Page 30 of No Merciful Corruption

Either he’s being intentionally obtuse or he’s trying to force an answer out of me. It doesn’t matter. I relent anyway.

“I want you to stay.”

He gives a light shrug and a nod. “I can wait until you finish eating.”

“In New York, Alex. I want you to stay in New York…with me.”

He doesn’t respond right away. Instead, he watches me with a leveled look and an expression I can’t quite discern, a revelation I find unsettling. By now, I thought I had all of him memorized. The difference between a performative smile and a real one, the crease that forms between his brows when he’s been reading for too long without his glasses, the way he bites down on the corner of his mouth to keep from laughing at inopportune moments. This is a look I don’t recognize, equally reserved and inquisitive.

When it feels like the staring will go on forever, I break eye contact and return to eating my lunch. Fire eats up my lungs and my chest swells as it expands with smoke. He didn’t say anything. We’ve been up in arms for a year and I’ve finally put mine down long enough to tell him I want him and he didn’t say anything.

A shrill ringing cuts through the silence and he reaches into his pocket for his cellphone. For some reason, my heart begins to pound and my stomach cramps as memories of that ringing phone flood my mind. The time in the villa when he let a phone call invade our private space, the afternoon he took me to buy a new car and the person on the other line was more important than me. All those little moments that eventually added up in the end. He pushed me out of the life we were trying to build together and didn’t even realize it.

Alejandro declines the call, hits the power button, and then tosses his phone into one of the kitchen drawers. I watch as he walks around the island, sits on one of the stools, grabs the bottom of mine, and pulls it closer. We sit with our legs tangled and our knees brushing.

“All right,” he tells me. “Let’s have that conversation.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

Tears begin to gather. I can barely manage to speak. “Are you going to stay or what?”

He surprises me when he laughs. “You’re so romantic when you want to be.”

“Well, I’m not going to beg. I already said my part.”

“A little reassurance would be nice.” He taps his chin, feigning deep thought. “I did walk in on you with one of my oldest friends.”

Shame burns through me. I have to cover my face for a moment before I’m brave enough to look him in the eye and even then, I can barely make him out beyond the blur of tears. “You’re such an asshole. Don’t joke about that.”

“It’s not a joke. This is serious. I want to know who the better kisser is.”

He’s enjoying all the teasing and taunting at my expense but I don’t find it amusing. I can’t believe he’s able to turn this nightmare into joke when all I want to do is crawl into a hole and die. I’m so ashamed of myself and the way I behaved this past year. If I could take it all back, I would in a heartbeat.

“You’re so ridiculous. You know I’m crazy about you.”

His brows shoot up and he looks around the room as if in search of someone and then jabs a finger into his chest. “Who? Me?”

I’d laugh if I wasn’t already crying so hard. “Yes, you. You get me so mad! You’re the only person in the world who can hurt me like this because you’re the only person in the world I love this much. I don’t love anyone the way I love you. No one.”

It’s like the air’s just been sucked out of the room. His body stills and any hint of humor vanishes without a trace.

“When we were on the bridge with Li, I…I didn’t even think. I just did it.” I whisper. “I’ve been so angry with you this past year and I haven’t been able to figure out why. There’s this underlying feeling, an emotion I can’t quite name. It wasn’t until we were on Bow Bridge did I finally understand. Watching Li and Rian…”

Silence settles between us.

“I felt betrayed by you. For so long, I couldn’t fathom how someone I loved so much could hurt me so deeply. I gave up my life to be with you. Accepted things no other woman would, set aside my sense of morality and justice to make room for you—all of you. I took on your family as if they were my own and you made a fool out of me. Left me standing there in the hallway of our home with words in my mouth and didn’t even look back.

“I felt like such an idiot. There I was thinking we were in this together. And yet the moment our relationship was truly put to the test you let me go. I let myself be dazzled by your beauty, your wealth, and your promises and it blew up in my face.”

I drag my palms across my wet cheeks. “I took a bullet for you and you still want reassurance from me. Where’s mine? Or did you think coming here a year later to fight with me at every turn was enough?”

The room is so quiet. I can hear us breathing.

“I left and you didn’t come after me. Why? And don’t tell me it’s because you wanted to respect my freedom because we both know that isn’t true. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have sent Diego to see me afterward and you wouldn’t have kept in contact with me all this time.”

He can’t bring himself to speak. I watch him try but he fails every time.