Chapter 161

The flight is long and depressing. I barely sleep at all and now after two nights of zero sleep I am a walking zombie as I push my way through the people exiting JFK airport onto the street in the hopes of finding a cab. It’s still another thirty minutes or more in a car back to Manhattan and I’m literally seeing double with fatigue. It’s around seven a.m. now, the sky bright with a new day and cold as hell. You can tell there has been a recent bout of storms and snow, due to how icy the air around me is and I swear it’s colder than Europe right now. Never thought that was possible.

I’m so beyond happy to be back on American soil, my feet planted on familiar sidewalks and looking around at people who sound like home. If we move our ass we will get to my apartment before Arrick leaves for work and I’ll get a chance to shock him with my presence and give him a piece of my mind.

I may still be due him some mad Sophie, but really, now all I want, and need is Arrick to give me a huge hug and tell me it’s all going to be okay. My moods have been swinging full circle on this long flight and I am no surer about how to feel about him than I was nine hours ago sitting in a French terminal.

***

I haul my suitcase with me from the car, luckily, I chose a small one and hand the driver some money. Pulling myself into the sidewalk in front of our building and I have to admit, the sense of elation at just seeing our familiar gorgeously tall luxury apartment block looming up in front of me, does amazing things for my mood. Up there in the clouds is our penthouse pad, my heart and my home and seeing as it’s still before eight a.m., my prince too. I don’t know what his training schedule is anymore for the gym here but even if he is still doing his five am slots he always comes home to get ready before eight to be at the office for nine am. Arry will be here. He is ritualistic with his routines and habits; I can set a watch by him. Steadily regular and reliable, usually.

I pull my case with me and smile at Frank the desk clerk as I pass, beaming at him with the hugest grin I can muster. He seems to take a double take then grins right back at me. Probably shocked that me of all people can get to New York alone and before daybreak.

“Miss Sophie… it’s great to see you home, Mr. Carrero. never mentioned it.” He keeps grinning at me as I pass his desk and I wave his way with a “Shhhhh” motion

“It’s a surprise, he doesn’t know I am home. It’s great to see you again.” I wave him off with a smile as I head for the bank of elevators and move to the last in the row. It’s the only one which goes as high as the top floor and usually other tenants don’t use it much because of that. It’s pretty much Arry’s exclusive elevator nowadays.

When the doors open, I’m surprised to see two men in suits emerge, but shrug it off. It is still one that is used by other floors too, so I guess they are visitors to the building and just assumed this was like the other ones. Although they look a little rumpled to be starting anew day, especially with so obviously expensive suits.

When I get in, I key in the pin on the pad to access the penthouse and lean back against the back wall as tiredness overtakes me. I’m almost home, almost there and just need to hold on for a couple of minutes more before I can throw myself on the couch and flake out.

God, I miss that couch so badly.

I don’t know what his reaction will be, but all I can think about after that long ass trip is some hours in a bed, sleeping this off. Beyond exhausted, hungover, and so overwrought and emotional because of it that I know I am hardly functioning. I sigh when the doors slide shut and close my eyes for the few minutes it takes to get to our floor and our home. I have no clue how I am going to react when I see him, still haven’t turned on my cell for his messages and no idea what I am even going to say when faced with him. I’m a little apprehensive seeing as last thing I did say to him was I didn’t want to see him, and he could go fuck himself.

Even if he deserved it, I’m nervous.

I’m alerted to the doors opening with the ping of reaching my destination and straighten up, pulling my case in firmly beside me and pull off my handbag across my shoulder. I plan on dumping both as soon as I get in and go find my man, even if I’m still hating on him.

The doors slide open onto the familiar open plan interior of our apartment and I walk in confidently, inhaling it like heaven. Halting briskly when I realize I’m not faced with the clean and neat haven like it always is, but instead a takeout littered sitting area, with dishes and evidence of a night of food and wine. It’s messy and slobby and the Arry I know would never leave it like this for love nor money. His anal germaphobe OCD tendencies would have an all-out meltdown.

Looking from the messy center table my eyes span the space, partially lighted and still gloomy from the dullness of the hour and halt in shock at the new sight that catches my eye, one that makes my heart stop dead and my whole body freezes with the icy wash that consumes me.

A woman cozily standing in my kitchen making herself a mug of coffee and looking totally at home.

I can only see her from the waist up but she’s standing in a blouse that’s unbuttoned to cleavage level and she looks sleep deprived. Startled as her eyes meet me in shocked silence and we regard each other wordlessly as reality seems to slip away from me.

My heart skips a beat as I stare at her, completely unsure how to react as we both gawp at one another and then Arry walks into view from the bedroom, pulling on a shirt over his naked torso and buttoning it up as he wanders out towards the middle of the room.

“You got mine ready?” He says to her nonchalantly as he focuses on what he is doing, oblivious to my presence like I am having an out of body experience. Literally, like all time halts and I can’t catch my breath.

I do a double take from his half-dressed state to the young brunette in my kitchen and stand like a statue, unsure what else to think as my heart breaks into a million pieces with the sight before me. Rationale impossible when all I can feel is the shattering of every piece of me inside. Tears filling my eyes and blurring my vision as my lungs collapse.

The elevator starts to ping as the doors signal closing and it draws Arry’s eyes up to mine in a split second as he sees me. Frozen, paralyzed in complete disbelief, my eyes sting as recognition flicks across his face.

“Sophs?” He seems pleased to see me in that second, weirdly, then blinks as he takes in my expression and obvious growing distress. Looking around him, from her to me and back again, and his face drops. His whole posture changes from casual and aloof to stiff and panicked.

It says it all.

“It’s not what you…” He sounds terrified, eyes wide as he moves fast towards me. I don’t give him a chance to finish, backing into the elevator as the doors begin to close, my instinct to run from pain, unable to breathe, unable to function and grab at the wall to hold myself up as everything comes crashing in on me. He makes a dash towards me, for the doors, but they close before he gets close enough, locking him out, protecting me from whatever it is he was about to say.

What have you done to us, Arry?

All I can think about is Natasha, the night she walked in on us and the realization that she was two years into her relationship with him and it was falling apart when he decided to come after me.

Is this what he’s doing to me? Would he?

We’re two years in and falling apart. This is fate coming back to punish me for Natasha.

I don’t know how to react, what to think or how to feel. Like I’m going to vomit, or pass out, or die from the pain that’s consuming me all over. My skin is rippling with horrid sensations as though I’m being pricked all over, my lungs deflating with heaviness. Every part of me aches with an agony I have no coping mechanism for.

Natasha was blind to all of it… Is that me? Am I blind to what’s been going on?

In one split second my whole world just comes crashing down around me and I’m stood here breaking into a million pieces as my hearts bleeds out.

My Arry and some other woman, all cozy in the morning before work?

Arry wouldn’t do that to me?

He loves me, I love him and things between us have still been the same sexually when he is home. He wouldn’t do this to us.

He couldn’t do this to us—could he?

It’s different to what he had with Natasha… I’m not her. He always loved me, he never loved her.

I can’t stop the torrent of pain and tears, doubts and questions, crashing through me as it all comes pouring out at a hundred miles an hour. I’m so confused. My eyes told a story that everything inside of me cannot believe. I trust him, this can’t be happening.

The long weeks apart, growing irritated with our situation, the months he has had to stay here without me.

Maybe he just got tired and looked elsewhere for a cure to his high libido and long separations? Maybe he’s bored with running after me and my tantrums.

No, no, no! It’s Arry, he would never do that to me. He loves me. I know he does.

When the doors open, I stagger out half blinded by tears and almost crash into a group of people in the hallway who seem to be arriving together. I don’t get why so many people would be here at this time and thank god they hide me from Frank’s view. I know he’ll stop me in this state, so clearly visibly broken as tears pour down my face and I stumble out onto the sidewalk. I don’t even have my bag, I must have dropped it in the apartment before backing into the elevator again, I have no memory of even doing it.

The rain has come down, the heavens opened somewhere between getting out of the cab and going upstairs and I’m immediately drenched in a good old New York downpour. The kind of rain that gets through every layer of clothing in seconds, but I don’t care. Aiming left and walking fast blindly. No idea what I am doing or where I am going as it lashes in my face, I just need to keep moving and get away from here. I’m dying inside, and my heart is breaking while the rain mingles with my tears and stings my face with icy stabs.

I stop at the corner of the building as the overwhelming nausea overtakes me and bend to throw up in the gap between that and the next building, sagging against the stone wall to try and catch my breath as I retch up the few contents of my stomach and sob through the effort. Fatigue and dizziness combat the overwhelming need to throw up and I am bereft and lifeless, standing in the cold wet, lashing rain with no idea where I should go or what I should do. I’m so lost.

I feel like I’m dying. I never knew pain without an actual injury could be this bad, this intense and all-consuming and I thought I had suffered the worst kind of pain in my past. I may really die from some sort of heart failure and people are giving me a wide berth as they catch sight of me. The crazy emotional wreck dying on the sidewalk.

“Sophie? Sophie?” I hear him calling at a distance and try to make a move for it, but my body has turned to lead, and my legs won’t move. I’ve started shaking violently and my stomach is crippling me with cramps. No control of anything at all anymore and running is futile. I sink against the wall and sob, burying my face in my arms as water makes it way down inside my clothes and molds my dress to my figure even more so. Freezing cold rain for a soul that just fell into an abyss.

Arrick gets to me in seconds and hauls me back by the wrist to him, pulling me off the wall and revealing my face. Grip tight as though he has no intention of letting me go.

“Baby, it’s not what you think. What it looked like.” He sounds desperate, but that little tornado inside of me lashes free and I turn on him in full broken fury, slapping out at him to let me go and attacking with the full force of a damaged heart. He has no idea what he has done.

Arrick counteracts my blows expertly and catches my wrists, spinning me so he crosses my arms across my chest and pulls me hard against his torso, holding me tight so I am rendered incapable of doing much else. His face hard against my cheek so I cannot move.

“Let me go… How could you?” I sob at him, fighting to be free. A memory of familiar words thrown at us by his ex-girlfriend, so long ago, flashes through my head and for the first time I wonder if maybe he is capable of doing this to us.

He did this to her… Why am I any different?

I deserve this for what we did to her.

“Sophs, I swear, nothing is going on… That’s Amanda my PA. Listen to me, please.” He sounds devastated, voice shaking as much as I am, and even though I’m fighting him he doesn’t budge at all. He just waits until he gets me under control again. Standing in the waterfall weather, being soaked, and blinded by the downpour. I tremble and shake as much with the cold as the pain I am in.

“Let me go.” I beg him, needing to get far away, I want him to just go. I can’t bear his touch on me, slicing pain through my soul and ravaging me to pieces.

“Never. I’ll never let you go, baby, I love you, Sophie, and this is not what you think. Please listen to me…” He sounds broken too and so very desperate, it makes my protests catch in my throat.

I struggle once more but his hold on me only tightens as he walks me to the wall out of foot traffic, so he can use it as a barrier for my feet I was using to try and push him away, so I’m completely immobile.

“We were here all night, four of us, going through legal briefs so today’s meeting could go a lot faster and I could get a flight home to you. You are all I have been thinking about. I was coming back to you. I swear. All night, four of us, they only left minutes before you arrived, and I went to get changed for work. Amanda was making coffee as none of us have had any sleep.” He says it fast, his voice strained and body tight around me unbudgingly. He’s trying the ‘tell her quick while restraining her and hope she calms down’. True to his tried and tested methods. I struggle again as his words filter in, but I am sapped of all energy and my fight is dying. Sobs have become silent tears and being in his arms is killing me.

I pause remembering the two men I passed in the foyer and try to think straight. Fatigue and emotion hitting me all in one go and a let out another pitiful sob. I don’t want to be one of those women who take the lie and pretend it’s all going to be okay. I don’t want to be too stupid to see when someone has betrayed them.

“Let me go.” I strain against him one more time, no longer trying to fight him, but needing a moment to pull myself together and let his words sink in. I need space to think.

I know in my gut it’s the truth, even without running into those two men, because deep down I know him. Despite how it looked, he isn’t the type to carry on an affair that would kill us and then deny it to me. He wouldn’t chase me and try to lie to me. He told Natasha the truth, he would tell me.

My gut is telling me to listen, but my head and heart are so twisted up and afraid. I have no way of surviving a life without him. I cannot even contemplate what that would be like; it’s not something I can survive.

“Only if you don’t run, Sophs.… Because I will chase you, baby. I won’t lose you.” Arry buries his face in my neck and squeezes me a little tighter, a hug of sorts and I relax a little.

“I’m not going to run; I just need a minute. I need breathing space.” I can barely talk, sniffing through tears and rain, trying to catch my breath. After a moment of thought he slowly unravels his hold and lets go of me until his hands rest only on my upper arms and I move out of reach. He’s poised to chase me; I can see it in the tense way he is holding himself and his eyes are penetrating mine with a look of complete fear on his face. He thinks I’m going to run away from him. He’s evaluating me, trying to suss out if I believe him and he is damn sure he won’t let me out of his sight until I do.

My head and heart waiver, even more sure that he’s not lying to me.

He’s now as soaked through as me and his new white shirt is barely concealing the rippling muscles or black tattoos showing through the now transparent fabric. His hair is flopping with the water pulling it down but neither of us seem to care that we are being drowned. We are locked in a gaze that translates so much. Silently waiting for the other to say something.

Confused with a million emotions brought on by so much… I walk away towards the building to break his focus on me and get some distance, turn to lean against it and slide down as dizziness hits me, cuddling myself into a crouching position and put my face in my hands on my knees.

Arry’s body comes up against mine immediately as he crouches too and seems to somehow get around all the exposed part of me, his head over mine and shielding our faces from the rain as he huddles me. I can feel it running down every part of me, even inside my jacket and shoes but it doesn’t matter. I’m detached from reality; exhausted and somehow empty inside and I guess it’s the shock of what I thought I just walked into.

“Talk to me, Sophs.” Arry’s voice is low and husky, his hands come up to stroke my face, one hand moving to balance himself on my thigh as he tries to coax me to lift my chin and look at him. He wants to know what’s going through my head.

“I thought you and her …” The words evaporate in my mouth and I cannot bring myself to look at him. Ashamed that I would even think he could, now logic is kicking me into check, and I can see how it was innocent. Arry has never given me reason to doubt him in this way, not since Natasha and she is long gone. Those men who left, the ones that came from his elevator, the one from our apartment, I can picture them in my mind’s eye and realize only now they had been familiar to me. I have seen them before. I guess from times I’ve been at Carrero corp.

“Never ever. Not for anything. You are my heart and soul, Sophs. I wouldn’t be that stupid, I wouldn’t do anything to ever lose you.” Arrick cradles my jaw with his hand and coaxes me to lift my chin so I meet his eyes. I have no words. “Come upstairs with me so we can get dry and talk. I need to send her to the office to take the files to Jake. I’m not going anywhere else… Just you and me… You have to believe me. I would never do anything like that to you, to us. My life would be over; I would die without you.” He pulls my face so close our noses touch and it just breaks what’s left of me. I begin to cry again, at my own stupidity, at how he’s being even though I iced him out for the past twenty-four or more hours and then ran off when I walked into our apartment.

My gentle Arry. My heart. My whole reason for being. How could I doubt you?

“I believe you.” I whisper it, closing my eyes when he leans in and kisses me softly, gentle grazing of the lips and uses the distraction to scoop me up in his arms and lift me from the street like a child. He straightens up and carries me with him, pulling me up, so I automatically nestle my head against his throat, wrap my arms around his neck and bury my face from the world. Feet dangling and water dripping from both of us. Letting him take over for me, take control and get us out of the street. He is in protector mode, carrying me out of the rain and somewhere safe so he can be alone with me to take care of me. Somewhere I can’t run from even if I get upset.