"I do pay attention. Stop pretending you know me. You don't know me."
"I know that you're not capable of coping in the real world. Take your father's cards away and you wouldn't have a clue what to do."
"I'd get a job."
"Really?"
"I could get a job." She turned to face the man behind the ticket booth window. "You'd give me a job, wouldn't you?"
"Course I would," he replied.
I grabbed hold of her, dragging her outside. There was a wooden bench next to the travel office and I shoved her down onto it. "Stay there!" I snapped, raising my voice just enough to see fear flash across her eyes. "You've given me enough trouble. I'm taking you home."
"Why are we even talking about it? You don't want to take me, you'd have done it already and besides I can see it in your eyes."
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, feeling unnerved by the question. Of course I knew about Kingsley, as much a wet blanket as his father was a cold hearted villain. Crueller in his own way, no match for someone as innocent as her.
"He hits his girlfriends," she said quietly, looking up at me with puppy dog eyes so wide, she was almost a cartoon version of herself. "I know what kind of man he is and I will not marry him."
"I can protect you," I said, sitting next to her on the bench. "Even after you're married."
"Who made you the Godfather all of a sudden? I don't need your help, I'm doing just fine on my own."
"So you won't come with me voluntarily?"
"Not until I've seen Ben. If he won't have me, I'll marry Kingsley. How does that sound?"
I thought for a minute before answering. "Listen, how about we make a deal?"
"What kind of deal?" she asked, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.
"I'll go with you to see him."
"See who?"
"The guy who wrote those letters."
"Ben? But why would you agree to that?"
"Because I'd rather you want to come back, it's easier than dragging you back. Matteo doesn't want you damaged."
"What am I, a Faberge egg?"
"Would you rather we go home now?"
"No, God, no."
"Well then let's get some tickets shall we?"
I watched her digging out her card. It didn't matter that her father would see the purchase, he wouldn't know where she was travelling to, not from a credit card statement.
Why was I doing this? This wasn't me, this wasn't who I was. I didn't make deals with people, I took what I wanted, what I needed, then I was gone. But something was different about her, something I couldn't put my finger on.
Part of it was her vulnerability. She genuinely seemed lost in the world, unable to look after herself without help. She stood buying the tickets with her shell of cockiness intact but I could tell it was all for show. I could see straight through it to the little girl she was inside.
It would break her to marry into the Matteo family. She'd get money, sure, power too, maybe. But not help, not protection, not comfort, not the things she so clearly needed. The little girl would get crushed in that world and she'd become as cold as them, as empty hearted as me. No one deserved that.
You want to fuck her too, I thought, doing my best to ignore that fact. It didn't help me think straight and I needed to think straight.
I thought instead about the relationship between her and her father. That was one thing that was clear no matter how clouded my thoughts were. I'd always been good at seeing through people to who they really were. She yearned to be close to her father but something had happened to drive them apart and now she hated him. I couldn't put my finger on what it was but it probably involved Tony Matteo.
She loved the boy in the letters, that was obvious too. The words and emotions poured off the page. If I wasn't so dead inside, I'd have felt something when I read them. Maybe her father had driven them apart, maybe that was why she resented him so much. Combine that with finding out she was supposed to marry a cruel drip of a man and it was no wonder she'd run. She couldn't hide for shit though, that much was obvious. She'd never had to hide in her life and she had no idea how to do it.
I'd worked all that out but I still didn't really know why I'd offered her the deal. If I didn't take her back, I was a dead man. There was no way round that. I couldn't screw up a job like this and expect everything to be fine. I should grab her, break into the nearest car, drive her back. She'd be damaged but in a way she already was.
Get the job done and get away from her, one side of me thought. Fuck her first, it added. Show her how dark the world can be. The other side of me wanted to wrap her up and keep her safe and I hated being caught between those two opposing sides.
I knew I should take her home but I didn't do it. Instead I offered to go with her to speak to her lost love. What the hell was wrong with me?
"Got them," she said, excitedly waving two tickets at me. We went back outside to wait for the bus. "Have you ever made a deal with anyone before?" she asked, looking up at me.
"Once or twice," I lied. I couldn't tell her this was a first for me, it would make me look weak. You couldn't look weak, that was a cardinal rule in my world.
"You're not going to go back on it, are you?"
"You go see him then we go home."
"But why are you doing this?"
I didn't answer her. I didn't know. All of a sudden an image of her on her knees entered my head. Looking up at me with those innocent eyes of hers as I made her beg me to take her. I couldn't shake the image either. Her with her clothes torn half off, her hair a mess, her hands clasped behind her back. I could feel my cock twitch at the thought of it and I had to look away from her to make the image fade.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
"I'm fine," I replied, my voice more strained than I liked to hear it. I coughed then growled, my voice back to normal as I repeated, "I'm fine."
TWELVE
ISABEL
I was glad when the bus pulled in. He'd been silent for ten minutes, staring into the distance without saying a word. He seemed furious with me though I wasn't sure why. I didn't say anything though. I worried that if I did, he might go back on his deal and try and force me home.
I didn't really know what I was doing. Was going to see Ben a good idea? What if his feelings for me had changed? He hadn't written for years, just texted to admonish me each time I told him I loved him, told me to sober up and get on with my life.
My life was at a crossroads. I knew that. Either go home, go see Ben, or try and run. None of the options were great. I needed someone to tell me what to do but there was no one. So when he'd agreed to take me to Ben, it was like getting permission combined with being given a command. I latched onto it like a grateful toddler.
I had spent most of my life not really knowing what I was doing. It was a strange feeling. I had a father but I didn't feel like I had a family. I had friends but I didn't feel as if anyone really knew me. I'd been so angry at the hired goon for telling me I couldn't cope in the real world, not because he was wrong, but because he was right.
It was like he'd seen straight through to the heart of me and I didn't like that feeling. No one was supposed to see that deeply into me, that was the whole point of keeping my true feelings hidden.
I had felt for years like I was treading water, that if I didn't keep focussed on the things I thought were important, I might start to sink. I'd see the real me, the vulnerable little girl who just wanted to be loved and protected. Was that why I was still so obsessed with him? Was that why I was travelling to him? To try and get that feeling back, that feeling of being safe. It had been a very long time since I'd felt safe. Knowing I was supposed to marry the son of a gangster didn't exactly help with that.
I could sneak away, of course. I could wait for the opportune moment as Jack Sparrow once said. Or I could try to persuade him not to take me back. But there was still that voice in the back of my mind that told me I could trust this man. For all his coldness, the bitterness that radiated off him as he stood with his arms folded, staring into the distance.
That trust didn't extend to making me want to sit with him though. It was a long way to Gladwell and I had no intention of spending the journey next to a man who so obviously hated me. I took a seat next to a guy who had a friendly smile, nodding at him as I settled in, leaving the goon to sit across the aisle from me, continuing to scowl into the distance.
The bus rumbled into life a few minutes later and we set off, heading off to make our way towards the motorway and then onwards. The last few houses faded from view, replaced by rolling fields that made me sad to think about the last time I'd seen them.
Me and the girls had taken a taxi from home to here, I recognised that campsite too. We hadn't cared about the bill for glamping as we weren't paying it. That was the one good thing about having a rich father, no matter how cold and distant he was, he always picked up the tab.