Lost Heartbeats (Alexander & Maya Book 2) (25 page)

The hold Jackson had on my hair made me lose my balance, and the foot that still had a shoe on slipped on the glass staircase. With my hand still on the bannister, I instinctively pulled myself forward and managed to free my hair from his grip. I managed to take a step down, but with the way I was shaking, I knew I was in trouble.

My skirts tangled with my feet, and I couldn’t find my footing.

I needed to protect it. Protect him—or maybe it was going to be a little girl, a pretty little girl with blue eyes—but I couldn’t protect my baby.

When I grabbed the banister to stop my falling, my brain was fuzzy. The world slowly crumpled around me. I hugged my arm around my stomach, because I needed to protect him. I needed to try.

Then something hit my head, and I blacked out.

***

I opened my eyes. I was looking at the ceiling, but why was I lying on the floor?

I couldn’t remember why I was shaking or why tears were streaming down my face.

A pain shut through my arm, a cramp in my stomach, and I closed my eyes again.

Was it normal for someone to feel so much heartache? Could a broken heart hurt more than an arm that was twisted in the wrong way?

I didn’t know why I was feeling the way I was feeling.

If I’m able to feel so much pain, how can I not feel the little heartbeat I am so desperate to feel?

Maybe…

Maybe if I closed my eyes, I would wake up and everything would be okay.

I grabbed the keycard from Adam, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

“Wish me luck,” I murmured to Adam, and stepped in.

***

Sometimes, there are life-changing moments in your life.

For Natalie, it was losing her little boy.

For a kid fresh out of school, it might be landing his dream job.

For a writer, it could be the moment he hit every single bestselling list.

For a wife, it might be the moment she learns that her husband has another family in another city.

For a little kid, it could be something as simple as making a new friend.

For me…

For me it wasn’t losing my mom at a very early age, at an age where every kid deserved to be loved by their mother.

It wasn’t losing the women who I’d thought I loved.

And while it hurt me more than anything, it wasn’t losing Lucas either.

For me, the moment my heart stopped beating was when I found Maya lying broken on the floor.

For me, it was the moment I thought I had lost my love for good.

***

“Maya,” I whispered.

Dropping to my knees next to Maya’s body, my hands shook as I touched her wet cheek.

Her eyes fluttered, and I…I let out the breath I was holding.

I couldn’t look away from her tear-stained face. There was a gash on her temple. Blood. I didn’t dare look away.

“Maya,” I whispered again. “Sweetheart, what did I do?”

I brushed her hair away from her face, my hands shaking.

Her eyes fluttered open and she met my eyes.

More tears rolled down. Faster.

When she couldn’t look at me anymore, she turned her face away and closed her eyes.

One of her arms curled around her stomach, and I remembered. I fucking remembered that she was pregnant.

“Maya,” I croaked out, my eyes filling with tears.

I looked down and noticed the unnatural way her right arm was laying on the floor.

“Maya,” I said with more force and panic now. “Maya, your arm.” Stupidly, I tried to touch her arm, but she flinched and tried to hold back a moan.

“Don’t touch me,” she whispered. “Don’t you dare touch me.”

At her words, I finally came back to myself and yelled for Adam, hoping he would still be close.

Three more tries later, Adam peaked in through the opening.

“Boss?”

“Adam,” my voice quaked. “Adam, call an ambulance. Please, hurry.”

With a confused frown on his face, he took a few steps into the room, then finally noticed Maya lying on the floor. In a rush, he was right next to us, on his knees on the other side of Maya.

Without saying another word, he pulled out his phone and called for help as Maya kept crying silently.

When I looked down her body and noticed the red patch on her pink dress, I sat back on my heels and cried with her, not touching until the paramedics came and took her away from me.

“Thank you,” I said to Stephanie as I handed my phone back to her.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

I nodded, drying my tears. Hearing Linn’s voice had affected me more than I’d been expecting. As much as I would have loved nothing more than to have her by my side, I’d had to talk her into staying put since I already planned to fly back to Sweden as soon as I felt like I could move my body.

“How are you feeling?”

I cleared my throat. “I’m fine.”

A gentle tap on my thigh, and I tried to hide my wince. Another bruise.

“You want to talk about anything?”

“No.”

Stephanie huffed. “You have six stitches on your temple, a concussion, you had a dislocated shoulder, twisted ankle, huge, huge, huge bruises on several places of your body, and you…you lost—”

I cut her off before she could tear my heart apart. “Like I said Stephanie, I’m not up to talking about anything.”

“Maya,” she started, but before more words could follow, the door to my hospital room opened.

“You are accepting visitors?” Adam asked, his head peeking in as he gave me a broken smile.

I didn’t answer.

“Maya,” Adam started, this time when he was at my side. I wished they wouldn’t tip toe around me like that. I didn’t want to see their sad eyes. I didn’t have anything in me to comfort anyone. All I wanted was to go home. “I’m so sorry,” he managed to say finally.

Stephanie grasped my hand in hers and I nodded once to Adam.

“He wants to see you, Maya. He’s been right outside your door. He never left.”

“I don’t want to see him, Adam. Not yet.”

I knew I had to see him eventually, but not then. If I had any say in it, not the next day, or the day after that either. I could hold on until he decided it wasn’t worth waiting at my door. His presence didn’t help anything, only reminded me of what I had lost.

“He isn’t doing good. Maybe just a few minutes?”

“Maya, he really hasn’t left the hospital since you came in. I don’t think you can keep him out forever,” Stephanie added, as if him seeing me would change anything. As if I could forgive him just because he was feeling guilty.

He was too late to choose to be by my side.

“I don’t want to see him, and I want to rest now.”

Adam sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.

“I’ll tell him you’re tired. Is there anything I can do? Anything at all?”

I hesitated at first, but then took a deep breath. “Jackson?”

Adam’s face tightened, and he pushed his hands in his pockets, his shoulders tensing further.

“He has an apartment close to the hotel. He wasn’t there. Some of his clothes and his passport were gone too. There is a warrant out for his arrest, but since every one of us thought you fell down the stairs on your own, and you didn’t talk sooner…”

“He got away,” I finished for him.

Adam nodded.

“Looks like England. Mr. Bennett owns a few small companies over there, so…”

“Son of a bitch! If I could get my hands on him, I would kill him right now,” Stephanie burst out, startling me.

Glancing back at Adam, I nodded in acknowledgement. I’d expected that much. If everything hadn’t been a hazy blur to me as they rushed me to the emergency room, I would’ve let the cops know what had happened earlier, but I’d been too groggy, and by the time I gave my statement, hours had passed.

“Attempted rape,”—I choked on the word—“is considered a misdemeanor, I believe.” I looked at Stephanie, and she nodded. “They would drag it out in court. I don’t think anything would come of it anyway. He didn’t get the chance to touch me, and I’m just thankful for that,” I whispered my last sentence.

“Your wrists are bruised, Maya,” Stephanie said gently but with a heat in her voice. “I’d say he touched you plenty.”

Adam’s face softened as his eyes met mine. “I don’t think he’ll ever have the courage to come back to New York. If he does, he knows Alexander will kill him.”

I tried to shrug with my uninjured shoulder. “I won’t be in New York for long. As long as I never see him again, I don’t care what happens to him.”

But, I did care…

His shoulders slumped, and he looked down at his shoes.

I laid my head back and closed my eyes.

My head hurt.

My arm hurt.

My legs hurt.

And more than anything, my heart hurt.

I touched my stomach again. Feeling the emptiness inside me.

No heartbeats. No baby blue.

Nothing.

“We should leave her alone so she can rest,” Stephanie murmured to Adam.

I opened my eyes.

“Adam,” I called as he walked to the door in front of Stephanie.

“Yes?” he turned around.

“Can you tell him to pack my clothes and passport so you can bring them to Helen’s place? I’m going to stay with her until I can leave.”

“I’ll…I’ll tell him.”

“I appreciate it. Thank you.”

After giving me a long look, he walked out. Stephanie held the door open, and said, “I’ll be back to check on you. Try to rest, Maya.”

I nodded, and she left too.

A minute later, I heard a crash right outside my room and my door swung open.

I tried to shift my body so I could sit straighter, but my arm was useless in a sling.

“You idiot, you’re going to upset her more than she already is!”

For a splint second, I saw Adam holding on to Stephanie’s arm as she yelled at Alexander, but before I could protest, he shut the door and rested his forehead against it.

Seconds passed.

Neither one of us said anything.

“I only want a few minutes, Maya. I need to know… I need to see you are okay.”

I stared at his back, and all I saw was a man struggling. He waited for my response.

“There is nothing for you to see here. I’m not okay, Alexander.”

Taking a deep breath, he let go of the door and finally faced me.

I thought I would cry some more when I saw him, but I couldn’t feel anything. Oh, I felt sorrow, all right, I felt the pain, the emptiness—I doubted those feelings would go away any time soon—but when I looked at him—I mean,
really
looked at him—I saw his own pain, too. His guilt, his regret, his sorrow…

After all, he had lost another baby. Me not knowing if he would want to be in the baby’s life or not didn’t matter.

And even though he wasn’t to blame for what had happened, I was still bitter enough to feel anger toward him. Because if he had chosen me, if he had stayed with me, things could’ve been very different.

My eyes taking in her battered body, I stared at her for fucking eternity.

My heart caved in.

One word. It would only take one word from her lips to give me the courage to go to her side, but her eyes were stark with pain, pain that wasn’t caused just by her injuries.

Pain that I couldn’t take away.

It was like looking in a mirror.

Did her heart hurt as much as mine?

Had she wanted to have my baby?

Was she as devastated as I was?

Did she love me enough to forgive me one day?

Did she love me at all?

You can fit a lot of questions into eternity.

Steeling myself, I walked to her side. “Sweetheart—”

“Don’t. Please, don’t,” she said softly, averting her eyes. “I can’t do this with you right now, Alexander.”

“What can’t you do, baby? Be specific so I know where I stand.”

Instinctively, I reached out to take her hand in mine. I just needed to touch her to convince myself that she was okay, but her hand made a fist at her side.

I was losing her, if I hadn’t lost her already.

I waited, but she didn’t answer me.

“Jackson… I will find him. I swear I will find him, Maya. He’ll pay for what he did.” She flinched and closed her eyes. “He’ll pay for what he took from us.”

Minutes passed, or maybe hours; I just stood by her side, waiting, willing her to look at me. Just once.

Just for one fucking second.

She didn’t.

I took a step back, letting my hand fall from the bed.

“Okay, Maya. Okay,” I said in a low, raspy voice. “I’ll leave so you can rest. I will be right outside. I won’t leave here until you do.”

“But I
want
you to leave, Alexander,” she said, her beautiful eyes filled with tears and more pain as she finally met my eyes. “If you still need to see me to assure yourself I’m okay, we’ll see each other before I leave to go back home.”

“Home?” I whispered, my own voice strange to my ears as something loosened inside me.

She nodded. “As soon as I feel like myself again, I’ll leave New York. I talked to Linn; she will pick me up in Stockholm and we’ll take the train back together to Varberg.”

“Maya,” I groaned, my heart breaking apart piece by piece as I started to have trouble breathing. I took a step forward and placed my hand as close to her body as I dared without making her uncomfortable. I fisted the cheap hospital sheets in my hand.

Before I could beg her to give me a chance to talk, to try to talk her out of it, she interrupted me.

“I don’t belong here, Alexander. We tried.
I
tried, but it’s not working. You have your own life here. You could barely spare time for me. While I do understand why you had to take care of your friend, I’m afraid I will end up resenting you for it. I wasn’t okay with her not wanting to meet me. I wasn’t okay with you spending almost every night over at her place. I came here for you, and you were never there.”

“It will change, Maya. I know I made mistakes, I promise you it already changed. I’m not good for Nat anymore.” The moment I said Nat, she closed her eyes, as if I had struck her.

“I don’t belong here, Alexander.” When she opened them, a few tears escaped her eyes. “I love you.”

“Maya, I—”

“Don’t. Listen to me. I fell in love with you while you were thousands of miles away from me, when I didn’t even know if I would see you again. But, then you came. You came for me, and what I felt for you…it’s still overwhelming. I thought this was it for me. When you came back, I thought we were meant to be together, and I made the right choice. But we aren’t. Because I don’t belong here Alexander.”

“But I belong with you Maya,” I croaked, my emotions choking me up. She was slipping through my fingers again, and I was doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. “I love you, too, Maya.”

It slipped from my lips so easily because it was true in my heart, but I knew it was the wrong thing to say, knew it wasn’t the right time for her to hear it.

“You don’t love me. That’s your guilt talking. I’m hurt, Alexander,” she said, after a few seconds had passed. “Don’t do this to me. I’m begging you, don’t hurt me any more than I already am. I don’t belong here, and I want to go home.”

I tried to swallow, but when I had trouble, I reached up to my throat and tried to ease up whatever was choking me. My heart was a mess, tripping over every beat.

My eyes fell on the visible bruises on her body again. Her wrists.

Her fucking wrists.

I dropped my hands to my sides and took a few steps away from her, ready to give her a break so she could rest.

Because sometimes you have to admit defeat so you can find a different route to victory. I would never give up on loving this woman. Not ever. I would just have to find another way to make her listen to me.

Before I could leave, I had one last thing I needed to ask.

I stopped next to the door, my eyes still on her, her head tipped to the right, looking at nothing.

“Can you…can you just tell me when you learned that you were pregnant?” I asked, trying to stand straight.

I watched her uninjured hand curl around her stomach and something broke inside me.

“A few days ago. You were never there. I didn’t want to tell you on the phone, or when you came home late only to go to sleep. It wasn’t my intention to keep it from you, but I was also scared.”

I nodded.

“And you wanted to keep…keep our baby?” The words ripped from a deep corner of my soul.

When Maya’s face crumpled, everything within me crumpled too. She gave me a pained smile.

“Yes, Alexander. I very much wanted to keep our baby. He was… I called him my baby blue.” Tears streamed down her face, and I grabbed the door handle to keep myself steady and not rush to her side. “It was the size of a blueberry, and it would have had beautiful blue eyes. Yes, I wanted him very much.”

I fucking nodded again. Like the useless shit I was, I fucking nodded. Words had died inside me. Everything was dying inside me.

I opened the door and took a step forward, but then looked down at my feet.

Was the floor tilting?

“You’ll never understand how sorry I am for failing to protect you both. I love you with all my heart, and I always will.”

Having said all I had the strength to say, I took another step and gently closed the door to the room where the woman I loved lay broken.