The Payback Plan

Chapter 15

15

By the time Paige tapped on Bella’s number several hours later, she’d gone back and forth and back and forth on the issue a hundred times. But she’d told the girls she’d do it and that was the end of it. Didn’t stop her from feeling physically ill as she waited for Bella to pick up the audio call.

Confessing to Bella was going to be hard enough without having to look her in the eye while she did so.

She was sitting on a step halfway up the staircase that led from the living area to the bedrooms. Oliver was in the media room watching a movie which she could vaguely hear from here. Muted light from the kitchen below pushed through the slats of the balustrading revealing glimpses of the blonde floorboards as the phone rang and rang. Paige contemplated hanging up a dozen times and almost did just as Bella picked up.

‘Hey, Paige,’ she greeted, in her delightfully upstate New York accent.

‘Hey.’ Paige injected an enthusiasm that she knew, if it sounded as fake as it felt, wasn’t going to fool Bella for a second. ‘How’d it go today? Did it work?’

‘Oh, it was ah -mazing,’ she gushed and went on to regale Paige with all the details.

Well, great. Bella sounded buzzed and Paige was about to rain on her parade. Maybe she should wait? ‘That’s… awesome,’ she said, her enthusiasm sounding more and more manufactured as she pulled her nightdress over her knees, yanking the fabric down to her ankles. ‘I knew you’d be able to pull this off.’

Bella was making everything right while she’d made everything worse.

‘You must be…’ Paige cleared her throat of the lump that threatened to cut off her air. ‘Thrilled.’

There was a beat of silence before Bella answered. ‘Paige?’ A note of apprehension had crept into her voice. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘Yes, yes,’ she assured quickly but her voice wobbled right at the end.

‘Paige…’ Apprehension morphed to concern which only made Paige feel worse. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I don’t… I can’t… Oh Bella …’ Paige squeezed her eyes shut to stop the spill of threatening tears.

‘It’s okay,’ Bella soothed. ‘Whatever it is, it’s okay,’ she assured.

God… her kindness was too, too much which only intensified Paige’s guilt. A tiny, strangled sob slipped from her throat before she could smother it.

‘Are you hurt?’ The enquiry was suddenly more strident. ‘Did Olly hurt you?’

‘No, no.’ Paige’s eyes flew open as she dashed at the tears on her cheeks. ‘He didn’t. He’s… he could never .’ Not in the way Bella was implying anyway.

‘Is he hurt? Did something go wrong with the payback plan?’

It sure did – the damn thing had blown up in her face. Paige quelled the urge to laugh hysterically at how badly it had backfired but hastened to reassure Bella instead. ‘No. He’s fine,’ she confirmed and heard a sigh of relief in her ear. ‘It is… about Oliver though.’

Time to stop screwing around and just do it already.

‘I’ve, we’ve… I…’ Paige’s palms were actually sweaty now. Bloody hell, woman. Just say it already. ‘About two weeks ago… God, I don’t know how to say this…’

‘How to say what?’

Bella’s voice had gone very quiet but there was a note of something in it that made Paige think that Bella knew exactly what she was trying to say.

‘Something happened. Between us. We kissed. A couple of times and then this weekend we…’ Paige faltered. She didn’t know if Bella wanted the gory details. ‘And I’m so, so sorry. The last thing I would ever want to do is hurt you. I had no idea it was going to happen. I don’t even know how it happened… well, I kind of do.’

Indiscretion, thy name is booze. Except if she was being honest the liquor had only accentuated a vibe that had already been brewing.

‘But that’s just… oh fuck .’ Paige rubbed her hand across her face. ‘I’m a terrible person and a shitty friend.’

‘No. No, you’re not,’ Bella denied but it was too quick and robotic.

‘I am,’ Paige wailed, wiping her running nose on the back of her hand. ‘You were going to marry him and he jilted you via text on your wedding day and I was supposed to be getting some payback for you and?—’

‘It’s okay,’ Bella interrupted, her tone dull but insistent. ‘It’s fine.’

Fine? God, that was way worse than if Bella had yelled because it sounded like Bella was trying hard to keep it together and she’d done too much of that in her life already. Paige suddenly wished they were on video so she could see how Bella was really feeling.

‘Are you…’ Bella cleared her throat. ‘Do you have feelings for him?’

Oh man. That was the million-pound question, right? ‘Yes.’ Paige winced at how bald it sounded but there was no point holding back now. ‘No… I don’t know… I’m so confused.’

There was a long pause as if Bella was processing the information. Or maybe just trying to stop herself from yelling which was nothing less than Paige deserved and something she’d honestly prefer to Bella’s muted, contained reaction.

‘And what about him? Does he feel the same way about you?’

‘I honestly don’t know, Bella. Sometimes I think he might but?—’

‘If he feels the same,’ she interrupted, her tone stiff, ‘then I’m happy for you both.’

What? No, that wasn’t what this was. Regardless of however her jumbled feelings might shake out, a relationship wasn’t on the cards. ‘No… it’s not like that. I just… I needed you to know?—’

‘Paige,’ Bella interrupted again, her tone a little sharper this time. ‘It’s fine. If you both feel the same way then I am happy for you,’ she repeated.

‘Bella—’

‘I have to go,’ she interrupted a third time. ‘But I’ll talk to you soon, okay?’

The phone hung up in her ear and Paige stared at the screen for a moment before fresh tears rolled down her face and she buried her head in her knees.

Dear God, that was worse than she’d thought. Bella sounded so bloody contained and that wasn’t healthy, surely? This outcome can’t have been on her bingo card for this whole bloody karma exercise they’d embarked upon. It sure as hell hadn’t been on Paige’s.

Dragging her head off her knees, she scrubbed a hand over her face as she PM’d Astrid and Sienna.

WhatsApp. Monday 21.17GMT.

To: Sienna, Astrid

Subject line: SOS!!!

Paige

Well, that was about as awful as you’d expect.

Three little dots appeared straight away, indicting Sienna was answering. She’d obviously been right on top of her phone.

Sienna

Oh God, I’m sorry. Was she really angry?

Paige

No, it was worse. She wasn’t angry at all. She was understanding.

Astrid

Well, fuck… that’s very decent of her.

Sienna

But that’s Bella, isn’t it?

Astrid

How are you? You want to jump on a call?

Paige really did not. She was about as thought out and talked out tonight as possible.

Paige

Thanks, but not now. I’m okay, really. I think it’s Bella we need to concentrate on. I’ll message her in a bit but I’m not sure she’ll want to talk to me. She’ll probably appreciate hearing from both of you, though.

Astrid

Of course, I’ll get right on it.

Sienna

Me too.

Paige

Thank you. You guys are the best.

Astrid

We know.

Paige hooted out a laugh – the first one since her and Oliver’s difference of opinion earlier – before signing off and heading downstairs to find him. She wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the outcome of a conversation he’d urged her not to have but it only felt right to let him know given he was part of it all.

He glanced up when she entered the room and gave her a small smile and Paige felt ridiculously like crying again. They hadn’t spoken since their disagreement and she wasn’t sure if he was a sulker – Harvey had been a sulker – but apparently not.

Reaching for the remote, he paused the movie as she sat down beside him on the couch in Casper’s spot. He was in his standard pyjamas of T-shirt and boxers, his hair pushed haphazardly back off his forehead and he looked so damn good .

‘How’d it go?’

The room was lit only by the glow from the TV but it was enough to highlight his disgustingly chiselled cheekbones and ridiculously long eyelashes.

Paige sighed. ‘She said it was fine .’

He sucked in air through his teeth as he grimaced. ‘Sheesh. That’s not good.’

‘No,’ she agreed glumly. It might not have been the loud bust up that Oliver had predicted but it could well be a quiet one.

‘Hey.’ He slid his arm around her and it was the most natural thing in the world to drop her head to his shoulder. ‘I might not have agreed with your course of action but that took real guts, Paige. Kudos to you.’

His admiration was appreciated but it wasn’t a magic wand either.

A tear welled in her eye and spilled over and she dashed it away as she lifted her head off his shoulder and shrugged his arm away. ‘I’m going to head to bed. I’m knackered.’ It wasn’t like she’d done anything remotely physical for the majority of the day but emotional upheaval always left her wrecked.

He nodded, regarding her for long moments. ‘You want some company tonight? I don’t mean,’ he hastened to add, ‘sex. I just mean…’ He cupped the side of her face and traced the damp path of her tear with his thumb. ‘A shoulder to cry on.’

Paige couldn’t think of anything she wanted more than to curl up with Oliver and feel sorry for herself. But she didn’t get to do that in the comfort of his arms when she wasn’t the injured party. And besides that, at some stage through the night, she may well seek something more than comfort from him and she’d already screwed up enough with Bella, she wouldn’t compound her guilt any further by continuing to sleep with Oliver under false pretences.

Not when she may well be falling for him.

Declining his offer, Paige took herself to bed. Lying on her side in the dark, she fired off a quick PM to Bella.

Bella, I just… I don’t know what to say other than how sorry I am. Your friendship means so much to me. I hate that I’ve jeopardised that.

Then she turned off her phone and succumbed to a crying jag.

* * *

Oliver was in the media room continuing his trawl through the boxes he’d brought back from London the following afternoon. He hadn’t realised how long it would take for him to sort through it all. But each document, each piece of paper from a restaurant receipt to a playbill to an old script with scribbles in the margins, was a potential footnote in his relationship with his father and he pored over each and every one.

He hadn’t found the deeper answers he thought he might to his father’s complete self-involvement, just more pieces of the puzzle that was Roger Prendergast. But it was fascinating nonetheless to discover pieces of his old man, one titbit at a time and if nothing else the information he’d gleaned had sparked memories and directed his next lot of dictation.

And, at least for now it was keeping his mind off Paige who had looked so utterly dejected last night and wasn’t looking that much better today. But she was in peach mode as he’d come to think of it – scanning, electronically entering and cataloguing the papers he’d kept aside from the boxes – and he’d learned not to disturb her when she was in the zone.

Her laser focus and single-minded attention to detail was the exact opposite of the woman who had created such irritating disorder in his life for the last six weeks. It was such a jolting contrast but also somehow the norm now. All part of the delightfully exasperating conundrum of Paige.

Who was never far from his thoughts. Whose name resonated like a drum beat in his blood. Who he’d crossed a line with – and not just physically. But in other ways that overwhelmed him if he thought too much about it. For the first time ever there was a woman in his life who he couldn’t define his feelings for, couldn’t put into a neat box. A woman who had made it perfectly clear yesterday she’d never contemplated a future with him.

Don’t be ridiculous… This situation has always been temporary .

At the time, it had slid right off his shoulders because he’d been in the midst of convincing her not to do something stupid and it hadn’t seemed important. But the longer he’d sat with it, the more her quick dismissal tangled him in knots.

As if his thoughts weren’t fevered enough, his phone rang.

Bella.

He’d tried to call her before he’d hit the sack last night because it had felt like the right thing to do. He owed her an apology – another apology. Except there’d been no answer and frankly, he’d been relieved. They’d spoken and messaged a few times since the non-wedding, all of which, apart from the first one had been painfully civil.

But he wasn’t so sure that would be the case this time.

Oliver took a deep steadying breath as he tapped the screen. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ she replied.

Her voice broke a little and Oliver’s guilt flared hot, tightening his ribs and making it hard to catch a breath. ‘ God , B… I’m so sorry.’

‘I know,’ she murmured tremulously after several long beats.

‘She didn’t… we didn’t…’ Oliver trailed off unable to finish his sentence. What could he possibly say to justify what had happened.

‘I know it wasn’t intentional. I do. And… it’s okay.’

He huffed out a breath wishing she’d just yell at him already and stop being so damn fine about things. ‘Bella?—’

‘No. Really.’ Her voice had firmed up and there was an unmistakable edge of conviction. ‘It is okay. I can actually see how you two work so much better than we ever did.’

Oliver wanted to ask her what exactly she saw that led her to that conclusion but Bella wasn’t his relationship counsellor for fuck’s sake. He’d hurt her twice now, that’s what this was about. ‘It’s okay to yell and scream, B. I can take it. I deserve it twice over. You don’t have to be so damn fine all the time.’

To his surprise she gave a small laugh. ‘Yes, I’m beginning to understand that.’ But before Oliver could query her about the cryptic statement, she’d moved on. ‘Do you love her, Olly?’

The question hit him square in the jaw. Love . He’d been mentally dancing around the subject, not daring to go there only to have Bella come straight out and sock him with it. ‘I’m not sure,’ he hedged. ‘It’s… complicated.’

‘Yeah,’ she agreed. ‘In more ways than you know.’

Oliver frowned as he tried to decipher the cryptic comment. ‘What?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she dismissed, her tone changing. ‘What matters is this. You can’t hurt her, Olly. She’s been through it. Really through it, you know?’

‘I know.’ He nodded. ‘She told me about the revenge porn.’

‘She did?’

The surprise in Bella’s voice was palpable. ‘Yes.’

‘Oh. Well… that’s good then. So you get it. You understand why you need to figure out how you feel. You understand why you need to get sure. Because you can’t play with her, Olly. If you do, if you hurt her, I will track you down and do things you couldn’t even imagine.’

Oliver blinked at the vehemence. Normally he’d laugh at such absurd threats coming from petite good-girl Bella who never even harmed a damn fly but she was deadly serious. ‘Paige deserves the world and if you don’t provide, I will make sure you regret it.’

He believed her. Frankly, Oliver was a little terrified of this Bella. But it was clear, when he cut through her rhetoric, that to be championing Paige like this, Bella must really be fine about him and Paige. ‘I have absolutely no intention of hurting her.’

And he meant it. As Bella had pointed out, Paige had been through it and hurting her was the last thing he wanted to do. But he wasn’t sure it was entirely up to him.

‘Okay,’ Bella replied, obviously satisfied with his level of sincerity. ‘Now, can I speak to Paige?’

‘Sure. Hang on a second.’

Navigating the stairs, he stepped into the living area. She was sitting in her usual chair at the dining table facing the view, her back to him, her ginger frizz contained in a single twisty knot pinned at her nape, her spine ramrod straight.

‘Paige,’ he said as he approached.

Her fingers faltered momentarily on the keyboard before resuming their pace. ‘Yeah?’ She didn’t turn.

‘Bella wants to talk to you.’

That definitely worked. She whipped around in her chair, her gaze flicking from the phone to him. He smiled and nodded encouragingly as he passed over the device.

‘Bella?’ Paige’s voice was quiet, her spare hand flattening to press against her chest. ‘Are you okay?’

Oliver wasn’t privy to Bella’s reply but he could tell from the instant relaxing of Paige’s posture and the smile that tugged at her mouth, that things were going to be alright and he left them to it.

* * *

If Oliver thought that everything was suddenly going to be better between him and Paige after the phone call two days prior, he was wrong. She was definitely relieved that Bella had essentially given her blessing but Paige hadn’t gone there at all. If anything, she’d regressed even further and he’d been relegated firmly to the position of house mate . It was like everything that had happened prior to her relationship with Bella getting back on track, had been left behind.

She was perfectly pleasant, smiling as she went about her business, keen as ever to help him with the book, happy to be a nightly TV companion as well as doing her share of cooking and cleaning in the kitchen. But… it all just felt wrong. Gone was the whirling dervish he’d been used to and in her place was an agreeable automaton who put her mugs down on coasters and the remote in its correct place.

Who even was this person wiping up crumbs in his kitchen and what the hell had they done with the Paige he’d come to know and…

Seriously fucking like.

But that all changed Thursday when the weather finally broke. It’d been promising to do it all day, Oliver’s weather app predicting afternoon sunshine and, around three o’clock, it suddenly delivered. The sun broke through and the wind dropped but not before it has chased all the clouds away, leaving a perfect Cornish spring day, the flat sea a dazzling blue, the sand a glowing golden hue.

Halle-fucking-lujah .

Oliver opened the doors between the media room and the beach and inhaled the salty sunshine, the first trickle of warmth he’d felt in months caressing his face as he gazed upon the breathtaking vista. It was stunning and totally deserted.

A sight like that had to be shared.

‘Paige!’ Grinning, he strode to the stairs, taking them two at a time. He doubted she’d even noticed she’d been so engrossed in her work. ‘ Paige? ’

‘What?’ she asked, swivelling to face him, her forehead scrunching in alarm as he strode in her direction.

‘The sun is out.’ He pointed over her shoulder and she turned back to the view.

‘Oh yeah.’ She smiled but it didn’t quite reach her eyes as he came to a stop next to her seat. ‘So it is.’

‘C’mon.’ He tapped the back of the chair. ‘Let’s go to the beach.’

She glanced up startled. ‘What?’

‘The sun is out, Paige.’ He grinned again at her nonplussed expression. ‘We don’t know how long that’s going to last.’

‘Um, no.’ She shook her head. ‘Red hair and a UV index aren’t a good mix.’

He laughed. ‘It’s Cornwall, not the solar surface. Live a little.’

‘I’m good, thanks, I don’t need any sunshine.’ She returned her attention to her work, her fingers back on the keyboard.

Oliver scoffed. Sunshine was exactly what Paige needed. She hadn’t left the house since Monday and that just wasn’t like her. Addressing the top of her head, he said, ‘Everyone needs sunshine. Think of the vitamin D. Your bones will thank you for it.’

She couldn’t leave here with rickets. Bella had threatened him with all kinds of dire consequences if he hurt her. What sort of pestilence would she bring down on him if Paige ended up with a serious skeletal deformity?

‘I’m not exactly dressed for the beach,’ she protested, glancing at her clothes.

What exactly she was dressed for was the bigger issue in Oliver’s humble opinion. Plain blue jeans, plain grey T-shirt. Her hair contained in that wretched knot thing he was really coming to dislike. It was just… wrong.

Which made this trip outside even more urgent.

He needed to get the old Paige back. Not for him. For her . Underneath all that perfect pleasantness, she seemed… sad. And he was worried.

‘Neither am I,’ he said as he slid his hand under her elbow and urged her to her feet. She didn’t resist. ‘But it’s just us so, let’s gather our rose buds. Make hay while the sun shines. Strike while the iron is hot.’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘If you say carpe diem next I’m calling your shrink.’

Oliver laughed. That was more like the old Paige. ‘C’mon,’ he whispered, ‘take a break with me. Tomorrow the beach will be crowded if this weather holds as forecasted and it won’t be the same.’

Pulling her elbow out of his grasp, she bugged her eyes at him. ‘I’m working on your book. I’m trying to get as much sorted for you as possible before I leave in a couple of weeks. I can’t just… dilly-dally on the beach.’

It wasn’t the first time she’d mentioned leaving these past couple of days and Oliver was more than aware that she was off to Scotland next. But it made his brain itch just thinking about it. He’d thought the place had felt empty without Casper; he couldn’t even begin to imagine how desolate it would feel with her gone.

Not that long ago, he’d come to Cornwall seeking solitude as some kind of penance but now he’d had Casper and there was Pavarotti and a bunch of fucking WI women he always seemed to run into whenever he was in town and Jiya at the café who Doris had introduced him to and who had never heard of his father but laughed at his jokes anyway.

And Paige, full of colour and life, who had constantly kept him on his toes.

Suddenly, his life was full. And not like it had been full before, doing a bunch of inane things with fair-weather friends to occupy all the hours in his day while all the time hoping his father noticed that Oliver lived under the same roof.

He was bone full. Deep in his marrow, full.

Maybe he could suggest he pay someone else to house-sit for her in Edinburgh which freed her up to stay here and commit all her time to the book? To work on whatever this thing was between them. He could sign over the ￡100k advance cheque the publisher had put in his hand when he’d met with them in London. God knew, he didn’t need the money and if it hadn’t been for Paige, he wouldn’t have ever even started let alone be halfway through it and organised as fuck.

But looking at her now, this fierce woman who had created a business out of the ashes of a relationship that could have cut her off at the knees forever, he figured she might just kick him in the goolies.

‘Exactly.’ He bugged his eyes back. ‘Time’s a ticking and you haven’t experienced the true beauty of Porthmeor until you’ve seen it in the sunshine.’

He gestured out of the window again and she followed his direction. The ocean, devoid of waves and white caps, sparkled – beckoned – through the expanse of glass and she appeared to be actually contemplating it.

‘Fine.’ She huffed out a breath. ‘But only for twenty minutes.’

Oliver grinned. ‘Perfect.’