Love In Rewind
Book One from the
Audio Fools
Series
By Tali Alexander
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
* Adult Content Warning! *
The content you are about to read includes adult language and graphic descriptions of nudity and sexual activity. This book is intended for adult readers 18 years of age and older. Reader discretion is advised.
Published by Tali Alexander
Copyright
©
2013 by Tali Alexander
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For information address Tali Alexander at:
Tali Alexander Love in Rewind
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Love In Rewind©
, there are embedded web links throughout the novel. Please feel free to simply press on any song titles mentioned in this book. With proper Internet connection, if you so wish, you will be directed to
www.TaliAlexander.com
where you'll have the opportunity to read the lyrics and hear the songs mentioned inside
Love In Rewind©
.
I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me… -
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Love doesn't live here anymore...
L
ouis, are you up? Baby, please you gotta wake up," I cried out as I woke up covered in cold sweat, trying to pull awake my sleeping husband beside me.
"What is it, Em?" he mumbled groggily in a disoriented state. "Are the kids calling? Are they okay? Em, are you all right? Shit, what's wrong?" he asked in a now worried tone as he sat up. The bed dipped. I could feel him turning to face me in the darkness.
"Louis, the kids are fine. It's me. I just had a horrible dream about us. It didn't even feel like a dream; it felt so real." I took another deep breath to try and shake away the images still flickering in my mind. "We were making love … No! Not love, we were fucking, but not each other. I was watching you having sex with another woman. You were happy. I was crying, begging you to stop. It was so painful to watch. The sick part was that you were watching someone else fuck me and you were smiling and nodding. You had this expression on your face as if watching me with another man turned you on. It was so perverse. I can't get these images out of my head."
I looked at my husband, hoping he felt how vulnerable I was at that moment. He needed to take me in his arms and obliterate my nightmare with his soft lips, his gentle hands and soothing words. He was supposed to tell me how much he loved me, only me, and no one else. Hearing me say that in my sick dream he enjoyed watching someone else have sex with me should've made him enraged and outraged simultaneously. The man I married would've gone on an imaginary crusade into my subconscious to annihilate any man looking at me, let alone fucking me. But tonight there was no war, just silence.
"Baby, I need you to touch me," I begged him in the dark. Even I could hear how desperate I sounded. "Louis, you have to make love to me. It's been too long," I commanded while trying to pull him close to me. I couldn't see his eyes in the dimness of the night. All I saw was his face cast in dark shadows looking away from me. He was moving his head from side to side and irritably sneering. He had to know how much I needed him to reassure me that he would never ever be intimate like that with another woman.
"Say something. I'm falling to pieces in front of you and you won't even make a move to touch me!" I yelled at him, trying to get close to him. He moved further away from me on our big bed while tears silently rolled down my face at his lack of emotion and coldness. How could he not even attempt to console me after my heartfelt plea? He turned to look at his watch laying on the nightstand.
"What time is it? Fuck, are you crazy? It's five o'clock. It's still dark outside. I have a meeting in less than three hours. Let me sleep, for God's sake. Em, forget about that stupid dream and calm down. You need to just go back to sleep. Don't get yourself all worked up over nothing."
With that, Louis turned his back on me and my tears. To add insult to injury, he murmured to himself, "I can't believe you woke me up for this shit." Then he went back to sleep as if nothing had happened. There was no hug, no kiss, and no contact whatsoever. I was hoping this was still part of my nightmare … I wasn't that lucky.
With tear-stained cheeks I lay on my side of the bed shaking and screaming on the inside yet strangely still and quiet on the outside. Was the man sleeping beside me really my Louis? I looked down at my now blissfully sleeping husband. I didn't quite believe what I was hearing, or not hearing from this man who once upon a time couldn't get enough of me. Where was the man who promised to move heaven and earth to make sure I was his and no one else's?
I took small shallow breaths to try to calm the tremor inside. I kept counting down from a hundred to stop myself from screaming out loud and frightening the kids.
He doesn't want me!
kept repeating in my head.
He doesn't need me! He doesn't love me!
What did I do wrong? How did I let us get to this fucked up point in our love story? I realized sadly that even in my dreams I couldn't have Louis the way I once did.
I woke up a few hours later numb, cold and broken. I was all alone, both physically and emotionally. That was when I knew that our happily ever after had gone terribly wrong.
Ninety-five days.
That's how long it's been since I last had sex with my husband. I shouldn't be sad or pity myself, right? I live the life! I have a great man who adores and loves me—or did once. Louis works incredibly hard. He has built up his New York-based real estate development firm from nothing to a billion dollar company in less than fifteen years.
We have two beautiful kids: Rose, who just turned eight two weeks ago; and Eric, who's almost four. I gave up running an event planning company with my sister to stay home and be there for the kids and Louis. My husband wanted me to always be available for him.
We live in New York City the majority of the year. Our Upper East Side townhouse was once an embassy and takes up a good half of a city block. If I walk a few feet to the right, I'd be in Central Park, and if I take a few steps to the left, I'd be on Madison Avenue, the shopping mecca for the rich and famous.
I have need for nothing. I have a live-in nanny, a housekeeper, a cook, a driver, a masseuse, and a trainer. However, I would give it all up to have my husband want me like he once did. I'm twenty-nine years old but I feel like I'm eighty. You couldn't tell I suffer from depression and self-loathing by looking at me. On the outside I'm glowing and happy. I'm skinny thanks to André, my personal trainer. I look twenty-one thanks to Botox and my mom, who's a dermatologist and keeps my skin looking young and flawless. Bergdorf Goodman keeps me dressed like a movie star and yet neither Hermès nor Van Cleef can put a genuine smile on my face these days.
Some who don't know me would say Emily Bruel is just another spoiled little rich bitch. Well, that's why I keep my mouth shut. I don't complain. I take it as it comes and yes, I thank my lucky stars. But I'm starting to think that if I keep going at this pace I'll lose the love of my life.
My husband is the one and only Louis Bruel. He was once deemed New York's most eligible bachelor; now they call him "The Baron of New York Real Estate." He, like the rest of the world, seems to be oblivious to my dissatisfaction with our love life. He works fourteen-hour days and comes home to the picture perfect family he created. He has provided lavishly for us, and as I already mentioned, we need and want for nothing. Except, of course, the need I have for him to stop ignoring my existence.
When we first met I was an eighteen-year-old nobody. He was almost thirty years old and very much a somebody. How could I not fall madly in love with the wonderful Louis Bruel all those years ago? Lord knows, every woman who sets eyes upon him still does! Why should I be any different? Besides his obvious sexy good looks, he has this animal magnetism, a kind of swagger that attracts anything in its path. I will never forget that magical night eleven years ago when I first laid eyes on Mr. Louis Bruel. I can see it all play out from the very start. If I close my eyes and rewind it seems like yesterday.
Meet my dream boyfriend...
I
f one were to observe that party eleven years ago, I wouldn't need to point out who Louis Bruel was. He would stand out in a mosh pit. He was the tallest male in attendance, well over six feet. I, on the other hand, think I could've blended into any background unnoticed. I was working that evening as a waitress. He seemed very charming from afar. I couldn't tear my eyes from him all night—well, me and every other red-blooded female in the room.
I could hear his sexy baritone voice and laughter resonating above the piano playing in the background. When I would get momentary sprouts of courage that night and lift my gaze to meet his dark sensual eyes I'd look away almost immediately. I was too afraid to let my stare linger and look foolish. I think I felt his eyes on me from time to time, but there was no way he could've noticed me with all those beautiful women bobbing for his attention. It was nothing more than wishful thinking.
A few times during the party I was able to catch a side view of Mr. Incredible. He had the most beautiful long, dark lashes I had ever seen on a man—or a woman, for that matter. The lashes framed and outlined his big caramel colored eyes like eyeliner. His straight Roman nose, combined with his defined angular jaw and full lips, looked almost as if he was conceived out of my latest fantasy. Which still sadly consisted of
John F. Kennedy Jr.
in the prominent role of my boyfriend. Even after JFK Jr.'s sudden tragic death I hadn't been able to find another living, breathing man, to take his position as my imaginary lover until that very moment. At that moment all I wanted and desired was for that magnificent stranger to just look at me. I wanted him to stop talking to the girl with fake boobs who forgot to put her skirt on before she came to the party. I needed him to stop smiling at her and showing her his dimple; the dimple that somehow I felt belonged to me.
Mr. Perfect why can't you see me?
I had this indescribable need to walk over to him and run my fingers over his chiseled features, up that high forehead and into his thick mane. I had to prove to myself he really was a human and not some figment of my overactive imagination. At the time he wore his dark brown hair slicked back, very
Wall Street
young
Michael Douglas
style. His hair was so thick and wavy that no amount of gel could've kept it flat. I wanted—no, I needed—to run my fingers through his hair and pull it from the moment I first saw him.
His tanned face was clean-shaven and kissably smooth. That small dimple on his right cheek I noticed was visible only when he fully laughed. That dimple made him seem sweet. I wondered if he was just another guest or a hired model for the event.
As much as I couldn't stop admiring him that night, in my head it wasn't all one sided. I sometimes felt his dark eyes following me when I wasn't directly looking at him. Could he actually have seen me while encompassed by the constant swarm of women all around him? It appeared that every female in the room that night had her eye on him. His magnetism was palpable. He, however, kept turning his body to keep me in his line of vision all night. Or maybe it was all in my head. He was probably just moving around to talk to the people in the room and I just happened to be in the same direction he was facing.