by Natasha West
I remembered that occasion vividly. I still thought about it sometimes, with more than a little shame. When I look back on myself in that moment, I see a person who has briefly lost their mind, wanting things from Julia that I couldn’t have. Instead, what I’d taken had been raw and animalistic, nothing I could have thought myself capable of.
And ‘Olivia’ was shaken by it too, I read. And in pain. Because she realises, too late, that she’s in love with Alice, and doesn’t want to give her up, despite the threat to her career. But it’s too late, she thinks Alice is gone for good. So she decides to try and get Scarlett to retract her statement, so she can at least hold onto her job. And that part of the book was the worst to read. If I thought the nasty tales from exes in the press had been bad, this was agony. She lets Scarlett think she’s using Olivia for sex, but Olivia orchestrates the whole thing to get what she wants, the retraction. It’s a graphic description of the encounter and my hands shook as I read it. Just as bad was the way that Olivia plays Scarlett for a fool. It was a spectacularly ugly moment. It pained me to think about how deceitful and manipulative Julia had been. It almost caused me to throw the book out of the window. But then I remembered how adamant Lucas was that I read this. Why would he put me through this? There had to be a reason. On I read.
Right after Olivia sleeps with Scarlett and has gotten an agreement of a retraction, she bumps into Alice. It’s awkward and sad. And Julia writes about the juxtaposition between the hollow sexual encounter she has just had, and the feelings she still has for Alice. And in that scene, she describes Alice as ‘The love of my life.’
That caused me to gasp out loud. I’d known she had loved me at that time, in some way. But I’d never dreamt that she felt that much. That she felt as much as I did. She’d been twice my age, with most likely a lot more than twice my experiences. But she’d loved me more than anyone in her life at that point. I couldn’t begin to deal with the emotions that coursed through me to know that. All I could do was keep reading.
And then, the same day as Olivia has seduced Scarlett and chanced upon Alice, Alice goes to see Olivia. She’s decided to give Olivia another chance, willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, in the hopes it still might work with her. But Olivia doesn’t want to lie to Alice anymore. She tells her what she’s done with Scarlett. Alice is shattered. She leaves, the relationship well and truly finished.
Olivia accepts her sacking without a fight after that. And then she sees Alice in a café and decides to say goodbye, wanting to see her one last time before she leaves her to get on with her life, a life she imagines is better off without her. And it breaks her. Because she still very much loves her. And after she says goodbye, off she goes, heartbroken, hoping to find a way to rebuild her life, but having lost everything she cared about and learned too many lessons too late.
It was devastating to read that end. Because that had been a terrible day for me too. Seeing her in that café and having to hold back all the love I still had for her had been the hardest thing I’d ever done. I would never have imagined that it had been even harder for Julia.
I finished the second reading about midnight. And then I sat on the edge of my bed, thinking about Julia. She’d given me this book, a key to a side of her I’d never quite understood. It had let me see the very worst of her. And now I understood her better than I ever had, in all her terrible glory. Any romantic illusions I might have retained about Julia were gone. Dead and buried. She had been shockingly behaved. She’d lied and manipulated to an astonishing degree. She was complicated, difficult, problematic.
And I loved her. God help me, I just loved her. All of her. The worst and the best and everything in between. It all added up to Julia. And somehow, she was still the strongest and most beautiful person I’d ever known. Somehow, I wanted her more than ever.
I couldn’t fight it any longer. I had to tell her how I felt. Maybe she didn’t love me like this anymore, but I needed to find out if there was the slightest possibility she might. Because anything was possible, I hoped. And I was willing to risk my heart to find out. One last time, I would give her everything I had, for the smallest chance she wanted to give me the same.
The taxi dropped me off about half midnight. I walked up her driveway, planning to knock on her door. It was only then that it occurred to me how late it was. She might be in bed. As I reached her door, a worse thought hit me. What if she wasn’t alone? I stood there for a minute, wondering if I should come back at another time. But when I considered leaving, I knew I couldn’t do it. I needed to see her so badly that I ached.
Just as I lifted my hand to ring the doorbell, the door suddenly few open. Julia stood in the doorway, looking at me in amazement.
‘I was just…’ she began.
I interrupted her, eager to apologise for this ridiculous intrusion.
‘I’m sorry, this is probably not the right time, but I just wanted to tell you…’
She stepped over the threshold of the door, coming outside to meet me. She looked thrown, which was understandable. I had shown up at her house in the middle of the night, for crying out loud.
‘What do you want to tell me?’ she asked quietly.
I took a deep breath, quaking with fear. I didn’t know what was going to come out of my mouth, I had no plan. I just started talking.
‘I wanted to tell you that I read your book. And I don’t care what you’ve done. I don’t care, Julia’ I cried, breathlessly. ‘Because I see you. I know who you are. And I love you. I’ve never stopped loving you. I don’t know if you could ever…’
She stepped towards me suddenly, pulling my face to her, her gentle lips pushing softly against me. I liquefied into the kiss, into Julia.
Chapter Twenty Seven
‘I wanted to tell you that I read your book. And I don’t care what you’ve done. I don’t care, Julia. Because I see you. I know who you are. And I love you. I’ve never stopped loving you. I don’t know if you could ever…’
I didn’t realise that I’d moved until I was kissing her. I felt her silken lips press urgently against mine as our bodies surged against each other, our arms holding onto each other for dear life. And my mind had locked down, gone into a kind of shock, but I knew one thing. She needed me. Like I needed her. So I kissed her like my life depended on it. Which in some way, perhaps it did.
Lost as I got in the kiss, I felt a sudden desire growing. I wanted to look at Penny. Because this felt like a beautiful dream and I thought that if I looked at her, I’d know it was real. After several more breath-taking seconds, I broke the kiss, pulling back to look into her large jade eyes. She stared at me, seemingly as hypnotised by me as I was with her. Then I realised that there was something I’d forgotten.
‘I love you too, Penny. And I never stopped loving you either’ I whispered to her.
Her face broke into the most magnificent smile. And I couldn’t imagine wanting to do anything but make that smile happen again. We stared at each other, smiling fools, as the seconds ticked by.
I suddenly remembered we were standing on my driveway.
‘Would you like to come in?’
She laughed softly.
‘That sounds like a good idea. I think we’ve shocked your neighbours enough.’
And in we went.
In the hallway, I was suddenly overcome with a ridiculous shyness. Here we were, cards on the table, declarations of love made, and now I wasn’t sure what to do or say.
But I didn’t need to. Penny reached for my hand, taking it delicately in both of hers.
‘Can we go upstairs? I need to show you…’
She didn’t finish but I understood. I nodded. There was so much to talk about, so much to figure out yet, but I felt that I could tell her what I felt more easily without words. Because sometimes, words just get in the way. And right now, I couldn’t afford to say this wrong. I needed her to feel my love, not just hear it. Believe it, not just know it.
She pulled me up the stairs and I f
ollowed her with hope that I could give her everything that she needed from me. I hoped I was enough.
Upstairs, we began to kiss softly again, gently undressing each other as we moved slowly toward the bed. And I was in no rush. Because I thought that maybe, this time, we had all the time in the world.
We lay down on the bed, and somehow our clothes were now gone, and our bodies were entangled, fitting together like they were made to, our limbs interlocking like a beautiful puzzle. And all the pieces where there. I had everything I needed. I had Penny.
She ran her fingers tenderly over my lips and I kissed the tips of them. They tasted sweet, like peaches. Then her hands moved onto mine, pressing them gently onto the bed as we began to move together, her soft skin caressing mine like silk. Her hair fell across my face and I inhaled the scent of it, intoxicated.
I felt one of her hands slip from mine, and slip down my body, running down the length of me. I shivered at her touch. ‘My skin still remembers you’ she said into my ear. I reached for her face, pulling her into another kiss, needing to feel her lips against mine once more. I couldn’t get enough of her. I didn’t think I ever would. It went beyond need, she was like a fundamental necessity to me, like oxygen.
I felt her hand reach further down, touching me deep. My hand reached for her too, and we were mirroring each other’s movements, searching for the most private parts of each other, more than physical, profound. She was finding something in me that only she had ever seen. That only she could ever see. Because it only existed for her.
Our bodies continued to rock against one another, the speed beginning to climb gradually. I felt her body tremble alongside mine and I began to say her name, softly, chanting it like a prayer. I felt her body move from trembling to shaking and I buried my face in her neck, her sweet scent filling my senses as I felt our twin desires shifting towards the inevitable.
I could feel my body reaching the most beautiful of peaks and it was all the sweeter for the fact that I could feel Penny coming with me. We were together. We were on the same page.
I let her look into my eyes and I shielded nothing. Neither did she. We both knew what this meant. And when it happened, it wasn’t a thunderclap, and it wasn’t an explosion. It was something stronger, gentler. It was like a vast wonderful wave, lapping onto the shore.
Later, at around two in the morning, we finally fell back, tired and happy. Penny looked over at me from her pillow. Even though the light was dim, I felt like I could see her eyes smiling. Then I felt laughter rising in my chest and bursting out of me. I didn’t know why for a second and then I understood. The happiness I was feeling right now was overwhelming me, spilling out. Penny didn’t ask what I was laughing at, she seemed to understand. She started to laugh too, and I thought it was probably for the same reasons. And we just lay there, laughing in the dark.
After the amusement had passed, we lapsed into a comfortable silence for a few minutes. And then Penny rolled over, pulling me into her body, wrapping herself around me in an enveloping hug. She sighed into my ear.
‘So, what now?’ she asked bemused.
I smiled slowly to myself. I had no idea.
Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this book, please take a moment to leave a review.
Coming soon
Book Three in the Julia Hawke series:
Hawke’s Flight
In the meantime, make sure you’ve read Book One in the series:
Hawke’s Prey
Available now on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited