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It was the men he’d struggled with. At first he’d stuck to asking the typical outsider’s questions of the modelling and film industry. Interspersed with a few occasional nods, the conversation, well monologue he supposed would be more accurate, had flowed reasonably well. When he’d run out of the obvious questions, though, it had all become a bit stilted. They weren’t interested in what he did, so he held off discussing the finer points of cash flow forecasting. He did have a go at other subjects, but they seemed to be interested in only one. Baseball.
‘Isn’t that just rounders with a helmet?’ he’d asked innocently.
The looks he’d been given had been sufficient to quell his next conversational gambit — a discussion on the English cricket season.
So he chose to excuse himself and retreat to a quiet corner where he could watch Lizzie, who was dancing with a few of her friends. In a room teeming full of beautiful women, she still managed to shine more vibrantly than the rest. Her beauty was part of it, but she also seemed to have this inner glow. It took him back to her eighteenth birthday party and how he’d watched her dance there, too. Her vivacity seemed to emphasise how very much she belonged here. While he, sitting alone and nursing a beer, clearly didn’t.
His body tensed as he watched the model from the perfume ad, Hank somebody, slither towards Lizzie, like some giant reptile. A hunter towards its prey. Now he was right in front of her. Too damn close. Jealousy threaded its sharp claws round his heart and instinctively Nick stood, his body poised to march over and insert himself firmly and clearly between them. But as his feet started to move, he stopped himself. How would Lizzie feel if he strode over there like the petulant, jealous boyfriend, embarrassing her in front of the man she was currently working with?
He sat back down again and made himself look away.
Lizzie tried to push Hank away, but he was having none of it.
‘Come on. Stop trying to fight the inevitable,’ he whispered into her ear as his arms wrapped round her in a vice-like grip.
‘There is nothing inevitable about you and me,’ she tossed back, straining to break away. ‘If you haven’t already noticed, I’ve got a boyfriend.’
Hank turned and glanced over at where Nick was sitting at the back of the room, quietly drinking his beer. ‘What, the English twat?’
Lizzie stiffened, fighting to get her hands between them so she could shove him away. ‘He’s a damn sight more man that you’ll ever be.’
Hank just shrugged off the insult. ‘He looks like a bloke who prefers the quiet life. Not the type to want a woman whose tawdry sex life has been splashed across the papers.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong.’
He raised a dark eyebrow. ‘Am I? You really think that man hiding himself in the corner is going to want to hang round with a woman like you for too long? Hell, you’ve been in the spotlight so much these last few months you’ve even pushed me off the front pages of the gossip columns.’
She had a child like desire to shove her fingers in her ears and block out what Hank was saying. Awful as it was to listen to his words though, it was even more terrifying to realise their truth. All he was doing was repeating back her own fears.
With a strength born of despair and anger, Lizzie finally extracted herself from Hank’s arms and dashed away from the rowdy dance floor to the relative peace of the poolside. Finding herself thankfully alone, she lay back on one of the loungers and stared, agonised, at the glass-like surface of the turquoise pool. What had she been thinking, forcing Nick out here? If she’d had any decency left in her at all, she would have said goodbye to him in England, like he’d suggested. But she hadn’t. Desperate to hold onto him for as long as she could, she’d pleaded with him to come out, even though his reluctance had been obvious. The least she could do now was put him out of his misery. Give him back the quiet life he craved. She was a complication he didn’t need and certainly didn’t deserve, but he was too bloody nice to tell her.
She’d have to be the one to cut him loose. And while she was at it, she might as well cut out her heart.
* * *
‘What are you doing over here, all alone?’
From his seat in the corner, Nick turned and gave her a sheepish smile. ‘Jet lag catching up with me.’
‘Really? So if it weren’t for that you’d have been right up there with me, strutting your stuff like Travolta?’
‘Well, maybe not like Travolta. Isn’t that style old hat now anyway?’
Lizzie sighed and slipped in next to him. ‘Jet lag, my foot. We both know that’s just an excuse, Nick.’
He flinched. ‘Sorry. I didn’t realise dancing was a compulsory part of the evening.’
‘It isn’t, but it might have been a gesture on your part to at least have a go, instead of sitting here like a boring sod.’ Hurt flashed across his face and inside Lizzie recoiled at her harsh description. She was the sod, but somehow she had to find a way to provoke him. To make him angry. It was the only way she’d have a hope of doing what she needed to do, and ending the beautiful thing that had grown between them. She’d never manage it if he was kind to her.
‘I’m not like a boring sod, I am a boring sod,’ he replied tightly.
‘You’re not, but you could make more of an effort to mix.’
‘Why, am I making you look bad?’
‘Yes,’ she replied quietly, before turning on her heel and walking away. Her eyes filled with tears and she briskly wiped them away. How it broke her heart to be so cruel to him. But she had to be cruel to be kind, didn’t she? What a bloody stupid saying.
* * *
