As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I worry that they’re going to be offended, but to my relief they all just sigh.
“He was Rihari’s twin brother,” Tama says.
I swallow. “Was?”
“He died four Christmases ago. On Boxing Day. The day before their thirtieth birthday.”
“Oh, shit.” I put my hand over my heart. “How awful.”
“It was a pulmonary embolism,” Ra says. “Everyone was so shocked because he was young and fit as. They still don’t know why it happened.”
I look across at Rich, now stretched out on his sun lounger. A fresh whisky bottle stands on the table, and he’s already halfway through his first glass.
I think about Caleb, my brother. We have a love-hate relationship—he always jokes that he loves me and I hate him. It’s not true, of course—I love him dearly. Because I left home in such unusual circumstances, we didn’t see each other until I contacted him in our late twenties and discovered he was living in Kerikeri, and I moved up to be near him. Since then, he’s been a rock for me, and I don’t know what I would have done without him. I can’t imagine what it must be like if a sibling dies—and not just any sibling, but your twin.
The thought makes my chest tighten as memories flood my mind. I don’t want to think about the past, not now.
I finish my wine. “I think I’ll head off too. Thank you so much for the food. I so appreciate it. Can I help clean up?”
“Nothing to clean,” Marama says cheerfully, collecting the paper plates and scraps of food and dumping them all in a black rubbish bag.
“Okay, well, thanks once again.” I leave with a wave and a smile, and head back to my bach.
As I reach the deck, I pause for a moment, then walk across to his deck. I stop at the bottom.
He’s lying back, but he raises his head to look at me. He’s wearing sunglasses again, and I can’t see his eyes, so I’m not sure if he’s irritated. “Hi,” he says, somewhat flatly.
“Don’t worry,” I tell him, “I’m not staying. I have a guitar and I was going to play for a while, but I can see you’re looking for some peace and quiet, and I wanted to know if it will disturb you. Please say if you’d rather I didn’t. I don’t mind.”
He stares at me, and then he lifts his sunglasses onto his hair.
His dark eyes are gentle, and a soft smile touches his lips. “I don’t mind,” he says. His gaze caresses me. There’s something in it that brings heat to the surface of my skin.
“Okay.” I return his smile before walking away. Then I turn back. “Thanks for including me for lunch.”
He shrugs. “Like I said, they’re difficult to say no to.”
“Even so.” When I said that I couldn’t possibly join them, he could have walked past me—he didn’t have to stop and ask me again.
I turn and go back to the bach, bring out a bottle of wine, some chocolate, and my guitar. I pour myself a glass, pop a piece of the chocolate in my mouth, prop my feet on the balustrade, and begin to play.
For the first few songs, I’m conscious that Rich is listening, and that occasionally my lunch companions join in, singing, or nod along to the beat. But after a while, as the sun turns the sea cherry-red, I forget to be self-conscious and lose myself in the music.
I play everything—old songs and new, folk music and blues, Christmas carols and pop songs, The Beatles and Nirvana and Beyonce and Aretha Franklin, anything and everything that comes into my head, filling the sky with musical notes and color.
The two Maori couples go out for a walk along the sand, then eventually come back much later and go inside. Rich stays out on the deck. Sometimes, I hear him singing along—his voice is quiet and he obviously doesn’t mean to be heard, but it’s there all the same.
I take a break every now and again, but the sun disappears and the moon rises, and before long it’s dark. The level of the whisky bottle has dropped. Rich has slid down further in his seat, and I feel his sorrow in the air, along with the smell of the salt and the cry of the seagulls before they, too, go to bed. It’s possible he’s asleep already. Once again, I’m alone.
I stop playing and go inside to get a sweater, as the temperature’s dropped and I have goose bumps on my arms. I pull a blue sweater out of the drawer, turn to go out, then stop as I see my phone on the bed where I tossed it earlier.
A pang of loneliness hits me, harsh and cold as the sea breeze. Before I think better of it, I pick up the phone and check my messages.
There’s one, from Caleb, wishing me Merry Christmas. Nothing at all from Alastair.
Did I really think there would be?
I go outside and walk onto the sand, pull back my arm, and throw the phone as hard as I can into the ocean.
I stare up at the moon for a long, long time before returning to the deck. Across from me, Rich looks asleep, my blanket pulled across his legs, his arm hanging over the side of the lounger.
Trying not to cry, I curl up in the wooden chair, rest my head on the back, and watch the stars wheel across the sky.
Chapter Three
Rich
The night seems to last forever. I get up three times, or it may be four—I lose count—to vomit into the toilet. Each time I consider getting into bed afterward, and once I even go into the bedroom and lay down. But it’s hot and stuffy in the tiny room, and the mattress, although a double, is lumpy and cramped compared to the king size I sleep in alone at home.
Even though I’ve been desperate to get away, I miss my bedroom back in Auckland. It’s the one room I really took care over when I had the house built. It’s high on a hill on the Hibiscus Coast, and it’s ninety-nine percent glass. That sounds like an exaggeration, and I admit it’s probably not quite ninety-nine percent, but most of it is, and I’m used to feeling as though I live outside. The master bedroom is round, and the bed sits at the front overlooking the Pacific, catching the rays of the early morning sun.
Maybe I love it so much because I spend most of my working day in the gaming development hub at Katoa, in semi-darkness with my face pressed up against a computer screen. I just know that when I go home, I feel a weight lift off me as I go inside, into the peace and quiet and the light.
A feeling of claustrophobia sends me back out into the cool night, where I collapse onto the lounger and look up at the stars. There’s no sign of the sun, and yet something tells me dawn isn’t too far off—a lightening of the sky to the east, maybe, and I’m relieved that the night is nearly over.
I look across at Jess’s place. She’s still on the deck, facing out to sea. She played the guitar until the early hours, and I guess she’s sleeping now.
Feeling oddly comforted that she’s not far away, I fall asleep again.
*
This time when I awake, the sun is high in the sky and it’s already warm. There’s another glass of orange juice waiting on the table, and two more Panadol.
I lie for a long while, debating whether to take them. I don’t need anyone’s help. It’s bad enough that my mum sent Hemi and Tama to keep an eye on me—I certainly don’t want some stranger fussing over me like I can’t take care of myself.
But my head’s pounding and my mouth tastes sour, so in the end I give in, pop the Panadol, and drink the whole glass of juice. Then I lie back, lower my shades, and wait for the workmen inside my brain to stop banging.
While I wait, I think about the day before. Part of me had resented being forced to join in with Hemi’s lunch. I’d given in for two reasons—one, I know my parents are worried about me, and Hemi, who is my mum’s brother, would report back to her and tell her I hadn’t eaten anything, which would only worry them more.
And two, I wanted to talk to Jess.
In the end, we hadn’t spoken much. She’d shyly volunteered enough details of herself to satisfy my aunts, and then they’d plowed on and changed the subject. Part of me had wanted to grill her further—why was she here, alone, at Christmas? I wanted to know more about her artwork, more
about her. But I hadn’t wanted to embarrass her, so I’d let the conversation drift on, telling myself that it was none of my business and it was best if I left her to her own devices.
I had seen her throw her phone into the sea last night, though. Something tells me that Jess isn’t here just because she likes to spend time alone. She’s here to escape someone, almost certainly a man, a guy who’d either called her last night or—more likely—hadn’t called her, leading to her throwing away her phone.
So she’s here because of a broken heart. Well, at least we have something in common.
It’s Boxing Day today—the day after Christmas Day, and the day that Will died. It’s always the hardest day. I keep waiting for it to get easier, but it’s as if I have an infection in a wound that’s refusing to heal. I don’t know how to make it better. If anything, I think it’s getting worse.
A shadow falls over me, and I open my eyes to see her standing by the deck, holding a mug of what’s probably coffee, and a plate with two croissants and a spoonful of jam.
“Thought you might like some breakfast,” she says. “Tell me to piss off if you want—I won’t be offended.”
I can’t help but smile. She’s wearing incredibly short shorts that make her long, tanned legs seem even longer. She has another tie-dyed shirt on today—yesterday’s was multi-colored; today’s is orange and yellow. She’s not wearing any jewelry or makeup, as far as I can tell. Her hair is tied back with a strip of red cloth, not ribbon—it looks as if she’s torn it from an old shirt. It doesn’t surprise me that she’s an artist. She has long fingers and short, unpainted nails, and she has a tattoo on the inside of her left wrist, of something New-Agey—crescent moons around a full moon. I bet she does yoga and supports animal charities. I would have thought she was a vegetarian, but she tucked into her bacon roll yesterday with gusto.
“Thank you,” I say, and watch her bend forward and place it on the table. Her T-shirt gapes a little—she’s wearing a bikini underneath again. Her neck is brown and her skin looks soft and silky. I wonder whether she has white triangles over her breasts.
She glances at me then, catching me mid-ogle, and her lips curve up. I like that she’s not insulted that I was looking at her. She has hazel eyes that are wide and open, but not demanding. She knows nothing about me. Not what I do, where I live, or how much money I have. She’s just being nice to another human being, and that touches me to the core.
I came here to get away from everyone, but suddenly, more than anything in the world, I don’t want to be alone. “Will you join me?” I ask her.
I wait for her to say, Oh I couldn’t, so that I have to press her into it.
“All right,” she says. “I’ll just get my breakfast.”
I watch her cross to her bach, collect her mug, plate, and book, and walk back to me. After placing the items on the small table, she opens a folding chair, puts it the other side of the table, then sits.
Already, I’m beginning to regret my decision, because now she’s going to want to talk and I’m not in the mood for chit-chat. My head hurts and my mouth is sour. Nobody wants to be in the company of someone who’s depressed, and I don’t have the energy to pretend to be cheerful for a stranger.
But Jess stretches out her long legs, puts her feet on the balustrade, and picks up her plate. She tears off a little piece of croissant and smears jam on it before placing it in her mouth. As she chews, she slips down in the seat a little, staring out to sea, and I realize she’s not going to try to make conversation.
A sense of peace settles over me, calm and soothing as the sound of the sea in front of us. I close my eyes for a moment and try to let the tension that’s been inside me for days flow away. It doesn’t completely—I know it won’t disappear until today is over—but the pounding in my head doesn’t seem so bad, probably because I’m not clenching my jaw or hunching my shoulders.
Opening my eyes, I pick up the mug of coffee, take a sip, and rest it on my chest.
We continue like that for about fifteen minutes, eating our croissants, drinking our coffee, not talking. Then, when she’s finished her breakfast, Jess picks up her book and begins to read.
“What are you reading?” I ask, wondering if it will tell me something about her. She shows me the cover. It’s The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. “What’s it like?”
“I just started it,” she says, “but yeah it’s good so far. Have you seen the movie?”
“No. What’s it about?”
She reads the blurb on the back, about an Indian boy who’s emigrating to America with his family and the animals in their zoo. The ship sinks, and the boy finds himself on a lifeboat with several animals, including a Bengal Tiger called Richard Parker, which makes me think of Stratton because that’s his surname. “Apparently, it’s an allegory,” Jess says. “I like things that aren’t what they seem on the surface.” Her voice is low for a woman, soft and soothing.
“Sounds good,” I say.
“Shall I read to you?”
I smile. “Nobody’s read to me since my mother read Watership Down to us when we were eight.” By us I mean me and Will, of course. My smile fades.
Jess studies me for a moment. I know she’s seen the emotion pass across my face, and I wait for her to ask What’s the matter? or Who’s ‘us’?
She shifts in her chair to face me a bit more. “Then it’s about time someone read to you again.” She lowers her gaze and begins to say the words aloud.
I feel a strange puzzlement at the way she seems to know what I need, and that she’s not demanding all the attention for herself. I’ve never met a woman like that. I’m not saying all women are attention-seeking or selfish by any means, but those I’ve mixed with have tended to be—girls I’ve met in nightclubs, at parties, in bars, most of with whom I’ve had little in common. Some have lasted longer than others, but I’ve never felt the kind of devotion I’ve seen in the movies or read about in books. Never broken a girl’s heart, that I know of, and never had my heart broken. Instead, all my relationships have burned hot and then just faded away until neither of us can remember why we got together in the first place. Now they all exist in my memory like pieces of glitter thrown into the wind, and I’m unable to tell them apart.
I close my eyes and let Jess’s voice soothe me, as if she’s sandpaper smoothing away my rough edges. She has a talent for this—I bet she could make a living as a voice actor.
The sun’s high in the sky, glinting off boats out to sea, bouncing off the waves. Jess’s voice is like lotion applied to sunburned skin. Would the rest of her be that cool? I imagine her lips on mine, her hands on me. It’s been a long time—if ever—that I dreamed about a girl like this.
*
I awake with a jerk, blink a few times, then look around. Jess has gone. Jeez, I dozed off—how rude. The sun’s now high overhead. I feel better now, though, my head no longer banging, my stomach a bit more settled.
I sit up, and then I see her, out in the ocean. She’s wearing an old floppy hat that’s half-submerged in the water because she’s lying on her back. She’s also wearing an orange bikini. She looks like a piece of summer that’s fallen into the sea. I smile as I see that she’s pinned a piece of tinsel to her hat.
It’s Boxing Day. It hits me like a sledgehammer. I’d forgotten. How could I forget? A wave of emotion washes over me, and then it’s gone just as quickly, leaving me exhausted in its wake. The last few years, I’ve spent the day drinking solidly, trying to blot out the knowledge that my brother was dead and that I was going to have to go on somehow, being half a person. Reliving the trauma of the day he died and the fallout of that nuclear event. I don’t have the energy today though. I can’t face it.
Instead, I get up and go inside. I wash my face and brush my teeth, change my swim shorts, and slop a bit of factor-thirty sun lotion over my face, shoulders, and chest. Then I head out into the heat of the sun.
Everyone knows you shouldn’t be out at midday, but it’s gloriously hot
, and it will take a while before my skin burns, especially with the lotion. I’m guessing that Jess has plenty on. She’s not very fair-skinned, but Kiwi sun is super strong because of a hole in the ozone layer right over the country, and from school it’s drummed into us that we all have to slip on a shirt, slop on the sunscreen, and slap on a hat when we go out in the sunshine.
I walk across the sand in my bare feet and stand on the edge of the water. It’s warm in the shallows, and it’s so, so quiet. The Pakeha family must have gone out somewhere for the day, and although there are a few other families on the beach, they’re right down the other end. Hemi and the gang have all gone out on the boat. It feels like just me and Jess, surrounded by the cool blue ocean.
She glances over, sees me, tips upright, and waves. “Afternoon, Rip Van Rich,” she calls.
I laugh and wade into the water. I’ve been to Fiji and Vanuatu, where the sand is white and the water is turquoise. The open Pacific isn’t like that—it’s dark blue here, and colder than it is at the islands. But it feels great on my hot skin, and once I’m up to my thighs I dive forward, cleaving through the water. It rushes over my head and in my ears and around my face, icy cold, cleansing, and when I surface I feel as if someone’s opened the top of my head, taken out my brain, and cleaned inside with a scouring pad. Everything sounds louder, smells stronger, seems brighter.
For a brief second I feel reborn, a million miles away from the world that has weighed heavily on me for so long that it had begun to feel like a chain around my ankle, dragging me down.
It’s only seconds before the swell of exultation subsides, and I remind myself that nothing’s changed. But even though it was only brief, like clouds parting to show a glimpse of the sun, it proves to me for the first time in years that the sun is still there.
It occurs to me that the main reason for that brief glow of pleasure is Jess. I swim up to her. Her floppy hat shades her eyes, and her skin is pink from the cold. She passes her hands through the water in front of her, sending ripples through it that bounce off me, touching me and yet not touching me.
My New Year Fling: A Sexy Christmas Billionaire Romance (Love Comes Later Book 2) Page 3