FRACTURE: Hearts of Stone Book Six Read online

  “It’s not, I was just using the washroom,” Elizabeth says casually.

  She eyes me for a moment. “You’re considering leaving Evan?” she asks, her head cocked at an angle. “Not really,” I admit. “I don’t know if I could ever bring myself to do it.” My brain tells me that she is the last person in whom I should be confiding something like this.

  “But you think it’s the right thing to do?” Elizabeth asks.

  “Well…” I start.

  “But, deep down, you know you’re ripping apart his family?” Elizabeth finishes for me.

  I sigh heavily, because I know it’s the truth.

  “I don’t want to be the woman to rip apart his family! I don’t want to be y-” I stop myself.

  “You don’t want to be me,” Elizabeth finishes for me, smirking. She has this look in her eyes like she is calculating something. Then, she waves a hand with a flourish, dismissing the fact that I may have offended her.

  “That’s nothing to be ashamed of, dear. I’ve done my fair share of horrible things. You don’t want to bring yourself to my level, trust me. If you believe that leaving Evan, to be with Victoire…” Elizabeth pauses suddenly, as she says the name as if there’s a foul taste in her mouth. For a moment, I think she is going to spit! Then, she regains her composure and smiles.

  “If you feel it’s the right thing to do, then you should probably do it,” Elizabeth finishes.

  I scowl, mostly at myself.

  “Yes, I do feel it isn’t fair to rip them apart. Again,” I tell her.

  “Are your parents divorced?” Elizabeth asks casually. She’s got me, right where it hurts. My mother divorced my father when we were young but old enough to understand that the man she remarried had indeed ripped my own family apart. My parents were supposed to stay together! Why was he doing this to us?

  Suddenly, I am fourteen years old again, screaming at my mother for destroying my life. I don’t think I ever fully forgave her, for what she did to my father.

  I suppose it’s not the same situation, though. My mother had a secret affair and shocked my father with divorce papers.

  I had Evan first, I think.

  But, Victoire is the mother of his child.

  Tears come unbidden and drip down my cheeks.

  “They are, I take it,” Elizabeth answers for me.

  I nod.

  “Well, do you want to be like the person that ripped your parents’ marriage apart? The one that destroyed Ethan’s life?” Elizabeth asks me. She turns on her heels, not waiting for my answer. She already knows it.

  The answer is a resounding no.

  By the time I get to the elegant restaurant Merc has chosen for lunch I’m a mess. I’m walking around in jeans and sweatshirt, my hair in disarray, as I carry too many carats of diamonds on my finger.

  Merc spots me immediately across the restaurant and ignores the maître’ d, who’s scowling at my attire.

  “Come on, come sit,” Merc tells me, brushing off the ignorant man. He pulls a chair out, and I sit down and start to babble at Merc.

  “I’m sorry, I just I was running late, and then I ran into Evan, and I had to make up an excuse, and I’m so terrible for lying, but I didn’t want to tell him where I was going, and then I had to call my dad’s lawyer, and the whole day has just been a mess,” I spew everything out at once.

  “A lawyer?” Merc asks seriously.

  All I can do is nod because I’m afraid if I say the words, I will fall into a million pieces, and Merc will have to pick me up off the floor.

  Drinks come. I guess Merc ordered them before I arrived. I take a long sip of the vodka martini in front of me, then another.

  “Slow down! Tell me what’s going through your head, Leigha. You and Ev? You belong together, this is it, Leigha, you can’t just give up,” Merc tells me slowly.

  His expression is odd. Disbelief, coupled with something else.

  Hope?

  I can’t tell. Merc is damned difficult sometimes. He smirks as I drain the glass.

  “Get me another,” I say.

  Merc calls over the waitress and orders two more drinks.

  “Liquid lunch?” he quips.

  I nod.

  “Are you going to divorce him? Just leave him to her?” Merc asks seriously.

  “My parents are divorced,” I say, scanning for the server.

  I want to tell her to keep them coming until Merc has to pour me into a cab.

  “My mother had an affair, and left my father,” I tell Merc.

  His face darkens at the mention of something he already knows. Merc is aware of how tortured I was regarding my parents’ divorce and what it did to me, and my brother Brett. He knows how it affected my father.

  “I’ve never fully gotten over my mother’s betrayal,” I say slowly.

  “And, I don’t want Ethan to hate Evan his whole life because his parents - his two true parents - aren’t together,” I manage to get the words out.

  There it is — the naked truth, flat on the table.

  “This is different, Leigha,” Merc says. He picks up his drink and sips slowly, thinking things over, and looking around the place. I guess his spy senses never turn off. I watch him cataloging every person in sight. It’s something else, and I feel safe around him, paradoxically.

  He sets down the drink. His face is gorgeous, and I wonder what it would feel like to run my tongue around his lips. Then, I focus on the real problem again.

  “Vic came back from the dead, Leigha. You didn’t know anything about her being alive, or about them having had a son together. She was dead. For all of what you two knew, you married the love of your life,” he pauses.

  He grimaces as the reality of his words penetrate. I can see the pain in his face.

  “Merc,” I say.

  I reach out to squeeze his large hand, and to my relief, Merc squeezes it back. Merc does not let go of my hand when the waitress returns with our drinks, and I take a slower sip this time.

  I wet my lips and smile.

  Suddenly, I feel sad.

  “What if we’re just not meant to be together?” I ask, choking back sobs.

  No! I must be strong through this! Another large sip of the second martini burns its way down my throat. The numbness is finally starting to take hold of me.

  “Leigha, I’m not going to tell you what to do, because you’re a big girl. But I don’t think that this, you leaving Ev, is in everyone’s best interests. Are you just going to slap Evan with divorce papers? You’re going to kill him,” Merc says honestly.

  “Vic will mend him,” I say sadly. My gut is wrenched every which way, and there’s an acidic burn in my stomach like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Darkness has settled over my shoulders. I feel like I can’t breathe, but somehow, the air is still coming in and out of my body. My throat aches, wanting to throw out sobs and tears, but I steadfastly refuse to cry. Destroyed and tattered, I don’t know what else there is to say. I’ve ripped myself apart in so many ways to do what’s best for Evan.

  As if reading my mind, Merc speaks.

  “What about what’s best for you? For your marriage?” Merc asks.

  Instead of answering, I gulp the martini.

  If Evan and I had a child, I would do what’s best for them, and in some twisted way, it makes me think I have to do what’s best for Ethan. But Evan and I are childless, and it stings.

  Vic and Evan are not. Ethan is the priority now, not me.

  “You two are in love,” Merc persists.

  “There’s no changing my mind! It’s done! They’re drawing up the papers for me now,” I stammer.

  The ache in my throat is so terrible it pains me not to hold back my tears.

  “Are you even going to talk to him about this?” Merc asks.

  He rubs his thumb and fingers in slow, comforting circles around my hand, soothing me somewhat.

  I shake my head.

  “Because he’ll convince you not to?” Merc assumes.
r />   “Yes,” I squeak.

  I drain the whole glass.

  “Okay, come on,” Merc says.

  He throws some bills on the table and leads me out of the restaurant. By the time get to his car, I am drunk, and he has to help me into the seat of his Lotus Elise. It’s only seconds after Merc starts the ignition that I begin to sob. Across London to his flat, I cry ugly tears, the likes of which I never thought possible. I get a quick sweet release, only for a fresh wave of tears to come when I realize I’m ripping my marriage apart for Evan’s sake.

  I don’t want to be what I swore I would never become: my mother.

  When the car stops, Merc picks me up out of the seat and manages to lock the door of the car with me still in his arms. He carries me up the four flights of stairs to his flat, takes me through the door, and sets me down on the soft couch. I sit there, sobbing quietly while he disappears.

  Merc comes back with a bottle of vodka, and two shot glasses before sitting beside me on the couch.

  “I normally don’t day drink,” he says. He pours two shots.

  “But if you’re going through this much pain, I can’t handle it. It hurts me too,” he admits.

  I nod. We chug our shots.

  “I can’t go back there,” I say absentmindedly.

  “Why?” Merc asks.

  “I can’t face him, I can’t tell him it’s over, I just… I walk in there, and I know that everyone thinks that I don’t belong there! Merc, I’m just in the way of Evan and his family. I can’t go to our house, because all I see is the life we planned together falling apart,” I cry. I feel my explanation isn’t so swift.

  “I just can’t, okay?” I tell Merc.

  “You can stay here; you know that? You don’t have to ask,” Merc says automatically.

  “But work?” I question.

  “Work is work,” Merc says.

  “You’re in my life again, Leigha, and I can’t hold back from you because of work. I’ve sacrificed so much, I owe you this at the very least,” his words are so sincere that the ache in my throat returns.

  I pour another shot. The world starts to blur, even more, as the alcohol hits me hard. I take my glasses off because I can’t handle seeing properly. I’m too emotional.

  We turn on the music, loud. We dance, and hug, and dance some more. More shots are poured. My phone rings several times. Neither of us picks up the phone.

  I know it’s Evan, but it’s too late for him and me, now.

  3

  Evan

  January 4, 2019

  I wake up, and the stark realization that Leigha still hasn’t returned my calls worries me deeply. I desperately go through my phone for text messages, a voicemail – anything. I sit up on the couch in my father’s office.

  Nothing.

  I call my wife again, and it goes straight to voicemail. Angry with the world, my situation, and aching from the void caused by Leigha’s lack of presence, I hurtle my phone at the wall. It shatters into pieces.

  Tinsley pokes her head in through the door, takes a look at the empty bottle of whiskey, and opens it.

  “No Leigha yet?” she asks.

  “No,” I scowl.

  “We should call the police, then,” Tinsley says.

  “It hasn’t been twenty-four hours,” I reply.

  “Well, go check the house then. I’ll come with you,” she offers.

  I can tell she feels guilty over her earlier statements. With Leigha missing, my last concern in the world is Vic. I feel suddenly ashamed. Vic is the mother of my son.

  I sigh, shrugging. Ethan will always be in the back of my mind, but Vic is nowhere near as precious to me as Leigha. I have a gut-wrenching feeling that the worst has happened.

  Tinsley drives because she’s afraid I’ll be reckless, and she’s probably right.

  The minute I get in the door I shout.

  “Leigha! Are you here?” My voice echoes through the empty house.

  “Tinsley, she’s not here!” I say.

  Tinsley sags against the nearest wall.

  “Where the hell could she possibly be?” I ask.

  Tinsley has no answer for me. I make one last ditch effort to call Leigha again, and I get her voicemail.

  “Baby, please pick up, please let me know you’re okay? I love you so much, you know I can’t live without you! Please, please, please be okay, Leigha. Pick up, talk to me, be alive,” I plead into the phone.

  I ramble on until her voicemail cuts me off. Nothing in our house is missing. Bond is at my father’s house, so all is quiet. Leigha’s things remain untouched. I slump down on the couch, my face in my hands as I try to consider what could’ve possibly happened to Leigha, and why she isn’t answering my calls.

  She was so quick to get out of the house yesterday; I barely got a kiss.

  What if that was the last kiss ever, and I never feel her warm, soft lips on mine again?

  “Evan, it’s going to be alright,” Tinsley says soothingly.

  She rubs my back slowly, and I realize that I know what she’s going through at least a little bit. I don’t know if I’m going to see the love of my life again. There’s an empty spot deep down in my gut, and I know I’m going to puke. I make it to the washroom just in time as the bottle of whiskey I downed last night makes its reappearance in the toilet.

  Oh god, what have I done? Why did I just let her leave like that? Why didn’t I persist, or ask her where she was going? With her phone, off, dead, or more likely, smashed to bits I’ll never find her.

  I can hear the doorbell.

  “Tinsley,” I say.

  “I’ll get it, it’s probably Leigha,” she says brightly, not too concerned.

  Maybe she just forgot her keys?

  “Please be Leigha,” I moan into the toilet.

  Then, more bile comes up, and my entire body burns with the damage I did to it last night. I wallow until Tinsley comes back to the washroom, an open envelope in her hand.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Evan…” she breathes.

  Tinsley looks like she’s about to panic, but in my misery, I can’t bring myself to comfort her.

  “Just tell me,” I manage to get the words out. More bile comes up.

  When I look up at Tinsley, her eyes are full of concern for me.

  “Leigha’s asked you for an annulment. It’s papers from her lawyer,” Tinsley’s words stop my heart cold.

  I swear to god I’m not breathing. I’m not anything. I’m suspended in time and space as my entire world falls apart.

  “No,” I tell her, shaking my head, which only intensifies the nausea.

  I’m almost puking again.

  “Evan,” is all Tinsley says.

  “You’re fucking with me!” I growl.

  “Evan, if I were fucking with you, I would’ve told you by now,” Tinsley says seriously.

  I puke again, only nothing comes up, and now I’m just dry heaving over the toilet. The emptiness doesn’t go away.

  “I will not let her leave me!” I say to myself.

  “Evan, I don’t think you have a choice,” Tinsley tells me honestly.

  “She can’t do this!” I rage.

  Then I make the mistake of slamming my fist hard against the toilet seat, and all I do is hurt myself, howling in pain.

  “Leave me,” I snarl at Tinsley.

  “Evan, no,” she refuses.

  “Leave!” I scream.

  “No!” Tinsley screams back at me, louder.

  “Leave goddamnit!” I try to scream, but a strangled sound comes out of my mouth. I feel Tinsley’s arms wrap around me on the washroom floor, and I bury my face in the warmth of her sweater as Tinsley holds me. I can’t help it. I’m still drunk from the night before, and the only woman in the world that matters to me is intent on ruining our lives together!

  “You have to fight for her!” Tinsley whispers.

  “You have to!” she urges me.

  4

  Leigha
r />   January 4, 2019

  “You can’t divorce Evan,” Merc tells me. “It’s wrong,” he adds.

  “Too late. Even if it’s wrong, he’ll sign them, and that’s the end of it. Then we don’t have to go through some nasty, messy divorce,” I say.

  It’s an assumption. Merc looks annoyed.

  “He’s never going to agree to an annulment Leigha, you aren’t that stupid, are you?” Merc asks.

  Then he raises his eyebrow at me.

  “Why are you fighting me?” I ask.

  “Because-” Merc sighs. “Because I want you. I’ve always wanted you, and I know the right thing to do is to let you be, leave you alone and not drag you into my messes, but if Evan’s not in the picture, it has to be me, Leigha. I can’t stand the thought of another man touching you with his hands, because you and Evan didn’t work out because of this bullshit. Fuck!” Merc swears angrily.

  “I can’t stand the idea of Evan touching you with his hands! Do you have any idea what it does to me? Watching you torture yourself over someone who doesn’t even deserve to look at you? That insufferable fuck has had your heart from the beginning when all along, it should’ve been me!” Merc continues to rage.

  Shocked, I stare at him speechless.

  “You belong to me. You belong with a man who doesn’t fuck around. You deserve someone who would never let you do what you did just did to Evan because he knows you’re it, and that’s final. You don’t deserve the complications and the guilt that comes with Evan, you deserved better before, and you deserve better now. Do you know what that ‘better’ is? Me, Leigha. It’s me. I’m better for you, and I’m what you deserve!” Merc’s sincere, passionate words hit someplace hard.

  I find myself shaking because I have no idea what to say. “Merc…” I breathe in his name.

  His deep brown eyes are wide with rage, and something else I can’t place. There’s a fire in him as he looks from me to the window, and then back at me. Frustrated, Merc runs a hand through his hair. He’s breathing so intensely that the rise and fall of his chest are exaggerated.

  “I would never let you out of my bed if you were in it. I wouldn’t give you a chance to leave me!” Merc says, his voice rough.