Chapter 58

I sigh as I pull up in front of Xavier’s parents’ house, my heart aching as I sit in my car for a few moments, trying my best to pull myself together when all I can think about is the interview Xavier did this morning, announcing our merger and heavily insinuating that it’s the only reason he married me. I’ve watched it over and over again, and each time, it hurts just a little more. I get why he did it — he’s sending a signal, telling the world he doesn’t care enough about me for me to be a viable target that can be used to get to him.

I draw a shaky breath and lean back, trying to convince myself to smile and put up an act, only to startle when the passenger door opens. My father-in-law smiles as he gets in, his three-piece suit vaguely familiar. “Mom liked the suit you bought for Xavier,” he explains when he finds me staring at it. “So she got matching ones for me, Elijah, Hunter, and Zach. I haven’t been able to tell her that the boys are all too old for matching outfits.”

I smile shakily. “What are you doing, Dad?”

“Sitting with my little girl,” he replies. “We don’t have to go in if you don’t want to, but I don’t want you to sit here by yourself.”

Tears begin to fill my eyes, and I bite down on my lip harshly as I try to suppress them. “I’m just so tired of hurting,” I tell him, burying my face in my hands. I’ve been coming over for dinner a few times a week, just so I wouldn’t have to be home alone in a house that used to be filled with happy memories — memories that are all slowly being replaced by loneliness and disappointment.

I’ve been wanting to go home to my siblings, but I know I can’t suddenly go back more often than I used to, or they’d just worry about me, and I haven’t been able to admit to anyone that my marriage is falling apart, and nothing I’ve tried is helping me keep it together.

Dad offers me a handkerchief that’s far too nice to actually use, and I just begin to cry even harder at the thought of everything I stand to lose. It isn’t just the love of my life, it’s the parents I never thought I’d have too. “Oh, Sierra,” he says, his voice soft, pained. “Tell me what you want to do, sweetheart. Should we just track that stupid son of mine down and force him to listen?”

“I’ve tried that,” I tell him, bawling. I tried talking to him a dozen times at home, before he left. Then again at his office, and countless times at my own office, after meetings I knew he would never miss. I’ve told him that I miss him, that I’m hurting, and it’s like he just isn’t hearing me. “He needs help, Dad. I can’t get through to him, but maybe someone else can.”

The way he looks at me tells me he’s tried too, and I avert my gaze, trying my best to compose myself. “Sweetheart, if I could force him to get help, I would. I’m not above locking him into a room with a psychologist, but that won’t make him talk.”

I wipe away my tears and draw a steadying breath, trying my best to stop my tears. I haven’t felt like myself in so long, and I’m tired of feeling weak, breakable. “Let’s go in,” I say eventually, my voice hoarse.

Dad simply smiles. “Are you sure? If you want to, I can make Elijah set up a big screen and a projector, so we can watch watch a movie from the car. We can sit here for as long as you need to, Sierra.”

“Would you actually do that for me?”

He grins and gently tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Mom and I have done that countless times with Valeria, and we’ll happily do it for you too. For a long time, she’d get ready, determined to go somewhere, only to sit in the car, too overwhelmed to leave. So we’d just sit right here with her.”

I stare at my hands and shake my head. “Can we do that someday?” I ask him.

“Of course,” he replies instantly. “Whenever you want, sweetie.” For as long as I can remember, I’ve wondered what it’d have been like if I still had my parents, and now I no longer have to wonder — now I know what it’s like to be consoled by a father when a boy breaks my heart, even if the boy in this scenario is his son.

“Let’s go,” I say, sounding a little more determined, a little less broken.

“I actually came outside to pre-warn you,” he says as we walk to the front door together. “Mom prepared a little surprise for you. Something that I think is not exactly normal, but that she insists is going to make you feel better.” I raise a brow as I press my hand to the scanner at the front door, and the door swings open. “I… well, I don’t really know how to explain. You’ll have to see for yourself.”

I frown when I follow him to the kitchen, where Valeria is hand making fresh pasta, and my mother-in-law is cutting fresh herbs for the pasta I’ve come to love so much that she now makes it for me every single week. “Oh, Sierra, honey, there you are,” Mom says, smiling at me, before she grabs a handful of finely chopped parsley and throws it on the floor. She glances at the ground then, and I walk around the kitchen island to figure out what she’s doing, only to find Hannah, Raven’s older sister, on her hands and knees, a toothbrush in her hands. “You missed several spots,” Mom says, her tone much harsher than I’m used to. “Clean that up.”

I watch in shock as the woman who tormented Ares and Raven for years brushes the floor with a toothbrush, and I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t make me feel a whole lot better. Ares had mentioned that he forced her to work as a maid in retaliation for what she’d done to them, but I’d completely forgotten that it was the Kingstons she’d been sent to. I very rarely see any staff at any of our houses, and things always just seem to get done when I’m not looking, so it hadn’t occurred to me that I could’ve been making Hannah pay for what she put my brother and my sweet Raven through. If not for her, Ares and Raven wouldn’t have missed out on so many years of happiness, and Raven wouldn’t have had to watch her designs burn in the streets, when she never did anything to deserve that.

“Just can’t find competent staff these days,” Mom says, smiling at me sweetly.

A streak of pure viciousness washes over me as I glance at some of the leftover flour on the counter and swipe it off, making an even worse mess of the floor. “Indeed,” I reply. Hannah doesn’t even look up, clearly unable to face me, and she doesn’t realize that it just brings me more joy to find all her haughtiness gone. She used to be one of the most famous actresses alive, and now she can’t even lift her face to look me in the eye.

Mom doesn’t say a thing as I continue to throw things on the floor throughout dinner, and neither do Valeria nor Dad. They do, however, join me in throwing things on the floor, until eventually, I feel a little better, some of the venom disappearing from my heart.

“Come on,” Valeria says after dinner. “There’s something I want to show you.”

I raise a brow and follow her upstairs, my curiosity getting the best of me. I’ve been here so often in the last couple of weeks, but I’ve never gone upstairs. There’s never been any need for it. “We all grew up here, and even though we’ve all moved out, Mom kept our bedrooms intact in case we ever want to stay over.”

She opens one of the doors and I follow her in, only to freeze at the sight of the framed photo on the wall, in which Xavier is smiling back at me, Dion standing on his left, and Enzo on his right. “This is Xavier’s bedroom.”

She nods and grabs my hand, pulling me to the bed, completely ignoring my reluctance. Valeria climbs onto Xavier’s bed and yanks on my hand, until I’m seated next to her, her expression telling me that there’s no point resisting. I blink in confusion when she bends forward and reaches for something underneath the bed, pulling out an old battered cardboard box.

“V,” I murmur. “That looks like something that’s private.” The last thing I need is to find out about all the girls that came before me, or worse, the one that got away, the one he’d never have shut out and abandoned.

“Just look,” she says, turning it upside down, letting the contents fall all over the bed. “Please, Sierra.”

My heart skips a beat when I recognize every single thing in front of me, and my hands tremble when I reach for an old crumpled ticket to a real estate conference that I attended when I was fresh out of college. I remember seeing him there and feeling so intimidated by the thought of saying hi to him, because I didn’t think he’d even remember his best friend’s little sister, since I hadn’t seen him in nearly five years. I hovered around the stage after watching his presentation, and he grinned, greeting me by name, telling me he was looking forward to witnessing everything I’d accomplish, and that he had no doubt I’d become a worthy competitor.

I bite down on my lip when I pick up a pink pen that Valentina had once given me, remembering that I’d thrown it at him because he’d told me that my presentation for a small project he shouldn’t even have been interested in sucked. It was just a few months after the conference, and he’d told me everything that was wrong with it in his scathing tone. I hated him for it, but I did take his words to heart, and because of it, I won the next project I was vying for.

“How does he have all this?” I ask, reaching for several little pieces of torn paper with hateful things written on it that we’d passed back and forth, each time we found ourselves seated next to each other at a meeting or conference throughout the years. I laugh as I read the message, each of them from different years.

Your tie is ugly.

Not as ugly as that neon color on your slide deck.

Love those bands around your thighs. Do they keep up your stockings?

You can see them?

Every damn time you reach up to point at things in your slides, as can every other man in this room. Use a laser pointer or put on my suit jacket. Pull up the sleeves if you must and call it fashion.

If you ever, EVER, touch my cookies again, I will kill you.

I’m keeping this as evidence of premeditated murder.

I’m serious, Xavier. This isn’t funny.

Okay, I’m sorry, Kitten. ^-^

Kitten?????

Is your coffee as bitter as the look on your face when you lost that project?

Screw you.

Hopefully someday, Kitten.

?????

You suck.

Are you offering me a taste, Kitten?

What?

Never mind.

That guy is an idiot. Why he is looking at you like that?

Who, Tim? I think he’s sweet.

His jokes are painful to listen to. Fucking kill me now.

Wdym? I think he’s super funny.

He’s not even a little funny. Fuck him and his dumb jokes.

Should I?

Idk, let me ask your brother.

Don’t!! I’m just kidding.

I’m not. Don’t let me catch you anywhere near him.

God, I hate you.

Don’t really like you right now either, Kitten.

You look uncomfortable. I love that look on you. Wear it more often.

The woman next to me keeps touching my leg.

I bite down on my lip as I recall the last one. I didn’t realize it until much later, but I must’ve lost my mind when I blatantly reached over and looked her in the eye as grabbed her hand, squeezed with more force than necessary, and threw it off Xavier’s leg. He’d chuckled and grabbed my hand, placed my palm flat on his strong thigh, his hand covering mine throughout the rest of the presentation we were sitting throug. That was the first time I’d reluctantly admitted to myself that Xavier is far too handsome for his own good, and not even I was immune.

“Why would he have kept these things?”

“Because for a really long time, he thought this was all he’d ever have of you, all he deserved to have.” Valeria takes a deep breath and reaches for my hands. “I know I don’t have the right to ask this of you, but please, Sierra. Please don’t give up on my brother.”

I sigh as I squeeze her hand. “I wasn’t planning on it.”