“Hate to break it to you, but you’re so far off base it’s almost funny.”
“Then tell me why you’ve been like a bear with a headache ever since I walked up to you in Skyland.” Her voice was demanding, but there was an undercurrent to it—almost pleading rather than spiteful.
“I have my reasons, and they have nothing to do with you.”
“You’re honestly trying to convince me that being around me doesn’t stoke some feelings of inferiority in you?”
I clenched the steering wheel. “I’m not inferior to you.”
“I never said you were.” Her words were softer than the others she’d uttered so far.
I jerked my arm away from her. “I don’t need your pity.”
“I’m not offering pity. I just want to know what I did that left you so bitter toward me.”
“Being the son of a gold-digging whore left me bitter long before you showed up on the scene.”
She put her hand on my arm again. “I’m sorry.”
Although I wanted to shrug her off again, I didn’t. “You didn’t do anything.”
“Is that why you think she’s a bitch?”
I snapped my jaw shut to avoid spilling any more secrets. When the weight of Soleil’s gaze didn’t leave my cheek, I added, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Her fingers curled around my arm, providing more support than my own mother ever had. “If you decide you want to, I’m here.”
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
“I figured.” She chuckled and the sound actually loosened the wire that had been strangling my heart ease ever since we’d touched on Mum. “The offer is there though.”
In order to change the subject, I said, “So tonight I’ll be working on the door at Skyland. Did you want to come along? I can get you into the VIP area.”
“I can get myself into the VIP area if that’s what I wanted to do.”
“Okay, so no VIP. Did you want to come still?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think I feel like that.”
“What are you thinking instead?”
“Maybe I’ll just stay at your place and get ready for tomorrow.”
“Okay. Keep the door locked and don’t let anyone in.”
“Not even Bekah?”
I laughed. “Especially not Bekah.”
Chapter 9
BY THE TIME I came home from my shift on the door at Skyland, Soleil was already asleep. Hoping not to disturb her, I crept into my room to grab some pyjamas. When I pushed the door open, I was struck by the sight of her lying on my pillow.
I’d had plenty of experience with girls, including living with a few of them temporarily before my instinct to run struck. None of them had stirred the same feelings of protectiveness that Soleil had. After staring for a moment, I forced the thought from my head. It wouldn’t do to dwell on things like that.
My worries were confirmed the following morning when Soleil came to me while I was eating breakfast.
“I think while we’re on campus, it’s probably better if we pretend we’re not living together for the next few weeks. And definitely no talk of our little . . . arrangement.”
I nodded, using my mouthful of cornflakes as an excuse not to respond. The reality was that it was exactly the sort of slap in the face I’d been expecting ever since she’d arrived. I wasn’t good enough to spend time around when it mattered—when anyone she might know would be there.
While she prepared for the day of classes, I packed up my shit, tossing it roughly into a bag. I was glad I was in my second year and wouldn’t be attending any of her classes. I mightn’t have been able to stop myself from shooting daggers across the lecture hall as she returned to her rich bitch ways.
As soon as she was ready, I held open the door for her. She mightn’t have wanted me to associate with her once we were on campus, but I couldn’t let her walk that far without someone to watch her. It wasn’t the perfect scenario, but it was the best I had. That plan flew out the window when I saw a limo waiting at the end of the road to collect her.
An hour later I caught a glimpse of her walking around the campus, she was wearing one of her old outfits, dressed from head to toe in clothing with someone else’s name on the label.
My day finished earlier than hers and I returned to my apartment. I was about to push through the entry when I heard footsteps behind me.
“What are you getting out of this,” Vince issued the words as I spun around.
“What?”
“This . . . thing you’ve got going with Miss Peyton. What are you getting out of it?”
“It’s none of your business.”
The moment the words were out, my back was against the building—his hand balled in the collar of my T-shirt. “Anything to do with Miss Peyton is my business. Her father has specifically instructed me to make it my business to ensure she’s safe, and that includes protecting her from low-lives and thieves.”
“I get it.” Heeding his unspoken warning, I pushed him off. “And I’m not in this for anything. It was Soleil’s idea, and all I’m doing is letting her live her dream for a while.”
He glanced up at my building. “You expect me to believe that this is her dream?”
“No. I expect that you won’t believe me. I wouldn’t believe me. Who would volunteer to live in this shithole, right? Nonetheless, this is what she wants for two weeks and who am I to deny that?”
He shoved a mobile phone at me. “Ensure this one isn’t broken like the last one.”
I looked at the device he’d given me. Another phone worth over a thousand dollars. It was as if they were disposable for them. “I don’t know if you know this, but Soleil isn’t the type to do what she’s asked, especially by someone beneath her station.”
He cracked a smile and I figured he knew exactly what I was talking about. “Just know it’s in your best interest to make her carry it with her at all times.”
“So you can track her?”
“So I can keep her safe. That’s my interest here. You wouldn’t understand the dangers she lives with every day.” His posture relaxed as he spoke, as if we were just two blokes hanging out at a worksite or something.
“So she says.”
“I’ll be watching.”
I grimaced. “You do that, and I’ll be over here feeling disgusted by the idea of a grown man creeping around in the shadows.”
“Don’t forget to give her the phone.”
“Yeah sure.” I turned away from him and headed into my building.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little rattled after the conversation. Still, I would pass on the message and let Soleil do with it what she would.
By the time Soleil returned, she was dressed in her “slumming it” clothes again. When I gave her the phone and told her about my conversation with Vince, her demeanour shifted. Her smile dropped as she took the phone from me and disappeared into her—my—bedroom.
Instead of confronting her about any of it, I chose to ignore it and try to live up to my end of our deal until it was done.
Over the next few days, I took her on various excursions between university and work. I used each trip to demonstrate exactly what “normal” entailed. Including going to the State Library to study, which involved some up close and personal time between the stacks. Each day, we took a walk around the Roma Street Parklands to get our exercise. By the end of the third day—our fifth day together—my patience for her excitement over it all was wearing thin, especially when she ignored me every day at university. I was nothing to her until she needed me. Typical rich bitch attitude. My body heated at the thought.
“You still think this life is interesting?” I asked with a sharp tone as she sat and fed stale bread to the pigeons at Roma Street Parklands. Just moments earlier she had been spouting off about how much fun she was having with all of these new experiences.
She smiled at me. “Of course it is! You can go where you want, when you want. No one stops
you or follows you around.”
My gaze trailed the area around us, expecting to see Vince’s eyes peeking out from between some foliage on the bushes nearby.
“You’ll never know what this life is like,” I snapped, “because you don’t have to live it fulltime. You can piss off and hang out with the cooler crowd at a whim. And if it all gets too hard for you, you can just whip out your credit card and fix everything.”
“You still think I’m that shallow?” she asked, shocked.
I laughed sardonically. “I know you are. The instant you go to the campus, you’re an entirely different person. And after this social experiment is done, you’ll be straight back to your designer clothes, designer shades, designer shoes, designer bag. Fuck, you probably even have a designer dog back home, right? A designer fucking life.” I tried to hide the hurt in my voice. She didn’t deserve to know that her indifference was getting to me.
“You really think I can’t live normally?” Her eyes were filling with tears but her voice pitched higher. She set her chin and her eyes flashed. She was a scary little creature when angered, but I ignored the warnings and ploughed on with my side of the argument regardless.
“I don’t think you can’t . . . I know you can’t. You didn’t even last a day before you whipped out the card. And don’t think I haven’t seen you buying shit for everyone at uni. That’s not something everyone else can do.”
“I have an image to maintain when I’m there.”
“Fuck your image. Us normal people don’t have the luxury of image—”
She cut me off with a scowl. Her chest heaved as her hands came to her hips. “That’s a lie and you know it.”
“It’s not.”
“Then why don’t you tell your friends that your swimming lessons are for babies?” One of her perfectly manicured brows lifted in challenge.
I clenched my jaw. “That’s different.”
“How?”
“That doesn’t cost me anything.”
“So it’s okay to lie or cover up so long as it doesn’t cost you anything?”
I growled. “That’s not what I said. That’s not what I meant. And that has nothing to do with my point.”
She stepped closer to me. “What is your point then?”
“That you couldn’t bear to be separated from that precious black card for more than a day.”
She stood looking me squarely in the eyes as she fished her card out of her purse. “This?” she screeched. “This means nothing. I can survive without it.”
“There’d be no limos. No image. No shouting your classmates an array of coffees.” I grabbed the card off her. “You couldn’t do it.”
“I can do anything I put my mind to.” With her eyes flashing and her face red, she snatched the card back from me and pitched it into the pond.
I stood staring with my mouth agape until the absurdity of the situation struck me and I burst out in hysterical laughter.
Soleil responded to my laughter with tears. Unthinkingly, I closed the distance between us and pulled her into my chest. She sobbed against me and I held her, lost and utterly out of my depth. I’d been an only child—what did I know about crying girls? The only girls I’d ever watched crying was those I was breaking up with.
Eventually her sniffles quietened and she raised her head to look at me. “I want to do something really different,” she said.
I stifled my chuckle—as if throwing black credit cards into duck ponds was an everyday occurrence—and asked her what she wanted to do.
“Something to prove that I can live without my image better than you can.”
The next thing I knew, she’d found a drop-in discount hair salon in some back street in the Valley and we were on our way.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked as we arrived at the salon. I wasn’t certain, but getting a drastic haircut seemed like something girls needed to consider in depth.
Soleil beamed at me, her earlier tears completely dried, as she nodded. “I need to do this. I think it’s a way to become a new me. To ditch the image.”
I nodded and sat beside her as she waited for her turn. I was certain the cut she was about to get would be the cheapest she’d ever had. Eventually she was called in. I saw her chatting with the hairdresser for a few moments before her hair was plaited and then her nearly ten inch plait was removed with one swift cut.
I was certain she was going to hate me when she was done.
When she emerged though, she looked a million bucks. Her long hair was completely gone, and with it, some of her designer superiority. Her hair was cut short and choppy, and was set in random spikes around her head. She bit her lip, seeming nervous as she asked if it was all right.
“All right?” I asked incredulously. “It looks fantastic.”
She grinned at me before grabbing my hand and pulling me from the shop. “I had a thought while I was in the seat too.”
“Uh oh,” I joked.
“I’m going to get a job too. I’m allowed to work a few hours each week on my visa, so maybe I should do that. It’ll give me a chance to earn some money to add to the household budget.”
It was only the absolutely earnest look on her face that stilled my laughter. “Doing what?”
“I don’t know. What’s something that normal people do?”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and tell her “anything that they could to get a dollar in the door.”
“Oh, I know! I could be a shop assistant!” she exclaimed as we passed a little jewellery shop. She didn’t wait for an answer or opinion before ducking inside.
I watched through the window as she spoke to the person behind the counter. If nothing else, she was going to get a lesson in rejection—something us commoners had to deal with regularly. A few minutes later, someone came out from the back of the shop and spoke to Soleil as well. When I saw the second person shaking their head, I figured Soleil would be upset when she came back out.
Only she wasn’t.
In fact, she beamed at me. “They didn’t have anything, but she thought I would do great. Apparently a few of the stores along here might have something. So let’s go.”
“You can’t stop at every one.”
“I can until I find a job.”
“And if there are no jobs?”
She clasped my hand and dragged me along behind her. “You might think I’m nothing but a poor little rich girl. You can doubt my budgeting skills. Do not ever doubt my people skills.”
“Okay. Okay. I’m just saying not to get your hopes up too much.”
Just as she’d insisted, she found something at the tenth shop we went to. It was interesting to watch the way the managers reacted to her obvious confidence. Soleil was offered the job on the spot, starting the very next day. It was hard to be anything but happy for her when I saw her excitement.
She clapped her hands as she came back out to me. Her enthusiasm was contagious. I picked her up and spun her around once. My lips were drawn to hers as I dropped her feet back onto the ground. I stopped myself just in time, seconds before our mouths met.
Her sweet breath washed over me and I closed my eyes, dropped my arms and stepped back. I blinked a few times to clear my head. I couldn’t believe how close I had come to crossing the invisible line drawn along our burgeoning friendship.
“Let’s go celebrate your employment,” I said, grabbing her hand. “We’ll catch a bus to South Bank. There’s a pub there that has dollar drinks for students every Thursday.”
In some ways, it was probably dangerous. It was cheap and easy to get drunk.
Really drunk.
Then again, it was probably just what we both needed.
Chapter 10
“I DON’T HAVE enough money left for a cab,” I slurred, trying to focus on the bus timetable, even though Soleil had just declared we’d missed the last bus.
“I’ll pay . . .” She trailed off. “Oh, I can’t . . . I threw my card away.” She started giggling hystericall
y then just as suddenly turned morose. “Why would I do that? I like my card.”
“You wanted to slum it with me,” I muttered.
She shook her head. “You’re not slum.”
I laughed. “That makes no sense.”
“I’ll call my Dad,” she said. “He’ll get a car for us.”
I scoffed. “Sure . . . call Daddy the first time something goes wrong.”
She slapped me and I blinked at her blankly.
“What the fuck was that for?” I asked, feeling a little more sober than I had before.
“You’ve never believed that I can do this. It’s all a big joke to you! But I’ve survived in your world much better than you would ever survive in mine.”
“Sure, it’s such a hard life being an heiress, living it up on Daddy’s dollar and not having a care in the world.” I took a step closer to her, and raised my voice a little.
“You have no idea what my life is like!”
I chuckled darkly at her words. It was the same argument over and over, and I was determined to have her admit that things were harder for me. “Parties, money, fancy cars, and knowing where your next meal is coming from—must be difficult.”
“You make a mistake and no one cares. I make one and it’s splashed all over the magazines.” She stepped closer to me. Her aroma wound its way around her body and filled my head. Things I didn’t want to acknowledge stirred deep inside me.
“I already made a mistake,” I snapped, trying to avoid getting sucked in further by her. “Agreeing to this stupid arrangement.”
“Not as big a mistake as I made asking for it.”
She raised her hand to slap me again, but this time I caught it. I was taken off guard again by how soft and fragile her hand was in mine. I tugged her arm, drawing her even closer to me. Her mouth was inches from mine, her body flush against me. My body grew hard in response and my heartbeat sped. The alcohol on her breath and the heat of her body made my head spin. All I wanted to do was let my inhibitions drop away and kiss her.
Instead, I sighed then gave a small chuckle. “Let’s forget about this argument and do what people from my walk of life do when we can’t afford a taxi.”
New Love Page 27