More Than a Fling?

by Joss Wood

  ‘Don’t get excited, Jonas. She’s temporary—a fling. We’re just having a bit of fun until she goes home. She’s not important.’

  Ross felt his stomach clench at the lie and realised that speaking the words didn’t make them true. Ally was getting to be just the opposite; she’d slipped under his skin and he had no idea how he was going to find the strength to wave her goodbye.

  There was nothing they could do, he thought, and it was never going to work out. Her career, her life was in Geneva, and he could never ask her to give it up and move to Cape Town to be with him. After what she’d told him last night that would be too big an ask of her.

  And he couldn’t give up RBM. He’d worked so damn hard, and he had people relying on him—clients, customers, staff who’d relocated, changed their lives to work for him.

  Love, he realised as regret clutched his heart and squeezed, couldn’t conquer everything.

  * * *

  She’s temporary—a fling. We’re just having a bit of fun until she goes home. She’s not important.

  She hadn’t been eavesdropping—well, maybe a bit.

  Ally had instinctively backed away from the door leading to the veranda and when she was certain that Ross wouldn’t hear her footsteps had dashed up the stairs to Ross’s room.

  She’d had to leave—needed to be out of his house before he saw her wet eyes and her obvious distress. Now, a couple of hours later, back in her apartment at Camps Bay, she kept calling herself a fool. She’d been thinking about how Ross had changed her life, how awful it would be when she left and how much she’d miss him—and all the time he’d considered her to be nothing more than a casual fling.

  If there were awards for chronic stupidity she would be a right up there in the running. So they’d shared a couple of confidences? It seemed that meant nothing in the scheme of things; Ross wasn’t on the same page as her.

  Hell, he wasn’t even reading the same book.

  Ally heard the entry buzzer, walked into the kitchen and looked at the small screen above the intercom. There was Ross, looking dark and dangerous on his solid black Ducati. She pressed the button to allow the gate to slide open and realised that she had about a minute to get her crazy, bruised emotions under control. She couldn’t allow him to know that his words to his father, so casually uttered, had made her feel as if he’d scraped out her insides with a teaspoon.

  She hauled in a deep breath and pushed her hair off her face. She would be cool and in control; she would not melt into a puddle at his feet. This was the problem with feelings, she thought, they were wild and upsetting and left you feeling out of control.

  Her father had been right all along: it was better to keep them all locked down. It didn’t hurt that way.

  ‘Hey,’ Ross said as he walked into the airy, light-filled apartment.

  Ally knew that he was walking over to kiss her so she popped around to the other side of the dining room table, which she was using as a massive desk.

  ‘Hi,’ she replied, staring down at her screen. ‘Bert sent me the photographs of the office shoot...they’re good. Do you want to take a look?’

  Ross sent her a quizzical look. ‘Uh...’ He perched his butt on the corner of the table and stretched out his long legs. ‘So, that was my dad.’

  Dear Lord, he wanted to talk about it. She didn’t think she could—not without revealing how devastated she felt. She’d started to hand over her heart, only to find out that he wasn’t interested in it, and now he wanted to talk about it?

  She didn’t think so.

  ‘We have one more photo shoot scheduled but I don’t think it’s necessary. I’ve already identified five images I want to use for the print campaign.’

  ‘I’m thrilled,’ Ross deadpanned.

  Ally risked a quick look at him and sighed when she saw his narrowed eyes, his set jaw.

  ‘What’s going on, Alyssa?’

  Alyssa. He only called her that when he wanted her to know that he was being deadly serious and when he wanted to get his point across. Jones was for teasing and Al was for affection. Sweetheart was for flat-out fun.

  Ally licked her lips and tried to pull off an I-don’t-know-what-you-mean shrug.

  ‘Are you really going to stand there and not ask me what happened with my dad?’ Ross demanded.

  ‘Um...yeah.’ Because that would be opening up a can of six-foot worms and she would lose it...

  ‘It’s what a lover would do. Or even a friend,’ Ross pointed out, his hard tone layering confusion and hurt.

  The fact that she had the ability to hurt him—even as a friend—made her feel off balance. And so, so sad.

  But they weren’t lovers—hadn’t he said so? She was nothing. She wasn’t important. And she’d rather poke a hot stick in her eye than let him see what that meant to her.

  Ally lifted her chin high enough to make her nose bleed. ‘I never signed on for the emotional stuff, Ross.’

  Ross looked at her for a long time before speaking again. ‘I thought we’d kicked uptight, bitchy Alyssa into touch.’

  She had—or at least she’d wanted to—but she’d rather Ross think that she was cold and unfeeling than know that she was hurt and humiliated. ‘Since I’m leaving in a couple days, does the way I act matter? This will be over soon anyway.’

  ‘And if I said that I’d like to make it work?’

  ‘I wouldn’t believe you,’ Ally shot back.

  He was sending too many mixed messages and her head was whirling.

  She shoved her hands into her hair and held her head. ‘Why would you even say that, Ross? It makes absolutely no sense. Even if I believed you—which I so don’t—how would we make it work? Two continents, two careers—’

  ‘You could—’

  Ally pounced on his words before he could complete that sentence. ‘Don’t you dare ask me to sacrifice my career for yours. Do not even go there!’

  Ross pursed his lips. ‘I was going to say that you could fly here occasionally and I could go to Geneva. We have the means to do that. But I suppose that’s a moot point, given that you don’t seem to want to entertain the idea of an “us” beyond this fling.’

  Ross placed both hands on the dining room table and looked at Ally with hard eyes.

  ‘It’s so bloody ironic that on the day that one weight is lifted off my shoulder another one falls and it’s the same bloody thing. Once again I’m loving somebody who doesn’t love me more than they love their job. And I’m back to feeling hurt and resentful because there’s this person in my life who’s emotionally unavailable, cut off, and a royal pain in my ass. I’m seriously starting to question my own sanity.’

  Had he said that he loved her? Ally felt her heart jump... No, surely not. That wasn’t possible...

  ‘Everything I love is in Geneva—my family and my work. That’s what’s important.’

  ‘Everything?’ Ross demanded. ‘Come on, Alyssa. Everything?’

  ‘Where is this coming from, Ross?’ Ally demanded. ‘One minute we’re having a fling, the next minute we’re friends and now you’re talking about us finding a way forward.’

  ‘It’s what happens when two people meet, feel attracted to each other, sleep together and become friends. It’s called a relationship. Friggin’ hell, I’m not asking you for marriage, or to uproot your entire life, I’m asking you to give us a shot!’

  ‘But I’m not important. I’m nothing. A fling. That’s what you told your dad
. I heard you.’

  Ross stared at her. ‘That’s what this is about?’ he barked out a laugh. ‘Hell, Ally, I haven’t had a proper conversation with my dad in ten years and I wasn’t about to spill my soul to him about a girl I’m crazy about. Not within ten minutes of him saying sorry. We’ve got a long way to go before he becomes my best bud.’

  Ally walked over to the huge windows and looked across the ocean. She so wanted to take a chance, to let Ross in, to plot a way forward to make this—whatever this was—work. But she knew that the further she ventured down this path the more it would hurt when the road ended at the end of a cliff.

  ‘You really don’t want to do this, do you?’ Ross asked from somewhere behind her.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t want to. It was just that she was so damn scared. What if she let him in and he let her down? What if he died? What if he met someone else and decided that person—happy, bubbly, normal—was the love of his life and she was left out in the cold?

  Again.

  She didn’t think she could survive being left on her own again.

  ‘Give us a shot, Ally. We’re smart people, we can make this work.’

  Ally heard the plea in Ross’s voice, heard a hint of desperation and, worse, a smidgeon of doubt. He wasn’t a hundred per cent convinced they could do that, and if he had some doubts and she a shed-load of them then what chance did they have?

  Zero? Less than? And could she spend every moment waiting for the axe to fall? Maybe it was better to cut the rope holding that axe right now and get it over with.

  Ally turned and looked at Ross with widened eyes filled with sorrow. ‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Trust us—trust this,’ Ross said, his eyes pleading. ‘Trust me.’

  Ally put her hand to her mouth and shook her head. ‘I can’t.’

  Ross opened his mouth to say something and quickly snapped it closed. He put his hands on his hips and stared down at the table. He swore a creative streak and when he looked at her again his face was set in stone. He gestured to her laptop and the papers on her desk.

  ‘If you need to talk to me about the campaign do it through the lawyers or through Luc. I think we’re done here, Jones. You got what you wanted—a face for your campaign—and I got my heart stomped on. You probably think that’s a fair trade.’

  She couldn’t leave it like this...couldn’t let him walk out through the door feeling like this. ‘Ross?’

  ‘What?’ Ross snapped, whirling around. ‘What else is there to say, Ally? I love you, but you are so damn scared to take a risk on me—on us—that you would rather bury yourself in work than be with me. You are so far up your own ass that you can’t even think out of the box and consider how we might make it work.’

  ‘It’s not that...’ It was that. Of course it was that. Despite her backing off, her heart had split right in two and splattered all over the floor.

  ‘Then what is it, huh?’ Ross demanded. He stared at her, his eyes hot and hurt, and when she didn’t answer the heat faded and resignation slid over his face. ‘You don’t love me...you don’t feel the same. This was just a fling to you. I was falling in love with you and you weren’t. How the hell could I have read it so wrong?’

  Dear God, she loved him so much...that was the problem. She just couldn’t trust... Tears rolled down her face as she struggled to find something to say...

  Don’t go. Don’t leave me. I’m so scared...

  The words were there but she couldn’t spit them out. For the second time in her life her vocal cords were frozen, her tongue refused to work and her heart writhed on the floor.

  Ross turned, yanked on the handle to the front door and disappeared through it. Ally’s heart sent her feet a message to move but her brain kept them glued to the floor. It was better this way, the grey matter insisted. It would hurt for a while but it could be so much worse.

  Ally, who couldn’t catch her breath from the sobs trying to claw their way out of her throat, didn’t see how.

  TWELVE

  Ally walked next to the pilot of the Bellechier Gulfstream jet and felt his brief touch on her back as he escorted her up the stairs into the luxurious cabin. She would never normally ask to use the jet and she fully intended to pay—eek!—for the privilege. But she’d pay the enormous costs just to get her sorry self out of the country, to stop her from running down the road and throwing her arms around Ross’s knees and begging him to...what?

  Love her? Hold her? Take her heart?

  Because that was exactly what she wanted to do but she was so damn scared. If she stayed in Cape Town she would run to him. So last night, in between her sobs, she’d called Sabine and asked for the jet to collect her. Sabine, bless her, had agreed immediately and said nothing more.

  Ally dumped her bag on one of the cream-coloured leather seats and rubbed her hands across her face.

  ‘We’ll be leaving in about ten minutes, Miss Jones.’

  ‘Thanks, Paul.’ Ally turned as the door to the bathroom opened and her jaw dropped as Sabine, dressed in designer jeans and a silk top, stepped out.

  ‘Sabine, what are you doing here?’ Ally asked, her eyes welling as she hurried to her and stepped into her open arms. She buried her face in Sabine’s sweet-smelling neck and felt the tears build again.

  ‘When my daughter calls in the middle of the night with a broken heart and asks to be collected I come too.’ Sabine brushed Ally’s hair off her face. ‘Oh, baby girl, what happened?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  Ally managed to get the words out as Sabine pulled her to a seat, sat her down and pulled the seatbelt across her lap. Settling herself in the chair next to Ally, she clicked her own belt shut and turned in her seat, holding Ally’s hand in hers.

  ‘The best stories always are,’ Sabine replied as the engines rumbled below them.

  Ally was dimly aware of the plane taxiing towards the runway but her head was on Sabine’s shoulder and she felt...safe.

  Her mum was here and she felt safe. Sabine wasn’t her birth mother but, unlike her real mother, who’d never given a damn, she’d commandeered the plane in the middle of a cold Swiss night, dropped everything and come for her.

  Ally was stunned at this demonstration of her love, but habit had her protesting.

  ‘You didn’t have to come for me. I’m fine,’ Ally whispered. She lifted her head and wiped her eyes with the tips of her fingers. Then a tissue appeared, as if by magic, between Sabine’s fingers and Ally grabbed it gratefully.

  ‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ Sabine shook her head, her eyes deep and dark with love.

  ‘Get what?’ Ally asked, confused.

  ‘How much I love you.’

  Ally closed her eyes. ‘But how could you? You’re not my mother.’

  ‘What did you say to me?’ Sabine asked in French.

  Oh, crap. She recognised that tone. All her kids knew that when Sabine switched to French midconversation it was a massive clue that she was at the end of her patience.

  ‘I was your mother from the day you slid your hand into mine in that hotel room in Phuket. Who sat with you night after night in hospital as you struggled with pneumonia? Who dressed you and fed you and did hours of brain-numbing homework with you? How dare you utter those words to me?’

  Ally wanted cover her head with her arms. ‘Sabine—’

  ‘I’m not finished. Even before your dad died who took you to school and kis
sed your grazes better? Bought you your first puppy and Barbie and iPod? I explained the birds and the bees to you and I kept your father and brothers off your back when you went on dates with loser boys.’

  Oh, if love was action then Sabine had always showed her how much she loved her. Ally tried to speak, to apologise, but Sabine didn’t give her a gap to jump in.

  ‘Who took you to your first spa treatment, made you extra-chocolatey ice cream sundaes, picked you and your friends up from a party at three in the morning and told your father that you were home by eleven? Who wouldn’t go back to work because she thought it was more important to raise you? It was me, you ungrateful brat! And what have you given me in return?’

  ‘I’ve worked hard... I’ve tried to do well!’ Ally said in a little voice. ‘I wanted to show you how grateful I am.’

  Sabine slumped back in her chair. ‘I never wanted your gratitude, Alyssa. I wanted you. I wanted you to talk to me, to let me in, to share your soul. I wanted to be your mama, to be there for you.’ Sabine sent her a piercing look. ‘I wanted—I want to be allowed to love you. And, by the way, if you are hurting nothing will stop me from running to you, and if someone has hurt you then I will hunt them down and kill them.’ Sabine thought for a moment. ‘Or at least hire someone to do it.’

  Ally hiccupped a small laugh. Sabine—no, her mum—would be relentless in her pursuit of revenge. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘Pfft.’ And in the blink of an eye, her anger was replaced with concern. ‘So who has hurt you, baby? Ross?’

  Ally shook her head, twisted her fingers back into her mum’s smaller hand and put her head on her shoulder. ‘I did. I hurt myself. I am my own worst enemy.’

  Sabine stroked her head. ‘Tell me.’

  Who else could she talk to about this? Nobody. Who else did she want to talk to about this? Nobody. It was time to let her in.