Exposing Alix (33 page)

She threw up her hands, her voice beginning to tremble.
“Fine. Run away. Lie to yourself. You won’t have to deal with me anymore. I’m
leaving.”

“What?”

“You’ve got all the film you need. Jake and Lena just gave
your audience a collective wet dream. You don’t need me anymore.”

He took a deep breath. “Alix, don’t go. Please. This isn’t
how I wanted to leave things.”

She pushed past him and headed to the door. “That’s too damn
bad. Put the check in the mail. If you need me, I’ll be in Oregon.”

#

Alix slammed the door of the car and raced out of the
parking lot, half expecting the security guard to stop her at the gate. But the
white-and-red arm swung open with a flash of her pass, and she got a friendly
wave from the guard as she pulled out onto the street.

She kept looking in her rearview mirror for the first few
minutes, half expecting to see someone running after the car. But that was
beyond ridiculous. He wasn’t going to run after her like some love-crazed fool
in a movie. He wasn’t going to meet her at the airport either, or catch her as
she was boarding the plane.

He was going to watch her leave with a sigh of relief.

The tears started in earnest then, great, hulking sobs
that made it impossible to see or drive, so she pulled into a parking lot,
dropped her head on the steering wheel, and let her grief take over.

He didn’t love her. Whatever she had seen in his eyes last
night wasn’t love or even caring. He had been as cold and hard today as the
first day she’d met him. How silly, how incredibly, stupendously silly, to
think she might change him, touch his heart, or melt some of the ice that had
lodged there so many years before.

What had Gunther said on that day Ryker had come to the
beach?
“Ryker Valentine is a cold bastard,”
he’d said.

Why hadn’t she listened?

She pawed through the glove box of the car, searching for
Kleenex or napkins, anything to wipe the disaster her face had become. Finding
none, she used her sleeve, rubbing raw the tender skin beneath her eyes.

She stared blindly out the windshield. Was he right? Had
she simply been fooling herself last night? Could the look she saw in his eyes
have been an illusion?

The thought left her dizzy. She pressed her fingers into
her closed eyelids until swirling colors and stars appeared. She
had
seen something in his eyes when he made love to her, hadn’t she? Was it
possible that what she felt was entirely one-sided? A figment of her
imagination?

She now understood why Lena had taken ten years to heal
from Jake’s infidelity. The pain of rejected love—even when she knew it
was coming—was so raw, so utterly consuming, she couldn’t imagine how she
could ever look Ryker in the face again, let alone kiss him in front of a camera
for an audience of millions.

Alix threw the car into gear and headed for the airport.
She had an emergency credit card she could use to buy her ticket home. If Ryker
didn’t come through with a check soon enough, she could borrow money from
Gunther to pay the bill. It didn’t matter how she got there, really. She simply
had to leave. Staying in LA, seeing Gunther, or anyone else she knew, was not
an option. She needed Rex. She needed her house and the stark, empty Oregon
beach outside her window. She needed the comfort of rain against her windows
and clouds moving across the horizon.

She needed to look at her pictures and reassess. Finish
the book and take some time off. Gunther had said she was using the book as a
crutch, and maybe he was right. He’d been right about so many things. She
had
been scared to take a risk. And now that she had, she knew why. Because love
hurt. It hurt like nothing else in the world.

Numb, unable to think or process anything beyond getting
herself on a plane, Alix found a parking spot, locked the car, and made her way
to the terminal. She mailed the parking ticket and keys to Gunther, bought a
one-way ticket home, and didn’t look back.

Friday dinner at Rosa’s was always
unpleasant, but as Ryker left the studio and got in his car, he knew this meal
had the potential to be the worst ever. He’d been answering questions all week
from the cast and crew about Alix—Where had she gone? Why had she left so
abruptly? When would she be back?—and it was driving him mad. Seeing
Emilio and Rosa required a healthy hold on his temper at the best of times;
coming into the night with a chip on his shoulder was going to make it
exponentially harder.

It wasn’t just the questions about Alex he was dreading.
Everyone at dinner tonight would be primed for a fight. Emilio was always
pissed after Ryker failed to go to his mother’s grave. Rosalia would need extra
handling because he’d hurt her feelings when she came to pick up Fifi. He’d
managed to upset Maria because she’d called to see if Alix would be coming to
dinner, and he’d bitten her head off in response. Hector and Eduardo would hang
back, trying not to get crosswise with either Ryker or Rosa, but they’d be
disappointed in him too. He could see it in their eyes.

If only she’d stayed. She could have come tonight. She
would have helped him with Rosa and Emilio. If Alix were here, everything
wouldn’t seem like such a nightmare.

Ryker slammed on the brakes to narrowly avoid running a
red light. Had he even thought that? Thought about bringing Alix back to
Rosa’s? Alix was gone. She’d done her work, the check was in the mail, and they
were finished.

So why did he find himself thinking about her every dammed
day?

He changed lanes abruptly, weaving around cars and trucks
in an effort to clear his mind of the volley of images that followed. Alix,
tears in her eyes as she left the studio for the last time. Alix, in the
screening room, cheeks flushed and eyes heavy with pleasure. He had a hollow
feeling in his chest every time he walked around the set, simply because she
wasn’t there. Looking at film was even worse. He kept turning to talk to her,
to mention some idea he had for editing or some complaint about the angle of a
camera, and he’d get a painful shock when he realized he was alone.

He’d stopped swimming because he couldn’t walk outside the
house without seeing that image of her, sunlight dancing in her hair, Fifi
cuddled in her arms. Even his bed was infected. He kept seeing her beneath him,
and the sheet tangled around her body in the morning. He’d started sleeping in
the guest room just to avoid it.

He had clearly been tainted with some of his mother’s
self-destructive romanticism. Or perhaps by Alix’s. After all, he’d been
working sixteen or eighteen hours a day with her for a month. It must have
affected his brain. Addled his thinking. Which was further proof that it was
lucky she had gone. He refused to go where that romanticism would take him. He
didn’t like the hollow feeling, or the regret or the loss he was experiencing
now. He absolutely would not let it become something even greater.

When Ryker pulled up to Rosalia’s house, Hector stood in
the front lawn, talking to Emilio.

“Where’s Daisy?” Emilio asked. “I thought she’d be here
with you.”

Ryker gritted his teeth. Right out of the gate, Emilio was
going to needle him. Maria knew
Daisy
wouldn’t be here tonight, and
surely she’d told Emilio and Rosa. Emilio was just proving a point, like he
always did.

“She went back to Oregon.”

“Too bad. I thought she seemed like a nice girl.”

Ryker inclined his head but kept silent. He refused to let
them bait him. He looked longingly at the house and dreamed about grabbing a
beer and chugging it like some college kid trying desperately to get drunk as
quickly as possible.

“Are you going to see her again?” Emilio asked. “Will she
come back to LA when the movie comes out?”

“No.”

“Did you have a fight?”

“I’d rather not discuss it.”

Emilio nodded sagely. “I see. You drove her away, then.”

“Oh Lord, Emilio, can’t you give it a rest?” Ryker exploded,
hands clenching into fists. “For one time in my life, can’t you give it a damn
rest?”

The porch door slammed shut. Rosa stood on the porch her
mouth wide with surprise. Little Emilio followed closely at her side, hanging
on to her skirt. “Ricardo!” she scolded, gesturing toward the child. “Watch
your language, for heaven’s sake.”

The sound of his Spanish name, the trill of the “R,”
Emilio’s knowing look—it all combined to send him into a blind fury.
“I’ll say whatever I damn well please,” Ryker said loudly.

“Hector, take Emilio inside,” Rosalia said.

In that moment, her voice—quiet, but with an
underlying hint of steel—sounded so much like his mother’s that Ryker
actually flinched. When Hector and the little boy disappeared into the house,
Rosalia stepped down off the porch.

“While you are in my house,” she snapped, “you’ll be
civil, at least.”

“At least? Good to know your expectations of me aren’t
high.”

“How can they be?” Rosa shot back stiffly. “I call you,
and you don’t call me back. I try to help you, and you insult me and send me
home like a servant.”

Ryker stifled a groan. “You took it on yourself to rescue
Fifi from me. Don’t blame that one on me.”

“I’m nothing more than a burden to you, am I?” Rosa
clicked her tongue in disgust. “This whole family is nothing more to you than
an embarrassment and a burden.”

“Are we going there again, Rosa? If so, perhaps I can help
fill in the rest of the list for you. I’ve turned my back on Boyle Heights and
my heritage and become one with the dark side. I’m ungrateful, disrespectful,
and cruel. Anything I missed?”

Rosa closed her eyes. “You started this. All I wanted was
for you not to swear in front of the children. Don’t make this into something
it isn’t.”

“Right. So this is my fault.”

“Rosa.” Emilio directed a flood of Spanish at her. Ryker
didn’t know what he said, but it was clearly about him, because Rosalia kept
glancing in his direction as Emilio spoke. She argued briefly with Emilio, but
he cut her off with a raised hand. She bowed her head in acknowledgement. Then,
after shooting a quick, almost pitying look at Ryker, she disappeared back into
the house.

“What did you say to her?” Ryker growled. He hated how
vulnerable he felt when they spoke Spanish around him. Worse when they spoke it
about
him.

“I told her she needed to hold her tongue,” Emilio said
calmly.

“Why?”

“Because you’re not yourself right now. You made a mistake
with Daisy, and you’re hurting because of it.”

Ryker took a step back. “You don’t know what you’re
talking about.”

“I watched the two of you at dinner. I saw how you looked
at her, and I saw how she tried to protect you. She was a unique person, and if
she’s out of your life, I think you will regret it. Or perhaps you already do.”

“You don’t know a thing,” Ryker said. “You don’t know a thing
about me or Alix. That’s her name, Emilio.
Alix
. She lied to you about
that. She lied about a lot of things.”

“I’m sure she had her reasons,” Emilio said, unperturbed.

Ryker had to pause then, because everything Alix had done
that night, every lie she’d told was on his behalf. Even he couldn’t argue with
that. “Fine. Do you want to know the truth? She left because I was honest with
her. She said she loved me, and I told her I didn’t love her back, and I never
would. I told her the love she wants is a fantasy, and the sooner she realizes
that, the better.”

“The love she wants is a fantasy.” Emilio repeated the
words slowly. “Is that what you said? Is that what you believe, Ricardo—that
love is a fantasy?”

Ryker hooked a finger in one belt loop. “That’s exactly
what I think. Alix has this idea that someday she’ll find her ‘true love’ and
‘a love for all time,’ and it’s nonsense. It’s never going to happen.”

“A lot of people believe in that nonsense.”

“Like my mother,” Ryker spat. “Look where that got her.”

“Sometimes when we love, we get hurt. Yes, your mother
loved your father, and she suffered because of it, but she never regretted it. Even
after he hurt her, she never regretted it.”

Ryker turned away. “I can’t stay here,” he muttered. “I
can’t stay here and listen to this.”

“She never regretted it because you were the result of
that love. And I have never regretted loving you either,” Emilio continued. “I
only regret that you never believed it to be true.”

Ryker felt the bile rise up in his throat. “You don’t even
know me. You think you love some boy named Ricardo that you tried to save with
your religion and your Mexican heritage. That’s not love. You look at me, and
you see a fiction.”

“I see the same thing your mother saw. I see a boy who was
hurt who turned into a man who is afraid to care. That’s no fiction.”

“You see a boy you tried to remake in your image. You see
the boy you tried to create, not the boy I actually was. Or the person I am
now.”

Emilio sighed. “I cannot say I never made mistakes. Or that
I would do it all the same if I had the chance. But I never wanted to change
you. I wanted you to know that you didn’t have to change yourself to be worthy
of love. I wanted to teach you pride and self-respect. I’m sure there were
better ways to do that. But never think for a moment I didn’t love you. Because
I did. I always did.”

Ryker couldn’t take any more. The drumbeat in his ears
drowned out the world, and all he could see was Emilio’s eyes, dark and
fathomless. And then he saw his mother’s eyes, the last bit of color in a pale
face, as she lay in her bed at the hospital and squeezed his hand one last
time.

“Tell Rosa I’m sorry, but I have to go. I’m tired of
arguing with you. I’m tired of always being wrong.” Ryker turned his back and
headed for the car.