Love In Rewind (23 page)

"Isabella, let me talk. You never fucking let me say two words. Why would you keep that from me? Yes, I'm getting married, but I want to know who the fuck told you? You're doing this to me because you want to punish me? I have a right to know. Well, it's too late now. I love her, that's the difference. I don't want her to know anything about you. She won't understand. If you try to contact her Isa, I. Will. Ruin. You! That's right … the video. You know which video I have and I know you don't want your family to see it. If you jeopardize my marriage, I repeat, I will ruin you. No, she's all I need. I don't share her and I will never need anyone else in bed when I'm with her."

I felt my legs start to give out. I made an unconscious pained noise, which Louis must've heard because he turned around in horror. I berated myself for letting my guard down and believing him. I'd heard his whole secret conversation with God-knows-who about God-knows-what. He tried so hard to keep me sheltered and as far away from the life he lived before we met that every time those worlds collided it was cataclysmic.

"Fuck … Emily! Let me explain."

My body had a déjà vu feeling back to that night in Phillip's club. It went back to that fight or flight instinct. I chose flight once again. I couldn't fight with Louis being in the state my head and heart were in. The air was still very much knocked out of me. I ran out of the room operating on autopilot and into another bedroom on the same floor. I locked the door behind me, fell on the floor, and started to cry. Who the fuck was Isabella and what didn't she tell him? Why did she want to talk to me? What kind of video did he have that could ruin her? He was knocking on the door like a madman. It felt like the whole house was shaking.

"Em, you don't know what you just heard. Let me in. I want to explain. It's not what you think. Fuck … baby please, I can explain."

His voice was angry but I could tell he was scared.
Good
, he should be scared.

"Louis, fuck off! Leave me alone. I don't want your stupid explanations. I don't need a husband who keeps dirty secrets from his wife."

"Open the door, Em or I'll break it down. You have less than a minute to make up your mind; either way I'm coming in."

I wanted to avoid an ugly scene, knowing that both Sara and Eddie were still downstairs blissfully clueless to what was happening in my broken paradise. I'd just finished convincing them a few weeks ago that Louis wasn't a Neanderthal and now here he was breaking down doors to get to me. I got up off the floor and unlocked the door.

"Door is open; no need to be violent. I don't want to hear your stupid stories … I want to go home."

He walked into the room and locked the door. He thought he could keep me confined to one place. He was always afraid I'd run.

"Isabella is an old friend. She was in love with me … still is. I never loved her … I … I just kept her around because it was convenient. You have to understand, she came from money so I didn't think she was using me financially like a lot of other women." He looked down at his feet, choosing his words carefully before going on. "Her family kept trying to bribe me into marrying her. Her parents are very wealthy. They own hotels and resorts all over the world. I had no interest in her other than being her friend."

I didn't stop him so he kept talking. "Isabella was fun to be around at first but she started to cause trouble. I once found her in my apartment snorting cocaine with men she picked up in some bar. She always tried to get a reaction out of me. Emily, you have to believe me. I want nothing to do with her, but she won't leave me alone. Her father even tried to invest in my company with the hopes of entwining our interests. I refuse to have any dealings with anyone related to her.

The last time I saw her, she was in a hospital recovering from a suicide attempt over a year ago. Her younger brother found me a few months ago with the intention of beating me up as some kind of revenge. He was under the impression that I'd ruined his crazy sister's life. He said that because of me and my sexual experimentations with Isa, she couldn't be with a normal man." Louis started nervously laughing, like a maniac. "I didn't even waste my time telling him the truth about his sister. I had security escort him out of my office. His parents obviously preferred to keep him in the dark about Isabella."

He pleaded with me. "There was nothing for me to tell you, Em. I've told you I'm not proud of the things I've done before you. Isa and I were friends. I slept with her once … way before I met you. I was alone and horny one night and she was there. Sleeping with her was the biggest mistake of my life. She wasn't mentally stable and I shouldn't have fucked her. She made me look like a villain to her family. Now I look like an asshole to you."

I didn't know what to say. This was too much information coming at me all at once. I guess there was a lot I still don't know about him. I still had questions for him that just didn't add up in my head.

"You said to her that she should've told you. What should she have told you?"

"Emily, she wrote a book; a memoir about her and me. My legal department has been trying to keep it out of print. But, as you know, sex sells. The media loves to make me out to look like a heartless pig. One minute I'm an eligible bachelor; the next I'm a sex-hungry douchebag. There is no question that even if she removes my name people will still know the book is about me. It's mostly lies. Some of the events did happen but she edited me into almost every sexual scenario you could imagine as the fucking culprit."

"Louis, who cares? It's just a book. It's not like you have a sex tape out there with her … right? If you just tell people it's all a lie they'll believe you."

"No, definitely no sex tapes. But baby, if you read this book … I know you will never agree to be my wife. It will scare the shit out of you. Emily, what she did in my presence is nothing I'd ever want to come to light. She liked crazy shit. She needed crazy situations to get her off and I was dumb enough to provide them for her."

"Louis, I don't understand."

"Baby, why would you? You're perfect and innocent. I was fucked up before I met you. I was empty. I was trying to find myself. I once arranged for ten men to fuck her in every hole imaginable at a private party. She asked me and I didn't even love her or care about her enough as a friend to stop it. I told her it wasn't a good idea at first but she begged me to make her
'gang bang'
fantasy happen and I did. I was there; I watched. Now it all comes back to bite me in the ass."

I could feel bile rising into my mouth.

"Did you read the book?"

"Yes."

"What else does it say about the man I'm supposed to marry?"

"It says that she did all those things to please me. That she was in love with me. That she would fuck any man or woman alive just to turn me on and make me happy. She's a sick delusional girl. I never asked her to do anything for me and those things didn't turn me on. She was just entertainment."

"I guess you're the entertainment now. What do you want me to do, Louis? If this book comes out how will I face my parents? They won't let me marry you if they find out."

"It won't see the light of day. I promise you. My lawyers are suing her father and his billion-dollar empire for defamation of character. I have a video of us in my apartment. On the video I tell her that I don't love her and that as her friend I don't want her to keep doing what she's been doing to her body. She told me that if I didn't continue having a sexual relationship with her she would kill herself or she would kill me. She promised to make up lies and ruin my career. That was when our friendship ended. My lawyers have been working with her father and his counsel to eradicate this stupid filthy book. Hopefully they'll be able to get her out of our lives forever."

What if she tries to hurt him? Could she come after me?
I thought to myself as fear ran up my spine. "Will it work?"

"Yes, my team is confident. I just didn't want her coming after you. Emily, I told you if I knew I would one day find my heart and soul outside my body, I would never have done the things I did. I never knew it was possible to love a woman the way I love and need you. Please baby, you have to believe that I made stupid choices and had stupid friends but you are my life now. I would never do anything to jeopardize what we have. I love you and I wish I could rewind, erase, and change my past, but I can't. You are my future and I want to live with YOU in the future. I don't want to live in my past. My past was what brought me to you; it prepared me for this, for us. I promise we'll get through this … just don't leave me."

He looked scared that day. How did he not know that I couldn't leave him even if I tried? I couldn't imagine a second without Louis Bruel, let alone a life without him.

****

My life changed drastically after Turks and Caicos. Life wasn't as happy and carefree as I'd let myself imagine. There was a dark cloud quietly looming over our life now. I had a bodyguard at all times shadowing my every move. The book Louis described to me never got printed and a few months after our wedding Isabella was admitted into a psychiatric hospital shortly after trying to kill herself.

That was a big disaster that Louis and I were spared. Having a book like that forever circulating about the man who would one day be the father of my children was nauseating to think about. A few years ago Louis informed me that Isabella overdosed and died while back home in London. Despite everything he told me, I knew that he had cared for her seeing how depressed and sad he got after learning about her death. I was sad for him and for her family. They couldn't save their daughter; she was a lost soul. I forgave Louis for being an immoral careless friend to that fragile girl. But I was also secretly relieved for my family that she was gone and would never be a threat to any of us again.

Our past was there to teach us to be better in the future, and my husband had learned his lesson … I thought.

Life in fast-forward...

O
ur life after that point just seemed to go in fast forward. To make up for not spoiling me during our early courting period, Louis over-compensated by having fresh flowers delivered to me every day for a few months. I finally talked him into just getting me flowers once a week. Louis was generous in all aspects. He spoiled me with his love, his time, and his wealth. Which, as he constantly reminded me, was my wealth, too.

I moved in with Louis shortly after we got back from Turks and Caicos two weeks later. My parents weren't thrilled about my decision, but Louis threatened to move into my room if they refused. He was so worried about me getting mad and leaving that he felt he could only diffuse those situations by keeping me within arm's reach. I honestly loved going to sleep and waking up in his strong arms every day. I couldn't imagine for a second living apart from him.

We had sex on every surface of his treehouse. My favorite place to make love to Louis had to be in the pool. The way the sound of our lovemaking echoed across the space, bouncing off the walls and the water only added to the impossibly risqué spectacle.

Between being Louis Bruel's fiancée and starting to run Crown Affairs with Jenna and Mike, I had very little time to go to school. We agreed that going to school part-time was still better than not going at all. My overachieving parents kept trying to push me to go to school full-time. I wanted to attend NYU full-time to be a well-rounded person, but the truth was it only took away from my time with Louis. My subconscious must've known back then that my days with Louis Bruel were numbered and that every minute was precious. We were inseparable, insatiable, and omnivorous, sharing ourselves with no one but each other.

We decided to get married on our estate in Turks and Caicos on December 31
^st
, with thirty of our closest friends and family. Louis told me that his New Year's resolution was for me to be Mrs. Bruel. That wedding was the first event that I executed as a shareowner and partner of Crown Affairs. The wedding was incredible and romantic. The festivities lasted for a whole week. We rented out several villas around Providenciales so that all of our guests had their own place to retreat to. I think Louis wanted our house to be just for us. He was unapologetic about not wanting to share me with our friends and family.

Sara and her entire family, including her brother Eddie and his girlfriend Michelle, all joined in on our festivities as well. She was my unofficial maid of honor. Eddie and Michelle also announced to everyone a few nights before the wedding that they were engaged, finally. Louis and Eddie very unexpectedly took a liking to each other in addition to having a good working relationship.

The night before our big day we had our sorry excuse for bachelor and bachelorette parties. Mike promised me no strippers and Jenna promised Louis that we wouldn't leave the house. It was more like a relaxing pajama party with my favorite girls than a wild night out. Sara presented me with my something blue, which was a brand new, light blue vibrating dildo. It was double the size of Pinky. My sister's gift was my wedding night lingerie, which consisted of a pure white lace bustier that propped my boobs up even higher, and satin ruffle and lace panties that hardly covered my butt.

Louis and I were supposed to spend that night apart from each other before we got married. That was the plan. Sara and I got a little tipsy on champagne and fell asleep in her room together. In the morning I woke up in my bed and in Louis' strong arms. I knew he wouldn't spend the night away from me. I was admiring the view of my soon to be husband, not yet letting the anxiety of our upcoming wedding day get to me.

"Did you enjoy your last night of freedom?" I asked when I could tell he wasn't asleep anymore but just pretending so I could ogle him a little longer.

"The hottest part of my night was finding my sexy soon to be wife in bed with another woman. I should've stayed home to watch."

I pushed him away. He was laughing and trying to pin me under him. He was just about to prove how sexy the thought of me with another woman was when Jenna stormed the room and almost threw Louis off me.