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The witch.
‘Come back here,’ I shouted after her, only to hear the door to my suite slam.
I tried to rise, to follow her, to have it out with her, to finally get some of the frustration—at her provocative, prickly behaviour—off my chest. But sweat popped out on my brow, my arms wobbled alarmingly and as soon as I put weight on my aching leg, it buckled. I flopped back into the chair, in a sweaty heap of smashed pride, furious frustration and searing agony.
I yelled out my fury into the sultry twilight as I lay like a beached whale, unable to move.
Humiliated, embarrassed and still with that brutal swell of arousal pulsing in my pants.
I ignored it until it subsided. But as I rubbed my leg, my fingers probing the torn, scarred flesh under the sweatpants, nothing could ease my agony. Or my frustration... With her, with my situation, but—as my breathing began to even out—most of all with myself.
I had decided not to see the physio, because I knew I could never get back what I had lost. The doctors and surgeons had told me as much before I had finally got out of the hospital...
But as my shouts faded away on the crisp sea breeze, my gaze roamed over the estate and the fury, and agony, began to fade, turning instead into something that felt like purpose.
I shovelled in the food she had brought—which was of course delicious, with or without meat, the woman had the skills of an angel in the kitchen. But as I ate, I noticed the improvements the grounds crew had made over the past week not just to the pool—the clean blue water now glittering red in the sunset—but also to the flower beds which surrounded the lawn, and the newly repaired heliport.
In many ways, the sight gave me no pleasure. Because I was reminded of why I had wanted it left. I couldn’t use the pool. I couldn’t even leave my room under my own steam. And seeing the estate brought back to its former glory—and the heliport operational again—only reminded me of my former life, the guests I had once had flown in from all over the globe, the endless weekend house parties and all-night raves I had loved to host, so I could scare away the ghosts from my past...
But those ghosts had been haunting me since the crash, I acknowledged. In the nightmares which crept into my dreams and echoed in my consciousness during the endless, empty days spent alone in my suite.
Except when I was thinking of or bickering with her.
As I finally found the strength to stagger back to my bed, my pride and my leg still smarting, it occurred to me that however annoying her presence, and her refusal to bow to my authority—not to mention the spark of attraction I could not act upon—I had begun to feel a little less useless, a bit more of a man, in the past week. That despite the endless pain in my leg, and the effort it took to get out of bed and shower each day, eating her food and getting the chance to snipe and snarl at her was as distracting and invigorating as it was infuriating.
When I reached the bed, I grabbed the phone on the bedside table I had barely used in months and typed out a text to Henri.
Send physio tomorrow.
I threw the phone away and collapsed onto my bed, still angry but also resolved.
So what if I could not get back what I lost?
I didn’t want to wallow in my pain any longer, because what I wanted much more was to show Jessie Burton—even if I could never again be the man I once was—I would no longer be the object of her pity.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Four weeks later...
Jessie
Whatever you’re doing, don’t stop. Renzo has turned a corner, the physio says he’s making excellent progress. So thank you. I have just deposited another thousand-euro bonus into your account. Keep up the good work.
Henri
IWIPEDMYflour-dusted hands on the tea towel I had tucked into my jeans as I read the text from Henri that had pinged onto my phone.
Surprise came first, swiftly followed by guilt.
If Renzo had turned a corner in the last month, I doubted it was down to me. The man ignored me now, whenever I happened to find him in his room, which wasn’t often, as he spent so much time in the specially equipped gym downstairs.
Oddly I had missed our verbal sparring. Those arguments had made me feel emboldened, empowered and seen. Pathetic really, that I seemed to want him to notice me still. But I had come to realise in the past month, I had never been more to him than another employee.
I was stupidly pleased, though, to see him leave his room each day, to work with the physiotherapist. I knew he was working hard to get some mobility back into his leg and strengthen the muscles and ligaments which had been damaged.
Perhaps I had helped to goad him into contacting the physio. But I didn’t take any real credit for that. Surely even he wasn’t so stubborn he wouldn’t have realised eventually he needed to work on his recovery.
What I had taken pride in, though, was how much he continued to enjoy my food. But Henri was already paying me far too generously for that.
