Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Zara
“J esus Christ, Zara.” Eloise sits back on the sofa, her hands to her mouth. “When I suggested you have a holiday fling, I didn’t mean with Myles .”
We’re sitting in her kitchen diner, sun coming through the long windows looking out onto the garden.
Spring arrived while I was away, the trees suddenly bright with green, flowers peeping through the garden beds.
A time of year when things come back to life.
Yet I feel the opposite, my insides cold as winter, a Persephone permanently stuck in the underworld.
“I knowww ,” I wail. I can’t get past the image of Myles in bed, his hands on Katya while she smirked at me.
“And he said he wanted to be with you?”
I nod. I feel like absolute shit. I keep apologising to Eloise for letting her down; she got me the job, after all, and I’ve screwed it up in the worst possible way.
She keeps telling me to stop apologising.
As soon as she got my call she immediately went into crisis mode, driving to the airport to collect me and bustling me into her home, warm with love and the scent of baking, telling me I was staying with her for the next few days, the guest room was all made up and she wasn’t taking no for an answer.
And now I’m telling her everything.
“Was that… before?”
“Before he told me I couldn’t work for him anymore? Or before we had sex? God.” My head drops into my hands. “I’m such an idiot? Whyyyy do I keep doing this to myself?”
“Holy shit, Zars.” Eloise’s hands come to her mouth again, her blue eyes wide. “I still cannot believe you slept with him! I mean, I saw the photos and I know you both so I thought maybe something was happening, but not that!”
“I know,” I mumble, shame hot within me. I won’t be surprised if she never wants to speak to me again.
“How was it?”
“ What? El, I can’t?—”
“I’m sorry,” she continues, quickly. “I know this is a shit situation and it all sounds awful, but seriously, Zara. This is Myles . He’s fucking hot.”
I get it. She’s trying to jolt me out of my sorrow. But it’s too deep for that. Still, she’s my best friend. I can’t lie to her. “It was… amazing.” Tears come to my eyes and I blink, looking out at the garden. “Until she showed up.”
“Oh, Zars.” El’s hand comes to mine. There are tears in her eyes as well now. “I’m so sorry. I know what it’s like, when you like someone and you don’t think they like you and?—”
“But your situation worked out!” Eloise met Anwar through a friend and had what she thought was a one-sided crush on him for ages, until a particularly spectacular night at a mutual friend’s wedding.
“Anwar was in love with you! And oh my God, there weren’t any photos of you both in the paper, or an irate supermodel involved. And you didn’t lose your job!”
“Right. Okay. Maybe it was a bit different.” Eloise chews on her lip, glancing at me as though I’m a bomb and she’s not sure whether I’m about to explode. “But, have you considered he might have been telling the truth? That he does want to be with you? Why is it so hard to believe?”
“What?” I frown at her. “No. It was probably just some sick game, and I’m the fool who got caught up in it.
I was just someone to be with until Katya came back into his life.
” I rub my face with my hands. “What was I even thinking? He acted like he could barely stand me most of the time. I’ve been an idiot.
If I hadn’t resigned, he would probably have fired me anyway. ”
“So you’ve definitely resigned?”
“Yes. I put it in writing. I can’t go back into that office. I’m really sorry, El. I know I screwed up.”
“Oh pssh, stop apologising.” El looks thoughtful. “He said he’d broken up with Katya? And you were going to be together? And Katya just showed up?”
“Yes.” My mind goes back to that awful moment again, coming in from the terrace with my heart full, only for it to break. “I went outside. I came back in and she was there, in bed with him.”
“And what was he doing?”
“He had his arms around her.”
“But how did he look? Like, what was his face doing?”
“God, El.” I don’t want to go through this again.
“Just humour me. You know what Katya’s like, showing up in lingerie, pulling stunts to get him back. How do you know this wasn’t another one?”
“Fine.” I huff out a sigh, and think back again to one of the worst moments of my life.
How had Myles looked? I’d been so horrified I hadn’t really been able to take much in, just wanting to get out of there.
I picture his face and… Huh. Surprise flickers through me.
“He looked shocked. As shocked as I was, I guess.”
“See!” Eloise bounces on the sofa. “See! It must have been a stunt!”
“How do you know that?”
“I just know Myles,” she says. “I’ve worked for him for years. He’s not someone who tells lies, or plays games to get what he wants. Why is it so hard to believe he might actually have fallen for you?”
I stare at her, my heart bleak. “Because he didn’t try to follow me. He let me go.”
She doesn’t have an answer for that.
Myles
How could I have let her go like that?
Shock is a strange thing, I suppose. It paralysed me that morning, as I lay in bed with another woman’s hands on me, watching everything I wanted walk out the door.
That was probably the biggest mistake I made that night. Not telling her how I truly felt. Not trusting myself enough to share that final part of me. I know now, though.
I’m in love with Zara.
It’s been six years since I’ve said those words to another woman and, while I did love Cassandra, it was nothing compared to how I feel now. The fracture in my heart has opened up again, but it is more of a crater, a hole through the very core of me. I don’t think it will ever heal.
Finding out Zara had left the hotel was one of the worst moments of my life. The message I received from her, a few hours later, was another.
I’m sorry about the photos; it was my fault. In light of everything that’s happened I think it best I resign, effective immediately. I realise I’ve been unprofessional in the extreme. You did say you were going to rescind my job offer. And I think that’s for the best. Zara.
How the hell are the photos her fault? I’m the reason they were taken, not her. Another screw-up, another way I’ve hurt her, simply by bringing her into my world.
At least Katya seems to have finally got the message.
She’d called me, screeching, from the hotel in Morocco.
I was already back in London at that point.
She’d found Zara’s underwear on the balcony where she’d left it– the image of her sliding the lace down her exquisite backside is one that will never leave me– and demanded to know whose it was.
I lied.
I told her it belonged to a woman I’d met in Morocco, and that things were over between us, and I could fuck whoever I wanted. She hadn’t taken it well, but I can take her bullshit. What I don’t want is for it to be directed at Zara. So, I protected her again, a shield against the world for her.
The tabloid story has already been quashed.
A few calls to a few friends and it’s already yesterday’s news, killed off as quickly as it came.
The pictures are still out there, but all they show are two people having dinner together.
I can’t look at them. The memory is seared into my mind anyway, every moment we spent together haunting me, my life now seeming grey and cold without Zara’s presence.
I received my clothes back from the hotel, along with several additional items. The things I gave Zara, and the dress she’d worn on our night together, with a note saying they’d been found in her room after she left.
I tried to send them to her, but they were returned, along with everything else I’ve sent.
I’ve stopped production on the silk dress, unable to bear the thought of any other woman wearing it.
The original hangs in my office closet, still holding a faint scent of her.
Maybe it’s morbid, but I don’t know what else to do.
Martin is still pissed with me, but I’m used to that. As I say, the story is dead. Katya and I are finally done, and she has a nice new apartment in Paris as a thank you gesture for keeping her mouth shut, more than anything. Martin says I’m lucky it didn’t cost more than that.
I’ve heard nothing from Zara. Not a word. She ignores my messages, won’t answer my calls. I’m at a loss.
I look up from my desk as someone knocks on my office door. It’s early, but I’ve been here for a few hours already.
“Come,” I bark.
The door opens slowly and a young woman with a slightly terrified expression sticks her head around it. “Um, morning, Mr Brandon. I have the post for you.”
“Bring it in,” I say, returning to my work.
I’ve been putting in long hours lately, mainly because I can’t bear being at home alone.
Scott and Sally are worried about me; they know something happened in Morocco but I haven’t been able to talk about it, not yet.
Sally drops off meals at the office for me sometimes, in the evening.
I’ve been over for dinner a couple of times but left early, unable to bear being around the love between her and Scott for long, reminded of what I lost. Scott’s ankle is gradually improving, and he’s promised to go surfing with me later this year, once he’s cleared to go.
The Maldives, though. I’m not sure I can go back to Morocco again, not for a while.
The young woman– I think her name is Jane, or Jen– drops several envelopes on my desk, just missing my coffee. I wince, glancing at her. She’s standing there, biting her lip.
“Is there something else?”
“Um, it’s just, I’m sorry. I think you’re supposed to be in a meeting now.”
“I’m supposed to be?” I check my diary. Nothing is blocked out. In fact, my week looks strangely clear.
“Yes, with the, um, the…” She twirls her finger, looking up as though whatever she’s forgotten is on the ceiling. “The clothing people!” she says, triumphantly.
“It’s not in my diary.”
“No. That’s what I’m sorry about. I forgot to put it in. They just rang to see where you were.”
“For fuck’s sake.” I get up, grabbing my notebook and laptop. “Where is it?”
“They’re in meeting room four,” she says. “Sorry, three!” she calls, as I head out the door.
She’s the fourth temp in as many weeks, each of them as useless as the other.
I miss Zara with every fibre of my being.
I don’t want her back working for me, certainly not as my assistant, but I cannot live my life like this either.
Eloise, bless her, contacted me just after the Morocco trip, offering to return early from maternity leave.
I’d asked her about Zara, but all she could tell me was that she was all right.
I’d pressed her, and eventually she’d admitted that Zara had asked her not to say anything about her, or what she was doing.
“She’ll kill me for saying this, and you mustn’t tell her I did,” she ended with, her high voice sounding worried.
“But I think she still cares about you.”
It’s the only thing that keeps me going.
I head into the meeting room, apologising for being late. I take my seat at the end of the long table and switch to business mode. If I keep my head on my work, I don’t have as much space to think about Zara.
It helps, a little.