His Heart's Revenge (49th Floor Novels) (16 page)

But he couldn’t let himself have this. He couldn’t let himself want it. He stiffened in Cary’s embrace, summoning the brittleness. Cary must have felt the change because he retracted his arms and said, simply, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” Alexander said. “I can’t…be what you want.” His throat was thick. It was hard to get the words out. “I don’t…have it in me.”

And then Cary’s hands were on his face, brushing away tears. He made himself remain still, forced himself to let it happen. Cary pressed his lips against Alexander’s cheek, chastely. “I know,” he said sadly.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Cary woke up first. He was cold, he was sore, and his heart was broken. He thought it had been broken before, but that had been a mere preview of what was to come. The strange thing was, his heart was still, simultaneously, filled with love and concern for Alex, whose head was resting on Cary’s chest as he slept. He saw now that Alex would never let himself get close to anyone. Cary wasn’t flattering himself that it should be him, but to live an entire life, fundamentally alone? It gutted him to imagine it.

He wanted to touch Alex’s skin, to brush his hair away from his face. His fingers positively itched in their desire to do so.

But he didn’t have that right, did he? Alex didn’t belong to him. He’d made that very clear last night, even as he had struggled for the exact words to use. Alex didn’t belong to anyone.

Alex stirred in his arms. It was all Cary could do not to hold him tight, to beg him to reconsider. Knowing this was the last time he would ever touch Alex Evangelista? He had to look up at the sky and blink a few times.

“Good morning,” Cary said gently, as Alex lifted his head from Cary’s chest, got his bearings, and then pulled away sharply.

“Everything’s all weird, I know,” Cary went on. “I made things weird, but I had to say my piece.”

Alex nodded, wincing as he tried to rotate his ankle.

Cary steeled himself. “So let’s make an agreement. Let’s go back there and finish this stupid competition for Liu.” He moved to kneel at Alex’s feet as he spoke.

“So…” Alex leaned back against the tree and allowed Cary to examine the still-swollen ankle. “We’re back to may the best man win?”

“Yes,” Cary agreed. “But for real this time.
Really
for real. We’ve each done the best we can. Liu picks who he picks.”

“And then?” Alex prompted.

“And then it’s over,” Cary said, forcing himself to look into Alex’s eyes.

Cary’s stomach dropped when, for a second, it looked like Alex was going to object. But all he said was, “All right, then.” Holding on to the tree, he got his good leg under him and somehow scrambled to standing. “Let’s go, then.”

Annoyance sparked in Cary’s chest, which was good. It was better than this wretched heartbreak. “Are you insane?”

“It doesn’t hurt as bad as it did last night.”

Cary clenched his jaw. “You stay here. I’ll hike out and send help.”

“No.”

God damn him.

“All right, then,” Cary said, not caring about his peevish tone. He reached over, and with a grunt, hoisted Alex into his arms.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Calm down. I’m just going to carry you as far as the path.” Their makeshift camp was a few meters off the path, and its uneven terrain was covered with tree roots and rocks. The last thing they needed was for Alex to sustain a new injury.

“Put me down.”

“Relax. Your masculine pride will survive, if only because you’re too damned big for me to carry the whole way.”

…

Fuck. Fuck his useless ankle. Fuck Cary and his chivalry. Fuck this whole fucking fucked-up situation.

And most of all? Fuck the fact that Alexander wanted nothing more than to let himself sag against Cary’s comforting, solid mass. To let himself literally be carried. What the hell had
happened
to him?

He struggled in Cary’s arms.

“Just a bit longer, sweetie.”

There was an edge in Cary’s sarcastic words. Good. Maybe if Cary the Standup Guy went away, it would be easier to get through the rest of this train wreck of a trip.

He had to swallow a cry of pain when Cary set him down on the trail proper.

“You’re going to have to lean on me, at least,” Cary said.

“Like hell,” Alexander shot back.

“Hey!” Cary got right in Alexander’s face. “I abandoned you once before, and I’m not doing it again. I realize you hate me, but you’re just going to have to suck it up and let me help you. And if you don’t, I’m going to break your other leg so I can leave you here and go get the cavalry.”

Alexander blinked. He couldn’t have been more stunned if Cary had punched him. So he nodded and slung an arm around Cary’s shoulders, leaning heavily into his solid mass.

They set off. It was slow going, but they got into a rhythm that didn’t cause him too much pain.

They didn’t speak. Except for the brief phone call Cary made to the park service once they were in cell range, they spent the whole two hours it took them to return in silence. Until Alexander broke it—he had to—just as they approached the clearing that heralded the end of their journey.

“I don’t
hate
you.” He whispered it, holding it back purposely for the last second before the Lius saw them, so Cary couldn’t respond. He didn’t want to get into it, but since this was good-bye, it needed to be said.

“You’re back!” said Don, relief visible on his face as he looked up from where he was having breakfast with Linda and a man Alexander didn’t recognize.

“Alexander!” said Linda. “Thank God!” Her expression dimmed when she moved her attention to Cary.

Alexander could feel a chill coming from Linda. What had happened to her crush on him? Something was wrong.

“What’s happened?” Cary said, voicing Alexander’s question.

Linda frowned. “This is my brother Peter. He arrived first thing this morning.”

Peter Liu rose from where he’d been sitting at the fire, his arm extended. “You must be Alexander Evangelista? So happy to meet you.” Then he looked at Cary and his face darkened. He didn’t offer his hand. “I rushed here this morning because I didn’t want my father to make any decisions without all the relevant information.”

Linda said, “My brother brought some very interesting documents.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

No.

Alexander’s stomach bottomed out as that word ripped through him over and over.

No, no, no.

Everything felt like it was happening in slow motion, but at the same time, it was happening way too fast.

“There’s been a mistake,” he tried to say, but his voice shriveled in his throat when he caught sight of Cary, who was the only one standing still, being silent, in the melee that had exploded around him as Peter waved the court documents around, Linda exclaimed about a certain standard of professionalism they expected from all their collaborators, and Don paced, shaking his head.

Through it all, Cary just looked at him, his eyes devoid of their usual emotion. It was the same empty look he’d seen in them that night when Cary had first come to his place unexpectedly. Like then, Alexander had the sense that Cary was slipping away from him, that the real Cary was being subsumed behind a curated facade of indifference. Last time, he’d responded by kissing Cary, by devouring him in the hallway outside his condo. This time was worse, and not only because he couldn’t grab Cary and kiss the warmth back into his eyes. He didn’t have the right to touch Cary at all, much less kiss him. This was probably the last time they would ever speak. The thought nearly took his breath away.

“You did this,” Cary said in a low voice.

He wasn’t going to lie, so he nodded. “I did, but it was a mistake. I made a mistake.” He raised his voice as he spoke, hoping that he could somehow get the warmth back into Cary’s eyes by speaking the truth.

Cary turned away, not even willing to listen to what Alexander had to say, and could anyone blame him? “It’s true,” he said to the group. “I was sued for sexual harassment. It was unfounded.” His voice was loud, strong, and clear.

“And we’re just supposed to take your word for that?” Linda asked.

“Of course you can’t,” Cary said. “All I can do is tell you what happened. I had an employee who kept making passes at me. When telling him to stop repeatedly didn’t work, I told him if it happened again, I’d have to fire him.” Alexander admired the way Cary made eye contact with everyone in the group as he calmly offered his explanation—the explanation Alex had known all along, in his heart, must exist. “He twisted that around, said I was blackmailing him. He sued me and my family’s company. I wanted to go to trial, but my uncle, who was the head of the firm, forced a settlement. Which came with a gag rule I am now in violation of by telling you this.”

“I’m sorry,” Alexander began, his voice shaky where Cary’s had been confident. He would explain everything. He could salvage the competition for Liu, if not…everything else.

But Cary help up a hand. “I
told
you not to talk.”

The betrayal in Cary’s voice nearly undid Alexander, but he tried again. “This is my fault,” he said, looking around to the group, not quite sure if he was directing the apology to the Lius or to Cary. “I can’t tell you how sorry—”

“No,
I’m
sorry,” Cary said. “Nothing is ever going to be enough for you, is it?” He shook his head sadly. “I can’t believe I ever entertained the notion that I could possibly be enough for you when there’s money to be made. Wars to be won.”

Alexander barely registered the sounds of people approaching from the direction of the cars. He was too preoccupied watching his world end as Cary turned toward the Lius and said, “I thank you so much for the opportunity to get to know you better, but I think you’ll be happiest with Dominion Bank. I wish you the best.”

“Alexander Evangelista?” A man dressed in ranger gear emerged into their clearing. “We’ve got an ambulance waiting for you out in the parking lot. The medics are right behind me with a stretcher.”

“Just a minute,” Alexander said, fear overtaking him. What if he couldn’t set this right? What if—

“Good-bye,” said Cary, directing the words to no one in particular as he turned and started walking away from the site.

“Wait—” He started after Cary but tripped suddenly as the truth hit him. The realization was like a wave, engulfing him so completely that there was no way he could turn from it.

He loved Cary. He fucking loved Cary. More than money, more than the Liu account, more than his gilded life. More than
anything
.

He doubled over, a physical pain in his gut making him feel like he was going to retch. He had to do something. He had to—

“I can’t,” Cary said, cutting off the ill-formed protest that was mustering in Alexander’s mind. “I can’t.” He was still walking as he spoke.

And he kept walking, right out of the campsite, leaving everything behind—his tent, his backpack, the Liu account.

And Alexander. He left Alexander. And Alexander’s wretched, worthless, broken heart.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Here you are!”

Cary stifled a groan as Rose strode into his office. He had been ignoring her texts, and he’d foolishly thought he would be safe, at seven on a Sunday morning, in the office. Didn’t newlyweds laze about on Sunday mornings doing crossword puzzles, arguing about where to go for brunch, and having straight-people sex that he didn’t want to think about?

“You said we could go to the Outdoors Expo!”

Cary refrained from banging his head against his desk, but only just. He had indeed promised to take his cousin’s wife to the Outdoors Expo. She, lover of high heels and creature comforts, had recently developed the idea that camping was somehow “romantic,” and was bent on acquiring the necessary accoutrements. He had tried to steer her toward a big-box store, but leave it to Rose to make buying a tent into an event. She’d texted a few days ago, asking him to take her to the Outdoors Expo, and he’d agreed. But that was before he’d had his own personal outdoors disaster.

“You can’t hide in your office all the time, Cary.”

The thing was, he could. Somehow, his office was where he’d ended up after he’d driven back to the city. His apartment was full of memories. Full of Alex. He couldn’t be in the kitchen without thinking of the time Alex had gone down on him there. He couldn’t walk through his fucking front door without the full-body memory of Alex, pressing against him as he unlocked it, whispering his sexy threats. Maybe it was that his apartment was so small, but it didn’t feel like any part of it was safe, neutral territory. Perhaps if he lived in a giant penthouse like Alex, he wouldn’t be having this trouble. Hell, there were whole rooms he hadn’t even seen at Alex’s place.

But he knew that wasn’t true. He could live in the Taj Mahal, and it wouldn’t make any difference. Even the office wasn’t really working. It was just that here, he at least was more immediately confronted with the mountain of work he had to do. He’d allowed himself to get distracted these recent weeks, to waver from what had always been his plan: a slow, steady, determined building of his client base and his business. If there was one silver lining in the whole Alex Evangelista train wreck, it was that it had reminded him he had agency. Just as he had done with his uncle, he could walk away from situations that weren’t serving him. He wasn’t doomed to play the role that had been assigned him, whether it was obedient nephew or defensive, combative entrepreneur blustering about false accusations because winning was the most important thing. He could do things his own way.

“Chop, chop,” Rose said, clapping her hands.

“We can get everything you need at Mountain Equipment Co-op in less than an hour,” he said, though he knew it was futile.

“Yes, but it’s a beautiful day!”

“All the more reason not to spend it inside the convention center,” he parried.

“Come on!” She grabbed his arm and fell back so that all her weight was pulling on him, effectively pitting them against one another in a tug of war. “Don’t you want to hear about the honeymoon?” He was about to assure her that, no, he most decidedly did not want to hear about the honeymoon when she added, “We’ll go to brunch after!”

What was it with straight people and brunch? “Tempting,” he said, pitching his tone to convey the exact opposite. “But I can’t. I lost that Liu account, and I spent so much time on it”—and on other things that he wouldn’t mention—“that I let other work pile up. I’m up to my eyeballs.”

“Please?” she whined.

“Rose, it’s not like you’re going to go camping this coming weekend, so can we just postpone the shopping until—”

“I bought a tent for Marcus!” she yelled.

“What?” She was being extra weird today.

“For a wedding present. I have to pick it up at the Expo. I need you to come with to make sure I’m not getting ripped off! We’ll just run in really quick. Pretty please?”

He sighed. Better to just get it over with. If Rose had her sights fixed on something, it was infinitely easier to just go along with it. And, hell, maybe a dose of Rose’s brand of insanity would help him snap out of his funk. “Okay. But no brunch.”

“I’ll just drop you here and go park and meet you inside,” Rose said as she pulled up in front of the downtown Toronto convention center. “The tent is in…hang on.” She picked up her phone and checked something. “Exhibit Hall B. The show isn’t quite open yet, but they said I could come by and get the tent. You go make sure it’s okay and that I’m not getting ripped off, and I’ll meet you there.” She grinned. “Then we’ll go to brunch.”

Cary sighed as he levered himself out of the car. Leave it to Rose to talk her way into the show early. Could she just buy a tent like a normal person? No. Why was he even asking himself that? Rose was a lot of things, but normal wasn’t one of them.

The exhibit hall was unlocked but, as far as he could tell, deserted. He pushed open the door and took a moment to let his eyes adjust as there was only dim overhead lighting, which would no doubt be turned up when the show started for the day. The cavernous space was lined with booths hawking everything from hiking boots to camping stoves, to, yes, tents. How the hell was he supposed to find Rose’s vendor? “Hello?” he called, making his way toward the center of the space, which appeared to be filled with sample tents, punctuated by the occasional artificial tree, looking a bit like a fake, deserted Boy Scouts’ jamboree.

“Over here,” called a voice from the other side of the line of tents, and Cary froze. No. He was imagining things. He shook his head and made his way around the row of tents just as the lights in the exhibit hall went from dim to non-existent.

No, that wasn’t right. There was a light source up ahead, in front of a tent in the middle of the display. It was…a campfire? Well, it was one of those metal fire pit things that people used in their backyards or on their decks. It was at the center of a little domestic woodsy display—a tent, some fake laundry hanging on a line strung between two fake trees. It was—

“The best I could do.”

Cary inhaled sharply. No. He was
not
doing this. Fury surged through him.

“Because I didn’t think I had a chance in hell of luring you back out to the wilds.” Alex struggled to stand. “And there was also the part where I can’t really walk.”

“Look at you,” Cary said, momentarily distracted from his anger by the sight of invincible Alexander Evangelista leaning on a pair of crutches. “Is it broken?”

“Hairline fracture,” Alex said.

“Oh, God. We shouldn’t have walked out. I’m sorry.” Guilt prickled at Cary, but he shoved it away. He needed to hold on to the anger. He was done making himself vulnerable when it came to Alex.

“It’s not your fault,” Alex said, hobbling a little closer. “None of it was your fault.”

Cary was tempted to agree, but that would just prolong this encounter, and he had a cousin-in-law to
murder
. So he turned, or tried to, but Alex was faster than he was, sticking a crutch into Cary’s path and blocking his way.

“Will you just hear me out?”

Cary tried desperately to hold onto the anger that had been there just a moment ago. He would even settle for annoyance. But he couldn’t manage anything except…defeat. “There’s nothing you can say that—”

“I love you.”

Cary blinked, stunned.

Alex took his crutch back and kept his eyes on Cary as he maneuvered himself closer, not stopping until he was right in Cary’s face. “Or how about this? There’s more to life than money.” He took a deep breath in, and it sounded a little shaky coming out. He smiled a crooked, self-deprecating smile. “I’m still working on that one. I mean, I
know
it’s true here”—he tapped his forehead—“but twenty years of bad habits are hard to break.”

“Alex, I…” Cary trailed off, not sure what to say. Not sure what to feel. Well, he knew what he felt—wild, irrational, all-consuming
hope
. But was he setting himself up to be duped again?

“But that other thing,” Alex pressed on. “The thing where I love you? I don’t need to work on that at all because I know it’s true
here
.” Alex laid one hand on his heart, and, balancing his crutches under his armpits, slowly extended the other to Cary. “Will you sit down and hear me out?

Cary could only nod. Maybe he was being foolish, naive. Maybe everything his uncle always said was true, when push came to shove. But he couldn’t
not
take that hand when it was offered to him. He just couldn’t. And more importantly, he didn’t
want
to be the kind of person who could turn away from something like this.

Alex led them to the fire pit. There was a blanket laid out on the fake grass next to it, and Cary smiled to see a pair of skewers and s’mores ingredients laid out on a small table nearby. Alex lowered himself to sit on the turf and set aside his crutches. But he didn’t stop at sitting. He lay all the way back, and then he patted the ground next to him, seeming to indicate that he wanted Cary to lie down, too. When Cary hesitated—foolishness was one thing, abject foolishness another—Alex said, “I want to tell you how it should have gone.” Then he stretched out fully, rested his head back on his clasped hands, and smiled up at the ceiling. “There are all these shooting stars, see…”

Well, shit. Cary took the bait. But when he lay down, he said, “I don’t know, all I see is duct work.”

“The sky is full of shooting stars. It seems impossible. The whole night seems impossible. It’s like a fairy tale, and not just because of the stars, because it ends with the boy I love kissing me.”

Cary exhaled a shaky exhale, and Alex rolled over on his side, though there was still a good foot of space between them.

“And then they had a disagreement.”

“It was more than a disagreement,” Cary said, needing to name the truth.

“What would you call it?” Alex asked, his voice gentle.

“I’d say one boy betrayed the other.” He huffed a bitter laugh. “And then the second boy got his revenge.”

Alex smiled. “Well, whatever you call it, here’s what should have happened. They should have been brave. They should have had it out. And then they should have made up. Because everything…” His voice cracked, and hearing the anguish in it just about broke Cary. “Everything would have been different, then.”

“You think?”

“Yes. The first boy wouldn’t have taken twenty years to learn that substituting money for happiness doesn’t actually work.”

Cary saw then how much pain Alex had been carrying around all these years, and it almost took his breath away.

Alex continued. “He would have realized that throwing away a chance at love for something as fleeting as money or as empty as revenge was a supremely stupid move.”

Cary reached a hand out, intending to touch Alex’s face, but Alex flinched and leaned out of Cary’s reach.

“I need you to know two more things.”

Cary took his hand back.

“First, I did have that letter sent, way back at the beginning, when I…thought I hated you. When I thought winning was worth any price. I regretted it. I tried to undo it, and I thought I had a way to intercept it, but…I was wrong. I really did come around to wanting the competition over Liu to be fair.”

“He was always going to choose you, anyway,” Cary said.

Alex grinned. “He didn’t. He went with Evergreen.”

Cary raised his eyebrows. “Damn. After all that?”

“Can you really blame him?”

Cary laughed. “You mean billionaires don’t actually want their money guys to act like drama-obsessed teenagers?”

Alex’s eyes filled with tears. “How can you be so good?”

Cary shrugged, embarrassed. “I’m not sure making childish jokes in a situation like this counts as good.”

“You were never childish. To be able to let something go like you did, walking away from the Liu account, walking away from your uncle—hell, not fucking punching my lights out right now—that’s not
childish
. That’s what a confident man does. He has his priorities in line, and he acts on them.”

“I guess some things are more important than money,” Cary said. “I’ve always believed that despite the fact that my job was to make piles of it.”

“Which is why I quit the bank—that’s the second thing.”

“You
what
?”

“I’m going to teachers’ college. Well, eventually. I told the board I’d stay until we could map out a succession plan. So I’m probably stuck for a while, and it doesn’t look like most of the universities I’ve looked into take kindly to transferring twenty-year-old credits, so I basically have to start over with a new undergrad degree, but—”

“Wait.
What
?”

Alex laughed at the interruption. “Yeah, well, I went into banking to make money. I think I have enough of that now, so—”

Alex did not laugh at the next interruption because Cary made sure he couldn’t. He grabbed Alex’s shirt, hauled him over, and came home to that mouth he loved so well, letting the happy electricity race through him when Alex opened for him and moaned softly. After a few seconds of increasingly frantic kissing, Alex broke the kiss and pressed his forehead against Cary’s. “I missed you so much.”

“It’s only been a day,” Cary teased, taking the opportunity to tug Alex’s shirt from his jeans and slide his hands up, skin to skin.

“No,” Alex said sharply, drawing Cary’s attention. Then he framed Cary’s face with his hands. “It’s only been twenty years.”

It was Cary’s turn to moan, then, as hands and fingers and mouths tangled and touched, caressed and licked. It took only a moment for that bone-deep lust that only Alex inspired to take hold. He had to have more of Alex, more of his skin, more of his mouth, more.

The lights flicked on.

“Fuck,” Alex muttered, pulling away from him. “We were supposed to be out of here by 8:30 when they come in to set up.”

It took everything he had for Cary to take his hands off Alex. “How did you ever manage this?”

Alex grinned and shrugged. “It turns out I have an in with an LL Bean model. An LL Bean model with a very big heart.” Cary stood. Alex was struggling a bit with getting back on his feet. Cary offered him a hand and was suffused with satisfaction when Alex took it unhesitatingly, leaning on Cary and accepting his help. “We also need to call Rose,” he said as Cary set up his crutches for him.