Fixated On You (Torn Series #5) (17 page)

My arms let go of her limbs as I tried to come to terms with what was happening. It was a bitter fact to process, but it didn’t make it any less real. Nothing could ever change that.

Slowly getting up, I sniffed, but didn’t dry my eyes. What was the point? I was sure I was going to bawl harder when she left anyway. When our eyes finally met, Emma handed me the engagement ring that had taken me a long time to design because I’d wanted it to be beautiful; to be perfect, like how I saw her.

“Please, don’t insult me by giving that back. Keep it. I had that made for you—”

“No. I don’t want it… I don’t want anything that will remind me of you. Well, except for Gus. I want to keep him.”

She could have whatever she wanted. “If that’s what you want.” When my hand enclosed over the bauble, I felt my entire body slowly shut down. “I’m sorry for all the pain. I hope someone better will come along. Someone who will love you the way you should be loved because I fucked up on that one.”

Emma gave me a long look. “You did.”

For a second, the old Emma resurfaced; giving me a glimpse of the past before she completely reverted back to her full-on hatred of me. “Goodbye, Bass.”

“Goodbye,” I choked up, meeting her gaze, not caring that new tears were forming and freely falling off my face as I watched her walk away. She didn’t even give me a second glance before she closed the doors on me, though. The second I heard the click of the closed doors, I flinched in wretched pain. “Goodbye, moro mou.”
I’ll always love you
.

I was once again a crippled man. I felt like life was slowly sucking me out to a dark and scalding hot place as it suffocated me, diminishing any light or any glimmer of happiness that I’d once experienced with raw, unbridled excitement. Only one person could unman me. She was the only one who could put me back into that cold, barren dungeon.

My fingernails dug into the skin inside my palms before I bit my knuckles, hoping I’d bleed some more because I’d rather take the physical pain than this excruciating one; an open wound that will never heal.

“
Emma!
” I screamed into the empty house before crumbling against the wall. “Come back…” Tears fell as I whispered, knowing that deep down she was never going to look back. She was through with me. Her voice had held a finality that I had never heard her use before.

Wherever you are. Wherever you may be. You’re always going to be in my heart, ingrained there forever.

Our memories—her sweet laugh, that distinct intoxicating scent, the touch of her skin and the way she gazed at me, so full of yearning and love—I would always remember.

Chapter 19

Emma

It had been three days and I had been rotting in my bedroom. Apart from needing to walk Gus and feed him, I hadn’t really gone out to mingle around humanity.

Seeing Bass fall apart that way had traumatized me. Each night, that scene haunted my dreams, but no matter what, the only way I could keep my sanity was to cut him out of my life. Bass brought too many bad memories and heartache; it was messing with my life. It was changing me into an erratic woman; a woman I could barely recognize because I was in a state of constant paranoia.

It wasn’t a way to live. If I kept on going, I was going to lose my shit and wreak more havoc along the way. So I had been left with little choice. I had to cut the ties and let us both free. Maybe someday we could find another being to love the way we loved each other.

I loved Bass… Even now, my heart throbbed, hurting and aching because I knew—I could feel his pain—inside me, my heart bled for our lost future.

It couldn’t be helped, though. Somehow, he must have known this was going to happen. Somewhere along the way, I had begun dwindling away into a shell of a woman, always acting erratic and jealous whenever he was involved.

I was a jealous one, yes, but I wasn’t breathing in that orbit all day long. The moment I turned into a raging one, I knew something had to change. I think it was in between my hurling in the toilet when that epiphany had happened.

Heartache and losing Bass, though it hurt like no other, I managed to survive it. I could do it all over again if I had to. This—the crazy Emma persona—I couldn’t do. It was either I saved me or I saved our relationship. I loved myself enough to choose me.

It was selfish, yeah, but I had learned it the hard way. In fact, it was Bass who had showed and taught me that. After he broke my heart—after he told me to fuck off that night I came to see him inebriated—I had to learn how to live all over again. I crawled my way back up and start breathing again, even though I had wanted nothing more than to just curl up and die because life was dead without him in it.

Lindsey had to leave to see Dimitris a couple of days ago, so that saved me a great deal of peace without having to explain to her that, yes, I was fucking broken. Trista and Amber left for Hawaii that very same day. Those three wouldn’t have up and left me had they known the truth. Basically, I just told them that we were taking a few days off from talking to calm ourselves before we resumed talking again.

They were white lies, of course.

Deep inside, I did hope that Bass and I could possibly become friends or even something close to that. He was a great man, a great friend, and losing him felt like I had lost a limb—a major artery—knowing that I would never be the same, that I was going to bleed out without him. I’d rather risk that and try to patch myself together because, either way, I was bound to lose something vital.

“Emma?” A loud knock came from the door before it slowly creaked open. “Ems?” Carter asked again.

My back faced him, so it probably looked like I was sleeping. Honestly, I didn’t want to face anyone. I didn’t feel like doing senseless chitchat. Space and some downtime, those were all I sought at the moment.

“Baby, I got you some Double Double.” Carter sounded like he just placed the In-N-Out bag atop the table. The luscious smell permeated the air, attacking my senses, eating its way into my empty, acid-filled stomach.

He sat on the bed, making it dip with his weight, before I felt his arm touch the back of my neck. “Lindsey called and ordered me to bring you food.” He started massaging my neck, causing my eyes to close and enjoy his large hands unknotting my tensed muscles. “The last time you were this way… Bass no longer existed in your life. Is it safe to assume that you guys are done?”

Way to go, Carter. I had barely had the time to wrap my head around that Bass was gone and here he comes, barging in, only thinking about his own happiness. “Go away,” I mumbled, hoping he’d take the hint.

That was wishful thinking, it seemed, because the man stupidly gave me a chuckle. “I’m not going away, baby. Never again,” he vowed fiercely.

Great,
I thought, knowing what he meant by those words. After all, didn’t I make that stupid promise back in the day? About trying things out with him after things didn’t work out with Bass? Thinking about that made me even more depressed. The last thing I needed at the moment was thinking of being with Carter. I needed to breathe, cry some more and then more breathing. I needed to heal.

“I need to be alone, Carter. I can’t do this right now,” I begged, hoping he’d acquiesce and leave me
be.

Carter sighed loudly and then I felt him kiss my shoulder, then my neck. “I’m a phone call away. I’ll come by again to bring you dinner.” He got up and started walking away then paused mid-step, then sighed again, resuming to walk out of my room and out of the house.

I knew what he wanted, though seriously, what did he expect? A celebratory lunch? I was grateful, at least, that he didn’t press for anything. Because if he had, I wouldn’t have been sorry for lashing out at him.

~E~

Me:
I’m going for a trip. I need a break from everything around me. Can you take care of Gus for me for a little while? I’ll be back soon.

After an entire week of hibernation, I knew—even if I felt like I was going to burn in the sun like a vampire—I needed to join the rest of the human population. Weaving a great solution to my worries, I planned out ideas. Once I took a step out of the house, I knew it had been the right move.

Carter, of course, wasn’t in agreement to any of my decisions, but I had already made up my mind. I knew what I needed, even if the guy who was advising me not to go through with it was someone who had became a best friend of some sort.

Thirty-two hours later, I knew
who to call. “Linds, where are you?” I immediately asked the second she said the word
Hello
.

Faintly from the background, I could hear Dimitris whispering something to her, making some ruffling sound like the noise the sheets made when someone shifted around in bed. After half a minute, she came back to life. “We’re about to head to Monaco. What’s up, dollface?”

Even though I couldn’t see her, from her voice alone, I knew she was ecstatic, living her fairytale dream with the perfect man.

Nostalgia annihilated my senses, bringing all the pain back in a blink of an eye as it washed me with bittersweet memories of our time in Greece. It came in a quick flashback; from his laughter to the way he called my name. Suddenly, he was everywhere. I could hear him, calling for me, begging me to come back.

“Em?”

Wiping the tears away, I sniffed some sense back into my brain and focused on the call. Trying to sound like I wasn’t dying inside, I controlled my voice when I spoke. “Can I come see you? I’m around London.”

“
Fuck! Are you okay?
” she rushed out. “What the flying fuck are you doing in London!
Don’t you have a movie to shoot soon?
What about Bass? What the hell? What’s going on?”

That was typical Lindsey. “I just need to get away, you know.” I wasn’t intending to drop all the bombs over the phone.

“Of course, yeah. I’m here—we’re here. Come see us. But, Emma, you’re going to spill when you and I see each other.” Her voice held a determination as though she was about to crack the vault that held KFC’s secret recipes or something.

Damn, it was confession time. “Fine,” I conceded, knowing that I didn’t have much chance in keeping everything to myself when Lindsey was around. Honestly, I needed to be around one of my girls, or I’d lose any hope in trying not to be the next psych ward patient.

Dimitris was going to send transportation to get me to wherever they were located. Without those two, I didn’t know what I’d do at the moment.

Also, finding out that Jacques and the other two
lotharios were currently with them made me feel, for the very first time in days, like it was going to be a new start.

Sunshine.
Lots and lots of sunshine.

Chapter 20

Bass

Dimitris:
Emma is with us. Try not to worry so much. I’ll see if I can help. Be safe and keep yourself sane.

You see, I didn’t even tell anyone about our break-up. No. Not yet. I wasn’t ready for the questions.
The what, the why and the how. Yet, it seemed that Emma had already spoken about it to Lindsey, thus resulting in a worried, protective Dimitris texting me, hoping to ease my mind.

Once more, I was appreciative of friends like him. He was always on the lookout. These tokens of good deeds would come in handy one day when he needed favors. Because truly, this might seem like it was nothing to some, but to me, this proved a lot of loyalty. This also showed that he cared about Emma and I; that he supported us. He hadn’t been one of the people who were campaigning to break us apart. Good friends always had each other’s back, no matter what the
circumstances, that was the golden rule.

When pictures of Emma surfaced a few days ago, covering her face as she passed through some paparazzi into LAX airport with some atrocious headline along with it, I had thought the worst. The article was titled
Emma Anderson Couldn’t Handle Rejection Well And Had to Leave The County To Mend A Broken Heart
. Of course, after reading that and confirming with Barbara—who was both our agent—that she had left the country, I couldn’t help but start to worry as to where she was going.

Spin doctors, publicists and leaking “insider scoop” from reputable sources to the media hadn’t helped with Emma’s reputation; the public continued to perceive her as a “home wrecker”.

I had tried, spent thousands of dollars to turn it around closer to what was really true, and that Emma was the first, that she’d already had my heart before Nikki even came into the picture. No matter what I did, nothing seemed to work. Something was off. It was like the rest of the world thought Nikki Pavlova was this über sweet lady and Emma was the witch who had casted a spell on me with the use of her body, enticing me away from the Russian woman.

The world really was twisted. The innocent they liked to scrutinize, beating their confidence down with the use of the media, undermining their self-worth while the ones who had filthy intentions always seemed to get away, laughing their heads off. The media had turned into this modern-day, gargantuan,
Samson-like bully.

Back in the day, it used to be a tool to spread vital news
; ones that really mattered. From weather forecasts to a new virus outbreak, the media used to be our friend, before Y2K happened. Ever since then, Hollywood and their attention-seeking stars found the “golden Pandora” of the glitz and glamour of the social media, thus attracting the celebrity-obsessed bloggers and Hollywood-centered fanatics. The influence had spread like wildfire. Struggling photographers were hungry to make quick money so the amount of paparazzi quadrupled in the blink of an eye.