I raise an eyebrow. “You think I’m going to disapprove of you?”
She scratches her nose. “Kinda.”
“Honey, I’m not religious.”
“I know. You don’t have to be religious to have principles.”
“True. But I’m not judgmental.”
“Oh, you are,” she scolds. “You can’t tell me you didn’t think Hal was weak for giving in to his desire for Izzy. You think he should have had more self-control. You practically told me that.”
I purse my lips, because she’s right. “That’s different.”
“No, it’s not. You set incredibly high standards for everyone, including yourself.”
I frown. “Maybe I do. But that doesn’t mean I look down on others for failing to meet them. Yeah, okay, in the past I’ve thought Hal has been too quick to follow his heart, and—like with Rosie—I thought at the time he should have been more cautious before he moved in with her. I act with my head and not my heart, in most cases.” My lips twist—that wasn’t quite the case yesterday. “But I don’t blame him for what he did with Izzy.”
She shrugs. “Maybe. I’m just wary of telling you some things because, as you said, I like the way you look at me, and I don’t want that to change.”
We study each other for a moment. The room is nicely warm, but her face is still pale. She’s really worried how I’m going to react. And so am I, now.
“Nicola,” I say softly, “are you married?”
Her eyes widen and she laughs. “No. God no. Nothing like that.” I feel a sweep of relief, and as I blow out a breath, she smiles. “Aw. I would never do that, Leon. I’d never cheat on a guy. That’s not me at all. There’s nobody else. Hasn’t been for a long time, and even when I was dating, I don’t think I’ve ever been in love before.” Her eyes meet mine for a moment before she drops her gaze to her coffee. For the first time, a touch of color appears on her cheeks.
Before? Is she saying she’s in love with me now, then?
She sips her coffee. “All right, I’ll tell you. Just… keep an open mind, okay? And let me finish the story.”
“Okay.”
She looks across to the window then, to the sea, lost in thought.
The waitress arrives with our breakfast and places the plates before us. I try to gather my wits, add salt, pepper, and HP Sauce to the plate, and tuck in, watching Nicola as she does the same, glad to see her eating. She has a few mouthfuls, then a sip of coffee, gives a big sigh, and finally looks up at me.
“I’m from Christchurch,” she says, “originally.”
I’d deduced that by the way she didn’t want to go there, but I just nod.
“You were right,” she continues, “I have one sister, Louise. My mom’s quiet and gentle, too timid actually, if I was being a bit mean, and Louise is very like her. Because of that, Mom is completely under my dad’s thumb. He’s very old school. Almost Victorian. He’s in charge of their bank accounts. He gives her housekeeping money, and she has to ask him if she wants anything extra. She has to ask his permission if she wants to go anywhere, and he usually says no.”
“Jesus,” I say, still shocked that men exist like that in this day and age, even though I know from the contacts I have with Women’s Refuge that unfortunately there are plenty of them around.
“Yeah.” She stabs at a mushroom with her fork. “He was very strict with us while we were growing up. We were sent to an all-girls’ school, and we had no contact with boys at all. I suppose we could have reacted by rebelling, but it wasn’t in either of our natures, and so we grew up quite innocent. I didn’t lose my virginity until I was twenty.” She gives me a wry look. “I bet you were, like, twelve or something.”
“Fifteen,” I admit. “Just.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I guessed. Anyway, we worked hard at school, couldn’t do much else really. I loved ballet, and I desperately wanted to be a ballet dancer. But I was a little short, and anyway, my father said it wasn’t a stable profession. He wanted me to go to university and do the sciences. So I chose astrophysics because I loved stargazing—it’s one of Mom’s hobbies, and she taught me all the names of the constellations and how to spot them in the sky.”
I smile, because it’s unusual to hear a mother passing on a love of astronomy to a daughter. Am I a chauvinist for assuming Nicola had gotten her love for the planets from her father? I suppose so. That makes me sad.
She cuts up a hash brown and eats it, obviously thinking what to say next. “So I went to Canterbury University. Dad gave me a lecture every time I came home about how I had to behave while I was away, and he demanded I send him confirmation of my grades, and threatened to take my allowance away if I didn’t do well. My parents are quite poor, and Dad could only give me a small allowance. I took out a student loan, but money was super tight. By this stage, I was starting to discover my freedom, and loving every minute of it. I took several different dance classes, made lots of friends, started going out more…”
She stops and eats some bacon and scrambled egg. Then she looks up, meeting my gaze.
“Promise you won’t laugh?” she says. “Or yell at me?”
I frown. “Of course not.”
She sips her coffee, then sucks her bottom lip. “I was desperate for money,” she admits. “Dad’s allowance barely covered my rent and bills, and there was hardly any left for food and none for clothes. I tried to get a job but struggled to find anything that fit with my studies. I waitressed for a bit, and worked in a clothes shop. And then one of the friends I’d made in the dance class suggested I do what she was doing in the evenings…”
My eyebrows rise slowly. “Are you telling me… you were a… stripper?”
“An… exotic dancer.” She wrinkles her nose over the semantics. “It was a bikini bar. I was never naked, not that it makes it sound any better, I know.”
I’m struggling to process that information. “You danced in a bikini?”
“Or lingerie.” She bites her lip. “Oh my God, Leon, I know it’s no laughing matter, but your face is a picture.”
“I… don’t know what to say. How… what…”
“Pole dancing was my specialty.”
“I think my head is going to explode.”
She laughs and looks around, checking we’re not being overheard. Then her gray eyes come back to me. “Have I shocked you?”
“Well, yeah.” My mind is filled with images of Nicola in sexy lingerie, dancing seductively in subdued lighting. For other men. I don’t know how to feel about that.
Is it terrible that I find it a turn-on?
We study each other for a long time as I fight with whether to admit how I feel. Eventually, I let my lips curve up. “I bet you were amazing.”
She smiles and gives a shy laugh, dropping her gaze. “I enjoyed myself. It was a good job. The place was pretty classy, not too seedy, the security was good and threw out anyone who came even close to crossing the line. It was excellent money, much more than I’d be able to earn working in a shop or supermarket. It was perfect.” She sighs. “Until I got a stalker.”
Chapter Eighteen
Nix
Leon stares at me. “What?” he demands.
I frown at him. “Are you going to make a scene in the middle of the café?”
“I might if I heard right. You had a stalker?”
I nod and lower my gaze to the coffee cup. “It began a couple of months after I started work at Flamingo. Like I said, it wasn’t too seedy, and a wide range of people go there, everyone from students to businessmen to couples. But there are always guys on their own, often older.”
I have a sip of coffee because my mouth has gone dry. Not particularly at reliving the moment, but at telling Leon. All humor has fled his expression, and his eyes have taken on that hard stare he usually gets when he’s about to shout at someone.
“I began to notice one particular guy,” I continue. “He was there most nights, on his own. Older than me, maybe in his forties. Tall
, thin, dark-haired, a bit nondescript. He didn’t particularly stand out, but he always wore the same black jacket. He was there for maybe two weeks, and then he requested a private dance.”
Leon leans forward on the table, the muscles in his jaw bunching.
“We were used to that,” I say. “There was a strictly no-touching policy, and security were always around—we only had to bat an eyelid and they’d throw a guy out, so I wasn’t worried about my safety. And it was good money. Us girls were like subcontractors; we rented a spot in the club, and after the base rent and the fee to the woman who ran the wardrobe, any money we made was ours, so we were always keen to do the private dances. On a good night I could make over a thousand dollars.”
Leon says nothing, his eyes gleaming.
“Anyway…” I’m beginning to falter a bit, nervous about his silence. But it’s too late now, I can’t take it all back, I can only keep going. “I danced for this guy, and he talked to me while I was dancing. He said his name was John, and that he was in love with me. I didn’t take it seriously at the time; guys say all sorts of things when they’re drunk, and I just laughed it off. He asked me out on a date, but I said no, that I didn’t date clients. He didn’t say anything, and didn’t attempt to touch me, and when his time was up, he just left, so I didn’t think anything of it. A few days later he came back and we went through the whole thing again, and this happened for about six months, I guess, several times a week. I’d dance for him, he’d ask me out, I’d say no, and he’d leave.
“I was halfway through uni, not doing too badly, the work was hard but I was just about keeping up and making enough money to live on. I went home for the Easter break, and Louise was there too—she’d just started her course at uni. Anyway… I could see something was up with her; she was quiet, and she looked terrified. I made her tell me, and she confessed she was pregnant.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah. She hadn’t told the father because it was a one-night stand, and she didn’t think he’d be interested, but she wanted to keep the baby. We talked about it for a long time, and we came to the conclusion that although Dad would be angry to start with, surely he would calm down when he realized that Louise wasn’t going to change her mind. He’d be having his first grandchild—that had to mean something.” I stop speaking and poke a mushroom on my plate.
“I’m guessing it didn’t go well,” Leon says.
“He went ballistic. Screamed at her that she was a slut, and that he wanted nothing to do with any daughter of his who’d open her legs to just anyone.”
“Jesus.”
“We all tried to reason with him, but I could see it wasn’t going to work. He told Louise to get out of his house, that he wasn’t going to pay for her course fees anymore, and that he wanted nothing to do with the baby. Mom just sat there crying, she wouldn’t say anything. And… I lost my temper. I yelled that this was the real world, and shit happens, and told him he was a sadistic bastard without a heart. I told him what I’d been doing to earn money. He lost the plot. I think he actually went mad. He started throwing things around the house, breaking furniture… He told us both to get out and said he never wanted to see either of us again. So we left, and we’ve never been back.”
Leon’s face is now full of pity. He’s not angry with me, I don’t think. He’s frustrated at what’s happened to me. “Is that why you left uni?”
“Yeah. I moved in with a friend in the city, but I couldn’t afford the course.”
“Could you have taken out another student loan?”
“Well, I was already up to my neck in debt, and I wasn’t in a good place emotionally. Also, something else was happening around then. I started to feel that someone was following me. At first, I told myself I was being stupid and imagining it, but the feeling wouldn’t go away—I’d turn around and see a man in the shadows, or ducking around a corner. The apartment I was sharing was a ten-minute walk from the center of town, and I couldn’t afford a taxi. I knew something was wrong when I started getting nervous about walking home on my own.”
“When did you work out it was the guy from the club?” Leon asks.
“One day I came home to find a big bouquet of flowers had been delivered. The card said, ‘Love John.’ I knew then I hadn’t been imagining it.”
“Did you go to the police?”
“Not at first. It’s not against the law to send flowers.”
“It’s against the law to stalk someone,” he snaps, his voice hard.
I put down my cutlery and push my plate away. “Yeah, I know.”
His expression softens. “I’m sorry. I can’t bear to think of you going through that alone, that’s all.”
“It was scary, and I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. I didn’t want to worry Louise. I wasn’t in contact with my parents. I didn’t have a boyfriend. My roommate was a bit dismissive; she obviously thought I’d led this guy on at some point, made him think he stood a chance. And I suppose I did at the club, from his point of view, anyway.”
“It’s not the same, Nicola. It’s a twisted mind that takes a private dance in a club to mean there’s something between you.”
“I guess.” I don’t tell him how much I blame myself for it. Did I come on to the guy? Well, that’s all part of the dance, isn’t it? To wave your boobs and butt in his face, to be sexy, to turn him on? That’s the whole point.
“So what happened?” Leon presses.
“Things gradually got worse. My roommate moved in with her boyfriend, so I was now on my own in the apartment. John pushed notes through the letterbox, sent me gifts. I was getting scared. I gave up dancing at Flamingo, just didn’t go back one day. I got a job in a pizza shop, which unfortunately meant a few late evenings. I tried to walk with other people, in well-lit places, on the road side, all the things we’re taught to do, but one day I was walking home and he stepped out in front of me.”
“Christ.” Leon looks as if the words physically hurt him.
“He was all smiles and charm. Asked if I’d gotten the flowers and presents. And said he loved me, and he wanted to be with me. I tried to walk around him, but he kept moving in front of me. I told him I didn’t want to see him again, that he scared me, and that I wanted him to stop bothering me. He got angry then. Told me we were supposed to be together, and I needed to accept that.”
I have a large swallow of coffee and wipe my mouth. “Then he pulled a knife on me.”
Leon stares at me. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah. He grabbed hold of me and dragged me into an alleyway. Kissed me and put his hand up my skirt. Tore my blouse.”
Leon runs his hand through his hair. I think that if John had walked into the room at that moment, Leon could happily have strangled him with his bare hands. “Did he…”
I lean back, thinking about that moment when I thought I was going to be raped. “It’s odd. Women are told what to do if someone attacks them on the street. Scream as loud as you can. Shout ‘fire’ not ‘help’ because that makes people come running. I’d taken a self-defense class. I knew I had to twist his arm back, knee him in the balls, poke his eyes. But at that moment, I was frozen with terror. I hadn’t accounted for that. I’ve always thought I was brave and spirited, but right then I was so fucking scared of that knife I couldn’t move. He had terrible B.O. and the smell was incredible and overpowering. Sometimes I think I can still smell it now, on my hands and clothes.” I shudder.
I look up at Leon’s face, at his absolute horror, and I reach out and put a hand on his. “He didn’t rape me. He would have, I’m convinced of that. He pressed the knife to my throat and drew blood. But eventually I came to my senses and started struggling. I managed to break free, and I ran all the way home. I phoned the police, and they came around and took a statement. They said they’d look for him, and I shouldn’t be alone for a while. But I had no one. I didn’t want to call my father. I knew then I had to do something. Make a change.”
I finish off my latte. “I think I migh
t have another one.”
“Sure.” Leon holds up a hand, and when the waitress comes over, he orders us both another coffee. When she’s gone, he says, “So what did you do?”
“I got in touch with Women’s Refuge, who found me a place to stay while I decided what I was going to do. I didn’t want to stay in the apartment on my own. I got in touch with Louise, who was six months’ pregnant by then. She finally told David, the father, and although he was obviously shocked, he said he’d take responsibility for the baby and help her out financially where he could. He was a student at Canterbury Uni but he came from Auckland, and he suggested she move there so his parents could help out with the baby. So the two of us moved there. His parents helped us get a little place of our own. They’ve been very good to both of us, and they’re great with baby Abby. Lee, David’s father, works in the city, and he suggested I take a secretarial course as there was a lot of temporary work available. So I did. I worked really hard, got a qualification, and temped for a while, then Lee got me a job in a large company, working in HR. I really enjoyed that.”
“So why did you end up moving to the Bay of Islands?”
“Louise and David eventually got together, and she moved in with him. I’m pleased for her—they had a rocky start but seem to be making a go of it, and it’s good for baby Abby. They have no money, though. I send her some cash for Abby each month. So anyway, I was on my own again. I’d made friends with Maia, Stefan’s sister, and she heard there were jobs going at the Ark.”
“And the rest is history?”
“Yeah. I was glad to get out of the city. I’ve never shaken the feeling of being stalked. I know they never caught John, and it’s really hard to get rid of the feeling that he’s following me wherever I go. I know that’s nonsense—for example, I know there’s no way he’d have flown after us to Kaikoura! I knew that wasn’t him out there. But it’s an instinctive thing—I see that shadow, that dark coat, and my heart just bangs.”
“It’s perfectly understandable, what you’ve been through,” Leon says softly. “You’ve coped so well with all the changes you’ve had to make. You’ve turned your life around, and that’s no mean feat.”
My Boss, the Billionaire (The Billionaire Kings Book 2) Page 14
