Chapter 39
The lake was vicious this morning. Wind blew waves into Aria’s face, the water buffeting her hangover.
She’d pushed all thoughts about toxicity to the back of her mind – she was obsessing about Nic’s conversation.
She hadn’t meant to listen but stopped at the door when she’d heard her name, only to hear him declare their fake partnership had got him further than any real relationship could.
His words had cut deep, and she recalled them in technicolour.
Now I’ve got what we needed, all that matters to me going forward is our business.
So, while she’d been touching herself thinking of him and delighting in their shared interests, it was all just work for him.
He’d be fucking off back to his real life now all the play-acting was over, leaving her living downwind of an unsold home.
After wading out of the water, she sat on the beach to warm up in the morning sunshine.
The stones were uncomfortable and reminded her she had to go to work later to clean up more of those stupid pebbles.
Her overriding desire was to sleep – to sink into the old familiar sofa bed and dream of better days – but her key was at Nic’s.
Aria walked to the hut and pulled on the door in case she’d left it unlocked.
No luck. Could she break in? She remembered standing on a chair and climbing in through the back window a couple of times during her late teenage years, after having one too many drinks in the local pub.
Could she do that now? Walking around the side of the hut, she saw the mechanism remained unfixed.
She found a rickety stool she’d been using for gardening and placed it against the wall.
Then she tied the dressing gown even tighter and pulled it down, wishing she’d paused to grab her dry robe instead.
How could such a tall man wear such a tiny garment, she wondered, before realising it probably wasn’t his, but for guests like her.
Female guests, said a small voice in her head.
She would never be Nic’s girlfriend – she was a commercial transaction, enabling him to add land, houses and wealth to his global portfolio.
And she’d sold out her principles to get him what he wanted, making her as disposable as last night’s wine bottles.
But why had she ever assumed she could be more?
In her twenty-five years on the planet, she’d achieved nothing of note.
Professionally and personally, she had no USP.
She was good at swimming, but others won bigger tournaments and she’d never been presented with a shiny cup when it mattered.
Once, when she’d lost the team a relay race by being a few seconds too slow, Justin had called her Average Aria.
And he was right. She performed adequately in unskilled jobs.
And in truth, she brought very little to the table in a relationship.
She couldn’t even cook some of the most expensive beef in town without a drama.
On her tiptoes now, she pushed her head through the window, keen to get into the hut and crawl onto the sofa.
Hauling more of herself through the small space, she accidentally kicked the stool away.
Now she had no choice but to proceed as her escape route was blocked.
But thankfully her shoulders were through, and she grabbed the wall to balance herself as her boobs followed.
Except they didn’t clear the sill. She tried pulling, pushing, squashing, sliding and coaxing them one at a time.
But there was no way they were posting themselves through that particular letterbox.
How much had they grown in the years since she last tried to wiggle in?
Reaching for the hinge at the side of the window, she pushed it open as far as it would go, pleased when she heard a click, until she realised the mechanism was so rusty she’d never be able to close it again.
She inched herself further in only to find she couldn’t go forward anymore.
Grunting, she decided to back out, stool or not.
She’d crash to earth like a stone, dust herself down and then go back to Nic’s for the key.
But no matter what position she tried to shift herself and her liability of a chest into, she remained trapped, half in and half out of the window.
Her top-heavy body had foiled her again.
Her hangover and her mood just got a lot worse.