Just You (7 page)

He straightened up and withdrew. I smiled; probably a stupid Cheshire cat smile.

He looked down. “What the fuck. Bullshit. The condom’s split.”

“OMG.” I turned and grabbed a tissue off the counter. “Use that. I’ll get a morning after pill tomorrow.”

He slipped the wreckage off and walked over to the bin, holding his pants up with his other hand.

“Sorry,” I said, quietly, “It was old… and… regular-sized…”

He glanced over his shoulder as he flipped the bin open with his foot, and gave me a quick smile. “I’ll take that as compliment.”

“The size thing was meant as one.”

He laughed.

I smiled.

Once he’d dumped the condom, he turned, his hand still gripping his pants. “Are you worried? I know I’m clean, you don’t need to panic. I haven’t got anything. I got tested after I found out the last girl I went with slept around a lot. I’ve been off it for weeks since that.”

My smile twisted. “I’ve been off it for a year…”

His eyebrows lifted. “A year?”

“Since I came to New York.”

“No way. I thought you had loads of guys dangling from leashes you kept on every finger.” He was back beside me. I slapped his arm. He just smiled. “Well you’re beautiful, Portia, and you were chasing after Jason, and eyeing up Mr. Rees…”

“I do not eye up Mr. Rees.”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t been busy calculating possibilities…”

“Not like you think.”

“Well anyway…” Justin slipped between my legs again, “I don’t want to talk about anyone else, or work, when I’ve got you naked.”

“Are you worried about me?” I offered. He’d given me his history.

“Should I be?”

“No, I’ve only had one boyfriend. We were together for three years. We split up before I came to New York. He was my first, and I was his, so, you’re safe.”

His free hand lifted and his fingers brushed back my hair. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“I got you all wrong. I’ve been judging you by your rich-club voice. That isn’t who you are. That’s just what you sound like.”

I smiled.

“Who broke up with who?” he asked.

“I ended it, I wanted more. I didn’t want to be my Mom. Mrs. Perfect, with a perfect house and a perfect life. I’m not like my parents. I’d have been bored …  And he was so convinced I should think him perfect. He’s from their world. His family are members of Dad’s club in California.”

“His club?”

“He doesn’t own it. It’s like a golf and sports club, where people like my parents hang out. Like you said, a club for the rich.”

His brow furrowed. “Are you really not like them? Have I been judging you by your parents’ money too?”

His words cut. That was an insult. I pointed at the room and then looked back at him. “Do I look like I am?” Irritation bristled in my nerves, cold anger as old conversations with my ex and my parents flew through my head.

He smiled.

I made a face at him. “I was brought up to speak well, it doesn’t mean I treat the world like a playground, and other people like toys…”

“I wasn’t accusing you, just saying… It’s just, at work, you’re different. And sorry, Portia, but you do come across arrogant, a little, and untouchable–a lot.” Both his hands came up and gripped my head, his palms pressing against my cheeks as he looked into my eyes. “But it’s probably because you’ve been on your own too long. I get you now–and you’re not like that.”

Anger still hummed in my head anyway.

He kissed me, brushing his lips over mine, again and again, sending my temperature soaring and my temper out the door.

My fingers gripped his hard buttocks and a sharp, nice, pain caught in my belly.

His fingers slipped under my thighs as he broke the kiss and whispered, “Why don’t we get our money’s worth out of that morning-after pill?”

That twisted an even sharper spasm in my belly.

He picked me up and my legs gripped about his waist as my arms clung around his neck. He turned and carried me to the bed.

I should be annoyed with him still, for calling me arrogant, but with his skin brushing against mine, and a prominent promise pressing between us, why the hell be angry?

He dropped me, kneeling over me, and I bounced onto the mattress, laughing. Then he straightened up and stripped off his pants, boots and socks.

The muscle in his legs and buttocks shifted under his glistening skin as the moonlight from the skylight painted him, and when he turned, his erection bounced, several inches of flesh pointing at me as he came down onto the bed…

Chapter Five

When Justin walked into the office, his hands were buried in the pockets of his Parka coat. He glanced at me, and as he did, he threw me a smile. I smiled too. He’d left my room at five a.m., after we’d had a second round and then fallen asleep for a little while. He’d gone home to take his brother to school, so his mom could go to work.

A few minutes after he’d sat down at his desk I got an email. ‘Did you get your pill?’

‘:-) Yeah.’

‘Everything okay?”

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you fancy going somewhere for lunch?’

‘That would be nice. But not Starbucks, the deli down the street.’

‘Okay.’

‘Come to my office.’ Mr. Rees usually rang me, not emailed.

‘Coming now, Mr. Rees.’

‘I’ve got to go and see Mr. Rees, Justin. We’ll catch up at lunch.’

‘Yeah. Good luck!’

I grabbed my pad and pen, and headed over, instantly feeling like I’d done wrong. Every time I had to face him, I felt like that. It reminded me of having to speak to Dad when I was a kid. There was always something I’d not done well enough, and never any gratitude or congratulations.

The black eye Mr. Rees had come into work with the weekend after New Year had come down from a dark purple to a disgusting black and yellow. Someone had hit him, but he’d brushed it off and said he’d walked into a door.

Yeah, the sort of door with a fist on it. He’d pissed someone off.

“There’s some letters on there.” He slid the Dictaphone across the desk toward me. “I need them typed up today.”

“Okay. Is there anything else, Mr. Rees?”

“And I need a present for my wife.”

Why, what have you done?
The gifts Dad bought Mom had always meant an apology. Maybe the guy who’d given him a pounding the other week was someone to do with the woman he’d been having an affair with, or his betrayed wife. I wished someone would deliver a similar judgment on my dad. He deserved it.

Yeah, Mr. Rees was like my dad–but a small-time version of him.

Dad had more money, more power, more reach, and probably more women…

“What type of present?”

“Something more than flowers, but it can go with flowers.”

“Jewelry?”. I thought of all the jewelry we’d discovered in a room we’d gone through back at his place New Year’s Eve, his mistress’ stuff. Maybe his wife had finally had enough and called him out… I wished Mom would do the same to Dad…

That shoved the day I’d caught my dad out in my face. It had led to the massive fight I’d had with Daniel, and that had been the end of life as I’d known it.

But it hadn’t been a life… Not really.

“A necklace might be nice. I’m taking her out. She’ll be wearing dark blue, if you can find something appropriate?”

I wanted to flip him off and chuck his Dictaphone down on his desk, and storm out. I didn’t, I needed this job, it was paying my bills, ‘cause there was no way I was letting Dad pay them. I was done with being manipulated in the way people like Mr. Rees and Dad manipulated people–with money and presents.

Being reminded of that life dunked me in a bath of ice. It woke me up. Yeah he was like Dad, and his marriage was probably just like my parents’? Dad didn’t have a mistress, as far as I knew, but he’d been with lots of other women, while Mom turned her back and carried on.

Romance. Happy endings. Love. Bullshit crafted by fairytales and Disney. I didn’t believe in it. It wasn’t what I was looking for. I’d made my mind up a year ago.

When I went back to my desk, I plugged in my earphones and listened to his dictation, my fingers moving over the keys automatically, as my brain skimmed through why I hated love.

I could still see Dad’s face when Daniel and I had walked in on him dining with some twenty-something Swedish girl. He’d taken her out to a restaurant in a hotel twenty minutes from where we were staying, and left Mom back at our chalet. Shame for him it just happened to be the same one Dan had decided to take me to. Or perhaps no shame–he didn’t really care–just asked me to say nothing so it wouldn’t hurt Mom.

Dan and I went straight back to the chalet, and I saw from Mom’s face, she knew what was going on.

When I’d been a child coming home on those rare occasions in the holidays, I’d watched him, always making people laugh. He was a social junky. He loved being around people and getting all the attention. But I hadn’t realized then he’d been flirting too, and then I’d finally understood why he didn’t want me there. His kid had cramped his style. That was why I’d been packed off, so Mom could keep her perfect fake life, and he could play away.

That was when Dan and I had split up too, because he’d agreed I shouldn’t tell Mom, he’d said she was fine, she had what she wanted, a nice house and stuff… I’d told him to get lost. He’d flown back to California that night.

What I’d thought would by my own Disney tale of love with a happy ending had turned into a horror story. But it had opened my eyes. I knew the truth now. I wasn’t writing anymore fairytales.

~

Portia hadn’t looked at me all morning. She’d been staring at her screen, working.

I knew ‘cause I’d spent half my morning glancing at her, all I could see was the curve of her cheek, and the tip of her mascara coated eyelashes. Both times I’d seen her at the weekend she’d had no makeup on.

The Portia here wore makeup like a warrior; she was tougher.

I couldn’t believe I knew the person under that. They were too different people. I’d got her completely wrong.

An email appeared in my inbox at ten to twelve.

‘When are we going to lunch?’

‘Whenever you want to go.’

‘Twelve would be good, I’ve got to go out and do something for Mr. Rees after lunch.’

‘Twelve then. I’ll leave first and meet you there.’

Half an hour later we sat in the café, eating, facing each other. She was still her office self. She’d hardly spoken, just picking at her salad.

“I can’t go out tonight. I’ve got to mind my brothers but tomorrow, Mom’s not working, we could go to the cinema if you want?”

“Is that a date?” Her pitch was sarcastic and cutting.

Shit, when she was in this mood, she could be a bitch, and she was totally patronizing.

I frowned at her. “You know I said you were arrogant in the office. Well you’re being arrogant. Yes, a date. What’s so wrong with me asking you to go somewhere? Most girls would love that I’m asking you out and not just expecting sex.”

She shrugged and took a mouthful of salad, chewing it at the same time as she made a face at me.

“So, do you want to go out with me or not? ‘Cause I am quite happy with not going if you’re going to get all stiff again–like I’m not good enough for you. Believe me, there are plenty of girls who think I am, Portia.”

She swallowed her mouthful. “I didn’t say that–”

“No, but you’re acting like it.”

She shrugged again and then blew out a long breath. “Look, Mr. Rees, pissed me off.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s like my dad. He wants me to buy his wife presents to smooth over some fight they’ve had. What’s the value in me buying them anyway? It’s meant to be him saying sorry…”

I leaned back in my chair, there was an undercurrent flowing.

She looked down at her bowl of salad, looking more like the Portia of the weekend, then left her fork resting on the edge of it and looked up. “I caught Dad out. He was with a woman. Mom just overlooks the affairs. Daniel and I split up over it, because he thought it wasn’t an issue. I’m just not in the mood for a cozy chat, okay?”

I leaned forward again, and gripped her fingers before she could pull them back. “Believe me, Portia, I know what that’s like. Dad played away the whole time my parents were together. Mom was always wondering where he was… and who with. I’m never gonna be like that. It’s something I could never do. I’ve seen what it’s like at the other end, okay?…”

Her fingers slipped from mine sharply. “I wasn’t thinking of you. That isn’t what we’ve got going on anyway. I’m just pissed off with Mr. Rees.”

“You didn’t seem to care at his party?”

“I was drunk at his party. I make stupid errors when I’m drunk.”

“Including me?”

“Justin, stop putting words into my mouth–I’m pissed off with Mr. Rees, no one else. And yeah, I’ll go to the cinema with you tomorrow night, but right now, I need to go and find his wife a fucking necklace. Perhaps I’ll have it engraved,
P.S. your husband is a cheating bastard
.”

She stood up, grabbing her coat off the back of her chair.

“He has kids, Portia.”

“I know. I wouldn’t really do that. I’m just angry. Shall we do lunch again tomorrow?”

“If you want? If you’re not gonna bowl into here like a tornado, and whirl off again…”

She shook her head at me. At last, I caught a slight smile.

I stood up too, and before she could turn and walk off, I grabbed her arm, turned her back a little and bent and pressed a sharp kiss on her forehead. It was like pressing an iron brand on her. I wanted this girl. I wanted her to be mine. Pride punched me in the gut when I’d first seen her today.

She gave me a shaky smile, then turned, her arm slipping from my grip.

Chapter Six

Oh my God, it was freezing, and I was starting to think Justin was a little bit mad. We’d been seeing each other for four weeks off and on, more on than off. At least twice a week he planned some outing,
a date
, and at least three times a week he ended up around mine and we had sex.