Not The One (London Lovers #4)

by Amy Daws

  I wait for a comment. Instead, she simply plasters on that same annoying smile and walks over to the trashcan. How the hell did this woman give birth to me? Personalities aside, when it comes to appearance, the only similarity we have is our short, hourglass figures.

  I hated my double D’s and curvy hips when I was younger. I would cry to my mom about my body and she used to tell me that I was healthy and strong. She made me sound like a feeder calf being prepped for slaughter. She would continue by saying since I came into the world as a micro-preemie at only one pound, one ounce, I should be grateful for every single curve God gave me.

  It wasn’t until I met Marisa that I really learned to love my body. Marisa used to lie on our futon and whine about how clothes “wore her”—not the other way around. She used my body as an example, saying that everything I wore made a statement because I “wore clothes.”

  Marisa always did have a fabulous way of complimenting people that sounded way too specific to be bullshit.

  I scrape my inky hair up into a topknot. I wear it long and tousled most days. My mother’s is a short bob that stacks stylish in the back and is graying with age. I am told that I inherited my dad’s grayish-green eyes, and it kills me to this day that I never noticed his eyes before he died.

  “Are you going to wear that to the pub?” Her blue eyes blink rapidly as she stares at my extremely short, thin gray shorts.

  My eyebrows rise as I wait on bated breath to see how this will go down. “Yes. I am. Is that okay?”

  Her smile shifts into a genuine laugh. “I’m sure it’s not the most shocking thing you’ve worn in front of Alistair. Shall we?”

  I roll my eyes and follow her as we walk down the street and into White Swan. It’s bustling with business types, two hours deep into a very happy, happy hour.

  “My two favorite beauties,” Alistair says from behind the bar, stepping up to the point of purchase machine. “How are my favorite Americans this fine evening?”

  “Hungry,” I grumble, leaning my elbows on the shiny bar top. Al leans across the bar and double kisses my mom and me on the cheeks. He shoots me a sardonic smile before he turns his twinkling blue eyes back to my mother.

  “We are excellent, Alistair. So good to see you again,” she says, formally clasping her hands in front of her.

  “Good to see you, too, Elizabeth. You are looking well.”

  “You, too. Business looks good!”

  “Aye, it is. It is.”

  The two of them smile awkwardly at each other for an embarrassingly long moment before Al finally breaks the silence. “Will ye be havin’ the usual?” He begins typing into the computer.

  “Yes, please. Is that what you want too, Reyna?”

  I roll my eyes and nod. God, what is it about my mother that turns me into a sullen teenager every time I’m around her? Al hands us our glasses of white wine and we manage to find a cozy table on the elevated level right by the window.

  “So, how did your interview go?” my mom asks, taking a sip of her wine.

  “My interview at Club Taint?” I ask in a louder than necessary voice. She nods silently, unaffected by my lack of decorum. “Great, actually. I got the job. I start tomorrow.”

  She smiles proudly. “I’m not surprised.”

  “Well the manager, Frank, was.” I pause to take three long sips of my wine. Seeing Liam earlier and then watching my mother ignore the shambles of my life on display in my flat have me holding on by a very thin thread right now. “Frank was shocked someone with a masters from Oxford would be applying at a nightclub for a bartending position.”

  Her brow furrows as she considers her reply. “You’ve had a tough year.”

  “It’s more than a tough year, Mom,” I snap. “Marisa died three years ago. And I started making fucking mistakes before she died, if you recall.”

  She swallows uncomfortably at the topic she knows I’m referring to, then shakes her head, revealing that same infuriating smile. It’s the smile that was my constant companion growing up. The same smile that walked me to school every day until I turned sixteen even though I cried and cried to her about how embarrassing it was.

  “Everyone makes mistakes, Reyna. You just need to be happy that you’re alive. Marisa would want that.” She nods, clearly pleased with this response.

  I stifle an obnoxious laugh. “I think Marisa would want to know that her best friend in the world fucked her soon-to-be fiancé the night before she died.”

  My mother pauses mid sip. My eyes alight as the briefest look of shock flits across her face. I sense eyes on us from the people within earshot. She sets her glass down slowly and leans forward to speak quietly. She hesitates and a moment of regret crosses my mind as she looks around at the people staring. I know this is cruel to do to her. I can feel it in my bones and it kills me. But seeing Liam today has only reaffirmed how truly pathetic my life has become. And how truly out of control I feel.

  “Life is a gift, Reyna. Mistakes happen.” My mother says, finally. Her blue eyes and fair skin shimmer from the overhead lamp light as she attempts to drive her point into me. “We can’t control life anymore than we can control the hands of time. They both continue without our intervention.”

  That was a funny example she gave considering the fact that I have a pocket watch tattoo stuck at the time of 4:03. “How can you say that we can’t control life?” I ask, my voice approaching shrill. “You operate on tiny, one-pound babies, Mom! The hardest, most impossible cases in the world come to you for help. Hell, you operate on them when they are still in their mother’s uterus! You intervene every day and you save innocent babies. How can you say we have no control over what happens in our life?”

  Her eyes relax and she smiles as if she’s prepared to answer this question. “Modern medicine can only take us so far. The rest we have no control over.”

  No control. She sure didn’t look like she gave up control when she invited herself over to the first boy/girl party I’d ever been invited to. Telling the boy’s parents that it’s always wise to have a medical professional nearby made me turn around and jump right back in the car and refuse to go in.

  Tears well in my eyes as the aching feeling of loss clouds over me. My entire life I’ve lived with this overwhelming emotion like something was missing, like something was wrong about my existence. It felt like there had been some horrible mistake in allowing me to be here.

  “Do you ever wonder what it would be like if it were one of them instead of me?” I ask quietly.

  “One of who?”

  “My sisters.”

  Shock etches over her face and for the first time in forever, I see a new emotion on my mother’s face. “Why would you ever say that? You are here for a reason, Reyna Miracle. You.”

  “Is that what you say when you pray to them?” My words fly out fast and hard and my eyes narrow in challenge. I feel no remorse for the conversation I know will follow.

  She shoots me a schooled expression. “What I say to your sisters in my prayers is not for your ears.”

  I shake my head. “What about Dad? What do you say when you pray to him?”

  “Reyna, please stop.”

  “Why, Mom? If loss is a part of life, why don’t we discuss them ever? You know I can’t remember Dad’s gray eyes? You’ve told me I have them but it kills me because I never memorized them.”

  “You were only five when he died, Reyna.”

  “And I was even younger when they died but I can still feel them,” I retort and I’m suddenly overcome with emotion. Feeling my sisters is something I’ve only ever told one person about. And now she’s dead.

  My mother’s smile is pained and hurting. “I want to see you happy, honey. Let’s just have a good dinner. You got a new job today. I don’t want to upset you, Miracle.”

  “Stop calling me that, please!” I exclaim with a shrill edge to my voice.

  “It’s part of your name!”

  “It’s a constant reminder of how horrid I’v
e turned out and how wrong life was in picking me.”

  “Reyna!”

  “No, don’t say anything. You don’t want to upset me, remember?” I push back the wooden chair and stand. I turn to leave but come back and place my hands down on the table and lean into my mother. “I got a bartending job at a place that refers to the area of skin between a man’s asshole and his ball sack, Mother. Newsflash! Life is pretty damn upsetting right now.”

  I down the rest of my wine and turn to leave again.

  “Reyna, please stay. We haven’t even gotten our food yet! You need to eat.” I’m causing a scene and she still has that inane smile on her face.

  I pause before walking away to say, “You think talking about the three girls that I shared a uterus with for twenty-four weeks is something that will upset me. Forgive me for losing my appetite.”

  “So, what do you think of it?” Liam asks me, his eyes squinting with anxiety.

  “It’s beautiful.” I smile and snap the velvet ring box shut and hand it back over to him.

  “That’s it? Just beautiful?”

  I nod and look away, avoiding his gaze. Liam and I are sitting down on the futon in the dorm room. The three of us graduate in a couple weeks and we already have a commercial real estate agent lined up to show us properties in London for our bridal boutique. I should be feeling on top of the world right now. But the closer graduation gets, the more anxiety I feel.

  Liam called earlier to ask if he could pop over to show me something he picked out for Marisa. Marisa was out of town, back at her family home in Essex. She was going quad racing with her siblings. Typically Liam goes home with her, but he stayed back at school because he had to work.

  My nerves were all over the damn place as I waited for Liam to show up. I had a pretty good feeling I knew what he wanted to show me and that was also probably why I was halfway through a bottle of white wine when he showed up on my doorstep.

  “You’re full of shit, you know that,” Liam says, nearly growling in frustration.

  I stand quickly, heading over to my small counter space to replenish my depleting wine. I take a sip and turn to face him. “I’m not, Liam. It’s a beautiful ring.”

  “I know it’s beautiful, I bought the bloody thing!” he exclaims as he rises and begins pacing back and forth in front of the futon.

  Standing before me now, he suddenly appears completely different without Marisa here. Liam has always been attractive but because he was in a relationship with Marisa, I never let my brain go there. Now I can’t stop myself from noticing the way his broad shoulders angle down in a perfect V to his hips, or the way his jeans cling to his muscular thighs. He smooths his hand over his blond hair and turns his warm brown eyes back to me.

  “What is your problem, Liam?” I snap, growing agitated by this fit he’s pitching in my room and feeling a bit brave from the wine buzzing in my veins.

  He throws his hands out at me. “You, Rey! You are my problem. You say you never lie, but I don’t think you’ve ever once told me the bloody truth!”

  My jaw drops and I want to argue with him but I remain silent. The strange dynamic between me and Liam has only grown stranger as his relationship with Marisa progressed. He made me nervous like no one ever had. I prided myself on being up front, but somehow, he’s managed to call bullshit on me every time.

  “Am I exempt? Am I exempt from the Reyna Miller honesty train? You can be straightforward with everyone but me. Is that it?” He props his hands on his hips, waiting impatiently for an answer.

  “Liam! I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I exclaim feeling a rising tension between the two of us. It’s thick and makes me crazy nervous. I fidget with my cotton shorts and shirt hem to distract my eyes. “It’s a beautiful ring, Marisa will love it. You two are perfect for each other.”

  “And what about you, Rey?” He steps toward me until he’s so close I have to crane my neck up to look at him. The aroma of cinnamon and detergent invades my nostrils. A strange combination, but on him it’s positively swoon-worthy. “Who are you perfect for?” he asks, his voice husky.

  “No one,” I croak and turn my head to look away from him. “I’m not the one for anyone.”

  He steps sideways to catch my eyes with his again. My brow creases. “What if I call bullshit?” he asks, his voice growing scarily serious as his eyes glance down to my lips for several monumental seconds.

  My eyes lock on his full lips for the briefest of seconds. They’re a lovely peach flesh-tone and always rest in a seriously sexy pucker. “Don’t call bullshit, Liam,” I whisper while silently screaming at the desperate urge I have to taste his lips right this fucking second.

  “Why not, Rey?” His words are like a cry. His eyes are back on mine now, begging and pleading for something that I can’t give him. “I’m a fixer, Rey. It’s in me to fix whatever this messed up situation is between us.”

  “I’m not worth fixing,” I say, smiling sadly. Tears betray me as they well in my eyes. “I’m not the one, Liam…I’m no one’s anything.”

  He grabs my face in his hands and presses his forehead to mine. His breath is warm and smells like cinnamon as he whispers, “Bollocks.”

  “This is so wrong, Liam.” I swallow hard as tears slip down both of my cheeks. “You can’t do this. I’m not worth it.”

  “The fact that you can’t see that you are just shows what a fucking liar you are.”

  I wake to the sound of drunken voices hollering in the hallway outside my dorm room. I instantly feel a satisfying ache between my legs. Then my whole world comes crumbling down around me. Glancing down to see a hand draped over my back, I quickly turn my head to confirm that it’s Liam, even though I already knew the answer.

  No, no, no! This can’t be real. This can’t be happening. A sob escapes my throat and my hand flies up to cover my mouth. Liam jumps at the sound and his eyes fly open. When his gaze finds mine, it all only becomes more real. I leap up out of the bed, taking a loose sheet with me. I wrap it around my body and gasp back several more sobs.

  I fumble to turn on my desk lamp. Golden light casts over my room and further points a spotlight on all the horrid things Liam and I just did. It’s only four fifteen in the morning and I’m already having my first full-blown anxiety attack for the day. I pull the sheet up over my head, rubbing it quickly on my face as I try to clear the fog over my sleepy-hazed head.

  “Rey, are you alright?” Liam gets up out of the bed and places his hands on my arms from behind me.

  “Don’t touch me!” I scream and turn to see him jump back like I’d bit him.

  “What the fuck is going on?” His face is wounded and worried.

  “Liam! How can you be so stupid right now? What’s wrong? For starters, you’re fucking naked! And I just fucked my best friend’s fiancé.”

  His face drops as he realizes the cause of my outburst. He doesn’t look impressed. “We didn’t just fuck, Rey.” He bends over and grabs his jeans up off the floor and pulls them up, sans underwear.

  “My pussy says we did,” I snap.

  “Stop,” he growls. “It wasn’t just fucking. It was a hell of a lot more to me than that!”

  “Oh my God, oh my God! This should have never happened.” I begin pacing back and forth.

  Liam’s jaw muscle ticks violently as he stands there shirtless in his jeans. “I agree, we took this too far, but I don’t agree that this never should have happened.”

  “Are you insane? This won’t happen ever again. God! Did you not hear me before…before you…before—”

  “Before I kissed you and told you I love you,” he interjects.

  “Stop!” I scream, covering my ears. The words spoken aloud cause tears to instantly well and fall. Those words aren’t for me. Those words belong to Marisa. Beautiful, sweet words that belong to anyone but me. “Don’t say that, Liam. You’re making this all worse! You don’t mean it. You can’t. I’m so not the one.”

  “We’ve been through all thi
s, Rey! I’m in love with you. I love you. I always have. I was just so utterly wrong before. You have—”

  “Liam, no. Stop saying it. Don’t ever say it again. Ever. I’m not kidding. You can’t say those words to me ever again. Ever!” My voice is strident and panicky. “God, you don’t even know me.”

  “Lies. Again! You know I know you, Rey. This isn’t new between us. We’ve been feeling this for months. I know so much about you and yet I want to know even more.” He charges over to me and traps me up against the wall with his arms. “The bottom line is that I know how you make me feel. And I know how I can make you feel. Don’t fucking deny that!”

  “No, no! You don’t get it, Liam. I don’t have a lot of friends. Any really. I’m not nice. I’m not bubbly. Most people don’t get me. They think I don’t care about anything or anyone, but I care about everything. I care what they all think. Marisa saw that. She saw that without even trying. She was my first real friend. The first one I ever told—” My hand reaches up to touch the three black roses on my collarbone as another sob escapes me.

  Liam’s arms wrap around me and I don’t have the strength to push him away this time. I fold into him as his hands stroke lovingly up and down my back as he drops soft kisses into my hair. I let myself cry into his bare chest, melting under his touch. His painfully beautiful touch. It feels so fucking good. So fucking right. But my tears only fall faster knowing just how fucking wrong it all really is.

  “I need somebody like her,” I croak, my forehead resting on Liam’s chest. I’m saying these words for myself more than Liam though. “Marisa makes me feel like I belong here. She fixed whatever was broken inside of me. I’m terrified of what I’ll be like without her. I can’t…can’t lose her!”

  He sighs heavily as his body turns hard and tense beneath my hands. “So we won’t tell her. I won’t say anything. I won’t pursue you again. I’ll pull out of our business plan.” I push back and look into his hopeless eyes. They are glossy with unshed tears as he continues. “I care about you, Rey. I thought I could make you happy, but Christ, I can’t be the reason for all of this. This isn’t happiness.” He looks at me with sorrow and a deep, burning ache that I know could ruin me.