Page 23 of Xavier

six

Him

“I’m not Malynda anymore.”

Her voice loops over and over in my head. The same voice I remember, saying words I don't understand.

What is happening? How did the day turn out to end like this? I lean back, as far as my leather recliner will let me, staring out into the moonlight-washed Manhattan skyline. Has she really been out there this whole time?

I down my drink and reach for the decanter for another.

The burn as it cascades down my throat only gives me a temporary respite from the torturous thoughts in my head.

Where have you been, Malynda? What have you been doing?

And with whom?

She can't really be with that... that suit.

My involuntary chuckle surprises me as I catch my own reflection in the glass; as suited up as a man can get.

God, she looked so beautiful.

More beautiful than I could have ever imagined her. More beautiful than I remember.

More beautiful than that first day at the lake.

More beautiful than standing in front of that paint chipped wall, eyes full of possibility.

More beautiful than all the ways I've imagined her since.

"Hey." A deep voice startles me out of my musings. I look up and Kaine is standing there staring down at me, no doubt not too happy with the scene of me hugging a scotch decanter

"What the fuck, man? How did you get in here?"

"Please. Why do you think I co-bought this building with you? So I could come and check on you when you go off brand, like tonight. What the hell was that all about, Xave?"

I empty my glass down my throat before I answer. "It's Malynda," I finally say, emphasizing every syllable.

"What's Malynda?"

"Her. She. It is Malynda." I don't want to say the moniker she's hiding behind. I refuse to. "The interior designer." It takes him a moment, but the pieces finally fit together in his brain.

"Shit. Isabella is Malynda? Are you sure?"

I catch his surprised gaze and let him read my eyes for a moment.

"Shit," he says again and reaches for the scotch decanter in my hand.

"Yeah."

"But... How… Did... Why..."

"Exactly, I've been asking myself the same questions. I don't have the answers yet, if you come across them let me know."

He pours himself a glass and tops mine up. He knows now isn’t the time to be curtailing my alcohol intake. "What are you going to do?"

"I could stand up in the middle of a fundraising dinner at the Plaza and declare a woman mine by outbidding everyone else by 300%."