His Heart's Revenge (49th Floor Novels) (14 page)

“Alexander Evangelista came,” Rose whispered, leaning over as they started the salad course.

“I know,” he said. “Surprised the hell out of me.”

Rose performed a coy shrug. “I sent him an invitation. Or several. I may have been a tad…persuasive.”

He tried to be mad, but how could he? They’d broken the mold when they made Rose.

“Anyway,” she went on, “It’s not like he’s here for me. He doesn’t even know me.”

“Rose. Do I need to remind you how much you hated it when your mom was trying to match-make you?”

“I know! I know! I just really want you to hurry up and get settled so we can expand the normal wing of this family.” He couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Besides…” She lowered her voice and leaned in closer. “Your godchild is going to need you to be more upstanding than you currently are. So please get working on that.”

It took him a moment to catch her meaning. But when he did, his jaw dropped. Tears rushed into his eyes.

She set down her champagne flute with a thud and said, “Yes, indeed. You think I have apple juice in this thing for shits and giggles?”

“Congratulations, Mrs. Rosemann.”

“I told you I’m not changing my name.”

“You don’t think Rose Rosemann has a certain ring to it?”

“No, I do not. In fact, I think Marcus should have changed his name to Verma. Then the normal wing of the family could all have been Vermas.” She winked at him. “Well, Vermas and Bells.”

He laughed and planted a big, wet, sloppy kiss on her cheek. Then he leaned over and looked at Marcus, who was seated on Rose’s other side. Marcus must have felt his attention because he turned his head from where he’d been talking to the maid of honor, who was seated on his other side. And then he must have sensed that Rose had told Cary their news, because his face broke out into the biggest grin Cary had ever seen on his cousin as he slid his arm over Rose’s shoulders. “Don’t tell anyone yet,” he whispered.

Cary nodded. He had to look away, out into the crowd, to keep those damned tears at bay.

His eyes found Alex again. Just like at the ceremony, they seemed to just know where he was, to home in on him without Cary exerting any conscious effort.

And then it hit him.

“Oh my God,” he said, clasping a hand over his mouth.

“What?” Rose leaned over. “What’s wrong?”

He cleared his throat. “Nothing. Sorry, nothing. My mind was just on something else for a second.”

“Well, I hope it was something good,” Rose said.

It was not something good. It was something very, very bad. It was something disastrous.

He was in love with Alex Evangelista.

He looked around the room, panic rising in his chest. Holy shit. He wanted all this. This wedding bullshit. Expanding the normal wing of the family, as Rose had put it. Kids. He wanted kids, for fuck’s sake. He picked up his champagne and downed it.

It had come from nowhere, this wanting, taking his breath away with both its suddenness and its force. Love, marriage, kids—he wanted it all.

And he wanted it with Alex Evangelista.

Chapter Nineteen

Alexander had to admit that the wedding wasn’t bad, as these things went. They kept the proceedings moving along at a decent pace. He had been planning to try to intercept Cary between the service and the reception, to tell him what he had to say, and then leave. But Cary seemed to have disappeared after the ceremony, so Alexander was forced to take a seat and make small talk with his table mates, who were Rose’s co-workers. Then the dinner started, and he had to watch Cary perform a graceful toast, full of just the right mix of gentle humor and poignant good wishes. Alexander watched him liaise with servers, nod to the DJ at various points that must have been cues. He was a master at pitching things exactly right, running the show with a mastery that looked unpracticed.

After the last course, the DJ announced the first dance. “In lieu of a traditional dance, Rose and Marcus would like to invite any couples who would like to join them to share in their first dance as husband and wife.”

“Dance with me.”

Alexander turned. Somehow, even though he’d been watching Cary pretty closely all night, he’d lost track of him, allowing him to approach undetected from behind.

“Is that a question or a command?” he asked.

“It’s a command,” Cary said, holding out his hand, but his smile said it wasn’t, not really.

Well, shit. They could have this conversation dancing as easily as anywhere else. But… “If your family is really as tight-assed as Rose suggests, isn’t the sight of two men dancing going to scandalize them?”

“Yes,” Cary said.

Alexander couldn’t help but smile. You had to admire Cary’s balls. “All right,” he said, placing his hand in Cary’s and letting himself be led to the dance floor to the opening strains of “What a Wonderful World.”

“Besides,” Cary said, pulling Alexander close. “The maid of honor and I have a secret pact to try to deflect attention from Rose and Marcus.”

“Why?” Alexander asked. “They’re the ones getting married.”

“Right. But there’s so much family drama, and there’s been so much animosity about them being together, that Rose thought if other people did things to claim the spotlight, she would seem demure, relatively speaking.” He shrugged. “Rose doesn’t always make sense, but it’s best just to do her bidding.”

Alexander’s waist tingled where Cary laid his right hand against it. “Ah, that must explain the purple hair.”

Cary didn’t answer him, just pulled him closer, probably closer than was wise, given the conservativeness of the onlookers but also the reality of why Alexander had come. Alexander sighed as tension drained out of his shoulders. Why did that always happen when Cary was touching him? The mint in the mint-and-coffee smell of Cary was dominant this evening. Despite his better judgment, Alexander leaned closer and inhaled.

“I’m glad you came,” Cary whispered in his ear, his warm breath making the hairs on Alexander’s neck stand on end.

“Rose sent an invitation to my office,” Alexander said, pulling back enough so he could look at Cary. “And a balloon bouquet.” Cary laughed and rolled his eyes. “And a singing telegram.”

“Oh my God.” The laughter in Cary’s eyes died and was replaced by something more like embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

Alexander’s chest felt uncomfortably heavy at the notion of having embarrassed Cary, which was stupid because the whole point of coming here was to tell Cary to back off, to push him away. “Quite all right. I can see that this Rose person is a force of nature.”

“She is that.” Ever-persistent, Cary pulled him a little closer again, so that their chests were flush. It put them nose to nose, eye to eye. Smile to frown.

“I want to ask you something,” Cary said at the same time that Alexander said, “I need to talk to you.”

Alexander said, “Go ahead,” just as Cary said, laughingly, “You first.”

Well, shit. He pulled back again, remaining in Cary’s embrace but just barely. “You need to stop texting me.”

Cary blinked. That hadn’t been what he’d expected.

Alex pressed on. “This….thing we have going. It has to stop.”

“I thought you said it was just sex.”

“It is. It was.” God, this was harder than he’d imagined. How to explain that when it came to relationships, he was broken and he needed to stay that way? That he couldn’t let Cary un-break him? That he needed his heart to say the way it was: brittle.

He didn’t have to find the words, though, because Cary dropped his arms, held his hands up like he was surrendering to a mugger. “You know what? You’re right. I can’t just keep having sex with you.”

It was Alexander’s turn to blink in surprise. “What a Wonderful World” stopped, and the DJ started in on some jumpy pop thing. Guests flooded the dance floor, but Cary and Alexander stayed rooted in place, staring at each other with a foot of space between them.

“So we’re back to war, then?” Cary asked, his face so blank, it made Alexander wonder if he had imagined the smile he’d flashed when he first caught sight of Alexander earlier.

“No,” Alexander said quickly. “Not war. Just…competition.” Above board competition. He opened his mouth to ’fess up about the mailed court documents, but Cary interrupted him.

“May the best man win and all that.” Cary’s lips were pressed together into a thin, grim line.

Alexander nodded and swallowed hard, his throat having gone tight. This was going exactly as he’d hoped it would. This was why he’d come here. He was getting what he’d wanted. So what the hell was his problem? “About that. There’s something I need to—”

“I gotta go,” Cary said. “A best man never rests.”

And then he was gone, and Alexander was standing in the middle of a dance floor, Kool and the Gang hurting his ears, and something else, something he couldn’t name, hurting his heart.

Ten minutes later, safe inside his car, Alexander picked up his phone and checked his email, hoping the mundaneness of scrolling through a series of demands on his time would knock him out of his weird funk.

There was a message from Liu. He’d given Liu his personal email, and the billionaire had used it a few times, to ask questions or request more information. But this one wasn’t like that.

Dear Alexander,

I’ve been thinking about the fact that you and Cary met at summer camp. You Canadians seem very fond of outdoor pursuits. I personally have never seen the appeal of sleeping on the cold, hard ground, but I would like to try this pastime of my adopted country. My daughter has reserved two adjacent sites at Algonquin Park for Friday night and has purchased the necessary equipment. My hope is that both you and Mr. Bell will join us. You can show us a thing or two, I’m sure. And, frankly, I have to say that I relish the idea of getting to know both of you outside the confines of the office. If we are to believe some of the great novelists of your fine nation, there’s nothing like a stint in the wilderness to test a man’s mettle.

Sincerely,

Don Liu

Alexander dropped the phone and let his head fall forward onto the steering wheel.

Fuck.

He was going back to camp.

Chapter Twenty

Cary hadn’t been camping in a couple years. But that wasn’t what was eating at him as he pulled his car into the small lot at the trailhead at Algonquin. It was that he hadn’t been camping with Alex Evangelista in
twenty
years.

But it was possible that he had been in love with Alex Evangelista for twenty years.

And what a fine fucking time to have figured that out.

His mind had run through endless scenarios since that ill-fated dance at the wedding two weeks ago. What if he had sought Alex out years earlier and apologized? Way before this Liu stuff had brought them together. What if he’d done it right away, that summer after camp?

But he always came to the same conclusion, which was that it wouldn’t have mattered. Alex and his pride and his pursuit of success never would have stood still long enough to listen. It was only when his hand was forced by the competition for Liu that he’d even deigned to make eye contact with Cary. And besides, Alex had told Cary, both outright and via his actions, that there was nothing between them. Nothing but sex. Until there wasn’t that, either.

Well, hell. He’d sat in his car long enough. He could see Don and Linda unloading supplies from the back of theirs. They’d be hiking into the site but not a terribly long distance. Liu had done enough research that he was disdainful of “car camping,” but Cary had talked him down from a remote site that would have required a portage to one that required only a modest hike in.

“Alexander will be joining us in a couple hours,” said Liu, adding a bag to what was already a rather daunting pile of stuff, given that they were only spending one night—and that they had to carry everything in on their backs. “I’ve sent him directions to the site, and he assures me he’ll have no trouble finding it.”

That suited Cary just fine. Two fewer hours spent with Alex was two hours closer to being done with this. And, hell, if he could use those two hours to impress Liu and his daughter without Alex getting in his way, all the better. Because he had pretty much decided that the only way to salvage this whole situation was to win the Liu account. That way, he’d walk away with something in addition to this fucking broken heart. “All right,” he said, watching Linda struggle with an overstuffed backpack that didn’t have a frame. She was going to ruin her shoulders before they reached the site. “Why don’t we do some redistribution before we hike in?”

The redistribution wasn’t enough. “We’re going to have to make two trips,” Cary said several minutes later. “Tell you what, let’s leave the overflow in my car. We’ll hike in, and then I’ll come back for it.”

And so Cary spent the next two hours hiking, first in with Don and Linda, chatting about everything from some of Liu’s business concerns to how the local school system was since Linda’s brother Peter was soon to be arriving with his young family, and then back out, by himself.

And he almost made it back in by himself, too, when that goddamned Ferrari pulled up.

Alex had told Liu that he wasn’t an outdoorsman anymore, but he sure looked the part. Cary realized that he’d never actually seen Alex in anything other than a suit since camp. He’d even worn a casual linen suit to games day. Cary would have said that Alex was the kind of guy who looked his best in suits. Ruling over a boardroom was his natural habitat, or had become so. But, damn, it turned out he could own the casual look, too. Slim-cut, dark-wash jeans sat low on his hips, and he wore a blue and black flannel. He knew how to pack, too. Still not having seen Cary, he pulled a proper camping backpack from his car, hoisted it on his shoulders, and strolled over to the map posted at the trailhead.

Cary gave a momentary thought to turning tail and heading back as fast as he could to the campsite. But he was tired and carrying twice what Alex was, so he’d probably only end up being overtaken anyway. So, time to man the fuck up. He stepped out from the tree cover. “Hi.”

Alex looked up, and for an instant, Cary thought he saw something dark in his eyes, something almost like fear, if that had been possible, but Alex Evangelista wasn’t afraid of anything. Of course not, because after taking in the scene, one corner of Alex’s mouth turned up. “You really take that whole Boy Scout ‘Be prepared’ shit to heart, don’t you?”

Cary rolled his eyes. “This is their stuff. They packed enough for a week. I’ve already been in once, carrying my stuff and some of theirs. This is round two.”

Alex whistled. “Well, then. Shall we?”

Cary gestured for Alex to go ahead of him. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

…

This was going to be worse than he had imagined. As Alexander walked the trail and listened to Cary’s footsteps behind him, it all came rushing back. The trail system at camp. Those narrow gravel trails. More specifically, walking those trails with Cary, who, on those cool, quiet mornings, had squeezed in next to Alexander, close enough that Alexander could feel the post-run heat emanating off his skin.

This time, it was Alexander’s skin that was hot, and for no reason. The trail was shaded, and this far north, the mid-June air was cool. But he kept having to use his sleeve to wipe his brow, which was slicked with sweat. With every step Alexander took deeper into the woods, the vice around his chest tightened a little more. He kept trying to shift his backpack, feeling like if he could just take some of the pressure off, he’d be able to get a proper breath in.

Alexander knew what was happening. He could recognize the symptoms of a panic attack, even if it had been sixteen years since he last had one. He’d started having them that summer in college, when his mom was diagnosed with cancer. The jujitsu had helped, but the thing that had made them go away for good was finishing his MBA and getting his first job as a trader. Knowing he had made a decision and followed the path that unfolded from that decision and that it was finally paying off. Knowing that he was doing all that was in his power to create a secure life for himself and his mom. Knowing that if he ever met Brooks Martin III again, the proverbial last laugh he would have would be fucking enormous.

Something moved in the woods, and Alexander flinched. It turned out to be just a squirrel scampering up a tree, but he couldn’t relax. The sensation put him right back to that last year at camp. Brooks had sneaked into the showers and stolen Alexander’s towel and robe, then had lain in wait for him in the woods when he’d tried to dash back to the cabin in the buff. As a rational adult, Alexander could look back at Brooks and see a homophobe who was protesting too much, a guy who was a little too interested in the mechanics of gay sex. But that rational adult was somewhere else now, back in civilization. He was in a bank tower, or a penthouse, watching the markets make him richer and richer. Right now, in the woods, Alexander was a sixteen-year-old kid who had no allies.

Well, that kid had had one—or thought he’d had. He pushed away the image of a sky full of shooting stars. That “ally” had thrown him under the bus at the first opportunity.

“Hey,” came a soft voice from behind. “You okay?”

“Yes,” he said quickly, forcing himself to pick up the pace because whatever else happened, Cary Bell could
not
push up and walk beside him here. He had given up that right twenty years ago.

“Yes,” he said again, quieter this time, like he was trying to convince himself. What had his jujitsu teacher told him back then? “People don’t panic in the present.” That had become his mantra, first for getting over the panic attacks, and then more generally for succeeding in the world of finance. Ruthless concentration on the present followed by rational parceling of the next few steps. He looked at his feet. His boots were new, and he had a blister on one heel. Every step with his right foot caused a short stab of pain. Good. He could use that. Step-pain, step-no pain, step-pain, step-no pain. When his breath slowed, he looked up for something to concentrate on. There was a tree up ahead marking a fork in the road. Get to that tree. That was the next step.

He kept doing it, looking ahead, finding the next marker, and carrying himself to it. And it worked. Eventually the next marker was Linda Liu, who was struggling to light a fire.

“Find something familiar to do,” was what the doctor had told him twenty years ago, when he’d had his first panic attack and rushed to the emergency room thinking he was having a heart attack. “Encourage yourself to slip into a comfortable routine.”

“Alexander!” Linda’s face lit up when she caught sight of him. She was kneeling and blowing on some kindling in the fire pit, but she abandoned her task as he approached and stood to greet him.

He wasn’t blind. He knew Linda was into him. He assumed she had figured out he was gay. As a trusted deputy in her father’s global empire, she was a smart, well-connected woman, and he never hid that part of himself. She seemed like one of those women who was fascinated by gay men, for reasons that always eluded Alexander. But she had to know there was no hope in hell that anything could happen between them.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said with enthusiasm. “I graduated top of my class from Harvard business school, but damned if I know how to survive in the woods. I’ve been trying to get this thing to stay lit for twenty minutes.”

Well, shit. Who cared if Linda knew the score? Charming he could do. Charming was familiar. So he shrugged out of his backpack, shot her a smile, and said, “One fire-making lesson coming up.”

He looked over his shoulder. Cary was deep in conversation with Liu.

Winning was another thing that was familiar. Winning he could do.

“Come on over right here next to me,” he said to Linda as he knelt at the base of the fire pit. He took off his flannel shirt and spread it next to him on the ground, leaving him in only a white tank top. “Here, sit on my shirt so you don’t get dirty.”

…

“I think I just saw a shooting star!” Linda exclaimed, pointing to the sky. They were sitting around a campfire, and everyone else’s gaze followed her arm.

Everyone’s except Alex. Because that was his cue to leave. “I’m just going to take a little hike before the dessert course,” he said, rising.

It was fully dark, so a hike was probably the last thing he should be doing, but he had to get out of there for a bit. The panic had receded, but he was jumping out of his skin. All day long, he’d had to pretend: that he was happy to be here, that he was comfortable with Linda fawning all over him. As he saw it, the only upside to this excursion was that no one had decided it would be fun to play charades.

And Cary, of course. There was something about being back in the woods with Cary that was slowly unraveling the sense of self he’d so meticulously constructed over the past two decades. His mind kept going over and over the many conversations they’d had those mornings on the way to the dining hall. No detail was too small. Remember that time they’d pondered why if Gandalf and Saruman never aged, were they already so old? Or Cary’s detailed sermon on the merits of New Balance running shoes? Or the way water had beaded on his chest as they lay together on the dock in the moonlight?

But then he’d grown disgusted with himself. The past was dead to him. He had burnt it down and rebuilt his life on its ashes. So why the hell couldn’t he stop thinking about it?

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Linda asked him. “It’s getting dark.”

“The trails here are flat and well-marked,” Cary said, not bothering to look up from where he was roasting a marshmallow. “He’ll be fine.”

Alexander was half tempted to announce his intention to stay, after all, if only because Cary so clearly wanted him to go. But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. If he was going to survive the night, he needed to get some breathing room, to get away from these people and remember who he was. So he put on his jacket, grabbed a flashlight, and set off toward a river that ran through the park. Sitting by the rushing water for a while would calm him.

He walked and walked. Using his flashlight to illuminate the trail in front of him, he let the
thud
of one foot in front of the other on the packed dirt of the trail calm his out of control thoughts. He took slow, measured breaths, counting how many footsteps he could fit into each inhale, each exhale, letting those footsteps lull him.

Until they lulled him so much that he tripped over a tree root that covered the trail, and a pain so intense it made him cry out lanced into his ankle. He fell, cursing himself, cursing his ankle. Cursing Cary because he wasn’t sure where the pain was worse—his ankle or his heart.