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Alexa
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The elevator opens, I don’t bother looking up from the report I’m highlighting the errors in. Jenny hadn’t done the best on her latest report, and it’s all my fault. At least that was the note on it when I found it on my desk when I came in this morning. Leo didn’t mention it last night, if there is one good thing about Leo and this fucked up relationship we have, it’s that he doesn’t talk about work or try and keep me on the clock when we aren’t at work. That feels like the only good thing right now.
Okay, I know I’m exaggerating considering how awesome the sex is. Then there’s the way when we’re together he makes me feel so damn sexy, like I’m the only woman in the world he wants or has ever wanted or will ever want. But he’s still doing it, he’s still trying to keep me at a distance, separate from any part of his life.
He hasn’t touched me at work since that day of the photo shoot. I don’t understand what the hell is going on with him. After that first amazing day of him telling me that I mattered to him, this is really confusing the shit out of me. Something about the day of the photo shoot spooked him because he’s been different ever since.
That night we went back to the damn room, I hate that room. At the time I was still on a high from how awesome the day was to care. Back in the room, he demanded a real-life modeling session in the lingerie. In the first outfit, his cock was hard. In the second outfit, he pulled off his suit jacket and tie. By the third outfit, his shirt was gone. Once I was in the third sheer baby doll, he began to stroke his cock as he watched me. I understood why he liked watching me touch myself, it was sexy as fuck. I was on my knees, but he said no he wanted to see more. By the sixth outfit, I couldn’t move as I watched him stroke his cock until he came. I cleaned him up with my mouth then he carried me to the bed where we spent hours making love.
I fell asleep in his arms, certain everything was going to be okay. Leo wanted to get past his anger and resentment, so he would. Then in the early hours of the night I woke up, to find he was gone. All I can think is he regrets that day. What he regrets I have no idea.
Tomorrow is my stupid book party. I’m miserable because I don’t know if he’s coming. Before the photo shoot, I would have thought it was a given. Now, I don’t know. It pisses me off just how much I’ll hate it if he doesn’t come. I try to stop thinking about it because a headache is building at the base of my skull.
He leaves for lunch with Victoria without a word. With a sigh, I give in. The headache isn’t going away, it’s only getting worse. I call and ask Jenny if she’s willing to fill in for me, I have a migraine. I can’t stay. She’s happy to. I don’t wait for her. I chicken out and don’t email or text Leo.
***
Leo
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Victoria is already seated when I arrive at Tesoros. “Leo, smile, dear you are looking ferocious today. It’s far too beautiful a day for you to be gloomy.”
“I apologize, I simply have much on my mind. Alexa’s book launch is tomorrow. You will be there.”
Her laughter fills the air. “Ah, Leo I do so miss this every day. As much as I would be delighted to attend her launch, Vincent and I will be at the cabin this weekend. My daughter is punishing the grandkids by sending them to us for a weekend without a television, computer, or internet. It will be lovely, I can hardly wait.”
Abashed at my high-handedness. “My apologies again. I know how much you treasure your time with your grandchildren and the joy you take in your time at the cabin.”
“Enough of the contrite Leandros Kaplan, it’s unsettling. You are not quite yourself today. Talk to me, my dear. I won’t tell a soul, I promise.”
I am saved by the arrival of the waitress. Once we place our order I search for another topic to turn to, so how I say what I do, I am not quite sure. “I do not know if I can ever get past the lie. I want to leave it in the past yet at the strangest moments I remember, and I cannot let go of my anger over it.”
“I adore you, Leo, you know that. I say this with love, quit bullshitting yourself. You knew she was lying about being married. The girl is one of the worst liars I have ever met. You let go of the anger you had at me when I admitted I knew she was lying, why can’t you let go of the anger you have with her?
“I’ll tell you. You’re looking for a reason to keep her from getting too close. Only, my dear Leo, it isn’t working. You knew she was lying too, I refuse to believe you didn’t. Maybe during her interview, she was able to get it passed you, but I do not for a moment believe she made it through that first week without you figuring it out.
“You knew something was up, but you didn’t get rid of her for the same reason you still cannot leave her. You and Alexa belong together and not for some stupid sixty days you usually do, until the end of time.”
No, I shake my head searching for the words to refute her accusation. Yet the memories come tumbling back. During the interview, she talked about living off the money saved for her to live on while she wrote. The ways she stumbled whenever I asked her about her husband. Then the dinner we shared, her memories never included a man. More importantly the complete lack of awareness of her own appeal that had shown her as the virgin I saw and disregarded. Alexa was completely blind to our sexual chemistry, the heat between us so hot it ended up burning us both.
“Yes, Leo. It isn’t nearly as bad as you think it will be. But I’m telling you right now you will not leave her twisting in the wind for too much longer. She deserves to know you care for her. Vincent and I do love a Christmas wedding, it’s when we were married. Six months from now would be a perfect amount of time, the planning won’t take long at all. None of this waiting a year for a wedding business. You’ve been waiting to find Alexa for far too long to waste any time.”
As I put Victoria in a car to drive her home, I am still shaking my head at her words. A wedding, married, me and Alexa, forever. How could she know it was something I have wondered about since the night of the photo shoot? Leaving Alexa after we made love that night was something I was unable to do until she fell asleep. It spooked me how right it felt, how content I was holding her, how much I did not want to leave her. The very thought chased me out of bed and up to my condo.
While I undressed, I found the memory card from Graham. I could not wait until the next morning, hell it was already close to three in the morning. Plugging in the card once I pulled it up with every picture, I craved Alexa more and more. I could not take my eyes off her, I did not even want to blink. Her face shined with emotion, her eyes bright and glittering like sapphires.
Towards the end, she was growing freer with her smiles, her teasing, her enticement through the lens. Until there were only three pictures left. Alexa without a bra, her glorious breasts proudly displayed bare to me. I shuddered then and there in disbelief. In the next photo she is completely naked, her head back her eyes glowing. It was there, in that moment captured by the camera, I wonder if she knew. The last photo was perfection. Alexa looked sated, her eyes sleepy, her body soft. Fuck.
I dropped my laptop without being aware I did it. What had I done? Why had I done it? I have never wanted pictures of a woman before. What was the point? It was not as if Alexa were ever going to get away from me, she was mine, she gave herself to me. I was never going to give her up. The realization crashed into me, I did not want to give Alexa up, not in a month, not in a year, not ever. She was mine, forever. What was forever? Marriage, children, a house in the suburbs, a cat, suddenly everything I believed I would never have was a possibility. It terrified me by how much it did not terrify me.
Once my driver lets me know we are back at the office, I attempt to shake off my inner turmoil. It lasts for six minutes until the elevator opens on Jenny instead of Alexa.
***
Alexa
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When I get home, Felix is surprisingly happy to see me. He’s even nice and cuddles with me when I lay down. The migraine I had used as an excuse has arrived in full. My right eye is throbbing in time with my heartbeat. I’m falling asleep when my phone rings. It’s Leo. “What?”
The idiot sounds surprised. “Jenny told me you left with a migraine. How come you did not call to tell me?”
Because I hate you right now. Because I can’t lie to you anymore. Because loving you is tearing me apart. “Because I was in pain. I’m not really in the mood to talk to you right now.”
“Why the fuck not?”
For a genius billionaire, he can be so stupid. Shit, the pain in my eye is pounding. “Leo, I’m seriously in pain here. I’ll talk to you later.” I hang up and roll over. Felix meows at me as he kneads my stomach. “Yeah, I know.”
Only minutes after I close my eyes I fall asleep.
The sound of the toilet flushing then water running nudges me out of the sleep, I’m drifting in and out of.
“Go away, psycho.”
I shoot up in bed. What the hell? “Leo?”
“I told you, you were going to wake her up,” Leo mutters before he nudges the door to my room open. “Hey, sorry your cat is psychotic. I came by to check on you. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
I’m so confused. Leo is here? Of his own free will, because he was worried about me? “What time is it? How did you get in? Did I leave my keys in the door again?”
“Eight-thirty. I forgot to give you back those spare keys you gave me to have the clothes delivered. Do you make a habit of leaving the keys in the door?”
Sitting up, I can’t hold back my groan. Although the worst of the pain is gone, there’s still a lingering hangover from the migraine. This sucks. I haven’t had one in a while. I ignore his question. “I need a shower.”
Oddly shy, I close the doors to the bathroom and set the temperature as hot as I can take it. I would love to have a long soak but I’m starving, so I settle for a shower.
Out of the shower, I grab a pretty slip I’ve fallen in love with how soft and silky it is. I’m not expecting Leo to still be here. I’m having a hard time believing he’s here at all. He’s on the couch with his laptop and a thick report he’s marking up. Felix is on the back of the couch ready to pounce on him. “How are you feeling?”
I shrug. “I could be better. I’ll be fine by tomorrow. What are you doing here?”
He looks surprised by my question. “I was concerned about you. You sounded like you were in a lot of pain. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Running my hand through my hair, I’m off balance. “How long have you been here?”
“Since about six. I brought dinner for you. Are you hungry?” My stomach growls loudly answering the question for me. He laughs. “Sit, I’ll warm it up for you.”
I’m not sure what’s going on, right now I’m feeling too fragile to figure it out. I curl into the corner of the couch, Felix lands on my legs, meowing his thoughts on the intruder. “I know but he has food, so he gets to stay,” Felix answers me with kneading my thighs but not like earlier when we took a nap, he has his claws out. “Leo, in the last drawer next to the fridge can you bring one of the little puzzle like balls in here?”
Leo pads toward me and I realize he’s shoeless and in jeans and a black tee shirt. I blink as my mind tries to make sense of what is happening. He offers me a ball. “What is it?”
“It’s a catnip toy. The plastic in the middle has catnip in it.” The minute Felix spots it in Leo’s hand he stops kneading me. He sits up alert when I let him smell it. When I toss it away, he takes off after it. The microwave starts beeping that it’s done. “It smells good. What is it?”
“Porters again. They did not have the roasted red potatoes though tonight. These are mashed baby gold with bacon and cheese. I hope it’s okay.”
I blush at the way my stomach growls again as he hands it to me with a steak knife and fork. “It’s fine. I’d be ecstatic over a grilled cheese right now.” Folding my legs in, I set the cardboard box on the seat in the middle and cut into it. Leo sits down carefully at the other end of the couch. The steak melts in my mouth, perfection. “This is amazing. Thank you.”
“You are welcome. Do you get migraines often?”
“It’s been a while.” These potatoes are making me reconsider my usual roasted red potatoes.
“What brought it on now?”
My neck tightens. I roll my neck. “Stress, Leo. The book launch party thing tomorrow, you blowing hot and cold, the fact that people are going to be asking about my next book. The book that’s sitting there lifeless, and I have no idea what to do about it. Stress. Can you please let me eat in peace?”
His eyes narrow but he doesn’t say whatever he was about to. He gets up and walks out to the balcony. I want to call him back and say I’m sorry. Only I’m just not ready to deal with him, I’m still feeling soft and defenseless. I eat quickly then regret it as my stomach protests.
I’m in the kitchen grabbing a bottle of water when Leo comes back in. He’s angry, surprise. When he sees me, he stops, reaches out and pulls me into his arms.
“I’m sorry. I’m not blowing hot and cold with any intention. I need a little more time to come to terms with my feelings, yet I can’t stay away from you while I do that.”
Damn him, he has feelings, at least he’s admitting he has them. I sink into him loving the scent of him, the feel of him around me. He picks me up and walks me back to the couch. Carefully, he sits and settles me into his lap. I give in and lay my head on his shoulder. Leo’s hand strokes my back slowly, there’s no desire in his touch, just comfort. “What is the book you’re writing, or rather not writing now about?”
He says it in Italian, I melt into him. It’s the first time since the dinner we shared he’s said a word to me in Italian. I love how it feels more intimate, he is speaking just to me, only for me.
When I reply in Italian Felix stops playing with his ball and comes to investigate me. “One of the Medici daughters is trying to get out of an arranged marriage. She’s tired of being a pawn. She gets involved in some bad business that could buy her freedom from her family.”
“Hmm...sounds interesting. Why are you having problems?”
I sigh. “I took the job, and I was so stressed. I know it’s verboten to speak of, but damn Leo, you don’t know how much I hated lying to you.” I feel Leo tense beneath me. “It was everything I never thought I would do. Every day I was sure you would find out. Every other day I was sure I would screw up and say something. Then Natalie stopped talking to me, it felt like I was just stuck in misery.
“The words wouldn’t come. With everything perfect it’s hard to get the words out. To find the right words, to feel for the characters so much I can write well enough to get the reader to as well. Then I barely have time now between work and you. On the weekends, I’ve been trying but it stopped, it won’t come. I’ve written and deleted almost twenty thousand words.”
Leo’s hand starts moving again, slow, and gentle. “Do you think you will set it aside to work on something else or keep trying?”
Felix is bored with me and goes back to his catnip toy. I sigh. “I don’t know. I do have another story I want to write. It’s set in Venice, though. Before I sit down to write it I want to go to Venice to get a feel for the city.”
“You really never thought about being a writer? It was really just the plaque that compelled you to write?”
“So, you were listening to the interview?”
“Yes, and I read the one in the Guardian. I have also read all your books. They are written so well and are engrossing it does not seem like the kind of thing written by someone on a whim.”
Happiness bubbles inside me at Leo’s compliment. He not only took the time to read my books but liked them, screw being on the bestseller list, this feels a thousand times better.
“Hmm, I don’t know, maybe it was that writing never seemed like an option. My mom wanted me to be a teacher, my dad wanted me to be happy, and sometimes I wanted to be a librarian. Then when I got older as great as the me being happy thing went it made it harder to figure out what paid the bills while making me happy.
“I looked into becoming a librarian, and it was years of school for a crappy salary. The guidance counselor pushed me into business classes, and I went. I always did love to read but I never even thought seriously about writing. I did the short stories in school, and it was fun but a lot of work for fun. Then came having to worry about bills and taking care of my dad.”
Leo’s hand runs up the back of my thigh then stops before he covers my ass.
I can’t stop from pressing against his touch.
“No, not tonight you have a headache.” His voice rumbles in my ear.
I laugh. “Am I not allowed to be the one to say that?”
With a rough hand, he squeezes my ass then pulls me tight against him. “Not when I know it is not the right thing for you. For something you didn’t plan, you did it very well.”
“The one good thing I had going for me was all the reading I had already been doing my whole life. Most stories follow a blueprint of act one this happens it builds to act two and then it’s all downhill in act three. I got happy and excited when I started to get lost in writing the story, I wasn’t expecting that. It was almost as good as getting lost in another writer’s story entirely. That was when I thought I might have nailed it.”
He nods to the bookcase beside the television. “I get the getting lost in books thing. Did your dad really let you read Stephen King when you were just a kid?”
“It was more like he didn’t tell me not to read it. I’m glad he didn’t. There was something very freeing about reading horror confined to a book. I could close it and walk away, the way I couldn’t with my mom dying in front of me. My parents didn’t shield us, there was no mommy will get better pipe dream.”
Leo’s hand tightens around my ass then slides down the back of my thigh. “Did that make it better or worse, not having any hope?”
“I don’t know. They did what they thought was right, there was no guidebook to follow. My mom thought it was best for my oldest sister, Giulia. Giulia was born with Downs Syndrome, mom was her everything. It was to prepare her for mom not being there. Except it didn’t work...she just kind of gave up after mom died. It wasn’t even a year after that she died.”
“Damn, sweetheart, I’m sorry. All that loss back to back.” He hugs me close.
“Mm, it didn’t stop there though. Valentina, my older sister, the middle one, she changed. As far as she was concerned it was all dad’s fault mom died then Giulia. She got really mean and bitter. Then the week she turned eighteen when I was only fifteen she ran away. My dad, it hit him really hard. For a while, he did the zombie thing just getting through the day. I got a little wild, skipping school, getting drunk, smoking pot, anything to get his attention. It finally worked, dad got super strict and mean.
“Then just when we were getting back to a new kind of normal, he got sick. It was hard. It was a crazy kind of best of times, worst of times thing. Dad, he was trying to cram decades into months for after he was gone. It didn’t end up being quite as short of a time as the doctors said, instead of six months we got two years.
“We spent weeks in the kitchen, with him teaching me how to cook, days in the garage with him teaching me how to change a tire, my oil, my brakes, sometimes I feel like I should buy a car just so I can do everything he taught me.”
Leo hugs me tight, “I cannot imagine how hard it was to take care of someone knowing they were going to die.”
I shrug. “I was just doing what needed to be done. He took care of everyone, he deserved to have someone take care of him in the end. Dad was so annoyed I wasn’t going to school. He made me promise after he died I’d go right to school. He went on and on about the insurance he got after mom died because they didn’t have insurance on her and it was really hard for him afterward. I hated going to school after he died but it gave me some sanity having somewhere to go, instead of trying to find a new job. Considering I lost my waitressing job in the last few weeks before dad died because I kept missing shifts.”
“Fuck, that’s tough.”
I don’t want to talk about me anymore. “Mm, tougher than growing up with a physically and mentally abusive grandmother? It wasn’t easy to get through, I survived. At least I had kindness and love growing up.”
“You do not miss what you never had. I think you said it best.”
“You had your brother for a little while.”
He stiffens. “Yes.” I don’t think he’s going to say anything then he sighs. “David was the only port of sane in my fucked-up life. I lived for the weekends he picked me up, and we did normal things, spoke English ate hamburgers and hot dogs instead of the Greek food Agatha shoved down my throat.
“A dozen times I asked if I could come live with him. He said I had to stay with Agatha. I hated him for that. Then when he died, I hated him for dying. It was not until a year, or so after he died, I understood he was gay. He had spoken to his lawyer about getting custody when I was around five, the first time he realized Agatha was abusive. She swore she would never let me go and would bring up the gay thing. At the time there was no guarantee he would get custody. Although he was out, he was just starting his business and was not sure his company would not suffer from the negative publicity.”
“I’m sorry. Why wouldn’t Agatha give you up if she didn’t want you or care about you?”
“Money, it was always about the money. She received thirty-two thousand dollars a month in support for me. Then there was the house she lived in, it was owned by me, purchased by the trust for me. As far as she was concerned, she earned the money, as payment for the life of her daughter.”
“That’s awful.”
Shrugging, he squeezes me. “It was a long time ago.”
He doesn’t say anything. Shit. I search desperately for a way to keep him talking. “Are you coming tomorrow?”
Damn it, he stiffens again. I hadn’t meant to ask him.
“You don’t have to come. I was just wondering.”
His hand goes into my hair and tugs it back to look down at me. “Do you truly doubt I would be there?” He’s back to English as if he needs to know there is no misunderstanding. He sees the answer. His eyes close, when they open regret is there, and something else I can’t define. “I will be there. I will pick you up here at five.”
“Okay.”
With a sigh, he lets me go as he sets me in the middle of the couch. “I better get going.”
“You can stay,” I whisper, not wanting him to leave. Leo shakes his head. I hate the way I grab his hand. “Please.”
He pulls me back into his arms, his hold so tight I can barely breathe. There’s no talking this time, just his heart thumping loudly beneath my ear. I’m not sure when I slip into sleep. When I wake up it’s to Felix walking on my head. I turn over to find I’m in bed. The clock says it’s a little after one in the morning. Telling myself to stay in bed I get up. I’m not surprised, just sad to find Leo gone. My chest thumps painfully to find the keys he had used on the kitchen counter.