Breathe, Charlie, breathe.
“She’s not really your type, is she? Bit funny looking, and her attitude is awful. She’s nothing like me or Sienna.”
“Don’t you dare mention Sienna’s name!”
Sienna? Is that the woman Max alluded to in the bar the other night?
“You’ll crawl back to me, Jake. You always do. Award season will swing around in no time and it’ll boost both our profiles, just like last year.”
It’s her absolute certainty that cuts the deepest. That, and the disdain… God, it’s dripping from her mouth like a hungry dog’s drool.
So, this was Jake’s game plan. He must screw women on location all the time, and then crawl back to her when it’s deemed mutually beneficial. Stupid me for thinking I was any different.
I can feel the tears welling up. They’re waiting in the wings like some melancholic troupe. I look down to find my clenched knuckles pressed tight against the door, but I don’t feel a thing. There’s a raucous shout from downstairs, but it’s like I’m hearing it from inside a bubble. Jake didn’t give a shit about what Cassie was feeding to the press because I was already dust in his rearview mirror.
“Have you spoken to Brad recently?”
“You and your jealously.” Cassie’s titter sounds like a three year old on helium. “You’d think after all these years you’d get a handle on it. I can recommend a real good therapist.”
“Well? Have you?”
“As of matter of fact, yes. He’s shooting a new movie in London, and the lead just dropped out. He’s offered me the role.”
“On whose fucking authority? Global is my studio. He’s needs approval from me before a single scene of that movie is shot.”
“Calm down, I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding. Listen, I’m scheduled to fly out to New York next month for the premiere of that movie we did last year. Shall we call it a date?”
“Fine,” I hear him snap. “I’ll get my L.A. team to call yours.”
It’s like listening to the sound of my heart shattering against the wall of his expensive suite.
So damn final.
I watch a cockroach climb the wall next to me and vanish into a crack in the ceiling.
Can I really be obliterated so easily?
That’s when I hear Lucy’s warning in my head. She begged me not to take this job. She knew what Jake was like. She’s a celebrity reporter. She hangs around with these people all the time.
Will Cassie still leak the story?
I stumble down the hallway, searching frantically for the positives in all of this. For the first time in sixteen years I wagered the last unbroken piece of me, and I lost it all to the best player in the house. My only consolation is the smashing of the smokescreen. The revelation of the lie.
I finally see Jake for the man he really is.
But it’s no good. Deep down I know it’s never going to be as simple as that, because in one shitty evening, I’ve lost the man of my dreams, the job I love, my self-confidence, and my reputation.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Oh, God, make it stop! Make it stop!
Bomb shrapnel is piercing my skull. I’ve never felt pain like it. Whimpering, I reach out for a glass of water on my nightstand, but my fingers close around something damp, instead. And prickly…
That’s not normal.
I peel one eye open and stare, uncomprehendingly, at a neat row of red and yellow flowers. It takes me a moment to get my bearings, and then another to realize that I’m staring at the well-tended undergrowth that borders the hotel swimming pool.
Looking down, my worst suspicions are confirmed. I’ve just spent the night on one of the woven sun loungers outside.
Fully clothed.
Shameless.
What the hell did I do now?
Lifting my head with a groan, I survey the scenes of devastation all around me. The courtyard is littered with catatonic bodies and a recycling center’s yearly quota of bottles. Max is sprawled out across a hot pink floatie in the middle of the pool, snoring gently and clutching a cocktail glass to his chest like some Club Tropicana hooligan who sampled too many of the song’s eponymous free drinks. He’s lost all his clothes apart from a pair of black Calvins and one sock. The other has been hoisted to the top of an outside light fixture and is currently flying the colors for over-the-top decadence.
I think hard—as hard as my throbbing head will allow. I have a faint recollection of a conversation with Zoe, and then of a cockroach climbing the wall, but everything is a bit hazy after that. Automatically, my thoughts turn to Jake.
Jake.
The full force of his actions hit me like a punch to the gut, along with the aftereffects of seven flaming sambucas.
I stumble to my knees, throwing up all over the undergrowth. Not so pristine now. I retch and retch until there’s nothing left but bile. Afterward, I raise a trembling hand to my mouth and notice bruising around three knuckles. There are spider cracks of dried blood in-between, too, sending sharp, jagged spikes of pain up to my wrist. If it’s not my blood, I hope its Jake’s. I really, really hope I smacked him one.
Somehow, I make it to the outside staircase. It feels like some horror movie character is drilling holes in my brain, and I have to hold on tight to the banister as it starts spinning like a Hitchcock vortex.
Fifty-five steps and two dry heaves later, I’m slotting the keycard into my hotel room lock. Someone’s pushed a note under my door, but I kick it out of my way without reading it. Jake is everywhere. There’s a discarded white T-shirt of his hanging over the back of my chair, and his iPhone charger is sprawled across my desk. He’s still claiming my personal space, just as he claimed my thoughts, and I hate him, hate him, hate him for it.
Walking over to the bed, I yank the nearest pillow toward me and bury my face in it. Cedarwood. Citrus.
Liar.
That’s when his loss hits me like a diabetic’s sugar crash. My legs give out, and I slither to the floor in a crumpled heap.
I cry for the man I thought he was.
I cry for the man he’ll never be.
Just like my father.
I recall Brad Wilson’s warning in L.A. So many people tried to tell me the truth about Jake, and I ignored them all.
I lie on the floor for the longest time, until my rivers turn into oceans, until I’m hollow and exhausted and I can’t cry anymore.
Swiping at my cheeks, I crawl blindly toward the bed and drag myself up by the quilt. Picking up the telephone on the nightstand. I dial down to reception with shaking fingers.
There’s a click on the line and then a friendly voice is wishing me a good morning.
“I’d like to book a taxi, please.”
“Certainly, madam. For what time?”
“Straightaway. To the airport.” I pause for a beat and sniff loudly. “And I’d like to check out.”
“Not a problem. The paperwork will be waiting for you downstairs. Your taxi will be here shortly. Good day, madam.”
I hang up and survey my hotel room with a mixture of inertia and despair. Moments later, I’m flipping drawers like pancakes and hurling belongings into my suitcase. I’m in such a state that I don’t notice Rachel slipping into the room behind me.
“What’s going on, Charlie?” she asks softly.
She’s still wearing her party dress, and her bob is nowhere near as sleek as it was ten hours ago. I haven’t seen her since last night when I still had a wing and a prayer for Jake and me. I know it’s totally irrational, but for some reason this makes me really angry with her.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I c-came to s-see if you were okay,” she stammers, quailing at the look on my face. “What happened last night?”
“I woke up.” If bitterness were a pill, mine would be cyanide.<
br />
“Has this got something to do with Jake?”
“Whatever gave you that idea?” I drawl, turning back to my suitcase.
“You walked up to him in the bar last night and punched him in the face. Everyone’s talking about it.”
“So, that’s how my hand got mashed up.” I examine my bleeding knuckles with a modicum of satisfaction. “I hope I gave him a black eye.”
“He’s mad and confused. Mostly confused. So am I.” Rachel is choosing her words carefully. She knows I’m a ticking emotional time bomb. “We’ve never talked about it, but you guys seemed good together.”
“Just an illusion,” I mutter. “A messed-up, cheating bastard illusion. Go ask him what Cassie was doing in his hotel suite last night.” I duck my head again so she can’t see my tears.
“Are you sure?”
I hate that she doesn’t sound surprised.
“I heard her voice. I heard what they said about me. He boomeranged right on back to her, just like you said he would! Now, if you don’t mind, I have a plane to catch and a life to get on with.”
Though fuck knows what I’m going to do with it.
She nods, accepting this. She doesn’t have a choice. “Will you keep in touch? With me, I mean,” she adds quickly.
I pause. Why am I treating Rachel like a co-conspirator here? None of this is her fault. Not one single thing.
“Oh God, of course I will.” Remorse starts seeping in through the cracks in my voice. “Promise you’ll call next time you’re in London? There’s a great wine bar near my apartment. Thanks again for everything.” I step forward to give her a hug.
“Take care of yourself, Charlie,” she says sadly, slipping her arms around my waist.
I always do.
I pause again in the doorway and stare down at the discarded note on the floor. I know it’s from Jake, but I have no intention of reading it. Instead, I make damn sure that it’s well and truly crushed under the wheels of my suitcase as I exit the room.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
An hour later I’m sat staring blankly at the airport departures board. After eight weeks away, I’m finally on my way home, but I’ve never felt less like celebrating.
Home is bad memories. My mother. No Jake.
Even Lucy’s black dress looks miserable about it. Tears and lipstick are smeared across the fabric, and the zipper broke in the taxicab on the way here, stranding me halfway between demi-slut and brazen. I couldn’t care less, though. Not when I have four words repeating over and over in my head like some reverse Buddhist mantra. The more I think them, the more gutted I feel.
Jake doesn’t want me.
Did he ever?
Sitting opposite me is a skinny blonde, the kind who eats cardboard for breakfast and counts the calories in water. She’s pretending to read Vogue, but she can’t stop sneaking glances at me. I know I look a state. My face is smeared with mascara like some gothic nightmare, but I needed to get out of the hotel fast, before Jake caught up with me. If I see him, I’m afraid I’ll crumble, and I’m not ready to lose my dignity along with everything else.
By some terrible quirk of fate, Cassie has been booked on the same flight back to London. Through the glass separating the first class lounge from economy, I can see her fussing over the lack of ice like a spoilt princess. Stupid cow. She and Jake are welcome to each other.
All of a sudden, there’s a commotion at security. The whole place turns to gawp at the spectacle unfolding.
“For fuck’s sake, let me through!” comes an achingly familiar voice.
Jake shakes off the security guard and hurdles the barrier as a second guard starts shouting urgent Arabic into his walkie-talkie. Jake scans the departures lounge until he spots me and then he’s striding up to where I’m sitting, his movements sluiced with rage. His face is pale beneath his tan, there’s a wicked-looking red mark high up on his left cheekbone, and the buttons on his shirt are done up incorrectly. He looks like he hasn’t slept for a week. “Where the hell are you going, Charlie?”
I rise to meet him but my legs are like jelly. I have to grasp the back of my chair to steady myself. “How did you know I was here?”
“I’ve just turned the whole of Morocco upside down looking for you. I literally had to shake the truth out of Rachel. What’s with the hit and run last night? You nearly broke my face.”
“I heard you, Jake.” My voice smacks into his name and then splinters—still, I’m determined to spit the words out somehow. “I was standing outside your suite the whole time. I heard exactly what you said to Cassie about me.”
Jake’s whole demeanor changes. “Fuck!” He reels away from me, and curses again.
“You were never straight about anything, were you? Is it true Walt Wilson’s your stepfather?”
“I don’t want to talk about this. Not here.” He indicates to the growing crowds around us. Over by the security station the guards are multiplying like lemmings, and they’re all pointing their walkie-talkies in our direction.
He leads me over to the small airport café. We seek out a broken kind of solace in a private booth at the back, taking up two seats opposite each other, invisible battle lines drawn on the dirty brown table between us.
“Who is she to you, Jake? I want the truth, and not your messed-up version of it.” I’m determined not to cry, but the tears start streaming anyway.
He clenches his jaw. “Don’t do this. It’s not what you think.”
“Why do you always avoid my questions? Is it some inbuilt fuck Charlie mechanism?”
“There’s only one way I like fucking you, Books… You were right. Cassie did find out about us, but don’t ask me how. She was going to shop us to the press unless I broke it off. What I said in that room was for her ears only. I’d have told her I was screwing the queen of England if it’d shut her up.” He tips his head back and exhales loudly. “I have to keep you out of the limelight, Charlie. I told you that before. It’s for your own sake more than mine. I have enemies, big enemies, and they don’t fight fair. I allowed myself to be distracted before, and it blew up in my face.”
I’ve never seen him like this. Mr. Cool is spiraling. He goes to rake his hand through his hair, then stops and clasps it to the side of his head instead, as though he’s trying to push a bad memory away.
“So, let me get this right… You’re allergic to the truth, and you don’t do apologies. That’s quite a list of fuck you attributes you have there.”
“I’m allergic?” He snorts. “Damn, that’s rich coming from you.”
I make to stand immediately. I don’t like where this is heading.
He follows me out of the café and grabs my arm. “Charlie, wait.”
“No!” I push him away, but he closes the distance again in one stride. “I can’t do this with you right now, Jake.”
“The hell you can’t!”
He takes my face between his hands and slams his mouth down onto mine. I taste the sour tang of his frustration. I’m bathed in the warmth of his embrace. I kiss him back with an intensity of my own, but at the same time, I recognize this kiss for what it is. It’s no different from the one I saw him give Cassie all those months ago.
Jake doesn’t like to lose, but he doesn’t have a choice this time.
“Come back to the hotel,” he begs me. “I need to fuck you, to climb inside you. To forget the world exists for a while.”
“And when you’re done using me as a distraction, will you tell me about Sienna?”
There’s a brief flare of pain behind his eyes—a streak of lightening in a sea of black.
He drops my face, and I feel our emotional chasm deepen into an abyss.
“Who is she, Jake?” I ask, shattered by his reaction.
“A piece of my past who refuses to die quietly.” His eyes dart toward the exit and my heart sinks.
The writing really is on the wall for us. Too bad I have twenty-twenty vision. “Who told you about her?”
“Cassie mentioned her last night, right before she slammed you for slumming it up with me. This woman— She meant something to you, didn’t she?” Did you love her once? Do you still? “Tell me about the scar on your wrist. Are they connected?”
“Why don’t you tell me about yours,” he says, turning it back on me so fast I can feel the whiplash. “And while you’re at it, tell me about your father.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I croak.
He knows I’m lying. It’s written all over his face. “Tell me about him. Tell me what he did to you. Every damn night in your sleep I hear you begging your father not to play games with you. What the fuck happened to you as a kid?”
White spots cloud my vision. I can feel terror gripping at my insides. “Shut up,” I whisper. Tight-lipped. Desperate. “Just shut up.”
“He hurt you. I can still feel his shockwaves in everything you do. He’s the reason you can’t trust anyone, why you can’t allow yourself to be happy.”
“Please.” I start crying big, ugly tears, and they won’t stop.
Meanwhile, the airport’s security guards have finally located us and are closing in, encircling us like the wounded animals that we are.
Neither of us is willing to budge.
Neither of us is willing to give up our ghosts.
“I’m not going to beg you to open up to me, Charlie. Add that to your epic list of Jake Dalton character flaws.” He sucks in a ragged breath. “It was a mistake to ever let us get this far.”
Please don’t say it. Please don’t—
“I’m done. I’m so fucking done. I wish you all the best, I really do. Let me know if you ever need a job reference.”
And then he’s walking away from me, and he’s not looking back.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
By the time my flight lands in London, Jake’s words are forever imprinted on my mind. Every sentence and implication is as agonizing as a cigarette burn.
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