"Hey, Natalie."
I gulped at the sound of his voice and tried to turn away from Will, who seemed keen on listening in. "Uh-this is a surprise."
He cut right to the chase. "I saw pictures of you at the airport with a guy. Then I called your parents and they told me you have a new boyfriend. What the hell, Natalie? Is this what you meant by ‘maybe'?"
Well, fuck. I wasn't aware that there were photos of us. "He's not really my-hey!"
William snatched the phone out of my hands and pressed it against his face. I tried grabbing it back, but he was too tall. His expressive face was animated with energy, like a hound that caught scent of a rabbit. He sneered into my phone.
"Why don't you leave her alone, you pathetic loser."
Ben's reply was so loud that I could hear it. "Who the fuck is this?"
"I'm William Pardini, who the fuck are you?"
"I'm her fiancé!"
His low voice chuckled into the phone. "Yeah, well, I don't see a ring on her finger. She's with me now. I suggest you take a hint and move on."
"I'll kick your fucking ass!"
Will bent his head back in mirth; his eyes glittered with savage triumph. "Oh, please try me. I beg you."
I leaped for my phone again and wrenched it from his hands. "Ben-Ben, it's not true."
But there was nothing but dead silence on the other end. I looked at William, fury shaking all of my limbs. He was smiling as if he did me a favor.
"Why the hell did you do that?" I yelled, completely shattering the quiet, peaceful environment.
Several passersby looked at me in alarm, but I didn't give a shit. William was still laughing. I grabbed the scruff of his collar and couldn't decide whether I wanted to shove or punch him.
He ruined any and all chance of ever reconciling with Ben forever. I never wanted that. I certainly never wanted someone to make that choice for me.
"What did I do?" he said, shrugging. "You two were on your way out anyway."
I released his collar. "You do not get to make that decision for me! You-you piece of shit!"
He backed away when I swung at him and a scowl narrowed his eyes. "Dammit, Natalie. Calm down."
"You deserve it and I am pissed off." Suddenly, the gravity of losing Ben forever made my shoulders curl forward. I clutched for the door of the car as I drew a shaky breath. "You're a bastard," I said in a thick voice.
I didn't want him to see me crying so I opened the car door and sat in the backseat, which was scattered with Tom's fur. I don't know why I felt so out of control. Ben just felt like my last lifeline, the man who'd always made me feel loved. Safe. He wasn't perfect, but at least he made my parents happy. Then I thought about how fucked up that was and cried like a baby, burying my face in my hands.
The car door opened a crack and I whirled to him, expecting to see a gloating smile on his face. Instead, he looked scared.
"Natalie, can I come in?"
I looked away from him and shrugged as if I didn't care. I heard the sound of him sliding inside the car and closing the door. The air felt stifling.
"I'm really sorry."
"Duly noted."
The leather squeaked as he turned towards me. "Why are you so upset? I thought you and him were over. I was just trying to-"
"To what?" I exploded. "To mess with him? I was happy!" I slammed my fist into the leather seat in front of me. "I was doing fine. I had everything I wanted and then Jessica just had to get Luke. And Ben made a mistake and I threw six years of us away. Why? Why the hell did I do that?"
It all came crashing down on me. The possibility of being alone forever felt very real. I felt like a ticking clock-already twenty-six. I'd never felt loved by my parents but I finally found someone who loved me. I had Ben and I should have kept him.
"You did it because you weren't in love with him."
Will's voice was smooth and self-assured. That made bile rise in my throat. What did he know about any of it?
"I did love him!"
"If you did, you wouldn't have come on this trip with me. You wouldn't have kissed me."
He took my arm and I wanted to jerk away, but I made the mistake of looking into his eyes. He refused to let me look away. I was trapped and he was drawing me into his sticky web, towards certain disaster.
"You're scared of being alone."
My eyes watered. He always said things that no one else would dare say out loud. I couldn't deny it. "Yeah, so what?"
"Natalie, you're better than him and you deserve better. He doesn't love you, if he did, he wouldn't have fooled around right after you broke up. He would have fought for you. That phone call was just him pissing on his property."
I didn't want to hear this shit. I knew that every word he said was probably true, but I didn't want it. All he was doing was twisting the knife.
"Who else is there?" I asked hopelessly as tears slipped down my face. There was no one else. Where would I find another guy? On a dating website? I made a face. My own mother told me that Ben was the best I could've gotten. "I'm nothing special."
I stopped short of calling myself nothing, but I think Will sensed that I had been on the verge of ending the sentence.
Will slid closer to me and pulled me onto his lap. My chest shook at the sudden contact, as if my body had been craving human contact for months and was now finally getting what it needed. With his arms around me, stroking my hair, I sighed into his chest and felt my muscles unknot.
"Natalie," his voice boomed through my back. "Your worth doesn't depend on any man or woman. It's through our actions that our worth is defined."
"I'm not brave. I know that if I get the chance, I'll go back to him."
Yes, I would go back to the man I had lukewarm feelings for. I was disgusted with myself.
"I don't know what to tell you," he sounded almost disappointed. "Is that really how you want to live the rest of your life? Why did you come here with me?"
My thoughts were barreling along like a high-speed chase. Why had I come? "Because I've never been to Europe and-and I wanted something different. A change."
"That's right. A change."
His voice throbbed in my ear almost like a sigh, and suddenly a light flickered on and I felt hot all over. I was in the arms of a gorgeous man in one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.
He would have fought for you.
Did I want Will that badly? Was I going to let him slip away, just like that? I couldn't live with myself if I didn't at least try. Yes, he was damaged. He wasn't perfect, but I was never going to find the perfect man. Then I made the decision: I was going to make him want me. I was going to be brave for once in my life.
"You're right, Will. I'm sorry for acting like this."
I looked up and our faces were inches from each other. His breath billowed over my face. I unclasped my fingers from his neck and smoothed them over his chest. His breath ever so slightly caught in his throat. Now his gaze seemed to tremble within mine-he was uncomfortable with this closeness.
A smile appeared on his face. "I guess I should apologize for taking your phone, but I'm not that sorry."
Though I didn't want to, I slipped from his lap and his arms unwound themselves from my back. "Let's get back to the bed and breakfast. I need to work on those designs."
"Okay," he said, giving me a strange look before he got out of the car.
While William sat in a meeting with Mary downstairs, I sat at the small white desk in my room with my tablet PC and drew. I couldn't decide whether I wanted a pastoral theme or a fairy-tale, children's-book-type theme. There was something idyllic about this place that I couldn't quite articulate in words. I cycled through the photos I took during the day. It reminded me of movies I watched as a child, when I believed in magic and secret gardens and fairies. This place almost made me believe in them again.
The kissing gate in front of the cottage was ensnared with vines and flowers, almost as if it was guarding something secret. I drew little, circular avatars of the kissing gate, the cottage with a little river wrapped around it, the mill, the green pastures and moody skies. William and his team could decide which ones they wanted. Then I began the website banners, and there I could incorporate every detail that I loved about the Cotswolds and this bed and breakfast.
"Nice work."
"Shit!" I was so immersed that I didn't hear Will creep up behind me.
Will smirked as he took a seat on the bed. "Too bad all that work will probably be for nothing."
"Why?" I said, aghast.
"I'm just not sure this place lives up to the Pardini brand. People who go to our hotels expect excellence. Luxury. This … " he shook his head as he gazed at the ceiling, his eyes focusing on the chips of paint here and there.