Page 116 of Begin Again
“But did you mean it?”
“Of course, I meant it, Nick! I never…I would never call her abitchand mean it. I was hurt. I was upset. I was…” Alex scoffs. “You have to understand, I was facing a reality where you were gone. I was supposed to get married twice already and kept pushing it back because I thought you’d come home, but you didn’t. Nina…she—she’s supposed to be able todoanything,beanything. She’s a Villa for godsake.” He shakes his head and blinks away the wetness in his eyes.
“So, your first instinct is to attack her for getting help from Beau?”
“Is that what you call it?”
I sigh, white-knuckling the chair. “Alex, you have got to let this go.”
“Have you?”
“Yes! I’m not going to hold it over her head when she thought I was dead. How can I?”
Alex locks his jaw. “Have you forgiven Beau, too?”
“Beau is the reason my wife is still here!” I slam my palm down on the table. “He’s why my wife and daughter were taken care of the last year. There is nothing to forgive.”
“I’ll take that as a no.” He shakes his head.
Breathing through gritted teeth, I rub the crease building between my brows. The truth is, yes, I have forgiven Beau, but it’s hard to forget. Especially when I’m not whole. I’m not who I once was, and I don’t know if that’s good enough anymore.
“Alex, I don’t need you to go to battle for me about this. This isn’t your fight. The only thing you need to do is let this go and apologize—” I stop him from trying to argue. “Apologize. A real, sincere apology to my wife. She is the only person in this world who never gave up on me and I will not let you take that away from her, Beau Turner be damned.”
Nina looks exhausted when she walks into the conference room two hours later. While waiting for her to finish the board meeting, I allowed Alex to ask me anything and everything he wanted, and vice versa. Things between us aren’t perfect, but I think they’ll get better with time. My wife smiles when she sees us having a conversation instead of my brother dead on the floor, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. As much as I want to ask her what happened, and what she decided to do, it can wait.
“How’d it go?” Alex asks, not willing to do the same.
“Fine.”
That doesn’t sound good.
She looks between us, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Things seem to be okay between the two of you. I half expected to walk in and find one of you dead and the other bleeding.”
I bring her hand to my lips before she caresses my cheek. “We’re getting there.”
“Yeah, we’ll get there,” my brother agrees. His eyes meet mine briefly before he looks up at her, rubbing the back of his neck with a sheepish grin. “Hey, Nin, I—I just want to say, I’m sorry. I’ve been a real dick to you lately and…you didn’t deserve it. I should’ve never said those things I said to you. I was upset and grieving. I know it’s not a good enough reason to take it out on you.”
Nina squeezes my shoulder and I return the gesture, giving her hand the same amount of pressure. I’m with her. No matter what she decides, whether she accepts the apology or not, I’m with her. “Thank you, Alex.”
“Does this mean you guys will come to the wedding?” Alex looks between us, eyes full of hope, and they only brighten when I nod. He jumps up from his chair and pulls my wife into a bone-crushing hug; one she’s not expecting, based on her expression. But slowly, her hands relax on his back, and return the hug. When they part, he outstretches his hand to me. I take it, shaking his hand. “I have to go call Lara and tell her. She’s going to be so happy.”
The door practically slams behind him, a product of his happy mood, and I laugh when Nina flinches. That isn’t exactly how things go at the corporate office, especially this one, where the suits are stuck-up and boring compared to the laid-back atmosphere you’d find at any of the DV Designs offices.
“Are you still going to the hospital later?” I stand from my chair and follow her out the same door my brother just ran out of. Our hands intertwine as we walk down the hallway to her office.
“Unfortunately.” Nina had agreed to go with Kai to the hospital to visit Brina. She regretted extending the offer she’d made well before we returned to the city, but she didn’t want herbrother to be alone, either. Eileen can’t go with him. Correction: Eileen won’t go with him. His wife uses Ophelia and Fallon as her excuse. She could ask the nanny to help, but she doesn’t want to. Like the rest of us, she isn’t Brina’s biggest fan.
As someone who lost their mother, I empathize with my wife because despite what she says, I know Nina is upset about her mother’s diagnosis. Upset by the reality that she will never know the same person her brother did at one time, nor get the closure she deserves about everything that has happened between them over the years. She grieved this loss a long time ago, but having to face this prognosis head-on is like reopening the wound.
“Want me to come with you guys?”
“You don’t like hospitals, and you’re supposed to watch Elena,” she says, walking into her office. “Nick, I’ll be fine. Spend some time with our daughter and when I get home, you can help take my mind off things.”
My brows wiggle in a suggestive wave and she laughs, slapping her hand on my chest. I take hold of her hand, not letting her slip away from me, and pepper her neck with kisses. Giggles fill the air as my beard and lips tickle her skin. “I love that sound.”
“And I love you,” she says, swiping her finger across the tip of my nose.
“What happened in your meeting?” I ask, looping my fingers in the belt loops of her pleated black dress pants, pulling her waist to mine.
