“I’m so glad I heard this. I might never have known the truth. I might never have known that you couldn’t be further from what and who I thought you were. You are unequivocally the worst woman I have ever known in my life.” He raised his hand and pointed his finger toward her, and she felt as if he had stabbed it straight through her heart as he almost growled at her.
“I don’t ever want to hear from you again. I never want to see your face, and I better never hear anyone else ever talking about this game you played with me.” He shook his head and began to turn away when suddenly Mia found her voice.
“Alexander wait!” she cried out, and his eyes sliced back to hers.
“Don’t speak my name. Don’t say anything at all to me. I am not human to you, and I can see that now. No one with a heart would ever treat another person the way that you treated me. I am not a toy or a tool or a chess piece in your sex game to be used and tossed aside when you are finished with me. I am a man. I was a friend, and I was a lover to you, and those relationships should count for something; they should mean something to you, but they don’t. They are worthless to you, and you’ve shown me that I am worth nothing more than a travel ticket to you. We’re done here. There’s nothing you need to say to me.” He turned and began to walk out of her office, but she bolted for him and gripped his muscled arm tightly with her hand. Everything in her had suddenly jumped to action as he turned to leave, and every part of her that had been frozen was ignited with life and fire, and everything in her was determined to stop him from leaving.
“Alexander! Don’t go! Please, let me explain! It might have started out like that, but it changed! It’s not like that now!” she gushed anxiously, trying to get him to turn and face her so that she could explain to him what was really going on inside of her heart and mind.
He turned his head to look at her and the anger and pain his eyes felt like a lethal blow straight to her heart. He yanked his arm from her grasp and said with a guttural voice, “Don’t touch me.” Then he turned and strode from the room, and as she watched him leave, she felt everything in her sink straight into hell. She swayed where she stood, her hand lifting to cover her mouth as tears flooded her eyes and began to pour down her cheeks. She wasn’t sure she was ever going to be able to breathe again.
Maddie ran up to her and closed her arms around her, holding her up and embracing her tightly. “Mia! You’re going to be okay, it’s going to be okay.” She said firmly, walking Mia over to the chair at the desk. She said Mia down and held her as Mia began to sob into her hands, her breath ragged.
“I’m so sorry honey! I didn’t know he was here. I didn’t know anyone was here except the two of us. I’m so sorry…” she repeated in a whisper. “Mia, it’s going to be all right. We’ll work this out.”
Maddie held her tight and rubbed her hand over Mia’s back and shoulders, but Mia felt like she was exactly who he had said she was. She felt like she might very well be the worst woman in the world, and no consolation could amend that.
Chapter8
The days seemed to pass so slowly for Mia, each of them feeling as if it was lasting a century, but that was nothing compared to how long the nights were. Try as she might, she could not get Alexander from her dreams. She could not keep herself from trying to find him, from trying to talk with him, from kissing him and feeling him take her and make love with her. She woke up each morning with deepened heartache and renewed guilt, and her friends had taken to trying almost anything that they could think of to cheer her up.
A week after he left her weeping in her office, Maddie rang her doorbell, and Mia answered it, dressed in her jeans and a light blouse.
Maddie frowned as she looked Mia up and down. “You look good, but you look a little tired. Are you sleeping?”
Mia shrugged. “Some. It’s not really restful sleep,” she answered quietly. She didn’t want to admit to Maddie that she wasn’t sleeping alone in her dreams, and that they were volleying between passion with Alexander and pain in trying to find him and talk with him. Her dreams of passion with him could never compare to the real thing; he was the best lover she had ever known, and she’d lost him. No matter what she remembered in her head, her body reminded her that it was nothing compared to being with him.
“Well are you eating? You look a little thin.” Maddie’s eyes moved over Mia’s figure and then met Mia’s face again.
Mia nodded slightly. “Of course I’m eating. I haven’t yet today, but I am.” Another half-truth. She had been eating now and then, but she had no appetite for full meals. She had almost no appetite at all, but she knew she had to sustain herself, so she made herself eat healthy basics.