Chapter 15
15
OWEN
“What did who do? Who’s he ?” a befuddled Jade shrills.
Struggling for air, I clutch my chest, gulping, trying to catch my breath.
“I think he’s having a panic attack.” Gregor motions for me to sit down on the staircase while Jade runs to me, crouching down between my legs. Her features turn foggy as my vision blurs.
Cradling my face in her hands, she coaches me back from the brink of passing out, my breathing eventually returning to normal, her beautiful face coming back into sight. I nod my head, letting her know I’m fine again.
She looks up at Gregor. “Tell me what has happened. Right now,” she demands with an edge to her tone.
Gregor turns the phone so she can see for herself. “His father wiped him out. He took every penny of the trust fund his grandfather left him.”
Jade gasps. “He surely can’t do that.” Snapping her attention back to me, she soothes my anxiety with her touch.
“He did,” I say flatly. “He took everything.” Including any choices I thought I had left. With no money, I can’t follow my heart and jumpstart my plans.
Jade shakes her head fast. “No, no, no, that’s not fair, Owen.” Her eyes turn glassy and fat tears run down her cheeks.
I pull a fake smile and brush my thumb against the skin of her cheek. “Don’t cry for me. I’m not worth your tears.”
“You are worth every one of my tears. You mean everything to me, and I never want to see you hurting, Owen.”
“You’re wrong about me. I have no home, no money, no family, except Gregor here.” I side-eye him as he lays his hand on my shoulder. “I was trying to buy a home for us in Castleview Cove because I wanted somewhere we could go together to spend time with the handful of friends I have left, because I want to move to England to be with you, Jade. I had already picked out a place to rent near your base. I wanted it to be a surprise.” I catch my breath. “Now, I can’t even do that.”
Nothing seems to be going my way and I can’t seem to catch a break.
“It doesn’t matter, Owen.” More of her tears appear at my grand gesture.
It mattered to me.
“We’ll figure it out.” Gregor gives my shoulder a squeeze. “What I want to know is how your dad found your bank login details?”
I lay my hand out flat for him to pass my phone back.
Within a few taps around my banking app, I find what I’m after. “He accessed it legitimately.” I look at the millions he siphoned from my account into one in his own name with a note on the transaction: Come home, and you’ll get it back .
Motherfucker.
Turning the phone around, I let Jade and Gregor read it.
When will he take the hint? I’m not going back .
As I stare at the phone, it suddenly dawns on me how he gained access. “He used my laptop at work. I’ve accessed my account from it before.” Angrily, I shout, “Fuck.” I slap my forehead with the palm of my hand, making it echo louder than I expected it to. “I have a flash drive I store my personal passwords on, in the locked drawer of my desk. But I’m the only one with the key.”
“Apparently not,” Gregor mutters.
Defeated, I close the app as I won’t be needing that anymore and shut down my phone.
The sheer dread and embarrassment of having to tell Jude makes me feel like a failure. I’ll tackle that phone call tomorrow.
“What’s done is done. It’s out of my control. My father has my money, and that’s that. End of story.” I want to draw a line under today and move on.
But I will not allow my father to control me, expecting me to run to him like one of his obedient hounds. I’m holding on to the little control I do have left. He can’t physically make me return home, because he doesn’t know my whereabouts to make me; not yet.
Inhaling deeply, using all my willpower, I force a smile. “We need to wake Poppy up or she’ll never sleep tonight, and what are we doing for dinner?”
Gregor and Jade both look at me in shock as I flippantly move on with the rest of the day. The truth is, I’m fucking dying inside, but what do they expect me to do? As angry as I am about the money, I can’t do anything to change it. I’m powerless and my father knows it.
“Is that it? That’s all you’re going to say?” Gregor asks, puzzled by my U-turn .
“What do you expect me to say, Gregor? I have nothing left. Should I just give up and go home?”
Jade gasps, her touch soothing me as she glides her fingertips over the skin of my thighs. “Please don’t do that,” she begs, sounding desperate. “Please stay. Say you’ll stay. We’ve only just met, Owen. You can’t leave me, and Poppy adores you.”
I have no intention of going back, but she doesn’t know what she’s saying. There’s probably someone much better out there for her. And me? I’m just a boy toy like she said.
The indignity of having everything to losing it all weighs heavily on my chest. “I have two hundred euros in my wallet. That’s all the money I have.” A wave of nausea rolls over my stomach. “I’m at rock bottom. Homeless and penniless.” I push my hands out to the sides. “I have a suitcase of clothes and not much else, Jade.”
She lays her hand over my chest. “Don’t say that. You have a heart made of gold, Owen. That’s all that matters to me. And you have me, and Gregor, and my mom, who seems to think the sun shines out of your ass.” She tries making a joke, only it doesn’t land. My sense of humor is dead, not wanting to be revived.
“I’m going to make myself scarce.” Gregor moves to leave. Before he goes, he says, “I will give you money to tide you over, Owen. I would never see you stuck. And you’re moving in with me when we go back to England. I don’t live in the Officer’s Mess like some of the single guys do. I rent off camp.” Because he has a girlfriend and he’s yet to tell me what her name is. Sneaky fucker. “Like it or not, that’s what is happening.” He walks away from the bottom of the stairs, his phone in his hand, bank app open, ready to transfer me money, on a mission to help me.
I’m grateful that Gregor is on my side .
“Please promise me you won’t go back,” Jade pleads again. “Please stay. For me.” She gives my knee a squeeze.
What the fuck she sees in me, I’ll never know. I bob my head, remembering why I left. I don’t want to be controlled. I’m not planning to go back. “I’ll stay.” Because I can see my whole life in front of me. With her. “I promise I’ll stay.” I want to stay with her forever because I’m falling head over heels for her and I can’t stop myself falling. I don’t want to.
She drops her head to a bow, exhaling an enormous sigh of relief. “Thank you.” She lifts her head back up. “I feel happy when you’re around. You can’t leave me when we’ve only just begun.”
I’m not giving up. It wouldn’t surprise me if she gives up on me, though.
Not a single inch of me wants to fight my father. I simply want him to leave me be so I can get on with my future.
With no money to fall back on, it looks like I’ll have to start again and do everything the hard way, which I don’t mind. If I have Jade by my side, then I’m a winner either way. Good things rarely come easy.
“I need to get a job,” I state. That was always going to be the case. It’s just happening sooner than I expected.
“You’ll find one, no problem at all. You have great qualifications with heaps of experience in business and finance. Someone will snap you up.”
I don’t tell her I have no plans to return to work in that industry. I want to do something that has a lasting impact on people, and finance is not it.
Jade smiles, beaming at me as she stands, inviting me to do the same. “We’re agreed then, you can use the next few weeks while here in Cyprus to find a job around the area we are based in England, and you can move in with Gregor. Maybe. ”
What does she mean, maybe ?
She sighs blissfully as I push my arms above my head, stretching out the tension.
“It’s all figureoutable, Owen.”
“You made that word up.” I give a brief laugh, feeling better with her around me. She calms me in ways I didn’t think were possible.
“I did not.” She puts her hands on her hips over her green flight suit. “If it’s in the urban dictionary, it’s a word.”
I catch her staring at my abs. “Maybe I should become a model?” I flex my muscles and try to look serious.
“This body is just for me.” Jade pokes me in the ribs, making me laugh, because unlike her, I am super ticklish. “I don’t enjoy seeing you upset,” she says on a sigh as I pull her into my arms, surrounding me with her fragrance that I’m addicted to.
“I’m not now that you’re here.” The whole world could disintegrate as we hold each other at the bottom of the stairs, getting lost in each other’s embrace. “And I’m not going anywhere. Wherever you are, I’ll follow.”
She sounds satisfied that I agreed to stay, because I want to. God , do I want to be with her, but the pull to claim back what is rightfully mine is strong, willing me to hop on a plane to confront my father. Not because I wanted my old life back, but because I wanted that house, for her, and to rent a place to be near her and Poppy. Now I’m back to relying on my cousin to bail me out of the godforsaken hole my father pushed me into.
“You’re braver than you give yourself credit for. There are millions of unsettled people in the world unhappy with their lives, yet they do nothing to change it.” Our bodies are sealed together so tight, there is barely room for a strand of hair between us. “Most of them are too scared to chase their dreams, learn a new language, or open the shop they’ve been dreaming about owning. But you…” She leans back to let me look at her. “You, Owen Brodie, already started making big changes before you even arrived here in Cyprus. Changing your life wasn’t about your job, a house, cars, or the money you had in the bank. It started in here.” She taps my temple. “And in here.” She points to my chest. “You knew you had to change yourself before you could truly change your life.”
Emotion builds in my chest, as she uses her positive energy to make my damaged heart beat stronger.
“Learning to cook, managing your household, being there for your friends, agreeing to marry Evangeline and attempting to get to know her, fleeing when your soul felt like it wasn’t where it should be. You still did it. And sometimes, like now, the repercussions of your actions are turning up to bite you on the ass, but you’ve been given the gift of possibility and opportunity. To think big and be limitless. You said you’ve hit rock bottom.” She shakes her head. “I don’t agree. This is your time to build solid foundations. To step outside your comfort zone and embrace what’s about to unfold.”
I grin, astonished by her gems of wisdom. “Are you sure you aren’t an eighty-year-old wise woman trapped inside a thirty-nine-year-old’s body? You’re something else, Hotshot.”
“It’s part of my job to leverage my mindset. It’s what sets me apart from others and makes me an effective leader. I didn’t get to where I am by chance, Owen. I worked for it, and I still work on myself every single day. You should read motivational books to help you.”
She’s right. “Recommend me some.” I want to be like her when I grow up.
“I have them all downloaded on my Kindle. I’ll let you borrow it.”
I bow my head, and my lips meet hers. My plan to kiss her gently, to show her how grateful I am to have met her, is instantly shredded as our kiss turns passionate. “I’m falling for you.” My unscripted words of affection accidentally slip from my mouth.
“My heart is falling faster than a sonic boom.” She’s almost purring as she speaks before she twirls her tongue around mine.
I grin wider when she uses the speed of sound flying terms to tell me she’s falling for me, too. She has no idea how sexy her nerdiness is. Or how hard she makes my cock. The flight suit she’s wearing is so sexy, making it difficult to control myself.
Desperately wanting to be inside of her, my cock thickens in my swim shorts, our kiss deepening by the second. Our breathing heavy, she murmurs, “Tonight.” Referring to the fact we will fuck like wildcats later. That’s if we can, because nine times out of ten, I have to gag her to stifle her loud, pleasurable moans and go easy on her so not everyone in the surrounding villas can hear us.
“We need our own place.” My throbbing cock agrees with me.
“We’ll be back in England before you know it. We’ll have space then.” She threads her hands into my hair as we continue to kiss unabashedly in the hallway, not caring if anyone catches us. “I have a super tight schedule this year, though.”
“I’ll travel to wherever you are.”
With her lips on mine, it’s as if she sucks all the emotional pain I’ve been feeling away. With every kiss, she heals me, breathing fresh oxygen into my body, regenerating my heart.
Her lips swollen, she whispers, “I need to check on Poppy.”
“She’s been on great form. She caught a Chitchat Gecko.” I shake my head .
“How the hell did she do that?” Jade gasps, knowing how fast they move.
“She’s faster than a cheetah sometimes. She presented it to me like it was a gift at the lunch table.”
Jade covers her mouth with her hand. “Was it okay?”
“It was fine, but Poppy got more of a shock when your mom screamed and made her jump. She burst out crying when she dropped it, then cried even more when it scurried off into the bushes.”
“She never cries.”
“It was a very upsetting day. She made a friend and lost him just as quick.”
“She needs to socialize with other kids.” Jade looks concerned.
“I can take her to the indoor jungle gym on camp.” I saw a big sign for it when I drove past the station facilities the other day.
“You would do that?” she asks gently.
“I would do anything for you two. I’ve learned so much about myself, from her and you. You’ve shown me what it means to be a real, loving, and connected family in a short space of time. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make both of you happy.”
“Michael has never taken Poppy to an indoor playground.” She sounds almost disbelieving.
Michael’s missing out on so much. Poppy is a dazzling little chatterbox who radiates zany happiness everywhere she goes.
“I’ll take her tomorrow.” I’m adamant she’ll have the best day out and meet some other kids.
“You really are quite something, Owen.” She holds her hand out for me to take, and when I do, her touch settles me in that perfect way that only she seems to be able to do. “I will repay you later. But first, you need a shower.”
She guides me up the stairs and into the bathroom. “Let those bad vibes wash away down the drain.”
Consumed with gratefulness at having this awesome woman in my life, I pull her into my arms and hold her for longer than I mean to.
“Thank you.” I kiss the top of her head. “You don’t know me well, and yet you’re so accepting of me, my crazy parents, and all my flaws.”
“You’re not flawed, Owen. You’re going through a shitty spell in your life. Your past doesn’t define you. Let your future shape you into something new and incredible. And I know you.” Leaning out of our hug, she continues. “My heart knows yours.”
Her heart knows mine.
“Plus”—she breaks her sincere moment—“I’ve worked with Gregor for a while. I know he’s a great guy. You’re just like him. Only stellar. Just don’t tell him I said that.” She bites her bottom lip cheekily.
“You are out of your goddamn mind, woman.” She’s crazy. Gregor is a better man than me by a mile. He has everything: a car, home, a thrilling career.
Although I do have a big dick. It’s the only thing I can offer her in my current situation.
I can’t believe I have and am a situation.
“Plus, you’re taking my Poppy to a jungle gym tomorrow. You get extra brownie points for that.”
My Poppy . I would love for my Poppy to be our Poppy. Fuck, since when did I want kids?
The truth is, I can now imagine myself having lots of little red-haired cherubs to chase after.
I want that with Jade .
“I see something in you, Owen. Trust me, you’ll find it too.” She kisses me on the lips, pushing my chest, forcing me into the bathroom. She tells me to hurry and get my ass over to her villa in time for supper because tonight we’re having a Greek meze and I’m helping to prepare the sixteen dishes of food. I hope she realizes I’ve only been cooking for a year and couldn’t even boil an egg before then.
However, I love it when she bosses me about, so I do everything she asks of me, excited to spend the night with my favorite girls.
What I wasn’t prepared for, but welcomed, was what followed.
Because when life gives you lemons? Well, sometimes you just gotta reach for the salt and tequila, throw it back and say, Fuck it, let’s do this shit .