Page 57 of Owen

Motherfucker.

Turning the phone around, I let Jade and Gregor read it.

When will he take the hint? I’m not going back.

As I stare at the phone, it suddenly dawns on me how he gained access. “He used my laptop at work. I’ve accessed my account from it before.” Angrily, I shout, “Fuck.” I slap my forehead with the palm of my hand, making it echo louder than I expected it to. “I have a flash drive I store my personal passwords on, in the locked drawer of my desk. But I’m the only one with the key.”

“Apparently not,” Gregor mutters.

Defeated, I close the app as I won’t be needing that anymore and shut down my phone.

The sheer dread and embarrassment of having to tell Jude makes me feel like a failure. I’ll tackle that phone call tomorrow.

“What’s done is done. It’s out of my control. My father has my money, and that’s that. End of story.” I want to draw a line under today and move on.

But I will not allow my father to control me, expecting me to run to him like one of his obedient hounds. I’m holding on to the little control Idohave left. He can’t physically make me return home, because he doesn’t know my whereabouts to make me; not yet.

Inhaling deeply, using all my willpower, I force a smile. “We need to wake Poppy up or she’ll never sleep tonight, and what are we doing for dinner?”

Gregor and Jade both look at me in shock as I flippantly move on with the rest of the day. The truth is, I’m fucking dying inside, but what do they expect me to do? As angry as I am about the money, I can’t do anything to change it. I’m powerless and my father knows it.

“Is that it? That’s all you’re going to say?” Gregor asks, puzzled by my U-turn.

“What do you expect me to say, Gregor? I have nothing left. Should I just give up and go home?”

Jade gasps, her touch soothing me as she glides her fingertips over the skin of my thighs. “Please don’t do that,” she begs, sounding desperate. “Please stay. Say you’ll stay. We’ve only just met, Owen. You can’t leave me, and Poppy adores you.”

I have no intention of going back, but she doesn’t know what she’s saying. There’s probably someone much better out there for her. And me? I’m just a boy toy like she said.

The indignity of having everything to losing it all weighs heavily on my chest. “I have two hundred euros in my wallet. That’s all the money I have.” A wave of nausea rolls over my stomach. “I’m at rock bottom. Homeless and penniless.” I push my hands out to the sides. “I have a suitcase of clothes and not much else, Jade.”

She lays her hand over my chest. “Don’t say that. You have a heart made of gold, Owen. That’s all that matters to me. And you have me, and Gregor, and my mom, who seems to think the sun shines out of your ass.” She tries making a joke, only it doesn’t land. My sense of humor is dead, not wanting to be revived.

“I’m going to make myself scarce.” Gregor moves to leave. Before he goes, he says, “I will give you money to tide you over, Owen. I would never see you stuck. And you’re moving in with me when we go back to England. I don’t live in the Officer’s Mess like some of the single guys do. I rent off camp.” Because he has a girlfriend and he’s yet to tell me what her name is.Sneaky fucker.“Like it or not, that’s what is happening.” He walks away from the bottom of the stairs, his phone in his hand, bank app open, ready to transfer me money, on a mission to help me.

I’m grateful that Gregor is on my side.

“Please promise me you won’t go back,” Jade pleads again. “Please stay. For me.” She gives my knee a squeeze.

What the fuck she sees in me, I’ll never know. I bob my head, remembering why I left. I don’t want to be controlled. I’m not planning to go back. “I’ll stay.”Because I can see my whole life in front of me. With her.“I promise I’ll stay.”I want to stay with her forever because I’m falling head over heels for her and I can’t stop myself falling. I don’t want to.

She drops her head to a bow, exhaling an enormous sigh of relief. “Thank you.” She lifts her head back up. “I feel happy when you’re around. You can’t leave me when we’ve only just begun.”

I’m not giving up. It wouldn’t surprise me if she gives up onme,though.

Not a single inch of me wants to fight my father. I simply want him to leave me be so I can get on with my future.

With no money to fall back on, it looks like I’ll have to start again and do everything the hard way, which I don’t mind. If I have Jade by my side, then I’m a winner either way. Good things rarely come easy.

“I need to get a job,” I state. That was always going to be the case. It’s just happening sooner than I expected.

“You’ll find one, no problem at all. You have great qualifications with heaps of experience in business and finance. Someone will snap you up.”

I don’t tell her I have no plans to return to work in that industry. I want to do something that has a lasting impact on people, and finance is not it.

Jade smiles, beaming at me as she stands, inviting me to do the same. “We’re agreed then, you can use the next few weeks while here in Cyprus to find a job around the area we are based in England, and you can move in with Gregor. Maybe.”

What does she mean,maybe?

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