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But Lena didn’t want to listen anymore. She shook her hands above her head.
“Stop it,” she said. “Stop it, both of you.”
Something about her voice, about its age-old sadness, brought me back down to earth. I remembered where I was. I cleared my throat, which was choked with emotion.
“Lena,” I said, and she looked back at me. “I’m going to give you a choice now. You can come with me, and you can be with me. I can look after you. I can help you with everything that’s going on. If you’ll only just—”
But to my shock, Lena laughed. It was a bitter, slow laugh that seemed to come up from inside of her, her heaving chest and the tears which were rolling down her face.
“You think I’d go with you?” she said. “After what you’ve done?”
“What I’ve …”
“After all this stuff you’ve said? From the bottom of my heart, Alex. I wish I’d nevermetyou.”
The words seemed so heavy that I could feel them falling to the floor as she spoke them.
“You ruined everything. It was perfect, it was better than perfect. But you really think, after standing here and hearing about how much you love your business, love your money, lording it over your own brother like that … you think we could be together?”
She slipped the ring off her finger and practically shoved it into my chest. I caught it in my hand, astonished by the force from Lena’s delicate, slender arm.
I was shocked, reeling. I stepped back for a moment, and for a second, I saw how stupid I’d been. How cruel and unkind I’d been to both of them. And for a moment I saw myself, just the side of my reflection in the mirror on Lena’s long dressing table.
I didn’t see the strong, kind, caring man I’d wanted to be for Lena.
I saw a monster instead. A hulking brute with balled fists, and his jaw twitching. A guy who stopped at nothing to take what he wanted.
A man, utterly unfit for love.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I said. “I need to go now.”
Walking through the hotel that afternoon was like walking through a labyrinth. It was like one of those nightmares where you’re trying to reach your destination and can never reach it. I was shaking, my heart was pounding, and in the elevator, I slammed my hand against the wall so hard it left a dent. That was me in a nutshell. A man so consumed by jealous rage that he’d damaged the thing he loved the most in the world.
On the windswept roof in the daylight, I walked past the debris from the party, which was being swept up, and put away. All those fancy people considered themselves my friends, who joshed and joked with me like I was their pal. My engagement with Lena had been fake, for sure. But so was the rest of my life, I thought. A long quest for power and wealth left me without a friend in the world who I could go and have a talk with right now. Someone that I could trust to help me work through all this pain I was feeling on the inside.
I met Charlie on the roof. “Everything okay, boss?” he said.
I looked up. I had my sunglasses on, so no one could see the single tear forming at the corner of my eye. “Just fine,” I said. “Let’s get back home, Charlie. We’ve done all we can here.”
I’ve done enough, I thought to myself. Done enough to Lena and Jared for a lifetime.
It wasn’t until we took off that I really understood what had just happened, or even understood that all my rage and hate had parted me forever from the only woman I knew I loved. The mother of my child.
I just abandoned her.
I opened my palm and saw the gleaming diamond ring there.
And as the sun crested the waves, the green islands stood out on the water below me, I bent over in the copter, and took off my microphone.
Over the roar of the helicopter blades, no one would hear me cry out. Like a wild animal, consigned to a life of loneliness.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lena
Therearenowordsfor heartbreak. Nothing I can tell you about what happened that afternoon would give you a clue about what I felt. I got my bag and went to the ferry, rode home to Honolulu. Jared told me he’d call me. I told him not to bother.
I am grateful for so many things in my life. It’s been a life of adventure, a life of glamour. Even if it was hard, even if there were times when I didn’t know if I was going to make it. When I didn’t know if my dreams could come true.
