Chapter Twenty-Two

Violet

Lucas’s careless dismissal of my jobs hurts. I know they’re not on the same level as his, but they’re mine. And I work hard at them. There’s no need for him to belittle them as though they’re worthless.

Even if he obviously thinks so.

“You expect me to wrangle it with less than five days’ notice?” And it’s not just the work situation, although that’s bad enough. Mum’s surgery is in five days. Even if I found someone to cover my shifts at Sycamore Lodge and another dog walker for Scout, my neighbor’s Great Dane, there’s no way I could leave next week.

Why can’t he understand that? He’s talking about moving to another country, not just down the road. Even if Mum weren’t sick, I couldn’t leave my family at such short notice.

I thought he knew me.

The conversation with Pene and the others hammers through my brain.

It’s only a couple of hours on a plane…that’s not a problem for anyone is it…

Virtually the exact same thing he said to me two nights ago. How many other people—other girls—has he so carelessly invited?

He only invited them to a bloody party, Violet.

Pene didn’t sound as though she was only going for a party.

“Why not?”

He’s serious. He has absolutely no idea how badly he’s upset me. “For a start, how am I supposed to live out there without any money?”

It’s not that I’ve ever earned a lot, but I’ve always made enough to get by, and the extra from Sycamore Lodge recently has been really nice. I’ve even been able to start saving. Until Lucas threw my glaring inadequacies in my face, I’d been proud of how far I’d come over the last few weeks.

“Violet. If there’s one thing you don’t need to worry about, it’s money. You can just focus on completing your degree.”

Shock claws through me, an icy disbelief that he actually suggested I’d be happy to sponge off him.

Is that how little he thinks of me?

My throat aches, and it’s hard to push out the words. “I do worry about money, and there’s no way I’d just live on yours.”

He stares at me as if he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “What the hell do you want, then? You told me you wanted to travel. We’ll be able to visit all the places on your bucket list. I don’t see what your problem is.”

Hot tears burn. Don’t you dare cry. I want to travel with him more than anything. This time yesterday, when I was so sure Lucas and I were exclusive and what we had was so special, I would’ve been stoked, would’ve made plans for the future, for when everything at home had settled down.

But now I’m not certain of anything. I can’t even think straight. He can’t see what the problem is. Before I can stop myself, I blurt out my deepest fear. “My mum’s not well.”

She’s so sick, and I’m so terrified…

He glares me, and I recoil. “If you don’t want to come with me just bloody tell me. Don’t make up some lame excuse.”

Lame excuse?

There’s a burning rock lodged in my chest, and I can’t breathe. This isn’t happening. How could he say that? I told him the truth, and he doesn’t believe me.

All this time I’ve fooled myself into believing I saw beyond the mask he shows the world. That beneath the sexy smile and Mediterranean blue eyes was the guy of my dreams. A wonderful guy, who was so much more than a string of cliched sound bites.

But I was wrong. Underneath his beautiful face, he’s just as shallow as everyone else on the boat.

I trusted you. And now I’m paying the price.

I stare at his throat as I try to slow my racing heart and force the scalding tears back. There’s a scary echo vibrating through my head, and the room spins. All around, the party is in full swing, with the beautiful people in their designer gear and oversized egos. Snatches of conversation float by, distorted, like I’m underwater and drowning. I need to get out before I break down.

Somehow, I wrap the tattered remnants of my dignity around my heart and straighten my shoulders. I’m not crawling out of here on my knees, no matter how much I want to sink through the floor and hide.

“I’m going home.” Is that really my voice? I sound so distant, strange…unreal.

“We’re on a bloody boat.”

His words thrust me back to the present. Shit. “So I’ll ask the captain to pull over for me.”

“Pull over—Jesus, Violet. You can’t be serious.”

Panic thuds as everything closes in on me. Already some people are glancing in our direction and whispering behind their hands. Within minutes, everyone’s going to know that, once again, Violet Henderson has been publicly dumped from a great height by a football player.

He hasn’t dumped me. Has he? Are we finished? Is this the end?

The truth whispers in my ear. How can this not be the end?

“I am serious.” I grip my bag so tightly my fingers ache, and keep my gaze fixed on his throat. I can’t face him. One glance into his blue eyes will crush me. No matter what’s just happened between us, I’m not going to stumble out with my mascara running down my cheeks.

Lucas swears before he appears to realize I’m not changing my mind. “Fine. I’ll get Chad to pick you up.”

Hot needles stab through my heart. Was I really stupid enough to hope Lucas would abandon his own party to take me home? It’s not even that I want him to. The reason I’m leaving is because I want to get away from him.

Stop lying to yourself. I wanted him to care enough to at least offer. But his silence speaks volumes. All Lucas cares about is himself and his career.

“I don’t need Chad to pick me up.”

“If you want to bail, Chad’s driving you home.”

I’m almost speechless, and a scalding betrayal streaks through my chest. Bail? Is that what he thinks I’m doing? Is he totally insensitive? “Don’t be so stupid. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

He doesn’t deign to answer. Instead he marches off, and I have to run to keep up with him. Within moments, he’s speaking to the captain.

“Violet needs to disembark ASAP. Her mum’s not well.”

I’m shaking, can’t help it. He doesn’t believe me but has no compunction in using that as an excuse as to why I need to leave.

So no one thinks his girlfriend is running out on him.

He doesn’t make any move to return to the party, and we stand there, like a couple of strangers. He doesn’t try to take my hand, or speak to me, and even though I’m mad at him, I desperately want him to look my way.

I might as well be another decorative anchor hanging on the wall.

Within half an hour the boat slows down, and Lucas runs a finger over his earring. I’ve only seen him do that a couple of times before, and I hate the wave of guilt that burns through me knowing that, this time, I’m the reason why.

He accompanies me to the limo which has met up with the boat at Tower Pier. The Tower of London looms across the river, a great shadowy fortress of doom, and the watery entrance of Traitor’s Gate leers at me.

It all feels very appropriate.

I sure lost my head over Lucas.

And it’s a million times worse than what happened with Geoff.

I could dig my heels in and refuse to use the limo, but that’d only give everyone something else to gossip about, and I’d rather a dignified exit than an ugly spat with Lucas on the pier. It’s just not worth it.

Plus, I left my overnight bag in the limo.

He stands by the door, his elbow resting on the roof of the car as I climb inside. I should say something cool and witty, so he doesn’t guess how I’m dying inside, but I’m brain dead.

Please say something…

He ducks his head, so he can see me, and I try not to let his blue eyes hypnotize my messed-up mind.

“Call me,” he says before he slams the door.

Friday morning is damp, chilly, and cloudy, which matches my mood perfectly. As I trudge through the local park with Scout, Lucas’s final words keep spiraling through my mind, an endless, infuriating refrain.

Call me.

Arrogant dick. Does he really think I will, after what he said to me?

Why didn’t he just believe me?

I hunch my shoulders and grasp my coat together at my neck as the wind picks up. My eyes are gritty from lack of sleep and the annoying tears that wouldn’t stop for half the night. I feel as though I’m coming down with the flu.

I wrap my arm around Scout’s comfortingly huge neck and give him a hug. I don’t want to imagine what Lucas did after I left the party but can’t stop thinking about it. Did he spend the night with Pene?

But he asked me to call him.

No, he didn’t. He told me to call him, as though he was expecting an apology from me.

After everything he said to me. It’s like I never really knew him at all.

I don’t have a shift at Sycamore Lodge today, and I could really do with it to take my mind off Lucas. Not that I’m thinking about him.

Much.

At least Mum and Dad don’t notice I’m a limp wreck, as they’re focused on the upcoming surgery, and I help out by rescheduling some of her clients for the next two months. Unfortunately, that only takes a couple of hours, and then I’m back to chewing my nails.

Did Lucas go home last night? I glance at my phone. Maybe there’s some juicy gossip about the party in the gutter press. My stomach pitches, and my nerve fails. It’s not even from worry there’s a humiliating picture of me leaving the boat. It’s the thought of seeing Lucas with a gorgeous girl wrapped around him, giving his famous, sexy smile to the camera, as though it’s the best night of his life.

I grind the image to dust. Not thinking about it. I open my laptop and start on the work from the agency. Which reminds me, I need to contact them about more contracts.

Even if Lucas doesn’t seem to think it’s important.

It’s harder than usual to concentrate, but I finally complete the work and send it back.

Another three hours before I meet Katie at the White Hart. Not that I feel like going out, but at least on Friday afternoons the alcohol is cheap.

Katie’s already found us a table by the time I arrive ten minutes late, as I caught the bus instead of bringing the car, since there’s no way I’m driving home later.

She pushes my drink across the table at me as I collapse opposite her. “No need to ask you how last night went. What happened?”

I gamely swallow half my cocktail, even though now I’m here, I don’t even feel like getting drunk. “I walked out after an hour.”

She’s clearly torn between admiration and shock. “Why?”

I prop my chin on my hand as disjointed fragments of last night replay through my brain-splitting headache, which hasn’t budged all day, despite all the painkillers.

Where do I even start? The only thing I keep seeing is the disbelief on Lucas’s face and his scornful retort.

Don’t make up some lame excuse.

“I was stupid to think it could ever work between us.” I take another sip of my drink, but it’s no good. Alcohol isn’t going to help. “You were right. I should’ve never gone out with him.”

“But what did he do?” She sounds genuinely confused, and that’s surprising. She’s always had such a low opinion of footballers, I would’ve thought she’d jump to the worst possible conclusion straightaway.

Yes, but she’d be wrong because Lucas didn’t cheat on me…

I don’t know anything for sure.

Shut the fuck up, Violet.

“He didn’t believe me when I told him about Mum.”

Her face scrunches in obvious confusion. “That doesn’t even make sense. Why wouldn’t he believe you?”

Because I blurted it out at the wrong moment.

Well, okay, so it was a completely random comment when we were talking about going to Madrid, but that was no excuse for him to be so heartless.

Unless he really did think I was just making excuses?

Wait. What? No, why would he think that?

“I’m still trying to figure it out,” Katie says, scattering my tangled thoughts. “You tell him your mum’s sick, and he says he doesn’t believe you? Who even says that?”

“No.” I rush to his defense before I even realize what I’m doing. “It wasn’t like that. I think”—an eerie shiver races over my arms as a new certainty grips me—“he thought I was just trying to fob him off.”

“It doesn’t matter what he thought. He had no right to be so nasty about your mum.”

Heat eats through me until I’m burning from the inside out. Katie’s thinking the worst about him, and the more I replay that conversation in my head, the less sure I am about anything.

“It’s complicated.” I groan at the cliché and cradle my aching forehead with my hand.

“Yeah?” Katie doesn’t sound convinced. “Try me.”

“There were these girls.” I’m reluctant to tell her, because here, in the pub, as I try and sort everything out, it doesn’t seem quite as awful as it all did last night.

“What, and he played tonsil hockey with them in front of you? Bastard.”

“No, it was nothing like that. Well,” I let out a defeated sigh. “I think he’d dated them all in the past, but that wasn’t the problem.” Not that I’d been thrilled to come face to face with three of his exes, but they seemed nice, even if I got the feeling Pene still wanted to climb inside his boxers.

Katie gives a cynical cough. “That wasn’t a problem? Really?”

“Yes, really. I mean, the parties and things he goes to. It was bound to happen, wasn’t it? But it was the way he just casually invited them all to go to Madrid with him.”

“Why would he invite a bunch of girls to go with him? That’s just wrong. No wonder you walked.”

It was wrong. I wrap her indignation around me like a fluffy blanket, but there’s an uneasy prickle worming through my chest.

Did he really say that, Vi?

They were talking about parties. Hypothetical parties, at that. And what did Lucas say?

Sure, everyone’s invited.

And then he’d swept his gaze around the deck as though he was including, literally, everyone.

Shiiiiit…

He was just being his usual, friendly self. And big deal, so he said the same thing he’d said to me. There aren’t that many different ways of saying it’s only a two-hour flight and asking if that’s a problem, are there?

It’s like forked lightning spikes through my throbbing head, and I stifle a groan. I’m sick with worry about Mum, but yesterday I was still in shock. If I hadn’t been on the edge of cracking, would I have taken everything so personally?

No, I wouldn’t.

“The thing is,” I know I’m going off on a tangent, but it shocked me last night, and I still can’t wrap my mind around it. “He expected me to just leave everything behind and go to Madrid with him. Without even asking if that’s what I wanted.”

He basically swept aside my jobs as though they were nothing. I keep that to myself, as I can’t even explain to my best friend how much that still haunts me.

Katie narrows her eyes but clearly decides to play along. “You did agree, though. Unless I totally misunderstood what you were talking about the other day.”

“No, that was different. I thought he wanted a long-distance relationship. But last night he was so sure we were moving out there together. It was like he couldn’t believe it when I didn’t say yes.”

She sniffs. “You know what that makes him, don’t you? An entitled prat.”