Bella
As I wait for the elevator to take me up to the floor I’m staying on, I hold tight to the dress wrapped around me while clutching my bra and panties. There’s no need to put anything on since everything would come off as soon as I get to my room. A hot bath sounds perfect right now. A stinging sensation is riding through my insides, and while it’s expected after having sex for the first time, I wasn’t prepared for that night to be tonight—or that person to be Cal.
My heart feels broken. All these years I have saved myself just for him to sweep in and shatter every dream and morale I have.
The elevator comes to a stop and the doors slide open, but it’s only the sixth floor. I backstep, my shoulders hitting the wall.
“What are you doing?” I ask Cal as he stands with a scorned look on his face. “How’d you even get on this floor?” There must be a staircase that I have yet to see. While the doors are still open, I look into a large library straight ahead. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves encased in it. Cal always loved reading, so I’m not surprised.
He steps in the elevator and quickly eats up the space between us. His hands hit the wall on either side of me, causing my body to shudder. “Are you starting your period soon?” he asks point-blankly. The doors behind him close and the elevator climbs up again.
My period? “No. Why?”
“What the hell is this?” He holds up a pair of gray boxer briefs and I immediately notice the streak of dried blood on them.
“It’s obviously blood but it didn’t come from me. I had my period a week before we got here.” I know exactly what it is, but I don’t tell him that.
“Then where’d it come from?”
We come to a stop and the doors open. “I don’t know.” I go to push past him, holding tightly to my bra and panties bunched in my hand.
He sidesteps in front of me, blocking my path.
“The doors are gonna shut. Move.” I shove him to the side, but he’s quicker than me. They begin to close and I blow out a frustrated breath. “Dammit. What do you want now?”
Cal glares down as he towers over me. “Have you fucked Trent?”
My chin hits my chest as I look down, avoiding eye contact. “That’s not your business.” I keep my eyes on my toes as I bend and flex them out of nervousness. Although, I shouldn’t be nervous. So what if I was a virgin? It’s not anything to be ashamed of.
“Have you fucked anybody? Ever?”
“Just get out of my way.” I push him again, anger infiltrating my bones. I tap repeatedly at the button to open the doors, until they finally slide open.
I move quickly down the hall, trying to get to my room and away from him.
“Don’t walk away from me when I’m talking to you,” Cal calls out. I look over my shoulder and see him hot on my trail.
My pace quickens as I hold tight to the dress wrapped around me. I’m fully aware that my ass is showing, but I don’t even care.
Once I reach my door, I glance over my shoulder one more time, and see Cal three feet away. He holds up the boxers and shouts. “Dammit, Bella. Just tell me you weren’t a virgin.”
I turn the doorknob and tuck myself inside, closing it gently behind me. My back presses to the door and my eyes close.
They shoot back open as my body rattles from Cal pounding on the other side. “Open the damn door or I’ll come in without permission.”
“Since when do you ask permission to enter? Sure as hell didn’t ask permission twenty minutes ago.”
“I just need to know because if it’s true then I owe you an apology. Hell, I’ll owe you a lot more than an apology.”
My heart flutters at his words. They’re not exactly endearing, but knowing he considered apologizing to me for anything seemed so far-fetched.
“Your first time shouldn’t have been like that. On top of a piano, beneath an ice-cold heart. It should have been special. Just tell me I didn’t fuck up. Please, Bella.”
Why does he do this? This constant push and pull. He says hateful words and glares at me with threatening eyes, and then turns around and shows me the tiniest sliver of decency, forcing me to hold on to that fraction of a moment, where I know his heart isn’t completely empty.
Pinching my eyes shut, I say in a placid tone, “You didn’t fuck up, Cal.”
Silence surrounds me. Not even an audible breath on the other side of the door.
I hear him. Or at least, I think I do. Maybe I just feel him. It’s a strong sensation that tells me he’s definitely still there.
“Can I come in?” he finally says, startling me. My heart jumps into my throat and I step away from the door.
I’m still wrapped in the dress and my hand is sweating from squeezing it so tightly to hold it in place. Probably shouldn’t do what I’m about to do, but I do it anyway. I turn the knob and open the door for him.
I step aside, allowing him in. He glances at me as he walks in, then looks over at the bed and stops in the middle of the room. His hands in his pockets, again. I’m starting to think that’s a quirk of his.
He’s no longer holding the boxers. God, I hope he didn’t give them to Peter to throw away. It’s totally something Cal would do.
He turns around to face me and his complexion is pale, as if the very thought of taking my virginity is harrowing to him. “Thanks for letting me in.”
“You’re welcome. Now get this over with. I’d like to take a bath,” I say, while walking to my bathroom. I leave the door open, so I can hear him, but I have to put something on.
“Are you on birth control, Bella?” he asks from outside the bathroom.
“No,” I drawl. There’s no reason to lie about that. There’s also no reason for me to be on birth control right now.
“Why not?”
The dress falls to the floor and I grab a white, silk robe hanging from a hook in the bathroom. I didn’t bring the robe here, but I’ve been wearing it, assuming it was placed in here for me.
I grab a scrunchie out of my makeup bag and wrap it around my wrist. Once the robe tie is fastened around me in a tight knot, I walk back out to the bedroom. “Because I choose not to be.”
Cal is now sitting on the edge of my bed, his hands still in his pockets. His shirt is back on, but the top three buttons are undone, exposing a fluff of his black chest hair. “Because you and Trent want a baby?” His voice is strangled as if it was pure torture just saying the words. “Is that why?”
This would be a good opportunity to tell him the truth, that no, I don’t want to have a baby with Trent, or marry him, but that really doesn’t concern him. Maybe once he realizes that my heart isn’t on this island and never will be, he’ll let me go. “Yes,” I lie, pressing my lips into a firm line.
Cal hangs his head and nods, as if he’s accepting my lie. The tension in the room is so thick it’s suffocating.
“Now, if you don’t mind—”
“Actually,” Cal stands abruptly, “I do mind.” Long strides bring him in front of me. “I do mind because Trent doesn’t deserve you. You’re too generous and pure to be involved with someone like that. Why the hell are you even with him?”
“I told you—”
“Told me what? That he changed? That he’s a good man? He’s not, Bella. Trent Beckham was and always will be the enemy.”
“I don’t want to have his baby,” I spit out in a fit of rage. “Dammit, Cal. Quit prying into my life. I’m not on birth control because I don’t need to be. Trent and I haven’t slept together.” The words just spew from my mouth uncontrollably.
His mouth falls open as if my words have surprised him as they’ve surprised me. “Never?” he asks.
“Not yet.”
“But you plan to marry him, right?”
I sweep the air with my hand and turn away from him. “I’m not listening to this.” I walk over to the vanity set against the wall and open the jewelry box. The ballerina pops out and begins playing a familiar song. Just like the last time I opened it, I slam it shut again. “Why that song?”
“Quit changing the subject.”
“No. How about you answer a few of my questions? Starting with that song. I know damn well Peter didn’t pick that out and place it in the room I’d be staying in. Are you purposely trying to make me sad?”
He knows that’s the tune to a song my mom used to hum to me when I was a kid. Even as she was on the verge of passing out with a band still wrapped around her arm and needles on the table, she’d rub my head and hum that tune.
“I’m trying to remind you who you are and where you came from.”
“Why?” I shout, spinning back around. I shove my hands to his chest to push him away because I need some damn space. “Why would I want that reminder?”
I swipe away the tears on my cheeks aggressively, not even realizing that I was crying again.
Cal grabs hold of me and cradles my head while his chin rests against my hair. And I lose it.
I break down, letting it all come out until I’m ugly-crying in his arms.
“How are we supposed to get where we want to be if we don’t remember where we came from?” he says, or rather, asks. I’m not really sure. “They took you away and fed you lies. They painted you this picture of a perfect life and stuck you in it then placed it on a shelf so you were out of reach. The world isn’t pretty for all of us, Bella. Some of us are forced into ugliness.” He brings the back of his hand to my cheek and brushes lightly. “You got Vango, while I got Caravaggio.”
Caravaggio was always Cal’s favorite artist. His work is Gothic and dramatic, but also full of emotion. Cal would flip through pages of his book and each picture would paint a new expression on his face.
I inhale a deep breath, filling my lungs before I say what needs to be said. “You need to let go of the past. It’s the only way you’ll ever be happy.”
Cal tsks, “Easy for you to say.”
“Ya know, it really bothers me that you act like you’re the only one to ever have a bad start to life. At least you have a family and a home. Some never got that.”
His brows pinch together, back steeled and shoulders drawn. “I didn’t want this life.”
“Well, too bad. You got it.”
“You’re right,” he takes a step back, “I did.
My voice drops a few octaves as I try to empathize with him. Something bad had to have happened. “What the hell happened to you, Cal? Please, just tell me.”
“I didn’t get the parents we always wanted. A year after you left, I was adopted by the Ellis family. A week prior, they lost their son in a car accident. His name was Caden. My adopted mother, Delilah, was a little crazy.” His fingers loop around his ear. “Never accepted Caden’s death and went into a manic state. So, Vincent took me in and forced me to pretend I was their son, just to appease his wife. Her mind was completely gone and she believed that I was really him. Most days, I pretended. Other days, my hatred for the old man wouldn’t allow me to.”
“Cal,” I say, walking toward him, “I had no idea.” I go to place a hand on his shoulder, but he swats it away. “Don’t! I don’t want your pity.”
“I don’t pity you. I just want you to know how sorry I am.”
“Sorry?” He laughs. “You’re sorry? For what?”
“I…I guess I’m sorry that you had to endure that.”
“Because you left? Is that what you want to say? You left me after we made a solid promise to stay together. Do you realize that a week after you left, Nikki and Dante were adopted together? School teachers. If you’d just stuck to the plan, it could have been us. But you didn’t because the pact meant nothing to you.”
“If I could go back, I’d choose to stay.” Am I lying? I’m not so sure. I love my parents and my brother, Mark, but if going back meant taking Cal down a different path, with me, maybe I’d do it.
“It’s too late. The damage is already done.”
I take a step closer, while he takes a step back. His legs hit the end of the bed and he’s unable to go any farther, so I keep walking until we’re face to face. “Did they hurt you?”
“Hurt?” He laughs monstrously. “They stripped me of my flesh and exposed my soul and coated it with salt. No, they didn’t hurt me. They destroyed me.”
My hands grasp my chest, holding tightly as my heart shatters into pieces. This isn’t just about me leaving; this is about what happened after I left.
I go to speak, but the words won’t come out. Cal glowers as he stalks past me for the door, slamming it shut behind him as he leaves.
“I had no idea,” I mutter under my breath, on the verge of tears once again.
