ANDREW

My thoughts consumed me and it was too much for me to cope with and, with all the pain and the hurt, there was only one person I could speak to at a time like this; there was only one person I wanted to be there for me and to listen to everything which was on my mind.

I had last two hours before I phoned Ben and demanded that he meet me somewhere. He was my older brother and he had been there for me throughout everything, from the death of our asshole father to dealing with Rebecca walking out on me, but he could be a right ass when he wanted to be simply because he thought he was better than me most of the time; he actually did something with his life while I was handed everything which I had.

I am more than certain that the Board were going to be pissed with me walking out but, right now, I couldn't give a shit either way. I knew the game they were playing and I wasn't going to let them win, even if they were constantly one step ahead with everything they had planned, I would be the one to win this game now; especially with them sinking as low as employing the sister of Rebecca fucking Lopez.

They must have thought that was going to be the thing which broke me and, as hard it was to have her as my Personal Assistant, I was going to prove them wrong by being the strongest I had ever been; right after I had drunk some more whiskey and smoked more cigarettes than was considered healthy for a daily intake of nicotine.

Ben hated that I turned to alcohol as the answer to my problems and he hated the fact that I smoked even more. He detested people who smoked and the only time I had ever seen Ben drink was while he was in the company of myself, other than that, my brother steered well clear of alcohol and preferred to remain sober rather than off his face at any given opportunity; it was times like that when I refused to acknowledge that he was even my brother.

"So? What brings you here, brother?" I had barely taken a seat on the sofa opposite it when the words came out of his mouth. I always found myself looking around Ben's apartment whenever I came round here because I was always surprised by just how different it was to the apartment in which I lived. Ben could have any place he wanted, coming from a family as wealthy as ours, but he decided that he would prefer to stick to the quieter side of town.

His living room was surrounded my glass windows and gave one of the most impressive views of the East Coast in the evening that I had ever seen. There was the master bedroom which belonged to Ben, he didn't even have an en-suite and had to struggle with his tiny bathroom just beside the front door, and there was the much smaller guest bedroom which Andrea and Scarlett used whenever they came to town for their monthly visits. And the kitchen was barely big enough for one person to be able to cook a proper dinner.

"Y'know, I found out today just how far the Board are willing to go in their bid to remove me as CEO," I took a sip of the drink Ben had presented me with the moment I walked through the door. It was pretty scary just how well he knew me but, then again, he was my older brother and that meant he probably knew me better than I even knew myself.

"What do you mean?"

"They've only gone and fucking employed Rebecca's sister to be my personal assistant," I tried to hide the pain in my words but I knew it was useless. I was never going to really be over Rebecca and I certainly wasn't ever going to get over what she did to me, especially now I know that she walked out with my daughter and never even had the decency to tell me that she had been born.

I hated the way her name sounded coming out of my mouth. It was such a foreign word to me and I had gone for so long now, pretending that she had never existed, but that was damn near impossible because I had Alyssa as a constant reminder of my fucked up past. I couldn't refer to her as the bitch, like I had been doing all day, because Ben had always been to demand that I treat women with the utmost respect; even if that women had stomped all over my heart and treated me like complete shit.

Ben was the only family I had left. He had made it clear more than once that, if I didn't do what he expected me to do, then he would leave and he would never look back. No matter how much Ben pissed me off or made me want to punch him in the face, I wasn't willing to do something which would risk him walking out on me as well, not when I needed him as much I needed him right now.

"Personal Assistant? What do you need one of them for?" Ben seemed to find my situation amusing and that did make me want to punch him more than anything right now.

"I don't fucking know. I bet it's got something to do with the fact I award the top fifty employees a little bonus in their wages," I remembered back a couple of months to when I issued that order. I wanted to give something back to the people who had helped bring the company back from the brink and I still, to this day, don't understand what the hell I did wrong or why they were so determined to punish me for the act.

The Board, who did fuck all besides sit on their asses and criticise me, demanded that the extra money go to them. I hated their attitude though and thought that they were nothing besides a bunch of arrogant pigs, I shared that little thought with them as well when they asked where their bonus was and ever since that day, they've been looking for ways to force me out of the company.

My relationship with The Board has never really been something worth singing about and it only ended up declining further when they discovered that Jenni only got her job as my secretary after she slept with me a couple of times; she's a lovely girl though and does her job without fault. I may have slept with her before she got her job, but I haven't laid a finger on her since I gave her the job, and she knows I'm not likely to jump into the same bed as her while she's still working for the company.

"Andy, I know that you saved the company's public image and you brought it back before it was too late, but you're now pulling it apart from the inside. You need to stop before your good work goes to waste and there's nothing worth fighting for," Ben offered me a smile which didn't quite reach his eyes as he took a moment to consider what he needed to say to even out the situation in front of him.

Ben, at thirty two, was the total opposite of myself. He was always happy and he had smart ideas, at least ideas which he considered smart anyway. His hair was supposed to be brown but, at twenty to prove that he was just as rebellious as I was being at that time, he shaved it all off because he wanted to prove to our parents that he was more like me than they thought him to be. He inherited his green eyes from our father and stood a little over six foot, so I always held it against him that I was five inches taller than he was, despite being two years younger than he was.

He had never been blessed with muscles but that didn't stop him from being able to defend himself when it was needed. And he had never done anything in his life unless it was another person, he was too selfless for his own good sometimes and I wondered how the hell he managed to do that all the damn time. To put it bluntly, he was nothing like me and people didn't even know we were brothers, unless one of us told them that we were.

"I may have shouted at Rebecca's sister and grabbed her wrist when she pissed me off," I took another sip from my glass as I admitted that to Ben like it was a normal thing to do. I knew it wasn't normal to practically assault a woman but I wasn't thinking at the time and she wasn't listening to me, I acted in the heat of the moment and I knew that I acted the wrong way. But there was nothing I could do to change it and she wouldn't accept my apology, not even if I wanted her to accept it, she would tell me exactly where to stick it.

"You did what? What the hell have I told you about women?" Ben pushed himself from his chair and stood in front of me with his fists clenched. I was always disappointing him so it wasn't even a surprise that he was acting like this, though it wasn't the worst thing I could do and here he was acting like it was I had committed the world's worst crime.

"Terribly sorry that I can't be like you, Ben. I got fucked over by the woman I love so you'll have to forgive me for only ever wanting to fuck them and then fuck them off," I watched as Ben shifted uncomfortably on the spot at the sound of my laughter. I had never been one for dealing with emotions and neither was I one for living in the past but, when I drank from the moment I woke up until the moment I went back to sleep, I would consider killing the President without a thought for the consequences.

"You need to get over yourself, brother. This shit is getting boring now," I knew that he was tired of having the very same conversation each and every time he saw me but he didn't understand just how fresh the pain was each day I woke up. Each morning was a struggle and, as sad as it sounds, if Rebecca was to come back to me begging for forgiveness then I would probably forgive her without another thought. I told people that I hated her and that I wanted nothing to do with her but she had been the love of my life and I would take her back if she asked me to.

I knew that I was fool but I would never really be able to get over her. She had ruined any chances I could have had at happiness with another woman because she had taken everything for me, she had ripped my heart out and then left without a shit to give, and here I was struggling to get through each day while she lived her life like I had never mattered with her.

"I can't get over this. Every single time something is actually going my way, something else has to come along and fuck it all up for me," my eyes never left the glass in front of me. It was begging me to drink but there was something which meant my hand was frozen in place, preventing me from drinking the rest of the amber liquid.

"I think the real reason you're so angry is because Rebecca's sister—"

"Alyssa. Her name is Alyssa," my thoughts flicked through the events which happened this morning like it was a cartoon flip book as it played back to me and I suddenly felt like a prize prick. I had been an asshole for no reason other than the fact she looked exactly like her sister and I assumed that she was going to be just like Rebecca in every single way other than just her looks. "She looks exactly like Becca. Only she has a bigger mouth and an answer for everything. She didn't even shut the fuck up when I started to lost my temper. Then—"

I couldn't bring myself to admit what I had done to her again. Ben was right, not that I would ever tell him that to his face, but I had gone too far when I grabbed her wrist and shouted in her face. But she wouldn't shut the hell up and no female had ever been as brave as she had been; no one had ever dared to speak to me in the way she had spoken to me. I didn't want it to happen again but, at the same time, I couldn't help but wonder what else she was capable of and what other things she could say about me in the heat of the moment.

I needed to know what else her sister had told her about me. I knew that it was all lies, whatever Alyssa had been told about me, but she was never going to believe me over her own sister. She was going to believe me even less after the events which escalated this morning and I knew what an idiot I had been, I had definitely confirmed whatever thoughts she had already had about me.

"—You grabbed her and shouted at her," Ben already knew what I was going to say so I didn't even need to finish the sentence.

"I told her that Becca was fucked up. But I got that the wrong way round," I sighed as my attention was drawn to my feet because it meant that I wouldn't have to face my brother's glare as he took in what I was telling him, "I'm the one who is fucked up."

"You're not, fucked up, as you so delicately put it. You've just had a pretty shitty time and you were fucked over by the woman you loved. But you really do need to get over her because she was a coward. She was a coward and she left you, Andy," Ben took a moment to pause, his expression told me that he was considering whether he should actually say the next part but I knew that he would say whatever it took to get something into my thick head. "Hell. She was probably only with you for your money."

"I made her cry. I shouldn't give a shit about the fact I made her cry, so why the fuck is it bothering me this much?" it was shocking that I actually cared about the fact I had made this one woman cry. After all the shit I had been through with Rebecca, I had locked my heart in a cage to protect it from everyone who tried to steal it, but now it was trying to escape and it was almost demanding me to feel something I never wanted to feel for Alyssa Lopez.

"Perhaps there is heart in that cold chest of yours after all, Andrew Collins," Ben tried to make a joke. If anyone else had made that joke, I would have either punched him or used my wonderful choice of English to tell them exactly where to go, but since it was Ben who had made the comment, I allowed it to slip this once without any action against him.

"You have another niece. I have a daughter, Ben," I put the drink down on the table in front of me with my elbows on my knees as my head fell into my hands. "I have a daughter and she probably thinks that I'm some waste of space who doesn't even love her."

"I am sure she thinks a lot of things about you, but I'm sure that's not one of them," I lifted my head slightly at the sound of her voice and, though I wanted to smile at the thought of my daughter not thinking badly of me, I couldn't help the look which crossed my face instead as I turned to face Alyssa.

"What the fuc—"

"Ah. Miss Lopez. I am glad Robert got the message," Ben stood from his seat and offered it to Alyssa who looked at him a little gone out. Perhaps she was surprised by how different Ben was to me. While I shouted at her and made it known to her that I hated her, Ben offered her his seat and smiled at her with pure joy.

"Thank you, Mr Collins," Alyssa was too polite and Ben was too informal, so I knew he was never going to accept that from her and he would allow her to call him by his name.

"Please, call me Ben. Mr Collins is reserved for my dear brother here," Ben walked over to me but I paid no attention to him as I glared at Alyssa while thinking of all the reasons there could be for Ben to call her here. Sure, I was drunk, but I wasn't drunk enough to want to deal with anymore of her shit again today; in fact I just wanted to go to sleep and forget that today had ever happened.

When I woke up in the morning, this would all turn out to be a bad dream, none of this will have happened and my life will back to the cold emptiness which I am used to. I won't have met Alyssa and I wouldn't be feeling things which I hadn't felt in more than three years and I sure as hell wouldn't be planning all the ways in which I could murder Ben for being such a sneaky bastard.

"You shout at me for calling you miss, but you'll fucking reply to him when he uses it?" the smell of alcohol coming from my own mouth was now a little overwhelming and, if someone was to light a match in front of my mouth, I would probably burn down Ben's apartment in the process of breathing.

"Andrew. Behave," I felt like a child with the tone Ben used against me as he slapped me round the back of the head, much like our father would do when we were younger and he wanted us to listen to the scolding he was giving.

"No. I come here to tell you about my shitty day and you have the audacity to invite her here. Are you fucking stupid?" I threw myself from the chair and began pacing the room, stumbling over my footing a couple of times but I didn't give a fuck, I was pissed with my brother and I was going to kick the shit out of him when I was in a more suitable state to be able to do so.

I was so damn tired of people playing me, of people going behind my back and doing things I didn't ask them to do. I didn't want some personal assistant and I didn't understand why those fuckers on The Board wanted me to have one either. And I sure as hell didn't ask to me provoked by someone so insignificant that I was actually considering apologising to her the next time I saw her.

"Wonderful to see that you're an even bigger ass drunk than you are sober," Alyssa's comment came out harshly and I couldn't help the smirk which covered my face as she seemed to think I gave a shit about what she thought about me.

"Wonderful to see that alcohol doesn't actually make you any hotter," I steadied myself against the cabinet which held all of Ben's alcohol. Though I think it would be more appropriate if it was my alcohol since the only time my goody two shoes brother even opened the cupboards on this thing was when I paid him a visit.

"You never cease to amaze me."

"Good job I'm not here to impress you," I knew that my words weren't really needed and I am sure they were hurtful to her but I didn't give a shit right now. I was drunk and pissed off which was never a good mix and I also didn't see the point in trying to impress someone I didn't want round in the first place anyway; I didn't need her to like me and I didn't want her to like me either.

"Andrew," Ben's threatening tone sounded from beside me.

"Benjamin," I couldn't help but imitate his tone as I took a swig on Vodka from the bottle. I needed something to knock me out and that was the first bottle I put my hands on, it wasn't my usual choice of drink, but it would do the job and it would eventually end this day.

"I am so pleased to finally meet the person my sister was going to marry. Such a good job she didn't though because I wouldn't want someone like you in my family anyway," I turned my head so quickly that I heard the click in my neck and a shot of pain went down my spine to the base of my back, but I ignored it for the simple fact she didn't have the right to pass comment on me when she didn't even know the first thing about me.

"Someone like me? You don't know the first fucking thing about me."

"In the last five hours, I've learnt far more than I need to know. I have learnt what a complete ass you are. I have learnt that you have no regard for the feelings of other, especially women, you are clearly short-tempered and you wouldn't know what respect was if it slapped you in the face. I've been through a lot of shit in my life but working for you is definitely going to be the worst thing I've ever had to do," she walked over to where I was standing while I continued to drink the clear liquid from the bottle in my hands. It was like fire down my throat but it was almost welcoming as I remembered the effect it was going to have in the end.

"Good effort. But, like I've already told you, I've been called worse," I managed to get back to my seat with the bottle in my hand and a cigarette in the other. I fumbled around my jacket in an attempt to find my lighter so that I could smoke the damn thing.

"Smoke enough of those and we can have a fucking party to celebrate your death," I heard her emotionless voice from behind me but, little did she realise, death would be a welcome thing right now; death is the one thing I have been waiting for but it always seems to escape at the moment I think I am going to be free from this hell.

"You won't be short of guests, babe. I've pissed a lot of people off in my time."

"I couldn't possibly imagine why," the sarcasm was so obvious and she didn't even make an attempt to hide it from me. I would have commended her had I not been as pissed off with her as I am right now.

"You will have to forgive my brother, Miss Lopez, I am afraid he left his manners in the ditch from which he clearly climbed out of this morning," Ben always had an excuse for me but I didn't need them. I didn't need him to defend me and I didn't need him to be there for me, not when he didn't understand and not when he was only trying to cover his own ass.

"Don't lie to the poor girl. I would hate for her to actually enjoy working with me," I managed to lit the cigarette which was between my lips though I only managed one puff before Ben walked over to me and snatched it from my mouth. I watched as he walked into the kitchen and ran it under the top so he could put it out without ruining his precious furniture.

"I told you before. Don't smoke in my house," Ben lost his cool when he walked back into the room. He tried to take the bottle from my hand but it was useless because I was never going to relent my grip on it; I would never let him take the only medicine from me which actually numbed the pain and made living bearable.

"I told you before. Don't smoke in my house," I mocked in the same tone he had used with me. "You're worse than dad ever was."

"Real mature, Andy. I'm sure your daughter would be proud to call you her father," Ben didn't spare my feelings with his comment and, though I knew he was right, it didn't stop me from taking another swig from the bottle in my hand.

"Too bad she doesn't know who I am to actually be proud of me," the venom in my words would have been enough to kill if they were a lethal weapon. I was still seething that Rebecca had kept the birth of my daughter from me, so I didn't need to be reminded that she didn't know who the fuck I even was to her.

"Bec may be a bitch but she's not that cruel. Ella—"

"Ella?" I tested the name with my own mouth and it sounded so perfect. I could imagine a little girl with my dark hair and blue eyes, those being the only two things she had inherited to me, while everything else looked exactly like Rebecca; it was the only thing I had ever wanted and now I was never going to get that. I was only ever going to know her name and that she was mine.

"Yes. Your daughter's name is Ella," Alyssa shrugged. I couldn't look at her and all I could do was fall silent at the revelation of my child's name. I wanted to meet her but I knew that wasn't likely to happen, no matter how much I wanted it to happen, Rebecca was never going to let me near my daughter. "Ella knows you're her father. Bec has done nothing other than paint a lovely picture of you. A picture which, as I have seen for myself, is nothing more than a lie."

"Ella," my voice was quiet as I tried to held back the tears which was threatening to fall, but it was useless, now that I knew her name, I wanted to know everything about her and I wanted to be able to tell her for myself that I loved her; I wanted her to know that I would have been there for her if I had known where she was and had I been allowed to know that I had a daughter in the first place. "My little girl."

I didn't even stop the tears from falling. The pain, the memories, the hurt and the shitty life which I'd been forced to life. It all hit me like a ton of bricks and it was simply too much.

I don't know where the hell I went wrong or where I fucked up to warrant my fiancée running away while she was pregnant with my child. But I did know that my life was so far off the rails now that there was zero chance of it ever being the same as it was before Rebecca left me; I was always going to be a shell of my former self.

I was just going to be a disappointment to all those who knew me or the one with too many problems to solve or the one no one could ever love because I was too broken on the inside to ever be capable of loving another in the same way I loved Rebecca.

"Now you can see the damage your sister did. You see the man that my brother has become because of one woman," I heard Ben sigh and I felt him wrap a comforting arm around me shoulder. I put my head on his shoulder and allowed the tears to fall for the love that I was never going to get over. "You just need to give him time. I know he seems impossible but, in time, you will see the person so many other people see."

The silence was deafening and the only thing which I could hear were my own cries. Ben was giving it his best shot at comforting me and I don't even know where the hell Alyssa was or even what she was doing. But I was the man that I was because of her sister, the woman I would never be able to forgive or, unfortunately, forget.

© 2015 Emma Norman. All Rights Reserved.