Chapter 27 Getting to the bottom of things

- Yes or no? - Nina stared at her catatonic. Every fine hair on her body stood in static. Nina could feel the shivers forming from afar. She couldn't think, breathe, and act at the same time. Only one thought crossed her mind, that David would appear there in front of her. She wanted to faint. Literally, fall to the ground and pass out. Her blood pressure went to zero!

Elena stood up and went to the corner of the stage and pulled David by the hand, he didn't want to appear like that in front of Nina, not after so many months, after everything. But the cameras had already caught him. What to do? He then walked in. Nina literally started to feel very bad. She was freezing, her hands and feet were frozen, she was sweating cold. She was having an emotional attack from accumulated stress. She had been holding in the stress throughout the interview, when she saw him standing there, in front of her, without warning, a surprise of the kind that makes ordinary people have a heart attack, imagine her in that situation. Nina was very ill. They had to interrupt the recording and help her. David didn't feel very well either when he saw her pale, the color of a sheet of paper...

Getting to the bottom of things

They took her to the dressing room. Marcus followed her attentively and when she opened her eyes she saw David again standing in front of her. She almost jumped out of her chair. It looked like she was seeing a ghost, but it was an angel.

- Nina? Can you hear me? Are you all right? Do you want to go to the hospital? - She just stared at him as if she was studying him.

She was thinking that maybe she was dreaming, because she had had so many dreams during these months, she was screaming his name without him coming to help her, she was waking up wet with sweat and her body was trembling when she realized that he was gone, he was not there, it was just a dream. These dreams seemed so real, she saw him in front of her, felt his touch, his warmth, went into a delirium, and when she woke up she cried for having to discover that it was only a dream. She almost went crazy!

She looked strangely at people and David held her by her cold hand.

- Nina. I'm taking you to the doctor now. - She just shook her head informing him that she didn't need to.

- I'll take you to the hotel then. Come with me, please! Two yellowish-brown eyes, wide open in a pale face, stared at him unblinking. His brain was short-circuiting again! She couldn't process that he was there, and he couldn't hear the voice of her heart to know what was going on inside her. He drove her crazy with so much passion that it made her whole body shudder... He held her in his arms and she didn't know how to act.

Elena went into the dressing room and made sure that everything was okay. They suspended the recording. And David drove her to the hotel.

All the way in the car, Nina didn't want to open her eyes. David had laid his head on her chest, and she preferred to close her eyes so as not to stare at him. She couldn't look him in the eye. It seemed as if there was a spell in his eyes. She could smell his scent and wanted to swallow his nakedness, to whisper in his ear her love, to tell him how crazy she was inside his embrace. Nina wanted to tell him everything she hadn't said in three months, but her body seemed to float along with her mind, she lacked words, her head was spinning. This man ignited the flame in her heart so much that she could feel the fire of passion, but she couldn't look into those eyes at that moment.

David was always gentle. He opened the car door for her, took her by the hand as he stepped out of the car, hugged her around the shoulders as they walked to her room at the hotel. Nina still hadn't said a word. He treated her as he always had, with great tenderness. She felt withdrawal symptoms. Nevertheless, when David asked her, she answered:

- Yes, David. Yes, David, I'm fine. I don't know what happened in the interview. I had been very nervous for days and I really didn't expect to see you. I had a very big shock. I'm sorry for the embarrassment. I shouldn't have come. I almost gave up a thousand times, but I came, and I don't know why. It wasn't me talking, it was nerves. I wasn't even listening to myself.

- How are you doing now? Talking non-stop because you don't want to talk to me?

- Exactly. Forgive me, David. It was not my intention to cause all this trouble. I never wanted any of this from the beginning. Forgive me for going public and saying everything I've said about you and me. My God! Without even knowing if you would agree. Without even knowing how you would feel! I did to you what they did to me! Forgive me! Please forgive me!

- Hey... chi... come here! Calm down! I have nothing to forgive you for. You've only confirmed everything I've already said. You're the one who has to forgive me for everything that's happened to you these past few months. I know what you must have gone through. I was sorry too.

- You were?

- Of course, I was, Nina. I know how hard it is to get involved with me and be pursued like this. It has happened before with other people I have dated. I know how much you value a discreet and normal life. I know how much you don't want to have to deal with any of this. Not even to have to bother. Look at me! Don't cry. But it happened, and you were a warrior. I am very proud of you. Your conduct was exemplary, it couldn't have been any different coming from you.

- What exemplary conduct? I was locked up crying for months, didn't see anyone, didn't go out on the street, didn't even have access to the telephone or social networks. And when it was inevitable that I got all the facts from the police and lawyers, I really wished I had never read anything.

- I wasn't there, but I know what you must have felt. I felt the same way. Although you don't believe me. I wished I could be there every day to protect you, but you didn't give me a chance!

- They hacked everything possible back then. I didn't even have your number anymore. And I was so afraid. I thought a thousand things. Totally insecure. I thought that maybe you were against me, that you believed the false evidence, just like the rest of the people. I didn't know what was going on out there, I didn't see your statements.

- You didn't come to me, Nina? - David could not disguise the hurt in his tone of voice.

- I didn't have the courage to read or hear anything about you on the Internet. I was a coward! I didn't want to confirm that you were also hating me. I would die! I've died a thousand times inside since the day you got on that plane. Every time you leave, you take a piece of me with you. Remember I told you that I didn't want to give in, and then fall into depression for letting myself get hurt? Remember the darkroom? That's how I stayed... in a dark room... not seeing anyone, not talking to anyone, not even wanting to think.

- I looked for you. I called a thousand times. I went to your door. I broke all my rules and standards and defended you publicly. And you never came to me... in three months...

Nina felt the disappointment echoing in those words. He couldn't come to terms with the fact that her feelings seemed lukewarm. Nina began to stutter, took a deep breath, restarted the conversation, but could not disguise her despair. Around him, she couldn't formulate a sentence that made sense.

- Did you at least... Did you even miss me? Did you even want to talk to me? - he asked.

- I... I've had a miserable existence since the day you left. I thought I would suffer, but that it would be bearable. I thought that one day I would forget you. But then all this happened and I was disarmed, bombed, destroyed. I was at the mercy of the whole world, left to fend for myself... I didn't have the chance to know whether or not I would ever get over you in my life.

- Damn it, Nina! - he exclaimed indignantly!

- I was very sorry, upset, confused by it all. - she justified.

- And me? I don't tell? Am I not also a person full of feelings? Or does your selfishness only see your pain? Haven't you considered the possibility that I'm also going through the same thing as you?

- This is your world! You have been facing waves of rumors and exposés for more than 20 years... you are a millionaire... You could have been escorted off, hidden on an island... And me? what could I have done differently? you are this God that all the women in the world put on a pedestal and that makes you so unreachable? There was no way I could compare... don't look at me like that, please! I was afraid.

- I'm still angry with you! I've been angry since our last weekend together. When you talk, I get angry.

- I know. I don't say what you want to hear. - Nina answered softly.

- You know what? People are really these monsters who attack others on the internet, who stalk, make jokes, mean comments, etc. But the biggest prejudiced person here is actually you! You play the poor little thing and keep repeating that you are no match for me, you keep repeating that I am this or that? You have been putting up a barrier between us since the day we met because you don't have the same status as me? Because I'm handsome? Because I am famous? You're using stereotypes, you! - David rarely lost his temper, but Nina had a knack for annoying him unintentionally.

- I'm done, Nina. I'm not going to run after you anymore. I understand that there is indeed a huge difference in the way we live. I'm tired of hearing you repeat that I'm light years ahead of you. I'm tired of you being the one who puts me on a pedestal like an unreachable God. You don't see me as a person. Nothing we've experienced counts for you! Everything was nothing! - said David, with tears in his eyes.

- Are you breaking up with me? - Nina asked, terrified.

- No. We're never breaking up. Isn't that your answer? I'll make your words my own. - he added indignantly. - I'm leaving and I won't bother you anymore. I hope that one day you'll get the chance to prove that you're over me. - David grabbed his coat from the chair and signaled that he was getting ready to leave.

Nina got up from the bed in her hotel room, opened the door, and staggered out into the corridor. She opened the first door she saw in front of her and was faced with the stairs to the emergency exit. She went up and up those stairs without stopping, she couldn't think straight or breathe.

David took only a few minutes in the room and then he went looking for her in the corridor of that floor and didn't find her. He knew she would disappear, hang up the phone as she had done once in Rome when they fought over a pineapple dessert, and if she returned to the hotel he was not sure he would find her. He looked everywhere for her without a trace, so he called Marcus and the front desk. No one had seen her pass.

- Think, think, think David... Where would Nina be? - He looked toward the emergency exit and headed that way. He looked up the stairs and felt certain that Nina was hiding there.

He climbed the stairs as fast as he could. Reaching the top of the hotel terrace, he saw her sitting on the slab behind one of the water tanks. She had her face tucked between her legs and her arms entwined in her legs. Long hair covered her. He slowly approached her and whispered her name:

- Nina! - said David breathlessly, taking a few more steps forward. - You are here. I found you. - he continued, panting.

He leaned over to her on the concrete floor and held her by her trembling hands.

He hugged her without saying anything. He just stood there for a long time listening to her cry until she lost her strength. At some point, she was going to have to stop... or not. He slowly removed her hands from her face and wiped her tears away. He ruffled her hair and hugged her again. She slowly caught her breath and pulled herself together.

- Is everything all right now? Are you calmer? - said David, starting a conversation. She just nodded. - Shall we go inside? Shall we talk somewhere warm and cozy? - he suggested.

- Weren't you leaving? - nudged Nina.

- Yes, I was. Now I'm here. I can't watch a woman cry. - David joked, smiling and trying to irritate her, so she would react much faster.

The two of them went downstairs and he tried to distract her by changing the subject. - She held back her smile, but he wouldn't give her a break, pulled her by the arm, wanted to carry her on his shoulder, but she wouldn't accept. David wanted to undo the serious and formal look on Nina's face until she couldn't stand it any longer and participated in his onslaughts by letting out a few wide and detached smiles.