I don’t really hate him—I hate myself for having taken his death this way. I wish I could mourn him properly, instead of having my grief tied up in a complicated knot of jealousy, resentment, and guilt.
I’m alone now. For the first time in four years, I look that fact full in the face, and accept it. And I realize it’s okay. I am strong enough to be without him. I can stand up for myself. To exist as half a twin. Jess is right—even if I’m not as funny or charming as he was, it doesn’t matter. I know that Teddi will never love me the way I love her, but that’s okay too. If I do meet another girl, she’s not going to get half a person. She’s going to get a whole Rich Wright, and he isn’t a bad guy. He’s smart, he’s loyal, he’s hard working, and he doesn’t seem too bad in bed.
I’m going to survive. And with that revelation, I breathe in the fresh, salty smell of the after-storm and feel reborn.
I glance at Jess. She’s looking out of the window too, her head tilted to one side, her face sad. Her posture is resigned, defeated.
I bump my shoulder against hers. “I’m going to have a glass of wine,” I tell her. “Would you like one?”
She looks up at me, her forehead creasing in a frown.
“Not like that,” I add. “I’m okay. I won’t get drunk tonight. I’m going to celebrate, if anything. And I’d love it if you’d join me, but I’ll understand if you don’t.”
She looks into my eyes, and a tingle runs down my back. I’m not sure what it is about this girl, but she does something funny to my insides. Maybe it’s because I’m aware that, like a psychic who can see dead people, she sees fireworks in the air, and that fascinates me. I like that she’s special. She interests me. I want to find out more about her. And I’d like to make love to her again.
So I’m thrilled when she gives a small nod, and her lips curve up a tiny bit.
“Good.” I roll off the bed and pad out into the kitchen. There’s a bottle of Merlot in the cupboard, and I fill two glasses and take them back to bed with a block of caramel chocolate that Mum left me, because I know Jess is a chocoholic. After handing her a glass, I place mine on the bedside table, climb back on the bed, and begin to break up the bar. I offer her a piece, and she takes one and pops it in her mouth, smiling as she sucks it.
“You already know the way to my heart,” she says.
I meet her gaze, and something in her eyes tells me she’s not just talking about the chocolate. I tip my head at her. “What are you worried about?”
She picks up her glass, sips it, then leans her head back on the wall with a sigh. “I know we’re only ships that pass in the night, and we don’t have to confess everything. I’ll probably never see you again once you go, and that’s okay, that’s what happens in life. I’m all right with that. So it’s probably best that we don’t know everything about each other. Plus, and this may sound stupid, but I don’t want you to change your view of me.” Her brow creases.
“Why would telling me change my view of you?”
“People have certain opinions on things, and it’s always difficult to know which way someone’s going to lean. What shocks one person will make another one shrug. I have no idea about your views on life, on childhood and having kids and bringing them up. I don’t know if you’re a traditionalist or a radical.”
“Probably somewhere in between,” I tell her. “The main thing you need to know about me is that I don’t judge, or I try not to, anyway. Look, I live comfortably in the city. My dad is pakeha, and his family were from England way back. But my mother is Maori and grew up here, one of six kids. When she married Dad, they lived here for a long time, and I grew up on the beach, without shoes, eating whatever we fished out of the ocean. Life was hard in many ways, but it was also a good life, and I miss it a lot. When it was time for Will and me to go to high school, we moved closer to Kerikeri because they wanted us to have a quality education at the best school in the area. We met Stratton and Teddi, and slowly things started to change. Dad got a job as an electrician at a local firm, and we gradually left that quiet, rural life behind. What I’m trying to say is that I’d never judge anyone because of where they’re from, or what’s happened to them in their past. As we said earlier, we’re the end-product of a long line of events and experiences, not all of them our own choosing.”
Jess takes another piece of chocolate. “You’re right, I guess.”
“And anyway, my opinion means nothing,” I joke.
Her eyes meet mine again. “Yes, it does. I like you. And I want you to like me, too.” She gives a little shrug.
Something hovers between us—a spark of potential, a glimmer that I can see through the mist of the future, a shape far off in the distance. This relationship, such as it is, couldn’t come to anything. Could it? It’s clear to me that Jess has hardly any money. She has no idea of the kind of lifestyle I lead. I feel a flicker of wariness. Girls always change whenever they realize I’m rich. I’m not saying that all women are after my money, but I know it’s a factor for some I’ve met. True, Jess doesn’t strike me as the money-grabbing sort, but a billion dollars in the bank has a strange way of twisting a person’s mind.
“All right,” she says. “I’ll tell you. And I won’t be shocked if you do feel differently toward me afterward.”
I sip the Merlot, my curiosity growing.
She takes another piece of chocolate, but doesn’t eat it, just examines it with a frown, as if trying to work out its chemical composition.
“I grew up in Hamilton. My parents were very religious,” she says, which surprises me. That wasn’t how I expected her to start. “I went to an all-girls’ Catholic school, and my brother went an all-boys’. I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup or have my ears pierced or anything like that. Every night at dinner, my father would give us a lecture on their expectations of us. Any little transgression—dropping a grade in class, getting a detention, failing to hand in homework—was punished. I suppose I could have gone one of two ways—knuckled down and become the good girl they wanted, or rebelled.”
She sips her wine, then pops the square of chocolate in her mouth. “At fourteen, I made a friend at school called Charley. She was feisty and naughty, and I loved her to bits. She completely led me astray. Well, that makes it sound as if it was all her fault and it wasn’t, of course. She just taught me to be myself. We sneaked out of our rooms at night to join up with a group of friends in town, drank, smoked weed. I loved sitting there when my dad lectured me knowing that I was going to do the complete opposite after he’d gone to bed that night. They found out, of course. My grades dropped, and they smelled the smoke and the weed and knew what was going on. They tried to ground me and control me, force me to go to church and confess my sins, but it just made me worse. I got high on the feeling that I was flouting their rules. I snuck out whenever I could, argued with them all the time, and gradually grew out of control.” She rubs her nose. “Then just after I turned fifteen, something happened.”
I don’t say anything, knowing it’s important I don’t react. But inside, my mind races. What’s she going to tell me?
She glances at me, then looks back out of the window and sighs. “Charley and some of my other friends had been having sex for over a year, but I’d kept putting it off. Then one night, we went to a party, and I met this guy, Edward—Eddie. He was older than me. He didn’t have to talk me into anything—I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, you know? We had sex, without a condom—yeah, I was that stupid. And I got pregnant, first time.”
She looks at her hands. Her face is white.
I make sure I don’t react. “What happened?”
“I could have had an abortion without telling my parents, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, and I was an idiot, I thought they’d help me once they knew. I expected them to be angry initially but I hoped that then they might even be pleased. How stupid was that? They were furious. They were embarrassed and ashamed of me.”
“Oh, Jess.” I want to hug her, but the exp
ression on her face makes me hold back.
“It was one of the most miserable times of my life. I cried nearly all day, every day. They refused to let me out of the house. It was such a stressful time that the pregnancy didn’t go well. It was… it was twins.”
“Oh jeez.”
“At twenty-eight weeks, I was hospitalized and had a C-section, but they were too small. They both died.” The words are carefully rehearsed—there’s no emotion on her face. She’s too afraid that if she begins to let it flow, she won’t be able to stop.
A silence falls between us. I let her words settle into me, and try to think of the horror she’s been through. Losing two babies at fifteen—I can’t even imagine how that felt.
Eventually, Jess sighs. “I felt rotten inside after that. I fell apart. I couldn’t bear to stay with my parents, so I ran away and hitched a ride to Auckland.”
She sips her wine again, and a kind of dull lassitude steals over her. “I’ll gloss over the next ten years or so, because they’re a dull tale of misery and darkness. I lived on the street. I drank, took a variety of drugs, stole repeatedly, and eventually did a stint inside.”
This does shock me. I’ve never even come close to breaking the law, and I’ve never known anyone who’s been in prison. Like most guys from the Northland, I smoked weed recreationally when I was young, but I haven’t even done that for a few years. I like my whisky and drink a lot around Christmas time, but don’t usually feel the need to overindulge during the year. Everything in moderation, including moderation, isn’t that what they say? But it seems as if Jess has no limits, and has pushed herself over the edge in many ways in the past.
It’s not what I thought at all. And I’m certain my reaction isn’t going to be what she thought, either.
Chapter Ten
Jess
Rich’s expression is blank, and I have no idea what he’s thinking. Probably, Jesus Christ, what’s the quickest way out of here?
I don’t have to answer to this man, and I shouldn’t care what he thinks about me, but I discover that I do, which confuses and upsets me at the same time. A swell of emotion makes me swallow hard, but I keep a tight grip on it. It’s too late to take the words back.
“I’ve shocked you,” I tell him.
He tips his head to the side and studies me. “Honestly? Yes.”
I blink a few times. He doesn’t look horrified. In fact, there’s a hint of a smile in his eyes.
“So… why aren’t you leaping to your feet and running out of the door?” I ask him.
Now his lips are definitely curving up. “Because all it’s done is make you even more fascinating to me.”
I give him a doubtful look, my heart hammering. “Fascinating?”
“Yeah. I don’t know any criminals.” He’s teasing me.
I’m so touched that I want to burst into tears, but I fight it and stick my tongue out at him. “Ex-criminal.”
“Whatever. I’m serious. I don’t know anyone who’s been to prison. It’s like meeting Al Capone.”
That makes me give a weak laugh. “Hardly.”
“Fuck, you’re sexy.” He pulls me into his arms and nuzzles my neck.
My head is spinning. “My sorry tale turns you on?”
“It does. You’re such a bad girl.” He rolls onto his back, bringing me with him so I’m lying stretched out along him, and he proceeds to give me a long, luxurious kiss, holding my head with his hand so I can’t move away. I let him, even though I’m so overwhelmed I can barely breathe.
When he eventually lets me move back, he laughs at the look on my face. “What?”
“I don’t understand,” I tell him honestly. When I’d admitted to Alastair about my past, he’d said Jesus. Oh well. I suppose nobody’s perfect. He hadn’t spoken about it again, but things had changed between us after that. I often wonder if he would have left his wife if I hadn’t told him. Part of me wishes I hadn’t. The other part knows that if he wasn’t able to accept me—all of me—then what we had wasn’t worth fighting for anyway.
Rich shrugs, threading his hands through my hair. “You’re interesting, Jess. Life’s not about being perfect or about not making mistakes. The important thing is what you do when you make them, and how you deal with the consequences.”
“I don’t think I’ve done great,” I say doubtfully. “I’m currently jobless, single, and living in a house the size of a shoe box.”
“Jess, you could have rolled over and held up your hands and said I’m done after the terrible things you suffered, but you didn’t. I know it might not all have been sunshine and roses, but I have nothing but admiration for you for picking yourself up and moving on.”
I lean my elbow on his chest and rub my nose. “Are you trying to make me cry?”
“Maybe.” He kisses my nose, then my lips again. “I don’t know what the future holds for you. But I do feel as if you were sent here to help me. I’m so glad to have met such an exciting girl.”
“You must lead a very dull life if you think I’m exciting.”
“I do,” he admits. “I’m a very dull guy. I’ve never even had a parking ticket.” He shifts me off him, to the side, but keeps me close, his arms around me.
I can see now why he finds me interesting, if indeed he has led a quiet life without venturing close to the edge of the darkness that is living on the street. Does that make me like a creature in a zoo? Is he just peering through the cage, fascinated by this exotic creature who is so different from himself?
It might be the truth, but it feels unfair even as I think it. It’s human nature to find other people’s lives interesting. Rich might come from a poor background, but he has a flash phone and a flash car, and he lives and works in Auckland, so I have a feeling he does quite well for himself. He must be used to mixing with educated Kiwi women, who have husbands and families and suburban two-bedroomed houses, who take their kids to school and then go to their day job as accountants or lawyers or doctors. Or girls who are beauticians, hairdressers, or who work in department stores, who have expensive clothing, straightened and streaked hair, carefully applied makeup, and acrylic nails. I must be very different from most of the people he interacts with, so it’s natural that he’d be intrigued.
“So what happened after you came out of prison?” he asks, propping his head on a hand as he traces his fingers down my back.
I nestle down with a sigh, deciding that I might as well finish the tale. “I knew that I never wanted to go back again. I suppose it was the jolt to my system I needed. I contacted one of their outreach programs, did some basic training, and they got a me a job in a restaurant run by a decent couple who didn’t care that I’d been inside, which I found very humbling. I worked there for a few years. Maria took me under her wing—she trained me, found me a cheap place to stay, and she helped me to stay off the drugs. I’ve been clean ever since—over ten years now.”
“She sounds nice.”
“Yeah. She was a great support. She was the pagan, the one who helped me to realize it was possible to have faith even if you didn’t have religion, you know? Her approach to faith was very different to my parents’. They believed in a hellfire and brimstone God, but Maria’s faith was all about light and joy and forgiveness. About celebrating life. But not in an ‘everything in the garden is rosy’ kind of way. She believed in the truth, in looking in the mirror and not being afraid or ashamed of what you see there. She was like an angel sent from heaven, not because she was holier-than-thou, but because she was what I needed.” I feel an urge to make him understand. “She didn’t pity me or sympathize with my terrible lot. She was honest and frank—awkwardly so, sometimes, but she helped me to face up to the mistakes I’d made, to look them in the eye.”
“To accept responsibility for what you’d done?”
“Yes.” I feel a sweep of pleasure that he understands. “And to accept that although I could have done a lot of things better, I’d paid the price for them, and it was time to move on. She helpe
d me to understand that I could get off the dismal fairground ride my life had become, and make something of myself.”
I haven’t yet told her that Alastair and I are over. I know she’s going to be disappointed—not in me, necessarily, but in the way it ended. She was so pleased to hear I’d met someone, and I know I made him sound better than he was. Funny that I can see it now we’ve broken up.
“So how did you end up here?” Rich asks.
“Maria and Paul moved to the South Island after the Christchurch earthquake to try and help rebuild the city, as they had family down there. They asked me to go with them, but I felt it was time I stood on my own two feet. I keep in touch by phone and text and email.”
“But you didn’t stay in Auckland?”
“No, by then my brother had moved up here, away from my parents. It took him longer than me, but I think he finally grew tired of them trying to control his life too. I think he felt guilty as well, at what had happened to me. I mean, he’s younger than me, so there wasn’t a lot he could have done at the time, but he still feels bad. Maria encouraged me to get back in contact with him, and he suggested I move up here. He had a friend who works at the Muffin House, and he got me the job there.” I pull a face. “He wasn’t too pleased with how I repaid him.”
“Does he know that the guy you met didn’t tell you he was married?”
“Yeah, but he thinks I should have just ended it and kept my mouth shut, and stayed working for him. Caleb doesn’t think that deeply, you know? He has no idea how betrayed I felt.” I realize I’m talking in the past tense. It confuses me. It was only last night that I threw my phone in the sea because there had been no message from Alastair. I can’t be over him after one night just because some stranger paid me a second’s interest, surely?
My New Year Fling: A Sexy Christmas Billionaire Romance (Love Comes Later Book 2) Page 8