Lost Heartbeats (Alexander & Maya Book 2) (23 page)

“Would you like me to postpone the meeting, Mr. Ross?” Mandy’s voice reached out from the speaker again.

Alexander sighed and grabbed my hand, walking me out of his office.

“There is a surprise waiting for you in the suite. Adam was supposed to drop it off after he brought you to me. We’ll be leaving at 7:30. Can you be ready by then?”

“I can,” I said as he ushered us toward the elevators. “But after that we really need to talk, Alexander.”

“I’ll be all yours, Maya. I promise.”

He’d promised me we would talk. Twice.

That is how we parted ways as I went back to his suite and he went down to attend his business meeting at the bar on the 30
th
floor of his hotel.

Alexander’s surprise was waiting for me on the bed in another pretty white box. Since I didn’t have anything to wear to a black tie event, I was grateful for the dress I already knew I would find inside.

And oh, what a dress it was.

It was more than a dress—it was perfection. Which, I admit, sounds vain, but it was a powder pink Elie Saab dress. Need I say more? It was a full-length gown with cap sleeves that dipped into a deep plunging neckline. And the flowy skirt…

The whole thing was beautiful enough to wear at your wedding, not just at some black tie event.

Gently placing the dress on the bed, I caressed my stomach as I whispered to myself, “I’m going to tell him all about you, tonight, little baby.”

Starting to feel hopeful for the night, I headed to the bathroom to get ready for a night where I would finally have Alexander all to myself.

After my meeting ended with the potential partners for a new project I had in the works, I headed back to my office to go over my schedule for the next day with Mandy. Other than the meetings I had to attend, I wanted to push the rest of it a few days back.

While I wanted the night to be special for Maya, I knew it wouldn’t be enough to show her how sorry I was for how things had turned out ever since we’d come back. The next day, I was planning to whisk her away for the weekend so we could find our way back to each other again.

“Mandy, I need you to clear my schedule for tomorrow and the next few days. Monday included. I have to go through the papers for the Vegas property, so if you need to check something with me before I leave, you have,”—I checked my watch to make sure I wouldn’t be late getting ready for evening—“fifteen minutes tops.”

“But Mr. Ross, you wanted me to schedule—”

“The ones you can reschedule for next week, do it. The ones you can’t, just make sure you reschedule them for tomorrow morning. Don’t change the video calls I have with the Vegas people. I need to go through the new issues we found out about today. We need to get those permissions as soon as possible. So anything related to Vegas, keep it on our schedule.”

Before I could close the door of my office, Mandy was already typing away on her computer. If we hadn’t worked together for such a long time and she wasn’t so good at her job, I wouldn’t think twice about letting her go after the crap she’d pulled with Maya, but I couldn’t afford to lose her. She’d had her first warning. If it happened again, it wouldn’t matter if she was the best damn assistant in the world.

Her ass would never enter this building again.

Before I could forget, I dialed Adam’s number to see if he was around.

He answered on the third ring.

“I left everything on the bed as soon as they arrived at the front desk, just as you said, boss.”

“That’s good. But that’s not why I called. Are you still in the building?”

“Yes. Why? Is something wrong?”

“Can you check on Jackson before you leave? He is at Black Pearl drinking. I don’t want it to get out of hand.”

“Sure, boss. I’ll make sure everything is under control.”

“Thank you, Adam. I know you don’t like to deal with him.”

He laughed. “No one likes to deal with Jackson, but it’s okay. I’ll take care of it. You have a good night out with Maya.”

That was my plan.

***

After I had finished everything in the office, I checked the time and noticed I only had half an hour left to get ready for the evening, and then it would be a race to the restaurant I had closed down.

“I’m leaving for the day, you can head out too,” I said to Mandy as I walked out of my office.

Just as I reached the elevators and pressed for the call button, my phone started ringing in my hand.

I contemplated ignoring it, even pictured Maya’s beautiful face in front of my eyes, her soft, hopeful smile when I’d promised her that it would be just the two of us that night, but the persistent buzzing wasn’t to be ignored.

“Yes,” I answered in a tired voice when it started to ring again.

Natalie’s father’s voice was shaky when he spoke. “Natalie.”

I’m so sorry, Maya
, I thought to myself.
I’m so fucking sorry, sweetheart.

“What happened, Roy?” I asked, knowing full well he wasn’t calling me to give a good report on Natalie’s mental health.

I already felt like I was spending more time with his daughter than I was spending with Maya.

“We had to call the doctor you recommended to us. She just broke down today, trashed everything she could get her hands on,” he explained.

While both her parents and I were expecting her to get better with each passing week, Natalie was breaking more and more every day, and none of us could do anything about it. I knew me being close to her helped because I reminded her of Lucas, because I’d loved her son as much as she had, and her son had loved both of us so much.

“What did the doctor say?”

“He prescribed a new pill. She slept for a few hours, but now she is up again, and she is asking for you.”

“Roy, tonight…tonight I don’t think I can make it.”

There was a lengthy silence on the other end of the line. A silence that was heavy with unspoken thoughts.

“She needs you, Alex. You were like a father to that boy. Hell, you were the only father he knew. If nothing else, you owe it to Lucas to look after his mother after all that you’ve been through together.”

Those words…

“You don’t need to remind me of that,” I ground out. “You know I took care of them after Aaron left. You know how much I was there for both of them, not just Lucas. I did the best I could.”

“I’m not arguing with everything you did for my daughter and grandson. I’m telling you this is the time she needs you the most. You can’t abandon her like you did right after his funeral.”

One second passed.

Two seconds passed.

I saw Maya’s beautiful face in front of me.

I closed my eyes.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can, Roy.”

***

I paced the floor in front of the suite where Maya was most likely waiting for me just on the other side of the door.

Was she already ready and waiting for me?

The last time I had checked the time, it had already been past six, and soon she’d start worrying.

The keycard was in my hand. The right thing would be going in and telling her what was going on, but I couldn’t find the right words to offer her and not sound like the asshole I was after giving her my word just a few hours before.

The night I had meticulously planned for just the two of us was ruined. The moment I left, I would become a liar, again.

There was no black tie event I had to attend.

All I wanted was to give her a beautiful night in the city. Hold her close, do everything I could to make her see what she meant to me. I had to show her how much I appreciated her support. Everything I wanted to say to her, everything I needed her to know, it was all ruined.

By me.

Again.

Maybe I was a selfish bastard for wanting to keep her for myself. Even though she never said anything, never blamed me for dragging her back here with me and then disappearing on her night after night, I could see the toll it was taking on her.

The doubt trickling into her mind.

And I hated it. Hated that I was the son of a bitch who was causing it.

I checked my watch. I had to leave.

I paused and hesitated in front of the door again. I didn’t have it in me to go in and tell her I had to leave. And it wasn’t just because I didn’t want to see how beautiful she looked in her dress; I already knew it would look perfect on her, as everything she wore did.

I didn’t have it in me to go in because I couldn’t bear to see the disappointment on her beautiful face. Not after I’d seen it so many times in last few weeks.

No.

In front of that door, I decided that I would take care of Natalie, but be back as soon as I could to try my best to make that beautiful woman who was waiting for me in a pretty dress happy.

***

That split second I turned my back to that closed door, that little heartbeat…

It was a loss that led to events where no matter what Maya said in the future, I would never forgive myself.

On my way over to Natalie’s, I called Maya, but she didn’t pick up. I didn’t blame her; I knew I deserved far worse than an unanswered phone call. I called Adam to let him know what was happening and that I needed him to check on her until I could make it back before the night was lost completely.

With a soft knock, I entered Natalie’s room.

It had been a week since she had stopped going into Lucas’ room. Now her place of torture was her own room. She would sleep in her bed—if we were lucky, eat in her bed, and then fall sleep again. Sometimes with the help of pills, sometimes with the help of good old fashioned tears.

When I walked in, she was sitting cross-legged at the end of her unmade bed as she gazed out from the big window in her room. I doubted she was seeing anything.

“Hey, Nat,” I started softly, not sure what mood she would be in. “Can I join you?”

“Alex,” she uttered softly as she turned her puffy eyes toward me.

My heart broke for her. For the brave young mom who had lost her kid. A kid that had had the biggest heart I’d ever seen even, despite all the defects.

The bravest.

He was, after all, his mother’s son.

“Come, sit with me.” She patted the bed so I sat by her side and took her hand in mine.

So this day wasn’t one where she clung to my neck and cried for hours on end. Screaming, cursing, hitting, breaking. The pills they had given her must have been strong if she looked this calm.

As the blurry weeks had passed, you would have expected her to get better—or if not get better, start to at least maybe accept the situation.

Fuck!

It was wrong to expect a mother to move on no matter how you looked at it. But instead of accepting, Natalie deteriorated with each day that passed. She was starting to become more aggressive, which wasn’t her personality at all.

“Bad day, huh?” I asked when she chose to stay silent.

Her eyes met mine and her lips curled up in a small smile. “I seem to have those quite a lot these days.”

I gave her hand a squeeze.

“How was your day?” she asked, turning her gaze to the window again. “Did your friend leave?”

“Filled with work. And I told you before, she is more than just a friend to me Natalie.”

“The same girl you came here with?”

“She wanted to meet you. She only knows a few people in the city, and I thought both of you could use a new friend. The last time was a bad time; maybe now would work better for you? She would love to meet you, Natalie. You’ll like her.”

“Friends,” she repeated as if she was trying out the word for herself.

“She’d be good to you,” I said gently. “You have to start looking after yourself, Nat. You are starting to scare all of us, especially your parents.”

She turned to me and put her other hand over our clasped hands. “Parents should never see their children die, Alex. Never.”

Her eyes looked dead to me. Reaching out, I wiped off a single tear that had rolled down her cheek.

“When will it be enough, Nat? You doing this to yourself, when will it stop? It pains me. It rips my fucking heart in pieces to say it, but nothing is bringing him back to us. We did all we could do. We tried our best to give him a happy life. And he was happy, apart from all he had to go through, he was a happy kid, wasn’t he?”

A small smile touched her lips.

It was enough to give at least a piece of hope.

“You did good by him,” I kept talking to her. “He loved you, worried about you when you stayed up too late fussing over him. We would take bets between us on where you would finally fall asleep. You never made it to your bed, Nat. Lost me some real cash to the kid.”

Her smile got bigger, but so did the tears rolling down her face.

“He loved it when you stayed over,” she said, her mind far away. “It was breakfast, because you would always stay over for breakfast when you spent the night here. He loved sitting down with you more than anything.”

“And I loved spending time with him more than anything, Nat.”

She got on to her knees and crawled on the bed until she was by my side, her head firmly on my shoulder.

“Do you know what he asked me once?”

“Tell me,” I said, leaning back on the headboard and lifting my legs up before I tucked Natalie under my arm.

This Natalie I could deal with. This Natalie would be happy to talk about Lucas. When she lost it and cried for hours…that’s what I couldn’t deal with. That’s when I would become helpless because nothing could take that pain from a mother.

But this I could do. Happily.

“He asked me if maybe we had made a mistake in the hospital and you were his real dad.”

My body stilled.

“What do you mean? He knew Aaron was his father.”

We, the three of us, were nothing like what we’d been back in college, but Aaron had called on the birthdays. It was almost the only time they talked, because it was the only time Aaron was willing to give to him. Sometimes, on rare occasions, he even called Nat to inquire about Lucas’ health, but that was it. Even I didn’t talk to him anymore unless it was absolutely necessary.

“He knew that on paper. But all he knew about Aaron was that he was a guy who called once or maybe twice a year. A man he hadn’t seen for years. Where you, on the other hand, were with him constantly. He was adamant that there was some kind of mistake. Maybe you didn’t know you had a kid. His exact words were, I believe:
Shouldn’t I have the right to choose? I want Alex to be my dad. That way he’ll spend more time here. Maybe he would even take us with him and we can live with him in the big building. I have to be his kid Mom—why else would he want to spend so much time with me?
”

We both fell silent.

“You were more of a father to him than Aaron could ever be. He chose you, and that meant more to him.”

“How old was he?” I asked, my voice nothing more than a croak.

“Six, seven maybe? I’m not sure. I remember we were in the hospital waiting for you, though. He wouldn’t go in before you came.”

My eyes watered, and I remembered his innocent little face looking up to me with so much love.

‘You didn’t forget, you made it, Alex,’ he would say, craning his little neck to look up at me.

And reaching for his hand, I would answer with, ‘Always, buddy.’

Always.

Too bad our always didn’t last as long as I’d wished it would.

Natalie’s hand touched my cheek and she turned my face to look into my now wet eyes.

“He was here with us. He was real. I didn’t make him up, did I, Alex?” I looked down to those eyes that reminded of a little boy. Brilliant green eyes. Now full of grief and hurt. “Sometimes when I wake up, I feel the need to go to his room, that maybe what I remember is just a nightmare, and I will find him sleeping in his room. I think, if nothing else, maybe I’ll have a few more days with him.”

I brushed a tear off her cheek, but there were already new ones trailing down. “He was real, Nat. The best kind of real. And even though I wasn’t his father, he was still my kid.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I watched Natalie change the course of our friendship.

Bringing her other hand to my face, she didn’t hesitate to kiss me. As soon as our lips touched and I came unstuck, I lifted my hands up to pull her hands away from my face so I could break her tight hold in a more gentle way. Instead of letting me go, she became more frantic, and licked my lips.

Jesus!

“Natalie,” I muttered, leaning back as I pried her hands away.

“Please, Alex. Please,” she murmured, her eyes closed.

“Nat, look at me,” I said more firmly, and she slowly opened them. Her hands were still in mine, so I gave them a squeeze. “Fuck,” I muttered when I saw the hopeful look in her eyes. “We aren’t that, Nat. We never were.”

“But we could be, Alex. We would be good together. You have to know this.”

Shit!

“Baby, you are my friend.
I
am your friend.”

“But why?” she insisted.

I loosened my grip on her hands and let them go, dropped my legs down from her bed and stood up.

“You’ve always been my friend, Nat. And after that you’ve been my friend’s girl.” She opened her mouth to protest, but I talked over her before she could. “I love her,” I said.

It came deep from my heart.

It came naturally.

“I love Maya. I love what she is to me. What she does to me even when we are in a room full of people. She’s been mine from day one, and I can’t do this to her. I can’t make her question what we have between us, Nat. I can’t lose her, too.”

She had dropped her head and was gripping the sheets in a white-knuckled grip.

“You don’t even know her. You’ve known me for years, Alex,” she whispered.

“I know everything I want to know about her sweetheart. I know everything that matters.”

When Natalie didn’t speak, I turned my back on her.

Rubbing my forehead, I said gently, “Nat, this isn’t good for either one of us anymore. I know this isn’t you. The Nat I knew would never try something like this. She would never toss away our friendship.”

“So now you know me better than I know myself? You know what I want for myself?” she pushed softly.

“Right now it feels like it, Nat.”

Shocked, and maybe a little angry, I paced in front of her window.

I loved Maya, and I didn’t even have the time to tell her that.

I was fucking up everything.

“You can’t do this anymore, Nat,” I said when I stopped pacing, coming to a decision. “Day after day, you are wasting away in front of the people who love you. Your parents need to go back to Canada, and I think it’ll be good for you if you go with them for a while. You have to get out of the house, and it’s time to do that. No one can help you if you don’t accept the help. I love you, Nat, and I care about our friendship more than you think, but you are taking me down with you, and this isn’t how I want to remember Lucas. I’m just as heartbroken about everything as you are, but I’m trying to make my peace with it, and seeing you like this almost every day is not helping.”

I saw the flinch she tried to hide. I couldn’t help her. Not anymore.

“You wouldn’t do this to me if you cared about our friendship, Alex.”

“And what would I do, Nat?” I raised my voice. “Fuck you? If I’d have fucked you right now, right here—would
that
show you how much I cared about our friendship? If that’s what you believe, you couldn’t be more wrong. That would ruin our friendship, Nat. I’ve been here with you. All this time, I grieved with you, missed him with you. I broke countless promises I made to the woman I love, all because I care about our friendship.”

Standing up on her knees, she leaned forward and yelled, “I lost my son! Do you think I care about the promises you made to a woman you don’t even know?”

Starting to feel trapped in her house—something that had never happened before—I shook my head instead of trying to make her understand.

“When you are ready to be my friend again, I’ll be here waiting for you, Natalie. But until then, I don’t think we’re good for each other anymore.”

When I left Nat’s house, I didn’t feel guilty about leaving her.

No. The guilt that was waging a war inside me was for leaving Maya.