Pink Ice (17 page)

             
Fuck! You just said it!
“I hate to participate in things that I’m not good at. But I’ve always had everything I want, so my frustration tolerance is really, really low. My selfish being can’t walk away from Berkeley anymore. But that would make my life much easier.”

             
Drained from my admissions, I stared at her, truly believing I had already said it all. “Katherine, can you explain to me why you think you don’t deserve love?” Her tone was harsh, and Mrs. Cherry was never harsh, with that name she wasn’t allowed. So I knew that I better start giving her the answers.

             
“People don’t want love for cold hearted bitches. Even people that think Chelle, my best friend, is a slut. They want love for her, because she’s a damsel in distress. She needs a man, she’s fragile and lovable. But then, tough women don’t need men, they stay alone because they don’t need any man’s attention.” She didn’t answer, which freaked me out. “I should probably fall in love with junk food. That’s it, cupid should set me up with junk food. A true, real, everlasting love. I should stick with what I know, and I don’t know about feelings.”

             
I truly thought she was going to laugh. But she didn’t, her lips were tight in a straight line. “Katherine, I’ve known you five years. You’ve been in this office every day, working later than anyone, and never making a mistake. If I didn’t know better I would think you are a machine. No one, can be as perfect as you have been all these years. But guess what darling, human relationships are uncontrollable. Humans are unpredictable. And despite what you have convinced yourself, you are a human.”

             
My eyeballs were about to pop out of their orbits with surprise. “If you ever again call yourself a ‘cold heart bitch’, I’ll knock your teeth out with my hand. You are loud and I know in private you swear more than what is healthy. But evil is measured in actions, not in words. You are kind and gentle, you care for the people that you love, and protect them. Even with all your temper issues, you have never been unfair or mean.”

             
“But the best thing, is that you don’t have a say in what people feel about you. You can’t control that guy’s feelings. And I think he has made it real clear that he decides what he does with what he feels. So darling, for your own sake stop trying to control things that are messy, and enjoy this. I’ve been married for 34 years, and sometimes I still feel ‘inadequate’. But the way that boy looks at you, should be enough to open your eyes.”

             
She stood up and was ready to leave when she turned to me and grabbed my hand in hers. “Katherine, you’ll make this work. You always do it.” She walked to the door and mumbled under her breath. “What’s with these uptight girls that think they have to be perfect?”
If only I knew!

             
Fuck!
Mrs. Cherry made me think about things I didn’t want to. I was so fucked up that I was projecting my own insecurities on Dylan’s behavior. And I promised myself that I was going to calm down, to calm down until I found evidence, and then kick his ass.

             
The Wednesday after his visit, my life was completely full with the avalanche of work that the His Magazine campaign meant. If everything would go as planned, it was going to be the biggest success of my career. While staring at some copies, my cell phone rang. Wishing to see Dylan’s name on the screen, I ran to the phone and was disappointed to find Kevin’s.

             
I was usually not anxious about Berkeley’s calls, but he hadn’t called since yesterday. And his obsessive personality didn’t allow those kinds of silences. “What’s up hottie?”

             
“Baby, just letting you know that one of my girls needs me, so I won’t go home tonight.”

             
“Kev, you realize sex is not a need? She doesn’t need you, she wants you.” My chuckle on the phone took the attention of my team. With one cold glare, all of them went back to their jobs.
I can laugh jerks! You just never make me laugh!

             
“I am all about fulfilling wants and needs! See you tomorrow Katie.” Just two hours after his call, I was laying on my bed watching a Criminal Minds marathon. I am not a sissy, but the amount of blood made me cover half of my face with the blanket. My heart was already to its full intensity, when the noise of keys at my door took my breath away.

             
I took my cell phone, dialed 911 and ran to meet the aggressor. A strong chest collapsed against me, and a pair of firm arms surrounded my body. Without talking and with more strength than necessary, the firm arms carried me, forcing my legs to straddle his waist. My phone went to the floor and my back got crushed against the wall. If it weren’t for the hand that was covering my head, I would have been hurt, sadly my back was not that lucky.

             
The moment when his lips found mine, my whole face resonated with the impact. It hurt, but it was a good kind of pain. His mouth tasted of alcohol, and that was the only clue of what was happening. The urgency in his fingers was hurting the skin of my ass and thighs. I moved my face and let him bite my neck. “Dylan, what’s happening?” He didn’t answer, he just shut me up by biting my lower lip.

             
It was in the exact same moment when he bit me, that his fingers went to my crotch and started working roughly against the delicate skin. The moment I felt his fingers leaving me, he entered. Hard, solid, reckless, something felt odd. I had never seen Dylan losing control like this; I suspected that like me, he never let alcohol steal control. The only time when I had heard about the possibility of him being drunk, had been during the anniversary of his parent’s death. This had to be about that.

             
My head was all over the place trying to figure out what was happening, but as always his touch was driving me crazy. With every pound I felt more, more of him, more of his need, more of his anger. I hadn’t done anything wrong, so this couldn’t be about me, but then I was the one being nailed to the wall.

             
If I couldn’t do anything else, I was going to try to erase that need and that anger. The moment he came, his legs buckled and we fell against the floor. Him inside me, his arms around me and his face buried on my neck. His breathing was so erratic, that I only could caress his back trying to sooth him.

             
There was no way he could speak in that state, if I was hoping for an explanation it would not be until the next morning. He had trusted me enough to let me see him as drunk as hell and as vulnerable as I never thought he could be, I could only pay back with my silence. It took him a while, but he fell asleep in my arms and I didn’t let him go.

             
The light in my bedroom woke me up. I was alone, tucked in my bed. At some point during the night Dylan had brought me to my bed and probably left.
You were fucked and abandoned darling.
Each part of my body hurt more than the other, it was no surprise to notice a bunch of bruises when I stood up. One of them was so big and dangerously positioned that if I had been a stripper I would have been fired.

             
My body analysis was interrupted when a perfectly dressed Blue Eyes came out of my bathroom. “Good morning doll. You better hurry up because I want you to take me to the airport.”
What the fuck is going on?
Freshly dressed, no evidence of a hangover, and definitely no intention to talk about what happened.

             
Maybe he wanted to talk about it during the ride, and that was why he was asking me to go with him. But if he thought for a second he was going to act as if it never happened, he was fucking crazy. “I’ll be ready in an hour.” I tried to sound as normal as I could, but you could cut the tension with a knife.

             
We were already in the SUV with Joe and Max when I tried to get our conversation back to normal. Maybe if he was comfortable enough, he would start explaining his madness episode. But before, I needed a bunch of documents that I had forgotten in his parents’ place, and this was my only chance to get them, since I didn’t know when he was coming back. “Dylan, I had forgotten to tell you. I left a pair of contracts in your parents’ apartment, and I really need them.”

             
He checked the hour on his fancy, vintage watch. He was the only one with keys to that house so if he didn’t have time to stop, I would have to wait until he came back. “Max, we are going to stop at my parents’ house first.”  His eyes stopped on mine for one second and then went back to his iPad.

             
I was going to start bitching about last night when we stopped. Dylan was stepping out of  the car when his cell phone rang. Covering the receiver with his hand, he directed his attention to me. “Doll, I have to take this.” He grabbed his portfolio, took the keys and gave them to me. “Can you run upstairs and pick up your contracts?” To avoid any drama coming from my mouth I nodded and left the car.

             
Old Katherine would have yelled, kicked and left by then, but all the hurt I could see in his face only made me have more feelings towards that man. New Katherine knew how terrible it was to be helpless, and the only time when I had been that vulnerable, he had been the one who helped me. Probably going to his parents’ house wasn’t a smart idea, but I really needed those papers.

             
As fast as my Valentino high heels let me, I entered the house and walked to his mom’s library. I looked for the contracts and since they were not on the desk, I opened the drawer. On top I found my papers, but before I closed it I noticed an envelope with the word “
Doll”
on it.

             
Probably Dylan gave it to me when I was in the hospital and I couldn’t remember. The page seemed old but it couldn’t be that old since it was addressed to me. Opening it, I found  beautiful handwriting, but it wasn’t Dylan’s. It was a little bigger, and the cursive letters had more inclination to the right.

             
“My beloved doll:

             
I can’t start to explain to you how deep my love for you is. I could never ask for anything else, since I’ve already gotten the biggest treasure, your heart. I know I don’t deserve you, but somehow I was lucky enough to get your heart, and I will never let it go. Eighteen years ago you made me the happiest man in this world, when you gave me Dylan. He’s as perfect as you, and when I thought I could never love more, that you had my whole heart, I learned that love can only be multiplied, never divided. You and he are the only things with value in this world to me, and I promise you that I will devote my life to both of you.

             
Yours forever,

Alexander M. Berkeley”

              I felt one tear fall from my eyes when my cell phone rang with a text from Dylan, letting me know that I had to run back to the car. Dylan had given me his mother’s nickname. The love that he had been admiring since he was a little boy; that was how he had been calling me. But it didn’t make sense, he had been calling me that since our first night together.

             
We weren’t in love, certainly weren’t the first time we slept together. But he gave me that memory, probably unconscious of it. That letter was perfect, it portrayed exactly the kind of love that Dylan had described to me at the Bethesda Fountain. And if I doubted it for a second that morning, in that moment, I didn’t even hesitate. I wanted to be with him, damn the consequences.

             
I was never going to be able to be what his mother was to his father, but I could be by his side. And that’s exactly where I wanted to be. I got to the car and he was still on the phone, so I just faced the window and got lost in myself.

             
“Katherine, what’s happening?” His entire body was directed towards me, and those perfect crystal eyes were on mine.

             
“That place, it shakes things.” My voice was really low and I didn’t want him to look at me. It would take one glance to know that something had happened to me.

             
But of course, he never could do what I wanted. With one finger distractingly close to his mouth he observed me. “Good things or bad things.”

             
My mouth didn’t need to ask my brain about this answer. “Good.”
Good as in “I would like to be living with you there again.”

             
Without answering he took my hand and pulled me over his lap, resting his head in the side of my neck. “I hate being away from you Katherine. I don’t want to leave you.” And so low as if he didn’t want me to hear him, he said. “I’m sorry about last night. I would never hurt you doll.”

             
And that was the word that took me out of my trance. “Dylan, you know you can tell me anything.” I turned in his arms to be face to face. In the most pure Sicilian style, we were nose to nose. “Tell me what happened yesterday.”

             
He rested his face over my shoulder forcing me to move my head and avoided my eyes. The seconds passed, and I suspected he was not going to answer my question. I was already defeated when I heard him clearing his throat. “Max, take us to our place.”