The Price of a Promise, page 12
I swiped through my phone dully. There had to be a game plan lurking somewhere in the cracks. I knew Axel had to be close. If he’d left NYC last night, he was probably due to arrive within the hour. And maybe that’s why I hadn’t slept last night, knowing that Axel grew closer with each passing second. Shrinking the distance between our hearts. Putting us within arm’s reach yet still an entire world away.
I looked at my phone without knowing what I even looked for. Axel would go to the old condo. He didn’t know that I’d moved. That had been by design.
I had no way to get to the condo myself. Randall wouldn’t take me—I didn’t need to ask to know that my father had already put that address on the forbidden list. And after what happened with my housekeeper, I could better imagine the ways my father kept tabs on me from every angle.
The vice I lived in grew tighter. Every passing day.
And it felt tighter than ever inside this beautiful home, infused with someone else’s taste and life.
In here, Cora Margulis didn’t matter. She was just a pawn in a bigger, more important game.
And the worst part was that I had chosen this. I wasn’t insane; I wasn’t unwell; there was no psychiatrist who could attest to my unfit mental state. I’d fucking chosen this, with my own brain and free will.
What have you gotten into?
I drew deep breaths as I stared at my coffee, searching for answers in the caramel color.
Axel is going to the condo.
How could I be there with him?
The idea formed less as a lightning strike and more as a glacial revelation. The doorbell app was still on my phone. Which meant that I could see him, at the very least.
My heart rate picked up as I swiped through screens. I pressed the icon, holding my breath.
The front porch of my old condo, peaceful and empty, filled the screen. I turned on the sound and could even hear the distant twitter of birds.
Holy shit.
I set my phone on its charging dock, and glued my eyes to the scene at my old place. I’d stand here all day and watch if I had to—anything for a glimpse of Axel. This was the worst goodbye I could have imagined for us. Not even in my worst nightmares had I foreseen this terrible conclusion.
I just hoped there was some way I could make things right for him someday. Make things right for me.
I drifted around my kitchen for the next hour, making juice and popping almonds, constantly listening for any sign of movement at the condo. A couple fake-outs put me on edge—a distant shout down the street, the shuffling feet of the mailman.
Seconds turned into hours, and I wanted to crawl out of my skin more with each tick of the clock. Axel had to be close. Where was he?
Another pot of coffee had just finished brewing when I heard the footsteps. The heavy breathing. The thud thud thud against the front door of my old condo.
“Cora. It’s me.” The rasp of Axel’s voice sent my coffee mug clattering to the floor. It broke into pieces at my feet, but I couldn’t look away from the screen on my phone.
“Cora!” He knocked again, harder. “Cora, I’m here.”
Silent seconds trudged by, and he propped the palms of his hands against my front door. “Cora. Please.” He pounded the door three more times.
Axel shook his head, raking his fingers through the messy length of his hair. He propped his hands on his hips, looking back toward the street, which allowed me a glimpse of his face.
Oh, how stressed he looked. How drawn and sagging and empty. I swallowed back a wave of nausea—too familiar to me at this point—as I absorbed the physical effects of what I’d done to this man. To my man. The man I supposedly loved more than anything or anyone in the world.
There was no one living I loved more.
But in a twisted way, me hurting him would benefit him. He would dodge the wrath of Allan Margulis. Axel thought my father’s opinion didn’t matter, but he was wrong. There was no escaping my father when he was determined to make good on his word.
His promise to ruin Axel scared the living fuck out of me.
“Come on, Cora. Open up!” The gruff shout of his voice snapped me out of my stupor. He headed into the landscaping then, cupping his hands around his face as he peered into the window of the front room. “What the fuck? Where is all the furniture?”
When he returned to the cement pad of the porch, he interlaced his fingers behind his head, staring at the door. I couldn’t see his face, and I would have given almost anything to do so.
“Cora, are you in there? I just need you to open up,” he finally said, his arms dropping to his sides. He looked around, finally locating the camera of my doorbell monitor.
And this time, he looked straight at me. “Please talk to me. Just talk to me, babe. We can figure this out. I promise you.” He sounded broken, a breath away from tears. Every ounce of emotion swam across his face, a blatant parade for me to see.
You did this to him. And now you can’t undo it.
“I don’t know what I did wrong, Cora, but I promise you I will fix it. Do you hear me? We are bigger than this. We are better than this. You can’t do this to me. You can’t just slam the door in my face and run away.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks as he spoke. I reached for him, grasping air, my heart splintering into fragments as I watched his beautiful face contort in pain. I finally came to and fumbled with my phone, pulling up the button for the intercom.
“Axel,” I choked out.
“Cora.” His voice cracked and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Thank the fucking lord. Can we talk? Where’s all the furniture? What’s going on?”
“I-I don’t live there anymore,” I said, a sob hiccupping out of me. “My dad got me a new house. I haven’t been able to contact you or your brothers through my phone. He locked everything down.” The words were pouring out of me, desperate to say everything in what felt like the few remaining seconds until my father clamped down again.
“Jesus Christ, Cora,” Axel moaned, dragging his hands down his face. “You’re his fucking hostage.”
“Axel, you should go,” I said shakily. Security would be arriving any minute. I couldn’t believe we were actually communicating, and through technology that my father paid for.
“I know your dad is giving you shit about us,” he started, his voice cracking as he looked directly into the camera again. “And I’ve been thinking about what you said…second thoughts and all. And that’s fine, that’s fine, I just—” He paused, tugging at the front of his hair as he looked to the street and back at the camera. “Can’t we talk about it?”
My tears had morphed into sobs. He deserved that and so much more. Desperation rose like a tornado inside me, whipping away my breath and my focus.
“I don’t want to beg you like this forever, Cora,” Axel said, his voice cracking again. “Are you there?”
“I’m here,” I said. My father’s words rang in my head, where they lived permanently, staining my existence. Utterly inferior in every conceivable way. That’s what he thought about Axel, but I knew the reality of it. Axel was the only man who had ever fought for me. Who would pay for a cross country flight to get to me even though he had barely enough money to live on. I couldn’t keep stealing his love and energy when it would go nowhere.
It only made me feel worse. More selfish. More useless.
“Meet up with me.” The plea straining his voice prompted another round of tears. “Just let me see your beautiful face one more time, babe. I know we can work this out.”
“We can’t, Axel,” I whispered, my voice thick with emotion. “There’s just no way.”
“Don’t say that—”
“You don’t get it,” I snapped. “I was wrong. I thought it could work, but it can’t. Okay? I was wrong about us. I love you, Axel,” I choked out, feeling lightheaded and like I weighed a thousand pounds at the same time. I was shocked I could speak through all the tears. “But love isn’t enough.”
He used the collar of his T-shirt to wipe at his upper lip. Then he swiped a tear away from his cheek. “Jesus fucking Christ. Do you hear yourself?”
He paced the porch a couple of times and then pushed his palms against the front door again. Then he unleashed his fury, pounding so hard it seemed the door might crack in two. Bam bam bam! Each slam punctured my heart over here in my new house just outside Stanford, and I covered my face with my hands and sobbed.
“Cora, do you hear yourself? You’re crying. He’s got to be making you say this shit. What is he holding over you?”
“Nothing,” I forced out on the heels of a new, body-wracking sob. “I don’t know what else to tell you.” A text message flashed across the top of my screen.
ALLAN: Stop engaging with him!!!
I could imagine him trying like hell to shut down the app from wherever he was. He’d been probably watching this entire time, calling IT support, melting down in his quietly lethal way. I had seconds left with Axel. If that.
“Please just try to forget about me,” I whispered, cupping my face with my hands. My cheeks hurt from how contorted my face was with the sobs. Ugly crying at its finest. “Move on.”
Axel’s breathing grew heavier, and then there were additional footsteps. Two men stepped up on the porch.
My father’s security guards had arrived.
“You need to leave . Immediately,” one declared brusquely.
“Big fucking surprise,” Axel said, not bothering to hide the emotion clogging his throat. I’d never seen him like this before. So broken. So raw. So absolutely devastated.
“Please step off the property,” the other guard said.
“Just give me a second,” Axel said, his shoulders sagging. “I’m in the middle of something.”
“You’re not on the list of approved visitors, and you’re going to have to leave. Now.” The third warning was the final one. Both guards grabbed for Axel. He dodged, but against four burly arms, he had no prayer of evading them. They captured him easily, though he struggled against their grip.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Axel spat, lurching to free himself. “Allan’s hired grunts, huh? Cora, do you see this? Why won’t you fucking fight for me? After all we’ve been through?”
Axel continued railing against me and my father as the guards dragged him, but the farther they took him, the less I could hear. They carried him away, arms hooked under his armpits, until finally the camera showed a tranquil scene on the front porch once more.
Birds twittered. The arborvitae, pruned and flawless. Lace lichen climbing around the corner of the condo. Everything picture perfect.
The truth lay beyond the edges of the frame.
Shards of our hearts were scattered everywhere, just out of sight. The broken remains of our promises. Our hopes. Our expectations. None of them could hold up to what life had dealt me. The impossible pressure my life path had in store.
I could only imagine how wrecked Axel would be. He wouldn’t recover quickly from this. Neither would I.
I was already beating myself up over it. Maybe I should have tamped down my feelings in the beginning. Maybe we could have avoided all this pain and heartbreak and life-path incompatibility if I’d just seen the writing on the wall when we met. And now it was my fault Axel was unraveling, looked sunken and hollow. The reason he’d been stressing and worried and distracted.
Just like it was my fault for not trying harder to save Chris. It was my fault I’d gotten wrapped up in my own world. I’d opted to hang with my friends the night he’d sent me his last text. I hadn’t protected him from the unyielding glare of this world we’d been born into. Even though I was younger, I’d always handled it better. And I’d always known that.
I bore every ounce of this burden.
A burden I could only bear for the sake of the two men I loved more than life itself.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AXEL
THREE MONTHS LATER
“I really wish you’d reconsider,” Trace said, his dark brows drawn together.
Damian watched me, frowning, from off to the side of our worn living room couch. They stood above me like this was an intervention, and I guess it was in a way.
They wanted me to continue pursuing my MBA while I still had a chance to wrap it up, once and for all.
I, however, completely fucking disagreed.
“Listen, I know you guys want me to be all noble and righteous in my quest to kiss the almighty wealthy asshole, but I’m not going to.” I crossed my arms, leaning back into the couch. After Cora broke things off before Christmas, I’d all but formally dropped out of my courses. I sure as fuck hadn’t paid the tuition for the last semester, either. But because they were good brothers, they cared about the increasing amount of time I spent pacing my bedroom and drawing up business strategies.
“We didn’t have enough money for all three of us to complete our degrees,” I went on. “Honestly, I got what I need out of the program. I can’t concentrate on the bullshit theories anymore. I just need to jump headfirst into our business. I’m ready.”
Concentration on anything that wasn’t actionable progress was a threat. A possibility that I’d slip down the greased slope of self-pity, down into the well of longing that still burbled inside me. Any misstep was a chance to completely lose my shit again about Cora.
I’d spent the past few months in unbearable agony, hashing and rehashing every word we’d shared in the last month of our relationship. Remembering the sheer joy on her face the night I’d asked her to marry me, and then picking apart every second after that, trying to work out what had changed her mind.
Her father wielded immense power, but he didn’t control her emotions.
Cora may have been coerced, but she’d made the decision on her own.
“Think about it this way,” Trace said, raking his hand through his thick, dark hair. “We’re a team. A trio. And we all need to have our goddamn MBAs.”
“I’m done playing their game,” I said, kicking my feet onto the coffee table. “Two out of three with MBAs ain’t bad, gentleman. Now they can take it or leave it, and I’ll convince them to take it. I need to be our salesman, and I could do this job without even my bachelor’s.”
Damian peered at me over the top of his round glasses. “You’re going to be our point man for every single business transaction…and you want to walk in there without your fucking MBA?”
“Yes,” I huffed. “I’ll go finish it someday if you want. But for now? We need to get this business off the ground. We don’t have the cash for both Damian and me to walk in May now that you’re out, Trace. I will be the virgin sacrifice here.”
Trace snorted. “Yeah. Virgin my ass.”
I cleared my throat. It had taken about a month for my hope to finally die out, then I’d turned to the only outlet I knew: endless pussy. For three weeks I went hog wild, fucking my way through most of Lower Manhattan once it really hit me that Cora was gone forever.
Three months in, the hurt still hadn’t lessened. It had only spread to new extremes. Like poison ivy, stretching silent and territorial, warning any human that dared cross its path. And it was twisting itself into new shapes. Pushing me into scary situations. Prompting new types of thoughts. Breaking barriers that I’d previously considered impassable.
And for how angry I still was, how hurt and heartbroken? I couldn’t say that I’d turn her down if she showed up at my door tomorrow. As Cora had once said: it doesn’t get easier, you just get used to it.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to this.
It was so fucking wrong. The whole situation reeked of shit. I’d never been so confused before, not even after entering the foster system and grappling for roots alongside Damian, mourning the loss of our younger sisters.
What happened with Cora was a new depth of loss, something I’d never felt before and never wanted to fucking feel again.
“I don’t know what you guys want me to say,” I went on, dragging my hands down my face. “I’ve wanted to quit for two semesters. And now, financially, one of us has to drop out. We won’t get our dividends until the quarter after graduation, so I’m willing to do it. And in the meantime, I’ve been working from sunup to sundown to get our shit moving in the right direction. I promise you that. MBA or not, these motherfuckers won’t know what hit them. And honestly? I want to show them what a Kentucky boy can do without an MBA.”
A smile tugged at Trace’s lips. “You know, the scary part is that even when you have outlandish, completely ridiculous ideas, I still believe you.”
“Then I’m doing my job.”
Damian took off his glasses and spent a moment cleaning them with the hem of his shirt. When he put them back on, he leaned so close I could see the yellow flecks in his green eyes.
“You really want to do it this way?”
“Yes.”
Damian’s jaw flexed. “Fine. But you do not have my permission to fuck this up. There is too much riding on this. We’re not just trying to pay for school and get out of debt. This is for Jordan and Kaylee.”
Conjuring our younger sisters’ names was a sobering move. I averted my eyes, studying the constellation of city lights visible outside our fifth floor window. Silence throbbed between us, the energy wavering between tense and somber.
“You don’t think I know that?” I finally forced out.
“Of course I think you know that,” Damian said, softer this time. “But I’m saying we need to give this business our all. It has to work. And as far as I can see, we’ve got one shot.”
“Whatever we do to establish ourselves,” Trace said, “is going to become a part of our reputation. We need to tread carefully. But we need to act decisively.”
“I’ve got decisiveness. And I’ve got my rubber boots, so I can tread carefully though whatever shit people decide they want to sling our way. Hell, between those two things and three-quarters of a degree from Columbia Business School, I think I’m as ready as I’ll ever be to head the firm as CEO. A piece of paper from the university isn’t gonna change much. The three of us can change the world.”
