Chapter 29
Asoft hand curls around my wrist, and long, red-painted talons gently scrape against my skin.
“Want to come up to my room?”
The bottle blonde attached to the hand is pretty—I’ll give her that. But she’s all wrong. She’s thin to the point of probably dangerous where Pippa is curvy. Her hair’s not the right colour. And Pippa knows how to have fun without getting tanked on champagne.
Her lips, stained as red as her nails, curve into a sly smile.
“No thanks.”
One perfect eyebrow lifts. “We could have a lot of fun.”
As far as fucking Pippa out of my system goes, I can’t. Even if I wanted to, I’m nowhere near ready for anyone else—even a meaningless fling.
“I’m not interested.”
She drops her hand to my thigh and gives it a gentle squeeze. “I can’t change your mind?”
Before Pippa, my dick would have stood to attention if a beautiful woman came onto me. Now, nothing happens. He doesn’t even stir.
But if I go back to the room and picture Pippa’s lush curves, I’ll be hard in an instant.
It’s not fair.
While I’ve been traveling, I also couldn’t go to any of the places Pippa wanted to go—my heart just wasn’t in it.
Instead, I’ve indulged and partied my way around Europe, telling myself I’ve moved on.
But I haven’t.
Thoughts of Pippa consume me. When I’m not thinking about her, I’m dreaming about her. And every day it gets a little harder to think about the devastation I must have left in my wake.
All I have to do then is look at the photo of her and Lucas at lunch with my mother. It’s enough to snap me out of it long enough to find a nightclub and drink to forget.
But I can’t forget.
I should switch my phone off, but I can’t do it. I’ve posted photos on Instagram all the way through my trip, pretending I’m enjoying myself.
The notification indicators show the calls and texts mounting up, but for the first time in my life I ignore them.
I need to work out how to live my life without the woman I’m desperately in love with. Nearly anything else in the world, I could have forgiven, but withholding the information she did and hanging out with my mother is unforgivable. She has no real idea of how much hurt and pain that woman caused, and the true toll it had on my father.
She doesn’t know that the way my father actually died was by his own hand and not simply the stress and overwork he put himself through.
I made the choice to keep that from her because I thought that her soft heart couldn’t take it. And despite me hating Lucas for what he’d done, I didn’t want it getting back to him either. I’m sure he’d only feel responsible.
He’s not the one I blame. My mother made a choice to throw away twenty years of marriage by sleeping with a teenager. But the anger I felt all those years ago has resurfaced with Mum’s revelation, and I’m clearly lashing out in the way I’m behaving.
I’m back on the plane tomorrow and home.
Home.
It won’t feel like that without Pippa.
* * *
I’m numb by the time the plane lands in Auckland.
The wheels squeal as the plane skids into taxiing, and the rush of wind hits my ears as I both welcome and hate that I’m home.
Now to face the music.
I’ve spent the past month running from everything—the past, my mother, and Pippa. I can’t keep running, and while avoiding my mother is easy, Pippa’s a whole different story.
Whatever the reason, my friends will have judged me right along with everyone else.
I can’t blame them.
Running the way I did was stupid—I know that. But the thought of confronting the situation is still so raw. All I’ve done is delay things.
Shame floods my system. At some point, I’ll reach out to Pippa. There’s no excuse for what she did, but I could have handled it better.
Every time I pictured her in her wedding dress, waiting for me, I had a drink. There wasn’t enough alcohol in Europe to absolve me of that.
Once I’m through customs, I head outside the terminal and jump in a taxi.
I can’t wait to get home and sleep in my own bed.
There won’t be much of Pippa left at home. Even if she hasn’t cleared out her things, there wasn’t a lot to start with. She’d started the process of moving, but the majority of her things were yet to be shifted.
It’s a depressing thought.
I don’t stop when I walk in the door and lock it behind me. Leaving my bags in the living room, I head straight for my bed and collapse onto it.
After the past month, I could sleep for a week.
My gaze falls on the photo beside the bed.
Pippa in that red dress, her neck glittering with the ruby I bought her to match, my arms wrapped around her waist—the way it was nearly the whole night.
That’s the night I told her I loved her for the first time.
I turn my head rather than look at it. The pain grows again—every time I beat it down, it reappears.
I grab her pillow and pull it toward me, breathing in the scent of her.
What the fuck do I do now?