Crossing kingdoms las ve.., p.25
Crossing Kingdoms--Las Vegas, page 25
Desperate from the silence of the heavens, Beth decided to spend one more day with each of the guys and really pay attention to how she feels with them, promising herself she would make her choice after her date to the New Year’s dance with Brock.
The following day Beth worked in the morning and met up with Dante in the late afternoon. It was their date for the Cirque du Soleil tickets Dante had given her for Christmas. They went for dinner at the hotel before the show and it was a magical evening. The date concluded with watching the dancing water in front of the Bellagio; it was one of Beth’s favorite things to do. Even though Dante had experienced such a traumatic moment when he saw his mom working there so many months ago, now that he knew the truth about her job, the Bellagio was no longer a triggering place for him.
Standing against the railing, with Dante behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist, and his face pressed up against her cheek, they relished the warmth of each other and the cool mist blowing onto them from the soaring water. As the breeze lifted her hair, feathering it across Dante’s face, he tenderly swept it back, exposing part of her neck below her ear where he left soft kisses. Beth’s quiet murmurs of “mmmm” and “wow” were for both the beauty of the dancing water and the incredible sensations left by Dante’s lips. It was a perfect night together, and Beth felt confident she knew her choice had to be Dante. How could it not?
On the night of the New Year’s dance, Beth and Brock ended up having an amazing time together. Beth thought her mind had been made up the other night with Dante, but being with Brock was easy and joyful. Laughing and dancing with their friends, it almost felt like old times.
No one was sure what was going on with Beth, Dante, and Brock, so a few of the other guys made some unsuccessful attempts for her attention, though they managed to get some slow dances with her. But she spent most of the night in one of her favorite places – dancing in Brock’s arms. And it didn’t go unnoticed.
When the count down brought them to midnight, everyone was cheering and hugging each other amongst hundreds of balloons dropping from the ceiling. Beth felt an arm come around her waist from behind and turned around as Brock whispered, “Happy New Year,” brushing his lips against her ear. Before she could respond, he had her in both of his arms, dipped her slightly, and kissed her square on the mouth for several seconds. Instinctively her arms wrapped around his neck.
“Whoa!” several of their friends were yelling in surprise. Beth blushed as Brock lifted her back up to face the reaction of the crowd. Brock was very pleased with himself; he was tired of hiding and wasn’t going to do it anymore.
Beth’s best friend, Kat, interrupted by grabbing Beth by the arm. “Excuse us,” she said to Brock as she dragged Beth out of the gym into one of the empty classrooms. “Beth! What the heck? I thought you were with Dante?” Kat had assumed Beth and Dante had gotten back together once he got home, especially since she knew he still spent a lot of time at Beth’s house.
“I am,” Beth confirmed.
“Well, that kiss sure looked like you’re with Brock!” Kat informed her of the obvious.
“Well, I am,” she confessed. Beth told Kat how she had originally decided to end it with Brock but got interrupted by Lillian before she could do it. And as time passed it became almost impossible because she wanted both of them. So, she had managed to keep both relationships somewhat secret; until tonight it seemed.
“What are you going to tell Dante now that everyone knows about you and Brock?” Kat worried for her friend. She also felt hurt that Beth had kept this from her but decided to let it go for now.
“I don’t know,” Beth felt rising frustration with Brock’s public display as she thought about the potential fallout. What would Dante do when he found out? She knew it would be disclosed to him at some point.
Her worry turned into panic as she got a text from Dante: Looks like you’re having a great time. Happy New Year. Attached to the text was a picture of Beth and Brock as they kissed. Someone had taken their picture and texted it to Dante.
“Oh no!” Beth cried out as she dropped to the floor in tears.
CHAPTER 32
Dante began work at four o’clock on New Years Eve. He would be working a ten-hour shift as they had multiple private functions they were cooking for, plus their sold-out main dining room. When he first started working at the Bellagio, being back at the restaurant was hard, remembering the night with Beth’s family when he saw his mom. It had triggered him even though he knew she hadn’t actually been working as an escort then. And now here he was, working there as a sous chef, and as an asset for the same organization she had been working for.
Go figure, his favorite restaurant was a hub for suspected trafficking scumbags. But now he loved working there, learning abundantly from the other culinary professionals; cooking was still a passion that saturated his soul. As for his work as an asset, it wasn’t exciting. He was tasked to get to know as many people working there as possible, though he wasn’t told specifics. On his own he also started getting to know regular customers and returning guests of the hotel.
Private functions provided the most insight as he was able to position himself at serving stations and watch interactions throughout the room. He occasionally reported to Tanis who he saw meeting with whom and let her know if he spotted certain individuals she had shown him pictures of, especially some from out of town or overseas. Otherwise, he simply enjoyed the privilege of working at such an elegant restaurant with the highest quality ingredients and equipment.
Dante had even become somewhat of an unofficial apprentice for one of the head chefs, and he got to spend his free time with Beth. Life felt good. Really good. Aside from their Christmas tension over Brock, they had grown even closer, and their date to the Cirque du Soleil show was amazing. Dante had been disappointed he couldn’t spend New Year’s with Beth, but it was a huge night at the restaurant, and he needed to be there. They planned to spend the next day together instead.
All the staff and customers in the restaurant gathered in the seating area to do a countdown to midnight. The energy was buzzing in the room; it had been an extremely fun night for all. As he walked back to the kitchen with his coworkers after the New Year celebrations, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Figuring it was Beth texting to wish him a Happy New Year, he was not expecting to see what was on his phone.
Serena was one of the girls in their youth group and had made her interest in Dante very obvious since he came back. Because he and Beth had been keeping their relationship quiet, Dante appeared to be single and fair game. He tried to gently decline Serena’s invitations to hang out or go on a date with her, claiming he wasn’t ready to start dating other people yet. His excuse irritated Serena because Dante clearly still had feelings for Beth, and she knew Beth and Brock were secretly together. If she could find a way to prove it to Dante, Serena believed she might have a chance with him.
Brock and Serena lived on the same street, and she had seen Beth at Brock’s house often. But she didn’t think Dante would believe her if she tried to just tell him they were secretly dating. Serena had been at the New Year’s dance and saw Beth and Brock glued to each other most of the night. It was clear something was still going on with them, and she saw the proof at midnight as Brock and Beth shared a substantial kiss; on impulse Serena grabbed her phone to take a picture of them.
Beth had her arms around Brock’s neck, his were wrapped tight around her body, dipping her back, and their lips plastered together. Serena decided to send Dante the proof, texting him the picture and a message saying: Happy New Year, Dante! Here’s to a year of moving on and new adventures! I hope we can have some adventures together. She sent it with a heart emoji and her name.
Dante was pissed. Not at Serena, he couldn’t fault her as he likely would have done the same thing. He was pissed at Beth. There was no doubt in the picture that Beth was still very comfortable in Brock’s arms, and lips. If Beth had truly ended things with Brock like Dante thought she had done weeks ago, there’s no way she would be responding to a kiss from Brock like that. He knew the feel of her arms around his neck, and that was not how she responded when she didn’t want to be kissed.
Needing to get back to work, Dante responded to Serena: To new adventures! He forwarded the picture to Beth before going back into the kitchen. Tomorrow would not be fun facing the fallout of this.
Dante didn’t get home until after 3:00am. It had been a very busy night at work. Beth had texted and phoned him several times since midnight, asking him to call her so she could explain the picture of her and Brock. But he was too tired and pissed off to talk. Once home, he undressed and collapsed into bed, sound asleep within minutes.
He was woken several hours later by a hand pressing on his bare chest, gently shaking him. Reflexively, he grabbed the arm, and with a quick twist he had the intruder’s arm pinned behind their back and pushed face down into his mattress while he jumped up.
Beth shrieked in pain and shock. The sound of her voice fully woke him up. “Beth? What the hell?” he cursed. “What are you doing here?” He flopped onto his back, rubbing his face. Beth scrambled up and sat on the far end of his bed, cradling her arm and still alarmed at his aggressive maneuver.
Finally, with a bit of anger, she said, “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all day. I thought you disappeared again!” she yelled at him.
Confused at her response, he looked and saw it was almost four in the afternoon. He had been asleep for over twelve hours.
“We were supposed to spend the day together,” Beth reminded him and then got quiet. “Since you haven’t answered any of my texts or calls after you sent me that picture last night ...” Dante flinched in memory and just stared at her. “I thought you ... well, I didn’t know what you would do.”
It was awkwardly quiet as they looked at each other. Dante got up and put a shirt on, adding to the shorts he had slept in, and walked out of his room without a word. Grabbing himself a smoothie bottle from his fridge, he stood staring at Beth waiting to hear what she had to say.
“Dante, please say something!” she pleaded.
“Me? What am I supposed to say? You are the one who has some explaining to do. So go ahead,” he said coldly, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed.
Beth was flustered and tried to speak a few times, deciding what to say. “I’m sorry,” she finally apologized.
“Sorry for what?” Dante questioned. He wasn’t going to make this easy for her.
She let out an exacerbated sigh, wrestling with guilt and annoyance. “Can we sit down and talk?” she asked.
He gestured with his hand toward the couch but remained silent. Beth sat on the end of the couch, expecting Dante to sit beside her. He instead sat on a chair nowhere near her. That stung, and tears glistened in her eyes. “Can you tell me who sent you that picture?” she tried an indirect approach.
“That’s not relevant to what we need to talk about,” Dante said bringing it back to the point.
Beth confessed, “I don’t know what to say, Dante.”
“Just tell me the truth, Beth!” Dante raised his voice in aggravation. “The picture clearly looks like you and Brock are still together. Are you?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “We were.”
“Were?” Dante questioned. “Have you broken up since midnight?” Cynicism was clear.
“Well, no. But ...”
“But nothing, Beth,” Dante interrupted, “if you were together at the time of the picture, and you haven’t broken up since then, you are still together!” He was brimming on yelling now. “Did you ever break up with him?”
“No,” she confessed again in shame. What had she been thinking? Her mom had warned her they were going to get hurt.
Dante couldn’t look at her anymore. “All this time you have been with both of us? Now I understand why you wanted to keep our relationship a secret!” He was deeply hurt. “You have been lying to and cheating on both of us this whole time!” It wasn’t a question, but disbelief saturated his voice.
“It wasn’t like that, Dante. Or at least I didn’t mean for it to be.” She closed her eyes, shaking her head at her own stupidity. “I had every intention of ending it with Brock when you came back and we talked. This is going to sound like an excuse, but it’s true. I was on the phone with him that Sunday and was trying to explain to him how much you mean to me. I had told him how I felt about him and was about to break up with him. My family came home, and Lillian interrupted the call before I could tell him you and me were still together. He misunderstood because I had shared my feelings for him, and he suggested we could keep things quiet for awhile to avoid hurting you.” They both scoffed simultaneously at the irony of that.
“I planned to tell him the next time we saw each other, but I just couldn’t do it. The more time I spent with each of you, the more impossible it got.” Her voice shook with desperation for Dante to understand.
“Why, Beth? Why would you lie to me, to us?”
“Because I didn’t want to hurt either of you. I care about you both so much!” she was sincere, but Dante didn’t accept that.
“No! You didn’t want to hurt yourself. This was totally selfish, Beth!”
She knew he was right. As much as she convinced herself it was to protect the guys, it was really about what she wanted. “You’re right, Dante. It was wrong of me and really selfish. And I am so sorry for hurting you!” The tears flowed freely now. “How can I make this up to you?” Her voice was a raspy whisper.
Dante thought for a moment and asked, “Are you ending it with Brock today?”
Beth’s shocked expression and her delayed response gave Dante the true answer. He said quietly, yet firmly, “You can leave now. That’s what you can do.”
“Dante, no! Please!” Beth protested. “Please. We can work through this!”
“No, we can’t, Beth. Not right now we can’t. I would do almost anything for you. But I won’t be your secret while you are with Brock, or anyone else! And I can see you still don’t intend to break up with Brock. So, you can help me by leaving my house and leaving me alone.” He stood up, demonstrating his definitiveness, but Beth didn’t move.
“I don’t want to lose you, Dante!” she cried.
He took a deep breath to calm himself, then slowly walked over to her. Taking her by both hands, he pulled her up to him, looking deep in her eyes. His expression was filled with anger and pain. Dante kissed her briefly on the lips and then the cheek, and whispered beside her ear, “You made your choice, Beth. The fallout is on you.”
She was not expecting that from him and didn’t process that he was walking her to the door at first. He grabbed her keys from the counter on the way, quickly sliding his condo key off; Beth suddenly realized what he was doing. As he opened the door and she tried to resist, he said with a completely detached tone, “And don’t worry, Beth. I won’t tell Brock about your secret.”
With a gentle shove, Beth found herself out in the hall with the door slammed and locked in her face. She pounded on the door, pleading for him to let her in. Dante went to take a shower and blasted some music to block out any other sound. He didn’t know how long she stayed there, but after a few hopeless moments of banging on his door, she left heartbroken and went home.
Her mom was the first to see her tear-streaked face. “Dante found out about Brock, and he broke up with me. He kicked me out of his house, Mom! And took my key!” She fell into her mom’s arms sobbing.
Kim stroked her head and just kept saying, “I’m so sorry, honey.” Now was not the time to say I told you so or ask questions. She tried to encourage Beth to come eat dinner, but Beth had no appetite.
Climbing into bed, Beth texted Dante: I’m so sorry. I love you, then cried herself to sleep.
CHAPTER 33
Beth spent the next two days in bed; she felt sick, but it wasn’t an illness. Brock texted and called her everyday. She only responded by telling him she was sick and didn’t feel up to talking, even though she had tried to call Dante multiple times, with no success. Sunday came around and she was feeling a bit better and joined her family at church. She was hoping Dante would be there but was not surprised that he didn’t come.
Brock was relieved to see Beth again but could tell something was wrong. Instead of going to their classes, Brock led her to the garden outside the church to talk. Sitting on the bench, Brock held her hand as he asked what was bothering her.
Taking a deep breath, she explained, “Someone sent Dante a picture of us kissing at midnight on New Year’s and I had to tell him we have been together all this time and that I’ve kept it from him. He was furious with me, and really hurt that I lied to him. He kicked me out of his house when I went there to talk to him about it. And he won’t talk to me anymore,” tears came quickly to her again.
Brock couldn’t deny the relief he felt hearing that Dante finally knew, and they wouldn’t have to hide their relationship anymore. But he could tell this was very painful for Beth. Putting an arm around her and still holding her hand, he pulled her close to him for comfort.
After composing herself, she sat up straight and said, “Brock, I haven’t been honest with you either.” She had to be free of the lies. Brock stiffened beside her. “I have been seeing both of you this whole time.”
Letting go of her hand and dropping his arm from around her, Brock shifted away from Beth on the bench, waiting for her full confession.
“I was completely selfish,” she remorsefully declared. “I wanted both of you; I didn’t want to have to choose. I couldn’t choose! I’m so sorry!” She turned to him and rested her hands on his knee. “You are so important to me. I can’t imagine not being with you. I want to be with you. But I understand if you don’t want to talk to me anymore either.” Hanging her head in shameful anguish, she braced for his rejection.
