AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh my God, you said his name.”
“Omigod! Shit,” Lia cursed. “Damn it. We had such a streak going.”
“It’s fine,” I said with a laugh – or at least my attempt at a laugh. I hadn’t succeeded at a real-sounding one in awhile.
Five weeks in, and I wasn’t feeling better.
I slept fewer hours now, but I wasn’t seeing him any less in my dreams, in the streets, on the tube – even in the elevator at my office.
According to my mom, my voice was weary these days. I had bags under my eyes from staying up late at night. The women at work whispered about me in the corner, racking their minds to brainstorm ideas with which to cheer me up. Three days in a row, they took me somewhere beautiful for lunch. When that didn’t work, they took me to a male strip club in hopes of at least making me laugh, which I remember kind of doing.
But they knew I was breaking.
I had arrived in London with some hope of starting over. There was a bit of brightness in my eyes. But over a month later, I had officially withered like a new plant that had been watered only once. I’d run out of energy. I missed home, and I still felt thoroughly disoriented – like I didn’t know what was real or not.
Since our daily calls continued, I knew Lia could tell. She could sense a difference in me from just how many rings it took for me to pick up the phone. So when she said that she had “heard” a thing, I knew it was more likely that she had, for my benefit, “deliberately eavesdropped” a thing.
“Did you know…” she started, keeping me on edge.
“Did I know what, Lia?” I asked.
“What was the name of the place you went to in France again?”
“Biarritz,” I replied, my heart giving a twist. “Why are you asking about Biarritz?” I asked, my pulse suddenly uneven.
“You were there to sell Julian’s resort to those guys, right?”
“Yes. They’re in negotiations now. They’ll probably finish soon,” I mumbled, going back to polishing my plate. I heard Lia rustling on the other end.
“Um…”
“Lia. What?”
“I overheard today that that deal never went through.”
I paused. “What?”
“The deal with the Perv Bros? It got nixed while you guys were still in, um, Bi… Buh… how do you say it again?”
“Biarritz.”
“That. Anyway, I may or may not have threatened Lukas for information when we got home, under the promise that I’d never tell you – ”
“Did he really believe you wouldn’t tell me?”
“No, it was probably for his own conscience,” Lia said hastily. “But anyway, what Lukas said was that Turner said something ‘indecent’ to Julian that resulted in Julian ‘knocking him the fuck out’ the last day you guys were there. And whichever Perv Bro he knocked out, that guy’s still harassing him. So I guess right now, Julian and Lukas are putting their minds together to fight fire with fire. I swear to God, you give those boys a grudge to hold against someone, and they’ll team up to annihilate you. Their brains together are scary.”
“Hold up, Lia – focus,” I pleaded, my heart beating fast. “So Julian hasn’t been doing business with the Roths this whole time I’ve been gone?”
“Girl, no. Unless by doing business you mean plotting ways to kill each other.”
“Shit,” I whispered, practically dropping the plate on my counter with a loud clatter that made her curse. “I’m sorry,” I apologized hastily as my mind tried to piece things together.
I couldn’t help but imagine that Turner had said something about me.
I remembered the rage in Julian’s eyes when he watched Turner whisper to me during that last dinner. I remembered thinking he might actually kill Turner when we overheard him trashing me in the men’s bathroom, and I had a strong feeling now that the Biarritz deal had fallen through entirely because of me.
“Fuck. I screwed him,” I whispered.
