Reckless With Their Hearts (28 page)

“I haven’t even met her. But whoever she is mostly like is just after his money. Some gold-digging slut with not enough brains. That’s his usual type. Truthfully, I don’t think anyone will ever be good enough for him in my eyes.” She stood. “I’m going to the ladies room. Want to order us some tea?”

Alexis only nodded. When Nica was out of sight she glanced at the barista behind the counter and nodded. The girl already knew what she wanted, had waited on them several other times. She brought over a tray with a pot of tea, two cups with saucers, and a small plate of Italian cookies. By the time Nica had returned everything was set out for them.

Alexis didn’t even bother to drink her tea. Instead she picked up a cookie and began to crumble it between her fingers. Nica gave her a concerned look. “What’s with you today, Lexi? You seem…almost lost.”

She lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “I had a rough night last night.”

“Has your back started bothering you more?”

“No. More like a broken heart.” She muttered. “That tends to happen to us gold-digging sluts. We always end up with a broken heart.”

Nica reacted as if slapped. “What?”

“You know, we haven’t really gone into great detail about ourselves. You know that my name is Alexis Moreitti. But I didn’t once ask what your new last name is. I should have. Maybe I would have seen it before now.” She crushed the cookie between her fingers, leaving crumbs on the table, her lap, and the floor. “Maybe if I knew that you were Monica Giordano and not just Nica Andrews, I wouldn’t have had to sit here and made friends with the woman who stole my boyfriend last fall.”

The look on her face was one of complete and utter shock. She had gone pale. Alexis had confided more to her than she had to Gabriella about her accident and some of the things that had happened leading up to it. She had omitted the self-harming, but she had told her new friend about the baby. At the time it had felt good talking to this woman who has had two miscarriages since her marriage, about her own now impossible ability to carry a child.

“
Dolcezza
. Sorry I’m late, love.”

Alexis didn’t bother to raise her head to acknowledge Jared as he walked toward their table. Nica’s back was to the door, and he hadn’t yet noticed that he was walking toward the end of their relationship. She didn’t take her eyes off the other woman, so she saw the way she jerked at the sound of Jared’s voice. Her bottom lip quivered, her hands trembling. But Alexis just watched through impassive eyes.

“Lexis?” Jared was at their table now and she finally raised her eyes to meet his gaze. “What’s wrong?” He demanded.

“Nothing.
I’m just having a conversation with Monica here.” She inclined her head in the other woman’s direction and watched as his face went from concerned to distressed. She gave him a cold smile. “It seems that we are friends, actually. That is, we were. Now it seems I have turned into some gold-digging slut that isn’t good enough for her beloved…brother-in-law.”

Jared turned rage filled eyes on Nica. “You said that?” He asked in a quiet, albeit dangerous voice.

Tears glazed Nica’s beautiful eyes and one slipped free. “I didn’t know, Jerry. I didn’t know she was…” She broke off, dashing her tears away with her fingers. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”

“What the hell, Monica! After all I’ve done for you. After everything I had already given up!” His voice rose, but then he sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm
himself before he turned back to Alexis, a pleading look in his molasses eyes. “Lexis, please. Let me explain.”

“There’s nothing to explain. You left me for her.
Got engaged to her. Nearly married her, but then she married your brother instead. You come back. Expected me to fall back into your arms, and like the puppet you have turned me into I did. I guess it was a shock to find that I didn’t remember any of our time from before. That you had a clean slate to work with.” She clenched her hands into fists. “I guess I’m the idiot here, really. Gabriella warned me; explained everything that you had had no intention of explaining. And still I refused to deal with it.”

She snatched up her phone where it was sitting on the table and opened the screen to the picture that Gabriella had shown her the night before. “I might still have gone on doing just that, even after that fucked up video, but she had a backup. She knew that I needed proof that the past was not in the past. That I was just living in some messed up dream.” She turned her phone and let him see the damning evidence. “Looks like you were really working hard last night, Jared. You and Nica must have had so much to…discuss.”

“It isn’t what it seems, Lexis.” He crouched down beside of her, gripping her hands. When he felt how cold they were he seemed startled. “Sweetheart, you’re freezing.”

She jerked her hands away from him. “You lied to me.”

“I was terrified to tell you the truth. I just found you again. I couldn’t chance telling you about Monica.” He cupped her face in hands that shook. “I love you. I wasn’t ready to risk how happy we were over her.”

“But it was okay last time? It was okay to leave me and marry her?”

“It was just a ploy to make my brother open his eyes, baby. They were in love, but he was stubborn. He didn’t want to get married again after his disaster of a first marriage.”

She shoved his hands away, not wanting him to touch her. “So you tossed my love back in my face to go save the day for her? I was expendable. I was left broken. But it’s all okay, because Nica was going to get her happily ever after.”

“No!” He shook his head. “I didn’t leave you. Someone got wind of the engagement, even though it was just a fake one. And the next thing I know the papers are all running the announcement. You called me before I had even seen it and broke up with me. You didn’t give me time to explain anything before you hung up and blocked my number.”

“So this is my fault?”

“That isn’t what I’m saying, baby. I would have told you all about it. There just wasn’t time.”

“I blocked your number.” She sighed. “And there wasn’t time for you to come home, to explain it all to me in person? You were so busy helping out your friend?”

He shook his head. “Things got crazy. My father got sick. Nica had a miscarriage…” Jared sighed. “She was too fragile to be left alone. She needed me.”

“I needed you!” She screamed at him. “I…” The tears were gathering, threatening to fall. She felt like the world was shrinking. It became harder to breathe. “I…” Frantically she glanced around.

There, in the back of the shop where they promised to be sat Gabriella and Vince watching her closely. They had come to watch over her, make sure that she was okay throughout the confrontation, but had agreed to stay out of it unless she needed them. And she was so thankful for their stubbornness in insisting. Because she needed them both right now.

Seeing the look on her face Vince stood and was by her side in an instant. “
It’s okay, Lex. You’re okay.” He murmured as he lifted her into his arms.

Gabriella gathered her crutches and purse.
“Bastard.” She tossed at Jared as she followed Vince to the door.

“Lexis, please.
Don’t leave me.” Jared cried after them. “I love you.”

She buried her face in her brother’s chest and let the tears flow. Maybe he did love her. But to him she would always come in second. Nica was his priority. How else could he have stayed by the woman’s side when his own child was being ripped from Alexis’s womb along with all chances of having another child?

“I am broken.” She sobbed.

Things were hard. With all the emotional pain she was in, Alexis had drawn in to herself. She went to physical therapy every day. Continued to do well with meeting her doctor’s expectations, but didn’t really care one way or another. She saw Dr. Reid like always, but she didn’t really participate in their hour long conversations. Music continued to play in the background, yet she barely heard it.

Her appetite vanished. Food no longer appealed to her.

Her father was stressed. He was going through with the merger, but had already informed the Giordano family that this was going to be the last merger his firm ever handled for them. He watched her closely, despaired with every passing day and the continued lack of spark of life in her. Not even Gabriella could pull her out of her depression. To her Gabriella represented pain now, and she was struggling to get overt that just as she was struggling to get over Jared.

Three weeks had gone by since she had last seen Jared. Alexis knew that her family was thinking of pulling out the big guns. Possibly even bringing her mother out to LA to slap some sense into her…Carina was not one to let her daughter despair over something as little as a broken heart.

Today was Sunday and Alexis was still in bed at noon. Her entire body hurt, and it wasn’t just from the pain caused from her injured back. Depression was a horrible illness. She could understand her reasons for harming herself the first time around. Sometimes she struggled with not doing so again. But she refused to let that become a part of who she was now. Self-harming was not going to be her coping mechanism this time around.

On her stomach her cellphone rested. It had already buzzed twice with incoming calls. Jared’s urgency to talk with her had dwindled over the last week, but he still called a few times daily. She knew she should have just blocked his number, but she could only assume that she was a glutton for pain because instead she listened to his messages over and over again.

The tears she could hear in his voice as he pleaded with her to call him. His pain didn’t make hers any better. It only added to it. But deep down it gave her hope. Hope that maybe he did care. Perhaps he did love her this time…

Her hands fisted, her nails biting into her palms until they drew blood. It helped to ease some of her inner turmoil, but only added to her utter disgust with herself.

Without warning her bedroom door opened and in sailed her mother, beautiful and looking more than a little pissed. Carina was a force of nature as she commanded Alexis to get up and dressed. She stormed around the room, tossing clothes and shoes at her daughter. “That is enough, Alexis. No more.”

Melissa stood in the doorway, looking both regretful and hopeful as she watched. She hadn’t wanted to call Carina. Hadn’t wanted to put more stress on Alexis. But the girl was fading before her eyes. Max hadn’t put up much of an argument when she had made the call.

Alexis got dressed without a word. She didn’t protest when her mother put her in her rental and didn’t even acknowledge the woman until she had pulled to a stop in front of a church just outside of the city. The church surprised her. Did her mother think talking with a priest would help? She turned questioning eyes to her mother. “What are we doing here?”

“Meeting someone.” Was all Carina offered as she climbed out of the little sports car and waited for Alexis to join her before continuing into the church.

“Mother.”
She couldn’t keep up with the woman as she walked ahead of her. “Hello!”

“Oh, do be quiet, Alexis. Just come on.”

Glaring at her mother’s back she walked as fast as she could with her crutches. Carina held the door open for her and then turned to confront her. “You need to know that I will completely severe the contract that I have with Nica…Monica Giordano if that is what you want. I had no idea that…But that isn’t the reason I brought you here. That isn’t why he is here.”

Alexis’s head snapped around when she heard footsteps coming from behind her. Her heart skipped a beat when she thought it was Jared. But the man walking toward her with a noticeable limp and cane in hand wasn’t Jared, although there was a clear family resemblance. There was no way that anyone could not tell that Jared was this man’s brother.

“Ricco?” She murmured.

He smiled. “Yes. Hello Alexis.”

Her gaze went back to her mother. “What is this? Why is he here?”

Carina shrugged. “This is a long overdue conversation.” She stepped back. “I will be outside in the car. Please just hear him out, Alexis.”

Feeling betrayed she glared after her mother. When the door was shut behind her Alexis turned her glare on Ricco Giordano. “Nothing you say will make me take your brother back.” She assured him.

He thrust his hands into the pockets of his suit pants. “I’m not here for my brother. He and I have never been part of each other’s fan clubs. I just wanted to speak to you. Meet the girl that stole Jared’s heart…” He turned slightly and indicated one of the pews behind him. “Let’s sit, shall we?”

She took a seat, scooting as far away from the man as possible. They were both quiet for a long while. She didn’t think he was ever going to speak and she wasn’t about to start the conversation. Finally he let out a small laugh and shook his head. “I never thought I would be doing something like this.”

“What?”

“Defending my brother.” He snorted and ran a hand through his hair. “Can I tell you a story, Alexis?”

“Only my mother calls me Alexis. You can call me Lexi.”

He inclined his head. “Lexi then.”

“I guess.” She sighed. “Just know that I’m not going to…”

Ricco shrugged. “That’s fine. I’m not expecting miracles. I just want to explain things to you.” He blew out a wary breath and indicated her crutches. “I don’t know if Jared told you, but I was in an accident myself. No one thought that I would ever walk again. None of the doctors in Italy were very optimistic. It was Nica who found Dr. Bradford for me. She made the first appointment that changed my life.”