CHAPTER578
I can’t stop the torrent of pain and tears, doubts and questions, crashing through me as it all comes pouring out at a hundred miles an hour. I’m so confused. My eyes told a story that everything inside of me cannot believe. I trust him, this can’t be happening.
The long weeks apart, growing irritated with our situation, the months he has had to stay here without me.
Maybe he just got tired and looked elsewhere for a cure to his high libido and long separations? Maybe he’s bored with running after me and my tantrums.
No, no, no! It’s Arry, he would never do that to me. He loves me. I know he does.
When the doors open, I stagger out half blinded by tears and almost crash into a group of people in the hallway who seem to be arriving together. I don’t get why so many people would be here at this time and thank god they hide me from Frank’s view. I know he’ll stop me in this state, so clearly visibly broken as tears pour down my face and I stumble out onto the sidewalk. I don’t even have my bag, I must have dropped it in the apartment before backing into the elevator again, I have no memory of even doing it.
The rain has come down, the heavens opened somewhere between getting out of the cab and going upstairs and I’m immediately drenched in a good old New York downpour. The kind of rain that gets through every layer of clothing in seconds, but I don’t care. Aiming left and walking fast blindly. No idea what I am doing or where I am going as it lashes in my face, I just need to keep moving and get away from here. I’m dying inside, and my heart is breaking while the rain mingles with my tears and stings my face with icy stabs.
I stop at the corner of the building as the overwhelming nausea overtakes me and bend to throw up in the gap between that and the next building, sagging against the stone wall to try and catch my breath as I retch up the few contents of my stomach and sob through the effort. Fatigue and dizziness combat the overwhelming need to throw up and I am bereft and lifeless, standing in the cold wet, lashing rain with no idea where I should go or what I should do. I’m so lost.
I feel like I’m dying. I never knew pain without an actual injury could be this bad, this intense and all-consuming and I thought I had suffered the worst kind of pain in my past. I may really die from some sort of heart failure and people are giving me a wide berth as they catch sight of me. The crazy emotional wreck dying on the sidewalk.
“Sophie? Sophie?” I hear him calling at a distance and try to make a move for it, but my body has turned to lead, and my legs won’t move. I’ve started shaking violently and my stomach is crippling me with cramps. No control of anything at all anymore and running is futile. I sink against the wall and sob, burying my face in my arms as water makes it way down inside my clothes and molds my dress to my figure even more so. Freezing cold rain for a soul that just fell into an abyss.
Arrick gets to me in seconds and hauls me back by the wrist to him, pulling me off the wall and revealing my face. Grip tight as though he has no intention of letting me go.
“Baby, it’s not what you think. What it looked like.” He sounds desperate, but that little tornado inside of me lashes free and I turn on him in full broken fury, slapping out at him to let me go and attacking with the full force of a damaged heart. He has no idea what he has done.
Arrick counteracts my blows expertly and catches my wrists, spinning me so he crosses my arms across my chest and pulls me hard against his torso, holding me tight so I am rendered incapable of doing much else. His face hard against my cheek so I cannot move.
“Let me go… How could you?” I sob at him, fighting to be free. A memory of familiar words thrown at us by his ex-girlfriend, so long ago, flashes through my head and for the first time I wonder if maybe he is capable of doing this to us.
He did this to her… Why am I any different?
I deserve this for what we did to her.
“Sophs, I swear, nothing is going on… That’s Amanda my PA. Listen to me, please.” He sounds devastated, voice shaking as much as I am, and even though I’m fighting him he doesn’t budge at all. He just waits until he gets me under control again. Standing in the waterfall weather, being soaked, and blinded by the downpour. I tremble and shake as much with the cold as the pain I am in.
“Let me go.” I beg him, needing to get far away, I want him to just go. I can’t bear his touch on me, slicing pain through my soul and ravaging me to pieces.
“Never. I’ll never let you go, baby, I love you, Sophie, and this is not what you think. Please listen to me…” He sounds broken too and so very desperate, it makes my protests catch in my throat.
I struggle once more but his hold on me only tightens as he walks me to the wall out of foot traffic, so he can use it as a barrier for my feet I was using to try and push him away, so I’m completely immobile.
“We were here all night, four of us, going through legal briefs so today’s meeting could go a lot faster and I could get a flight home to you. You are all I have been thinking about. I was coming back to you. I swear. All night, four of us, they only left minutes before you arrived, and I went to get changed for work. Amanda was making coffee as none of us have had any sleep.” He says it fast, his voice strained and body tight around me unbudgingly. He’s trying the ‘tell her quick while restraining her and hope she calms down’. True to his tried and tested methods. I struggle again as his words filter in, but I am sapped of all energy and my fight is dying. Sobs have become silent tears and being in his arms is killing me.
I pause remembering the two men I passed in the foyer and try to think straight. Fatigue and emotion hitting me all in one go and a let out another pitiful sob. I don’t want to be one of those women who take the lie and pretend it’s all going to be okay. I don’t want to be too stupid to see when someone has betrayed them.
“Let me go.” I strain against him one more time, no longer trying to fight him, but needing a moment to pull myself together and let his words sink in. I need space to think.
I know in my gut it’s the truth, even without running into those two men, because deep down I know him. Despite how it looked, he isn’t the type to carry on an affair that would kill us and then deny it to me. He wouldn’t chase me and try to lie to me. He told Natasha the truth, he would tell me.
My gut is telling me to listen, but my head and heart are so twisted up and afraid. I have no way of surviving a life without him. I cannot even contemplate what that would be like; it’s not something I can survive.
“Only if you don’t run, Sophs.… Because I will chase you, baby. I won’t lose you.” Arry buries his face in my neck and squeezes me a little tighter, a hug of sorts and I relax a little.
“I’m not going to run; I just need a minute. I need breathing space.” I can barely talk, sniffing through tears and rain, trying to catch my breath. After a moment of thought he slowly unravels his hold and lets go of me until his hands rest only on my upper arms and I move out of reach. He’s poised to chase me; I can see it in the tense way he is holding himself and his eyes are penetrating mine with a look of complete fear on his face. He thinks I’m going to run away from him. He’s evaluating me, trying to suss out if I believe him and he is damn sure he won’t let me out of his sight until I do."
