‘No.’ He shakes his head adamantly.
‘Yes,’ I counter, my motionless body coming back to life and beginning to shake. ‘You sell yourself.’
‘No, Livy.’
In my peripheral vision, I see Crystal lower from the stool. ‘I love drama, but I have a fat, balding bastard of a husband who’ll have to suffice for this evening.’
Miller swings violently towards her. ‘You’ll keep this to yourself.’
She smiles and rubs his arm. ‘I’m not a gossip, Miller.’
He scoffs and she laughs as she sashays out of the bar, taking the fur coat that’s held out by the cloakroom attendant on her way.
Miller yanks a wallet from his pocket and throws a pile of notes onto the bar, and then takes my neck. ‘We’re leaving.’
I don’t fight him off. I’m in shock, I feel sick, and my head is ringing. I can’t even think clearly to comprehend what’s happening. I feel my legs moving beneath me, but I don’t seem to be going anywhere. I can feel my heart beating wildly, but I don’t seem to be able to breathe. My eyes are open, but all I can see is my mother.
‘Livy?’
I look up at him blankly, finding sorrow, anguish and torment. ‘Tell me I’m dreaming this,’ I murmur quietly. It’ll be the worst dream ever, but as long as it’s not real, I don’t care. Please let me wake up.
His face screws up in defeat as he stops walking, bringing me to a halt by the giant glass doors. He looks totally beaten. ‘Olivia, I wish I could say yes.’
I’m pulled into his arms and compressed against his chest violently, but I don’t return his thing. I’m numb.
‘We’re going home.’ He tucks me into his side and leads me onto the street. We walk some distance, neither one of us saying anything, me because I physically can’t and Miller because I know he doesn’t know what to say. I might’ve been rendered useless by shock, but my brain is working better than ever before, and it’s making me relive memories that I’ve already spent too much time on recently. My mother. Me. And now Miller.
I’m bundled into his car carefully, like he’s worried I might break. I might – if I’m not broken already. I want to rewind the evening, change so many things, but where would I be then, apart from unaware and completely in the dark?
‘Would you like me to take you home?’ he asks quietly, settling cautiously in his seat.
I turn my blank face to his. The roles are reversed. It’s him showing all of the emotion now, not me. ‘Where else would I want to go?’ I ask.
His eyes drop, he starts the engine, and I’m driven home with Snow Patrol reminding me to open my eyes.
The journey is slow, like he’s dragging it out, making it last for the longest time, and when he slowly pulls up outside Nan’s house, I open the door to get out without delay.
‘Livy.’ He sounds desperate as he seizes my arm and stops me from getting any further, but he says no more. I’m not sure what he can say, and he clearly doesn’t either.
‘What?’ I ask, hoping I’m going to wake at any moment and find myself wrapped in his thing, safe in his bed away from the cold harshness of the reality that I’ve found myself in – a reality that is all too familiar.
The silence is disturbed by Miller’s phone, and he stabs at the reject button on a curse, but it soon rings again. ‘Fuck!’ he yells, tossing it onto the dashboard. It stops and chimes again.
‘You’d better get that.’ I pull my arm from his grip. ‘I expect they are all prepared to hand over their thousands for a night with London’s most notorious male escort. You may as well make some extra cash while you f**k a woman. I must owe you thousands.’
I ignore his wince and leave him in the car with a face full of hurt, set on throwing all my energy into getting over the second prostitute I’ve been landed with in my short life. Except this one accepted and comforted me. This one will be harder to get over. No, this one will be impossible to get over. I can feel a darker solitude awaiting me.
Chapter 24
When dawn breaks, I’m still staring blankly up at the ceiling of my bedroom. It was a catch-22 situation – fall asleep and have nightmares, or stay awake and live them. My decision was made for me. I couldn’t sleep. My poor mind isn’t being given any respite and my eyes are being bombarded with flashbacks of his face. I’m in no fit state to face the world. Just as I feared, I’m further in solitary than I ever was before I met Miller Hart.
My mobile chimes from my bedside table and I reach over, knowing it could be only one of two people, but going by the defeated look on Miller’s face last night, I’m opting for Gregory. He’ll want the lowdown from the rest of my weekend with the coffee-hater. I’m right. I feel no guilt as I reject his call and let the voicemail pick it up. I can’t speak to anyone. I fire him a quick text.
Late 4 work. Call u later. Hope u r ok xx
I might be late, I’m not sure, but it doesn’t matter because I’m not going anywhere, except further under my covers where it’s dark and silent. I hear the creaking of floorboards, and then the chirpy singing of Nan. It makes my eyes swell with tears again, but I brush them determinedly away when she barrels into my room and hits me with delighted navy eyes.
‘Morning!’ she chirps, making her way to my curtains and flinging them open. The morning light attacks my eyes.
‘Nan! Shut the curtains!’ I burrow under my covers, escaping the brightness but mostly escaping the look of her cheerful face. It’s eating me up inside.
‘But you’ll be late.’
‘I don’t have to work today.’ I’m on autopilot as I blurt an excuse to keep me in bed and hopefully Nan away. ‘I’m working Friday night so Del gave me today off. I’m going to catch up on some sleep.’ I keep my face hidden under the covers and even though I can’t see her, I know she’s smiling.
‘Didn’t get much sleep at Miller’s over the weekend, then?’ The delight in her tone cripples me.
‘No.’ This is a ridiculously inappropriate conversation to be having with my grandmother, but I know it’ll pacify her and give me some peace . . . for now. I have no room to accept any guilt for lying to her.
‘Wonderful!’ she cries. ‘I’m going shopping with George.’ I feel her hand rub my back over the bedcovers briefly before her footsteps get quieter and the door to my room closes.
Finding the strength to break my split with Miller to Nan will have to wait until I can think of a plausible reason. She won’t settle for anything less than a full explanation. She doesn’t love Miller Hart; she loves the idea of me being happy and in a stable relationship. But if I’m mistaken and she does love Miller, then I can soon remedy that . . . but I won’t. My recent revelation will only stir ghosts for Nan, too. She might be spunky, but she’s still an old lady. I’ll suffer this darkness alone.
I relax into my mattress and attempt to find sleep, hoping my dreams don’t bring more nightmares.
I was hoping in vain. My sleep was restless, seeing me waking regularly, sweating, breathless, and mad. I give up come evening. After forcing myself to shower, I lie wrapped in a towel on the bed, trying to rid my mind of Miller and desperately trying to seek something else to focus on. Anything other than him.
I should join a gym. I bolt upright in bed. I have joined a gym. ‘Bollocks!’ I grab my phone and note that I have forty minutes to get myself to my induction. I can do it, and it’s the perfect distraction. They say working out alleviates stress and gets the feel-good pheromones pumping. It’s just what I need. I swing into a rushed frenzy, stuffing some leggings, an oversized T-shirt and my white Converse into a bag. I’ll look like a complete amateur, with no sporty-looking get-up in sight, but it’ll do for now. I’ll go shopping. I bundle my heavy hair up with a hair tie as I scurry down the landing, coming to a stop when my phone declares the arrival of a text message. Walking slowly down the stairs, my heart drops with each step I take when I see it’s him.
I’ll be at Langan’s Brasserie on Stratton St at 8.
I want my four hours.
My arse hits the step halfway down the stairs, and I stare at the message, reading it over and over. He’s had far more than his four hours already. What point is he trying to make here? He’s holding me to a deal which was made weeks ago, and has since been quashed by feelings and too many encounters to list. He even said himself that it was a stupid deal. It really was a stupid deal. It still is a stupid deal.
His unreasonable demand stirs years of anger until it’s fizzing uncontrollably in my gut. I’ve battled years of self-torture. I’ve beat myself up trying to understand what my mother found that was more important than me and my grandparents. I’ve watched the agony she caused affect my dear nan and gramps, and I’ve tinkered too close to causing more agony myself. I still could, if Nan ever discovered where I really was during my disappearing spell. He’s listened to me spill my heart to him, he drowned me in compassion, and all the while he was the king of debasement? I glance back down at his message. He thinks by reverting back to the clipped, arrogant arsehole he’ll have me falling at his feet again? A red mist falls, blocking the questions I want to ask and the answers I need to find. I can see nothing except resentment, hurt and burning anger. I’m not going to the gym to lash out my hurt on a treadmill or punchbag. Miller can take it all.
I jump up and dash to my bedroom, snatching down the third and final dress from my shopping trip with Gregory. Giving it a good inspection, I conclude very quickly that he’ll disintegrate before my eyes. Holy shit, it’s lethal. I have no idea what possessed me to allow Gregory to talk me into buying it, but I’m so glad I did. It’s red, it’s backless, it’s short, it’s . . . reckless.
Once I’ve taken my time to shower again, shaving everywhere and creaming from top to toe, I wriggle into the dress. The design won’t allow for a bra, which, annoyingly, isn’t a problem for me and my sparse chest. I flip my head upside down and blast my masses of blond into perfect waves that tumble freely, then I apply some make-up, concentrating on keeping it natural, just how he likes it. My new black stilettos and bag finish me off and, deciding a jacket will spoil the effect, I’m soon darting down the stairs faster than is safe.
The door swings open before I make it there, Nan and George halting all conversation when they clock me flying towards them.
‘Wowzers!’ George blurts, then apologises profusely when Nan scowls at him. ‘Sorry. Bit of a shock, that’s all.’
‘Are you going out with Miller?’ Nan looks like she’s just hit the jackpot at bingo.
‘Yes.’ I rush past them.
‘Jolly good!’ she sings. ‘See how she rocks the red, George?’
I don’t hear George’s reply, although I gather from his reaction to my red-clad body that it was a resounding yes.
By the time I’ve run halfway down the street to the main road, I’m verging on breaking out in a sweat, so I slow my pace, also thinking that I should be fashionably late – make him sweat. I hover on the corner for a few minutes, ironically feeling like a hooker, before I flag down a cab and tell him my destination.
I check my make-up in the reflection of the window, make a fuss of my hair and brush my dress down, making certain that it won’t be creased. I’m being as precise as Miller, but I bet he hasn’t got butterflies in his stomach, and I’m damning myself to hell for having a whole farm of them fluttering around in my tummy.
When the cabbie turns onto Piccadilly towards Stratton Street, I glance at the dashboard clock. It’s five past eight. I’m not late enough, and I need a cash machine, too. ‘This will do,’ I say, rummaging through my purse and passing over my only twenty. ‘Thank you.’ I slide out as elegantly as possible and stride down a busy Piccadilly, where on a weeknight evening I look ridiculously overdressed. This only heightens my self-consciousness, but remembering what Gregory told me, I try my very hardest to appear confident – like I always make this much effort. Once I’ve found a cashpoint, I withdraw some money and round the corner onto Stratton Street. It’s eight-fifteen, making me a perfect quarter of an hour late. The door is opened for me and I take a deep breath of confidence, entering looking cool and self-assured, when on the inside I’m wondering what the frigging hell I’m doing.