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I follow her strut as she passes, all the way to the elevator, and watch her step inside. She smiles at me as the doors close. I somehow convince my legs to walk, taking me to the door. I knock. Breathe in some strength. Mentally tell myself to be strong. Be heard. Be seen.
The door swings open. Brad takes one look at me and steps back, his face impassive. He has a Scotch in his hand, only a pair of boxers covering him. I make sure I keep his eyes.
He knows I will have passed his latest fuck leaving the building. But I didn’t need to see it happening to know it was happening. Imagining it was tough. Seeing the evidence leave?
“Why are you here, Pearl?” he asks, leaning on the door with a hand. He’s not drunk, no slur to his words at all. I’m surprised.
“I was worried about you,” I tell him. Somehow, Brad being stone-cold sober while he fucks me out of his head is so much worse than him being blind drunk. I’m so easy to replace. To look past. Nothing has changed. His words of forever meant absolutely nothing after all. “Do you have company?”
He frowns, looking back into the suite. “No.”
“Then can I come in?”
He’s quickly looking at me again. Maybe confused. Maybe curious. I don’t know. He’s thinking really hard about whether he should let me in. He eventually releases the door and steps back, and I walk into the room. The first thing I see is the pile of white powder on the table in front of the couches. Not drunk but high on cocaine? Naturally, I look for residue around his nose, listening for the tell-tale sniff. Nothing. And, actually, the pile looks too perfect to have had any dragged away. There’s no line. No card on the table. No rolled-up note.
Brad looks at me, watching me measure him. “Sit,” he says coldly. I assess the seating options. The couch? Too cozy. The occasional chairs by the far wall? Too formal.
I go to one of the armchairs and drop to the cushion, feeling him behind me. He passes, and my eyes fall to the backs of his thighs as he goes to the couch opposite and slowly lowers. He doesn’t rest back, instead taking the edge, forearms on his bare knees.
Eyes on me.
The silence that falls is painful as I search for the right words and Brad waits. Has he nothing to say? “I know about Nolan,” I say.
“Everyone knew about Nolan. Except me.”
“I didn’t know before you.” I wouldn’t want him to think I’d hold that kind of information back. Not that it matters now. “Beau told me after you left the boatyard.” He watches me falling all over myself trying to explain. I don’t know why I’m bothering. But I care that he’d believe I’d betray him, which is ridiculous considering the situation I’m currently in. But still. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
He doesn’t tell me he believes me, perhaps because he doesn’t. Again, what does it matter now? He’s already done what I hoped he wouldn’t. And if he hadn’t, was I hoping to stop him? Save him from himself? “I don’t know if I’m a contributing factor to this,” I say, motioning to his semi-naked body and the pile of drugs before me. “Or if it’s just the fact you’ve found out Nolan’s your son.”
“A bit of both,” he says flatly.
I nod. “I understand why it would mess with your head. Me. My age.” I look back at the door. The woman who just left can’t be that much older than I am. But definitely not young enough to be his daughter, and now, what with the revelation of Nolan, it’s confirmed that Brad really is old enough to be my father. And that sucks.
“It messed with my head before I found out about Nolan,” he says, showing absolutely no emotion at all, and that’s screwing with my head. No anger, no regret, no anything.
“I accept it’s over,” I whisper. “Whatever it was between us.”
He looks away, his face showing the first sign of an expression. Twisted. “It was nothing.”
“Okay,” I say. “It was nothing.” A moment ago, I was a significant piece of the reason he’s here. And now I’m nothing. Fine. Whatever he wants to tell himself. “But you’re better than this, Brad.”
“God, you’re so naïve.”
“Better than being a fucking child.”
“You are a fucking child!” he yells, his eyes wild. “A bit of fun, something to do.”
I stand, suddenly needing to leave. I can’t be around him, knowing he’s lying to himself, and I’m once again wondering why the fuck I came. If he’s going to self-destruct, no one can stop him, and I was foolish to think I could. And even more foolish to let a tiny part of me cling onto hope.
He’s a coward.
“You can walk away from me, fine, but not your son.” I head to the door. “We’ve both lost our parents, Brad. Both been without that love. It’s fucked us up, whether we admit it or not. Don’t let him down like you’ve let me and yourself down.” I pull the door open and still, feeling his eyes on my back. “I never wanted the fairy tale,” I say, refusing to give in to the need to take one last look at him. “But I did want a man who isn’t pathetic and weak.” I leave, closing the door behind me, holding back my tears. I hate him for showing me his soft side. I hate him even more for being a coward. I hate him for making me fall in love with only one version of himself, not Brad in his entirety. Because young me can’t change a man like The American.
I go to the elevator, press the call button, and step inside in a haze of grief, feeling profound loss for something that was only briefly in my life. So I’m pathetic too.
The doors start to close.
And a hand appears, stopping them from meeting in the middle. I move back as Brad forces them open again and steps into the opening, in his boxers, a hand on each side of the doors. “You’re right about so much,” he says, his lazy eyes hooded and low, pinning me in place. He’s looked at me like this before. I can’t control myself when he does. But I must. “But wrong about one thing.”
