Starr Fated (58 page)

“Thank you,” I
smiled, as I kissed him softly on his cheek. “You always know how
to make it so incredibly good for me, don't you?”

“I like to
think so, but it isn’t hard because you’re incredibly receptive and
responsive. And don't forget that you also make it wonderful for me
too.” He kissed me back very softly. “However, right now I think we
need to finish up our shower before we both end up looking like a
couple of old prunes.”

And so he
carefully washed me and shampooed my hair, massaging my head with
his big hands in such a relaxing way.

“Your hair is
even longer when it’s wet. It’s right down to your waist ,” he
commented as he directed the shower to rinse off the shampoo. “

“I guess it’s
hard to tell just how long it is when it’s doing its normal curly
thing,” I agreed. “I really ought to get it cut and tidied up.”

“No. I like it
just how it is. I’ve told you before. Don't get it cut,” Liam
insisted.

“Just a trim,
that’s all,” I argued.

Liam scowled
his disapproval. Maybe I'd borrow one of Abbey’s wigs and pretend
I’d had something really drastic done, just to shock him. Or maybe
not. Angry Liam would be pretty scary.

Then I
returned the favour and washed him, enjoying getting to know his
body, and enjoying shampooing his hair too.

Finally we
made it out of the shower and dried ourselves before heading for
the kitchen to prepare our meal. I just towel dried my hair, combed
it through to let it dry naturally.

“Have you ever
had longer hair?” I asked, as I watched Liam quickly comb his
through, as it naturally spiked up in the way I liked so much.
Weird thing was, I'd always thought I liked long dark wavy hair on
a guy, that I didn't like it if he was ripped, and that I preferred
the more artistic sensitive type rather than the Alpha male
dominant Liam Starr type of guy. Knowing how powerful the
attraction between us was, I couldn’t have got it more wrong, could
I?

“When I was a
teenager, yes. In my wild motor-biking, rebellious teenage years, I
had shoulder length hair.”

“I’d love to
see some pictures of you with long hair.”

“I’m not sure
I have any. Everything got cleared out and thrown away when my
father died.”

“Surely not
all your family pictures?” I asked incredulously. The box of family
photos I had was amongst my most treasured possessions, and was the
first thing I would grab if there was ever a fire. The thought of
someone just casually throwing away such treasures was horrifying
to me.

“There might
be a few left amongst some of the boxes of documents that were put
into storage,” he shrugged. “But most of the photos we had didn’t
exactly hold happy memories, so there didn’t seem much point in
keeping them.”

That just
seemed so sad that I went over and hugged him. Maybe this little
peek into his childhood went a long way to explaining the
apparently cold hearted man that he’d grown into. I hoped that the
changes I'd seen in him of late were signs that he was finally
finding a way to overcome his dysfunctional upbringing.

~*~

We made gentle
love that night in his bed, before we went to sleep in each other’s
arms. We both woke early on Monday morning, and while Liam headed
off to the gym for his usual swim and workout, I headed back to my
apartment to get ready for work.

“I have a very
busy schedule today after being out of the office all last week.
I’ll try to fit you in for our usual meeting, but give me a quick
call to check beforehand,” Liam suggested.

“Okay,” I
agreed.

I sighed
because weekend Liam had only come out to play for a such short
while this week, but I had to accept that was how things were
always going to be with him. The reason he was so successful was
because he was so driven and focussed and worked extremely hard. I
was lucky that he’d been spending so much of his precious time with
me lately.

I was so busy
that the morning just flew by, as Tom and I worked through the best
way to take forward some of the designs I’d come up with before I
showed them to Liam.

I made my way
through to Liam’s office for our meeting, but I stopped at the
closed door when I heard the unmistakable sound of animated voices
– Liam’s deep voice intermingled with a woman’s. Clearly he had
someone with him, which was unusual because he normally made sure
he kept this time slot free for us to meet up, but he had said he
had a very full schedule today. Crap, I forgot that I was meant to
ring him to check first. Never mind I was here now, so I might as
well just wait. In my eagerness to see him I’d ended up being
early, but Liam never usually minded – in fact the door was usually
open because he was waiting for me. So naturally I was curious to
know who was with him, and why they were both raising their voices
behind closed doors.

I decided I’d
better wait in his PA’s anteroom for this other person to make
their way out. If Joy hadn't been on her lunch break, I could
possibly have found out from her who this mystery visitor was, but
of course I always came up to see The Boss while she was
conveniently absent.

I wandered
round the room, nosing at Joy’s tidy and disappointingly
unrevealing desk, and then took a seat in the corner. It was a
perfect vantage point to get a good view of whoever this female was
when she made her way out.

Finally the
door opened.

“It’s been a
pleasure, Liam,” a husky female voice said. Liam? No one at work
addressed him by his Christian name, not even me.

“Just remember
what I told you Kim, and there won't be any messy repercussions,”
he replied.

Kim.
Fucking Kimberley
. I thought the voice sounded familiar.

The statuesque
blonde emerged wearing a very tight pencil skirt as she walked out
of his office with a smug grin on her face , doing the button of
her silk blouse up as it strained across her impressive cleavage.
She didn’t notice me sitting quietly in the corner as she swept by,
licking her lips and looking very much like the cat who’d just got
the cream.

I glanced into
Liam’s office from where I sat out of sight. I could see that he
was also smiling smugly, and that he appeared to be doing up the
zip of his trousers….

What?
No!

This couldn’t
be how it appeared. He couldn’t have been, not with that woman, not
after everything he’d said before. Liam wouldn’t do that to me
would he? Cheat on me right here in his office, with that
woman?.

I tried to
remain calm and logical, but I couldn’t deny what I'd just seen
with my own eyes, even though I didn't want to accept it. I sat
frozen to the spot in total shock and horror. I suddenly forgot to
breath as I realised what must have been going on. I’d been such a
gullible fool. He’d been seeing Kimberley all along, and after my
pathetic attempts last night he’d decided to slot in a quick blow
job from an expert in the only available time slot in his busy
schedule. That’s why he’d told me to phone him first, so he could
make sure Kimberley was safely out of the way first. Despite all
his fine words and promises to me which had seemed so sincere at
the time, Liam had reverted to type and was up to his old
tricks.

The more I
considered things, it all made perfect sense. Liam had never before
in his life been with the same woman for longer than about a month,
and we must have known each other for about that time now. So he’d
got bored of his little virgin because the novelty had worn off.
And who could blame him, when I'd not even been able to perform
decent oral sex on him, gagging and pulling away because I was such
a pathetic amateur. Kimberley would have no such problems and no
doubt she was knew exactly how he liked it.

Who knew what
Liam got up to on all his business trips away? Is this what Scott
Franklin had been trying to warn me about when he’d dropped hints
about me not knowing what Liam was really like? And was it
coincidence that Scott had now disappeared from the scene, or had
Liam engineered things because he was worried about what else he
might say?

He wouldn’t do
that. He wouldn’t. Not my Liam.

But he wasn’t
my Liam was he? Liam had never really been mine, I’d known that all
along. The lying, cheating bastard could at least have told me to
my face that I’d been dumped, seeing as the hypocrite had adamantly
insisted we would both be monogamous, and gone on about how he
always told the truth. Perhaps he’d been trying to convince himself
that he didn't have the morals of an alley cat.

Perhaps in the
beginning he’d meant it, but he couldn’t stay the distance when I
hadn't lived up to expectations. Now he was stringing me along
until he’d worked out how to extricate himself, regretting having
given me a contract for the job and the flat. Either that, or
perhaps he thought he could continue to have me working for him and
providing some novelty nookey, while also having these secret
assignations with the bitch on the side to compensate for my lack
of ability. Or perhaps I was the bit on the side and Kimberley was
his proper girlfriend. That was more like it, and why he hadn't
introduced us before.

I’d warned him
that if I ever got the slightest hint that he was back to his old
ways, that would be it. He’d already had a second chance when I
swallowed his lies and excuses last time, so he obviously thought
he could get away with it. I’d specifically asked him not to see
Kimberley again, yet here we were.
Once a liar, always a liar.
If he’s cheated once, he’ll do it again. And again
.

This latest
betrayal had to mean that we were over. I wasn’t going to be so
easily fooled this time around. Liam was just another lying
cheating Starr brother, even worse than Jamie, because at least
we’d actually broken up before he’d started fucking someone else a
whole ten minutes later.

Liam and I had
come to an end, just like that, just as I’d always known that we
would.

But nothing
could possibly have prepared me for how painful it would be.

I felt icy
cold fingers grip my heart as it froze and then literally shattered
into a million tiny pieces. In my head I was screaming, but no
noise came out. I’d known it would hurt, but I’d never imagined the
pain would be this bad. Liam had not only stuck a knife in me, but
by lying and cheating so callously he’d viciously turned it too,
and it was agony.

My first
instinct was to march right in there, confront him, scream and
shout at him, and then slap his face repeatedly. But what would be
the point? I’d confronted him last time, and he’d managed to sweet
talk me round, using the physical attraction between us to divert
my attention. This time there was no doubt in my mind that Liam had
betrayed me. Nothing could take that back or undo that fact, so
there was no point in even seeing him. It would just make things
even more painful for me.

No, I just had
to get out, get away from the bastard who had shattered my
illusions, because despite all my resolve, I had foolishly begun to
let myself hope that maybe Liam actually meant at least some of the
things he’d said to me, about how I was different, how he wanted to
change. But it turned out the lying bastard had been toying with me
all along because I was a new, different little game to play for a
change. So much for all those little voices in my head whispering
about him being The One.

In a daze, I
quietly slipped away before Liam noticed me, and then headed back
down to my office, where I frantically started gathering all my
things together. Tom noticed my frenzied activity.

“Are you
alright? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost, Sera.”

“Err…umm…sudden migraine,” I muttered, as I shut down my laptop.
“The boss was too busy to see me today anyway, so I’m going to head
off home to try and sleep it off in a dark room.”

“You poor
thing. You look really dreadful, you're so pale. Do you want me to
run you home?”

“No, it’s
fine. I’ll grab a taxi. You need to stay here and hold the fort,” I
smiled wanly at him. It was nice of Tom to offer, but I really
needed to be on my own right now. I knew my world was about to
implode but I thought I could just about hold onto things until I
got out of the office.

There was a
taxi rank just across the road, so that would be the easiest
option. I would head on back to my apartment – no, that was wrong,
it was
his
apartment, wasn’t it? I would head back, collect
my things, and then work out a way to put as much distance between
myself and Liam Starr as possible.

I was fine on
my own before I met him, and I’d be fine on my own once again now.
I didn't need him. I didn't need anyone.

At least
that’s what I told myself as I sat in the back of the taxi. But
then the tears rolled down my cheeks as I started to sob
uncontrollably, knowing that this chapter of my life was now over,
and a new unchartered one was about to begin.

~*~

Here is a teaser from the Prologue of ‘
Starr Destined’
.

I’ve always
been a very determined and strong willed person, and I’ve always
believed that if you want something in life badly enough, you just
have to keep trying and not accept rejection. Life is full of knock
backs, but you keep plugging away until you get what you want.
That’s my philosophy in life, and it’s how I got myself through law
school then clawed my way up to achieve my goal of landing a
position with Lewis and Kirk, the prestigious law firm based in the
iconic Gherkin building in London. Dogged and persistent is how
I’ve sometimes been described, and I wouldn’t disagree.

When Liam
Starr called time on our relationship, I admit I was disappointed.
Disappointed, but not deterred…