by Wood, Joss
Wasn’t this the best idea he’d ever had?
Maddie flung herself back on the board and turned her eyes to look for Cale, who should have been sitting on his board behind the back line. She frowned, wondering where he’d got to, and allowed her eyes to drift over the rest of the surfers. Her eyes widened in surprise. He was up and he was surfing…
He wasn’t the most graceful or the most practiced, but he was up and he was flying. Maddie let out a whoop of appreciation before laughing when his board flew out from under his feet and he crashed into the white water. His head popped up and she paddled over to him.
She mock-scowled at him. ‘I see I got booted as surfing instructor.’
Cale hauled himself up on his board and grinned at her. ‘Did you see me? Wasn’t that cool? That was so cool!’
Maddie lifted her hand up so that he could slap it. ‘So cool! Where? What? How?’
Cale shrugged. ‘I was too impatient and frustrated to wait around for you to teach me. A couple of afternoons I headed to Muizenberg and found an eighteen-year-old who’s been surfing all his life to teach me. He was happy to have the money and surprisingly patient.’
‘How long did it take him to get you up?’ Maddie asked him.
‘A lesson.’ Cale flicked water at her. ‘But please remember that with you I was too distracted to get up on the board.’
‘Ha-ha. You’re just saying that because I’m a lousy instructor.’
They hit the back line and sat up on their boards. Cale took her hand and loosely held it as they waited for another set to come in. ‘No, it’s because I just have to look at you and I’m imagining you naked under me.’
Maddie closed her eyes as a rush of warmth headed straight to her core. ‘Cale…’
‘Want to hop off your board for a moment?’ Cale waggled his eyebrows.
Maddie widened her eyes. ‘Cale Grant!’
‘Madison Shaw!’ Cale teased, then stretched out on his board and started to paddle. ‘I’ll be back!’
Maddie giggled. He’d distracted her and nicked a really good wave… He was riding it well too.
She’d created a monster, she decided as she picked up the next, smaller wave. She’d just have to punish him later, she decided. In a very creative and imaginative way.
Ten minutes before they were about to land in Cape Town, Cale turned to Maddie, who’d spent the best part of the flight staring out of the window. Although her hand had stayed in his for most of the flight, he knew that she was very far away—possibly already in New York.
Their spectacular weekend away was over and it was time to pay the piper.
‘I had a great weekend, sport. Thanks.’
‘Ditto.’
‘What’s wrong?’
Maddie pulled her hand from his and shoved it into her hair. ‘Apart from the fact that I’m leaving my home and my country and my new man for a situation I’m not sure I even want any more?’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Cale admitted, fiddling with his mobile to give his hands something to do.
Maddie shrugged and turned away.
What was so damn interesting to look at at thirty thousand feet? Blue sky and clouds?
‘There’s not much to say. I thought I was so smart, thought I had this under control.’
Cale scowled at the back of her head. Again, how was he supposed to respond to that? ‘I keep thinking that you’re waiting for me to say something.’
‘Like?’
‘Asking you not to go.’ Cale sucked in some air. ‘You’ve got to make this decision without me, Mad. You’ve got to take me out of the equation and work out if this is the right move for you. I can’t sway you. What we have—whatever the hell it is—shouldn’t sway you.’
‘Why not? Why can’t… this… you and I, be a factor?’
‘Because if you didn’t go for any reason you’d always wonder whether you were good enough. And you’d regret not finding out. You have to go and do the interview at the very least.’ Cale ran his hand over his face. ‘As for me and my hang-ups around relationships—can I say this? You’re the only person who has even come close to getting me to consider risking my heart, my sanity, my wellbeing.’
Maddie rested the side of her head against the window and toyed with her bottle of water. ‘Would it be so bad? Would it be the worst thing we could do to take the risk to be together?’
‘It’s hurting already, Maddie, and we’re not even in love with each other.’ At least he presumed they weren’t. He wasn’t. He didn’t think she was. ‘Imagine if it went wrong—and history has taught us that it probably will—and we were even more emotionally involved? I don’t think either of us would recover easily, if at all.’ He heaved out the words. ‘You’ve made me realise that I’m not so hung up any more about Oliver’s death, but I am still dealing with… how do I say this?… with the impact his life had on mine. He drained me, Maddie.’
‘And you think that I’m going to do the same?’
‘Maddie.’ Cale closed his eyes at the hurt in hers. ‘I just can’t. I can’t give you… this… us… that much control.’
‘So basically you’re still an emotional wimp?’
He couldn’t even disagree with her. ‘Yes. Absolutely. I’m an absolute nerd when it comes to this stuff.’
Maddie heaved a huge sigh. ‘Me too. Make me a promise?’
‘I’ll try.’
‘If you’re going to hook up with another woman—and you will—avoid the vapid, stupid ones, okay? Even if they are stacked and blonde with legs up to their necks.’
He couldn’t find the energy to smile at her stab at humour. ‘Okay.’
Cale felt a piercing pain in his chest at the thought of Maddie with another man, sharing anything like the sex they had. He’d nearly come to terms with the guilt he felt around Oliver’s death, the flickers of panic were nothing more than a very infrequent spark these days, but he knew that he’d now have another issue to deal with at three in the morning. Actually, the idea of Maddie with someone else would probably haunt him all hours of the day.
‘A nun,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘God, please let her become a nun.’
‘What?’ Maddie frowned at him.
Cale shook his head as he stood up. ‘Nothing. Don’t worry about it. I’m going to take a walk.’ He gestured to the toilets and his unsteady walk had nothing to do with the minor turbulence.
Locked away in that tiny space, he stared at his reflection in the mirror. He wished he could blame the seafood curry he’d had for lunch for his bout of nausea, but he couldn’t. He was enough of a psychologist to know that it was a physical manifestation of his mental state. He could only pray that this queasiness would subside as he became more used to the idea of not having her in his life. Of her being on the other side of the world.
Cale rubbed his hands over his face, thinking that once again Maddie had pulled a whole bunch of emotions to the surface and he was ill equipped to handle them.
Typical. Nothing much had changed in a decade.
Maddie, dressed in a black halterneck cocktail dress and a fixed smile, checked her bracelet watch. It was two in the morning and a good number of the charity dinner guests were left, still bopping to the band. Maddie sat at a corner table on the ballroom and rested her head against the back wall. There was no point in leaving to go home. She had her bags and a change of clothing in the car and she’d go directly to the airport. In five hours she’d be in the air, and she’d take a sleeping pill and pass out for the entire flight to New York.
Jim walked past her, stopped, and came back to crouch in front of her. ‘You okay, Miss M?’
Maddie touched the hand he’d put on her knee. ‘No, but I will be. Maybe in a year or two.’
Jim touched her cheek with a long finger. ‘I love you, gorgeous girl. Call us as soon as you know about the job. If you get it, I’m going to miss your face.’
Maddie gulped and waved her hands at him. ‘Go away, Jimbo, before I sob all o
ver that fantastic suit.’
Jim hugged her briefly, and when he was gone Maddie looked across the room to where Cale stood by the bar, water bottle in his hand, talking to a man Maddie didn’t know. His bow tie hung down the front of his snowy dress shirt and his hair was ruffled. Even in the subdued lighting she could see that his face looked drawn and ever so slightly anxious. She recognised the condition because, despite her flawless makeup and bright smile, she felt the same.
Anxiety was such a small word for what she was feeling.
In a few hours she’d get on a plane and leave her heart behind.
Love, she’d realised, despite her vigilance, had snuck up on her again. As hard as she’d tried she hadn’t been able to outsmart it, out-think it, out-control it. Love had decided that Cale was her It. Again.
Oh, he’d hurt her years ago, but for most of their time together she’d used his youthful failure at their relationship as an excuse to justify her reasons to run away from love because she didn’t want to fail again. She’d never allowed herself to love—well, love Cale—without reservation. Because if the relationship failed she would have failed, just like her parents had failed.
Maddie finally admitted that she’d done everything in her power to keep Cale at arm’s length, to use any excuse she could to keep him from getting closer. To stop her from falling in love with him. As if that had worked.
And now she was getting on a plane and possibly—very probably, according to Dennis—making another life for herself in another city, another country.
But what were her options? One or two.
One, she could stay in Cape Town, stay in this one-sided relationship where she loved and he didn’t, and that would be a singular type of torture. Except she suspected that if she suggested not going to NYC to Cale he’d toss her on the plane himself. He was right. She needed to know whether she was good enough for New York.
Two, she could leave and work and live in the States and hope to hell that they made her work eighteen hours a day; she’d sleep the other six. That way she would have minimum time to cry.
Maddie turned at a feminine hand on her shoulder and looked into the lovely face of Gigi.
‘Mind if I sit?’
Maddie shrugged and waved at the empty chairs. ‘Take your pick.’
Gigi placed her evening bag on the table, sat and crossed her mile-long legs. ‘It’s been a wonderful night. A hugely successful night. Well done.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Do you want another project?’
‘Pardon?’ Maddie asked politely, wishing that this vision of loveliness would go away and leave her to her misery.
‘It’s my thirtieth birthday coming up and I thought that I’d throw a party. I’m also launching a new modelling agency, so I thought I’d do them together. Do you want to take it on?’
‘Sure…’ Maddie closed her eyes when she remembered. ‘Except that I’m flying to the States tomorrow for a job interview, and I think, from an inside source, that I have a good chance of getting an offer.’
Gigi looked over at Cale. ‘Oh. Well, if you don’t get it let me know.’ Gigi draped her hands over her knees and stared hard at Maddie. ‘You’re leaving him?’
Maddie tried for a careless laugh and knew that it came off as sounding desperate. ‘He hasn’t asked me to stay.’
Gigi rolled her eyes. ‘Typical Cale.’
Maddie leaned forward. ‘Why did you let him go?’
Gigi didn’t pretend to misunderstand. ‘Because he wasn’t in love with me and I want it all. Like I think you do. And, really, no woman should stay with a man who still carries an old photograph of his first love in his wallet.’
Maddie stared at her wide-eyed and Gigi sent her a small smile as she stood up. Maddie was touched when she bent down and dropped a light kiss on her cheek.
‘I like you, Maddie. I hope this somehow works out for you.’
‘Well,’ Maddie replied, flustered, ‘don’t hold your breath.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CALE, still in his tuxedo, sat opposite Maddie at a coffee shop at the airport and listlessly stirred sugar into his polystyrene cup. It was a measure of his tiredness that he dumped white sugar into his coffee and didn’t care.
Maddie had changed from her slinky black ballgown into comfortable jeans and boots, and she wore her leather jacket over a white T-shirt. She looked calm, collected and every inch the type of woman who could work in New York. Smart, capable, ambitious.
‘I have your flight details. I’ll pick you up Sunday week,’ Cale said, to break the silence.
‘Oh, Jim already offered and I accepted. Thanks, though.’
Cale frowned at her mock-jaunty tone. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. ‘Is this it, Maddie?’
‘I think it has to be, Cale.’ Maddie played with her plastic spoon. ‘What’s the point in carrying on? It’s pretty much over between us… You won’t ask me to stay and I won’t ask you to ask me to stay…’
‘It’s not that I don’t want you to stay…’
‘Then what is it, Cale?’ Maddie demanded. ‘We have something wonderful and yet you’re prepared to let me go!’
‘You have to do this!’
‘Why?’ Maddie shouted as she gripped his wrist.
‘Because if one day you regret it, you’ll blame me for not taking the chance! Because it’s the logical decision. Because it’s your dream, your ambition.’
‘I think my ambitions have changed. Aren’t they allowed to?’ Maddie asked. ‘Cale, we are so good together, we have such fun. We’re best friends and stunning lovers. Why are you so willing to toss that—me—away?’
‘I don’t know.’
Maddie leaned across the table. ‘Talk to me, dammit! Help me understand this—you! You owe me that much!’
‘Trust me, I know exactly how much I owe you.’ Cale rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I’m not proud of the way I feel, and admitting this to you is hellishly discomforting. I find it difficult to put into words. It’s all mixed up with my relationship with Oliver, about not being in a situation I can control, about fear.’
Cale knocked his coffee cup off the table and neither of them noticed. He touched his throat, thinking that something was strangling him. Why did she have to keep pushing this? Keep digging?
Maddie just looked at him, wanting more.
He tried, fumbling for words. ‘I’m used to being self-reliant. I don’t know how I’d cope if I let myself depend on you and then you left. One big fight, one hurdle, one sickness, one slump.’
‘You don’t have much faith in me, or in life, do you?’
‘You bailed on me before. When we hit a hurdle you bailed.’ Cale hadn’t known that he was still carrying that resentment until the words flew out of mouth.
‘I was eighteen years old, recovering from a pregnancy scare, and you were a terrible boyfriend!’ Maddie protested. ‘You treated me abominably!’
‘Because you turned me inside out! You turned my world upside down. Do you know what that does to a control freak?’ Cale demanded. ‘Here you were, this slip of a girl, years younger than me, who had the power to wring out my heart! You held all the power, Maddie, and that was why I acted up!’ Cale scrubbed his face with his hands. ‘I don’t want to anyone to have that much power over me again.’
Maddie rested her head in the palm of her hands and stared at the table. ‘It wasn’t power, Cale, it was love. I just wanted to love you.’ She lifted her head and held out her hand. ‘Show me your wallet.’
Cale reached into his pocket and passed her his slim black wallet. She flipped it open and started looking through it. What on earth for?
‘What’s the matter? Do you need to borrow some cash? I’m a bit short of US dollars.’
Maddie ignored his stab at humour and he watched as she pushed and probed, eventually finding a slot underneath his credit cards. She pulled out a battered photograph. She didn’t look at the image of her eighteen-year-old self. Instead she threw i
t across the table at him.
‘I’m not Oliver, Cale. Loving me doesn’t mean that you have to look after me. It doesn’t mean that you are responsible for me. I will always live by and take responsibility for the choices I make. You are the most incredibly clever man, Cale, but so stupid when it comes to me. I need you to man up and say a couple of words—to show some trust, to take a chance. Will you?’
Cale held the photograph in his fist and felt his chest constrict. He wished he could, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t take this opportunity from her, and nor could he take the chance of risking being pulled inside out again.
‘I didn’t think you would.’ Maddie looked at him with regret and pity. ‘At eighteen, I loved you with all the stupidity of youth. We had a chance then to be gloriously happy and we were too young to recognise it. I think we just missed another one. I suspect that’s all we get.’
Maddie stood up and pulled her big tote bag over her shoulder. ‘When I get back we’ve got about a month to go before the race and so much to do. Maybe it’s better if we don’t see each in the runup to the race and communicate via e-mail. I don’t want to have to say goodbye again. It hurts too damn much.’
Maddie, brave as always, lifted her chin, and he saw the tears tracking down her face.
‘Why won’t you stop being scared of what can go wrong and think of what could go right?’
Cale watched, utterly miserable, as she walked away with what felt like a very large portion of his heart.
Maddie sat in the very minimalistic, very slick boardroom of Bower & Co, situated in a very swish building on Lexington Avenue, and swallowed a bored yawn. At the other end of the boardroom table three of the most senior managers—all women—flipped through her portfolio. She’d answered what seemed like a million questions earlier in the day, had been asked to return late in the afternoon and here she sat, ready to hear what decision they’d come to.
All she could think was that she hoped Cale had remembered to sign the contract with the caterers for the race, and to pick up the permit to allow the racers to use part of the public road from Scarborough to the Peninsular. The meeting for the road marshals and safety officers would happen that evening…
