Page 21 of The Island of Hopes and Dreams

Lola cast her eyes across the pool to Zoe, who was resting back against Freddie, her slender legs crossed. Lola pursed her lips and nodded in Zoe’s direction. ‘Did she help you out with the house?’

Rhys shook his head. ‘She only moved in after I’d finished doing it up…’

From the way he trailed off, he obviously understood that he’d been used; Lola didn’t need to spell it out for him. Zoe had been with him when it suited her and moved on when it hadn’t. That wasn’t love. Love was when someone stuck with you through the good and bad times, supported you unconditionally, were as much a friend as a lover, allowed you to breathe and grow, rather than supress or cage you, and didn’t run away when things got difficult or monotonous. But then what the hell did she know about love when she’d never truly experienced it, only seen it from afar?

Perhaps Rhys was too quiet, sensitive and reticent for someone like Zoe, but on the flip side maybe she never gave him a chance; it didn’t sound as if they’d talked, at least not properly. They hadn’t delved beneath the surface enough to understand each other. When Lola had delved beneath the surface with Jarek, she hadn’t liked what she’d found one bit. Although with Rhys and Zoe, it might have been as simple as them wanting different things. Rhys had the responsibility of a house and a mortgage, whereas Zoe sounded as if she’d been clinging on to the fun and freedom of their student days – actually, she seemed to still be doing that, Freddie too. Maybe they were perfect for each other, while Rhys had been the wrong man for her.

Zoe had been the wrong woman for him; that sounded a hell of a lot better.

‘What happened to put you off men and relationships?’ Rhys’s question broke her train of thought.

Lola watched Gareth pick his way across the rock in his beach shoes. He was confident in his ability to dive into the pool like a pro and in his looks. His ridged chest gave Freddie a run for his money in the muscle stakes, except he was taller and leaner without Freddie’s bulk. No wonder Rhys was sitting on the rock with his T-shirt still on. Not that he should compete with his friends, but he wasn’t as in-your-face confident as them, which was one of the things she liked most about him. Lola knew she was stalling over whether to open up to Rhys; they’d talked frankly already, but confiding in him about Jarek felt meaningful. Then again, he’d just worn his heart on his sleeve over Zoe.

‘I haven’t gone off men,’ Lola said slowly. ‘It’s more about not wanting to end up in an unhealthy relationship again. My ex-boyfriend wasn’t a good person.’ The words caught in her throat and that constant knot of tension in her chest grew.

She glanced around. Deni was in the pool with Sarah; no one was in earshot, it was just her and Rhys and there was something about the way he was looking at her, patiently waiting for her to speak rather than pushing for her to open up, that made her want to.

She traced her fingers across the pockmarks, ridges and grooves of the rock and concentrated on the warmth of the sun on her face. Rhys’s gentle breathing was soothing and Sarah’s throaty chuckle drifting from the pool grounded her. Talking about him wouldn’t hurt her; trying to contain her feelings and deal with the aftermath by herself had done no good.

Lola loosed a breath. ‘Everyone loved Jarek. Everyone apart from Mirabel; that should have been the biggest warning sign, but I ignored it because I was in love.’ Lola scratched a fingernail across the rock, back and forth, back and forth, as an image of Jarek when they’d first met invaded: handsome in a way that had made her stop in her tracks, in a well-cut suit, his tie loosened and the top couple of shirt buttons undone. He’d smelled delicious, a seductive spiced scent, and he’d wooed her with wit, charm and intelligence as much as a sexiness that had left her breathless and made her so sure that sleeping with him at the end of their second date was the right thing to do.

Lola cleared her throat. ‘He was someone who on paper was too good to be true, but then so is Fabs, so I know it’s possible for someone to be good-looking, kind, thoughtful, wealthy, have a stellar career, be the whole damn package.’

‘But Jarek wasn’t like Fabs?’

‘No, and Mirabel knew it. She saw through his perfect veneer, or at least got a sense that he was hiding the real him. Not that she knows quite how right she was.’

‘Did he hurt you?’ Rhys’s voice guttered, the warmth of his arm brushing against hers anchoring her to the present when she was at risk of spiralling off into fear at the memories.

‘Not physically, no.’ Her voice sounded small against the splashing from the pool and their friends’ laughter. The intensity of the ever-growing knot in her chest reminded her why even talking about Jarek was a bad idea, when she’d do anything to erase him from her life, both the memory and the destructive feelings. With the distance of time, it was hard to believe how she could have been so easily drawn in, except he’d fed off her fear and delighted in the control. That was who he was. She’d eventually realised, but by then it had been too late to get out unscathed. But she had escaped; that was the thought she needed to hold on to. And in Rhys’s comforting presence she wanted to rid herself of the burden of secrecy.

‘He was mentally and emotionally abusive,’ she said quietly, echoing Rhys’s stance by wrapping her arms around her knees. ‘The bruises are all hidden, which is why he got away with it. I’ve tried to cover up the parts of me he destroyed – in many ways, I’m pretending to be who I was before I met him. Someone confident and carefree, sociable and fun-loving. I have to work hard to behave in the way I used to. He shredded my confidence and made me question my decisions, my feelings, how I felt about my job, my friends, my family, about myself, until everything revolved around him.’

Lola took a deep breath of the salty air. Someone took a running dive not far from them, and the cool spray of water was delicious on her hot skin. Her arms were wrapped so tightly around her legs, she felt as if she was suffocating, the memories dragging her under into the cool, quiet depths of the glinting pool before her.

Rhys was silent. He reached his hand across and gently prised her fingers apart so he could slide his into hers. The gesture said more than words and comforted her too.

‘He was charming until he’d hooked me in completely. I told him I loved him and he said it back. He chipped away at my self-esteem so slowly that I didn’t notice until I found myself spending all my time with him. If I suggested us going out with my friends there’d be a reason not to and suddenly my life was consumed by him and I hardly saw anyone outside of work.’

‘Did they notice?’

‘Mirabel did, but that was because she hadn’t warmed to him from the beginning, but Deni and other friends just believed I was loved up and in the honeymoon phase. But everything ended up revolving around him. I stayed at his place, because he preferred it to mine. We went to the places he wanted to go to and we started to do things together, never with friends of mine. I remember Deni inviting us to a dinner party and he didn’t want to go and begged me not to either, so I made some lame excuse. Then he ignored me all evening. Apart from work colleagues, he didn’t really have friends – another red flag I missed. The only respite I had was when he travelled to New York for a week or two for work. His family lived in the US so we never saw them, something I didn’t think much of because I’m not close to my parents. Jarek wasn’t keen on visiting my parents, then talked me out of going to see them even by myself.’ Lola dragged in another breath of warm salty air. ‘When we talked about my parents, he’d focus on the things that were wrong and unhealthy between my parents and me. He tried to alienate us like he did with my friends. He knew what to say for the most impact and he was deft at moulding me into the person he wanted me to be, one who I didn’t recognise. He charmed me into loving him, then destroyed my spirit in order to control me.’

It felt absurd talking about the two years of her life he’d stolen, when she’d felt small and helpless, in a landscape that still made her feel small but somehow powerful. The wild beauty surrounding them was dangerous yet freeing. It mirrored her own journey because she had escaped and was physically free of Jarek, yet she was still wounded and tortured by the memories of how he’d treated her, particularly when he was still trying to edge his way into her life. Despite having got out, she still felt like a broken version of her former self.

Neither she nor Rhys should allow the damaging influence of their ex-partners to shape their lives the way the sea had carved out the Cane Malu pool. Except the pool was curved and smoothed from the sea’s caress while Lola was full of jagged edges that kept snagging and getting rebroken, reminding her of the pain and fear that still had a hold on her.

‘How did you get out?’ Rhys asked softly.

‘I had the opportunity to travel to Dubai as part of the team for a huge New Year’s Eve bash with Starlight. I’d already said no to things because of him; his constant pressure for me to conform to what he wanted was impacting my work and I just snapped. So I didn’t tell him and went. I changed the locks on my apartment and only let him know where I was going and that we were over when I was on the plane. You must think that makes me sound like Zoe?’

‘Not even close.’

Rhys’s fingers were warm and tight between her own. She turned to him as tears threatened to spill. ‘When you’re constantly told you’re worthless or nothing without someone, you eventually begin to believe it.’

‘But you’re not, Lola.’ Rhys pulled her close. ‘You’re everything without him. That’s what you need to believe.’

12

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