Annihilate Me (Vol. 3) (The Annihilate Me Series) (4 page)

“Anyway, that’s the reason I came by
today,” she said.
 
“I saw you
yesterday.
 
I’m not sure that you
saw me.
 
But yesterday I stuck my
head inside to check on Alex.
 
You
were so involved in whatever it is you’re going through that you didn’t seem to
notice me.
 
So I left.
 
But it was clear to me that you were
somewhere else, and I have a feeling that you were in the great land of
guilt.
 
You think he’s here because
of you, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.
 
On many levels he is here because of
me.”

“Why do you feel that way?”

“Because I overreacted when I found out
that he didn’t tell me about the threat.
 
And then I received a threat of my own.
 
What I created after that led to where he is now.”

“What
you
created?”

“That’s right.
 
What
I
created.”

“Tell me who wouldn’t have overreacted in
that situation?”

“Many wouldn’t have.”

“Name someone.
 
I certainly would have overreacted, if you even want to call
it an overreaction, which I’m not sure that it was.
 
That said, I would have been furious with him.
 
In fact, now that I know he’s going to
be all right, I
am
furious with him for not taking that threat more
seriously.
 
We’re talking about
your life, Jennifer, and we’re talking about his life.
 
He ignored a clear threat.
 
He’s done it before.
 
Hell, he’s done it time and again since
his parents died and he took over Wenn.”

I saw my chance and took it.
 
“How did his parents die?”

She shot me a curious glance.
 
“You don’t know?”

“I don’t.
 
I’ve waited for Alex to tell me himself.
 
In Maine, he told me more than he ever
has about them and his relationships with them.
 
He told me that they didn’t like each other, but he never told
me how they died.”

“Actually, it went deeper than his mother
and father merely not liking each other.
 
They hated each other.”

The way she said it was biting.
 
She once told me she’d been close to
Alex’s mother.
 
For a moment, the
mood shifted to a darker place that reached her eyes and colored her
expression.

“They couldn’t have been that old when
they passed.”

“They weren’t.”

“Did something happen to them?”

“You haven’t Googled this?
 
It’s not exactly a secret, Jennifer.”

What isn’t a secret?

“I thought about Googling it, but I felt
like that was prying, so I didn’t.”

“And you’re not prying now?”

“I
am
prying now.
 
I want to know.
 
I need to understand him better.
 
And you’re not behaving like yourself
right now for some reason.
 
What
happened?”

“Are you sure you want to hear it from me,
or do you want to wait to hear it from Alex?”

“It’s public information.
 
I had wanted to hear it from him.
 
But right now?
 
What’s the point in waiting any
longer?”

“All right.
 
It was a murder-suicide.
 
Alex’s father shot Constance in the head.
 
Then he turned the gun on himself.”

I couldn’t believe what I was
hearing.
 
I couldn’t keep the
surprise from my voice when I spoke.
 
“You’re not serious....”

“I wish I wasn’t.”

“When was this?”

“Four years ago.
 
It happened a month before he lost Diana.
 
So, within the course of a month, Alex
lost his parents and his wife.”

I couldn’t help tearing up at the thought
of how that must have affected him.
 
“Why did his father do that?”

“Because he wanted a divorce.
 
Constance refused to give him one.
 
This went on for years—at least
twenty.
 
She refused to give him a
divorce because she was convinced he’d ruin her socially.
 
And she was right—he would have.”

“That’s what Alex told me.”

“Then Alex knew his father.
 
After one particularly ugly,
alcohol-fueled fight that lasted long past midnight, that son of a bitch went
for his gun and shot Constance in her bedroom.
 
I assume that when he realized what he’d done and the
scandal and prison sentence that were upon him, the coward shot himself in the
head.
 
End of story for them, but
the beginning of a major turning point in Alex’s life.”
 
She shook her head.
 
“Sometimes, I don’t think he cares what
happens to himself.
 
Not so much
because of what happened to his parents, whose relationship was brutal on him,
but because of how Diana’s death affected him.
 
Since then, he’s been absolutely focused on work, but adrift
in other ways.”

“I’ve only told Lisa this, but he wrote me
a letter.
 
A love letter is what he
called it, and I suppose that’s what it was.
 
He gave it to me that night on the roof deck.
 
In it, he said that he was in love with
me.
 
If that’s true, why didn’t he
tell me about any this, from his parents to the threat itself?”

“I have no idea.
 
Not unlike you, Alex has a shield around himself, clearly
because of what he’s been through.”
 
She looked at me.
 
“Are you
in love with him?”

“I don’t know.
 
I think so.
 
Maybe.”

“How can you not know?

“Because I’ve never been in love before.”

“Then let me tell you what I’ve seen.
 
I’ve watched you, I’ve watched him,
I’ve watched you two together, and what I’ve increasingly seen is a couple
falling in love with each other.
 
Alex knows what love is.
 
You may not recognize it as quickly as he because you’ve never
experienced it.
 
But the woman I
saw in that room a moment ago?
 
The
woman who was crying at his bedside?
 
That was a woman in love.
 
That was a woman in private who wasn’t putting on a show for others
because her boyfriend happens to be a billionaire and grief was expected of
her.
 
That was you alone with Alex,
who was asleep and unable to see the state you were in.
 
But when I saw you like that?
 
It said it all to me.
 
You’re in love with him.
 
That’s how love feels, at least in this
situation.
 
When it’s good, it’s
also everything you’ve ever heard and read about.
 
It can be delirious and wonderful, and it can make you
happier than you’ve ever been in your life.
 
But it also can drop you to your knees, which is where you
are now.
 
Have you ever hinted at
how you might feel about him?”

“Not verbally.
 
But I have physically.”
 
I took a breath and decided to just come clean with it.
 
“This may sound pathetic at my age, but
he took my virginity.
 
There’s no
question in my mind that he knows how important that moment was for me, and
that after waiting so long, I wasn’t giving it away to just anyone.
 
So, if I’ve said anything truly meaningful
to him, it was through that decision.”

“That’s fine, but sometimes people need to
hear the words.
 
Why can’t you tell
him how you feel?”

“That’s a road you don’t want to go down.”

“Why?”

I knew Blackwell well enough to know that
she wouldn’t let go of this, so I opened up a bit.
 
“My father abused me when I was young.
 
My mother did nothing about it.
 
I was routinely beaten.
 
As a result, I have a mother lode of
trust issues.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It is what it is.
 
I certainly can’t change it.”

“To a point, I’ll agree with that.
 
You can’t change the past, and you
certainly can’t forget it.
 
But
you’re very much in control of your present and your future, Jennifer.
 
Look at what you’ve accomplished so
far.
 
You did that.
 
When we first met, I stupidly tried to
get in the way of it, but you worked hard and found a way around even me.
 
That’s no small accomplishment, my
dear.
 
Not many succeed.”
 
She cocked her head at me.
 
“Are you and Alex committed to each
other?”

“I’ve verbally committed to him.
 
He knows I’m his.
 
But as much as he wants me to say that
I’m his girlfriend, I haven’t said that to him yet.
 
For whatever pathetic reason, I can’t say it.
 
Of course I’m his girlfriend.
 
Of course I feel deeply for him.
 
What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing’s wrong with you.
 
Obviously, you need to feel safe before
you say it, and you want to be honest when you say it.
 
I respect that.
 
And it might take time.
 
The reason I asked is because I’m still
trying to figure out why Alex didn’t open up to you about the threat.
 
This
might be the reason.
 
Maybe he doesn’t feel like you’re a
true couple yet.
 
Maybe he thought
telling you about the threat would frighten you off.
 
You did leave him once, Jennifer—with
justification.
 
He might have
thought that telling you about a death threat would have driven you away
again.”

I hadn’t considered that.

“Have you talked with him yet?” she asked.

“This morning.
 
Briefly.”

“What did he say?”

“He apologized to me.
 
He said he should have taken it more
seriously.”

“That’s positive.
 
He should have.”

“I don’t want to screw this up, Ms.
Blackwell.”

“I really wish you’d call me Barbara.”

“I think I’ll always see you as ‘Ms.
Blackwell.’”

“Worse things have happened.
 
Look, Jennifer.
 
To get through this, you’re going to
have to come to terms with your past, let go of it, and move forward with your
future.
 
That’s the only way out
that I can see.
 
What’s the other
option?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Then forget your father—to hell
with him.
 
Instead, think about
your future with Alex and how you feel for him.
 
Come to terms with it, and know that it’s OK to feel a
little frightened by it.
 
Love is
scary—I get it.
 
I’ve been
through it.
 
When it’s right, let
him know.
 
But don’t take too
long.”

“I can’t thank you enough, Ms. Blackwell.”

“You may reconsider that in a moment,” she
said.

“What does that mean?”

She looked cagy for a minute.
 
Then she said, “There’s a dinner party
tonight.
 
That awful Peachy Van
Prout is hosting it.
 
Everyone who
is anyone will be there.
 
The board
met this morning.
 
One of the
members called me before I came here.
 
You’ve impressed them.
 
They
requested that you take Alex’s place tonight and attend on his behalf because
you’re intimate with a deal they want locked down.”

“Which deal?”

“The potential deal with Henri
Dufort.
 
They asked me to see if
you’ll go alone and answer his questions.
 
Apparently, he has a lot of them.”

“You want me to leave Alex here alone?”

“He won’t be alone.
 
I’ll be with him.”

“But I’ve never brokered deals
before.
 
It’s not what I do.
 
I don’t know if I can do that.”

“The board thinks you can.
 
So do I.
 
But that’s not what this is about.
 
This is about keeping the conversation going.
 
Given how much press the accident with
Alex and you has received, Dufort knows that Alex is unavailable to him.
 
At least for now.
 
But Dufort is all about Dufort.
 
When Alex hinted at the potential for
Dufort’s Streamed joining Wenn Entertainment, it set the wheels in motion.
 
This is something Dufort wants to move
on.
 
He wants to meet with you
informally tonight.
 
You’ll have
cocktails with him and be his guest at dinner.
 
You’ll lay out your ideas—since they were, after all,
your ideas.
 
The board informed him
of that.
 
Now, he wants more
information from you, and possibly to strike a deal when Alex is well.
 
Obviously, Alex is in no shape to go,
so the deal will need to wait a couple of days.
 
Dufort wants to pick your brain, but informally.
 
So, it should be nothing more than
casual conversation about a subject you’ve studied.
 
Will you do it?
 
For Alex?”