VAIN - Part Three (The VAIN Series Book 3)
Read VAIN - Part Three (The VAIN Series Book 3) Online
Authors: Deborah Bladon
VAIN
Part Three
By: Deborah Bladon
First Original Edition, August 2014
Copyright © 2014 by Deborah Bladon
ISBN: 9781926440033
Cover Design by
Wolf & Eagle Media
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This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and situations either are the product of the author's imagination or are used factiously.
All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written consent from the author.
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IMPULSE
SOLO
For Madeline.
No.
This is not how this goes. I'm not going to get on that elevator and ride away into the sunset in despair while he drives his dick into my doppelganger's vagina. No. That is not happening. This is too reminiscent of Paris. Did Brighton come over here and give Noah a primer on how to break my heart? Did he tell Noah to have Camilla on stand-by so when I showed up, he could make it clear that she was the one for him and I was nothing? I'm not doing this again. This is beyond fucked up. I've stood here just outside his door, in utter silence, for the past ten minutes, my mind replaying over and over again what must be going on inside the apartment.
I twist back around and slam my fist against the heavy wooden door. I take in a deep breath, wanting to calm my heart. It's not only racing, it's braking hard and fast, skipping beats in the process.
"I told you to go." He's dressed now in jeans that hang low on his hips. The trail of dark hair that runs across his broad, tattooed chest forges a path down his toned abs before it dips below the waistband.
"What the hell is going on, Noah?" I ask, wishing my voice didn't sound so high pitched. I know he can hear every emotion that is coursing throughout my body in my tone. I have to stay calm. I have to get some understanding so I don't spend the next six months of my life trying to piece together what happened. I went down that road with Brighton, there's no goddamn way I'm doing it again.
He rubs his hand across his forehead. "This is a really bad time, Alexa. You need to leave."
"I'm not going anywhere." I dart my eyes past his shoulder to the empty living room. I strain to hear Camilla's voice but there's nothing but stillness in the space. "I want to come in."
He brushes against me before stabbing his finger into the elevator call button. "Go now."
"No." I don't waste a movement as I skirt over the threshold and into his apartment.
His strong hand is on my elbow in an instant. "You can't be here," he murmurs. "I'm busy right now."
"Doing what?" The subtle suggestion of him being busy with Camilla bites into me. I'll never shake the image of her wrapped in that bed sheet from my mind. "Why is she here? You should have told me she looks just like me."
"Camilla?" His jaw firms. "She doesn't look just like you. There's a slight resemblance."
I study his expression for any sign of humor. He's not joking. He's seriously just said that. "I look identical to her."
His lips purse together and his eyes run slowly over my face. "She's ordinary, Alexa. You're beautiful. "
"That's such bullshit," I spit the words out in a heated rush. "You picked me because I look exactly like her."
"I was attracted to you at first because you reminded me of her," he admits. "Then you opened your mouth and I realized you're the exact opposite of her."
"What does that mean?"
"You're kind. You're honest. You're strong." A small smile slides across his mouth. "I've never known anyone like you."
"Did you think about her when you were fucking me?" I exhale in a rush. My mind is racing faster than my words will allow. "Did you look at me and imagine I was her?"
"Never," he snaps. "Don't say that. It's disgusting."
"You couldn't have her so you chose me to take her place," I push.
His grip firms and I tense from his touch. "I ache inside when I look at you, Alexa. You're so beautiful. You're the most beautiful woman I've ever met."
"I want to know why she's here," I say softly. Part of me wants to know. The other part doesn’t know if it can shoulder the burden of the words. Once he tells me he's been screwing her, I have to accept it. He'll validate my worst fear. He's going to tell me that I crawled into the bed of a fucking liar again.
His hand leaps from my elbow before he pulls it into a knotted fist. "We can't talk about this right now. You have to go."
The dismissal bites through me. "I told you I wasn't leaving. Why did you bother planning a weekend away with me when you're still fucking her?"
His eyes rise from the floor and lock on mine. "I'm not fucking her." The words are clear and calm.
"Don't lie," I bark. "I saw her in that sheet. You had no clothes on. Why did you do it? Why?" The words all fall together in a messy heap as they leave my lips. There's no clear definition to them.
"Alexa, no." His hand is in the air now, waving aimlessly towards the hallway. "I didn't. I wouldn't touch her."
I steel myself against the words. How can he lie right to my face? Why is he lying? All I need to do is march down that hallway and confront her myself. "Where is she?" I take a few steps to the right but he's too quick. His hands grab my hips, pulling me back towards him.
"Don’t do that." He takes a deep breath. "I'm serious. I need you to leave."
My eyes are transfixed on his face, studying his expression. It's a clear and uncompromising mixture of frustration and irritation. "I'm not going, Noah." I push against his chest, my hands resting on the firm bare skin.
"You're so fucking stubborn," he hisses the words out through clenched teeth as one of his hands leaps to my face. "Beautiful, stubborn, Alexa."
The rumble that is woven into my name pierces into me. I feel my body tighten at the sound. I don't want him to say my name. I don't want him to touch me. I just want to understand why a woman he claimed he didn't want is somewhere in this apartment, wrapped in one of his bed sheets. "Just tell me why, Noah."
He pulls his other hand to my face, cupping both my cheeks. "I didn't do anything with her. I don't want her."
"Why is she here?" I ignore what he just said. If I took any lesson away from my time with Brighton Beck it was that words pale in comparison to actions. Noah was nude when I go here, Camilla was practically nude. If I put two and two together that equals hot, crazy sex in his bedroom right before I arrived.
"Ari brought her." He doesn't elaborate beyond that. He just stares at me as if the mention of Arianna's name is going to open a floodgate of understanding.
"Is she here too?" I try to bend my neck in the direction of the hallway, but his grasp is too tight. The index finger of his right hand lazily runs over my cheekbone.
He only nods in response, his eyes piercing a dark path into me. I can sense the answers that I want are just there, within my reach, but he's not going to offer them to me. He's shutting me out. He's gone from willingly wanting to board a train to explore New York City with me, to pulling back and inviting two women who both obviously want him into the penthouse retreat that he hides himself away in. What the fuck happened between yesterday and this minute? Why can't I ever get the happy ending that I want?
"I deserve better than this." I push against his hands with my own, but he's unyielding. "You said you wanted me." The words are a bitter whine that boils up from deep within me. They're laced with the beginnings of the tears that I feel welling up in my eyes. I haven't cried more than a few minutes since I saw Brighton with Liz months ago. Now that image is tangled with the one of Noah and Camilla. I can't distinguish what's causing the immeasurable pain I'm feeling. Right now I hate them both. Correction, I hate all four of them.
"I agree." His thumb runs gently over my nose. "You deserve everything."
"I deserve an explanation," I bite back. "I deserve to know what the fuck is going on."
He moves forward until his chin is resting on my forehead. "You're right."
My breath stalls. This is when he confesses to fucking Camilla. This is the moment when he tells me that he saw her within my face and my body when I arrived weeks ago with that sandwich. He's going to tell me that he loves her and I was simply living on borrowed time until she reappeared. Why did I practically bash his door in to get back into this apartment? Why do I give a shit? I got over Brighton when he showed his true colors. I can do it again with Noah. I'm better than this.
"She had nowhere else to go," he whispers into my skin. "I couldn't let them live on the street."
"Them?" I push away harshly. I have to distance myself from him. I need to find those two women and give them a piece of my mind.
"Alexa." His tone is clipped as I race down the hallway, dropping my purse as I run.
I slow as I near the doorway to his bedroom and glance through. There's no one. I move towards the next room, grabbing onto the wall to steady myself as his large hands once again encircle my waist. I fall back into him as my gaze darts into the other bedroom. The blinds are partially drawn, only a small sliver of warm afternoon light pours into the space as my eyes meet Camilla's. My gaze travels down her face, towards the sheet still covering her body and the small bundled baby resting in her arms.
"You have a baby?" My hand covers Noah's. I need him to answer the question. I need him to tell me whether the beautiful small gift that Camilla is cradling in her arms, is his child.
Camilla's eyes widen. "Obviously. Why is the delivery girl back?"
"Noah?" I can't turn to look at him. I'm so overcome with conflicting emotions. The baby is so tiny, so innocent and perfect.
"No, Alexa." He whispers the words as his lips feather over my ear. "It's not my baby."
I hold tightly to his hand as he pushes his chest against my back working to steady my balance. "Why then?" It's fragmented and breathy. I want to understand. I do. I want to comprehend why the woman he once killed for is sitting in a bed in his apartment with a newborn baby.
"Noah," Camilla looks past me directly to him. "Why is she here?"
"This is Alexa." He wraps his hands tighter around my waist, pulling me even closer to him. "This is the woman I told you about."
"The delivery girl is your girlfriend?" Her brow darts up with the same implied questions I have. "Why didn't you say something when she brought your food?"
Girlfriend.
It's a word he's never spoken. We've never defined the connection between us, and hearing it from the lips of a woman who resembles me so closely is disorienting.
"Not girlfriend," he corrects. "She's my everything. She was my …"
My breath stalls as his voice trails. "Was," I whisper in a heated rush. Something has changed.
"Alexa." His lips press against my hair. "We have to talk."
I've yet to turn to face him. I can't pry my eyes away from the sight of my almost twin and her baby. Why wouldn't he have told me Camilla had a child when I was asking about her days ago? Why keep that a secret? The knowledge that she'd had another man's child would have chased away all those doubts that had been plaguing me since I read her name in that text from Ari.
"What's she doing here?" As if on cue, Ari seemingly appears from out of nowhere. Her eyes blaze across my face as she pushes past Noah and I. "I brought you a snack." She hands an apple to Camilla before brushing her lips over the baby's forehead. "How's Abe?"
Abe. The baby is a boy. The disjointed pieces of the puzzle are being thrown together in a cluttered mess within my mind.
"Alexa is none of your business." Noah's hand jumps from my waist to my shoulder. "She's here to see me. Don't disturb us."
I don't resist as his hands pull me away from the door frame. I hear Arianna mutter something curse filled under her breath before we're out of earshot.
"Come to my office."
Tears threaten and I take a heavy breath as he closes the door behind me. The fact that Camilla is here with a baby doesn't change the fact that Noah pushed me out of his apartment. He wanted me gone. He corrected himself when he called me his everything. This is over. The words haven't left his lips yet, but I can hear them coming. Noah Foster is going to break my heart. I can feel the splinters already.
"Sit down, Alexa." He reaches to pull my palm across his lips. I stare down at it, willing him to look me in the eye, but he won't.
I take a seat in the same leather chair that he carried in for me the other night when he was working. "Why are Camilla and her baby here?" Maybe if I stall long enough, he'll have a change of heart and he won't throw me out again. Maybe he'll remember how it feels to touch me, and laugh with me and live outside the confines of his insecurities.
"Her husband threw her out and changed the locks."
The word assaults me.
Husband?
Why had Camilla's husband and baby been such a secret before today? If Noah had only told me about them I wouldn't have wasted countless hours worrying about how she was going to swoop back in and steal him away from me.
"Camilla is married?" I ask with the ease of someone who is familiar with her. I'm not. I don't want to be. I don't care anything about Camilla or what her situation is. I care about Noah.
"I didn't know until the other day." He lowers himself into his desk chair, pulling on the fabric of his jeans. I can tell that he's uncomfortable.
That was only a few short days ago. Why does it feel as though the entire universe has shifted on its axis since then? I only nod as I wait for him to continue.
"Ari told me." He reaches for the arm of my chair, resting his elbow on it. "She told me Camilla was about to give birth and had been tossed out by her husband."
I push back into the soft leather of the chair to gain some distance from not only his body, but his words. I don't know Camilla, but that hasn't stopped me from making assumptions about her. Regardless of how manipulative I might think she is, no one deserves to be shown the door right before they have a baby. "What kind of man does that?" My words are spotted with disgust.
"One who is fed up with his wife's bullshit," he says quietly. "She doesn't know who the father of her baby is." His gaze darts up to mine. "I'm not in the running. I haven't seen her for more than a year."
I feel an instant rush of relief bowl over me again. I believed him the first time he told me that the baby wasn't his, but the reassurance now is quelling my fears that there's more to their relationship than he's sharing. "How did she end up here? With you?" I add, strictly out of spite. I'm frustrated that my weekend with Noah crashed to a screeching halt because of his ex-girlfriend.
"Ari brought them over a few hours ago." He taps his finger against his upper lip. "Camilla wants to stay." He shakes his head as if to ward off the thought. "I'm having them moved to a hotel within the hour."
I take little comfort in the words. "Why did she say you two needed to talk before you threw me out?" I know the question is facetious. I'm still trying to absorb the fact that his ex looks identical to me.
"She wants to stay." A low chuckle rumbles through him. "That's not even an option."
"She was nude when I got here." I'm on a roll. I'm not about to stop with this line of questioning until I'm sure Camilla is out of the picture and his bed for good.
"She took off her top to feed him She's still wearing a skirt." He shrugs his shoulders. "I walked in on that and told her to shut the damn door before I had a shower."
The shower. "You were nude, Noah," I whisper. I'm so tired of him walking around naked in front of everyone. I get that it helps him deal with his scar and that insecurity that comes from that. I just don't get why he has to display his cock to everyone who steps foot in his apartment.
"I was on my way to my room to put on my pants." He slides his fist across his leg, smoothing out the denim fabric. "Camilla was out of the bedroom and answered the door before I could get to it."
"There's nothing going on between you two?" I cross my arms across my chest. "Nothing at all?"
"Nothing." He pulls the word slowly across his lips. "I told you I was done with her, Alexa. I meant it. I feel nothing for her. Nothing."
I feel a small smile tug at the corner of my lip. This is the first breath I've been able to fully take since I arrived, sandwich in hand, to pick him up for our New York getaway.
"Alexa?" His voice pulls me from my momentary bliss. "We need to be done too."
