Dr. Reid was in a chair beside the long sofa, a glass of wine in hand. Vince was already there too, even though he hadn’t mentioned anything to her about going. Alexis was even more perplexed to find her father and Melissa seated on the sofa with a stone faced Axton. Gabriella was standing by the window, avoiding the open glares shot her way by the rock god.
Alexis frowned at her family, wondering why her psychologist of all people, were present. She was greeted with smiles, but she felt like it was more of an intervention in the making than them gathering together to view a music video of a song they had never heard before. When the doorbell rang, she thought maybe Jared had canceled his business dinner and was going to be the next to arrive, but instead she was put into an even greater state of shock to find Dragon Man walk in behind Gabriella’s manager.
“Chad?” She stood without out the aid of her crutches. “Hey.”
He gave her a grim smile in greeting. “Sorry I’m late. My last session ran later than expected.”
Alexis couldn’t get her mind around the odd audience that was present. She hadn’t even introduced Gabriella to Dr. Reid or Chad, so why where they there? Before she could ask, Gabriella’s manger stood before them with the remote to his impressive entertainment system in hand.
“Thanks for coming everyone. Gabriella has asked you all here to see what we have been braking our backs over for the last few weeks. I have to say that this is one of the most amazing songs I have ever been a part of. Gabriella wrote it, and with her inspiration to add Axton to the vocals will blow you away. But because of certain aspects Gabriella and Axton have asked that you all see this video before it goes public tomorrow morning.”
Certain aspects? What did that mean? What kind of song was it?
“So, are we ready?”
Everyone by Alexis nodded, an odd feeling of dread filling her. But before she could voice her many questions the room was darkened and the television came to life and she couldn’t seem to force her eyes from the screen...
Murmurs in a room that was oddly dim.
A bed … a hospital bed.
A girl with long dark hair lies on the hospital bed, completely still. Machines connected to her from all directions. The murmurs get a little louder, just enough to hear that it is a doctor talking to a group of what had to be family members. He is telling them the extent of injuries that the girl on the bed has sustained.
Softly a violin begins to play. And the camera goes directly to the girl. Her eyes suddenly open, startling almost. She sucks in a deep breath and the violin steadily increases in volume. Then there is a close up, going straight into the girl’s eyes, then just her left eye and then a vision that is quickly being rewound. When it gets to the beginning a guitar is added to the violin.
Gabriella’s voice singing the words, but Alexis wasn’t really paying attention to the words. She was transfixed as she watched the girl that looks so eerily like herself and a man meet, then seem to fall in love. The girl seems head over heels as the video rushes forward, a date; a love scene.
Then a sweet kiss goodbye at the airport as the man steps onto a plane.
The next scene the girl in talking on the phone, Gabriella in on the other end of the cellphone, while a concert goes on in the background with Axton and OtherWorld playing the melody to the song. There is a newspaper in the girl’s hand, tears in her eyes.
The girl was falling apart. She stopped eating, her diet seeming to consist of alcohol and little else. She sits on the edge of a tub, a razor blade in hand and red slashes on her thighs. The next scene is of Gabriella, a world away while the girl is slowly shattering inside and out.
A party. The girl is drunk. She gets into a car with a friend…
And then an accident and the girl is lying on the cold ground while rescue teams rush to get the girl into the ambulance.
The music is only playing softly now, the doctor speaking to the family members again. The mother is weeping, the father holding onto her shoulders tightly, while the brother looks distraught. Alexis doesn’t pay attention to the words the doctor speaks, she has already heard them before. In reality.
SHATTER ME! I Am Broken.
Gabriella’s voice comes back full force, and the song is only half way over. The girl is struggling through rehab, dealing with her guilt. At one point she caresses her stomach, but goes back to learning to walk again. Gabriella is on stage with Axton and OtherWorld, doing a concert.
Alexis feels as if something is sitting on her chest. She sucks in a deep breath, hoping to inhale life giving oxygen but it doesn’t come. The girl is starting to walk, with crutches. Her family is looking happy. Gabriella is there, smiling as the girl takes her first steps without anything or anyone to help her. But the girl still looks broken. Her heart is still shattered. And the love interest is notably absent.
As the video ends the girl is standing in the front row of Gabriella’s concert, smiling up at her.
The television goes dark and the lights come back on, but Alexis is gasping for breath. All those feelings about the past were so easily forced away, because she couldn’t remember that time in her life. Such a dark time! But there it was, played out on TV perfectly, with a heartbreaking melody from Gabriella’s violin and Axton’s guitar, as the two of them sing about how Alexis had been broken.
“Shatter me…I am broken,” Alexis whispered, fighting the panic attack that was just the beginning of her melt down.
Her hand went to her flat stomach, tears pouring down her face as she remembered the girl and how shattered she had been as she had done the exact same thing. “I am broken,” she whispered again.
“Lexi!”
She felt cold, numb. Her heart was racing, her breathing shallow. Sweat beaded on her brow and upper lip despite the coldness of her body. “Shatter me…I am broken,” she whispered over and over again.
“Lexi!” Strong hands gripped her arms, shaking her ever so slightly. Then harder when she didn’t respond. “Lexi, look at me!”
Slowly she raised her eyes to find Dr. Reid kneeling in front of her. “I am broken,” she told him, her voice cracking.
“No, Lexi. You are healing,” he murmurs softly, as if he were talking to a small child. “You can even stand on your own now. No crutches.”
Tears poured down her face, drowning her. “He shattered me. He broke me.” Her hands went to her thighs, suddenly knowing that there was no mistake. She had actually cut herself to try to escape the pain of … Jared!
“Who broke you, Lee-Lee?” Gabriella whispers, beside of her now. She knows. And she knows that Alexis hadn’t told anyone about Jared. “Say it Lee-Lee! Say who broke you!”
“No!” Alexis shouted. She couldn’t. Wouldn’t. The bubble was still intact. It was…
“Gabriella!” Axton had hold of her now, pulling her away from Alexis. “Stop it!”
“He left you! He left you for her.” And then there was a phone in her hand. A picture on the screen.
But it made no sense.
Jared was seated at a table, dressed in the suit that she had seen him in only an hour before as she had helped him fix his black tie. And beside of him, gazing adoringly up at him was Nica. What was her friend doing with…?
Nica Andrews. Monica Giordano.
How could she have been so blind? Such a fool? She had completely ignored the fact that Jared had left her the first time. That he had run straight to Monica’s waiting arms. He hadn’t cared about her. The past was not in the past. It was screaming at her to open her eyes.
Her numb fingers lost hold of the phone and it tumbled to the floor. Everyone around her was quiet. Concern darkening their faces as they watched her. Chad was standing close. Vince was there, holding on to her shoulder. Her father and stepmother openly crying after having a parent’s worst nightmare—their nightmare—flash across a screen like that. Dr. Reid had released his hold on her, but had yet to stand. Axton looked regretful, while Gabriella stood there silently demanding that she face wh
at she had refused to face before.
Jared had shattered her when he’d left her for Monica.
And she … She had killed their baby!
The bubble popped.
twenty-four
The coffee shop was not crowded, just a few couples seated here and there. Alexis sat with an untouched cup of coffee in front of her. She hadn’t particularly wanted the drink, but she needed the heat of the cup to warm her numb fingers. They hadn’t been truly warm since the confrontation the night before with her family.
She couldn’t believe the way Gabriella had forced her to face the truth about the past. Couldn’t there have been a less harsh way? But every time she asked herself that question she knew the answer. No! No, she couldn’t have done it any other way. Alexis knew t she would never have really accepted the past if it hadn’t been shoved in her face so blatantly.
It made being angry with her cousin impossible. She knew Gabriella had only done it out of love and concern. It didn’t keep it from hurting, though. The pain she was in right then was far worse than any she’d had to endure after the accident as she lay in a hospital, broken and unable to walk. This pain was overwhelming.
Sometimes she felt like she was actually going to be consumed by it. And the urge for a release from all the pain was darkening her mind. But she had to be strong. Cutting wasn’t an answer this time!
After the video the night before, after she had calmed down, she became aware of the others around her. Axton, sweet rocker god that he was, had been furious with Gabriella. Calling her a heartless bitch for doing that to Alexis. Vince had been furious, just as her father was. They hadn’t put it together until just that moment that Jared was the man from her past. Max had stormed around the room, agitated and threatening to toss the Giordano merger out the window.
That had woken her up quickly. She couldn’t allow her father to let her broken heart effect his business. If Max did anything about the merger he was handling for Jared and his family then he would have to face some dire consequences. She couldn’t let him throw away his business over her.
She had begged her father to not do anything so drastic. She’d played on his love for her, made him promise on her life that he would complete the merger. If he chose to never handle any business with the Giordano family again, then fine. But he had to act professionally about the merger. Max hadn’t been happy, but he’d readily agreed once she had made him promise.
Melissa had been in shock. She hadn’t realized the connection between Jared and the man from Alexis’s past either. When she finally did, and put Jared’s recent engagement into the time frame she had been furious right along with her husband. But under the anger, Melissa had felt like a traitor, having encouraged her stepdaughter to give the man a chance.
It was Dr. Reid who, like always, was the voice of calm and reason. He had asked Alexis simply why she hadn’t told him about Jared. Sure she had said she had met a man, that they were in a relationship, and she was sure she was in love with him. But she hadn’t once mentioned that he was from her past. That he had been the father of her baby. She hadn’t had any answers for him other than that she had needed to keep Jared to herself for as long as possible.
Alexis sighed and finally took a sip of her now tepid coffee. Together, the roomful of family and friends had forced her to see what she had to do. It wasn’t going to be easy. In fact, she was sure that she wasn’t going to come out unscathed once it was over. But she knew that before she could really move on it had to be done.
Her phone chimed with an incoming text and she only glanced at it. Jared was meeting her for coffee, but he was still fifteen minutes away. She didn’t bother to send a reply. It had been all she could do to message him earlier that morning to ask him to meet her.
“Lexi!”
Alexis barely raised her head at the sound of her name. Nica was walking toward her, having just come through the door. The coffee shop was their usual meeting place when Nica happened to be in town. They had gotten together several times during her last visit, had even gone shopping after a few pots of tea shared between them. Alexis had thought she had made a new friend.
Really, all she had made was more heartache.
“It is horrible out there,” Nica laughed as she took her seat across from Alexis.
It was pouring rain outside. Alexis had just taken it as the sky lending her sympathy. She hadn’t once cried since the night before, but she was sure that before the hour was up that would change. “How was your evening?” Alexis asked, trying to sound interested. “You said yesterday that you were going to have dinner with your family.”
Nica grimaced. “My brother-in-law is talking about getting married.” The look on her face was one of pure disgust.
The news only made Alexis ache more. So Jared was going to propose? Her hands balled into fists under the table. From her expression Nica really didn’t like the idea of her ex-fiancé marrying. Just as she didn’t know it was Alexis who was the woman in his life. Had Jared not told his sister-in-law about her? Was she that unimportant to him?
She shook her head, already knowing the answer to that question. No. She hadn’t been important enough the year before when he had just abandoned her in favor of Nica. And she wasn’t important enough for him to tell this woman about their relationship now. “You object to your brother-in-law marrying?”
Nica shrugged. “If I knew he was happy, no. But he doesn’t seem all that happy to me. More nervous, as if he’s walking on eggshells. Actually, I’m surprised he even mentioned marriage. He is a big commitment phobic. Whoever this woman is she must really be good in bed.”
Alexis squeezed her eyes shut and lowered her head so that Nica wouldn’t see her face. That was true. She and Jared could set the sheets on fire. Just as Gabriella had said they did the first time around. “You don’t like her?”
“I haven’t even met her. But whoever she is most likely 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 … I don’t know, 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. “Wh-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 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 in her about her accident and some of the things that had happened leading up to it. She had omitted the self-harming, but she’d told her new friend about the baby. At the time, it had felt good talking to this woman who’d 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 e
ye 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 who 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 just 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 came 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.”