you for betraying me, but I’m even angrier with you for showing me a version of life that I could have had and then ripping that away from me.”
I take a breath. On screen, Alexis starts to wipe down the cabinet doors.
“You made yourself utterly indispensable to me and then put me in a situation where I was forced to do just that. I don’t need you any less than I did a month ago, or a month before that. I need you now more than ever, but because of what you did, I can’t go to you like I want to. I miss you. I miss you every fucking day, no matter how hard I try to hate you, or how much distance I put between us.
“I wanted us to be a family so badly. It seemed like you wanted it too, but was that ever real? Did you really care for me like you seemed to, or were you just playing the game? It hurts so much to know that I was played a fool, but if I could go back in time, I can’t see myself doing anything differently. That’s the effect you have on me, Alexis. I would walk headfirst into my betrayal time and time again if it meant I got back those fleeting, perfect days.”
I take a breath, feeling not too dissimilar to a deflated balloon. Heat glides up my face, and I slam the lid of the laptop closed. I can’t believe the things I just said. The weakness I just admitted. Part of me feels relieved, but for the most part, I just feel sickened by my own pathetic admission.
I check my watch. It’s time for me to start getting ready. For once I am not entirely dreading attending one of these soul-sucking society events. In fact, I find myself looking forward to having a drink.
I hurry up the steps, ignoring the cries of the paparazzi sequestered on the other side of the velvet ropes as they try to draw a reaction out of me.
“Alone again, Gabriel?”
“You’re absolutely murdering the red carpet, Gabe!”
“Mr. Bellucci, give us a smile!”
I breeze right past them and wish Alexis was with me. The last time I took her to a charity function, she nearly got in a fistfight, and it was the highlight of my social year. She also made it a lot easier for me to interact with the various vultures and hyenas one encounters at these types of engagements. She acted as a buffer, calming me down when my temper rose, making me laugh when I needed to relax.
Most importantly, however, she warded off the banshees.
“Gabriel!” Grace VanKemp squawks as I enter the banquet hall. “It’s been far too long!”
Grace is what I can only describe as an extravagant widow. She married one of the richest men in Manhattan thirty years ago, at the ripe age of eighteen. He was sixty. He died around ten years back and has been dead as long as I’ve known her, and she clearly prefers it that way.
She leans over and pecks me on each cheek. I force a smile.
“Lovely to see you, Grace.”
The older woman whips a fan out and starts to wave it weakly at her face. She’s beautiful, with long, raven hair and big, innocent brown eyes. I imagine she would have been stunning in her youth. It is a shame that she spent most of that locked away in her elderly husband’s penthouse.
“I’ve heard all about you in the news,” she says, grabbing my elbow and leading me toward the bar. “Absolutely shocking, darling. To think that they would accuse you of something so vile. The nerve of it! Patricide!” She squeaks in distress, as though the very thought might send her tumbling into a faint. “They won’t be able to make it stick. What would be the point of being fabulously wealthy and well-connected if they could?” She orders two champagnes, though she sniffs at the vintage. “You would think they would trot out the good stuff for their generous benefactors…”
I tip my head back and down the drink. The bubbles sizzle all the way down my throat, climbing up my nose and making me want to sneeze.
Grace smiles approvingly. “That’s a good boy.” She signals for the bartender to pour another.
“It has been a long few weeks,” I say by way of explanation as Grace slides the second glass over to me.
“I wouldn’t dream of judging you, darling. I think you should