by JC Harroway
But the selfishness that boils inside me won’t allow me to give her up...
Silently, we rinse off the sea water under the deck shower and then stretch out on a couple of loungers to enjoy the rest of the cruise around the atolls. Meanwhile, I debate how much of my secret she needs to know. Probably all of it, before she hears it from Slay.
‘I can’t believe we actually got to see dolphins,’ Neve says, excitement still gleaming in her eyes. ‘And that turtle was so beautiful.’
‘Pretty cool, eh? I thought the manta ray was the most impressive. Drink?’ I ask, selecting two ice-cold beers from the mini-fridge on the aft deck.
She nods, accepting my offering with a smile I now claim as mine. Just for me. Because it lights her eyes so I see things there that give me hope. The sensual heat is an incredible privilege, yes, but there’s also wonder and longing...as if she almost believes I’m the only man who can give her what she needs.
If only I was worthy of such belief. Statistically, I’m likely to disappoint and hurt her just as much if not more than the SBF Club...
‘Thanks for organising this—it’s a perfect way to have some space away from the others,’ she says about our private cruise with an experienced local captain. I arranged it so we could be assured of the best snorkelling spots and for his insider knowledge of the spinner dolphins, which frequent these waters.
Her reminder of my possessive leanings and the way our day almost derailed after a two-minute conversation with Slay pricks my skin with guilt. I need to be more open. Her push-back last night shocked me. It never occurred to me that she’d assume I didn’t trust her. It’s Slay I don’t trust. And myself.
But the last thing I want is him, or anything else, to come between us. I start with the easy news.
‘I agree. I don’t think we’ll be seeing Slay again. I heard this morning that my latest stepmother is history and he’s gone back to LA.’ I try to keep the relief from my tone.
‘Oh dear,’ she replies not bothering with commiserations. Now that she’s met Slay, she can see for herself that he’d stand a much better chance if he married a woman he shares something in common with.
‘Yeah,’ I snort. ‘Don’t feel too sorry for him. It’s only a matter of time before the next twentysomething catches his eye.’
‘How do you feel about that? Are you calm enough to talk about it?’ she probes, her hand on my thigh caressing away my agitation.
I shrug, pretending I can’t recall the sinking feeling every time a fresh wedding invitation from Slay lands on the mat. ‘You saw them together last night. Hardly a love match. Next time, he should at least try to find someone who isn’t after him for their fifteen minutes of fame. But perhaps that’s the attraction for him—the adoration. Until they get to know him.’ Resentment bubbles up anew inside me. I hate that I almost allowed Slay to ruin what I have with Neve.
Until I touched her, until he met her and showed me how much is at stake, I thought his hold over me was long past. In one way or another, he’s influenced every relationship I’ve ever had, whether disabusing me of my faith in first love, or through the early days after I came to London when I slept around as if to prove something—maybe that I could switch off the emotions that made me vulnerable. Or simply that Slay didn’t have the monopoly on bad-boy behaviour. And now I’m allowing him to cast doubt over what I have with Neve, this overwhelming need to protect her. I fear that I can’t commit and be what she deserves.
Because, for the first time in over ten years, I want to commit.
But could she ever take me seriously, knowing me as she does? And now also knowing Slay...
‘I have spoken about you to him before,’ I say, needing to reassure her. ‘He’s just too self-absorbed to notice what other people say most of the time.’ However Slay tried to paint her as some hook-up I’d just met, my feelings for her are deeper than ever. For the first time in a decade—not that the first time counted—I was barely a man. I think I might be in love. Terrifying, all-consuming love.
Panic beads sweat on the back of my neck. How can I confess that when there are more pressing things I need her to know? I feel like I’m about to split open, all my ugly secrets spilling free. Am I ready to expose my true self, the me I see every time I think about Slay? Will she still want me when she knows about my sordid past? At all, even as a friend?
I must have zoned out, because when she speaks I startle.
‘What did he mean about the sharing? Is he into threesomes or something?’ she asks outright, her mouth forming an ‘O’ over the neck of the beer bottle. She takes a long swallow, giving me precious seconds to formulate some words that don’t sound like a script for some hideous reality TV show.
My skin crawls. If only I could say yes. Better than the truth, which still has the power to make me shudder with shame, both for how Slay acted and how I acted out in return.
‘I wouldn’t put it past him,’ I say. I want to confess all my shameful truths to this woman who believes in my redemption. Who sees something that eludes me when I look in the mirror. But I also want more time. Because I’m learning new things about her every day.
‘He’s a drama queen who likes to stir up trouble,’ I continue, scrubbing my hand over my unshaven face. ‘He likes to get a rise out of me for sport.’ Perhaps Slay sensed what Neve means to me, so delivered a low blow.
I want to erase last night’s meeting with him from her memory, because standing in front of him beside the woman I love made me feel small and completely unworthy.
We’ll ruin her. Drag her down to our level. I can’t do that, but can I give her up?
Neve is watchful, silent. Waiting for more.
Unease creeps down my spine. I want to be honest. Every hour we spend together feels like we’re moving closer, but some things are too devastating to confess. Perhaps half the story...the less damning half.
‘Remember the night he took me to the strip joint?’ My stare falls on the endless blue of the Indian ocean because it’s hard to think about that night without feeling white-hot licks of regret and shame. ‘Well, in addition to his unique advice on getting over a woman by moving swiftly on to the next, he also informed me that Jane, the girl I was crying into my beer over, had allegedly come on to him while we were together.’
Neve sits bolt upright. ‘What? Seriously?’
I nod, my neck so stiff it spasms. ‘Seriously. “No use crying over pussy you never really had in the first place”,’ I say, imitating Slay’s words of wisdom.
She scoots to the edge of her lounger and reaches for my hand. ‘Did she?’
I shrug. ‘She half-heartedly denied it, but it doesn’t really matter who was telling the truth. I was a teenager, full of emotions, and that felt like my lowest ebb. And Slay kicked me while I was down, whether intentionally or through tactlessness doesn’t matter.’
I squeeze her fingers, needing to pull her into my arms but also hating that I’m the source of the appalled disbelief in her wide eyes. I know she feels empathy for my younger self, but she must also feel horror to a degree. No normal father behaves that way.
‘That’s horrible,’ she says, gripping my hand more tightly. I shake my head, cutting her off. I don’t deserve her pity, because I behaved as badly as him later that night. Worse, in fact. Because, whereas Slay claims never to have laid a finger on Jane, I went home alone to his mansion, furious and drunk after visiting her for confirmation.
Slay’s third wife, Aubrey, was in the kitchen. She saw I was upset. Poured me another drink. Made me spill the whole story. And then, somehow, I’d kissed her, or she’d kissed me, and with pain and humiliation driving me I’d allowed emotions to rule my head. I didn’t stop it. I slept with her. And afterwards she told me she was leaving Slay anyway so I shouldn’t feel bad. But I felt worse than bad. Confused and ashamed, because I wasn’t certain who had used who. But I was certain my
actions were something Slay would have done.
And I was right. I’ll never forget the look of anger tinged with pride on Slay’s face during the inevitable confrontation the next morning. In trying to break free of him, I’d become something he could finally relate to and respect. My self-worth reached rock-bottom. Even now, years later, the shame defines everything I do. Why would my wonderful, beautiful Neve want anything to do with such a...weak degenerate?
‘“Don’t date with your head, boy. Use your dick”.’ I quote Slay, the sickening memories choking. ‘That’s the last time I turned to him for advice.’ I swallow, my throat aching because I’m back there, feeling helpless, vulnerable and inadequate for a woman like Neve.
She slides onto my lounger, her arms around my shoulders and her head tucked into my chest. ‘I’m so sorry you went through that.’
I press my lips to her forehead, selfishly sucking in the comforting scent of her skin. ‘I was lucky enough to have dual nationality. I caught the first flight to the UK, applied to university, spent the summer working in London and then I met you—a brilliant ray of sunshine,’ I say, trying to forget.
I acted out for months after that incident, some twisted part of me taking to heart Slay’s unwanted advice about women as I tried to make sense of my teenage angst and confusion over what I’d done with my father’s wife. But, aside from the attempt to protect myself from further heartache, it wasn’t me. Not the real me.
I shelved that version of myself when I woke up to the fact that my behaviour made me more like Slay, not less—terrified of his celebrity world in which I’d become caught up, where outrageous things seemed commonplace. Although by then my reputation was set with the British media and exaggerated by Slay’s publicists, who come from the school of ‘no publicity is bad publicity’.
I’d plastered on a mask and tried to banish my disillusion for a while, living out my early twenties avoiding getting too close to anyone. With the exception of one person.
The person now in my arms, making my heart clench with every beat.
I can’t lose her.
Not without losing part of myself.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Oliver
I HOLD HER tighter to stop myself shattering apart.
‘Let’s forget about Slay. I have another surprise for you.’
She looks up at me with a small smile but concern in her eyes. ‘Okay.’ She sighs, dropping her head back to my chest and snuggling closer. ‘But, for what it’s worth, I hope you know that I would never betray you in any way.’
I love her for her reassurance, although I deserve neither her loyalty nor her caring.
‘I never took a girl home after that. Never introduced him to anyone, especially not you. You’re too precious. I couldn’t survive losing you.’
Panic rumbles through me, a wave growing in momentum. Will she leave me when she learns just how similar Slay and I are?
‘Why especially me?’ she asks, stilling.
I exhale the tightness in my throat that tastes like fear. ‘Because you’re different. You didn’t care about who my father is. In fact, you’d never even heard of him. Right from the moment we met you’ve never taken any crap from me, even on that first night when I was immature enough to be full of crap. You made me earn your friendship, and that made it all the more valuable, because most things in my life came easy to me back then, just as they had for Slay. Why would I risk all of that, risk you, by exposing you to a man I wish I could disown, wish I didn’t share DNA with?’
Her eyes soften and I want to kiss her so badly. To lose myself in her and our passion until I forget where I come from, what I did and start afresh with Neve.
‘I admit the leather pants in this heat are a bit tragic,’ she says, and then rolls her eyes, injecting the moment with humour.
A rumble of laughter resonates in my chest. That she can make me smile when I’m full of regret and frustration is a testament to how she enriches my life just by being herself. I fall a little bit more in love with her in that moment.
The boat’s gently humming engine changes in tone. I look up.
‘We’re here,’ I tell her. ‘I hope you’re hungry.’
I sling on a T-shirt and Neve covers up with a sarong, her excited eyes restoring my balance as she catches sight of the small thatched shelter on the island where we’ve moored.
‘I arranged a treat for lunch,’ I say as we walk down the gangplank and pad through the pristine clear shallows.
‘Sounds intriguing, but you didn’t have to go to all this trouble.’ She smiles her smile; the one I’m head over heels for.
‘Yes, I did,’ I say, lifting her hand to my mouth and pressing a kiss to her knuckles. ‘I was going to arrange a picnic. But you love cooking shows, so I thought we could have some fun and I could learn some skills—you know how culinarily challenged I am.’
‘Kihineh?’ Ali, our local chef, asks us how we are in Dhivehi, the official language of the Maldives.
Neve’s excitement is infectious as she takes a seat in the open-air kitchen, which already smells of heavenly spices.
Ali explains the menu—bis keemiya, a type of samosa stuffed with gently sautéed cabbage, hard-boiled eggs and spiced onions, garudhiya, a fragrant fish soup, and a coconut-free version of huni roshi, a chapati-style bread.
Under Ali’s instructions, Neve sets about grinding spices with a pestle and mortar and I’m tasked with rolling out the balls of chapati dough into circles.
Neve is in her element, her eyes bright as she watches Ali with rapt attention and teases me for my oval-shaped bread.
‘You’re really good at this!’ I watch her deep-frying rectangular samosas. ‘Will you teach me some basics when we get home?’ It’s the first time either of us has mentioned reality, and my heart stops while I wait for her answer.
‘Of course,’ she says, laughing as I burn my first chapati to a cinder on one side. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll make a cook out of you.’
When we’re done, Ali carries everything to a solitary sheltered table for two near the shore. Despite my having a hand in it, the food is delicious.
‘Try this,’ tempts Neve, feeding me from her fingers, which are greasy and spicy.
Despite being ravenous, my tight throat makes swallowing a challenge. I love seeing her this way—excited, relaxed and happy. After all these years, I feel like I’m learning something new about her every day. An addiction I want to feed until she’s woven through me.
‘Thanks for this,’ she says when, sated, we finally admit defeat.
‘It’s my pleasure,’ I say, humbled and awed that I put the happiness on her face.
‘Let’s walk along the beach,’ she suggests, standing and taking my hand. After we’ve walked in silence for a few minutes, she says, ‘Can I ask you a question?’
‘Of course. Anything.’ I kiss the back of her hand.
‘Is what happened with Jane the reason you avoided relationships—to protect yourself?’
I shrug and then sling my arm around her shoulders so we can be as close as possible while we wade through the warm, shallow water. ‘Could you blame me?’
‘No.’ She looks gutted. ‘But not all women are the same.’
‘Of course not. But back then I felt like I’d tried to have something real and it backfired. Jane wasn’t interested in a long-distance relationship with me, or travelling or studying abroad with me, as I naively dreamed. She wanted me for the LA celebrity lifestyle. She wanted me for Slay.
‘As a kid, I used to wonder what it would be like to have a normal father who went to soccer games and taught me to surf. Instead I got the dad who offered me joints, took me to strip clubs and hit on my girlfriends...’
‘Why didn’t you tell me all of this before?’ she whispers.
‘I’m not proud of my behaviour when I first met yo
u. I couldn’t believe my luck that you didn’t know Slay Coterill. I told him that you’d never heard of him once—best moment of my life. You should have seen his face...’ My amusement quickly dries up. ‘But my experience was of women who either assumed I’m just the like him or hoped that shagging me might earn them an introduction. The comparisons in the media didn’t help, of course.’
Neve’s arm tightens around my waist.
‘After a while, I just played that role, because it helped me to lock down my emotions and armour myself against a repeat of the humiliation and betrayal.’ But could I risk reaching for more? With Neve? Maybe the best way to have her in my life and protect her from Slay and my biggest fear—that she’ll become embroiled in my family drama one time too many and decide I’m not worth the hassle—is to hold on tight and show her and the world her importance in my life.
She’s everything.
‘You know, I understand how you feel being compared. I used to feel like I grew up in Amber’s shadow. She was taller, prettier, successful, even while we were still at school.’
I grow restless, a strong urge to kiss her senseless and confess how she makes me feel with just one of her beautiful smiles taking over. ‘Amber is talented in one area, Neve. I doubt she could do what you do with all that auditing, number-crunching, investigative stuff you do. Height is part of the genetic lottery. And I one thousand per cent dispute the other claim.’
I bring us to a halt and turn, tugging her warm body into my arms. I press a kiss to her lips, gripping her waist with what feels like terrifying force.
During this trip, it’s become crystal-clear that I’m one mistake away from sabotaging this. Unless I tell her how I feel about her...how I’ve always felt.
Or, better still, show her.
We pull apart, reluctantly on my side. Relief washes through me when I see her glazed eyes and parted lips, and feel the thud of her heart against mine, which tell me I’m not alone in this.