Page 45 of Just Like You
I rubbed my wrist. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
“What did you do?” Juliet. Calm as anything.
“I was playing this little game, hiding my watches in his bag so I could be sure he would see me again. It made him laugh. He knows a lot about watches.”
“I don’t give a shit about watches, but go on.”
“You know your handbags. I couldn’t tell a Picotin from a Kelly even if it hit me in the face.”
“I’ll hit you in the face in a second,” she tutted. “I have the Birkin today, so it will hurt. Shiny crocodile leather, gold hardware. You’ll have a shiner for days.”
“Nothing I haven’t sported before.”
“You boys will be the death of me. What did I say earlier? I’m not your mum, but I sure feel like it. So, your watch?”
“My Rolex is in my suitcase at home. My Patek is in his cabin bag. I’m hoping he’ll finally unpack and find it, and then he will have to contact me.”
“Babe,” she whined. “You can’t just blackmail people like that. He’ll contact you if he wants to, not because you’ve planted your bling in his bag.”
“Bling.”
“Bling, darling. That’s all it is. It doesn’t matter.”
“It was thirty thousand pounds worth of…bling.”
“Small change.”
“Not when you have a broken heart.”
I hadn’t meant to say it like that, but she wrapped me up in a hug. Held me as I quietly sobbed. I was never like this. Not even when Gina had told me never ever to get naked in her presence again. Or when I’d almost lost my job because I couldn’t control my mouth. When things had been unbearable.
I couldn’t stand it. And Juliet just held me and shushed me, and I couldn’t understand how I’d become this broken.
Chapter Thirteen
Julian
Ithought I’d finally pieced myself together after returning to work and surviving two one-day trips in a row. Some godforsaken Greek island, there and back. Five hours in a tin can with a hundred and fifty poor souls crammed together in agony, having paid all their hard-earned cash for the promise of luxury and relaxation. I hated work when it was like that, but I’d honestly thought it would have helped clear my head. It hadn’t, and then I’d had to do it all againthe next day.
It hadn’t helped. Instead, I felt even worse because now I was dealing with a big healthy dose of guilt as well. If I was feeling like this? Then how must Kieron be feeling? And the most overwhelming question of all?
Why the hell did I care?
I did. Because I was me. I was an empathetic soul who cared too much, and as much as I tried to convince myself that my heart was truly made of concrete? Gah. That was a lie. And here I was, lying in my bed, once again letting his goddamn Patek watch twirl between my fingers.
I had the address for his office neatly written out on an envelope, ready to take down to that courier service on the high street. Easy. A five-minute job. Pay for extra insurance and dust myself down and move on.
I couldn’t bring myself to do it, because it was a shitty thing to do to another human being, and I knew far too well what that made me.
An arsehole of the highest degree.
So I did what I always did. I rang Sonny, who turned up on my doorstep with a crate of shopping and greasy fast food accompanied by a look of horror on his face.
“Babe,” he said. “I have gossip, and I have tea, I have everything a sad man needs, but you look like crap.”
“You bought chocolate buttons?” I tried to smile, when I felt like crying.
“Of course I have chocolate buttons, who do you think I am? But what’s important here is the gossip. Did you not listen? Gossip. Good stuff that will make you forget all about this weird state you’ve got yourself into. Now. You know me. This might sting a little, but at the end of the day? Babe? This is for the best.”
