“That won’t happen. We won’t let it.”
“I need to talk to her and set things straight, but it’s late and I can’t leave Zoe alone in the house. The babysitter is already gone.”
“This isn’t a conversation to have while you’re inebriated.”
“Maybe this is exactly why I should have it now. I can be brutally honest.”
“Mate, don’t do it. You’ll regret it in the morning.” I sigh. “Don’t go anywhere, I’ll get a taxi over now and we can sort this out together.”
I hang up and let the gravity of the situation filter through me. I know I need to come clean with Gabe about the conversation I had with Monique—I should have told him before this point, but I’m afraid he’ll never forgive me and I’ll lose him and Zoe forever.
I sink down on the bed for a minute and drop my head in my hands. My poor brother—he shouldn’t be going through all this turmoil. Monique will only stay long enough to get Zoe’s hopes up before she takes off again, leaving emotional destruction behind her.
It’s a pattern well-worn by our mother and I don’t want Zoe to know that pain.
So much for a night of sheet-burning sex. I glance at the door and there’s still no sign of Drew, but as I’m about to stand I notice a piece of paper folded on the nightstand. I wouldn’t have given it a second thought if I hadn’t caught sight of a familiar logo—QANTAS Airways.
I usually wouldn’t read someone else’s papers, I swear. But between the anguish over my brother’s plight and the endless wine and champagne top-ups at the rehearsal dinner...my mind is foggy. And my moral centre is a little muddled. I snatch the paper up and feel the air leave my lungs. Drew has a one-way flight to Nadi Airport in Fiji the day after the wedding.
One. Way.
The knowledge is like an iron fist around my heart. I should have known she wasn’t planning to stay—her sister warned me.
She’s a nomad, my sister. Flits from one place to the next, always packing her bags and running away from commitment of any kind.
Hell, Drew herself warned me. Didn’t she say that she never made an attempt to hide who she was? To hide that part of herself? I place the paper back where it was. I don’t have time to think about Drew now because my family is hurting. I need to be there for them. I need to support Gabe and Zoe.
I walk out of the bedroom and grab my coat from the back of a chair. At that moment Drew comes out of the bathroom, looking every bit the unattainable fantasy she is.
“I wanted to surprise you,” she says. Her body is draped in a sheer black dressing gown that shows every beautiful part of her—from her perfect breasts to her slim waist and long legs. Underneath she wears a short corset in black and thigh-high stockings with a suspender belt and no underwear. “Do you like it?”
For a full minute, I am utterly speechless. My mind is a lawn mower failing to start, no matter how hard I yank the cord.
“Flynn?” Her face creases with concern. “Are you okay?”
“I have to go.” I can barely get the words out. Dammit, couldn’t I have reserved a little bit of blood for my brain? I hold up my phone as if that might explain things. “I got a call from Gabe, he needs me.”
“Oh, my God, it’s not Zoe, is it?” Her worry is so genuine it makes me want to roar. Why does she care if she’s planning on leaving?
“She’s okay, but I need to watch her while he deals with something,” I say tightly.
“I’ll come.”
“No!” The word shoots out of me so harshly that she reels, her eyes wide and unblinking.
I need to get some space and think about everything that’s going on—unlike Gabe, I don’t want to have an important conversation while I’m still feeling the lip-loosening effects of our celebratory drinks. More important, I refuse to let anyone into Zoe’s orbit who isn’t a permanent fixture in my life.
And I know my niece will fall head over heels for Drew the way I have.
The way you have? Head over heels is some serious shit.
I’m in deep and being punished because I broke my own rules. I will talk to Drew about the plane ticket, because I’m an adult and I’m not going to vanish without giving her a chance to explain—but that conversation cannot happen right now. Not when I’m full of frustrating thoughts and worries. Not when I know I’ll speak before my brain has a chance to catch up.
I need a day or two to find my equilibrium before I go there with her.
Drew hugs her arms around herself and looks at me with closed-off eyes. “Okay, well... I hope everything is all right.”
She’s shutting down. Putting up the walls I’d managed to break through. But I can’t worry about that now.
“When will I see you next?” she asks.
“Tomorrow is the buck’s and hen’s parties and then I’m offsite for a work thing...so it’ll be the day after that.”
Wedding day.
We’ll be dressed up, standing on opposite sides of Mike and Presley while they take their vows. Then she’ll be gone. The knowledge wrenches in my chest. This would be the chance for her to tell me she’s planning on leaving, to tell me she has a flight booked. To say, Hey, let’s talk about this, but Drew is silent.
It’s for the best.
The robe swirls like a black cloud around her as she heads back into the bathroom, giving me the signal that I can see myself out. I don’t want this magic thing between us to be over, but I have a feeling I’m witnessing the beginning of the end.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Drew
THE WEDDING IS here far quicker than I want it to be. I’ve been a sad sack the past few days, miserable about the weird tension between Flynn and me. Hurt by the way he so clearly didn’t want me to meet his niece.
Hurt also by the fact that my texts and calls have gone mostly unanswered, except for one that said, We’ll talk in person. I don’t do text chat.
Typical Mr. Stick Up His Butt. The guy has a rule for everything. Maybe I should be setting rules and restrictions of my own, rather than jumping through his hoops.
I’d had a whole night of fun planned out for after the rehearsal dinner, including that sexy black outfit. I’d put a container of goodies together—whipped cream and strawberries and chocolate sauce—and I’d planned to seduce him in the kitchen first before we moved the party to his place for the rest of the night.
I ended up sitting on the couch in my sloppy track pants, eating the cream straight from the tub while wondering just how much of a cliché I was: broken-hearted girl consumes the weight of her emotions in sugar and fat.
“Drew?” Presley waves me over. “Can you help me? I think one of the buttons is in the wrong hole at the back. Mum wanted to do it, but you know what her eyesight is like.”
We’re in a waiting room at the wedding venue—a beautiful old Victorian house settled among trees and surrounded by a stunning garden of white and yellow roses. The ceremony will take place in a courtyard decked with white pews and a trellis arch adorned with small white flowers. It’s not long to go now. From the sound of it outside, the men have arrived and Flynn’s laugh is a lance right through my heart.
Presley catches my eyes in the mirror, frowning. She senses my turmoil but I busy myself undoing my mother’s poor handiwork and fixing the line of buttons that run from Presley’s middle-back all the way to her butt. Each one is small and fiddly, like a little satin-covered pebble.
The dress is incredible—simple and yet eye-catching. Strapless with a fitted bodice and nipped-in waist and a sleek skirt with a touch of lace that manages to avoid “cake topper” territory all together.
“What’s going on, Drew?” She turns around when I’m done and touches my arm.
I catch a glance of myself in the mirror and I don’t look like me. Between my uber-girlie bridesmaid dress and the softly curled hairstyle and the pretty, minima
l makeup... I look like a carbon copy of my sister.
“I don’t know who I am anymore.” There’s a lump at the back of my throat. “I don’t know if I ever knew who I was.”
“Don’t say that.” Presley pulls me in for a hug. “Of course you know who you are. You’re a fearless traveller and an incredible costume-maker and you’re independent and outgoing and you make friends wherever you go. People love you.”
“They don’t know me.”
It’s because I do the same thing every damn time—I hold people at a distance. I put a fence around myself in relationships to avoid the pain of being let down, of finding out I’m never going to be someone’s number one.
“I feel like I’m floating through life without any idea where I’m going.” I feel tears rush to my eyes but I blink them back. I will not ruin a hundred-dollar makeup job. “I don’t trust myself to make decisions about people anymore.”
Presley sighs and pulls back. She smells like my mother today—like roses and violet candies—because a bottle of YSL Paris that my mother only wears on the most special of occasions was her “something borrowed.”
“Can I tell you something?” she says, walking over to one of the big windows overlooking a strip of garden toward the front of the property. It’s open, letting in a cool, flower-scented spring breeze and the sound of birds chirping. “I don’t trust myself with that, either.”
“Really?” I almost can’t believe it.
“After the last...debacle, I thought I’d never try to get married ever again. I couldn’t believe I got it so wrong that I could hurt someone the way I did, by walking out at the last minute. Mike proposed three times before I said yes.”
“I had no idea.” I shake my head. “We have the opposite problem—you’re getting too many proposals and I’m not ‘marriage material.’”
“There’s no such thing as marriage material, Drew. Because no one is qualified to get married. No one is automatically going to be a good husband or wife based on some arbitrary personality traits. I know you’ve been hurt badly, but one man’s refusal to commit is not a reflection on who you are. That’s on him and only on him.”
“How do you have it all together?” We’re separated by mere minutes in reality, but often it feels like a chasm of years. Presley is mature, centred. She’s kind and calm and good in a crisis.
“I don’t,” she whispers. “I have no idea what the future holds with Mike or with anything else. But I’m willing to try.”
“I’m supposed to be leaving tomorrow and Flynn’s gone cold again, just like Vas did. I’m...scared.”
“Because you like him?”
“Yes.” The word comes quicker and more freely than I ever thought it would. I do like Flynn, a heck of a lot. But enough that I want to stay and put my heart in harm’s way again?
“Do you have to go to Fiji right away?”
I shake my head. “I don’t have to go anywhere, technically.”
“Is it going to sound selfishly motivated if I suggest that you stay awhile and see where it goes?”
I laugh. “Yes, but that’s okay.”
“Drew, you’re a good person. Sure, you don’t tick everyone’s boxes...but none of us do. We’re not made to appeal to the masses.” She smiles. “And here’s the thing—nothing is permanent.”
It all sounds so manageable when she says it like that—like I’m not risking having Flynn’s well-heeled shoe grinding my heart into the ground.
“Talk to him,” she urges. “We’ve got a few minutes before the ceremony starts, and this thing isn’t happening until I give the go-ahead anyway.”
Talk to him? What the hell am I supposed to say?
Hey, Flynn, guy I’ve barely known a few weeks. I’m thinking about cancelling my trip to Fiji so I can see if we’re good outside the bedroom as well as in it. Can we maybe continue fucking but also do other nice things, too?
I suck at this stuff so hard.
“Stop thinking and go.” Presley comes over to me and gives me a literal shove toward the door.
“I love you,” I say, stopping to give her a quick squeeze. I’m so nervous I want to puke, but she’s right...we don’t know what the future holds. Nothing can protect us, except eternal isolation. And I’m starting to think that’s not what I want. “I’ve missed you a lot.”
“Tell him that if he can convince you to stay then he’ll be in my good books forever.” Her eyes shimmer.
“Don’t cry. Mum will kill me for ruining everything.” I shoot her a look before darting out of the room. Hopefully the men aren’t already in the courtyard because I really don’t want to do this with an audience.
The old building has a lot of rooms and none of them are marked. I try to listen for the smooth, deep sound of Flynn’s voice—a sound I’ve grown to crave. To need. Classical music floats in through open doors that lead out to the courtyard where my sister will be married. I peek out and spot Annaleigh, Pauline and Sherilee doing their thing, entertaining the guests and smiling. Being perfect.
I continue down the hallway, holding the frothy pink lengths of my bridesmaid dress in one hand so I don’t trip. With each step, I’m losing my nerve. The tug of the old way—the runaway, shields up way—pulls me back.
But then I see him. He’s coming out of another door, looking sharp as ever in a black tux. It suits him, being buttoned up. And it suits me, because I know that he’s at his best when the buttons are popped and skittering across the floor, when he’s coming undone. Coming alive and shedding his rules and restrictions like a man undergoing transformation.
“Hey.” I hold up a hand, tentative. Anticipating the sting of his rejection and, on some level, craving it so I can go back to how I’ve always been. A drifter. A wanderer. My protective side wants to use him as an excuse not to grow.
But at the same time, there’s a tiny sprout of hope in the barren wasteland of my dating experience.
“Blondie.” His lip quirks but it isn’t quite a smile. He’s playing my game, putting up barriers. “Who are you looking for?”
“An uptight redhead with a penchant for nice suits and dirty talk.” I might be trying to change, but I am still me. “Know where I could find a guy like that?”
“I’m not sure, but I can offer you a guy who’s good at judging people and not very good at answering his phone.”
Okay, so he’s meeting me halfway. That’s a positive sign.
“Can we talk?” I say. “I know you’ve been busy, but I need to get this off my chest and I’m worried it’s going to burst out of me in the middle of the ceremony if I don’t say something now.”
“We can’t have that.” He stares me down and I have to resist the urge to push him up against a wall. Why does sex come easier to me than talking?
“The last thing I need is to draw more attention to myself in this hideous dress.” I wrinkle my nose and now the smile comes. “I feel like I did something wrong and I don’t know what it is or how to fix it. Everything has been going great and then all of a sudden you’re...avoiding me again and it’s like I’ve been doused with ice water.”
“Are you leaving tomorrow?” His question is free of bullshit and pretence, cutting right through me. The ticket... “When Gabe called, I went into your bedroom because we were supposed to be keeping our ‘thing’ secret and I didn’t want him to hear your voice in the background.”
Ah.
“I have a flight booked,” I admit.
“One-way.”
“Yes, it’s one-way.” Honesty is the best policy, right? If I can’t lay it all on the line now, then there’s no chance anything real could ever happen between us. “I wasn’t planning on coming back.”
“Where are you going to live?”
“Somewhere.” I can tell my answer doesn’t sit right with him—the guy who’s always planning his life three steps in
advance. He probably knows what suit he’s going to wear next Thursday. “I’ve always been able to pick up a job, no matter where I go. My old boss is now based in Singapore working for an airline there, and she’d have me back in a heartbeat. Or I could go back to London, Dubai... Maybe Canada—I know someone there, too.”
“You know people everywhere,” he says with a nod. “But do you know anyone well?”
“No.” I’ve got an army of acquaintances formed of colleagues and roommates and neighbours and lightweight friends. I collect contacts with each move, adding them to the list of people I sometimes text if I happen to be in town.
But when I broke up with Vas and I was crying my heart and soul out, that list didn’t help me.
“Don’t you want more?” He looks at me like I’m lost, and it hurts.
“What’s more, Flynn? People who walk out without a word, who won’t let you help when there’s a crisis?”
“That’s fair.” He shakes his head. “It wasn’t my finest moment.”
“We never set any boundaries, or had a plan for where this might be going. We don’t have any rules of operation.” Normally those things would irk me: they would make me want to find loopholes and workarounds. I don’t like to be confined. “So, I can’t really be angry when we’d never made a commitment. But if we’re being honest, your reaction to the thought of me meeting Zoe...it made me feel like shit.”
The fact that I can even say this to Flynn is telling. I’m like an armadillo with my feelings—when it gets too much, I curl inward, hard stuff on the outside, soft, squishy stuff protected. That last night with my ex, I totally shut down. Because when I tried to be open, he went straight for my weak spot.
Flynn isn’t like that. Sure, he’s gruff and a little rigid and a total workaholic and yeah, a control freak. But he’s kind. Loving. He’s generous and sweet and wonderful...
The Fling--A Scorching Hot Romance Page 14
