AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Shut up!” Zoe hissed, determined to hear this through.
“…Nothing to look at, not worth talking to unless you want to talk about barbeque, not even a proper person, just a lump of clay I could maybe mold into something more worthwhile. If it wasn’t for the bet I wouldn’t have gone near her.”
Zoe stabbed the phone with a vicious finger, silencing its vitriol. She had thought that she wanted to hear it out but that had just been too far. One word more would have broken her. As it was she found herself physically weak from listening to what the man she loved really thought about her.
She had been part of a bet.
She had not been picked because she was good at her job and knew the intricacies of the Jourdan deal inside out, she had not even been picked because she could speak French, she hadn’t even been picked because she was one of only three other black women in the building besides Vanessa. Who would have ever thought she would have longed for the day when that would have been the reason? No, she had been picked for this assignment because she looked like the least able to accomplish it. She had been picked because she looked like scum, like a skank, like a piece of worthless trash, and Adam had thought Nick would surely lose the bet because of her ineptitude. Sleeping with her hadn’t been an act of love, or even desire, it had been a perk of an unpleasant job. Her mind went back to the conversation she’d had with Nick when he was drunk. All the meaningless sex he’d boasted about. She was starting to realize she was just another easy lay.
“Zoe…” Eddie began, but Zoe could not imagine that anything he could find to say would be of the least comfort.
She left the picnic basket where she had placed it on the chair and strode for the elevator, feeling a hot flush of agonized embarrassment rush to her cheeks, soon to be cooled as hurt, angry tears streamed from her eyes. In the privacy of the elevator she screamed and kicked at the walls, venting her emotional agony.
What the hell had just happened? She had been so happy…
By the time she had got back to her apartment Zoe’s mobile had ten missed calls from Nick. It began to ring again as she entered and, without hesitation, she took it into the kitchen and dropped it into the garbage disposal – that was the end of that. It was full of business contacts of course, names she needed for work, but that didn’t matter now. She went online, deleting, unread, a host of emails from Eddie and from Nick, all of which had come within the last twenty minutes – why was he even bothering when she obviously meant so little to him? Was the man that hard-up for casual sex?
Next Zoe emailed Vanessa Reese, a short, curt email of resignation. She looked at it, and then went back to add a lengthy paragraph about how a decent person treated those in their employ. Maybe it would make a difference, but probably not; some people just couldn’t be helped.
These tasks accomplished, she packed everything that mattered to her while on hold with the first airline that came up when she had googled. Bags packed and tickets booked, she was out of the flat barely an hour after entering it.
She had no plans to return – New York was not for her.
You couldn’t blame the city of course.
Not really.
But it seemed to have an effect on people; it drained them of their decency, of their humanity, of their ability to just treat people with the basic respect that you would accord to anyone.
The business world of New York was full of bastards and bitches, and Zoe wanted nothing to do with them. She also wanted to get out before she turned into one of them. How easy would it be to turn into one of them. She would go home – there was no shortage of bars and they were always looking for staff. She had tried to be something different than the rest of her family, but she could not shake off the stigma of where she had come from and how she had been raised. Well, to hell with them. She had thought that by coming here, by becoming a “business woman,” she was somehow doing ‘better’ than the life she would have had back home.
What a joke.
To think that there was anything here ‘better’ than in her home town. Let the people of New York laugh at her for how she talked, how she ate and the fact that she didn’t know Puccini from Picasso – she knew how to treat people, and that was worth more. There was more simple decency in her home town than in all of New York.
Chapter Twelve
“Keep dialing. Keep dialing until she answers.”
Nick sat staring into middle distance as Eddie explained himself for the fourth time, redialing the phone once more.
By this point, it was not that Nick was failing to get his head around what had happened, it was more that he could not quite believe the mechanics of it. He had said those words that Zoe had heard – there was no denying it – but they had been part of a larger conversation, and the context of that conversation made those words which Zoe had heard a lot less utterly horrific.
The question to which he kept coming back was: what were the odds? What were the odds of her hearing that one particular section of the conversation, and only that? If Eddie had pressed the wrong button a few moments earlier Zoe would have heard how angry he was with Adam and that would have given his words some context. If she had listened a few moments longer she would have heard him say ‘I was full of shit’, disassociating himself completely with everything he had just said. She would have heard him go on to describe her as ‘incredible, vibrant and intelligent’. But no, Zoe had heard only the bad stuff, the stuff which, when taken out of context, made it sound like he had used her to win a bet and used her for sex. What were the odds?
That he seemed to have lost the girl of his dreams cut Nick to the bone but that was not the worst of it, not even close. The worst of it was what he had done to Zoe. He could not now stop himself from picturing her in tears, from imagining what she must be thinking and feeling. It was not that he thought he was some great catch and any woman would obviously be utterly bereft if he were to leave their life, but he knew Zoe, he knew how hurt and rejected she would feel. He knew that she had so many insecurities that she tried to keep buried down, and he had inadvertently dug them up and made her feel bad about every one.
He would not have hurt Zoe for the world, but he had ended up hurting her as she had never been hurt before. Anyone saying those things about her would have hurt, but to have to hear them from someone you trusted, someone whom you thought loved you? It was something that no one should ever have to go through.
“What do I do now?”
Eddie drew a deep breath. If you had asked him an hour ago if he felt more comfortable talking about business and answering phones or giving advice on women then he would have picked advice on women without a moment’s hesitation. Now he was having serious second thoughts.
“You need to tell her the truth,” he said.
“Do you think she’ll listen?”
“Oh, absolutely not,
” Eddie said, shaking his head vigorously. “Not a chance. You should have seen her face when she heard you. She like, totally hates you, dude - I mean sir. Boss-man, sir.”
“Then why tell her?!”
“Because if you don’t then you’re just leaving her with what she heard,” said Eddie. “This way there will at least be some doubt in her mind. And from your point of view, you’ll know that you’ve done everything that you could. Besides, if you go after her then she knows that she’s worth going after.”
Nick jumped at this like a drowning man with a life preserver. “Yes! Yes! She thinks I don’t care about her, that it was all just sex and lies, I can prove that wrong! If I go after her then that proves she means more to me!”
“Exactly,” agreed Eddie.
“You think she’ll listen to me then?”
“Oh, absolutely not,” Eddie said, shaking his head once again. “Not a chance.”
“Why not?”
“You still said what you said,” Eddie pointed out. “You still thought those things and said those things, didn’t you? Even if you changed your mind now, and wouldn’t say them now, you still said them then. And that moment of utter desolation is way more powerful than chasing her down and saying sorry. In the circumstances, all she’s going to do is wonder what your angle is this time. Did you bet someone that you could get her back? Did you bet someone you could get into bed again? Do you still secretly think she’s trash? Did you bet someone…”
“I get it!” snapped Nick. “Wait… what about you?”
“I don’t gamble,” said Eddie. “Certainly not about that sort of thing. It’s just not cool, man.” He shot Nick a disapproving look.
“No.” Nick fought down the urge to grab Eddie by the neck and throttle him. “I mean, you can tell her the truth. You can tell her what I actually said – or at least the context of what she heard me say. You can tell her that the bet was how it started but she was so much more than that, and it certainly wasn’t just about sex, and I really love her, I really do! You tell her!”
