East Rising (Naive Mistakes #2) (10 page)

He moved closer, put his hands to my
shoulders and moved me toward him. He steadied me as he glared down
at my eyes.

"If they knew I felt more
for you than I've ever felt for anyone, Alex included, they
could've... I could never let that happen to you. I had to play it
cool. I had to... Leora, I can never lose you.
Never
. But it's over now. We got
them. It's over. And if you'll have me still, because I know I've
hurt you..."

His grip eased. I felt
momentarily light-headed as it happened,
snapped
my hands to his palms! "Don't
let me go," I said. "This is too much to take in. Just
don't
let me go while it
goes through my mind and I try and make sense of it."

He held on tighter, moved
me into his chest. The motion was slightly uncertain — very unlike
Conall — but I sensed it was because he was wondering if I would
"take him back" after what he had "done to me"... Right. And what
had that been? If I'd understood it correctly (and I was struggling
to understand most of it still) then he'd, so it seemed,
protected
me from someone
who'd kidnapped and, what, raped?, beaten?, a girl he'd loved
before...

And he, apparently, cared more for me than
for that girl that he got his entire back tattooed for...

As I stood there, his hand
now on the back of my head, my nose to his freshly pressed shirt,
soaking in his cologne, I understood enough to process the next
step. I believed that Conall had not betrayed me. I believed that
the hell, the complete and utter
inferno
, that I'd experienced in the
last six months could've been, apparently, worse.
I
could've been the one
sporting a scar from my eyebrow to my lips, my eyes slightly skew.
And I wasn't as beautiful as this "Alex." Not by a long shot. Such
a scar on my face would all but destroy any hopes of me ever having
a normal life.

Or it could have been worse. Much worse. I
could've ended up like Kayla. Only the rape would've been more
physically painful —

I stopped pondering it.
Just hearing the word in my mind was too much to bear. I'd always
known — and
especially
since she'd opened up to me in the hospital — that Kayla was
so much stronger than me. I would not have survived any such
ordeal. Alex looked strong as well (although the boozing seemed a
little like a problem...)

As the pieces fell into
close-enough place for me, I, still afraid, still, on some level,
spooked that Conall wasn't really here, that his scent was not
really his, but of...
Dorian
—

Oh, God.
Dorian
.

I lost my train of thought, eased my arms
around Conall's waist, felt his chin land on my head. I clutched
his shirt. "You're really here?" I mumbled into his shirt.

"I'm really here. And
I'm
so
sorry —
"

"Don't!" I pulled back, my
hands still gripping his shirt behind his back (no doubt creasing
the shit out of it.) I looked down, as if looking at him was still
too much to bear. One step at a time. And that step, now, was
feeling him, with my hands, like a piece of clay.
"
Don't
apologize,"
I said. "I don't understand it. But I believe you."

He put his index underneath my chin, trying
to lift my head up to look at his eyes. But my eyes were wet as
water. The tears, sometime between the time he'd first held me and
now, had made their way out in small drips. I felt them on my
cheeks. They tickled. But I couldn't look at him. Not yet. I shook
my head.

"No," I said.

"Come. Let's go to my place. Or do you have
other plans today?"

I chuckled — a lonely, sad chuckle.

With air-quotes and all, I said, "No, I have
no 'plans.'"

"Then let's go."

He turned me, moved me to his side, put his
arm around me, my head now nestled by his chest on his side. Before
we left, I looked over at Alexandra's door. She was there now, the
door only a crack open.

She scowled at me, I was sure, and shot back
another glass of whiskey, then closed the door.

I didn't know what to make of it...

In the train, I texted
Kayla telling her as much as I could in 160 characters or less. She
called, but I squashed it, forgetting our agreement to
always
answer each
other's calls, no matter what, no matter, even, if we were in the
middle of...the deed!

It still hadn't fully settled in my mind
that she was here, in England, with me! I called her, telling her
only that I couldn't talk.

"You sure you OK? That fucking punk isn't
taking advantage of you, is he?"

Conall was next to me, his hand steady on my
knee. He no doubt heard her speak. I pressed the volume down
surreptitiously. He remained silent, stoic. I could tell there was
so much he wanted to tell me, to explain.

"No, it's all good. Look, I'll call you as
soon as I can."

"Hmmm," she said, "I don't like this, Leo.
You want me to break his fuckin kneecaps? I'll call Brad. You know
he'll come over if I tell him to!"

I laughed. "No, it's all good. I'll call you
as soon as I can."

"Fine! But if Dani becomes my best friend
you have only yourself to blame!"

"She's cool, isn't she?"

"Yeah, she's alright. The two of us will
bring you over to the dark side somehow. Two against one now."

"I love you, sweetie."

"Love you, too, you idiot. Idiotically in
love, that is!"

"Bye." I put the phone down.

Almost immediately, Kayla sent a text:

Kayla: The offer's still up. I'll kick that
mofo's ass if he fucks with you. Just say the word...

Leora: Will do. Xoxo. Tx.

They'd taken Alexandra
because of
him
?

I noticed some agitation in his gaze and I
tried not to get freaked out about it. Had he really gotten "them"?
And who were "they" exactly?

I heaved a sigh, tried to clear my mind as
the English countryside — brown, ugly, brick-faced houses mostly —
passed by me outside the train window.

"No one in their right minds drives into
London," Conall had said before we'd jumped in the train. "Not even
millionaires with limos."

It was the first time he'd referred to
himself as a millionaire, although I'd long-since known it. But I
didn't give a shit about that. I had money. I came from money.
Money was so far from my interest with Conall that he could've been
a pauper on the side of the street and I'd still love him. At least
I think I would.

Thinking of paupers made me think of Dorian.
And I suddenly regretted my times with him — both nights, when he'd
touched me and I'd touched him. I felt, somehow, unfaithful...

"Conall," I said, "I... I
was...
with
...someone — "

He put his hand up to stop me, closed his
eyes briefly — a gesture of pain. "I know," he said. "There was no
way you could have known — "

"It was nothing — "

"Leora, it's fine. It's not your fault."

"No, please, let me speak. I need to say
it."

Conall looked at the seats next to us. A guy
with earphones and a colorful tattoo on his forearm lay with his
head to the window and his foot on the seat ahead of him. A cap
covered his eyes. He looked like a One Direction wannabe. But he
was clearly not going to hear any of what we were saying.

In the seat up ahead and to
the right was a natural blonde with green highlights. She looked
about fifteen, and she looked
very
interested in what we were saying as she chewed
her gum and pretended to read her
Nylon
magazine.

Conall looked at me, made a
gesture with his eyebrows that said:
Go
ahead, but only if you must...

"It's fine," I said. "But I have to tell
you, when we get to your place. Please."

It looked like I'd just kneed him in the
nuts or something. I could tell this was going to be hard for him.
But all of it was hard. The whole thing had been hard. The only way
to get through it would be to face it, wasn't it?

As we rode the train, I
came to see that, despite Conall's honesty, despite his
faithfulness (so he'd said), he and I weren't going to be able to
pick up where we'd left off like nothing had happened. Because
something
had
happened. Something bad. And I could feel it. And I could also
feel that I loved him. Loved him with every part of me. But that
feeling of love seemed to hurt, as if every time I thought about
the love, my head went heavy, and my palms became
sweaty.

I put my head to the glass, and let the
momentary pain of the window bumping against my forehead take my
mind off the other more painful ache that had taken root in every
part of me. All the way to my bones.

We got into Conall's Mercedes at Crawley — a
metallic off-purple beast that looked more like a sports car than a
"traditional" Merc. It had white interiors and reflective surfaces.
Conall drove faster than the speed limit, much faster. We went
through some green areas (England is very green, trees and plants
growing everywhere from the year-round rain) and, finally, slowed
down into a back road of some sort that had the most god-awful
speed-bumps (and dips, to carry off rainwater) you could imagine.
Even the Mercedes's suspension couldn't stop my body bouncing
uncomfortably.

We went by a few houses until we got to some
wrought-iron gates. I figured this must be his house. I saw little
else. Trees over the street made it quite dark even though the sun
had not yet set. The gates opened and we drove in. The driveway was
about a mile long. The front lawn looked like a forest — a clean
and well-trimmed forest. Up ahead was his house — massive
mock-Tudor style, double-story. On the right was a cottage. I tried
to count the rooms but gave up. It looked easily like twenty or so.
And it was one of the few houses I'd seen in England where the
roof-tiles weren't covered in moss and were actually clean!

Inside, my wearied mind was
taken aback for a second as I inhaled the fresh scent of wood. The
whole house had wood all over it — on the walls, the ceilings, the
floors. Ahead of me was a painting of a nymph in a forest. Conall
took me to what looked like a dining room with a fireplace, three
red couches (low, stylish) and a coffee table in the center.
The
Financial Times
lay on it, as well as a few car magazines, another about
tattoos. The floor was also wooden.

But the most breathtaking part, was the
exterior:

I looked out through the massive windows and
the back lawn was longer than the front driveway. There was a
Hollywood swing, some lanterns. The sheer size of it all made me
forget, for a moment, that things had been so rough for us for so
long. But I did forget, and I saw, then, why Conall had brought me
here. Because it was peaceful, and huge, and, well, romantic.

"Can I show you around?" he asked.

"Sure," I shrugged, my fingers in my
denims.

He showed me the pool-house
with a heated pool and shower in it, full-on sound-system. Then
the
other
side of
the back-yard (yes, there was a whole other side, the yard was
split by a row of trees along the center.) There was a swing
hanging from a branch there. There were also lots of hiding places
where people could...you know... I mean, if they wanted
to.

He showed me upstairs: Two
bathrooms, six bedrooms. Downstairs was a colossal kitchen, a pool
room (the other kind of pool, the cue and table kind), a guest
room, another bathroom. A complete gym! "My, God!" I finally said.
"You, um, live here...
alone
?" It seemed
unlikely...

Conall paused a second, his angelic eyes
making that "I'm thinking" look... "Yes," he said. "It does echo a
lot at night now that I think about it."

"Why did you buy something so big?"

Again, the eyes, thinking. He smiled shyly.
"Well, at the time, um, I figured..."

He hedged, as he always does when put in a
spot.

"Tell me!"

"Well, one day...I want lots of kids. Like,
well, six, maybe. And the house was on special so — "

My mouth dropped. "Six!"

He shrugged like a little boy with his thumb
in the plum pie. "Five?"

I frowned.

"I'd settle for four..."

The joking — were we joking? — eased my
mind. I'd missed him. I really had.

"Come, let's get a drink," he said, taking
me to the bar at the end of the house. Yes, a complete bar with all
kinds of liquors, a friggin monstrous flatscreen TV (no doubt for
watching sports) and another kick-ass bad-ass sound-system.

Conall went behind the bar. "What are you
drinking?"

"Whiskey," I said. It had been a joke, but
also not. I definitely didn't drink whiskey, but, damn, I felt like
I needed a kick in the head or something!

Silence.

I turned to face Conall.
I'd been gawking at the room. He was staring at me, no doubt stuck
in some parallel universe vortex of disbelief or something.
"Conall?" I asked. "
I'm
the one who phases out, remember?"

"Er, right, I remember," he
said, flustered and batting his eyelids just like Hugh Grant...
"But you're
not
getting a whiskey! Most certainly not!"