Translation of Love (18 page)

I get up, leaving the article and iPad where I found them and run upstairs to Victor’s bedroom. Everything in me is telling me that there’s more to this story than meets the eye. The one thing that I am sure of is that his mother wanted me to see that article. The way she tossed it on the table and then conveniently picked up everything except that. I lie down on his bed and try to regain my composure.
Don’t jump to conclusions, Elle. Don’t assume the worst.
I keep telling myself that Victor’s been nothing but wonderful to me since we’ve met, and if anything, he’s been the one who’s been open and honest about everything. I’m the one with the secrets. He told me that his last relationship ended a year ago. Christina must be the girl who he told me about, the same girl Rob mentioned. Try as I might to gain control of my emotions, I’m still angry and I can’t explain why.

The door opens and I can feel him in the room before I can see him. He sits on the bed next to me and looks down at me cautiously. “Ellie? What’s wrong?” He can see the anger in my eyes. I hate myself for not being able to rein in my emotions.

I sit up partially so that my upper body is resting on my elbows. “I don’t know. It just seems like anytime I need to find out something important about you, I have to do it from a newspaper article.” My voice is full of venom.

He flinches at my words. “Ugh, I was afraid you saw that. I saw the article on the table when my mom left,” he says closing his eyes and grabbing the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

“Are you back together with Christina, Victor?”

His head shoots up and his eyes meet mine. “What? No, Babe!”

“Then why were you with her two days after you left me in Jersey?”

“Christina is an entertainment news reporter for a Spanish news station. She found out that my contract is up with my record label and she’s trying to get me to give her an exclusive interview regarding what my future plans are. She called me on Tuesday, asked me if I’d have lunch with her. She said she had to talk to me about something important. I went, but nothing happened Babe. Lunch lasted an hour tops and I was out of there.”

The anger slowly starts to dissipate, for whatever reason, I believe him. It seems like a plausible story.

“Are you giving her the exclusive?”

“Fuck no! I’m not giving her anything. I haven’t seen or heard from her in over a year and all of a sudden she wants to be my new best friend.” This makes me smile. “Besides, I wouldn’t want my beautiful girlfriend to get the wrong idea,” he says, pushing a loose piece of hair behind my ear.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whisper, showing more vulnerability than I’d like.

“Honestly, what was I gonna say, Love? I didn’t really think it was a big deal. I can see now that I was wrong. I have no intentions of seeing her again, okay?”

“She’s beautiful.”

“Yes, she is. She’s also cold, controlling and more worried about her career than anything else. She doesn’t compare to you. I want you, don’t doubt that.”

He’s given me more of an explanation than is necessary. I know he’s trying to make me feel better, and for the most part he’s succeeded. I just can’t stop thinking about his mother. How can anything ever work between us when the woman so clearly despises me?

“There’s something else bothering you.” I sit up all the way and nod my head. “What is it?”

I take a deep breath. Normally I wouldn’t be honest about something like this, but I’ve spent too much of my time making excuses for others and putting up with shit that I shouldn’t. I’m not doing that anymore. “Your mother hates me.”

“What did she say to you?”

“She said that it was a little bit too early for us to be having sleep overs and that you were fickle when it came to your women anyway.”

He let out a chuckle. “First of all, it’s none of her business what we do. Second, she said I’m fickle to piss you off, and third, she hates everyone. She’ll get over it.”

I shake my head like a crazy woman. “How can you be so calm about this? She’s your mother and you’re basically telling me she’s trying to turn me against you. I’m sorry, Babe, but you know she left that article on the table, right?”

“I know.” He shrugs his shoulders. “Sometimes my mom lets the line blur between being my manager and being my parent. It’s not you that she hates, Babe. It’s what she thinks you represent.”

“And what is that?”

“The end of my career. All of a sudden, I’m more and more adamant that I’m done after this album and I happened to meet you around the same time.”

“So she thinks I’m the reason you want to give it all up.”

“Yes. I’ll talk to her. I don’t want you to concern yourself with it. I’ll deal with her.”

“No! If you say something to her, she’s gonna know I said something to you.”

“Ellie, I have eyes. I saw how cold she was toward you. What kind of man would I be if I didn’t stand up for you? Is that the kind of guy you’d want to be with?”

“No, I guess not.” He was right. I’d want a man to protect me and defend me. Not one that would break me down and let me deal with problems all on my own.

He cups my face between his hands. “You alright now?”

“Yeah, I’m alright.”

He places a kiss on my forehead and releases me. “Good. Now that we’re talking about this stuff, can I ask you a question?”

I hate when people ask me that. “Yes.”

“What happened to you to make you so closed off?”

I tense up at his question. “What do you mean by that? I’m not closed off.”

“Hmm, let’s see. You cringe every time I call you beautiful, you never talk about your past, and you try to keep me at arm’s length. You let me in just enough that you think I don’t notice that there’s a whole other side of yourself that you keep guarded. It’s like you’re just waiting for me to screw you over or something.”

What do you say to a statement like that? When someone calls bullshit on you that accurately, there’s not much you can say. “Okay. Maybe I’m a little bit guarded and I might have been hurt in the past.”

“We can talk about it. You can tell me anything, you know? I’m not gonna judge you, Ellie. I promise you can tell me whatever.”

I want to tell him. I want to be honest and tell him about it all but I can’t. I don’t want him to know how fucked up my life really was back then. “I can’t. I just… Can you just please be patient with me? Give me a little more time? I’m not sure if I’ll ever be ready to talk about it but I can try to be more open.”

He sighs, brings his face down to the crook of my neck and says, “Yeah, Babe, I can be patient.”

“Thank you,” I say placing a kiss on his exposed cheek. “Are you hungry?”

“Yeah.” His voice tickles my neck, making me giggle.

“Yeah? I can make us some breakfast.”

“You wanna cook for me?”

“Sure, besides, I love your kitchen. I’m dying to cook in it.”

“Then go for it, Love.”

Victor’s kitchen is a like a dream. Everything is state of the art, shiny and new. I made pancakes for breakfast and we sat at the bar, ate, drank coffee and talked. After breakfast, Victor took me upstairs to take a shower, where we ended up making love. Then, he pulled me back into bed for a nap. It still surprises me how comfortable I am with him. How much I love being around him, how much I love being in his bed and in his arms.

The sound of a phone ringing wakes us. Victor reaches over me to the nightstand and grabs his phone.

“Hello?” he answers groggily. “What time is it? Shit, Bro, I’m sorry. I’ll be right there,” he says, hanging up the phone.

I prop myself up on one elbow. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, Babe, but I was supposed to meet my brother in the studio half an hour ago. You wanna come? You can stay here and relax if you’re still tired.”

“No. I wanna go with you,” I say excited at the prospect of seeing him in his element. Then reality sets in. “Wait, you said you’re meeting your brother?” I know he can see the fear in my eyes, after meeting his mother. I don’t know if I can handle another family encounter.

“Aww, Baby,” he looks at me with sad eyes, “he’s nothing like my mom. He’s gonna love you.”

“Really?”

He nods. “Alex is the best. I promise you’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” I go to the bathroom to fix my hair and put some makeup on, while Victor calls Rob to pick us up. I put on the same jeans from this morning but pair them with a white, stretch lace fitted top and black boots. Victor is sitting on the edge of his bed waiting for me, wearing jeans and dark gray t-shirt. He makes simple look so good.

“You ready?” he asks, eyeing me from head to toe. I smile and nod, going to his dresser to grab my purse. He gets up, takes my hand and leads me through the house to a waiting elevator. Rob meets us in the lobby and quickly escorts us to the car. It’s a ten minute drive to the recording studio. On the way over, Victor tells me a little bit about his brother Alex. I learn that he’s been an instrumental part of Victor’s career, most noticeably as his personal assistant while on the road. However, in the last couple of years, he’s begun writing and producing some of the songs. I know that he is not quite as close to their mother as Victor is. No surprise there. He is 37 years old and unattached.

When we arrive at the studio, Rob ushers us into the building. We take an elevator to the fourth floor and exit into a dark, narrow hallway. Victor puts his hand on the small of my back and leads me toward the end of the hallway to a door on the left. As soon as the door opens, I come face to face with 6’2” of ripped muscles, olive skin and those milk chocolate brown eyes that I’ve become oh so familiar with. Alex is bulkier than Victor. His nose is more pronounced and his hair is a little shorter but I know immediately by looking at him that he is Victor’s brother. I’m engulfed in Alex’s big, strong arms as he gives me an unexpected hug.

“Ellie, it’s so good to finally meet you.”

I can’t help but giggle. “Thank you, it’s nice to meet you too,” I say, hugging him back.

Victor clears his throat. “Umm, hello? You wanna let go of my girl?”

“I’m sorry. I had to hug her to make sure she was real and not just a figment of your imagination.” He looks down at me. “Ellie, you should know that this man has done nothing but talk about you for two weeks now.”

I feel the crimson rising in my cheeks as Alex releases his hold on me. Victor snakes his arm around my waist and pulls me backwards until my back is to his front. “Stop embarrassing her, Lex. She’s been through enough today.”

Alex walks over to some kind of mixing console and sits down in an empty chair. “Why? What happened?”

Victor leads me over to an available chair and sits me down, leaving his hands on my shoulders. “Ellie met mom today.”

Alex’s eyes go wide. He looks me in the eyes and shakes his head. “Oh God, I’m so sorry.” Instinctively I laugh, I can’t help it.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh.”

Alex smiles. “No, that’s good, she makes most people cry.” I laugh again, coming to realize that Alex has the same charismatic attitude as Victor. I like him already.

“Oh God, it wasn’t that bad,” I say, trying to make light of the situation.

Victor squeezes my shoulders. “Yes, it was. She was horrible.”

I hear a deep voice coming from the doorway. “What did she say to you?” I turn to see Rob standing there, legs wide, arms across his chest, looking like stone. I’d forgotten that he was even there.

“Um, she basically said I was a hussy for spending the night at Victor’s and that it didn’t matter because he’d move on soon enough.”

“What?” I turn back to face Alex. “How did she know you spent the night?”

I bow my head and cover my eyes with my hands, shaking my head. Memories of her walking in on us come flooding back, making me blush with embarrassment all over again.

Victor chuckles, and then responds to his brother. “She walked in on us, just after… ya know.” There’s a moment of silence in the room, then all of a sudden I hear laughter. I uncover my eyes to see all three of them laughing hysterically. This goes on for a while until I finally interject.

“It’s not funny!”

“You’re right, Babe. It’s not funny.” Victor chuckles.