Cross My Hart, page 16
I feel that. I feel completely drained of enthusiasm.
Ordinarily, I’d celebrate a night like tonight, but I just don’t have it in me.
I’m asleep within ten minutes.
The photo is the first thing I think of the next morning, and it’s with renewed irritation. Hurt. Annoyance. He’s here, in Australia, at the golf course I sold him, and he hasn’t got in touch. Is there a clearer way to show me that he doesn’t want a bar of me?
That he doesn’t want me?
I mean, I get it.
It’s obvious. But it still hurts like hell.
* * *
The sunrise is spectacular.
I stare at it as the colours infiltrate the horizon, as pink bleeds into black and the stars twinkle and fade, dipping behind the ocean. There’s a boat on the water, a trawler, far out, and even though it’s a fishing ship it makes me think of the scuba cruise we did. It makes me think of her.
Grace.
She’s everywhere here. Her name’s on the breeze, tormenting me, scratching over my body, whipping me with remembered pleasure.
Grace is the air I breathe, the sky I see, the tightness in my body—a tightness that speaks of a longing for which I have no words.
And suddenly, staring out at the water we swam in, the ocean we looked on together, I can’t not see her.
I can’t be here, in Australia, so close—just a few hours from her, and not... I don’t know.
It’s selfish. Selfish as all fuck. And stupid, too, because it’s been more than a month and maybe she’s over me, maybe she’s forgotten all about me.
The idea of that is like a knife in my gut.
Fuck.
I grab my wallet and head to the door, calling my assistant as I go, asking her to get the jet readied. It’s only as the cab speeds towards the airport that I remember Theo.
Heading to Sydney for the day.
I send the text then switch my phone off. I don’t want him to call. I don’t want him to ask me why. I’m not ready to discuss it. I think I’m one sane conversation away from being talked out of this stupidity.
Or maybe he wouldn’t even try. Maybe he’d chew me out for having left in the first place. I drag a hand through my hair, watching the scenery change outside my window.
The plane’s ready when I arrive. I stride onto it, impatient now to see her. Grace is everywhere here, too.
I go into the conference room on autopilot, and see her as she was that first morning, sitting there telling me she’d need guidelines, that if we were going to keep sleeping together it would need to be on her terms.
From the beginning she knew there was danger here, and still she went with it. She was brave, right to the end.
‘I fell in love with you, Jagger. I fell head over heels in love with you, somewhere in these last few days... Don’t kid yourself that we’re just two people who’ve been sleeping together.’
I hurt her.
I hurt her so badly.
The plane takes off. I stare out of the window, my body still, a rock settled heavily in my gut.
For the whole flight to Sydney, I swear I barely breathe.
* * *
I told Bianca I don’t want to be interrupted. I have a bucket of coffee, a massive blueberry muffin and a mountain of work to do.
Nonetheless, a little before nine o’clock, my intercom buzzes.
I snatch it up without lifting my head from the brief I’m reading.
‘I’m sorry to bother you, Grace.’
I purse my lips. ‘That’s fine.’ My tone says it’s not fine. I’ve become a little less nice than I used to be. I think Bianca’s great and I like her, but I just don’t have a lot of room left for civility right now. Even Mum gets short shrift when she calls.
I’m just so tired.
‘I have a Mr Hart for you.’
My body goes into a state of shock. Adrenalin floods my system, my mouth fills with the taste of metal. I sit up straighter, reaching my hand out for the phone. ‘What line?’ The question’s breathy. I swallow. I don’t want to sound breathy when I speak to him. I want to sound calm. Cool. Unaffected.
Over him.
As if.
‘No.’ Bianca’s voice comes as if from an echo chamber. I surmise she’s cupped the receiver. ‘He’s here.’
My heart slams against my ribcage. I swear I feel a rib actually shatter with the force of it. I stand up jerkily, awkwardly, running a hand over my stomach, my thighs, then lifting it to my hair.
‘I... Give me a minute.’ I replace the handset, pacing out from behind my desk, walking towards the window that shows a glimmer of Sydney Harbour in the distance. I breathe in. Out. In. Out.
Close my eyes and he’s there. I see his face. I see him. I feel him like a ghost, wrapping around my body.
I expel a soft breath, trying to calm the flock of seagulls beating their wings against my stomach.
He’s here.
Outside my office.
Thirty-four days after walking away from me, he’s back. And, no matter what’s brought him here, nothing erases that. Nothing.
With that sobering thought I move across the room, pulling my office door inwards.
But hell.
I’d forgotten.
Not what he looks like, but just...the impact of him. It’s more than his Hollywood-handsome face and powerful frame; it’s all of him. He has this charisma that’s completely compelling.
He’s not looking my way. I have a second or two to fortify myself before he turns, his eyes immediately catching mine.
Lightning strikes.
With every single fibre of my being I concentrate on standing where I am, holding my ground, looking as calm as can be when inside I’m quivering.
It’s early.
Did he stay in Sydney last night?
The question pops into my mind, out of nowhere.
I dismiss it.
‘Mr Hart.’ My voice comes out almost completely normal, but I have no doubt hurt shows in my eyes, despite all my efforts.
His expression shifts a little. There’s a wariness in his expression, a tightness around his jaw. I look closer.
He’s...different. Pale. He looks nervous.
Nervous? Jagger. No way.
‘Miss Llewellyn.’ His voice is gruff. It pours over me like treacle, stimulating my nerve endings rather than calming them. ‘May I come in?’
I want to tell him no. I want to tell him to get lost. But of course I don’t. With a tight nod I step backwards, gesturing towards my office. I step back even further when he walks past me so we don’t touch, but that doesn’t stop his woody masculine fragrance from assaulting my nostrils.
My stomach flip-flops.
I click the door shut, blocking out Bianca and the outside world.
He’s watching me. Staring at me.
I swallow and move behind my desk, grateful for the distance and physical barrier.
Neither of us speaks, and the silence is profoundly heavy.
Finally, he moves towards me. I stiffen. ‘What are you doing here?’ The words are dismissive, brimming with my anger and resentment.
He stops walking, standing exactly where he is. ‘I came to see you.’
Fuck.
‘Well, you’ve seen me. You can go away again.’
His expression tightens. ‘You’re pissed.’
I open my mouth to deny it, wishing I could tell him I’m not. That I don’t care one way or another what he does with his life. But it’s a lie.
‘Yes.’
He nods. ‘Good.’
‘Good?’
‘Yeah. You should be pissed.’
I let my breath whoosh out of me. ‘I’m so glad I have your approval.’
‘I deserve it,’ he says, moving a step closer. I glare at him, warning him not to circumnavigate the desk.
‘You have no reason for being here,’ I murmur, my stomach doing loop the loops, my insides churning. ‘And I want you to go.’
His eyes flash with mine and I feel the force of his contradictions, the arguments he wants to wage. But he doesn’t. He nods softly then takes another step towards me, bracing his palms on the desk, his body opposite mine.
‘I will go, Grace. But first I need to talk to you.’
Alarm bells and hope war with one another. ‘I don’t want to talk to you.’ I drop my gaze to hide the complex knot of emotions I’m navigating.
‘Then let me talk,’ he says softly, gently, his voice husky, as though he’s been up all night.
But I can’t do this. Twice I’ve let myself fall for guys who found it disgustingly easy to turn their backs on what I was offering. I’m not going to let him in again. Maybe I’ve finally learned my lesson?
‘It’s been thirty-four days,’ I say quietly. ‘What could you possibly have to say to me now?’
‘Thirty-four days? Is that all?’
I jerk my eyes to his because he sounds as absolutely stunned as I feel. Like his time has been running as slowly as mine. But he has no right to feel like that! This was all his decision.
‘You can’t be here.’
He lifts a hand, running his fingers through his hair. ‘I have to be here.’
I shake my head, making an impatient noise of frustration. ‘Stop it. Just stop. Stop acting tortured. Stop acting like you’re messed up by this. Just stop.’ I come around from behind my desk, bringing my body toe to toe with his.
‘You’re in Australia. You came to play golf with your brother and then you’ve come to Sydney. Why? You want to fuck me again? For old times’ sake?’
He stands completely still, staring down at me, and anger flashes inside my belly. I lift my hands, pushing at his chest, but he stays completely still. My fingers curl in his shirt and I lift up onto the tips of my toes. ‘You want to fuck me right here, on this desk? Meaningless sex while you’re in town?’
He’s struck mute and I’m thrilled. Thrilled to have confused him, to have made him think. Thrilled to be firing questions at him he can’t answer.
I make an angry noise as I crush my lips to his, and my kiss is heated by fury. I push him with my body as I kiss him, and he lets me, stepping backwards, sitting on the edge of my desk, his legs forming a triangle in which I stand. I push at his shirt, lifting it from his pants, my fingers touching his bare hips. ‘Is this what you came here for?’ I grunt, pulling the shirt so a button flies across the room.
‘Grace...’
But I don’t let him speak. I don’t want him to speak. ‘Just shut up!’ I say. ‘Don’t say anything.’ I’m crying, salty tears running down my cheeks. ‘Just don’t talk.’
His breath is raspy, loud, tortured. I don’t care. I flick his jeans open, pulling his cock out of his pants, glaring at him, daring him to stop me as I run my hands over its hard length.
‘Fuck. I did not come here for this.’
‘Shut up,’ I say again, so angry, so dark. I kiss him again, using one hand to dislodge my underpants and push them down my legs.
I scramble up onto his lap and now I stop kissing him, I glare at him as I straddle him and take him deep inside me, crying hot, stinging tears as he fills me up. It is madness and it is perfection.
It is some kind of earthly coming together. I stare at him, my pained eyes locked to his as I move my hips. His expression shows me so much but I blot it out. I don’t want to think about what he feels or wants. I don’t. This is about me.
I’m so damned angry.
I dig my nails deep into his shoulders and then I’m coming, so hard, so fast, so completely. My orgasm spirals through me and I tilt my head back, groaning quietly, keeping my voice low as pleasure arrows through my nerves.
I feel like I’ve been flooded with blinding light. I am glittering silver.
My lungs work hard to keep air pumping through my body and then I lift my head up, looking at him once more.
‘Is that what you came for?’ I ask, despite the fact he hasn’t come. That doesn’t seem relevant.
A muscle jerks in his jaw.
And now, with him still so hard inside me, I’m sickened by what I’ve just done, by whatever madness has driven me to this. I lift up off him, climbing awkwardly off his lap, off the desk, placing my feet on the floor and turning away from him while I smooth my skirt down. ‘Is that what you came for?’
The words come out mangled by sadness.
‘No.’ A single, gruff response.
But he doesn’t say anything more and I spin around to face him, my expression stiff. ‘Just go, Jagger. Just get out of here.’
‘No.’
The word is like a whip, cracking through the room.
‘I came here to speak to you, and I’m not leaving until I’ve said my piece.’
I shake my head. ‘You honestly think you have any right to hold me hostage?’
He stands up, zipping his pants up, leaving his shirt unbuttoned so my eyes chase his tattoos hungrily, before I can stop them.
‘The day I got married was the happiest day of my life.’
Great. Just what I needed to hear. I cross my arms over my chest, my heart withering inside of me.
‘I stood up there and said my vows and I felt like this huge weight was being lifted off my shoulders. I’m nothing like him. Nothing like my father. Because I’d met someone I intended to spend the rest of my life with and I had the wedding to prove it! I stood there and I felt like I was finally dodging my destiny or fate or whatever the hell you want to call it.’
I spin away from him, furious at him and even more so myself, because I’m listening, waiting for him to continue with ill-concealed impatience.
‘Curse, maybe,’ he continues with a tight smile in his voice.
‘I don’t care,’ I whisper, hollow.
‘But a wedding doesn’t prove I’m not like my father. A wedding doesn’t exemplify the kind of man I want to be.’
I stare out of the window at Sydney, my heart and soul splintering apart. ‘You know who I want to be?’
I don’t say anything.
‘I want to be a man who fights for what he wants. I want to be a man who reaches out and grabs what matters in this life with both hands, never mind the fact I’m scared shitless of losing you. I’m not my father. I’m not someone who’s going to spend his life getting married to women I don’t love. And I’m not going to spend my life running from love.
‘I loved my ex. I thought I did, anyway, until I met you and finally understood what love is. And it’s not something you do to prove a point. You don’t love someone—marry someone—to show the world you’re better than your parents. Love is private, personal, between two people. Love is me waking up every single damned night since I left, reaching for you, realising you’re not there, that you’re on the other side of the world, so far out of my time and reach. Love is feeling like I’ve been shot in the heart, the head, the chest, every single day I have to get through without a hope of seeing you.’
I am frozen to the spot and shaking all over.
‘Love is realising I have made the worst mistake of my life in letting you go. Knowing I hurt you in a way you might never forgive me for, and still coming to see you because I can’t not. Love is knowing I can’t go another minute without telling you how I feel, without telling you I want to spend the rest of my life with you.’
I swallow convulsively; tears sting my eyes.
‘Love is this certainty I have in my gut, like a rock, right here, that tells me if I walk out of here without making you understand that you have become my reason for being, the highlight of my life, the sense of everything I want in this world, I will never forgive myself.’
I sob, my feelings ricocheting inside of me like jelly.
‘Love is all I can think when I think of you, Grace, and I think of you all the time.’
I turn to face him slowly, and see the truth in his expression, the raw honesty and vulnerability on his handsome features.
‘I thought getting married to Lorena would prove to the world I’m different to him. But the truth is, what my dad never did was find that one person who made him happy. That one person who was a match for him in every way. Maybe he didn’t try. Maybe he just didn’t get lucky like I did. But now that I’ve found you I’m not going to let you go, Grace. I can’t.’
I lift my fingertips and dash my tears away.
‘I have no right to expect anything of you.’ He speaks slowly, as though I’m a wild horse and he’s trying to tame me. To gentle me at his approach. ‘I didn’t come here today to ask anything of you except this.’
I wait, holding my breath. When he doesn’t speak I lift my eyes to his. ‘What?’
‘I’m in love with you, Grace. I’m so completely in love with you I can’t think straight. And all I want is a chance to show you that. To do what I should have done thirty-four days ago in that hotel room.’
‘And what’s that?’ I whisper thickly.
‘To tell you that you are the most incredible woman I’ve ever known and that I don’t want to live another day without you in it. To tell you that I look at you and see the only future I could ever want.’ And, emboldened, he strides towards me, his strong hands cupping my cheeks. ‘To tell you that I will love you, worship you, adore you every single day, for the rest of our lives.’
But it’s too much, and somehow not enough. I step back, wrapping my arms around my torso. ‘I can’t do this.’ I shake my head, infusing my words with strength when I feel like jelly. ‘Twice I’ve felt this pain, I’ve been walked out on, and I can’t... I can’t do it again. You... I told you I loved you and you said, to my face, that this was just sex. And you disappeared, into thin air. Do you have any idea what it’s been like for me, this last month? You disappeared like I meant nothing to you.’
