Chapter 214

Alexi glares at me. That deathly anger of a madman and shakes his head as though I have no right to say that.

‘Let it go. I had my reasons and you’re here now, aren’t you?’ He looks away as though dismissing me for something minor and I lose my temper completely. Blood and rage bubbling up like an overfilled pot on a burner.

‘No!! I have a right to be pissed and hurt for how you treated me. You think because you gave me my job back and treat me marginally better this time that I should just fall at your feet again? Please … explain what your reasons were, as this is news to me!’ I spit, voices still drowned out by his loud family but I’m not keeping quiet anymore. I cannot contain this.

‘I’m not doing this here. Drink your champagne and leave it alone.’ Alexi clamps down on me through gritted teeth, that I assume is meant to hush me before they hear us.

Always caring about what everyone else sees and thinks of him.

‘Good old Mr Carrero. Don’t defy, question or cause conflict, right? Do as he says, shut up and look pretty. Don’t question him in front of anyone! What will you do if I don’t, huh? Bodily throw me off your plane?’

I have no clue how I went from sombre to spitting teeth and trying to goad him into a fight, but I have all this pent-up anger in me that alcohol is stirring up and it has nowhere else to go except at him. He caused it and now it’s bubbling away inside of me like a little cauldron of hissing rage.

‘Fuck’s sake, Cam. What do want from me? An apology? An explanation? What will it change? The past is the past and I brought you back, didn’t I? I cannot undo what I did but it doesn’t mean I don’t regret it. Sorry is just a word … One I have said to you already!’ It’s an effort to pipe me down with hushed angry words but it has the opposite effect.

I have never in my life been as raging mad at a single human being as I am right now. The pig-headed attitude of this man and his refusal to back down and admit he did anything wrong makes me want to smother him with his own jacket. Sorry may just be a fucking word but it happens to mean a lot when someone has royally screwed you up and treated you like shit. He has never actually told me, not once, that he was sorry in a meaningful way for what he did with any real kind of remorse. He has only thrown it at me to get me to obey him and I don’t for a second believe it was genuine. Any time!

‘You are fucking unbelievable!’ I slam my palm on the table and get up, forcefully pushing past him out of the seat to get out and sit anywhere but with him, and jump when he grabs me by my hips and hauls me onto his lap aggressively so I fall harshly.

I land ungracefully in a sitting position against him, held taught with his vice-like grip on me, side on and unable to move as he restrains my arms to my sides with a force that silences me. My breathing laboured and heart thudding inside my ribcage as every part of me rises to outrage like a volcano.

‘I’m sorry. I was wrong. I pushed you away. Is that what you need to hear? You want the word; you can have it … Sorry. Sorry. SORRY! Does it make you feel better, hate me any less? Magically undo the shit that went on before?’ It’s delivered in that even husky tone of complete pissed off Carrero. He could be reciting a fucking shopping list for all I care.

I wriggle my arms free angrily, body ignited with hot rage and shove myself away from his chest, abhorring his touch, and struggle to get loose, but he only yanks me closer.

‘You have a lot to learn about apologies,’ I spit in his face, glaring, hating him with every fibre in my body.

Alexi, however, goes into that dead calm control he is an expert at and despite holding me tight, so I can barely move, he seems effortlessly still. It’s that danger tone that used to pull me to heel.

‘You’re not the only fucked up person who has issues you know! It was never just about you. You think you understand it, Cam? You think you know what I felt, why I did what I did? … I had reasons!’

We’re nose to nose, angry and sizzling, a voltage between us that could probably short out the plane, so much anger and hatred and venom pouring out. Unlike every other time, it does not quieten me into submission but fuels my temper

‘What is that supposed to mean? You treat me like shit because you’ve had a crappy life? Yeah, I can see how being born rich in a family who gives a shit about you would screw you up and make you this way. Arsehole! Or wait, some sob story about being misunderstood and shunned by Mummy, is that the excuse? She didn’t love you enough so you took it out on a woman who actually did!’ This time I manage to yank myself free with a violent jerk and shove him hard in the upper chest, no longer caring about drawing attention. Stupefied with the words I just threw at him and yet I don’t care anymore.

I told him I loved him, he knew I did. What does it matter, confirming it!

Alexi lets me loose with unveiled anger on his face, and something else. If I didn’t know better I would call it hurt. I fall out of his embrace and onto my feet, pulling myself away from him quickly by clinging to another seat.

I scramble upright and walk down the aisle trying to act as unaffected as I can, smoothing down my clothes, and taking slow even breaths to reel it all back in. I head on two rows to the first seat that faces forward and turn my back on him; Sulking upset and furious. So much bubbling inside of me that I cannot contain. My whole body is tingling from toes to scalp with irritated goosebumps.

No one has looked this way, none the wiser to our spat and now I really do just want to go home and be done with this. I am on the verge of a complete emotional breakdown, fighting myself over stupid tears and wishing I never agreed to this at all. My chest is so heavy and achy I feel I might be having a heart attack.

I wondered when his mind games and head mess would start, and should have known any olive branch to something out of business always leads to this—Alexi trying to fuck me up for his own amusement. He always turns me into a raving loony. I don’t get why he has to do this to me every time!

I jump when he slides in beside me and honestly just laugh, sarcastically, bitterly; at the nerve of him. He’s an eternal dog with a bone and if he thinks he can push me to insanity again, he has another thing coming.

‘Leave me alone!’ I semi yell it at him, but the noisy crowd is onto singing and drowns me out with a chorus of Oasis’ Wonderwall, someone is playing on an iPhone.

Drunk people!