In the scheme of things, it’s not a long time, but I can feel myself changing, almost at a molecular level, as if my mixed-up emotions are a combination of ingredients and the sun is slowly baking me, turning me into something new.
I wonder if he feels the same way. I can almost see him healing, his wounds closing over a little more every time we make love. I think the sun and the rest are having a wonderful effect on him, but I hope that at least part of it is to do with me, and the time we’re sharing together.
We go up to Doubtless Bay once or twice to stock up on food, and wander around the shops. I buy myself a new phone to replace the one I threw into the sea. Rich offers to buy me a posh smart phone, but I refuse and get a nineteen-dollar pre-pay one that will do me just fine. Letting him take me out to dinner is one thing, but I can’t let him buy me stuff.
We’re not a couple, I keep telling myself, not really, even if it is starting to feel like it. But it’s just a fling we’re having. A holiday fling. That’s all.
I’m not normally a fan of New Year’s Eve. I dislike the festive season in general because as a single woman it makes me feel as if I’ve failed because I don’t have a husband and a family, and I don’t like the notion of forced fun anyway. This time, though, I decide it’s going to be my favorite day of the year. In the morning, we buy ourselves some fresh prawns and vegetables that I decide to make into kebabs for the barbecue, several mini tubs of ice cream that came from the Treats shop in Mangonui, and a couple of bottles of expensive wine that Rich insists on treating us to.
“I’m going to start making love to you around eleven thirty p.m.,” he tells me as I thread pieces of chopped capsicum, zucchini, and tomato onto a skewer.
“That’s very precise.” I try to suppress a shiver as he nuzzles my neck, fail helplessly, and roll my eyes as he chuckles.
“I want to be inside you at midnight,” he informs me, “so I’m making love to you for a whole year.”
I laugh and push at his arm as he cups my breast. “You’d better stop doing that then, or we’ll end up in bed and we won’t have any energy tonight.”
“Now you know that’s a lie,” he murmurs as he plucks at my nipple, sending an electric shock straight to my clit. “I could make love to you all day every day and never get tired.”
“That does seem to be true,” I say breathlessly, turning in his arms so he can capture my lips with his own. I can’t believe I’m this lucky. What have I done to deserve him?
*
Less than an hour later, my body warm and relaxed from the two orgasms he’s given me, I sit on the deck with my legs crossed, slot in my earbuds, and listen to one of the meditations that Maria gave me years ago. As the gentle music starts, I count my blessings and think about how lucky I am. I give thanks for the fact that Rich came into my life when I needed him most. I try to project my feelings for him into my future, so that when we part I can see it as a positive thing and not an ending—as something I’ve gained, not something I’ve lost.
It’s not easy—I feel as if he’s given me a glimpse of a rainbow that’s going to fade the moment he takes the light away, but hey, I’m a work in progress, and I know I’m a long way from being perfect.
To my surprise, Rich taps me on the shoulder. When I remove my earbud, he says, “Can I join in?”
I raise my eyebrows. “Sure.”
He lowers himself onto the deck beside me. “I’ve never understood the point of meditation before, but you seem so peaceful and serene, I’d love to know how you manage to empty your mind.”
“Oh, I don’t really,” I admit. “That’s why I listen to recordings, because they give me something to focus on. It’s about being mindful—being in the present, and appreciating the here and now. In some of the recordings, you concentrate on different parts of the body and where they’re touching the ground or the chair you’re sitting on, for example. Some of them are visualizations, where you picture yourself in different peaceful settings. In others, you become aware of your breathing. That’s what I’m listening to at the moment.” I hand him one of my earbuds. He holds my hand, his fingers warm on mine. I close my eyes and press play.
As the woman talks, I concentrate on my breathing, feeling my tummy rise and fall, counting the in breaths at first and then, as I become calmer, the out breaths. I’m relaxed, and yet I’m also acutely conscious of Rich sitting beside me. I know it’s fanciful because I’ve only known him a week, but I can feel him—not just his physical body, his hand on mine—but his spirit, or his energy, whatever you want to call it. I might not have much of a history with him, but I feel as if maybe I know him better than anyone else, because he’s opened his heart to me. When I first met him, he was cast in shadow, but now he seems light, if not full of hope then at least on the path to being more hopeful and to looking forward to the future. Have I done that for him? I hope so.
It crosses my mind that maybe what I’ve done is fix him so he’s ready to return to his life and find himself Mrs. Wright, whoever she ends up being. When I think of that, my throat tightens and I feel a strange buzzing in my head. I don’t know if I can bear to say goodbye to him.
And for the first time since we’ve met, I let myself wonder whether I have to.
The woman’s voice fades away in my head as the thumping of my heart takes its place. I try to calm it down. He’s shown no signs of being interested in taking this further, but then, to be fair, neither have I. Should I say something? I know I run the risk of making a fool of myself, but then if I don’t I’ll never know if there is a possibility that it might have prompted a future for us. Better to regret what you’ve done rather than what you haven’t, right?
I open my eyes and go to say something to him, then stop, surprised. In front of us, about six feet away, a woman is standing, a young woman, late teens or early twenties. She’s slim with long dark-blonde hair, and she’s wearing denim shorts and an orange vest. Something about her seems familiar, even though I don’t think I’ve seen her before.
“Hi,” I say, feeling Rich stir beside me. “Can I help you?”
She shoves her hands into the pockets of her shorts, hunching her shoulders. “Maybe,” she says. “Is your name Jessica Phillips?”
Now I’m puzzled. “Jess, yes. Do I know you?”
“No,” she says. “Not quite. I think…” She lifts her chin and looks me in the eye. “I think you might be my mother.”
There’s not a breath of wind. The air is incredibly still. My head spins. A trail of sweat runs down between my breasts. My brain’s like a rusty clock, refusing to work.
The girl looks an odd mixture of defiant and frightened. Rich stares at her, then he looks at me, baffled.
“What?” My mouth forms the word and spits it out like a broken tooth.
“I’m adopted,” the girl says. “My birth mother had twins—a boy and a girl—and gave them up for adoption. I had to wait until I was twenty to request a copy of my birth certificate, and it said my mother’s name was Jessica Phillips. Adoption Services helped me trace you. Am I right? Is it you?”
I can’t breathe. Beside me, Rich’s hand slips out of mine, and suddenly I feel alone, adrift in a cold sea, drenched in sweat, shaking. Even though there’s no noise, my synesthesia kicks in big time, and I see a scatter of scarlet triangles in the air around the girl, and smell the acrid scent of something burning.
Possibly it’s my brain, having a meltdown. I’m conscious that the blood is draining from my head. I’m going to pass out if I’m not careful. I can’t look away from her, though, her hazel eyes, her dark-blonde hair. She looks like me. That’s why I thought I recognized her.
“Lara?” Further along the beach, a woman calls, walking toward her, a man in her wake. We still don’t say anything, the girl, Rich, and I, turned to stone by the moment, and the woman reaches us before I have a chance to think how I’m going to react.
The woman is older than me, late thirties, early forties, with shoulder-length brown hair, a
nd she’s wearing a beach skirt and a pretty purple T-shirt. The guy approaches behind her, also early forties, average height and build, but with a kind face.
“Lara?” the woman repeats, looking at the still life scene displayed before her. “What’s going on?”
Lara turns to look at the woman, who I suspect is her adoptive mother. “It’s her,” she says simply, and finally the world comes crashing down around my ears.
Chapter Seventeen
Rich
From the look on Jess’s face, I can see that the girl is telling the truth.
Understanding rushes through me, along with a sharp burst of adrenaline. Jess lied to me when she said the babies she gave birth to had died. She bore live twins, and presumably her parents forced her to give them up for adoption.
I calculate quickly in my head—Jess had told me she was fifteen, and I know she’s thirty-five, so that would make the girl around twenty, which seems about right.
Clearly, Jess had no idea that her daughter was looking for her. She’s gone as white as the clouds on the horizon, and I can feel her shaking.
I don’t know what to think. Jess has grown-up twins? Holy shit.
The eyes of the woman standing beside the girl—Lara—widen almost comically. She stares at her, then at Jess in horror. “What do you mean?” she asks.
“I went to the address we were sent,” Lara says. “But she wasn’t there. I spoke to a guy who was mowing the lawn—he said he was her brother. He said she’d come to Matauri Bay for the New Year.”
“That’s why you wanted to come here?” The man—presumably her adoptive father—looks aghast. “Sweetheart, you should have told us.”
“You’d have said no,” the girl says, her voice husky. She’s near to tears.
“Of course we would.” Her mother glances at Jess, then back to Lara. “Honey, you can’t just walk into Jessica’s life like this. It’s not fair. We were going to arrange a meeting with the counsellor, and get them to contact her, weren’t we?”
“I wanted to meet her.” Lara stares at Jess.
We all go quiet. Presumably, the others can’t think of anything to say either. I wait for Lara to say something like I wanted to meet the woman who gave me away or something else accusatory, but she doesn’t. She seems genuinely distressed as she waits for Jess’s reaction.
I look back at the woman with whom I’ve spent the last week of my life, and suddenly I realize how we’ve been fooling ourselves. I’d told myself that we had something special, but I know practically nothing about her, and vice versa. We’ve both been keeping secrets from each other. Last night, I thought I might be in love with her, but now I see how ridiculous that was. Love means trusting and confiding in each other. It means sharing your lives, and it comes from months or years of shared memories and understanding. We’ve been in lust, that’s all. It doesn’t diminish what we’ve had, or what she’s done for me. She was exactly what I needed, and I’ll be forever thankful to her for showing me the way back the world of the living. That’s where it ends, though.
I tell myself the words, but something in them doesn’t ring true, and they don’t explain the sadness I feel inside.
Jess still hasn’t said anything. Normally, at work, if there’s an awkward silence in a meeting—which there never is because Stratton can talk both hind legs off a donkey—I would change the topic of conversation and smooth things over. But it’s not my place to intervene here. I’m not Jess’s partner, and I don’t know her well enough to know how she’s going to react, or what she wants to do.
I watch Lara’s parents exchange a look, and then the guy steps forward. “Look,” he says gently. “Why don’t we start again? My name’s Gareth, and this is Fiona. We’re Lara’s adoptive parents. Nice to meet you, Jessica.” He holds out his hand to Jess.
She stares at it as if it’s covered in acid. Her spine is rigid, and I’m not sure if she’s breathing.
Although I’ve told myself this isn’t my business, I can’t let Jess suffer like this. I uncurl myself from my sitting position and stand. “I’m Rich,” I tell them. “I’m a friend of Jess’s.” I hold my hand out, and Gareth moves his to mine and we shake. I do the same with Fiona, and then Lara. “Pleased to meet you,” I say gently.
Her shake is firmer than I expect. I imagine that Jess looked very like her at twenty. I have no doubt that she is Jess’s daughter. Her hazel eyes gaze up into mine, and I’m pleased to see there’s no animosity in them. “Hello,” she says.
I release her hand, glance down at Jess, and then place a hand on her shoulder.
She looks at it, then up at me. I smile. She blinks a few times, then looks up at the three people watching her. Slowly, she pushes herself to her feet.
She extends her hand to Gareth. “It’s Jess. Hello.” He shakes it, and she does the same with Fiona. Then, finally, she turns to her daughter.
“Hello, Lara,” she says softly, and holds out her hand.
Lara slips hers into it, and they stand there for a moment, not moving, just staring at each other.
Fiona clears her throat. This must be difficult for all of them, but again I’m pleased to see no resentment on her face. “Lara’s wanted to find you for a long time,” she says to Jess. “She had to wait until she was twenty to request her birth certificate. I was planning to contact the counsellor and ask her to see if you were interested in meeting in the New Year, but clearly Lara beat me to it.” She casts her daughter a wry glance before turning her gaze back to Jess. “I am so very sorry—this must be a terrible shock for you.”
“What about…” Jess licks her lips. “Lara’s brother. Is he… did you…”
“Max,” Lara says. She rubs her nose. “Yes he lives with us. He doesn’t want to meet you.”
“Not just yet, anyway.” Fiona smooths over the harsh words. “He doesn’t bear you any resentment or anything. He’s just happy living in the present, that’s all. He’s not as curious as Lara.” She smiles, and then brightens. “Would you like to see a photo of him?”
My hand is still on Jess’s shoulder, and I can feel her shaking. I slide my fingers down her back until my hand rests at the base of her spine, wanting to take her in my arms, but that will have to wait.
Jess nods, so Fiona fumbles in her handbag and takes out her phone. She flicks through her photos, then finally smiles again and hands Jess the phone.
I look over her shoulder at the photo. It’s of Lara and a young man of the same age—Max. He’s taller than Lara, and he has his arm around her. He has long dark curly hair, tanned skin, and a coral necklace around his throat—a surf dude, a real Kiwi guy. Jess presses her fingers to her lips, although she still doesn’t say anything.
Fiona gently takes the phone from her and taps a few buttons, then hands it back to her. “If you’d like to put in your mobile number, I’ll forward some photos to you.”
With shaking hands, Jess does so, and hands it back.
“Okay,” Fiona says. “Look, I know this must have been an awful shock for you, and I am sorry the way it happened.” She glances at her daughter, and I get the feeling that Lara’s going to get a right telling off when they walk away. “Why don’t we leave you to it for now so you can have a think about it all? And then maybe we can have a talk in a few days? How does that sound?” She places her arm around Lara’s shoulders and squeezes them.
Jess watches them and gives a small nod. I feel a surge of pity—how strange for her to watch her daughter with her family.
I have a thousand questions, but I’m aware that she might not want to talk to me. She didn’t confide in me, so why would she want to open up now?
“All right.” Gareth nods. “Nice to meet you, Jess.”
Jess nods, and Lara gives her one last, long look before the three of them walk up the bank, where they’ve presumably left their car.
The two of us stand on the beach. The hot sun beats down on us, and the air is so, so still, even though the waves continue to roll up the sand.
I feel as if Father Time himself is holding his breath, waiting to see what happens next.
“Jess…” I start to say.
She presses the heel of her hand to her forehead. “My head’s spinning. I can’t breathe.”
“It’s the shock. You need to get out of the sun and have a drink. Come on.” I reach out and take her other hand, half-expecting her to pull away and walk off, and I’m relieved when she doesn’t. I lead her like a child back onto the deck and into a chair, and she leans forward, resting her arms on her knees and her head on her arms. I go inside and pour her a glass of iced water, then go back outside and pass it to her. While she sips it, I sit beside her.
“Quite a shock, eh?” I say.
She nods and gives me a shadow of a smile. “Understatement of the year.” She takes another few sips, then rests her head on her hand, massaging her brow. “Jesus. Did that really just happen? I feel as if I’ve woken from a dream.”
I’m glad that she says dream and not nightmare. “It happened.”
She tilts her head to meet my gaze. “I can’t imagine what you must be thinking right now.”
“Honestly? My head’s spinning almost as much as yours.”
She grimaces. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“It’s okay,” I say gently. “We’ve not known each other that long, and we haven’t talked about the future. What’s happened between us—it happened fast, and even though it’s been intense, you can’t cram a whole relationship into one week. Trust takes time to build.” I mean the words, but I’m conscious of the coolness in my voice. Deep down, I’m hurt that she didn’t confide such a big piece of her life in me, and I can’t ignore that.
“Are you angry with me?” She meets my gaze, lifting her chin in the exact same way that her daughter did when she first approached her.
“Angry?” That makes me wince. I’m hardly the one to cast the first stone, as Jess still has no idea about how much money I have. “Of course not. I’m a bit shocked, that’s all. Look, you don’t have to explain yourself. But if you want to talk, I’m happy to listen.”
My New Year Fling: A Sexy Christmas Billionaire Romance (Love Comes Later Book 2) Page 13