Chapter 296

I like this place; it gives you that instant calm feeling of being somewhere safe and welcoming. A bit like being in his arms. I shake that thought from my head before my brain follows the being in his arms to something a little more X-rated and remind myself, I’m supposed to be dissecting this man and figuring him out.

“That depends on how much I’m allowed to know,” I ask with a slight brow raise and a half smile. My seductress side smoothly flowing now I feel more at ease. I too am drawing serene from our calm abode.

“Whatever you want. I meant it when I said I would earn your trust. If that means being an open book and telling you whatever you want to know, then here we are.” He gestures around him, watching me carefully.

“You could have done that at the club, why bring me here?”

Because Alexi is a devious shit who likes to set a scene and manipulate a response. I have seen him do it for his own ends a hundred times. It’s what he does, and he does it so well.

“This is my little corner away from reality. A sanctuary, I guess. I get to leave Alexi Carrero at the door and just be Lex. A teen kid who came to the city to figure his life out. I figured it would be the best place to start altering the person I have shown you up until now. I brought you to the one place where barely anyone else gets to come, for that reason; no prying ears either.”

No one else except whoever got this place visitor worthy today. I’m onto him.

“So even though you grew up and bought a swanky apartment, you still have this place … as a bolthole of sorts?”

I’ll play along, see where it takes us. I start to wonder if this is all staged, and this belongs to one of his minions and not him at all, but his obvious ease is contradicting that. I get the impression he knows this place intimately, has lived here, and even though it doesn’t initially reek of Alexi Carrero, there is something of him in the atmosphere. I can’t quite put my finger on it yet.

“Yeah. I bought it after I started working for my father and just couldn’t let it go. I have a lot of memories here, a lot of me that was left behind when I changed the path I took.”

It’s also in the same area he once took me to lunch, so the geography adds up. He told me that day he once lived near there. I didn’t forget that tiny titbit.

I exhale heavily, knowing the only way I will get the full story is to go back to the start. Like me, his story is not clear cut or as simple as I thought it was, and I guess to know the man, you need to know the journey. I want to know how he came to be King Carrero if his father opposed it. I want to know how someone who could lovingly create this home, became someone who could tie me up and rip my sanity to shreds. The two don’t match up.

“I don’t know what to ask about how you got here. I’m guessing your mother played a part and I know you shot someone at 13. I want to know your history. How you got to be what you are now if you started here and your father turned you away from being like him?”

Seems like a reasonable request, given he offered.

Alexi considers me for a long minute before getting up and walking over to his bookcase. There’s a stereo and a row of CDs and he turns it on putting one in before turning back to me, lifting the remote and turning it down low. Maroon five starts soothing me with familiar notes, playing around us unobtrusively and I smile on the inside. I’ve heard him play their songs at the club when he’s in the office. This is definitely Alexi’s pad. His music tastes are very rigid, and this is a song he plays a lot.

He bends down as I watch him from my sitting position as he slides out a black leather photo album from the shelf below before walking back; he hands it to me and returns to his seat confidently. That smooth swagger that reminds me of who he is.

I watch him closely, unsure what to do until he nods at it and gives me permission to open.

“My family album, one of them, courtesy of Gino. Figured you might want a visual of the people in my past.”

I let out a little ‘huh’ under my breath, smiling as I screw up my face. Surprised that he even owns these kinds of things and look down to do as I’m told. I want to see what ‘family’ for him is. I want to see the bitch that Gino blames for his cold heart and chosen life path.

I flick open the pages, presented with an array of similar looking men and children, family pictures, holiday shots. The usual for any family in an album. A lot of strangers and some familiar. I recognise Gino and Alexi in some, as small children. I spot who I think might be Mico in many of them. Alexi however, I can’t mistake.

Not much has changed to not recognise him, even as a boy. Those eyes apparent throughout, and that serious scowl he has when he is unhappy. It’s in a lot of these pictures, which is sad considering those around him are beaming with smiles and obvious glee. Even with that little frowny face, he was an incredibly cute kid. A little dark and sinister even then, but adorable and even harder to separate from Gino without tattoos and badass tailoring. They are creepily identical. There is a lot of him and his twin and then just one with their father. He isn’t really in a lot of the images and I guess his line of work kept him absent a lot. Much like Alexi who never seems to go back to The Hamptons often.

His father hasn’t changed in many years from what I can see. Still a lot like the tall, powerful man I met at the club. So much like his son in looks but with more wrinkles, grey hair and different colour of eyes. He has that air of command but not that sadistic aura like Alexi.

I flick the page to a whole family shot and instantly recognise the twins, their father, three other children and a woman who is certainly not a Carrero. They did not take after her if she is who I think she is. She looks drawn and bitchy, to say the least. Attractive, long dark blonde hair, which is probably dyed, and brown eyes, but with her, there’s an impression of coldness to her I sometimes see in him. It makes me pause on her face for a second, hesitating at the connection.

A striking woman with intimidating cruelty in that look that as much as I hate to admit, he has. Alexi has more of her in him than I think he wants to admit. It’s not in the looks, it’s in the manner. The way she’s poised, and even though one hand is on her child’s shoulder, a girl, there is an impersonal detachment in it. She is groomed and precise and seems like an addition to the picture, not really one of the family. She gives me the heebie-jeebies.

“Your mum … this is her, right?” I tap her face and motion him to look where I’m pointing, and he leans in and nods.

“Yeah. That’s her.” He doesn’t sound impressed.

“She seems a little sterile. Even in a picture.”

“She was mad at me before that shot. As usual, I did something to make her angry, and it was my fault she looked like she wanted to be anywhere but there.” He sighs heavily and drinks a good portion of his wine, averting his eyes to his stereo and I flick back down to the cold woman’s face. Not convinced that it’s the only reason she looks like an anally retentive arsehole. Alexi seems deflated with me picking out her to start this, but I want to know so desperately.

“My mother and I have never bonded in the way she did with my siblings. I have four. I was always a problematic kid, and she didn’t know how to deal with me. It affected our whole relationship and I pretty much spent my childhood on the outside of my own family. The black sheep, making everything difficult.” He adds as he stares at his fire and bookcase, avoiding my eye, and that little tug of heartache appears low inside of me. Empathy for that poor little boy who just wanted her love, flooding me from nowhere. Maybe Gino was right, and their mother had a huge part in how he is.

“So, it wasn’t because of what you did when you protected her as Gino said?” I know I’m admitting to eavesdropping by asking this, but I’ve always wanted to know the full story of Alexi and his mother. If she was like this before that event, then why?

Alexi narrows a look at me, bringing back his face with a tilt, obviously wondering where I got that snippet of info, but he doesn’t ask. I think he knows that I’ve listened in when I shouldn’t and carries on as though it no longer matters. Maybe back then he would have been pissed, but not now when he’s offering me it all, anyway.

“No.” he looks pensive, glances to the floor then gets up and heads to the kitchen for a beer instead of his wine. I can tell he doesn’t like talking about this stuff and the agitation is all over him already. That evasive behaviour of his. The first thing he always does is avoidance is to get out of range and give himself space. I know him too well.

“We don’t need to do this you know,” I call after him, feeling like I’m crossing into an area that makes him uncomfortable and I really don’t want to. Not wanting the side of him I fear coming out to play on purpose, even if I planned on bringing it out. I want to know, but I don’t want to ruin the mood that started, and I’m stuck here with him for the time being. I’d rather not poke the bear and make this a miserable first proper date. It has the potential to be nice, considering how it started.

I will wait until we are back on neutral soil and I have the means to call Jackson to come save me before I attempt to bring out the devil in him. Better to have an exit plan in place first.

“I want to; this is how you get to know people properly, and I feel like I have all the inside scoop on you already and should balance the scales a little.” He walks back, beer in hand, but doesn’t sit. Just wanders to the stereo and flicks through his collection of CDs.

That reminder he has my journals heats my face, my stomach dropping at the fact he knows all about me and I glance away. Instant gut wrench and I push the painful feelings away quickly. Back to the photo on my lap and scowl at the bitch staring back at me. I don’t like her, even without seeing more, there is something in her that reminds me of my own mother. That lack of warmth in her eyes and the way she is holding herself aloft like she hates everyone in the fucking world. I shudder, pulling myself away to shake her off.

“I guess. It’s just weird seeing you so open and forthcoming and being a completely different person.” I lose my bravado, almost talking into my chest and swirl my wine in one hand. Remembering he knows everything really sours my mood, reminding me of why I’m here. I have so much riding on this, and no clue where to begin. I’m out of my depth with him.

“That’s kind of the point of this. Changing how you see me; being able to trust me.” He smiles my way when I look up and catch his eye before he returns to his previous position, sitting near me with his feet on the floor this time. Taking over the space once more in that comfy armchair that looks made for him—weirdly.

There’s a feeling of awkwardness seeping back between us, straining the atmosphere, and I can tell he’s not as comfortable with this as he is making out. He doesn’t share personal things so this must be taking a huge amount of effort on his part. It’s not lost on me that he’s doing this for me.

Always pulling my brain in two directions with every move.

“I don’t know where to start,” I utter shyly. No clue how this began and not knowing the questions to ask. My version of his life is wrong, so I’m at a loss.

“Okay, so maybe a condensed version and you don’t have to ask questions?” He smiles softly, it doesn’t reach his eyes though, and I can sense the nervous tension in him still. He’s still as a statue, a little too calm which usually means he’s working twice as hard to be so. This bothers him. Offering this so he won’t have to be grilled like a POW by me. It’s obvious he doesn’t like divulging his past and he probably isn’t too comfy with doing this at all. As a person he keeps his life private and his thoughts and feelings hidden from most, all the time. This must be hard, and it chips another little shard of ice away from my heart where he is concerned.

“Sounds like a plan.” I smile too, except mine is genuine, glad I won’t have to coax a story or ask things that might upset him. If he’s in control of the intel he gives, maybe we can get through the backstory with minimum fuss.