Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Stella
I was going to show Beck Wilde. The interiors of the Mayfair project were going to be the talk of London.
They would win awards and have people whispering at parties about how fabulous they were.
I just needed to be inspired, find suppliers, and hunt down things that had never been seen in London before.
“That’s the third time you’ve yawned in the last seven minutes,” Florence said, tipping her head to the side and staring at the underside of a table.
The cute interiors shop just off Marylebone High Street was one of my favorites.
It had a mixture of antiques and new pieces—furniture, art, vases, pots, rugs.
It was like visiting an overstuffed London mansion owned by someone who had great taste but not enough space.
“Why are you so tired? Has Beck been keeping you up?”
“I think I’m going to have to make a few trips abroad,” I said, swerving around her questions. I’d taken the week off in Scotland so there was no way my dragon of a boss would let me take more holiday. My job was next on my to-do list—after forget about Beck and before sort my life out.
“For what? With Beck?”
“For suppliers.” I wished she’d stop bringing him up.
“Unless I go for an entirely British interior. Make it a feature that everything has been crafted by artisans in this country. It could be a selling point.” But would it be luxurious enough?
I wanted some kind of theme other than opulence and luxury.
I needed to find an edge. I was going to do whatever it took to impress the hell out of Beck.
Maybe then he’d realize what he’d let slip through his fingers.
“It feels like you’ve got your mojo back a little,” Florence said. “Do you think you got some closure last week?”
I flopped down on a green damask settee. “I’m not sure if closure is the way to describe it.” Beck being there had pulled my focus. He’d been a complete distraction.
“It does seem like you’ve moved on. Hopefully, you can get your design business back up and running, leave that recruitment consultancy, and forget about Matt and Karen. Especially now you’re seeing someone else.”
“I’m not seeing someone else,” I said. “Beck and I . . . It’s nothing. And now we’re back in London, so . . .”
“What?” Florence asked, finally pulling herself away from the Chinese basin she’d been eyeing up and joining me on the settee. “What happened? You both seemed so into each other.”
I’d been into him. Too into him. I’d gotten so caught up in it—the sex, the way he held my hand as if he wouldn’t let go for anything.
The way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t looking.
We’d been fast-forwarded into the honeymoon stages of a relationship and all of a sudden we were home and our relationship had been annulled. “I guess we put on a good show.”
She nudged me. “Come on, we both know it was more than that. What happened?”
“I’ve just learned that I’m way too trusting. I’ve got to toughen up. Assume the worst. See things how they are and not how I want them to be.” I stood and started scanning the room for more inspiration.
“Stella, what on earth went wrong?”
“Nothing. But Beck—I barely knew him. And one thing’s for certain. I’m not jumping from the frying pan into the fire.”
“No, there should be no jumping into any fires. Did he end things between you?”
“Things? There were no things to end. It was just casual—something to pass the time.”
“So he didn’t bring up seeing you again in London?” she asked.
“Kind of. I mean, hardly.” I swallowed, trying to get rid of the disappointment I’d felt when he hadn’t even tried to convince me we could combine the professional and the personal.
“So he did?” she asked.
“He said something about celebrating him getting the building.”
“Right,” Florence said. “And what did you say?”
“Nothing much. He didn’t seem too bothered. I said something about how because we’d be working together, we should be professional.”
“He asked to see you again and you said no.” Florence rolled her eyes and pushed herself up from the settee.
“No. This wasn’t me. I . . . When Beck wants something, he goes for it. Fights for it. And I just wasn’t ultra-enthusiastic about his idea of a celebration, and he agreed and went cold. He clearly wasn’t that bothered. I gave him an easy out.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “He seemed pretty smitten to me.”
“Yeah, well I thought Matt was smitten.” I shrugged. “People can’t be trusted. No, wait—men can’t be trusted.”
When she didn’t respond, I glanced over at her. Her nose wrinkled like someone was making her sniff sour milk. “We’re friends, right? And friends tell each other when they’re being idiots, agreed?”
My stomach sank to my knees.
“Matt couldn’t be trusted. He was an arsehole. Doesn’t mean Beck will be. Keep Matt behind you. Don’t let him ruin your future. Don’t let him take what you and Beck have.”
My heart spluttered in that same way it did when I thought I’d fucked up at work or when I’d inadvertently made a friend cry.
“Wait, no,” I said. This wasn’t me. “Beck didn’t want me.
It was obvious. I might not have jumped at his idea of a celebration, but he didn’t seem bothered.
Not at all. I know what he looks like when he’s determined he wants something. ”
“You’ve seen what he looks like when he wants to buy a building,” Florence said. “Not when he’s asking a woman on a date. The biggest egos are the ones most easily crushed.”
The idea that I’d crushed Beck’s ego was ludicrous. “I’m sure he has plenty of women willing to kiss him and make him feel better.”
“Maybe not the one he wants, though,” she replied.
I folded my arms and headed over to the window. I needed to think—get my head straight.
“I don’t want to make the same mistake again,” I said as Florence came up beside me. “I don’t want to be the fool who thinks her boyfriend’s in love with her and is the last to know I’m not the person he wants to marry.”
“You weren’t the last person to know. Everyone thought you and Matt would get married.”
“I didn’t want to read the signs wrong—think Beck was into me and then figure out it was just about sex. I need to be moving on, not having history repeat itself.”
“I get it. When Beck came along . . . You were still—”
“Reeling. From shock, betrayal, pain. I can’t go through it again. It’s time to move on,” I said, pulling back and nodding resolutely.
“I think that sounds perfect. And having seen you two together last week, I’d say Beck Wilde is the man to move on with.”
I rolled my eyes. “Just because I’m moving on doesn’t mean I have to jump the first guy who comes along.”
“Agreed. But don’t run away from a guy who might just be perfect for you because you’re scared. It’s understandable that you’re suspicious of him, but if you like him, you should give him a chance.”
“And what? Wait until he hurts me? Matt was right, looking back, there were signs he wasn’t thinking long term with me. I mean, why in the hell did he talk about marriage so much but always say it wasn’t the right time? I wasn’t even putting pressure on him to marry me and he always—”
“Don’t torture yourself by looking back. Just because you didn’t spot any so-called signs doesn’t mean you have joint culpability.”
“Matt thought it was more than joint. He thought the entire thing was my fault.”
“Well of course he did. He’s a spoiled, selfish child who doesn’t want to have to be accountable for his own actions.”
“But if I hadn’t been so clueless, I could have avoided being hurt.”
She tilted her head, challenging me without saying a word.
“Okay, maybe I was always going to get hurt,” I said. “But at least I wouldn’t have felt so freaking stupid.”
“I get that. But the only way to not risk being hurt is not to fall in love again. Beck, or whoever it is, won’t come with a cast-iron guarantee.”
“True,” I replied. “But at the same time, if the warning bells go off—”
“Your warning bells are on a hair-trigger at the moment.”
Maybe she was right. Perhaps I’d overreacted, but the fact was Beck wasn’t tearing down my front door, telling me how desperate he was to be with me.
“I want a man who really wants me. Who sees me as a prize. A guy who wants to convince me that we should be together.”
“Do you feel that way about Beck? Do you really want him? See him as a prize? It’s not just up to Beck.
You need to decide what you want, and it can’t just be someone who likes you.
I swear, you never asked yourself if you were happy when you were with Matt.
You just carried on because that’s what he wanted.
You’re always so focused on everyone else, you never stop to ask yourself what you want. ”
It wasn’t the first time someone had described our relationship along those lines. “I did love Matt,” I said. “I would have left him if I hadn’t.”
“Really?” she asked. “Or were you just used to him, didn’t know any better and making the best of it?”
“I wanted to marry him,” I said. I wouldn’t have stayed with someone for seven years making the best of it. I’d thought we had a future together.
“You wanted to be married to him or you thought that’s what was next?”
“I loved him, Florence.”
She sighed. “I know I’m being harsh. I just want you to be happy. The next man in your life should be so special you can’t live without him. I don’t want you ending up with someone just because they pick you.”
Maybe Matt and I were no Anthony and Cleopatra, but I was happy.
I took a breath, thinking back, trying to remember what being with Matt had been like.
It was only months we’d been apart, but the memories were so hazy now.
I had been happy but there was something missing.
Being with Beck had showed me that. Beck listened to me, trusted me, took my advice.
And I believed in him and thought he felt the same.
“There were things that weren’t right with Matt. And I probably did just go along with things. I wanted to make him happy.”
“But what will make you happy, Stella?” she asked.
I tried to hold back a grin as I thought about Beck slowing down in the rain for me, holding my hand, whisking me away from Matt but not making a scene because he’d promised not to. And then that body and the things that it could do to my body. “I do like him,” I said in a small voice.
“Beck?” she asked.
“I just don’t understand why he wasn’t more persistent,” I said. “And although I like him, want him, think he could make me happy—I can’t be with a man who doesn’t want me enough to fight for me.”
“I get it. But something tells me that Beck’s relationships have been all about his dick up until you. He’s probably as confused as you are. Maybe you need to let him know you’re ready to be fought for.”
“Maybe,” I replied. Now that I’d let myself think about him, I couldn’t wait to see him.
“Weren’t you meant to have dinner with Karen’s godfather?” she asked me.
I nodded. That was this Saturday. Just two days away.
“Maybe that’s a good time to let him know.”
“Let him know what?” I asked.
“That you’re ready. To be fought for.”
Maybe I’d been too quick to label our relationship a holiday romance, as something that couldn’t be real.
Because it felt more than real to me. I’d tried to convince myself I wasn’t the right woman for him, but the longer I spent without him, the more I couldn’t shake the feeling he was who I was meant to be with.