What Matters

by Gracie Leigh

  What Matters

  By Gracie Leigh

  What Matters

  Copyright © May 2017 by Gracie Leigh

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Fox Love Press. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorised editions.

  Cover Artist: Garrett Leigh @ Black Jazz Design

  Editor: Sarah Lyons @ Alphabet Editing

  Published in the United Kingdom

  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  “…It’s a good fear, Sam. I’d miss it if it wasn’t there.”

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  About Gracie Leigh

  Titles by Garrett Leigh

  Chapter One

  “Three hundred pounds a week?” Eddie’s voice rose to a horrified shriek. Cold sweat tickled the back of her neck. “But, Daddy—”

  Michael Dean’s sigh was that of a man who had far bigger things on his mind. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. But you’re going to have to sort this out yourself. I’ve done all I can do. Besides, it won’t do you any harm to get a job. You’re twenty-two, and Lord knows, you’d benefit from a stint in the real world.”

  Eddie opened her mouth to retort that three years at Milan’s top music school had taught her plenty about the real world, as had moving back to London on her own, but her father had hung up.

  Stunned, she dropped onto a nearby bench, the weight of the call hitting her like a train. Her father’s bankruptcy was no surprise—the Financial Times had been speculating about the demise of his hedge fund for weeks—but it had never occurred to her that the distant chaos of the post-Brexit stock market would affect her life. A job? Was he bloody serious? With uni and concert practice, when on earth did she have time to work for a living?

  Oh my God, just kill me now.

  But no mass murderer was forthcoming, and so she did the next best thing—or, at least, the thing that was as close to a slow, painful death as she could imagine—and rang her so-called boyfriend.

  Ian answered on the third ring, the serene silence at his end a telltale sign that her call was interrupting absolutely nothing.

  “My dad’s gone bust,” she said, before he could jump in with a recap of a day he was bound to have spent drinking rhubarb gin at his favourite waterfront bar. “He says he can’t pay my tuition and rent next year.”

  “Next year? You mean in the autumn?”

  “I guess so. We didn’t really talk dates.”

  “Oh. So what are you going to do?”

  Ian’s flat tone held none of the outraged sympathy Eddie needed to hear right now. She stifled a growl and kicked out at an abandoned Lucozade bottle, sending it skittering across the pavement and into the road. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. That’s why I’m calling you. For help. Daddy says I’ll have to get a job. Ugh. How the hell am I going to do that?”

  “A job?”

  “Yes…a job. Though where he thinks I’ve got time to do that, I don’t know. And, even if I did—” Eddie shuddered “—no part time position is going to pay my rent, is it? I don’t know what he’s thinking.”

  “Hmm, it does seem a little unreasonable of him. Have you spoken with your mother?”

  Eddie snorted. “I don’t dare. She’s going to be beside herself with all that’s going on. Can you imagine what they’re saying about us at the wine club?”

  “Not us, darling. Listen, you sound a little stressed. Why don’t you come over? We can have a drink, I can give you a massage—”

  “I need to find a job, remember?” Eddie snapped. “I don’t have time for massages, or to be bloody patronised.”

  Silence. Guilt coloured the edge of Eddie’s panic-laced fury. None of this was Ian’s fault, even if he was sitting in his penthouse flat, sipping a gin-and-tonic from a crystal glass, and admiring his own achievements without a clue of what Michael Dean’s failures meant for Eddie. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re right—I am stressed. Maybe a massage would do me good.”

  “Of course it would,” Ian agreed heartily. “Besides, there’s nothing you can do about your little crisis tonight. A massage is just what you need.”

  Eddie’s phone chirped, alerting her to the fact that she’d neglected to charge it before she’d come out. “I guess so.”

  “I know so. Trust me, Eddie.”

  Eddie’s phone died mere moments after she agreed to get a cab to Ian’s Greenwich apartment—a cab that would cost a tenner she didn’t have in her purse, and the cabbies around Vauxhall rarely carried payment machines.

  Rats.

  Grumbling, she found the nearest ATM and jammed in her platinum credit card. For a moment, her PIN number escaped her, and blankness numbed her from the inside out, washing over her. But the respite was brief. Her PIN number was her father’s birthday, and as she punched it in, the first feelings of betrayal swept over her. He knew this was coming. Why did he leave it so long to tell me? What the hell am I going to do?

  Beyond traipsing to Greenwich and drowning her sorrows in gin and mediocre sex, Eddie had no idea.

  The cab pulled up in Greenwich. Eddie paid the driver and got out, half hoping that Ian, having absorbed the gravity of her situation in the time it had taken her to get to him, would be waiting for her outside his exclusive block of luxury flats.

  Of course, he wasn’t. In the year they’d been dating, he’d never once met her outside, or even on the landing, preferring to leave it to the concierge to welcome her inside.

  Eddie took the lift to the top floor and knocked on the shiny black door. Ian opened it wearing just a fluffy white towel, his perfect, sculpted torso on full display. Eddie drank him in and reminded herself—not for the first time—how lucky she was to have snagged the most eligible bachelor at Goldsmiths University. Ian Frasier-Smith had no shortage of admirers, but for some inexplicable reason, he’d chosen Eddie to hang off his arm.

  Not that she did much hanging if she could help it. Ian’s inner circle bored her to tears, and it was only his box seats at the Albert Hall that ever persuaded her to step out with them.

  “Eddie!” Ian moved back to let her in, grinning like he’d invited her over for tea and cake. “Come in. Sit down. Let me get you a drink.”

  He ushered her inside and directed her to his oversized leather couch—a vulgar monstrosity that Eddie despised, especially when he tried to get fruity on it. Seriously. When would he learn that there was nothing sexy about sweaty skin on sticky brown leather?

  Never, it seemed, as Ian ditched his towel and sat down beside Eddie, clutching two over-strong gin-and-tonics. “Now,” he murmured in a voice some silly undergrad had probably told him was sexy. “Let’s forget all about your horrible day and focus on us.”

  A nice idea, but as spectacular as Ian a
ppeared in all his naked glory, after twelve months of trying, he’d yet to live up to his killer body. And tonight was no exception, though Eddie welcomed the distraction of his fumbling advances. She let him strip her clothes—her silk dress and stockings, her lacy bra and knickers—and then, when she was naked too, open her legs so he could tease her with his fingers—or at least, try.

  In the past, his clumsy probing had driven her half mad—not bad enough to push him away, but irritating enough to set her teeth on edge. Tonight it was almost soothing, and she welcomed the discomfort of his naive touch. He slid his cock inside her…and nothing happened, not a jolt, not a flicker. Nothing to spark the inferno she imagined when her dreams took her to a place that nice girls didn’t go.

  In a flash of abrupt desperation, she raised her hips to meet Ian’s rhythmless thrusts, seeking something, anything, to pull her from the nightmare her day—her life—had become in the space of a five minute phone call from her father. But it was no good. Ian’s thin dick scraped inside her, a world away from where she wanted it most, and her body screamed out for the pleasure she craved.

  “Ian.” Eddie groaned, thrashing her head from side to side, frustration taking root in the pit of her stomach. “Ian, please…fuck me.”

  “Yeah?” Ian dropped his head, his sweat dripping in fat drops over Eddie’s bare chest, and drove into her with all the finesse of a woodpecker. “You want it like this? Want me to fuck you hard?”

  Please. But, defeated, Eddie kept the rest of her pleas to herself, and as Ian pummelled her along the road to his own selfish climax, let her mind drift back to the tragedy that had driven her to his apartment in the first place.

  What the hell am I going to do? Her father had made it clear that after this semester, there was no more money for tuition, rent, clothing and food—and anything else she would need for the remaining two years of her degree. She had little idea of how much her first year of tuition at Goldsmiths had set her father back, and she was almost glad of it. The figure he’d quoted for her rent alone had made her eyes water, and that was paid by the month…at the end of the month, which was mere days away. Three hundred pounds a week? Where on earth was she going to find more than a thousand pounds by Friday without hitting up her flatmate for a loan?

  Eddie had no clue, and she was no closer to finding out when Ian yelled out and shot his load a little while later. He pressed a wet kiss to her forehead and slithered off her, faffing with the condom like it was an unexploded bomb. Like his own come was the worst thing he’d ever seen.

  “I’m zonked,” he said with a grin. “That was amazing, eh? Shall we go to bed?”

  And that, apparently, was that. Too frazzled to argue, Eddie took his outstretched hand and let him lead her to his giant leather bed—the crass cousin of the ugly couch—and slid in beside him, thankful when he pecked her on the cheek and rolled over to “his” side. His detachment had bothered her once upon a time, but as he quickly fell asleep, she felt nothing but relief.

  And emptiness, twinned with a renewed, tired version of the panic she’d arrived with, because despite a round of Ian’s finest, she was no closer to a solution than when she’d arrived.

  No orgasm, no money, no future.

  Fuck my life.

  Chapter Two

  Eddie woke with a jump, her heart pounding, her skin sheened with a cold sweat. Damn. She sat up sharply, pressing a hand to her chest. A breeze rattled her bones, blown in from the open window, and exhaust fumes—the kind kicked out by London buses—made her feel like retching.

  Beside her, Ian lay prone and oblivious, and the sight of him, the memory of his hands on her skin, his cock inside her, turned her stomach. Oh God. Her heart beat harder than ever. What on earth’s the matter with me? It’s only Ian. But in the dim light of the early morning, the abrupt realisation that his bed was the last place on earth she wanted to be was so intense that her head spun.

  I need to get of here.

  She crawled out of bed and tiptoed to the living room to gather her clothes, though the logical part of her brain told her that Ian was unlikely to wake. And then she left the flat, bypassing the lifts, running down each flight of stairs like her life depended on it.

  Downstairs, she burst through the entrance doors, sucking in great gulps of air, and as the oxygen reached her brain and eased the anxiety-laced fog, panic turned to embarrassment, and her cheeks flushed with uncomfortable heat. Thank heavens Ian slept like the dead. Damn you, Daddy, for turning me into a raving lunatic.

  But even as the errant thought crossed her mind, she knew that throwing blame at her father wasn’t fair. She had little knowledge of the inner workings of his company, but she’d heard enough on the rare occasions she’d been home in the last six months to believe that he’d fought tooth and nail to save his ailing hedge fund.

  Not that the sudden flash of perspective was much comfort, anymore than were the first drops of rain as they fell from the sky and soaked through her thin silk dress. It would’ve been the easiest thing in the world to go back inside, rouse the concierge and charm him into letting her back into Ian’s flat, but as her pulse slowed to a steady beat, and the prickle of unease faded from her skin, the idea of crawling between Ian’s Egyptian cotton sheets filled her with horror.

  No.

  She couldn’t go back. Not now, while her father’s troubles were still so raw. She’d deal with Ian later. He’d understand—eventually.

  Dodging puddles, she dashed across the road, seeking the shelter of the tall buildings, and heading for the nearest ATM. With chattering teeth, she jabbed in her PIN, but the option to withdraw cash didn’t appear on the screen. Instead, an alert flashed and the machine swallowed her card.

  Flabbergasted, Eddie stared at the screen, waiting to wake up—waiting for this nightmare to end, and her real life to return. But nothing happened. The machine reset itself, welcoming its next customer, and her daddy-funded credit card was no more.

  She didn’t dare risk her debit card, not that it would’ve done her much good. Last time she’d checked, her current account had held the grand total of three pounds fifty, but at the time, with the weight of her father’s credit card behind her, the paltry amount had meant nothing.

  And now it really was nothing, and the only way back to Vauxhall was to walk.

  “What you doing out here, miss? You need a cuppa to warm you up?”

  Eddie pushed her damp hair from her face and followed the sound of the rough, eastern European accent. “Excuse me?”

  The old man stood in the doorway of what appeared to be a greasy spoon café—Jimmy’s Café, according to the signage—and looked her up and down. “A morning like this is no good for a lady. I’ll get you some tea.”

  He disappeared briefly and returned with a polystyrene cup. Eddie stared at it, her mind addled with cold, and jumped a mile as he thrust it into her numb hands.

  “Take it,” he barked. “You shivering on my doorstep is bad for business.”

  Eddie shuddered harder and took the cup, wondering if she’d been dropped into a parallel universe. The reality of her eight-mile walk from Greenwich had kicked in soon after she’d embarked on it, but then a friendly cabbie had taken pity on her, driving her to the outskirts of Vauxhall on his way home, and refusing to take her Gucci watch as payment. She’d assumed her luck had finally run out when the heavens had opened in earnest as he’d driven away, but apparently there was more than one gallant man in London. “Thank you.”

  The old man nodded and started to turn around, but as Eddie turned away too, he appeared to think better of it and instead stepped aside. “Come inside and drink it. Eat something until the rain stops.”

  “Thank you, but I can’t,” Eddie said, though the scent of grease-laden bacon was oddly exciting, given that she hadn’t eaten meat in years. “I have no money, and I need to get home.”

  “No point going home wet and hungry. Sit yourself down, missy. You’ll need no money today.”

  De
spite good fortune carrying her most of the way home, another step in the cold, grey deluge seemed unthinkable. Eddie’s tired legs made the decision for her, and she followed the old man inside the café and collapsed at the nearest table. “Thank you,” she said. “I won’t stay long, I promise.”

  The old man grunted and disappeared, leaving Eddie to her tea, a dark brew that was strange and sweet and warmed her bones with every tentative sip. Sure beats a soya latte, and it probably had less calories too. Winner.

  When the tea had gone some way to thawing her numb fingers, Eddie set her sodden suede handbag on the table and emptied it out. Some of her sheet music was ruined, and her empty purse and dead phone were no use to her right now, but her diary had survived and had protected the personalised Visconti pen her father had given her after her A-levels.

  She opened the diary and scanned the pages. Most were crammed with lectures and concert rehearsals, but if she could find a job that only needed her at the crack of dawn and last thing at night, she’d be laughing.

  Laughing. Ha. It was preferable to crying, but right then they felt like one and the same.

  A plate of scrambled eggs, mushrooms, and perfectly dark toast appeared in front of her. Eddie blinked, like the food and the wonderful smell was an apparition. She’d have sworn blind that she wasn’t hungry, but the fierce growl of her empty stomach said otherwise.

  Like he’d read her mind, the old man smiled a little. “Hungry, eh? Eat up, missy.”

  He turned to leave her alone again, but Eddie grabbed his arm. “Thank you,” she said. “There must be something I can do to repay you? I could find some cash and drop it off later? Wash up, or something? At least tell me your name.”

  Amusement danced in the old man’s pale brown eyes. “My name is Mr. Nowak, and you? Wash up in my little café? You’re not the type for such hard work. Now eat your breakfast.”

  Not the type for hard work? Tired rage bloomed in Eddie’s gut, and she ate her breakfast with increasingly sharp, stabbing motions. She was grateful for Mr. Nowak’s kindness, but his assumption was galling. Not the type? Jesus. Was there an invisible silver spoon jammed in her behind that she couldn’t see?