The Florencia Lozano Homepage - Fan Fiction
LIES FEARS & LOVE
BY TROG |
CHAPTER
24 |
chapter 24
THE PALACE GRILL
Blair sat dejectedly playing with her salad, rolling the cherry tomatoes around and pushing the romaine lettuce aside. She thought of her dead child, and the hollowness inside her, and all the events she had set in motion by not being honest with Todd.
Max Holden entered the restaurant and Blair looked up as their eyes met briefly. She smiled at him but he ignored her, quickly looking away. She had scammed him cruelly, telling him the baby was his, and he had been deeply hurt that she had used him in that way. Once she could have counted on him for anything, but now, she had lost his trust as well. Tears came to her eyes and she wiped them quickly with her napkin feeling desperately alone.
Max noticed her crying. They hadn’t spoken since her lie was revealed and he wanted to hate her and never forgive her, but there was still a deep connection between them. She had always been a weakness for him and they had been through a lot together, good times and bad, and as angry as he was he couldn’t bare to see her crying. He walked over reluctantly.
“Hey!”
She looked up at him smiling through her tears, grateful for this paltry kindness from him.
“Hi, Max!” she said wiping her tears quickly.
“What’s wrong? Did you and Manning have a fight or something?”
“No, nothing like that. Please sit down, I could really use the company even though I’m probably the last person you want to see right now.”
“Yes you are!”
“I know, Max. I’m sorry,” she said, looking away.
Max sat down and looked across at her. She was pale and had dark hollows under her eyes which were filled with intense sadness.
“You look like hell, Blair!”
“Thanks a lot, Max!”
“Where’s all that radiance that’s suppose to come with impending motherhood?”
Blair wiped her face and ran a hand through her unkept hair, suddenly feeling self-conscious, her vanity kicking in.
“I’ve just had a hard day, that’s all.”
Max sat back and took her all in.
“I remember a Blair Daimler who wouldn’t leave the house looking less than drop-dead gorgeous. What happened to that woman, Blair. Did Todd wear you down into being his doormat, already? Begging for his little crumbs of love when he feels like throwing them your way, or when he wants something from you?”
She threw him an ugly look because sadly, that’s exactly what she’d been reduced to in order to keep this tenuous hold she had on Todd.
“Todd loves me, unlike you who brought your mistress into our bed! Remember that Max?”
Max looked away from her. Indeed he had been dishonorable to his wife, but he was being black mailed by Skye at the time, and sadly, he didn’t trust Blair. He and Blair were born con artists and, in the end, they even conned each other.
“He loves you by default, Blair. Everybody knows the only reasons he’s with you is because Tea Delgado dumped him for some reason, and you wound up pregnant with his kid...God knows how since from your own admission he‘s hardly a dynamo in the sack. But, hey...wait a minute...according to The Sun, I heard Tea was back in town. Is it true?”
Blair stared at him intently then looked away. He could always read her so easily.
“Ah, so that’s what’s got you in this mood Blair. Did I hit the nail on the head? Tea Delgado’s return got you down.?”
“I’m having Todd’s baby! Nothing she can do can compete with that!”
“Are you sure about that, Blair? You had Starr and that didn‘t keep him away from her.”
Blair looked away. She didn’t want to hear this logic.
“Did you just come over here to hurt me, Max, because I really don’t need this right now, not with everything that’s happened, okay?”
Tears filled her eyes again and overflowed down her face. Max was taken aback by her sudden outburst of emotion. Pulling his chair closer, he took her in his arms as she sobbed hysterically into his shoulder with powerful sobs that shook her body. For the first time in a week she allowed the grief of her dead child to overcome her in the arms of the first person who’d shown her any kindness or compassion, Max Holden. His embrace felt so good, his arms warm and comforting--the first human contact she had felt in months. There was a time not long ago when all she wanted was to be in his arms forever and have his child. What happened to her once happy life, she wondered?
Finally she calmed down and wiped her face on a napkin as Max watched her intently.
“What happened, Blair, what’s wrong?”
She looked into his handsome face, his clear and inquiring eyes, and wanted to tell him everything. Once he was the one she would have turned to for help, not RJ Gannon, but now she couldn’t trust him--she had hurt him to much in the recent past and there were too many schemes and betrayals between them.
“Nothing’s wrong. I have everything I’ve always wanted,” she said rather unconvincingly.
“Sure you do, Blair. That’s why you’re sitting here at the Palace Grill, in the middle of the afternoon, crying and alone,” he said, getting up slowly. Before he left he leaned down beside her and looked into her bloodshot eyes.
“I sense you’re up to something--you’re in some kind of jam. Am I right?”
Blair stared at him and for a moment all she wanted was to come clean--to confess her sins to someone--but she let the moment pass, and she just shook her head meekly.
He stood up to leave.
“Well then, good luck with your perfect life, Blair,” he said walking away from her table.
As she watched him move away she felt like a small, fragile boat that had lost its mooring and was drifting farther and farther away from the shore. Max had offered her a lifeline, but she refused to take it, not trusting anyone but herself, and the burden of self-preservation, of her own survival, was becoming much to heavy for her to bear. She feared herself floating away from reason and slipping into insanity.
to be continued...
2001 Copyright by Trog
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