Page 50 of Highest Bid

Chapter Eighteen

Layla sat cross-legged on the beach, the wrapped takeaway package of fish and chips warming her lap. A seagull cawed as it soared overhead, and the melancholy she’d been withholding abruptly hit front and center as she looked up with a sad smile.

“Hi, Bud.” Somehow she knew it was the same gull that’d been hovering over her and Galan’s head almost three weeks earlier.

It’d already been five days since she’d left Galan and her job, and not looked back. But soon she’d have no choice but to return to her apartment, not least because she wouldn’t be re-signing its lease.

In the meantime, she’d keep nursing her broken heart, which still felt as raw and bloody as it had from the moment she’d seen Galan holding Sienna’s hands and telling the blonde he loved her.

She sighed, no longer hungry. But she unwrapped the parcel anyway. Even with the oversized meals that’d been sent up to her sparse bedroom on the top floor of the pub, she’d lost weight.

She popped a chip in her mouth, enjoying the salty crunch, despite her lack of appetite. It was weird how things worked out. The pub where she stayed had offered her employment and lodgings if she decided to stay. Although a part of her wanted to accept the offer, a bigger part of her screamed denial.

Even when she’d run away from her problems, she’d come to the one place that held dear memories for Galan. She fisted the material of the sundress she’d borrowed from a friendly barmaid. She’d been stupid returning to Kilmeedy Bay, yet it’d seemed as natural as breathing to direct the taxi driver to the tiny fishing village.

She threw a chip to the bird, and it cawed loudly as it caught the tidbit in its beak, then wheeled away with its tasty treat.

“That bird never gives up. Nor do I.”

Her breath caught at the too familiar voice, and she twisted her head before she drank in the man who’d occupied her every thought and dream since she’d left him behind. He looked different, older somehow, and even sexier in faded jeans and a black T-shirt.

Her fool heart leapt in her chest even as she croaked, “How did you find me?”

Galan managed a smile, but weariness edged his mouth and shadowed his eyes. “Pay someone enough money, and they’ll talk.”

She shook her head, her ponytail swinging. And whatever rage she’d kept inside her seemed to drain clean away. “The taxi driver.”

Galan shrugged. “He has bills to pay, a family to feed. He was also a sucker for a good love story.”

She turned her back on him. “The only sucker in that story was me.”

Galan sat beside her, and though there was space between them, there was no denying the rush of overwhelming awareness.

She should hate him.

She did hate him!

His stare was unwavering on her when he said, “You never answered my calls or texts.”

She shrugged, staring out over the expanse of sea. Another gull wheeled above the sparkling, aquamarine water. “I turned my phone off.”

“Your parents were worried, too.”

She turned to him then, freeing all the icy rage she’d managed to keep beneath the surface these last five days. “They worry about no one but themselves. As for your messages, nothing you say will change my mind about us. We’re over. Finished.”

His dark eyes flashed. “You don’t believe that for a second.”

She gaped. “You arrogant, conceited bastard. Do you think I left you—left everything—behind, for nothing?”

“And yet you came here,” he said quietly. “Why?”

She looked away. Why, indeed?

“I know why,” he answered. “You came here because this is your one safe place, not marred by doubt or mistrust. Am I right?”

“What does it matter?” she said wearily. “I trusted you, and that’s where I fucked up.”

“No. You fucked up by not continuing to trust me.”

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