point proven, she sat back a little. The fantasy vacation was truly over.

Alex wasn’t happy to let her shift away and took her hand in his, keeping her from moving too far out of reach. “I know that I’m not ready for this to end.”

She wasn’t either. But were they deluding themselves? “Maybe we should take things a little slower.”

He frowned but he nodded, taking his hand back. “If that’s what you wish.”

Maia noted the way his face blanked and the light in his eyes faded a little. “You’ve just had a huge bombshell dropped on you.”

His eyes narrowed. “Don’t pin this on me. I know what I can handle. If you want to turn tail and run, just say so.”

Irked by his words as much as the truth behind them, she sighed. “I’m not running. I just need a little space.”

“Very well.” He stood and regarded her grimly.

She followed him and got to her feet but stepped in his path when he tried to walk past her. “Alex. We both need a minute. You can’t be fine after hearing all that and discussing it brings back some bad memories. It was a very dark time for me. You understand that, don’t you?”

He glowered at her. “Of course I do. I’m not a monster.”

“Then could you please just take a moment and breathe?”

“There are so many unanswered questions.” He took her hands and stared her straight in the eyes. “I dislike not knowing. I hate that I wasn’t there for you. I hate myself for not being able to remember. You are the only one who can answer most of my questions.”

Maia couldn’t say no to that. She just wished there was a way to show him everything without having to be the one to tell him. “Then ask.”

“How can I when you shut down at the slightest provocation?”

“All I said was that I needed a minute. Besides…” Maia tightened her grip on his hands. “Everything is out in the open now. So if you have something to say, to ask, just do it.”

Alex scrubbed his hand over his face. “I don’t want to do it like this. Come.”

Maia stayed rooted to the spot. “Come where?”

He tugged on their linked hands. “Will you just humor me?”

She hesitated only a fraction of a second before allowing him to lead her to the boxes. He silently pulled out the candles and the prepared meals. The food was quickly laid out on the coffee table, then he lit the candles one by one.

“Please sit.” He pulled out a bottle of wine and deftly uncorked it, pouring her glass first, then his own. “That’s better.”

Was it? She sat and lifted the lid to the meal. It was simple, a crisp salad and chilled chicken, but it was their proposed topic of conversation that left her cold. Still, with the lit candles, it looked wonderful.

Alex sat and picked up his glass. He sat silently watching her a moment before taking a long drink. “I don’t want to bring back bad memories. The last thing I want to do is hurt you more. But could you please tell me how we met?”

Maia remembered it well. The memory brought a small smile to her lips. “I actually tripped and fell into you. I burned you with my coffee.”

“So you throwing drinks at me has been ongoing since the beginning.” Alex chuckled.

Heat crept into her cheeks. “Well, that time, it was an accident. I was nervous about the first week at the university. It was the first time I was away from my home and family.”

He smiled sympathetically. “So how did I react?”

“You were really nice, actually. Even offered to buy me another coffee.” That had turned into their first coffee date of many. “I agreed only when you let me pay for your dry cleaning. That cost a bit more than I was expecting. I had to skip lunch for a week.”

Alex shook his head. “I wouldn’t have let you do that had I’d known.”

Maia knew that. He wasn’t one to let people suffer if he could help. “It was a point of pride for me. I ruined your shirt. I was going to fix it.”

They ate silently for a little while. Maia figured Alex was slowly assimilating the information, spreading out his questions so she wouldn’t get too upset. She wasn’t sure if it was better to slowly let the feelings back in with the memories or to tell him everything in one fell swoop and deal with the fallout afterward. But she complied. It was great to finally let everything out.

Talking it out with him allowed her to remember all the good times they’d had. The fun that their younger selves could afford that seemed silly now. It put a smile on her face recalling just how young and in love they had been. Up until his disappearance, what they’d had was good.

 

* * * *

 

By the time they finished the last of the wine, Maia had told him about their first year together. Alex listened intently, asking questions every now and then. But for the most part he sat silently and absorbed everything she told him, processing it.

Maia followed his lead when he started clearing up the plates. They stayed silent up until he started wiping the tabletop, and she couldn’t take it any longer.

Maia delicately tugged the cloth from his hands and dropped it to the table then took his hands and tugged on them until he looked at her. “What are you thinking?”

He looked at her with sad eyes and sighed heavily. “That if it wasn’t for my accident we would have really had a chance at happily ever after.”

Maia’s stomach churned with his words. She didn’t want to think about what ifs. “Can you tell me what happened to you?”

“It’s only fair.” He led her over to the couch. But instead of sitting, he got down on his knees in front of her. He smirked wryly when she hesitated a little. “I want you to feel this.” Taking her hand, he pressed it to the back of his head to follow a jagged scar that ran up nearly to his right temple.

She traced the horrific reminder of his accident that had been hidden beneath his hair. Maia had no idea it had been that bad. “Oh, my God.” Tears welled up in her eyes as she let her fingers travel up and down the raised line.

“So you understand just how terrible the accident was.” He kept hold of her hand when he sat next to her. “You remember I returned home because my mother was ill.” He continued when she nodded. “She passed away not too long after I arrived.”

Maia clutched his hand. “I’m so sorry.”

His lips tilted in a small smile of thanks. “I have no recollection of the accident or much leading up to it. Father tells me that the night it happened I’d taken off full of sadness and rage and with nowhere to channel it. I hadn’t had anything to drink. I was just blinded by anger and helplessness. From the police reports, it seemed I tried to take a corner too fast. And since the corner was on the side of a cliff…”

Her breath hitched. It was a miracle he was alive.

“If I had taken just a little care… If I hadn’t been such an idiot… Things would have turned out very differently.”

She let go of his hands to cup his cheeks and turn his face toward her. “It’s not your fault.”

“It feels like it.”

“Can’t we just leave it up to fate? It might have torn us apart, but we’ve managed to find each other again. What matters is what we do with the time we have now.”

Alex’s gaze flickered down to her lips before catching her eyes again. “Something I intend to make the most of.”

And he kissed her.