Hate to Love You(46)

Running away to Spain had done nothing to dull the pain, no matter how I tried to quell it. A Valencian colleague whose daughter died in a car crash once told me that losing a child was not something you get over; it was something you learned to live with. Well, I was tired of living with it, goddamn it! And goddamn James for taking advantage of my fragile state of mind and forcing me to.

I tried to get back to sleep but guilt and regret twisted my body as they did my mind, and I was denied its dark release.



When I arrived at Flintfire, a sunny Velma scanned me from head to toe. Her eyes grew so wide I was able to see that their violet colour was contact-induced. She thought my clothing was a ploy to find a rich husband at the firm but I brushed off her opinion like a piece of lint. So what if I wasn’t a walking advertisement for staid and bland? There’s no black, grey or navy in my wardrobe except for my stalker outfit, and that was hardly the thing for a job in the City.

For secretarial work I wore hip-hugging skirts in any shade except boring and colourful tops that enhanced my shape but were modest enough for the work place—mostly. Today my silky shirt was more figure hugging than usual but only because I hadn’t ironed anything else. Honest. And I always wear stilettos; they’re good for your posture.

My hair was up and my makeup was light. Marcia had given me the thumbs up along with a sly look I refused to acknowledge and Fleur Anise, my harshest critic, said she liked my top. I thought I looked professional, but with pizzazz.

I shrugged off my insecurity and surveyed the office suite with a practiced eye. My desk was a long L, placed so that I faced anyone coming in. My new bosses had side-by-side desks to my right, at the end of the room and in front of the glass wall.#p#分页标题#e#

I usually relished the first days at a new job, but apprehension was making me queasy. It was one thing to hatch a desperate plan and hope it came to fruition, and entirely another to find myself sitting in the office I would share with James, about to meet him for the first time since making my infamous speech.

Nervously, I walked to the glass wall and looked out at the City of London, taking note of the famous Gherkin building and the other high risers glinting in the sunshine. Sixteen floors below me there were black cabs, buses and people going about their daily business, oblivious to my existence.

This was the city I had fled to at fourteen, the city where I had lived a desperate nightmare, by day picking pockets and by night sleeping in shop doorways. I didn’t want it to look vibrant or happy but it did. It probably had back then too. I just hadn’t been high enough to see it—not in the same sense I was now, if you know what I mean.

I shuddered and turned my back on the view, eyeing the two desks in front of me. One of them was neat to the point of bareness; the other looked like its owner had lost the battle of the paper bins. A copy of my CV was centred on the former and tossed carelessly on the latter. Was James the neat freak or the slob?

I noticed a few pictures on one of the bookcases. One was of a pretty brunette in a sunhat with three little girls—Greg’s wife and daughters presumably, and the other was of a little boy of about five or six. It had to be Ryan. I snatched it up and gazed at him hungrily. He had my blue eyes and my lips, and yes, he still had a tear-shaped mole on his neck. His little jaw was square.

I tried to see Alex Novak in Ryan’s face but I couldn’t. Had Alex’s hair been that shade of brown? And did he have a jaw like Ryan’s? Well, it didn’t matter anyway. No one would ever know the truth about Ryan’s real father, least of all Ryan. Telling him would only hurt him and I’d done enough of that already. I didn’t allow myself to think about who else would be hurt by the truth.

I gazed at the picture fixedly and then angled it towards my desk so I could see it better.

If only I had a picture of Ryan!

I glanced at the wall clock. Velma had informed me that James and Greg came in late on Mondays, so there was plenty of time to do what I needed. The silver frame was heavy and the twisty bits at the back so tight I had to yank them hard to get the picture out. The frame slipped from my hand and fell, sharp corner on pinky toe, before smashing open on the floor.

“Shit!”

The damn thing had drawn blood. I picked Ryan’s picture out of the broken glass, shaking off the little shards as I stood up. James chose that moment to arrive. He walked into the office, saw me and stopped abruptly. Every barrier I thought I’d built, every wall I’d reinforced and double-checked, fragmented. Carefully planned words stuck in my throat.

James was as devastatingly handsome at thirty-three as he had been at twenty-six. His thick, dark hair was shorter and the cut more severe but it only added to his attractiveness, lending his features a captivating maturity that was new. His muscular body filled out the dark expensive suit just as I remembered.