Chapter 9 #4
“Because I was devastated. I had just killed my father. Cameron, you were there with me, you saw how I was when you would visit. Was I really in my sound mind?”
“No,” he whispers.
“I know you all love Joshua and you are trying to help. I love Joshua, I will always love Joshua, but he doesn’t love me the way I need to be loved.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Cameron snaps.
“I tell you what love is, Cameron. I went out with a man for two and a half years who loved me, and I could not bring myself to physically have sex with him,” she replies softly.
I put my head in my hands as I listen.
“You want to know why?”
“Enlighten me,” Cameron sneers.
“Because I was still in love with Joshua. I stupidly felt that my body belonged to him and I could never betray him like that. Seven years. Seven fucking years, Cameron, I watched him sleep with every woman in the United States and still I couldn’t even sleep with my own boyfriend.”
“That’s not his fault. That was your decision,” he snaps. “Precisely, just like this is my decision. I don’t want the life
Joshua is offering. The women, the partying, the coke friends. It’s all bullshit, I don’t want any part of it.”
“Joshua can’t help his past. That’s not what he wants now,” Cameron snaps.
“Another good point.” Adrian points at Cameron who nods and smiles.
“For now, Cameron, that’s not what he wants for now. You know when I was a little girl, I dreamt of a man that loved me, Cameron. Never once in my dream did my hero say to me, sorry I slept with that other women…it was an accident. The sex meant nothing.
Sex does mean something to me and if I’m unforgiving to someone who gives it away so easily then that is my decision and I expect you all to support me as your friend and not just Joshua.
You have no idea the suffering I am going through and for you all to sit there and judge me and call me cold breaks my heart. ”
I can hear she’s crying. I close my eyes in regret. God, I’m a total fuck up.
“Tash, we don’t think you’re cold. We are just trying to understand,” Abbie whispers.
“Then I want you all to understand this. Tell Joshua I want him to go home to Amelie. She wants the money and the lifestyle… she can have it. I want nothing to do with it. I want him to move on with his life without me.” She sobs.
“This is one of those sad cases in life where love simply isn’t enough.
I don’t want his lifestyle or his money or those fucking horses.
I just wanted him to love me…but he didn’t.
” She sobs again. “Joshua and I have different morals now and I can’t change that, I only wish that I could.
I would give anything to be with him, but he is better off with someone else who is more like him and will understand his infidelities. I’m not that girl and I never will be.”
“Who knows? Maybe in ten years when I’ve slept with half of Sydney and Joshua is onto his third wife maybe we will understand each other’s point of view, but at this point I don’t.”
It goes silent. I sit and stare out of the windscreen in shock. “I’ve lost her, she’s not coming back,” I whisper.
Adrian turns around to Cameron in the back seat. “Those were good arguments, Cam, she did leave him, and he can’t help his past.”
“I know,” Cameron snaps.
The voices come back on and Cameron dives for the phone.
I snatch it off the console before he can grab it.
“Fucking hell, she’s a stubborn bitch,” Cameron snaps.
“I don’t know what she is doing. She cries herself to sleep every night. I’ve never seen her so miserable,” Bridget whispers.
My haunted eyes meet Adrian’s, and he swallows as he listens.
“Turn it off,” Cameron stammers.
“You know what she needs? She needs to fuck around. Whore it up a bit. She has unrealistic expectations of men. What was with the fairy tale shit? I’m thinking she needs a good threesome with two frigging…hot men,” Abbie whispers.
“That’s what I would do, anyway,” Bridget cuts in. “She seriously has every man who meets her in love with her.”
“I’m telling you, she needs to be tag teamed. I know the two men I am going to set her up with too. They will make her forget her name let alone Joshua Stanton,” Abbie replies.
“Fuck off,” Cameron snaps. “Don’t even say that about Tash.” “Yeah don’t,” Bridget whispers. “You’re gross.”
“So you are into threesomes, hey Abbs?” Cameron’s voice smiles.
Adrian rolls his eyes. “Oh God. Get it off.” He snaps as his eyes shoot to Cameron in the back seat. “You never miss a chance to try and pick up, do you, wanker?”
Cameron holds his hands up in the air. “How could I let that slip? I had to comment.”
I sit silently, staring out the window, lost in thought. I get the fairy tale stuff and she’s right. She’s too good for me. I need to let her go.
“Adrian, call the pilot in the morning. We are leaving on Saturday.” I start the car and pull out into the traffic. The two security cars trailing us follow behind. The car falls deathly silent as I fall back into my pool of depression.
Natasha
The car trip home is silent. At least I get to sleep in my own bed tonight. I wonder where Joshua is. Is he ok? We walk up to the lift as Max carries my bag. I have my laptop, my pillow and blanket bundled in my arms.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go over to Joshua’s?” Max asks.
“No and stop asking me. You are not helping the situation,” I reply. “I just don’t get it. You love him. Why are you letting him go?” he sighs.
“Because I’m not an idiot.” I shake my head and storm to my door. I stop dead in my tracks.
The lock has been broken and the door is ajar. Max immediately drops the bags and texts someone. My eyes widen as he ushers me back to the lift where we wait for a moment. The other guards run up the stairs and into my apartment. Max grabs me and pushes me into the lift and pulls out a gun.
What the fuck is happening now?