“We’re going to London.”
I choke on the orange juice I’ve been obsessing over like a fangirl with her idol for the sole reason of avoiding Daniel.
Until he dropped this bomb, of course.
We’re sitting at the kitchen counter on a Friday morning, having breakfast in a setting as strained as the Cold War.
The only one speaking is Jay with his hyper energy and endless stories. Even Lolli has chosen the silent treatment.
“We’re going where?” I echo Daniel’s words, needing double confirmation.
Clutching an iPad in hand, he stares at me over the rim of his coffee cup with that cold streak that he wears as a badge around me.
One part of me is glad he doesn’t pity me after the mess I was in last night, but a bigger part wants to rip open his exterior and see what he’s thinking about.
Maybe he does pity me.
Maybe he’s even more repulsed by me than ever before.
While he said it wasn’t my fault, he was angry that I didn’t file the report. He was angry that I didn’t ask for help, forgetting that when I showed up at his door, he cut me open so deep, the wound is still unable to heal.
The jerk.
So what if he didn’t fuck that girl back then? If I didn’t ruin his evening with my epic chlamydia plan, he would’ve shagged Katerina all night long.
With a dash of orgies, as he informed me.
My fist clenches against my stomach and I fight the bitter taste of tears building behind my eyes.
I can feel myself stumbling, backpedaling, and falling back into a deep, dark abyss.
Into my old stupid, unhealthily obsessed self.
And just like then, it’ll only end in disaster and heartache as harsh as Daniel’s coldness.
“London,” he repeats as if I’m a child. “England. The United Kingdom. Great Britain.”
“I know where London is,” I spit back.
“Congratulations for having the geographical knowledge of a toddler.”
“Don’t talk to my sister that way.” Jay glares at him. “That’s mean.”
Daniel grunts, but he doesn’t reply. Instead he glances at me. “Book the tickets for the trip. We’re leaving today and returning on Monday.”
Jay’s eyes bug out as he swallows his pancakes. “We’re really going to London?”
“No,” I say with a force that rattles my body and causes Lolli to jump away from the seat next to me. Inhaling deeply, I stare at Daniel. “Can I have a word with you?”
“Make an appointment for it.” He doesn’t look at me as he reads the news on his iPad.
I show Jay my fakest smile. “Can you have the rest of your breakfast in your room, baby?”
He sighs. “I can’t continue living with you guys if you keep kissing every second. At least tone it down until I have my own place when I’m eighteen.”
“That’s not…” I trail off, lost for words.
“Are we really going to London, Dan?” my brother asks, completely ignoring me.
“Yes. Start packing,” he tells him, still lost in his iPad.
“Okay!” My brother trots to his room, holding a plate full of syrupy pancakes.
Daniel ordered them but didn’t eat a bite.
“I’m not going to London,” I tell him.
“Good thing you don’t have a say in it.”
“I have no reason to be there when the trial is weeks away.”
“I do.”
“Good for you. That doesn’t concern me.”
“You’re my assistant, so I say it does concern you.”
“Is this work-related?”
“In a way.”
“You only have golf and a few international calls this weekend. There was no fine print about London anywhere.”
“Emergency work.”
“Then go on your own.” I pluck the iPad from his hand, breathing as harshly as a cornered animal. “And look at me when you’re talking to me.”
He slowly lifts his head, his face a blank slate of emotions. A void with no intention of ever being filled.
And the worst part is that he looks like he’s in his element, extremely handsome in his khaki trousers and a white polo shirt with his brown hair styled and his face clean-shaven.
Why was I so worried about telling him again? It’s not like he cares.
Never did and never will.
“I know your face, Nicole. No need to worship at its altar all the time.” He pauses. “If I didn’t clarify it yet, you have no choice and you’re coming with me as my assistant.”
“It’s the weekend.”
“Your point?”
“I don’t want to go to England.”
“What you want means jack shit to me. We’re going and that’s that.”
“And if I refuse?”
He tilts his head to the side. “There’s no refusal option in your job contract. Unless you quit, of course.”
“I can’t leave Jay alone.”
“Which is why he’s coming with us. The time you’ve spent moaning could’ve been spent booking our flight tickets.”
He slides the iPad from my fingers and goes back to scrolling through BBC’s website because I heard him mention once that American news outlets are unreliable.
I hate that I hoard everything he says, that I remember the first word he said to me—peaches—and every single interaction we’ve had since.
I hate that I used to search for his gift for my birthdays first. His mum chose them and it was obligatory, but I still counted them as coming from him.
Still stared at them whenever it got hard and the world closed in on me.
Especially at the one item that I’ve hidden so well.
He reaches for a glass of water at the same time as me. Our fingers brush for a second, two—
He suddenly jerks his hand away, stands up, and stalks to his room.
My hand shakes as I pick up the water and down it all. But no amount of water could douse the fire inside me.
Or the familiar feeling that’s rearing its ugly head from the past.
The fact that no matter how much I showered or scrubbed my skin clean, I’m still filthy.
Several hours later, we’re on our way to London.
I avoid a panic attack by watching Jayden nearly piss himself with excitement from being on a plane for the first time—technically, second, but he doesn’t remember that trip. First class, because God forbid Daniel travel any other way.
He ignored me most of the flight, opting to have a fixation with his iPad.
Whenever Jay talks to him, however, he engages him and even smiles, dazzling the whole crew with his dimples.
So the problem is me.
I’m the one he doesn’t want to spare a glance.
The one who needlessly and embarrassingly told him everything, hoping he’d finally see my side of the story.
Not anyone else’s. Mine.
After two hours, Jay collapses into sleep, his neck lolled awkwardly. I shake my head as I maneuver him to a more comfortable position.
All while trying to ignore Daniel, who’s sitting across from me, still ignoring me.
When the attendants bring food, he flat out refuses it.
I rummage through my bag and retrieve a small sandwich I made, then place it and a lollipop on his table.
“Take them back,” he says without looking at me.
“I didn’t bring them for you. I just happened to have them, so you might as well eat.”
“No.”
“Then I’m not eating either.”
He tilts his tablet to the side to stare at me. “Did you abandon your common sense in a different time zone? Why the fuck would you starve because I’m choosing not to eat?”
“I like company when I eat.”
“The whole plane is your company.”
“I don’t know the whole plane. So if you don’t want me to starve, you might as well pick up that sandwich.”
“Whether you starve or stuff your stomach with food has zero effect on me.”
I pretend his words don’t create holes inside me as I fake a smile and act like I’m scrolling through my phone.
But I don’t eat.
Masochism is apparently one of my traits. Or maybe I’m trying to see if he really doesn’t care about me.
The wait is exactly ten minutes. With a grunt, he unwraps the sandwich and takes a big bite. He pauses, probably his nausea hitting him, but then he chews slowly and swallows.
I can’t help but grin as I grab my fork and knife.
“Wipe it off,” he growls.
“What?” I ask innocently, taking a bite of the meatballs.
“That fucking smile on your face.”
That only allows it to widen and he releases a sound, but he doesn’t say anything as he finishes the sandwich in a few more bites.
“I didn’t do it for you.”
“Then who did you do it for?”
“Myself, so I don’t have to carry you when you faint.”
“Whatever you say, Dan.”
His lips twist. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why? It disarms you?”
“More like it revolts me. That sandwich is trying to find its way out in a less glamorous way than how it went in.”
I see it then. The reason behind his cold, cutting words. It’s clear in the depth of his eyes, right below the surface, there’s a vulnerability, a weakness he’s going the extra mile to hide.
“If you say so,” I say sweetly, which clearly pisses him off. But before he can come back with his sarcastic, hurtful remarks, I change the subject. “When was the last time you went back to London?”
“Never.”
I pause eating. “Really?”
“Want a look at my travel history?”
“But why?”
“Why what?”
“Why have you never gone back?”
“England is too small for me now.”
“Bullshit.”
He lets the iPad drop on his lap and glares at me. “Getting fluent in cursing, I see.”
“I learned from the best. And you’re not changing the subject. Why have you never gone back to England?”
“I don’t like the people there. That once included you, by the way.”
I ignore his attempts to egg me on. “What about your family?”
“My last words to Mum before I left were, ‘Grow a fucking backbone, Nora.’ Dad died in an accident with his mistress of the month after I told him to go fuck himself. My brother hates me because of all of the above.”
The food gets stuck in my throat. I was completely unaware of this, but I did hear about Benedict Sterling’s death during my first year in university. His gruesome accident was all over the news.
I remember the itch to check on Aunt Nora. She sent me chocolates and food after Mum’s scandal and was the only one out of the community who didn’t treat me as if I were a monster.
When her husband died, I wanted to visit her and be there for her. But the possibility of running into Daniel made me shrink back into my unwelcome university setting faster than a turtle into its shell.
“So you’re estranged from your family?”
“Congratulations on your newfound deduction skills, Sherlock.”
“You…don’t even talk on the phone?”
“Not really.”
“Even to Zach?”
“Especially to him, he speaks to me like a robot ever since he became the head of the family business. And the name is Zachariah.”
That was definitely annoyance in his tone, but I’m not entirely sure of the reason behind it.
“But you guys were so close.”
“Not enough, apparently.” A grim shadow covers his face and I’m not sure if it’s because he hates how much he grew apart from his brother or something else.
“What about…” I clear my throat. “Astrid?”
“What about her?”
“You don’t visit her?”
“She visits me about twice a year and bugs me the rest of it with video calls and random texts about her annoying husband and loud spawns.”
My grip tightens on the fork. I knew he was still close with Astrid. I often heard them talking on the phone, and it was the only time he sounded carefree…happy. The only time his dimples were on display.
Doesn’t hurt any less.
The old, ugly pain has morphed into a knife and it’s currently stabbing at the surface, but I swallow the blade down with its blood.
“Good to see you’re still friends.”
“My turn to call bullshit, Peaches. You never liked Astrid.” He studies me closely. “Why?”
Because I was jealous of her. Of how easily she could make him laugh.
I still am.
“Stepsisters aren’t known to get along. Have you read Cinderella?”
“Boring and unrealistic.”
“It’s still true about the stepsisters part. I might have thought myself a princess, but I was the villain all along.”
“A gorgeous one at that.” He pauses. I pause. And it seems as if the entire plane pauses at his words.
Did he just call me…
“Did you just say I’m a gorgeous villain?”
He clears his throat. “You’re evading the actual subject. Was there any other reason why you didn’t like Astrid?”
“No.” I take a sip of my water.
Daniel unwraps the lollipop and sticks it in his mouth. It should be comical that a solicitor with as much charm and charisma as he has is sucking on a lollipop, but it’s the exact opposite.
He looks hotter than the sun and all of its planets and I have to stop myself from gawking like the teenage idiot version of me.
“How about you?” he asks.
“How about me?”
“Are you keeping in touch with any of your, and excuse my bloody French, pathetically vain, irrevocably selfish bitch friends?”
“They were never my friends.”
“Not even Chloe?”
“Not even her. She blocked me faster than cancel culture after Mum was arrested. Being acquainted with a murderer’s daughter was bad for her daddy’s business.”
“Her daddy is bad for his own business. He went bankrupt, so she got herself a sugar daddy instead.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, saw them in Boston once. Seventy years old and with a heart condition that can’t handle Viagra. Anyone can see her soul evaporating from her body, probably thinking about sucking that wrinkly dick for her next Rolls-Royce.”
It’s wrong, but I chuckle, unable to hold it in. “You’re bad.”
“She said that, too, when I gave her my card and informed her that once he’s dead, his sons will sue her for everything, including the Rolls-Royce. So all the dick sucking is for nothing. She had other choice words for me as well, but they’re as important as her existence. I don’t remember them.”
I smile, but it must appear sad, nostalgic. “She was the one who tattled on you, you know. She was always jealous of me and slept with every boy who showed interest in me. She told me so herself before she blocked me.”
His eyes narrow. “Maybe I’ll find her husband’s sons, after all. Do the world a favor and get rid of gold-diggers.”
“Are you serious?”
“Hundred percent. Though letting her suck wrinkly dick for a few more years is also tempting.”
“Aren’t you the vindictive one?”
“Never claimed otherwise.” He pops the lollipop out and I realize he was actually sucking on it all this time.
He didn’t crush it like he usually does.
My blood turns hot and a crazy idea materializes in my head.
Pushing my tray to the side, I lean over and wrap my lips around the candy.
My eyes remain on his as I suck on it. Fire erupts in his blue gaze, but then he releases the lollipop, a sheen of indifference covering his features.
I’m the one who crushes the candy this time, to match the havoc wreaking in my chest.
He doesn’t want to touch me, doesn’t even want to see me in a sexual light.
When he was the one who demanded to fuck me.
When he was the one who lit my world ablaze after years of being apathetically numb.
He really is disgusted with me, isn’t he?
Just like back then. It’s ending before it even started.
