Play Thing

by Nicola Marsh

  She started tidying up, putting the files on one side, documents on the other in a neat pile. A heading on one of the documents snagged her attention. Promotions.

  She shouldn’t look at it. She wouldn’t. But curiosity got the better of her and she risked a quick glance. And froze.

  He’d listed promotions in order from managerial positions down.

  Her name wasn’t at the top.

  He’d given her job, the one she’d busted her ass to get, to Dennis, the guy she’d mentored when he first arrived three years ago.

  In what warped, twisted world did some guy with less experience than her get to be her boss for the foreseeable future?

  Anger surged through her, making her fingers flex and the paper crinkle. Damn. She quickly smoothed it out and slid it to the bottom of the pile, sorting faster through the files until she found the one she wanted.

  Alex had given her job to someone else when he’d hinted several times it would be hers.

  Was he punishing her somehow?

  If so, for what?

  Anger soon gave way to a familiar emotion, one that consistently rattled her confidence and made her feel unworthy.

  Undeserving.

  Yet again she’d done her best but had been found lacking. And this time, because she’d been stupid enough to drag her bruised heart into the equation, the fallout would be so much worse.

  Like her parents, Alex had deemed her not good enough.

  It cut deep, all the way down to her soul.

  Shaken to her core, she returned to her office. Sat at her desk. Pretended to work when in fact she spent the next hour staring out of the window envisaging all the ways she could punish her boss.

  Starting with ending this thing between them.

  What had she been thinking, to indulge in a brief, irrational and futile affair that could only end badly?

  Now, not only would she have to deal with a pining heart—because yeah, she’d been stupid enough to fall for him a little—she’d have to tolerate working beneath a guy who had the promotion she deserved.

  ‘Crap,’ she muttered, thumping her desk with both fists. It did little but make her hands sting. Better than her eyes, as she dragged in several breaths to stave off tears.

  This was what came of harbouring hopes.

  This was what came of fooling herself into believing things could be different this time, that she’d be enough, that she wouldn’t be found lacking.

  She’d been a fool.

  But no more.

  The moment Alex got back, they were O.V.E.R.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  ALEX WISHED HE’D had the balls to confront his past earlier. He’d never felt so light, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Seeing his mother, getting answers to questions that had plagued him for years, had ensured he had a clearer vision for the future.

  He didn’t have to shy away from commitment for fear of ending up like his folks.

  He just had to change the boundaries of what would make a relationship work for him.

  As he stood outside Charlotte’s flat and waited for her to answer his knock, he rocked on the balls of his feet, excitement making him edgy.

  He hadn’t bothered texting her when his plane had landed. He’d wanted to surprise her.

  The proposal he had for her was that damn monumental. Huge. Life-changing. If she agreed.

  She would. He’d do everything in his power to convince her.

  He knew she felt more for him than she let on. He’d seen it in her eyes so many times. And in the way she’d opened up to him about her hopes and dreams.

  They could make this work. He had no doubt. They both just needed to have a little faith.

  She took an eternity to answer and he knocked again, louder this time. When she finally opened the door, all the air whooshed out of his lungs.

  She wore a towel. A large bath sheet that hid more than it revealed, but he knew what was beneath it and that was enough to drive all rational thought from his head.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, but he didn’t give her time to say much else as he entered, kicked the door shut and reached for her.

  He glimpsed wariness in her eyes—she was probably mad at him for taking off without letting her know where—and something far scarier. Sadness. As if she knew their time together was coming to an end.

  Not if he had his way, so he set about showing her just how special she was to him.

  He hauled her into his arms and crushed his mouth to hers, savouring the way she instantly opened to him, their tongues tangling as if they hadn’t kissed in years. It had only been a few days but it felt like for ever and he slid his hands under her towel, grabbed her ass and hoisted her up.

  She made cute mewling sounds as he turned and backed her up against the door. Small whimpers of appreciation when he slipped a hand between them to touch her clit, the swollen nub slick already.

  Their kiss deepened to the point he couldn’t breathe. He didn’t care, as his thumb circled that nub with precision, until she came apart on a loud moan.

  Her hands clutched at his shoulders as he sheathed himself and slid into her, her welcoming tightness something he’d never tire of. As if she were made for him.

  His fingers dug into her ass as he lifted her higher, changing the angle, making him a little insane as he drove into her. She wrapped her legs around his waist, squeezing him tight and a groan ripped from somewhere deep inside.

  Every thrust, every plunge, took him closer to the edge. Too fast. Not fast enough. The exquisite friction of his cock inside her set off a reaction that blanked his mind until all he could focus on was her. This. Now.

  At some point his mouth had drifted across her jaw, to her ear, where he murmured exactly what he was feeling at that moment. ‘I could fuck you like this for ever.’

  With a strangled cry, she angled her head and claimed his mouth, her back arching, her pelvis moulded to his. It was enough to drive him over the edge, the white-hot explosion of heat behind his eyeballs blinding him to everything as he came harder than ever before.

  She sagged against him, limp in his arms. He held her close, knowing with a certainty he could never walk away from her, no matter how much the thought of anything long-term freaked him out.

  When his arms started to ache from holding her up, he gently eased back so she had no option but to lower her legs to the floor. She’d lost the towel at some stage, leaving her gloriously naked. He took a moment to appreciate her creamy expanses of skin, her taut nipples, her perfect breasts.

  ‘God, you’re beautiful,’ he said, brushing a kiss across her lips. ‘Be back in a minute.’

  He cleaned up in the bathroom, splashed some water on his face to wash off the plane journey and by the time he came back out she sat perched on the edge of an armchair, fully clothed in yoga pants and a hoodie.

  ‘I much prefer you in that towel,’ he said, sitting on the sofa and patting the empty spot next to him.

  When she didn’t move, he realised she hadn’t spoken a single word since he’d arrived.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  She didn’t sound it, her voice tight and controlled. ‘Busy day and I’m beat.’

  ‘Same.’ He ignored the faintest clang of alarm bells in his head. Usually after they’d had scintillating sex she’d be all over him, wanting to touch and cuddle. Today, her stiff posture and thinned lips were giving him a distinct hands-off signal.

  She was mad at him for taking off without an explanation, so he’d give her one.

  ‘I flew home for a few days. A last-minute trip. Sorry for not telling you.’

  One eyebrow raised a fraction. ‘You don’t owe me any explanations.’

  Ouch. She really was pissed.

  So he continued. ‘I needed to see Mum, cl
arify a few things.’

  ‘Good.’ A brief, one-syllable response that sounded far from it.

  ‘I came straight here from the airport because I want to ask you something.’

  He took a deep breath.

  Here goes nothing.

  ‘When I leave Sydney I want you to come with me. Live on the road for a while. Share a few adventures...’ He trailed off when she stared at him in open-mouthed shock, and not the good kind.

  She looked seriously annoyed, as if he’d inconvenienced her somehow, her stare bordering on loathing.

  Fuck.

  Had he misread their relationship? Had he got the situation all wrong?

  He’d assumed she felt like him, that she’d want more beyond a short-term fling. His offer, to have her become a part of his life, was the closest he’d ever come to a long-term commitment with a woman.

  Facing his fears rooted in the past had liberated him, had given him the courage to embrace a new future, with her.

  But what if she didn’t want him?

  ‘Say something,’ he said, hating the hint of desperation in his tone.

  She clasped her hands in her lap so tightly her knuckles stood out, a frown slashing her brows. ‘Is that why you did it?’

  ‘Did what?’

  ‘You’re going to appoint Dennis Boage to the managerial position so I’ll be more likely to chuck in my job and come travelling with you on a whim?’

  She didn’t shout. He could have handled irrational anger if she’d yelled. But her cold, frosty tone scared him as much as the bleakness in her eyes.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I saw it!’ She leaped to her feet, finally showing some sign of defiance. ‘Your list of promotions, with my name beneath his.’

  She stalked around the coffee table to stand over him, hands on hips, magnificent in her ire. ‘You know how much that promotion means to me, how much owning that house means to me, then you go and pull something like this?’

  He stood slowly, disbelief warring with indignation. Did she think so little of him that she’d believe him capable of messing with her career to suit himself?

  ‘You think this is some kind of stunt?’ It was his turn to rein in his anger as icy-cold disdain flooded his veins. ‘I came here straight from the airport because I couldn’t wait to be with you, to ask you to continue this amazing connection we share. And what do I get? Accusations.’

  He muttered, ‘Fuck me,’ under his breath, unable to comprehend he’d read this situation so wrong.

  This was why he didn’t do emotional commitment. Ever.

  ‘Maybe if you hadn’t gone snooping on my desk, you would’ve been more amenable to my proposition?’ She stiffened at his jibe and he continued. ‘Or maybe not, considering you think so little of me.’

  He shook his head. ‘That document you saw? It was a list I’d made in the early days when I accepted the job. Decisions made purely on recommendations from the old manager. But I don’t work like that. I told you so.’ He thumped his chest. ‘I make my own decisions. You saw me do it. I evaluated everyone fairly. Including you.’

  He jabbed a finger in her direction. ‘You said you were fine with us having a fling outside work. You said it wouldn’t blur any lines.’

  He backed away from her, her stony expression shattering what little hope he harboured. ‘I call bullshit. Because I’ve definitely kept work and play separate. Can you say the same?’

  He strode for the door, willing her to say something, anything, that would resolve this. Waiting for her to say he’d got it wrong. That she did care for him. That she’d love to travel and have adventures and be his partner for however long.

  When he reached the door, she still hadn’t spoken.

  So he walked away from her without looking back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE INITIAL NUMBNESS that invaded Charlotte’s body after Alex left soon gave way to tremors, the kind of shaking that made her flop onto the sofa and hug herself tight.

  Light-headedness made the room spin a little and nausea made her stomach gripe.

  She felt sick, like she’d ingested rotten sushi, something she’d inadvertently done once and had never forgotten. That bout of food poisoning hadn’t made her chest ache, though. She could barely breathe through the pain constricting her lungs, like a band around her ribs progressively tightening.

  Alex had come here to offer her the world.

  She’d flung it back in his face.

  She’d never forget his expression once he’d told her the truth.

  Total and utter contempt.

  The tears she’d been holding back trickled down her cheeks. The second time in a week she’d bawled. So much for her deeming it a wasted activity when it was much better to get on with the job. Set goals. Work hard. Don’t lament a lack of a family/boyfriend/love life.

  But she’d never felt like this before. Bereft. Aching. Grieving for the loss of something—someone—wonderful.

  Her laptop beeped on the table, the screen lighting up to indicate she had an incoming video call. From her parents.

  Crap.

  They rarely called her. Except the obligatory birthday and Christmas. So this call out of the blue could only mean one thing.

  Trouble.

  She stared at the screen, tempted to ignore the call. But the unexpectedness of it made her anxious and she didn’t need one more thing to worry about when she lay awake all night.

  Dabbing at her eyes with the hem of her hoodie, she squared her shoulders. She could do this. She’d made an art form of feigning indifference towards her parents for many years, pretending their abandonment didn’t hurt.

  She stabbed at the answer button and waited for their faces to appear on the screen. Where were they at the moment? Spain? Morocco? Nepal? She lost track of their destinations after a while, only giving their postcards a cursory glance before stuffing them into a box.

  Initially they’d given her such joy as a child, cards featuring interesting pictures from exotic locations. She’d run to the mailbox every day in the hope to receive one. But as time passed and her parents didn’t return she’d grown to hate those postcards, tangible proof of her two closest biological links not giving a crap about her.

  She could count the number of times they’d flown back to Sydney to visit her on one hand. They’d left her with Dee the day after her sixth birthday and had returned at two-yearly intervals, usually staying a week max, until she’d turned sixteen. By then she hadn’t been able to hide her dislike and they’d stopped visiting.

  But those frigging postcards still arrived like clockwork. No digital correspondence for them. Were they truly that clueless, that they couldn’t comprehend how each and every one of those little cardboard rectangles acted like a knife to her heart, a reminder of how they’d turned their back on their only child?

  Their faces finally appeared on the screen and she forced a smile. ‘Hey, nomads.’

  She rarely called them Mum and Dad these days. It didn’t feel right as they were so far from being parental it wasn’t funny.

  ‘Hi, darling.’

  Another falsity. They always called her darling and it grated as badly now as it had in her teens.

  Quashing her residual bitterness, she said, ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ her mum said, not looking a day older than the last time they’d video-called five months ago. Her blonde hair had a few streaks of grey but her hazel eyes fairly sparkled with joy. Half her luck. ‘We just thought we’d call and tell you our news.’

  Charlotte’s heart sank. She’d grown immune to her parents’ ‘news’ over the years, which usually revolved around them trying to conquer some new far-flung destination.

  ‘What news?’

  Did they believe she genuinely sounded upbeat o
r could they tell she faked it? After what had happened with Alex, she didn’t care. Her life was falling apart and they didn’t have a clue because they hadn’t been around long enough to get a read on their own daughter.

  ‘We’ve been awarded a grant to open a small school in Papua New Guinea.’ Her mother leaned into her father, who stared down at her like she hung the moon. ‘It’s an incredible opportunity to work with the kids there and the best part is, we’re closer to you.’

  Her mum rubbed her hands together as her dad leaned towards the screen. ‘Isn’t that great? We can pop in for a visit more often. See our best girl.’

  A long-festering resentment burned her gut. Their best girl? She was their only girl and they’d never given a crap about her.

  ‘We miss you, darling.’ Her mum blew her a kiss, her dad doing the same a moment later. ‘Maybe you could come and visit us? See what we do? Get a feel for the sacrifice we made in leaving you behind but how much we’ve helped those less fortunate?’

  As they both stared at her with such unabashed happiness, Charlotte felt the first stirrings of something akin to yearning.

  What would it be like to live life to the fullest like her parents? To want to do good for others? To not care about owning possessions or saving for the future? To live out of a suitcase, unconcerned about mortgage repayments or bills or superannuation?

  She’d always scoffed at their lifestyle, believing them to be frivolous and foolish in their inability to plan for the future. She’d labelled them selfish for following their own path and abandoning her to do it.

  But hearing them say they’d actually made a sacrifice to leave her behind to help others less fortunate resonated.

  She’d never considered that. She’d been too absorbed in her self-pity party for one, attributing their gadding about to selfishness, not selflessness.

  How she’d yearned for normal parents growing up. Parents who attended information nights. Parents who pretended to be the Easter bunny, tooth fairy and Santa. Parents who gave a damn.