Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (87 page)

“True.”

“You need to send it back to him as soon
as you get home.
 
Stick it in the
mail and be done with it.”

Nicole hated to admit it, but her mom had
a point.
 
Keeping that ring stuffed
away in her shoe was just holding on to the past.
 
A few tears rolled down her cheek now,
as she thought about the act of putting her engagement ring in an
envelope.
 

She was crying as she chopped the
veggies, but it was okay.
 
There
were enough raw onions to have an excuse.

***

She got back to the city the next
afternoon and rushed home, wanting—needing—to get the ring out in
the mail that day before the last pickup.
 

It was still there, stuffed into the toe
of her shoe.
 
She dug it out and
unwrapped it from the surrounding tissue paper.
 
There it was, glimmering in the sunlight
that streamed through her bedroom window.
 
Nicole sat on her bed and stared at it, turning the ring over in her
hands.
 

Saying goodbye to it was like saying a
final goodbye to him.
 
They’d only
been together a short time, an inconsequential amount of time, really.
 
Everyone had pointed that out to her, as
if the heart cared a whit about time.
 

As far as her heart was concerned, Nicole
and Red had loved each other for eternity and then some.
 
Yet, intellectually she could explain
how false that sensation was.
 
Love
required time and patience and attention, it took years to build a real,
lasting relationship.
 

Then why did this feel like agony?
 
If their short time together had been so
meaningless and silly, why did she feel like this was going to kill her spirit?

Nicole couldn’t explain her emotions
away.
 
She was crying again as she
wrapped the ring in newspaper until it was indistinguishable from anything else
that might end up in an envelope.
 
The last thing she wanted was for some nosey mail carrier to figure out
what was in this plain looking envelope being delivered to the fancy house in
Connecticut.

At around four o’clock, Nicole went to
the nearest drop box and, without hesitation, pushed her envelope down the dark
hole where it joined hundreds if not thousands of other similar pieces of mail.

Now it was truly done with.

***

A day and a half later, Nicole was at her
first Yoga class.
 
She’d decided
that she needed to get out of the apartment more.
 
Less watching TV and eating ice cream
with Danielle, more motivating and getting the blood flowing again.

There was a tiny Yoga studio called
Nirvana, just down the street from their apartment, and they had classes on Wednesday
night at 7pm, which worked perfectly for her.

The only problem with the class was that
she’d been ambitious and signed up for an intermediate session.
 
The main reason she’d chosen this
particular class was that it fit her work schedule best.
 
And then she’d assumed that having done
a bit of Yoga with friends in college (and considering herself to be young and
somewhat fit), she wouldn’t have too much trouble adjusting to the intermediate
poses.

She’d been very, very wrong.

From the start of the class, Nicole had
known she was in for it.
 
The
instructor was this tiny little woman with a severe expression on her face and
the attitude of a drill sergeant.
 
Her name was Lilly and she yelled a lot for a Yoga teacher.

“Marianne, straighten your left leg.
 
No straighten it.
 
Okay, I’ll come over and do it for you!”

This was a typical rejoinder.
 
Lilly would adjust arms and legs and
make comments the whole time, usually about how lazy or bad everyone was at
doing the positions.

Nicole was sweating and shaking from the
first asana.
 
By the time they’d
gotten to downward dog, she thought she might not make it through the first
fifteen minutes.
 
Her legs were
shaking.
 
Her arms were shaking.

“Come on, Nicole,” Lilly said, stalking
towards her as she spoke.
 
“Elbows
straight.
 
Straight.
 
Butt up.
 
Pretend a string is pulling your
posterior to the sky.”
 
She walked
behind Nicole and pulled her hips skyward.
 
The relief on Nicole’s straining forearms was immediate and she wished
Lilly would stay there.

But the teacher quickly moved on to the
next sad sack.

Why am I doing this?
 
She asked herself.
 
It had seemed a good idea when she
signed up a week ago, a way to take her mind off the empty space in her life.
 
But straining and sweating and shaking,
just minutes after getting off the train from a long day’s work—now she
thought it was one of the stupidest decisions she’d made.

“And, let’s move into
Salamba
Sarvangasana, otherwise known as shoulder stand,” Lilly called out.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Nicole
muttered, as everyone else instantly rolled into near perfect shoulder
stands.
 

She was sitting there, debating whether
or not to just get up and walk out, when she saw him at the door.
 
First he was just a shadow, but even
before she saw his face—Nicole knew.
 
She knew Red had come to find her.

He strode purposefully into the studio of
women with their toes pointed in the air, and the little strident instructor
turned to stare at him.
 
“Excuse me
sir, we’ve a class going on.”

Red ignored the instructor.
 

He was dressed in jeans and a white and
blue Armani shirt that managed to show off his incredibly broad shoulders and
chest.
 
His dark hair and dark eyes
were darker and more intensely beautiful than ever, she thought.

“Nicole, we need to talk,” he said.

The instructor shook her head.
 
“I’m sorry, sir—I really must ask
you to leave.
 
Now.”

“Nicole.”
 
Red stared at her unwaveringly.

The women had dropped out of their
shoulder stands and were watching the scene now.

Nicole tried to breathe.
 
Tried to think.
 

Did she want to have this conversation
right now?
 
What was he going to
tell her?

“She doesn’t have to go with you,” the
teacher said, protectively.
 

Nicole had to give the lady credit, she
was a real spitfire.
 
“It’s okay,”
Nicole told Lilly, standing up and grabbing her Yoga mat.
 
“I should have signed up for the
beginner’s class anyhow.”
 
Smiling
with some embarrassment, but mostly relief, Nicole followed Red out to the street.

Outside, it was pleasantly cool, and the
sweat began drying on her sore body.
 

Red looked at her, his eyes pained.
 
“Why?” was all he asked.

She knew what he meant without further
explanation.
 
“Because,” she said,
“I didn’t think it was right for me to keep your ring.
 
And it wasn’t healthy for me to hold on.”

Red broke off from looking into her eyes,
instead choosing to look at the ground.
 
“When I came home and found the envelope with your address on
it—for a minute I thought you’d written me a letter and my heart sang.”

“I wasn’t trying to mislead you or upset
you,” she told him.
 
She’d never
seen Red look this way.
 
Even when
he was throwing dishes and glasses, he’d looked frightening.
 
But now he was just…drained.
 
Almost like a fighter who’d been beaten,
staggering around the ring with nothing left to give.

“I know you weren’t trying to hurt me,”
Red said softly.
 
Now he looked at
her again, and when their eyes met, the old shock hit her full blast—the
feeling of being known and knowing someone totally.
 

“I didn’t want us to end like this,” she
told him.
 
She was holding her Yoga
mat like she was grabbing onto a life raft, like it would somehow save her from
this ocean of pain and despair she felt.
 

“Opening the envelope and seeing the
engagement ring sitting there, wrapped in paper, and nothing with it.
 
Not even a note.
 
I’d rather you threw it down a sewer.”

“I’d never throw away something you have
me.”

“You did throw away something I gave
you,” he replied.
 
His jaw trembled
slightly.

“That’s not true,” she whispered.

“Isn’t it, though?
 
I gave you everything.
 
I was going to give you half of
everything I’ve built, my fortune, my business—all of it.”

“I didn’t ask for anything.”

He waved her excuse away like he’d
swatted a fly.
 
“I don’t even care
about the money.
 
But I gave you my
trust, Nicole.”
 

She shook her head.
 
“I can’t do this, Red.
 
You can’t just come back into my life
and dump everything on me.”
 
She
started to walk away from him.

For a moment he didn’t follow her, and
then he came running and grabbed her arm, spinning her towards him.
 
His face was closer to hers now, and she
could read every conflicting emotion in his expression.
 
“I’m sorry I lost it that night at my
house,” he said.
 
“I wanted to tell
you…” his voice faded.

“Why can’t you explain it?”

“Because, it’s too painful.”

“Can’t you at least try?” she said.
 

He laughed and put his hands on his hips,
looked around at the people walking obliviously past them on the street.
 
“Just another day in the city,” he
laughed.
 
“This city has seen it
all.”

“Don’t avoid my question, Red.”

“I’m not.”
 
He exhaled deeply.
 
“It’s something that I try to pretend
isn’t there.
 
Something that won’t
ever go away, no matter how much I wish it would.”

“What won’t go away?”

“Who I am.
 
My penchant for pushing people away who
get to close to me.”
 
He smiled
bitterly.
 
“I’m well aware of my
tendencies, but that doesn’t make it easier.”

“You wanted to push me away that night,”
she said.

He nodded.
 
“Yes.”

“It started when you told me I was
naughty.”

Red flinched slightly.
 
“Yes.
 
That’s probably true.
 
Having you in my home was something that
triggered something…something dark.”

“Why?”

He laughed.
 
“I have a feeling you won’t stop asking
‘why’ until I tell you everything.”
 
Red stuffed his hands in his pockets.
 
“Let me take you out for a bite to eat.”

“I don’t know,” she said, shifting from
one foot to the other.

“Let’s grab a beer then.
 
It’s too difficult to talk like this.”

She’d never seen Red Jameson beg before,
and it was unnerving.
 
He was making
himself vulnerable for her—she had an idea of how difficult that was for
him.

Finally, she assented.
 
“Sure, one beer.”
 

He grinned, almost looking like his old
self.
 
“How about that little pub on
the corner?” he asked.

It was called The Cask ’n Flagon and
Nicole had never been there before.
 
Inside, it was dingy and mostly empty, which was strange for that time
of night.
 
But then they sat down at
a booth and the server came to their table and Nicole instantly knew why nobody
was there.

The server, a young woman with bad skin
and a bad attitude, barely even looked at them.
 
She slapped down two menus and walked
off without even asking if they wanted a drink, or saying hello.