One Night to Risk It All(42)

A tear slid down her cheek.

The first tear in years. And now she didn’t think they would ever stop.

She walked over to the bed, clutching her chest, her shoulders shaking as the dam burst on the past ten years of emotion, held so tightly in her, in a tight, heavy ball that she’d resigned herself to carrying around inside forever, broke open and poured out all over the place.

She wondered if you could drown in your own tears. She was seriously afraid she might. Or at least that she might die from not being able to catch her breath. Every attempt at breathing became another sob, until she was gasping, shaking and having a complete and utter breakdown.

Maybe this was what happened when you kept it all in. Maybe the breaking point was inevitable.

She was certainly broken. No question.

She was dimly aware of the bedroom door opening.

“Rachel?” Alex’s voice, her name followed by a sharp curse. “What’s wrong? Is everything okay? Are you okay?”

“I can’t do this, Alex!” Her words came from somewhere deep inside of her, came out without her having a chance to even think them first. She only felt them.

“Yes, you can.”

“No, I can’t. I can’t...ever do things the way they’re supposed to be done. I mess them up. When I feel too much I make mistakes and when I...when I don’t feel at all I feel like I might as well be doing nothing at all. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know how to love a child, and follow my heart, use my emotions, without making bad decisions. And if I...if I keep on like I have been and just don’t care...then what’s the point? I can’t. It’s too hard. I’ll mess it all up, I know I will.”

His arms were around her, holding her close, his lips on her temple, fingers laced through her hair. Their last confrontation, the angry words, didn’t evaporate, but for the moment they were on hold. “Rachel, you can do this. You can.”

“It’s a lie, Alex. It’s always been a lie. I’m not perfect. I hide all these pieces of myself, and I don’t show anyone. I don’t know how to give everything because I’m so damn afraid of it. Because if I do...it still won’t be good enough. It won’t ever be good enough.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because it never was! Not ever. Not for her. I tried, Alex, I put everything on hold because she was sick. I helped plan her parties, I chose Ajax because he was safe and easy and he wouldn’t disgrace me or our family. I tried to appear polished and to always smile, just like she did. But all I could ever be was a pale imitation. All I could ever manage was lukewarm cocktail shrimp and a party that was barely mediocre. She was this... She made everyone so happy at parties. She made everyone’s life easier and I just...made things harder because I was distracted and couldn’t finish, or just because I don’t have that thing that she had. I fake it, but I don’t have it. Not really. The press sees it, they think I’m so like her but I... She was never happy.”

“That isn’t your fault, Rachel, you aren’t her clone. It doesn’t mean you’re a failure, not in any way.”

She nodded. “I’m just all...messed up inside, Alex.”

He stroked her hair, his body a solid wall of reassurance for her to lean against. “Aren’t we all?”

“Well, we are.”

“As you said. Screwed up and screwed up.”

“A mess,” she said.

“But it’s the mess we have.”

“I know,” she said, sniffing loudly. “I haven’t even cried for... This is the first time in eight years.”

“I haven’t cried since I was a boy,” he said.

“How long?” she wanted to know. She wanted to know how heavy the burden inside of him was. Hers had been nearly unbearable.

“Probably about twelve years. A boy of fourteen—I might have cried then.”

“Why?”

“You want my secrets now, agape?”

“I’m leaving snot trails all over your shirt,” she said, leaning back. “I think we have no reason to keep secrets. And I wanted them once already. But you didn’t give them.”

She thought back to their night in Cannes. He’d deflected then. Both times. And he’d done it with sex.

“Then you can have them now,” he said. “Leaving the Kouklakis compound was the single hardest thing I ever did. The worst day of my life. My mother was dead. I felt very alone. Afraid of what was ahead. I wanted to escape and yet I feared the freedom. I knew I couldn’t stay because...because of what I would become if I did. I cried that day. It was the only home I knew, and I loved it as much as I hated it.”

“Your problems are so much bigger than mine,” she said. “I must seem like a nutcase to you.”

“No. I don’t see it that way.”

“How?”

“Because it hurts you. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being in the position I’ve been in, being around the types of people I’ve been exposed to, it’s that people have common pains. They come from different places, but they are the same sorts of hurts.”

“Forgive me, Alex, but you’re one of the most amoral men I’ve ever met. You used me to get back at Ajax, you were going to crash my wedding—”