The Heartbroker (21 page)

I wrap my arms around myself, looking around. I’m struck by the contrast between this place and the plush hotel suite Logan had at The Bolton Hotel on the other side of the city.

Logan
. Why oh why do I keep thinking of him? Get it through your thick skull, Brooke: he doesn’t love you and never did.

Scott turns to me, slipping my jacket off my shoulders, planting gentle kisses on my bare shoulder, tracing a tantalising path up my neck.

Love the one you’re with, love the one you’re with
, as the old song goes. I just have to forget about Logan and move on with my life, and hot, sexy Scott is just the ticket.

It should be so easy—hell, it’s not like Scott and I haven’t slept together before—and as the saying goes, the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.

“Jesus, Brooke,” he says huskily as he wraps his arms around me. “You’re so incredibly sexy. God, I love you so much. I’ve missed you, you know? I’ve missed
this
.”

He leans down and kisses my lips, more tenderly this time, our tongues finding one another as our excitement builds. Those Girly Bits start to hum.

It’s a good kiss. In fact, I would go so far as to say it’s a great kiss. On a scale of one to ten of kisses, under normal circumstances, I would rate it as almost a full ten.

But these aren’t normal circumstances. In fact, these are very far from normal circumstances.

Scott cups my breasts in his hands, letting out a pleasurable groan. “Your body is
insane
.”

I pull away from him, sobering up faster than if I’d drunk a litre of strong, black coffee.

“No. Scott, I can’t.”

I know with a newfound clarity I can’t go there with him. My brain is too clouded with fresh memories of Logan, and having angry revenge sex with Scott—as appealing as that prospect was moments ago—would only lower me to Logan’s level.

And I’m better than that.

I grab my coat and turn to leave as Scott chases after me, adjusting his jeans.

“You can’t go, babe. Please, stay.” He looks desperate and I find myself feeling sorry for him.

I have very recent experience of being in love with someone who doesn’t love you back. I know it how much it sucks.

I reach the door and turn to him. “I can’t.”

All I want to do is head home, curl up under my duvet with a bar or ten of Whittaker’s chocolate, and not come out for a week.

Or maybe ever.

“Why?” He trails his hands up my bare arms, sending tingles down my spine. “We were so good together. Don’t you remember? I sure as hell do.”

As I look at him I know he’s right. If he hadn’t screwed another woman, ruining what we had, I bet I would still be with him.

But he did and we’re not. End of story.

I sigh. “Scott, I—”

He stops me with a kiss, pressing himself against me so my body is pinned to the door. I’ll give him points for persistence, that’s for sure.

For one heady moment I submit, revelling in the body-tingling pleasure of it. Eventually I push him away, knowing as enjoyable as it would be, it doesn’t feel right.

“Scott, please listen to me. I’m in love with someone else.”

Logan may be the biggest bastard to walk the face of the Earth, and he may have treated me abominably, but I can’t just switch my emotions off: I love him. And I’m going to have to work long and hard at getting over him.

My heart goes thud whenever I think about Logan. I miss him. I miss his smile, his low, mellow voice, his beautiful brown eyes. I miss his laugh, the way his eyes crinkle at the edges when he smiles. I miss his touch, his feel, his heat.

And I wish with every last drop of my DNA I didn’t.

“Oh.” Scott lets me go.

I put my hand on his chest. “Believe me when I tell you I wish we could do this. But I can’t. I’m sorry.” I peck him on the cheek and turn to leave.

“Hey,” he calls out when I’m halfway down the stairs. “If you ever change your mind, you know how to get hold of me.”

I look up at him. “See you later, Scott.”

“BLIMEY, BROOKE. IT LOOKS like you fired ten boxes of tissues out of a cannon in here,” Alexis comments, looking in disbelief around my usually immaculate living room.

“I guess I could clean up a bit.”

I glance at the floor. She’s right, there really is an inordinate amount of tissues scattered haphazardly around. With all the crying I’ve been doing I must be at risk of suffering from severe dehydration by now.

I’m thirsty at the thought, although I have no intention whatsoever of leaving my cocoon on the sofa.

“Are you sick? You sounded dreadful on the phone just now,” she asks in concern, sitting next to me on the sofa and placing her hand on my brow. “You don’t have a fever, but you look terrible.”

I’m still in the fleecy pyjamas I only ever wear when I’m home alone, tucked under my duvet on the living room sofa, usually watching a rom com.

“I’m fine.” I know it’s an unconvincing lie as tears threaten to flow. Again.

Jeez Louise, how much can one person cry?

I think back over the time since I fled Scott’s apartment. With a minor detour to the supermarket to purchase chocolate, I’ve been enveloped here on my sofa for the best part of two days, closeting myself away from the world. And yes, I’ve been crying. A lot.

It’s like someone pulled a plug out and all the tears I’ve been holding back since I was a little girl have come flooding out.

Alexis called about fifteen minutes ago to say she wanted to drop off the DVDs her sister, Sammy Jo, had borrowed from me. I’m now regretting answering her call. I just want to be left alone to wallow.

She walks over to the window and opens the blinds.

I’m forced to shelter my eyes under a cushion as the blinding sun comes pouring into the room. “What did you have to do that for?” I ask irritably.

She sits back down onto the sofa next to my prostrate body. “Are you sick?”

I heave a sigh. “No, I—” I begin, but dissolve into hot tears before I have the chance to complete what I was trying to say.

She lets me cry, offering me my final stash of tissues, which I gratefully pull out in clumps.

Once I’m calmer and have somehow managed to stench the flow—perhaps I’m all cried out now? Who knows?—Alexis brings me a glass of water. I’m so parched I scull the lot in a split second.

“What’s going on, Brooke?”

I sit up, leaning back against my sofa. I know I look like total crap: my eyes puffy, my nose red, my skin blotchy. I have the headache from hell and my tummy rumbles. I guess several bars of chocolate and a large bag of chips isn’t quite enough to eat over a couple of days, even for someone who’s been prostrate, wallowing in self-pity.

“You can tell me. I want to help,” she adds when I’m not forthcoming.

Even though I know it’ll be public knowledge soon enough, I don’t want to tell her what’s happened: telling her will make it real. Right now I can kid myself it’s all just a really, really bad dream.

My phone buzzes and Alexis picks it up and hands it to me. “It’s Logan. I’m sure
he’ll
cheer you up.”

I snatch the phone from her before I hit ‘decline’ and hurl the phone across the room.

That man deserves so much more than a simple ‘decline’.

“What? Why?” she asks, clearly shocked. “What’s happened?”

Feeling marginally better, I manage a weak smile. “Quite a lot.”

She glances at the phone on the other side of the room. “I’m guessing Logan has something to do with this?”

I nod. “Oh, yes. He wins the prick of the year contest. No, scrub that: prick of the decade.”

“Tell me.”

And so I do, interspersed with further tears and fits of anger. I tell her about the loss of my company, about Logan’s duplicity, about how I’ve lost everything.

“I just can’t believe it.” She shakes her head. “Is that it? Your whole business is gone?”

“Yes. We tried to salvage what was left of it, but the numbers didn’t stack up. It would have cost more to try to keep the company afloat than to just call it quits. It wasn’t worth trying.”

“Oh, Brooke. I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah,” I reply, my voice full of bitterness. “Me too.”

“Look, how about you have a shower, freshen up a bit. I’ll give this place a spruce up then I’ll go to the supermarket and get some real food to make us for dinner.” She eyes the empty chocolate and chip packets on the floor.

I nod in gratitude as fresh tears sting my eyes at her kindness.

* * *

I stand in the shower, letting the water flow down my back. I’m downright ashamed at how I’ve managed to singlehandedly lose the company I created, the company that provided people with jobs and helped thousands on their personal growth. Hiding away has felt like the best thing to do. The
only
thing to do.

As I throw on some yoga pants and a comfy sweatshirt I hear Alexis busying herself in the kitchen. I gaze at myself in the mirror. I’m defying nature by looking somehow drawn and puffy at the same time, my eyes half their usual size. I look a lot like a heroine addict in need of a hit.

Alexis has restored the living room to its usual organization, and the smell of baking lasagne tingles my taste buds, setting my tummy on a new round of rumbles.

“You look so much better,” Alexis exclaims as I round the corner into the kitchen. “By the looks of you, you need to eat. And pronto. I bought a lasagne rather than make one. I hope you don’t mind?”

I smile to myself. Mind? Is she kidding? Whether the dinner she’s cooking me during the lowest point of my life is homemade or not is the very last thing I’m concerned about. “That’s great, thanks. It smells so good.”

She busies herself with chopping salad ingredients and making a vinaigrette as I sit on one of my bar stools at the kitchen bench. She chats about everyday things like work and her crazy family, taking my mind off the mess of my own life.

“I still can’t quite believe Logan was such a dick. It doesn’t make sense he would have seduced you just so he could steal your company.”

“Well, he did,” I reply with venom. “It was always his intention to steal
Live It
away from me. Getting me into bed was just an added bonus for him.”

She sighs. “I’m so sorry. What an asshole.”

“You’ve got that right, sister.”

“Did he leave you a voicemail?”

In my gloom I’d forgotten he called. I pick up my bruised and battered phone, which Alexis placed on the coffee table in her cleaning spree. Yes, there’s a message. I don’t even want to hear his voice, let alone what lies he’s spun this time.

“You don’t have to listen to it, you know. You could just delete it. Here, give it to me. I’ll do it for you.” She stretches out her hand. I go to hand her my phone.

“No.” I pull it back to me. “He’s my mess. I think I’ll listen to it.”

With shaking fingers I dial my voicemail and am surprised there are a host of messages from everyone from Stefan to Dad to Grace and Laura. I finally reach the one from Logan and my stomach does a flip as I hear his smooth, chocolaty voice.

I listen to about as much as I can take—which is only about three seconds—before I throw the phone across the room again, my body shaking with rage.

I’ll be amazed if my phone lasts the rest of the day.

“You really need to stop doing that,” Alexis says as she collects it up, pressing the ‘end’ button. “Want to tell me what he said?”

“I got as far as ‘I’m sorry’ before I couldn’t stomach any more.”

“I guess that confirms it then. He knew all about it.”

“Yep, he sure did.”

Alexis walks over and collects me in a hug. “You’re going to find someone who deserves you, Brooke. I know you will.”

I pull away from her with lightning speed. “Oh, no. No I won’t. There’s no way on this sweet Earth I’m going near another guy again. I’ve learnt my lesson well and good this time, Alexis.”

Some time later, after we’ve eaten, I begin to feel almost human again, my tummy’s insistent rumblings finally satisfied.

“Hey, I noticed a photo over by your window before.” Alexis walks over and picks it up. “Is that your mum?”

I nod at her, biting my upper lip.

In my favourite photo of Mum she’s sitting on the beach in a floral sundress, the wind catching her shoulder-length blonde hair. She looks so beautiful, relaxed and happy.

“She was so pretty, Brooke,” she says as she inspects it closely. I feel a small wave of sadness as I think of the woman in the picture: so full of life, so full of hope.

Unlike Laura, whom I’ve known since I was five years old, I didn’t know Alexis at school. Although she went to my high school, our paths never crossed.

She picks up another photo, this one of me with Laura when we must have been about twenty-two. I’m dressed in a short, strapless dress, my golden tanned skin complimented by the pale pink of the silky fabric.

“Oh, my god, Brooke. Is this your natural hair colour?”

Embarrassed, I get up and grab the photo from her, examining it critically as I do. I’m smiling at the camera, my arms wrapped around Laura, who looks equally happy, my light brown curls in juxtaposition to her sleek blonde locks.

“Yeah, it is. Pretty Average Joanna, don’t you think?”

“No! I think you look amazing. Those curls are gorgeous. I can see some struggling to get free right now.”

My hand shoots automatically to my hair and I self-consciously smooth the errant curls down. They spring right back out.

I shrug. “I don’t know.”

But I do know. I glance at the photo of Mum. I do it because I want to look like her. It seems weird, I know, but in bleaching my hair to her shade I’m keeping her alive, in some small way.

Man, a therapist would have a field day with me.

Alexis hands me the picture and I look down at my smiling face. Perhaps it is time for a change. I know it would only be a symbolic gesture but I sure could do with ‘washing that man right out of your hair’.

A new start? Yes, that’s exactly what I need to do.

* * *

The following week, I manage to drag myself out of my house to meet Jocelyn at the office to finish the packing and do one final check before handing the keys over to the landlord.

She walks into my office, holding an empty box.

“That’s for my stuff, I assume?” I swallow hard. There’s something about having to pack your belongings into a cardboard box. It’s somehow shameful, the box representing all your failures in the job.

Really, in the end, it’s just a box.

“Yes. Here you go.” She places the box on my chair. “How have you been, chook?” Jocelyn asks.

“Fine.” I know I sound unconvincing.

She pauses, narrowing her eyes at me. “You couldn’t have known what that crowd wanted to do, love.”

I hang my head. “I added in an extra clause to the contract, kind of a ‘get out of jail free’ card.”

“What a clever thing to do.”

“That’s what I thought. Until they used it to steal the company.”

“Ahhh,” she replies.

“That makes it my fault, doesn’t it?”

She shakes her head, smiling in sympathy. “I know that’s how it must feel, chook. But you didn’t know they were going to go pulling this stunt.”

“I should have, though, Jocelyn. It was my responsibility to protect the company. Without me, you would all still have jobs.”

“Don’t worry yourself on that front. I’m a box of budgies. I’ve already signed myself up with a recruitment agency down the road and the nice bloke, Julian, promised me he’d have me in a new job by the end of next week.”

‘A box of budgies’? Logan would kill himself with that one.
Arrgh
! I’ve got to stop thinking about that piece of work.

“That’s great, Jocelyn.”

“And you know Stefan’s gone back to the advertising agency he used to work for?”

“He has?” I ask in surprise. Wow, how long have I been under my duvet?

“So don’t you worry about us. We’re all right as rain.”

I smile weakly at her, wishing I could be as positive as she is about the future.

We continue to sort the office into boxes in silence, broken only when Jocelyn asks me where some item or another should go.

Finally, we’re standing at the door together, keys in hand. What’s left of
Live It
is now stacked away in boxes, ready to be moved to the spare room in my townhouse.

It’s a depressing thought.

“Well, that’s it then,” Jocelyn says.

“I suppose it is.”

She rubs my arm and pulls me in for one of her legendary hugs.

Once we reach the street below, she says, “Take care of yourself, love.”

I sniff. “You too, Jocelyn. And thanks. For, you know, everything.”