Harlequin E New Adult Romance Box Set Volume 1: Burning MoonGirls' Guide to Getting It TogetherRookie in Love

by Jo Watson

  My heart broke as I listened to him. I wanted nothing more than to go with him, but I had a whole life back home. How could I just pick up and leave? Rent, bills, job, friends, family, study. I couldn’t just press pause for a year.

  “I can’t.” The words felt physically painful to say.

  Damien looked away from me.

  “So what was last night about? I thought it was…” He cut himself off and tossed a handful of sand against the tent wall. “Never mind. Clearly I was wrong.”

  He started getting up and I felt the panic rise again. I grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him back.

  “Wait. Stay. Let’s talk about this.”

  He sat down again. “What’s there to talk about? I knew it was too good to be true. I meet a girl, a fucking amazing girl, and I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, and we wake up the next morning and recognize that our lives are totally incompatible. We’re on different paths and they are so far apart that…”

  My tears came.

  They ran down my cheeks as his words sunk in.

  Damien leaned forward and wiped them away. He was so tender and loving that it only made the situation a million times worse.

  “It’s okay, Lilly. It’s life. The timing is off for us. What can I say?”

  “But I don’t want it to be.” I wept.

  “But you can’t come with me and I can’t come with you, so what can we do?”

  The gravity of this situation was starting to sink in.

  “But I love you, Damien.”

  “I know. I love you, too.” He paused for the longest time and I could sense something bad was coming. “As good as last night was, I kind of wish it hadn’t happened. Because it’s just taken this whole thing from disappointment to…” he paused again. “Heartbreak.”

  My crying intensified and Damien wrapped his arms around me. We held each other tightly. And I wondered if this would be that last time.

  “I’m not sorry about last night.” I loosened myself from his grip and looked up at him. “It was my first time.”

  He looked completely shocked. “I didn’t know that.” He almost said that with regret.

  “Well, I didn’t tell you.”

  Yes, that looked like regret in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not,” I said firmly. “You were the right guy.”

  And then he stood up again and the sense of finality hit me like a bowling ball in the stomach.

  Why couldn’t I go? Why couldn’t I just say fuck it and go with him? But no matter how many times I mulled the thought over in my head the answer stayed the same. I just wasn’t capable of leaving my whole life behind. Maybe I was a coward, maybe I was stupid, but that was my reality right now. I just couldn’t.

  “Do you want me to come with you to the boat? I know there are a lot leaving today?”

  I looked out at the water. Large groups of people were starting to leave. “No. It’s okay. I’ll go with one of the groups.”

  He smiled at me. “I’m sure they’ll all be very honored to have a celebrity in their midst.”

  I felt a stabbing in my chest.

  A tightening in my throat.

  Nausea.

  And then lots of pain.

  He knelt down next to me and kissed me. One last time. It was so soft and tender and so full of love. But it was also just a painful reminder of what I would be missing.

  “Take care of yourself. Keep in touch over Facebook. I’ll be back in a year and, well…who knows?”

  “You’ll probably have found some hot chick by then and forgotten all about me,” I offered jokingly, even though the thought had just ripped a hole through my brain.

  He looked very serious suddenly. “That is very doubtful. Very. You’re going to take a very long time to get over, Lilly.”

  And then he was walking away from me across the beach.

  I sat there for a while, shell-shocked at what had just happened.

  Devastated.

  My heart had been ripped out of my chest and was lying next to me in the sand, and I had no idea how I would ever, ever, get it back in and fix it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I felt like a shoe.

  An old, decrepit shoe.

  A rejected, redundant, superfluous shoe that had been tossed out into a cold, muddy puddle on the side of a busy road in rush-hour traffic..

  A sad shoe with scuff marks down the side and a peeling sole. A shoe that finds itself in the mouth of a pug with bad breath, on the foot of a homeless woman with bunions and on the unfashionable hoof of a sweaty glam rocker with a fungal infection.

  Now times all that by one hundred, throw in two extra zeros for good measure and add it to infinity, and then maybe—maybe—you can begin to understand how I felt right then.

  Oh, and did I mention that the shoe had also been regurgitated by an anaconda after it accidentally ate the glam rocker?

  The boat ride back to the mainland had been a painful affair, literally. No longer in the Damien daze, I was very aware the steep incline that we had to climb down to reach the boat. No longer in possession of the hero’s hand, I’d slipped down some steps and grazed my elbow, bruised my bum and had a lovely little bump smack bang between my eyes.

  The misery that I felt as I sat on that boat, in between someone’s soon-to-be seafood supper and a raver on too much ecstasy, was… was… *

  *Mentally checking the thesaurus for a word that makes “excruciating” sound like something used to describe the sensation of a raindrop falling on your head.

  By the time I’d disembarked, it was already early evening. Phuket had turned her lights on and the night creatures in short skirts were filling up her streets. I walked up the road in search of a Tuk-Tuk and I couldn’t believe that a few days ago I’d been afraid of taking one on my own. Bad karaoke rang out and the smells of street food filled the air.

  Since I’d been away, my internet fame had clearly escalated, because despite my current state, I wasn’t oblivious to the staring and pointing aimed in my direction. At first it didn’t bother me, but when a woman walked up to me with a concerned look in her eyes and asked me if I needed help, I lost it.

  I claimed centre stage in the middle of the street, held my arms open wide and screamed. (My mother would have been so proud.)

  “Yes, people! It’s me. Get over it, okay?”

  They all stared. Some people took a step back, and an alarming number of them took out their phones and started dialing. Oh, shit! Surely they weren’t going to call the cops over a tiny public display of emotion. A Tuk-Tuk came toward me and I jumped in quickly. I had no desire to be arrested twice in one week. That was definitely my limit.

  “The White Sands Hotel and Spa, please,” I managed to mumble to the driver as I got in.

  The driver glanced back at me. “You look like you need drink,” he said in a thick Thai accent.

  “Damn right. I just wish I had one.” And I did. A strong one.

  “Here.” The little man reached over the chair and passed me a cigarette and a lighter.

  “I don’t smoke.”

  “Looks like good time to start.”

  And for some reason, that sounded like a very bloody brilliant idea. He was right, it was a good time to start. Yes, smoking cigarettes would surely make me feel better.

  So I lit one. It was disgusting. It made me cough, and it gave me a queasy, nauseous, head rush-y feeling.

  I loved it!

  Having a dreadful physical sensation to focus on made the emotional pain seem so much smaller. So I demanded that the man stop at the nearest shop so I, too, could come into possession of my very own box of cigarettes.

  And he did. And I smoked all the way back to the hotel, which gave me a blinding headache, a sore throat and a throbbing lung.

  It was exactly what I needed.

  We pulled up to the reception area, by now it was early evening, and I paid him and thanked him for introducing me to cigarettes. I climbed out of t
he Tuk-Tuk and then caught sight of myself in the mirrored door…

  Imagine an undiscovered wild woman who’s been living in the jungles of Papua New Guinea her whole life and was raised by apes.

  But who the hell cared, right? Certainly not me. By this stage, I was so used to looking like shit that it no longer surprised me.

  There was a very large No Smoking sign on the door, so I was forced to stand outside and finish my cigarette. Only ten minutes as a smoker and I was already starting to feel the discrimination! While I waited, I pulled out my phone and realized that it hadn’t been on in days, so I fired it up and watched a million messages flood my screen. I tossed my cigarette away and started walking and reading.

  Sweetie! Where the hell are you? We’re getting worried. Sue

  Lilly, your mother and I are getting very worried.

  WTF babe? There is a weird photo of you on the internet. Are you okay? Val

  Lilly, Val has shown me a photo of you and I am very worried. Call me.

  Babe, if you don’t call us back TODAY we are all getting on a plane to Thailand.

  Lilly, call me back or I’m coming over there. I’m worried.

  Okay, that’s it. We’re all at the airport and we are coming over.

  Lilly, your brothers and I are at the airport. We hope you are okay. Dad.

  I was nearly at my room when I lit up another cigarette. The nicotine had obviously affected my brain somehow, because it took several more reads of that last message before I clicked. I opened the door to my room…

  It was a circus.

  Val and Sue were sitting cutting out pieces of paper with my photo on and the word Missing in red above it. My father and brothers were standing with the hotel manager and talking, while three police people rushed around dusting for prints.

  They all looked up at the same time.

  I looked at them. They looked at me.

  We looked at each other.

  And they all looked very worried.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my brother Adam approaching with his little bottle of white pills, Val and Sue were inching closer, too, but my Dad stood dead still.

  “Sweetie.” Worried little voices. “Are you okay, babe?”

  “Hey, sis.” Adam was desperately trying to hide his panic and worry under casual lilting inflections. “Did someone hurt you? What’s that on your forehead? May I have a look at it?”

  They all inched closer, while the cops and manager left. The scene was totally bizarre, and I had been so caught off guard that I hardly knew what to do.

  “Sweetie, can you understand what we’re saying?” Val started talking very loudly and very slowly.

  “Yes. Lilly, do you know who we are?” My brother was unscrewing the bottle and a small white thing was coming toward me.

  “Of course I bloody know who you all are. I’m not a loony!” I finally said, while exhaling a big puff of smoke.

  “Thank God you’re okay. We’ve been worried sick.” My father leapt across the floor and scooped me up in his arms. Then they all flocked.

  James: “Jesus, sis, we’ve been here for two days, we’ve hung up missing posters on every street corner. (Aha, that explained the stares in the streets.) And we’ve had this place dusted for prints. We’ve been so worried. I’m glad you’re okay.”

  Adam: “Can you tell me how you sustained that injury on your head? Did you black out or lose consciousness? Can you feel your extremities? Oh my God, I’ve been so worried about you.”

  Sue: “Sweetie, we thought someone had kidnapped you and then taken a photo of you and put it online. We were waiting for a ransom note. I’ve been so scared.”

  Val: “I’ve been so worried. You look terrible, and smell like fish, and when did you start smoking? Oh my God, we’ve all been so freaked out. Your sister-in-law is threatening to sue the Thai government—we’ve all been going out of our minds. We were just about to call Esmeralda in.”

  They all hugged me and while I was supposedly distracted, I saw my brother Adam relieve me of my box of cigarettes and throw it in the trash. I was so touched by everyone’s care and concern and I felt terrible for causing such an international emergency. The tears welled up.

  “I’m so sorry, guys. I didn’t mean for you to all get so worried and fly out here.” My lip quivered as I tried to hold back the tears. A chorus of Don’t worry, at least you’re okay rang out.

  And then I wailed. “I love him!”

  And the tears and snot bubbles came. “I love him. I love him so much.”

  “We know. We know.” Val was trying her best to soothe me.

  “When we saw that photo of you online, we realized how bad it was, how much pain you were really in.” Sue took me by the hand and lead me to the bed. “So we tracked him down.”

  “Yes, and Sue and I had a very, very long talk to him.”

  “We had a very hectic talk with him,” my brother James piped up. “I was very firm. I made my feelings very clear and we all discussed them.”

  Then it was my dad’s turn to add to the conversation. “He came over to apologize, and we thrashed the whole thing out for hours. I was furious with him at first, obviously, but we had a long talk and he explained what happened.”

  Then Adam jumped in. “It can happen to anybody. Hell, I also got cold feet before my wedding. I didn’t run away, though, and that was terrible of him. You mustn’t forgive him right away, but it’s also important not to just give up on a good relationship.”

  “Of course you don’t have to take him back right away,” Sue qualified. “You may need to go to some counseling, but he is very sorry. I can see that.”

  “Wait!” I screamed. I had to stop them; they were going around in circles and I was starting to feel like a little gold fish in a bowl. “What are you talking about?”

  “About loving Michael,” Sue offered gently.

  “But I don’t love Michael. At all. I love Damien.”

  There was an eerie silence in the room, and then I heard it.

  “Who’s Damien?” The voice came from the doorway behind me.

  The voice made my skin crawl and made me feel violently ill and homicidal all at the same time.

  I clenched my fists, and if I were the kind of person who could crack her jaw, I probably would have.

  You know how in those spaghetti Westerns, when the two cowboys have their big standoff in the main road of the town all the folk come out to watch before that eerie Western music fills the air? That’s what was happening now.

  I stood up slowly, with my back to Michael. In my head they were playing that music and I was fingering the trigger of my imaginary gun, ready to cock it, aim and fire.

  I closed my eyes and saw Damien’s face. And then I turned very, very slowly and faced him.

  He looked exactly the same.

  Blonde.

  Buff.

  Beefy.

  Blue eyes.

  Big, straight, white smile.

  Good, clean, fun, commercial.

  Picket-fence commercial.

  Boring bastard commercial.

  “Who’s Damien?” His voice had a biting quality to it that I didn’t like.

  “He’s a guy I met.” I spat the words out with flaming indignation.

  “You met a guy on our honeymoon?”

  “Well, you were nowhere to be found!”

  Michael pulled out his phone with such smugness that it made me sick, he pressed a few things and then held it up to me. “Is this Damien?”

  I looked at the picture on Facebookook. It was of Damien and me—Jess had obviously taken it and tagged me in it.

  “Why are you stalking me on Facebook?” I asked Michael and grabbed his phone, but only because I wanted to look at the picture of Damien closely. His shirt was off, I was in my bikini and we had our arms around each other, laughing.

  I heard another voice from behind me. “When you went missing, the first thing we did was check to see if we could find where you were on Fac
ebook. We saw you’d friended this character and then last night, we saw this picture of you. He didn’t look very savory, so obviously we were all pretty worried.”

  I couldn’t believe what was going on.

  Was Michael really here to try to get me back?

  And did my friends and family really want me to get back with him?

  Had the world gone mad since I’d left?

  “Look…” Michael started approaching me with a patronizing tone. “I get it. What I did was really, really wrong and I don’t blame you for losing it…”

  “Losing it?!” I cut him off abruptly. “Do you think I’ve lost it? Do you all think I’ve lost it?” I turned and looked at everyone, and they didn’t need to say a word, because I could see the answer on their faces.

  But I hadn’t lost it.

  I’d actually found it.

  I was more myself right now than I’d ever been in my entire life.

  In the last few days I’d seen a different side of myself.

  And Burning Moon had changed me irrevocably.

  A calmness washed over me, not that weird, psychotic calmness that I’d experienced at the wedding. But a confident, silent calm. In fact, I felt pretty damn cool, calm and collected right now. If this had been a movie, it would be in French and I would be one of those chic, powerful French women who sat at cafés drinking strong coffee, reading Vogue magazine and smoking their cigarettes.

  What the hell…

  I wandered over to the trash can, pulled the box of cigarettes out and lit one. I inhaled like a pro and exhaled with an air of I’m-too-cool-for-school.

  “Right,” I said, slowly walking over to the window and opening it. I casually leaned against the wall as I flicked my ash out.