We both blow on our coffee, eyeing each other warily.
“Thank you for seeing me,” he says eventually.
“It’s okay. You didn’t wake me up.”
“That’s not what I meant.” His gaze is even, firm. “Thank you for seeing me after what I did yesterday. You could easily have refused to talk to me again. I appreciate that you didn’t just tell me to fuck off.”
“I thought about it,” I admit.
“Of course you did, and that’s fair enough. But I’m glad you didn’t.”
We sit quietly for a little while. Outside, the snow blows against the window, soft and silent. An owl hoots.
Stefan looks into his mug, and I take a moment to study him. His hair is still sticking up. He’s unshaven, and he has dark shadows under his eyes. I doubt he’s slept at all. But he’s still the most handsome man I know.
He’s not as sporty as he used to be. He and Hal used to play rugby in the winter and cricket in the summer. They’re both swimmers, and when they were young, they’d go to the gym together, then stop off at the beach and go for a long swim. How many years have I watched the way his shirt sleeves stretch over his biceps? How often have I run my gaze down him when he’s been wearing swim shorts, wondering what it would be like to trail my fingers through his chest hair, and follow the happy trail down?
I’m twenty-eight now, heading toward thirty. It’s time I stopped messing around with fantasies and daydreams. If this doesn’t work out, and I don’t think it’s going to, when I get home I need to finally put him out of my mind and move on.
He clears his throat. “I was exceptionally rude to you last night. The things I said were unforgivable, and I die a little inside every time I think about them. They stemmed from the fact that I was frustrated with myself and trying to give myself a reason why we’re not suitable, but they’re not true. You’re not outspoken, you stand up for yourself, that’s all, and I love that you’re like that. You’re smart and elegant, and you have an ability to put everyone at ease, no matter what their background is or where they’re from. You’re kind and generous, and you’ll help anyone in trouble without having to be asked.”
I sip my coffee, slightly mollified. “Say more nice things like that,” I tell him.
His lips twitch, but he can’t seem to bring himself to smile. “I can’t believe how arrogant I must have sounded, saying you’re not my type. You’re not—but not because of the reasons I mentioned. You’re not my type because you’re a magnificent example of a human being, so out of my class I can’t even begin to explain. I could never even begin to deserve you, Jules.”
His eyes are clear—he means every word. I don’t quite know what to say.
“Nothing excuses the way I kissed you without your permission,” he continues. His face is drawn, and his eyes look dead. Despite what’s happened between us, he’s my friend, and I hate to see him feeling so bad.
I poke him with my toe. “There was nothing wrong with the kiss in essence, Stef. You knew how I felt about you. You didn’t misread the signs.”
“Maybe,” he concedes. “Maybe not. Whatever, I took it too far, and I’m not proud of that. I could put it down to alcohol, to the magic of the moment, to being away from home and feeling that whatever happens in Finland stays in Finland, but none of that is fair. Consent is such an important issue to me right now, and I’m shocked, and horrified, that I overstepped the mark.”
I frown at him. “What do you mean, important to you right now?”
He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “You know that Maia was dating Mason Albright?”
“Yeah,” I say. I’ve met him a few times. “They broke up last year, didn’t they?”
“Yes. She ended it… because he raped her.”
I stare at him, going cold inside. “What?”
“Apparently, things hadn’t been good between them for a while. She never went to university after school because she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with herself, but she took a part-time business course and loved it, and decided she wanted to go back and get a business degree. Mason didn’t want her to; he wanted them to get a house and settle down.”
He stretches out his legs and has a mouthful of coffee. I can’t bring myself to say anything because I’m too stunned by this revelation. I’ve known Maia as long as I’ve known Stefan, and although I haven’t seen quite so much of her, I know her well enough to find this shocking.
“Anyway,” he continues, “you know what Maia’s like. She’s not shy and retiring. She wasn’t going to do what Mason wanted just to please him. I guess the arguments got worse and worse. And one night, it got out of control. She told him she’d had enough, and she was going to leave him. I guess that frightened him, and he realized he’d lost control of her. She packed a bag and tried to walk out, and he physically stood in her way. He tried to apologize and kiss her, and she refused. They struggled, and it deteriorated from there.”
“Oh my God,” I whisper. “What happened after that?”
“She went straight to our parents’ place. They were horrified; not just because she’d been raped, but because Mason is the son of Mom’s best friend, Sarah.”
“Oh jeez, of course.”
“Dad tried to call the police, but Maia didn’t want to. She didn’t want to press charges.”
“Why not?” I say, aghast.
“Because she’s terrified, and ashamed. She says she just wants to forget about it and put it behind her. We’ve all tried to convince her otherwise, but she’s adamant. She says she doesn’t want to ruin our parents’ friendship with John and Sarah, but of course, it was ruined the moment Mason did what he did.”
“What happened between your parents and Mason’s?”
“Maia didn’t want Mom to tell them, but there was no way Mom and Dad could continue to be friends with John and Sarah knowing that their son had assaulted their daughter, so they made the decision to tell them. I was there when Dad rung John. He and Sarah insisted on coming around straight away. Sarah was inconsolable and just wanted to talk to Mom, but she was with Maia and wasn’t ready to talk. It was awful. In the end, John convinced Sarah to leave. I can only imagine the conversation they had with Mason when they eventually saw him.”
“Oh, Stefan.”
“Everyone was thrilled when Maia and Mason started dating,” he says. “They’d all been friends for so long; it was the perfect situation for everyone. But for this to happen… How do you recover from something like that?”
“Are they talking now?” I ask.
“Mom and Sarah eventually met up on their own and talked things through. Obviously, they have a very old friendship, and I guess they felt they couldn’t throw that away over something they had no control over. But of course, things will never be the same. How can it be, when your best friend’s son has raped your daughter? How could a friendship ever be the same after that?”
And suddenly, I understand. Because our parents are friends, he’s terrified that if he were to date me, and something went wrong, it would drive a wedge between our parents, and also between him and Hal.
“What happened,” I ask softly, “with you and Mason?”
“I was furious that he wasn’t going to be prosecuted,” he replies in a low voice. “I went around to see him. He was a mess. His father had already practically crucified him.” He sinks his hands into his hair. “Next to Hal, he was my best friend. I trusted him like a brother. I thought he was one of the good guys. How could he do something like that to my sister—the woman he loved? I yelled at him, pushed him around, but he wouldn’t fight back. He just cried. I was so sickened, I ended up walking out. Sometimes, though, I wish I’d beaten the crap out of him. Maia has nightmares, and I think hurting him might have made me feel better.”
“It wouldn’t,” I whisper. “I know it wouldn’t.”
“He’s ruined everything,” he says. “He’s ruined what I could have had with you. And I hate him for it.”
Chapter Fourteen
Stefan
I know Jules will never be able to comprehend fully the horror of that week. She’ll never understand the pain I felt for my parents as their friendship was ripped apart, the gut-wrenching anger that boils within me toward Mason for abusing my sister, and especially the sorrow I feel for her.
But hopefully she’ll at least understand why we can’t possibly date.
Part of me wonders whether she’ll say Mason hasn’t ruined everything, and there’s still a possibility of us being together. I’m relieved when she doesn’t say anything. Earlier, she said, You knew how I felt about you. Past tense. I think what I did last night killed any affection she might have had for me. I tell myself that’s a good thing.
We sit in the quiet, my spirits slowly sinking like the fluttering snowflakes. There’s a sense of finality to the moment, as if a door has been closed on the future. We’re done, I think. Now she’ll move on, and at last we’ll be able to put the ghosts of this sorry relationship to rest.
“How’s Pete?” I ask her.
“Pete?” She looks confused.
“From Leon’s wedding.”
“You mean this one?” She makes a wanking gesture.
I give a short laugh. That’s the reaction I had when Hal said they seemed to be hitting it off and Pete seemed a nice kind of guy. “Your brother has a big mouth,” I tell her. “I hear Pete’s moving to Auckland, and he wants to catch up.”
“Yeah.” She finishes off her coffee and puts the mug on the table.
“Are you going to?” I ask.
“Depends,” she says. She leans back, pulling the duvet up. Her hair is a little wild. I bet she looks like this when she’s had sex. I blink and try to focus on what she said, and realize she’s saying it depends on what happens between us.
We study each other for a long time.
“I can’t,” I say eventually. “I just can’t.”
“I understand,” she replies.
There’s another long silence. My head spins. She’s wearing no makeup, and her mouth looks soft and kissable. I want to pull her across the sofa into my arms and kiss her senseless. I want to slide my hands up her pajama top onto her warm skin, and down beneath the elastic onto her bottom. I want to make love to her, possibly more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my whole life.
But I don’t.
Eventually, she clears her throat. “Okay,” she whispers. “Well, I might try to get another couple of hours sleep.”
I nod, rise, and take our coffee mugs into the kitchen. Then I go back into the living room and pull on my boots and jacket.
Pausing by the door, I hesitate and look back at her. “Thank you for listening.”
I wish I could stride over to her and crush my lips to hers. But it’s the last thing I can do. So I turn, open the door, say, “See you at breakfast,” and go out into the wintry morning.
I didn’t sleep much last night, so I set my alarm for seven, go back to bed, and crash straight out. It seems like no time at all when my phone wakes me, and I rise groggily and have a shower to wake myself up. How long does jet lag last, for God’s sake? I Google it and discover it takes about a day to recover for each time zone you cross. Great, so I should just be fine by the time I fly back.
The Christmas spirit I’d begun to feel the day before has evaporated, and I feel grumpy and irritable. I shouldn’t have come. I should have stayed at the Ark and kept things running there. Noah’s getting married and, as much as I want to be here to support him, the last thing he needs is a miserable Scrooge bringing the mood down.
Maybe today I ought to take myself off somewhere. I doubt anyone would even miss me. I could escape Christmas-ville and explore the surrounding area instead. Get out into the forest and animal watch.
It sounds like a great idea, but I know I can’t do it. It would be rude to just disappear for the day. It would suggest to Jules that I don’t want to be in her company, and Hal and the others would worry. No, I’ve made my bed and I need to lie in it, no matter how uncomfortable the mattress is.
So I go to breakfast and try to be as cheerful as possible. Noah announces that if anyone’s interested, he’s booked some reindeer excursions to explore the wilderness. I decide it’s probably better to join in than to mope around the village, so I meet the rest of those wanting to go at ten a.m. out the front of the Escape.
Jules is there, but Ryan has decided not to go, so she partners up with Clio, and the two of them share a sleigh. I hover at the edge of the group, trying not to be irritable, thinking it would be best to take a sleigh on my own, but Brock King wanders over and declares that Erin wants to do a bit more shopping this morning, and did I want to share a sleigh with him? I’m too polite to turn Jules’s father down, so I nod, and we board one together.
“I feel like an old woman,” Brock says as he covers his knees with a thick blanket.
“I don’t think you’ll mind when we get going,” I tell him. “I have a feeling it’s going to be real cold out there.”
True enough, we’re glad of the thick blankets once the sleighs head out across the fields, the jingle of the reindeer’s bells accompanying us. I’m wearing thermals under my jeans and sweater so it’s not too bad, and it’s such a beautiful landscape. We cross frost-encrusted grass and skirt by the river I saw last night, that looks like something out of Jack Frost’s palace with its white reeds and snow-covered rocks. Then we enter the forest, and we pass under branches with icicles hanging precariously above us, through bare, wintry trees white as skeletons and evergreens thick with snow.
“Bit different from the bay,” Brock comments as a rabbit bolts out in front of us and disappears into the frosty bushes.
“Just a bit. I saw an Arctic fox last night.”
Brock’s eyebrows rise. “Outside the suites?”
“No, I went for a walk… into the forest.” I wait for him to make a comment about how dangerous that was.
He doesn’t, though. He looks away, through the trees, for a moment. Then, out of the blue, he says, “I keep meaning to ask, how’s Maia?”
I look at him. Has Jules told him about our conversation last night? I doubt it somehow; I guess it’s more that he’s picking up that something’s on my mind, and I know that Dad must have told him what happened with Mason.
“She’s okay,” I reply. “Still struggling a bit. But I think she’s moving forward, slowly.”
“Can’t have been easy for any of you,” he says. “I know when Hal and Ryan found out what had happened between Connor and Jules, they both wanted to take him behind the woodshed and beat the shit out of him.”
I give a short laugh. “Yeah. I was telling Jules last night, actually, how I went to see Mason a day or two after it happened. I think I was hoping he’d deny it, or laugh, or tell me it didn’t matter or something, so I could hit him and we could fight. Sounds prehistoric, doesn’t it? But he didn’t. He was pathetically distraught.” I don’t bother keeping the contempt out of my voice. “I ended up walking out.”
We don’t say anything for a minute or two, as the sleighs cross a bridge over the river, and then we head back into the trees.
“Yeah, it’s difficult,” Brock says. “We try to be modern guys, but beneath the veneer of civilization we’re cavemen at heart, aren’t we? We all want to protect our women and our families. Telling men it’s all right to cry doesn’t magically erase that innate strength and protectiveness and anger.”
I nod slowly, surprised by his astuteness. “I suppose the problems start when we can’t control our baser instincts.”
“Yeah. I’m proud of you for walking away. It would have been all too easy to smash the guy to a pulp.”
I’m not sure how to feel about his words. He’s more like an uncle to me than my real uncle—my dad’s brother—who I hardly ever see because he lives in Australia. I’ve known Brock since I was born, and the fact that Dad works for his company means I’ve seen him a lot over the years. His opinion matte
rs to me, and I’m touched that he’s proud of me.
“Well,” I say, “it’s done now, anyway. Beating the guy wouldn’t change that fact.”
“Wise words.”
I sigh. “Do you think it makes you feel better, though?”
“Honestly? Probably for about five minutes. Then I’m sure you just end up feeling ashamed of yourself. People like that are broken human beings. They deserve our help and compassion, because there’s something seriously wrong with them if they resort to violence to make themselves feel better.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” I admit. “I suppose our emotions always stem from a personal perspective.”
“Of course. And Maia is your sister and Mason was your friend—it’s perfectly natural that you feel anger toward him. I’m just saying that from an outsider’s perspective, although what he did is awful, and most people would think he should be punished for it, there is an argument that punishment won’t mend his problem. Some people would say that’s okay and he should be locked up and they should throw the key away, but in a humane society, we try to help those who are…” He searches for the right phrase.
“Fucked up?” I suggest.
He gives a short laugh. “Yeah, that’ll do.”
“I know what you’re saying, and you’re right. I know his parents organized counseling for him, and I’ve heard they’re doing some kind of fundraising for rape prevention education. I don’t know how much Mason is involved, and I haven’t asked. I suppose it’s a gesture and they mean well. But they can’t put it right.”
“No, of course not. When these things happen, we just have to deal with them as best we can.” He points through the trees. “I’m sure I saw a flash of white against white then, your Arctic fox, I think.”
We spend the remainder of our time in the forest talking about animals, and it’s not that long before we’re back at the Escape. We disembark from the sleighs and head indoors for some hot soup, and then afterward, Noah says he and Abby are heading over to the petting farm where you get to feed the reindeer and some of the other animals up close, and if anyone else wants to come, they’re very welcome.
My Christmas Billionaire (The Billionaire Kings Book 7) Page 10