“I have yes, kissed her, held her and wanted her all those ways I’m sorry Alysia, you’ve said your piece please leave.” I have, and she was the one I wanted, she was just too young and we were in the wrong time in our lives, shit, shit I need a time machine to go back and rewrite my shit treatment of all the women I have ever slept with, Gina would be given a wide birth, if she hadn’t turned up I would have asked Hugh back then for Bella’s hand in marriage, I’m sounding like a drunken scratched record.
“You have never kissed me ever, so go on why did you not ever kiss me? Tell me Chris, because I needed to be loved, and appreciated, and not feel like I’m being used, like a two bit hooker? Have you ever once stopped to consider my feelings, or any other of your fuck buddies feelings? Chris a few of us are nursing broken hearts over the way you treated us, we got nothing but sex from you… I love you Chris, really, I do, and I sit for days waiting for you to ring me after we do this. Hell you can’t love someone, because you don’t know how to.” She hits the nail on the head I don’t know how too, I need therapy and help or to spend time with the only good man I know… Hugh.
“I’m glad this woman who is having another man’s baby, has broken your heart, maybe now you will feel as crap as you made me feel tonight, you made me feel like a prostitute, and that was my fault for thinking I can and could change you. Maybe you will start treating any other idiot woman better, knowing how much it hurts. I won’t be ringing you again or accepting your invitations to party ever again.”
Maybe I have reaped what I have sown, Gran was right my karma is gonna bite me in the arse. I watched as she disappeared into the lift, I’d hurt her and I had finally listened to her and listened to her cry of desperation, then it hit me in the stomach, she was so wrong, I did love someone… Bella…
“I have kissed her, she is the only one I have ever kissed, I’m sorry I treated you all like that. Why didn’t she wait for me like she promised?” I talked to myself cursing the things I had done, I phoned for my car service I needed to get her back. My phone rang, and as I picked up it was Luis. I stepped in the lift and leant against the wall.
“Yeah sorry Luis, I didn’t feel like coming out Luis, it’s been a bad night, a really bad night.”
“Not as bad as ours Chris, Bella is missing, and has been gone a couple of hours, she was supposed to be in bed, and she wasn’t there when Preston went to check on her.” My heart lands in the pit of my stomach has Gina got her? I want to be sick, my head spins and I fall to the floor…
“I’m coming now she will be fine, I’m sure she’s still in the bloody hotel hiding out.” I panic had Gina got her, is my girl in danger and her baby? Shit Bella don’t tell her of the baby. I begin to pray…
“No, she was pictured leaving in a cab, a cab that stopped near your hotel, did she follow you? Fuck is she there with you?” I then remembered the sounds on the roof, the crying, the hiccup, the sounds of movements, shit no…
“No I was with Alysia. I will go back and check the monitors and crap, and the door swipes.”
“Cheers, Dad is panicking and Mum is besides herself.”
“As soon as I get off the phone I will head into Novo’s security room. I’ll ring you back.” I didn’t need to look, as I went back into the security office I saw her on the monitors, in the lift. Shit she had been on the roof, she had seen my session with Alysia, crap. I zoomed in and she was red eyed and crying, what do I do? I watch as she cries again. I get security to make sure she discretely gets into the car that was waiting to take me back to the hotel and tell them to tell the driver, she is to be taken straight to security. I have blown it with the Humphries family, especially when she tells them what she has seen and where she has been. I phone Bella and I’m surprised when she answers.
“Bella, I know you saw what happened on the roof, I know you are disappointed, I know you hate me, your family are freaking out they think Gina has you. I need to speak to you about your baby first.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t have anything to say to you. I will get the car to drop me off at the secure entrance at the back. I will tell them I wanted to go for a walk and ended up grabbing a cab to your place, and I had a drink, because I wanted to celebrate, and I knew I would be safe there.” What did she hear? I know what she saw, damn it, why was she there?
“Bella, please I will be in my room for breakfast, join me and we can talk, I need to tell you everything.”
“I don’t want to see you, speak to you or have anything to do with you ever again. Did you not learn anything from Gina? I saw enough, and you haven’t changed one bit, in fact, I think you are worse. I thought you had remembered the promises we made Chris, but it seems you didn’t.”
“I did, I did remember, but I was late down to the ball and Bella I was coming to claim my dance. I’d been hiding out to surprise you, I saw the boy and you kiss Bella, then I heard you tell him he was going to be a father, and he didn’t want to be, that your father was going to help you raise the child, I will help you raise the child Bella.”
“Chris I’m not pregnant, nor do I have a baby, my friend does, and he is the father of that child. I was telling him he has to pay for her and he came on to me for my money.”
“Bella I’m sorry I heard the conversation, and I thought, well I thought…”
“...There was nothing going on, and there never was. You and I have nothing more to talk about ever again. I would never ever go with someone whose morals are so reprehensively low as yours are. You used Gina, and still you didn’t learn and you screwed that girl like a prostitute, despite you knowing there’s a mad woman now on the loose from being involved with you. Chris you’re still doing the same things with other women, women who are so blatantly and deeply in love with you. I had feelings for you Chris, and I would have done anything for you, anything, I was as desperate to sleep with you, as that girl was tonight, and now I hate you really hate you Chris. I don’t want to see you again, I don’t want to talk to you ever again and I will never feel anything for you but pity and hate, so have I said enough? Do we need to talk tomorrow? No… I didn’t think so… I will have your things packed and sent to your penthouse there.”
“Bella I’m so sorry, and here’s me thinking I was too old for you when all along I wasn’t mature enough for you. I will send Henry for the things in my room, he is used to packing for me, and Bella I promise I am changing, give me time please just give me time?”
“Have all the time you need… I’m approaching the hotel now, and if you keep your distance this stays between us two, and I will not tell Dad, come near me and I tell him what you’re really like.”
“I won’t Bella I promise, I will see you again though, when I’m worthy of you.” I hear the phone click and my heart sinks.
I phone Henry and ask him to pack my things at By the Park in the morning, and tell him I’m at the club, and to swing by and pick me up tomorrow. I’m heading to my penthouse, which is the floor under the roof top terrace here at Novo. I need to get my sorry arse to bed and try to sleep. My road to perdition has started, with my head in a mess and my life now heading the same way, worse because I believed Bella, when she said she did not want to see or hear from me again.
What the hell had happened tonight? I’d had a text from Luis thanking me for finding her, she had been upset earlier by a friends unexpected bad news, good news thing, and was wiped out, she just wanted away from the crazy in her life. I was the only crazy in her life and I knew it, when did she get so wise?
CHAPTER TEN:
Bella:
As the car pulled into the security, Dad rushed to the car. Oh hell that look. I was going down like a stone chucked in the sea, I was metaphorically screwed, and drunk to boot.
“Isabella, where the hell have you been? Do you know what your Mum is doing in the room she’s being sick, sick with worry, where have you been?”
“Dad, I’m sorry, but I was feeling like crap, Preston had been so busy I didn’t want to wa
ke her to take Bella for a walk. I just needed to get away from the stress, and I thought I’d have a walk to the park but then I wanted a drink and as I’m not twenty one I can’t drink here. I’m not at home or in London where I could get a drink easily, your bar staff won’t serve me here either, so I got a cab to Chris’s club, he said he’d be there, but he’d been called away on business, so I sat and had cocktails, all watched by security and all night too. I won’t do it again, but with all the stuff with Susan, it had me thinking I haven’t got that many friends and the ones I do have, I have let them down, Dad I want to go to the new place tomorrow or later today, I don’t want to be here, can I go please?”
“Bella what’s happened to you tonight?”
“Jack happened, he was using me to get at my money, I forgot about Susan, Teddy is God knows where, Alice is in Canada. Dad I have the stable girls who I know more about, than my supposed friends.”
“We were worried baby that’s all, I’m sorry you have to live in this mad security bubble, but for a few weeks or until…”
“Until Gina is caught, I know. That’s why I want to go home, or at least to our new home I hate it here, I just want to spend the next few weeks there before university, you know? Just having a normal life, I’m sorry I skipped out on my party and my surprise which was what?”
“It’s at home, you will see it later, we are all going home your things are being packed and Luis is saying goodbye to his friends, so we will be in the air after lunch today. Get to bed and try to get some sleep.” I do just that as Mum has her hissy fit with me, then Luis has his shouting session and Preston just shakes her head. It sucks that I messed up big time tonight, I didn’t sleep too well either and tempers aren’t much better in the morning. I head out to do some retail therapy, and as I do I see Henry going into Chris’s suite, I sigh and walk to the door.
“Hi Henry, how are Tammy and the babies?”
“They are fine Bella, and how are you after your escapades last night?”
“Well, how the hell did you know that? Oh, don’t answer that, has Chris got you watching me too, oh hell you know what? I’m a little confused and a lot angrier with Chris, but mainly feeling sorry for myself or at myself, I’m not sure which?”
“How so Bella, what’s the problem besides Chris?”
“Well, I know you know I like Chris, of course you do, Tanner, sorry Tammy will have told you, but on this trip, let’s just say I had my eyes well and truly opened to how he lives his life, from the girls in the suite to the thing last night and that’s not for me, that’s never going to be it for me. I now need to focus on uni and stop believing he can change, when obviously he can’t. Fancy him thinking I was pregnant, unlike him, I do not sleep around?”
“Can I just ask why you think he had girls in his room?”
“Condoms, they were used and I shifted a load so I know, I was his room cleaner.”
“I’d ask Luis about those. Chris actually slept in the bath tub with a locked door, he called me early in the morning to go to breakfast with him, but Tammy had had a bad night her Mama’s cooking was repeating, enough of that! Anyhow it turns out he was getting out of the place before they all woke up and demand he join them again, he’s bad but not that bad, your brother however is a different story.”
“I know Luis is a man whore, and he let me waffle on and on about Chris’s bad morals and what a shameless man he was, when all along it was bloody him, he is going down later. Berrrrhhh, I shifted my brothers used crap. Eww’s bleach and wire wool thanks Henry.” He laughed.
“Apparently, they were pole dancers from a bar they went into earlier don’t ask me, I only got edited highlights. As to last night he needs that or rather he needed sex, it’s how he deals with things, he is a grown arsed man with needs and for the record the set up on the roof terrace last night to surprise you. He’d been planning it for ages and when he thought, you were having someone else’s baby he went mad, and to call Alysia, he mustn’t have been thinking straight to call her. I know he’s ashamed and devastated, and that’s why I’m here so as he doesn’t upset you further. We’re off to Texas for a couple of weeks, he needs some downtime, the mines in Australia are driving him potty and now the Russian has backed out he’s going it alone again until the Chinese takeover, he’s stressed and lonely Bella. I guess Tammy and I will be dealing with the bad moods of Christopher Holland for a while.
Just give him time Bella please just give him time, he needs to grow up. His upbringing, according to Jameson was a little dysfunctional and he doesn’t know how to do things differently, he’s a young, attractive rich man, who hasn’t a clue how to be normal, every time he tries, he fucks up, but I know he cares deeply for you, and last night, well that was a shock to him too. He is horrified and ashamed of his actions. His plans for the night, well, they all went to pieces when he thought you were…”
“Pregnant, I know he said, so he wanted to take me to the rooftop and screw me like he did her, great so fucking romantic.”
“No, no, no, it was beautiful, I know because I helped do it, fairy lights, flowers and everything. He pushed the romantic button and went into overdrive. Apparently last night was to have been a special night?” I know I’m burning up and my cheeks are flushed. “He flipped out when he saw and heard what he thought he saw, you know the baby and all that and he realised or thought you were in love with someone else, he heard you say you were in love with the lad?” That’s what you get when you listen to part of a conversation. He was still a stupid arsed man…
“Chris and I would never have worked because we’re… Christ I don’t even know what we are, loves lost dream or something equally stupidly clichéd. I know the age thing and everything else has ruined it, and now it’s all in the past. I can’t begin to forgive or forget what he did to that woman, knowing the last one, or sorry another one of his freaky fuck buddies, is out there having murdered her entire family, and all because he screwed with her emotions, by not having any of his own.
He didn’t learn, but perhaps he will learn from this, I don’t know if he’s even capable of changing? I know I’ll be concentrating on my studies and getting as far away from his madness as I can. His present for his birthday is on his bed, I put it there this morning, it’s my copy of Shakespeare’s Love's Labour's Lost and a something to remember what he threw away, it’s quite fitting really. See he gets it please and hopefully it will help with his emotions, thanks to him, I have need of a bloody great therapist. I have to be going, I have clothes and books yet to buy and we are going home after lunch. Will you keep me in the loop about Tammy please? Sorry, but it has to be through Bedford, my phone is being changed, we are all having to have a fresh start apparently?” With that, Preston came from her room.
“Miss Humphries are we ready?” I nodded to give me another minute.
“Goodbye Bella, and good luck with the studies, and for the record, his and your story is far from over, give him time Bella just give him time.” I nodded and went to shop. I am going to kill Luis for not telling me I’d shifted his used goods and that he let me believe he’d spoken to his ‘friend Cooper’, what with the idiot over sexed brother and my cursed crush, my life would be better served living in a nunnery. I looked at Preston as we get in the lift, she was being nice to me, and I know she had been read the riot act by Mum, Dad and Bedford.
“Sorry Julie I know you got some grief from everyone. I told them I tricked you, they know me and how I was with Tanner, I did it to her way more than I do you, and they know it. They know you look after me and it was out of your control me doing what I did.”
“I was worried Bella that’s all, but you will be pleased to know there is now to be a camera outside of all your bedroom doors and windows you are to be monitored, all be it by security cameras. I like to think of it as more sort of a very adult baby monitor. Your Dad wanted you to be micro chipped and Bedford was looking into it for him too.”
“Oh, I… Well I won’t be doing anything like that
again, not from now on anyway last night was a wakeup call.” That was easier than I thought either that or she was going easy on me? As we shopped, I thought about what Henry had said, he’d planned a special night and instead he ruined it by doing what he did with that girl, and he’d ruined any chance of there ever being an ‘us’.
“Bella, what’s the matter, you have been so very quiet today and look troubled?”
“Stuff, that’s all just crappy stuff.”
“Tell me, you have spent a small fortune and have bought more jeans than you will ever wear. Whatever it is, it stops between you and me.”
“I need your word Julie, I really do.”
“You have it, was it Chris? I saw him last night hanging by the door, before I ran in to rescue Jack.”
“He heard parts of the conversation, yeah bad parts, and well he thought I’d had sex with Jack and was having his baby.”
“You put him straight I hope that it’s your friend’s baby?”
“I didn’t get a chance, I came out to find him and instead I heard him on the phone, arranging to meet a woman. I knew where he was going so I got myself there.” I cried again and her arms came in for a hug like no other, she wasn’t being mushy, she was being supportive, a different kind of caring and I shed a fountain of tears. I told her what I’d seen, what he’d said, what she said, in fact everything.
“You’ve fantasised about this man for such a long, long time and to have any hopes you had of any type of liaison dashed like that, is heart wrenching. I know it happened to me, that’s why I left uni. My fiancé was screwing around with my sister, imagine how shit that felt, and consider yourself lucky the relationship didn’t involve amazing mind blowing sex, I swear I didn’t miss him as much as I did the sex.” I laughed.
Soul Mates. The Beginning. Page 21