Chapter 1 #2
He smiles. “Sure, meet you out front.”
I wander over to the large arched window overlooking the park.
It’s just on dusk. Large magnolia trees surround the manicured lawn, which has four stone benches in the center.
An old man is reading the paper on one of them.
It’s a beautiful haven in the middle of a city.
I’m lucky to have this view from my office.
I blow out a breath as I take out my ponytail and redo it.
What are you doing now, Joshua? Who are you with? Why do I remember him in technicolor but live my life in black and white? I drag myself up and change my clothes. I feel like going out like a hole in the head. Why do I constantly agree to do things I don’t want to do?
Saturday at Mum’s is always the same. Bridget, my younger sister, who also moonlights as my best friend, goes on and on about her dickhead boyfriend.
Mum and I always sit and listen while she vents, or at least we pretend to listen.
We drink coffee, eat cake and read the papers, roll our eyes at each other and occasionally add our two cents’ worth.
Which goes unnoticed I might add. It’s a Saturday morning ritual, an excuse to catch up.
“Oh.” Mum claps her hands in excitement. “I got my outfit for the wedding.”
“Oh yes,” I answer, blowing out a deep breath as I brush the crumbs off my shirt. My inability to get excited about anything is beyond rude.
“Don’t listen to her, Mum—she’s in a shitty mood this week,” Bridget snaps. I open my eyes wide at her. Implying Shut up. “What?” she snaps.
“Don’t start.” I scowl.
“Well, what’s with you this week?”
“You are very preoccupied lately, honey. Is everything all right?” Mum asks.
“Yes.” I roll my eyes and blow out a breath.
“Is it work?” she questions, cocking her head to the side and resting her coffee cup on her chest.
“Anything juicy?” Bridget asks excitedly.
“You know I can’t answer that,” I sigh.
“God, you’re no fun. Can’t you tell me about some hot nymphomaniac sex god you’re treating, one who’s looking for a blond travel agent? You know I’m living vicariously through you.” She smirks. Mum rolls her eyes.
“I wish I did treat sex gods,” I mutter. “I could do with a sex god or two in my life. Besides only women are called nymphomaniacs, men are called satyriasises.”
Bridget rolls her eyes, and I can’t help but smile. “I don’t care what they’re called. Just find two and arrange a double date.”
“Sure, you’re on.” I smile. Feeling guilty, I look at Mum. “Go and put your outfit on, Mum, let me see what it’s like.”
“OK.” She jumps from the chair excitedly and disappears down the hall toward her bedroom. Bridget carries on reading the paper. Moments later Mum breezes back into the kitchen in a beautiful layered plum number. She looks amazing.
“I love it.” Bridget claps her hands in excitement.
“You do look beautiful.” I nod.
“You don’t think it’s too tight?” she asks as she turns around and checks out her behind in the oven door, standing on her tiptoes.
I shake my head. “No, it’s perfect.” I smile at her.
“Oh, Natasha, what color did you say the dress you are wearing is?”
“Not sure yet, I have two to choose from.”
“OMG.” Bridget holds up both of her hands as if to say stop.
“Listen to this,” She exclaims as she reads an excerpt from the gossip pages.
“Joshua Stanton has returned to Australia to be the best man at his brother’s wedding and will be staying for three months to reorganize his work visa.
Look out for him and his entourage, ladies, he’s quite the catch. ”
Oh shit. My heart sinks.
Bridget is so excited. “Holy crap! He’s like famous now, in the gossip pages. Just how rich is he?”
“He’s a multimillionaire,” Mum answers. “Entourage—what, so he travels with an entourage?”
“I suppose.” She nods and shrugs her shoulders. “I know he employs a lot of people.”
“Margaret said he has a PA and a bodyguard now.”
I feel sick to my stomach. No one knows about Joshua and me.
It happened on a trip when I was seventeen and he was nineteen and he was just a regular sex-charged teenager before he went to America.
Our parents would have freaked; they would still freak if they knew.
This man is frigging haunting me. What is the hold he has on me?
This is what I’m lost about. Is it that he was my first?
Or that he is forbidden to me? Even just the memory of him raises my pulse.
I have been putting myself through self-inflicted torture for years when I put a Google alert on him.
Every goddamn girl he’s ever gone out with is splashed all over the internet. Models, actresses, socialites, sluts.
However the hell you put it, he has long forgotten me. My heart sinks.
“Oohh,” Bridget gasps, “has he got a girlfriend?”
Mum hunches her shoulders. “I have no idea. No one special I don’t think. His mother would have loved gloating if he had.”
A cold shiver runs down my back. His mother, piece of work that she is, loves nothing better than to gloat to me how great Joshua is doing.
How wealthy Joshua is. How many beautiful models Joshua dates.
If I didn’t know better, I would say she is rubbing it in my face.
Although I know she has no idea about what happened between us.
Nobody does. Maybe that’s the problem, I’ve lived all these years without telling a soul.
I need to vent. My feelings swing from lovesick to angry, resentful and hateful, and back to brokenhearted, all within an hour.
While he lives this exciting full life, I’m still here, the village idiot, pining over a man that doesn’t even know I exist. I’m pathetic.
Well, he’s going to know I exist after this wedding because I am going to look so unbelievably hot.
I’m going to rub his sorry ass in it. I narrow my eyes as I rethink my diabolical plan.
Look hot, turn him on, lead him on and then reject him.
He’s going to be begging for mercy by the time I’m finished with him, if I have to ram it down his puny throat.
I’ve been planning this for six months. Operation Payback is going to be a bitch.
I smile. I think the only relief I’m going to get is the satisfaction that I’ll have the last word.
I had no say in our demise, although it has haunted me for years.
Perhaps that was the problem. I lied to him about our breakup.
Told him what he needed to hear and not the truth.
I’ve been overanalyzing this for years. In my clinical opinion I am suffering guilt-associated trauma.
I need to eventually tell him the truth somewhere down the line so I can just move the hell on, and he can release me from this invisible Spider-Man hold he has on me.
He is the last person I think of every night.
I wonder who he’s with now and whether he ever thinks of me and misses me like I miss him.
I’m sad, sad to my bones, a deep regretful sadness that I can’t shake.
No matter how hard I try. My seemingly normal existence and happiness is a stage show.
Not all the time. I am happy. I just feel an emptiness like something’s missing, a hole in my life, maybe similar to someone who grieves a person who has died, a mother who has lost a child.
Even when I am happy, there is an emptiness that somehow won’t go away.
And the memories. God, the memories. They haunt me.
My mind wanders constantly, imagining us together in bed, snuggled up, making love for hours and hours.
His tenderness, his adoration of me and my body.
He did love me when we were together, I know this for certain, it was just so long ago.
So why in the hell am I still in love with him after all this time?
Am I even in love with him? I don’t even know him.
I know my emotions are coming to a head because he’s due to touch down in Sydney anytime and I will, no doubt, see him.
I’m excited and terrified at the same time.
“Does Joshua still play polo?” I ask, feigning nonchalance.
“Uh-huh, apparently he has a stables property, and his horses are worth millions.” I nod, disappointed by the answer. “His mother said he is also into kickboxing now.”
“Kickboxing?” I repeat as I frown. “That’s random.”
“Yes, I know.”
“What color did you say your dress is, Bridget?”
“White.”
“White!” I exclaim. “You can’t wear white.”
“Who cares.” She smiles. “I need to look hot. Josh might be bringing some hot guys to the wedding.”
“Haven’t we just been hearing all about Jeremy for the last hour?” Mum looks to the ceiling in frustration.
“Yeah, Jeremy Schmeremy.” She rolls her eyes. “You know my boyfriend’s a dick.”
We all laugh.
“I’ll drink to that.”
“Me too.” Mum laughs and we all clink coffee cups. “Hurry up and dump him already.”
Joshua
Sydney Airport, 5:23 p.m., Sunday
My private jet comes slowly to a halt on the tarmac. On board are Ben, my large South African bodyguard, Adrian, my personal assistant, eight computers with software, and a computer technician for each computer. The computer techs are all typical computer geeks.
“I have a large van and driver at your disposal,” I tell the lead tech-head.
“OK, that’s great.” He nods.
“You are all booked in at the Sheraton Hyde Park for the next three days until you all decide where you are staying. Stay in touch with Adrian with the details. The driver will pick you and the equipment up at 9:00 a.m. and take you to the office space we have hired.”
“Thanks, Mr. Stanton.”
“You all have company credit cards, just charge what you need.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Adrian and I wait as Ben picks up the car keys from the rental company. Ben is flicking through the pages of his iPad double-time.
“What the fuck are you doing there?” I frown as I look over Ben’s shoulder.