Lovers Premiere (Kimani Romance) (15 page)

“No.” Sofia shook her head. “I was there that day my father called him out on it.” Her gaze swung back to Emmett. “You remember that?”

Emmett lowered his hands as sadness crept over his face. “Of course I remember that day. But you got it wrong, Sofia. Just like your father got it wrong. And in the end he didn't believe any of that nonsense. He was just lashing out.”

“No.” Sofia shook her head. “He called you out for the lying backstabber that you are!”

“Sofia,” Aunt Lily gasped.

“It's true, Aunt Lily. Come on. You were there, too.”

Ram's head swiveled to his father. “Dad, is it true?”

“No,” Emmett said simply.

Uncle Jacob stepped forward. “He's telling the truth, Sofia. You were too young at the time to understand what was going on. For a long time I thought that you'd forgotten about that day. Heck, I have sometimes forgotten that you had walked in there that day. Given that the accident was just a couple of days later, we—your aunt and I—just concentrated on being there for you and your sister. And part of being there for you was also trying to shield something from both you and the crazy media attention we generated at the time. I knew that you were angry, but I didn't understand the depth of this until the A.F.I. merger.”

Sofia tried to keep up with the conversation, but none of it was making any sense yet.

Jacob drew a deep breath. “What you walked in on that day…was an intervention.”

“A what?” Sofia frowned.

“An intervention for your father,” he said, moving closer. “There's no easy way to say this, girls, but your father had a drinking problem.”

Sofia started shaking her head.
This was all a big lie.

“We had all gathered there that day to confront him. At first I didn't think anything of it. And I was his twin. I always thought that I knew everything about him. We've
always had such a strong connection. You know that. We were best friends our entire lives. People used to label him the fun one and I was the serious one of the two. Then one day the cracks started to show and then there started to be too many to hide. He started losing money and the business we had poured all our blood, sweat and tears into was threatened. He was gambling, taking out loans I didn't know about. The next thing I know we were surrounded by creditors.

“Your mother, Lily, tried several times to convince him to go to AA, but your father wouldn't hear of it. He didn't think that he had a problem. When it was clear to all of us, except to John, that Limelight was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy,
I
approached Emmett about a possible merger. When John found out he became convinced that Emmett was trying to steal the company from him. Unfortunately, he found out the same evening that we had staged the intervention. And he came in drunk and belligerent. He said a whole lot of stuff that he didn't mean.”

Sofia kept shaking her head. “My father wasn't a drunk. How can you say that?”

Aunt Lily stepped forward. “Sofia, I know all of this is a big shock, but what you heard—”

“What I heard was not the truth!” She pushed back out of Ram's arms. “I remember my father and he was not a drunk. He was loving and caring—”

“Yes,” Uncle Jacob said. “He was all those things—but he had a problem.” He drew a deep breath. “Which is why he finally agreed to go to rehab…in Colorado.”

Both Sofia and Rachel gasped.

Jacob nodded. “
That
was where he and your mother were going when their plane crashed. He was going to get help.”

Aunt Lily wiped tears from her eyes. “There hasn't been a day that any of us hasn't wrestled with the cruel irony that the only reason that they were even on that plane was to try to save his life. I know how much you love and cherish the memory of your father, Sofia. That had a lot to do with our decision to not tell you about his problem. And it isn't fair to Emmett for you to believe those wild accusations your father tossed at him. They weren't true and he doesn't deserve it.”

“No.” Sofia continued shaking her head. “It's not true. It's not. My father was a good man. He was a hard worker and…”

“Yes, yes, and yes,” Lily said. “But he was still just a man. A man that needed help.”

Tears started pouring down Sofia's face and she couldn't stop shaking her head. “Why would you? How could you?” She placed a hand over her mouth.

“Baby.” Ram reached for her but she jumped out of his grasp.

“Don't touch me,” she snapped and then tried to suck in a deep breath. Instead she started hyperventilating. “Don't ever touch me.” Her gaze zoomed back to her aunt and uncle and she wanted to lash out at them too, but couldn't get the mean words off her tongue.

Rachel rushed to her side. “Sofia, honey. You're turning red. Try to calm down.”

“How can I calm down when they're saying…” She shook her head. “I don't believe it. I refuse to believe it.
My father was not a drunk. He was a good man and I'm not about to just stand here while you all drag his name and his memory through the mud! I won't! I—” Just then the room started spinning and there didn't seem to be enough oxygen for Sofia to breathe.

Ram rushed forward to his wife just as she started to sink toward the floor. “Sofia!”

R
amell didn't wait for the paramedics to be called. Once Sofia collapsed, he spent a full minute trying to wake her up. When she wouldn't wake he swept her into his arms and raced out of the room.
“Please get out of the way.”

A collective gasp rose above the glittering Hollywood elite while they quickly jumped out of the way. The Wellesleys and Ethan Chambers all raced right behind him as Ram jetted out of the Wilshire. Less than twenty minutes later, they all piled into Cedars-Sinai Hospital Emergency Room. Upon seeing an unconscious woman draped in his arms, doctors and nurses rushed toward him and then pried her out of his arms.

“What happened?” A young man, dressed in a pair of blue scrubs, who looked like he was barely old enough to have a driver's license, started checking Sofia over.

“I'm not quite sure. She just fainted,” Ram said and then a memory flashed. “It might have something to do with her blood pressure. I know that she's taking something for it.”

The young man nodded, placed her on a rolling gurney and then pushed Sofia's eyelids open.

“Is she going to be all right?” Ram asked, hovering over the doctor's shoulders.

“She's going to be fine, sir,” the man said, plugging his ears with his stethoscope and then checking Sofia's heartbeat.

Everyone was rushing around at warp speed, but Ram made sure that he stayed on top of everything that was going on. It was difficult because every time he looked down at Sofia lying on the gurney, she looked so small and vulnerable that it was causing a tight restriction in his chest and his eyes to feel as if someone had poured battery acid in them. He didn't like seeing his wife like this and he was angry about his part in getting her so upset. She had made it very clear that she didn't want to talk to his father and they had all insisted that they try to clear the air about her father's past.

It was a lot of startling information about a man she had spent her entire life idolizing. Ramell had known about Limelight's near bankruptcy once upon a time, but his father certainly never told him that it was because John Wellesley had a gambling and alcohol problem. Maybe because his father always knew about his feelings toward Sofia and possibly feared he would tell her about it. Apparently they had all agreed to bury John's demons in order to protect his children.

The media coverage was intense when John and Vivian passed, but the paparazzi back then was a different animal and not every rock was overturned on their personal life. If it had been, surely John's problems would have been splashed everywhere. Instead the coverage just focused on the tragedy and the fate of the children. Now he wished he would've known. Knowing now that she had walked into that intense intervention and misunderstood all that she heard, it made sense why she fought their companies' merger as hard as she did.

Now he finally understood why she had ended their friendship. All those years he thought it was because of something he had done.

Twenty minutes later, Sofia was wheeled into a private room and their entire clan followed closed behind. Not long after that, Sofia moaned and her eyelashes started fluttering.

“She's waking up,” Lily said, clutching her left hand.

Ram held her right one. When Sofia opened her beautiful brown eyes he was finally able to pull in his first full breath and offer up a prayer of gratitude. He lifted her hand and brushed a kiss against the back of it before smiling and speaking softly, “Hey, baby. You gave us quite a scare. How are you feeling?”

Their eyes locked and a string of pear-shaped tears slid down the side of her face. But instead of answering, she pulled her hand free from his and then turned away from him.

His smile melted as confusion and disbelief crashed in on his hopeful expression.

Lily swept Sofia's hair from her face while Rachel and Jacob crowded around the bed. “The doctor says that you're going to be all right,” Lily informed her. “Your blood pressure was elevated pretty high and…well, baby. We're so sorry. We didn't mean to upset you so badly. We just—”

“I don't want to talk about it,” Sofia croaked, but then started coughing.

Ram turned toward the small table next to the bed and quickly poured her a small plastic cup of water and then offered it to her.

Still coughing, she hesitated for a moment, but then gave in and accepted it, along with his help, when he pressed it up against her lips. She started off with small sips, but then ended up gulping it down. He poured her another cup, but she waved it away.

“Feeling any better?” Rachel asked.

Sofia nodded, but there was still tears rolling down her face. After a minute, she spoke. “I appreciate you all being here, but I need some time alone.”

Everyone opened their mouths to say something, but she cut them off cold. “Please.”

Their gazes shifted among themselves, but this time they were determined to respect her wishes. “All right,” Ram said. “We can all just step outside, if you like.”

She shook her head. “No. You don't understand. I don't want you all to wait outside. I need time…without any hovering.”

Her words were like steel bullets through his heart. “Sofia, I think we need to talk.”

She swallowed, but still refused to look at him. “And we will. Just not right now.”

No one moved.

“Please,” she begged again. She closed her eyes but her tears soaked through her long lashes.

Struggling to understand, Ramell lowered his head and brushed a kiss against her turned cheek. In that moment, he knew that his marriage was in trouble. He pulled away from her while the pain in his heart nearly became unbearable, but he released her hand and backed away.

Jacob, Lily, Rachel and Ethan also started drifting away from the bed and then they all marched toward the door with their heads hung low. But before they all ushered out, Sofia spoke, “Rachel…you can stay.”

Rachel gave them a sympathetic look but turned back and rushed to her sister's side. The rest of them were clearly dismissed. Heart broken, pride shattered, Ram left the hospital with his own tears streaming down his face.

S
ofia left the hospital with a new prescription and a doctor's warning for her to manage her stress better—which she answered by throwing herself head long back into work. However, this time she refused to step one foot into Limelight Entertainment. She returned to her penthouse and worked out of her home office. She didn't want to see her aunt and uncle or even Ramell and Emmett. She couldn't. Just like she couldn't wrap her brain around the man they portrayed her father to be.

Every time she closed her eyes, all she could remember was the father that would take time to play tea or dress up with her—even when he was tired. She would remember the times he would read her bedtime stories and fill her head with fantasies about princes and princesses. Her father was everything to her. Everything.

He was kind, handsome and strong. Even now she
remembered how she used to feel like she was on top of the world whenever she would ride on his shoulders. And so many people loved him. They used to have parties at their house all the time. She remembered sneaking down to see all the Hollywood stars of the time in their beautiful clothes—laughing, smiling…and drinking.

Sofia snapped out of her reverie in time to hear an offer from a studio executive buzzing in her ear. “What kind of deal are we talking about?” she asked, standing up from her office chair and waltzing over to the window to stare out at the cityscape. “I don't know. That sounds awfully low,” she said, even though she wasn't listening to what Frasier was offering. It didn't matter. Her job was to play hardball.

That was pretty much her routine for the next few days—that and screening her calls.

What Sofia was going through wasn't Ramell's fault. It wasn't even her aunt and uncle's fault. It was the foundation of who and what she believed crumbling beneath her that made her question everything—especially everything that had happened in the past month. Work didn't comfort her, but it kept her busy. And being busy kept her from breaking down.

But just barely.

However, the more she linked back into her own routine, the more she started distancing herself from the decisions she'd made in the past month. Getting married in Las Vegas the way she did. How cliché could they get? Hardly anything she'd done since Ramell merged his way into her life was like her. Making out in public places,
dancing on tables and drinking and blacking out—who was that girl?

Much later that night, Sofia attended a small viewing party for a new movie from a popular director. She smiled. She laughed. She went through the motions. But her heart just wasn't into her performance.

She just wanted to make an appearance and then head back to her place, but as luck would have it, her uncle was also attending the party.

“You've been avoiding me,” Jacob said.

Sofia sucked in a deep breath. She wasn't ready for this. “I know. I'm sorry.”

“I know this isn't the place, but I really wish that we could sit down and talk. Maybe after your sister's wedding tomorrow. Your aunt and I would
really
like to talk to you about why we kept certain things from you.”

“I know why. I just…can't get myself to believe it. And I can't believe I had everything so wrong for so long. I'm just trying to adjust.” Sofia shrugged. “It's going to take some time.”

He nodded as if he understood. “Still. Your aunt would like to hear from you. She's blaming herself for a lot stuff right now and I don't think that's fair. Everything we did we did out of love. We may not have always gotten it right, but no one is perfect.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

Sofia frowned and then finally recognized the look on her uncle's face as disappointment. That wasn't something that she was used to seeing from him.

“I'm just going to say this and then I'm going to let it go. I loved my brother. Being twins, we shared a strong bond. There was nothing I wouldn't do for him and I know that he felt the same way about me. He was a good man. And just because he struggled with an illness didn't make him any less of a man. In the end he recognized that and he was going to get help. He did it for me, for your mother, and most of all he did it for you and your sister. John loved both of you so much that he wanted to be the best father he could be. And nothing we told you the other day should change how you feel about him, how you've always felt about him.”

Jacob's words of wisdom caused a tear to skip down her face. She quickly brushed a finger beneath her eyes and sniffed. “You're right,” she admitted. It all suddenly became crystal clear to her. There was no point in trying to fit a square block into a round hole. People were complicated and they had many different sides to them.

“We'll talk after the wedding tomorrow,” her uncle said, even though it sounded like a question.

“I'd like that.” She leaned forward and brushed a kiss against his cheek. “And I'll call Aunt Lily tonight.”

“Thanks. She'd love that.”

“I was hoping I would run into you here.”

Sofia stiffened with her drink pressed against her lips when she recognized the voice behind her. Her heart hammering, she slowly turned around and met her husband's tense and probing stare.

Uncle Jacob cut in, “I'll just leave you two alone.” He stepped back then turned and drifted into the crowd.

“You look good.” Ram's gaze roamed over her simple blue dress. “I hope that's not alcohol. It doesn't mix well with your medication, you know. And I don't want you running off and marrying someone else.”

“Ramell,” she whispered.

“Ah. So you do remember me. I was worried there for a moment since you haven't returned any of my calls.” He smiled but it didn't reach his eyes.

“I was going to call.”

“Good to know.”

“I just needed some time.” She glanced around to make sure that they weren't drawing too much attention.

“Time for what?” he challenged, sliding a hand into his pocket. Somehow he managed to look aloof and pissed off at the same time.

“To think,” she answered, lowering her voice further. “I just got hit with a lot, you know, all at once.”

He bobbed his head. “Yeah. I believe I was there. You know this is generally the time when a couple tries to come together. If you're hurting then I hurt.” Slowly his smile melted. “But what
kills
me is that after all these years you still don't come to me. Not when we were best friends and not when we're man and wife.”

“Ram—”

“No. Let me finish.” He cleared his throat and lifted his chin. “You have a habit of just putting me on a shelf and then going on about your life. And like a fool I just let you do it.”

Sofia frowned as cracks in Ramell's controlled expression started to show. “That's not…that's not what I'm doing.”

“Don't insult me, Sofia. Every night I go to
our
house, hoping that you'll be there. And you're not. You've gone back to your penthouse, back to your beloved job, and back to ignoring me and my calls.”

Fear clutched Sofia's heart. Seeing the sincerity in Ram's eyes forced her to let her guard down and she could finally see herself through his eyes and she could feel what he was feeling right now. She stepped forward and reached for his hand, but he stepped back.

“You don't have to say anything. I'm going to make this easy for you, Sofia. I'll file for an annulment. Clearly this whole marriage thing was a mistake.”

“No, Ram. That's not it at all.”

He shook his head. “That is it. Look. I'm going to be honest with you, Sofia. I love you. I always have and I always will. But I can't continue to do this with you. I can't keep waiting for you to love me as much as I love you. I just can't. I'll talk to Jacob. I can transfer to work out of our New York office. That should make things easier and we won't have to worry about running into each other at the office.”

“Ramell, that's not necessary.”

“For me it is. It will just make all of this a lot easier, for the both of us.”

He stepped forward and then planted a kiss on her forehead.

“Goodbye, Sofia.”