Convincing Alex (19 page)

 

Impatient and unsympathetic, Mikhail paced the floor of Alex's sparsely furnished apartment. “You don't answer your phone,” he was saying. “You don't return messages.” He kicked a discarded shirt aside. The apartment was a shambles. “Lucky for you I came instead of Mama. She'd box your ears for living like a pig.”

“I gave the staff the month off.” With the concentrated care of the
nearly drunk, Alex poured another glass of vodka from the half-empty bottle on the table.

“And drinking alone in the middle of the day.”

“So, join me.” Alex gestured carelessly toward the kitchen, where dishes were piled high. “Bound to be a clean glass somewhere.”

Mikhail washed one out before coming back to the table. He sat, poured. “What is this, Alexi?”

“Celebration. My day off.” Alex took a swallow and waited for the vodka to join the rest swimming through his system. “I caught the bad guy.” With a half laugh, he toasted himself. “And lost the girl.”

Mikhail drummed his fingers on the table as he drank. It was no less than he'd expected. “You fought with Bess?”

“Fought?” Lips pursed, Alex studied the clear, potent liquid in his glass. “I don't know that's the term, exactly. Found her with another man.”

Mikhail's glass froze halfway to his lips. “You're wrong.”

“Nope.” Alex reached for the bottle with an almost steady hand. “Walked in and found her lip-locked to this guy she used to be engaged to. Bess has this hobby of getting engaged.”

Mikhail merely shook his head. Something was not quite right with this picture. “Did you kill him?”

“Thought about it.” Before he drank again, Alex ran his tongue over his teeth. Good, he thought. They were nearly numb. The rest would follow. “Too damn bad I'm a cop.”

“What was her explanation?”

“Didn't give me one. Got pissed, is all.” He set the glass down so that he could use both hands to rub his face.

“Because you accused without trusting.”

“I didn't accuse,” Alex shot back, then pressed his fingers to his
burning eyes. “I didn't have to. What I didn't say was unforgivable. She tossed me out on my ear, but not before she told me she didn't love me anyway.”

“She lies.” Before Alex could lift his glass again, Mikhail grabbed his wrist. “I tell you, she lies. A few days ago she visited Rachel and the baby. I made her sit for me and sketched her while she talked of you. There's no mistaking what I saw in her eyes, Alexi. You're blind if you haven't seen it yourself.”

He had seen it, and the pain of remembering what he'd seen clawed through him so that he stumbled to his feet as if to escape it. “She falls in love easily.”

“So? There is love, and love. How many times have you taken the fall?”

“This is the first.”

“For this kind, yes. There were others.”

“They were different.”

“Ah.” Patient and amused, Mikhail held up a finger. “So it's okay for you to play with love until you find the truth, but it's not okay for Bess.”

“It's—” Put that way, it was tough to argue with. Especially when his head was reeling. “Damnit, I was jealous. I have a right to be jealous.”

“You have a right to make an ass of yourself, too.” Pleased, now that he knew it could be fixed, Mikhail kicked back and crossed his booted feet. “Did you?”

“Big-time.” Alex swayed, then sat down heavily. “I was going to ask her to marry me, Mik. I had the ring in my pocket and these stupid lilacs. I was scared to death she'd say yes. More scared that she'd say no.” He propped his spinning head in his hands. “What the hell was she doing kissing that son of a bitch?”

“Maybe if you had asked nicely, she would have told you.”

With a lopsided grin, Alex turned his bleary eyes on his brother. “Would you have asked nicely?”

“No, I would have broken his arms, maybe his legs, too. Then I would have asked.” With a sigh, Mikhail patted Alex's shoulder. “But that is me. You were always more impulsive.”

“We could go find him.” Alex considered and, warming to the idea, leaned over to give Mikhail a sloppy hug. “We'll go beat him up together. Like old times.”

“We'll try something different.” Rising, Mikhail hauled Alex to his feet.

“Where we going?”

“I'm going to put you in a cold shower until your head's clear.”

Alex staggered and linked an arm around his brother's neck. “What for?”

“So you can go find your woman and grovel.”

Unsure of his footing, Alex stared at the tilting floor. “I don't wanna grovel.”

“Yes, you do. It's best to get used to it before you marry her. I have more experience in this.”

“Oh, yeah?” Enjoying the idea of his big brother crawling at Sydney's feet, he grinned as Mikhail thrust him, fully clothed, into the shower. “Can I watch next time?”

“No.” With immense satisfaction, Mikhail turned the cold water on full and listened to his brother's pained shout bounce viciously on the tiles. “This is a very good start,” he decided.

“You son of a bitch.” They were both laughing when Alex grabbed Mikhail in a headlock and dragged him under the spray.

 

He was nearly sober by the time he walked into Bess's office, but he wasn't laughing. It was hard to laugh when your throat was thick with nerves.

He was going to be reasonable, he promised himself. They would discuss the entire matter like civilized adults. And if she didn't give him the right answers, he'd strangle her. He could always arrest himself afterward.

But he saw only Lori sitting at the keyboard, frantically typing. “I'll have the damn changes by six,” she called out. Her brow was furrowed in concentration as she glanced up. Her eyes frosted over.

“What the hell do you want?”

“I need to see Bess.”

“You're out of luck.” Nobody hurt her friend and got away with it. Nobody. “She's not here.”

“Where?”

She offered an anatomically impossible suggestion, offered it so coolly he nearly smiled. But it wasn't enough. She leapt up and slammed the door shut. Locked it. “Sit down, buster, I've got an earful for you.”

“Tell me where she is.”

“When hell freezes over. Do you know what you did to her?” She took the flat of her hand to push him back. “Why didn't you just cut out her heart and slice it into little pieces while you were at it?”

“What
I
did?” He jammed his hands into his pockets so he wouldn't shove her back. “I'm the one who walked in and found her snuggled up to that pretty-faced playwright.”

“You don't know what you found.”

“Then why don't you tell me?”

She'd die first. “You don't know her at all, do you? You didn't have a clue how lucky you were. She's the most loving, most generous, most unselfish person I've ever known. She'd have crawled through broken glass for you.” Afraid she'd do something violent if she didn't move, Lori began to pace. “I was so happy when she told me about you. I could see how much in love she was. Really in love. She wasn't just taking you under her wing until she could find someone for you.”

“Find someone for me?”

“What do you think she did with all those other men who were dazzled by her?” Lori tossed back. “Oh, she'd try to talk herself into being in love, and thinking they loved her back, and the whole time she'd listen to their problems like some den mother. Then she'd steer them in the direction of some woman she'd decided was perfect for them. She was usually right.”

“She was going to marry—”

“She was never going to marry anyone. Whenever she said yes, it was because she couldn't bear to hurt anyone's feelings. And, okay, because she always wanted to have someone she could count on. But however loyal, however sensitive, she is to other people's feelings, she's not stupid. She'd tell herself she was going to get married, then she'd go into overdrive finding the guy a substitute.”

“Substitute? Why—?” But Lori wasn't ready to let him get a word in.

“Not that she ever calculated it that way. But after you watched it happen a couple of times, you saw the pattern. But you…” She whirled back to him. “You broke the pattern. She needed you. You made her cry.” Angry tears glazed Lori's own eyes. “Not once did I ever see her cry over any man. She'd just slip seamlessly into the
my-pal-Bess category, and everyone was happy. But she's cried buckets over you.”

He felt sick, and small, and he was beginning to understand a great deal about groveling. “Tell me where she is. Please.”

“Why the hell should I?”

“I love her.”

She wanted to snarl at him for daring to say so, but she recognized the same misery in his eyes she'd seen in her friend's. “Charlie was—”

“No.” He shook his head quickly. “It doesn't matter.” What did matter was trust, and it was time he gave it. “I don't need to know. I just need her.”

With a sigh, Lori fingered the square-cut diamond on her left hand. Bess had pushed her into taking the right step with Steven. She could only hope she was doing the same in return. “If you hurt her again, Alex—”

“I won't.” Then he sighed. “I don't want to hurt her again, but I probably will.”

She weakened, because it was exactly the thing a man in love would say. “I sent her home. She wasn't in any shape to work.”

“Dyakuyu.”

“What?”

“Thanks.”

 

She hated feeling this way. The only way Bess could get from one day to then ext was by telling herself it would get better. It had to get better.

But she didn't believe it.

She hadn't had the heart to throw out the lilacs. She'd tried to. She'd even stood holding them over the trash can, weeping like a fool. But
the thought of parting with them had been too much. Now she tormented herself with the fragile scent whenever she came downstairs.

She thought about taking a trip—anywhere. She certainly had the vacation time coming, but it didn't seem fair to leave Lori in the lurch, especially since Lori had added wedding plans to her work load.

A lot of good she was doing Lori, or the show, this way, she thought. But the problems of the people in Millbrook seemed terribly petty when compared to hers. Too bad she couldn't write herself out of this one, she thought, as she stood in the kitchen, trying to talk herself into fixing something to eat.

Well, she'd certainly made the grade, Bess told herself, and pressed her fingers against her swollen eyes. She'd fallen in love and had her heart broken. Great research for the next troubled relationship she invented for the television audience.

The hell with food. She was going to go up to bed and will herself to sleep. Tomorrow she would find some way to put her life back together.

When she stepped out of the kitchen, what was left of her life shattered at her feet.

He was standing by the table, one hand brushing over the lilacs. All he did was look at her, turn his head and look, and she nearly crumpled to her knees.

“What are you doing here?” The pain made her voice razor-sharp.

“I still have my key.” He lowered his hand slowly. Her eyes were still puffy from her last bout of tears, and there were smudges of fatigue under them. Nothing that had been said to him, nothing he'd said to himself, had lashed more sharply.

“You didn't have to bring it by.” If composure was all she had left, she would cling to it. “You could have dropped it in the mail. But
thanks.” Her smile was so cold it hurt her jaw. “If that's all, I'm in a hurry. I was just on my way up to change before I go out.”

“You can't look at me when you lie.” He said it half to himself, remembering how her eyes had drifted away from his face when she said she didn't love him.

She forced her gaze back to his, held it steady. “What do you want, Alexi?”

“A great many things. Maybe too many things. But first, for you to forgive me.”

Her face crumpled at that. She put a hand up to cover it, knowing it was too late. “Leave me alone.”

“
Milaya,
let me—”

“Don't.” She cringed away, crossing her arms over herself in self-defense, and his hands stopped an inch away. There was an odd catch in his breath as he drew them back and let them fall to his sides.

“I won't touch you.” His voice was quiet and strained. “Please, let me say what I've come to say.”

“What else could there be?” She turned away. “I know what you think of me. You made that clear.”

“What I did was hurt you and make a fool of myself.”

“Oh, yes, you hurt me.” She was still trembling from it. “But not just that last time. You hurt me every time you pulled back when I needed to tell you how much I loved you. I thought, I won't let it matter, because he'll have to see it. God, he'll have to see it, because it's right there every time I look at him. Every time I think about him. And he loves me. He wants me. In my whole life, no one wanted me. Not really.”

“Bess.”

She jerked away from his hands. “My parents,” she began, turning
back. “How many times I heard them say to each other, ‘Where did she come from?' As if I was some stray pet that had wandered in by mistake.”

When she began to roam the room, her shoulders still hunched protectively, he said nothing. How could he tell her he was sorry he'd opened up old wounds, and sorry, as well, that it had taken that to have her reveal those smothered feelings to him?

“I handled it.” Those stiff shoulders jerked as she tried to shrug it off. “What else could I do? It wasn't their fault, really. They've always been so perfect, in their way, and I could never be. Not for them. Not even for you.”