Twenty One (Love by Numbers Book 2) (10 page)

T
he desperation to hear his, voice clouds every other thought I have.

I
get to Accede, an hour before my shift, so that I can spend time with Liv. Although is returning to the UK soon, for the start of the academic year, it may be that I leave before her. Nate has given me the all clear to leave as soon as Liam is up to speed with everything. He even promised that I will always have a job here should I wish to return.

The security net his offer provides is comforting but the reasons behind his offer, only serves to increase my nerves.

I am giving up everything to travel the world with a man I barely know.

Call me crazy, call me stupid, call me reckless; my head calls me far worse but my heart, my heart is oblivious.

My heart yearns for the day I can get on that plane and finally start this adventure.

My heart is shouting so loud, its voice is drowning out all other reasoning.

Life it too short to follow my head.

My heart wants what my heart wants and I have no intention of denying it.

“H
ey Jules, you’re eager.” Liam is sitting in my office, or should I say his new office, when I arrive.

“Just dropping last night’s figures in for you boss; actually since I’m training you that makes me your boss doesn’t it?” I try to keep a straight face and fail. The grin spreads across my mouth before I can stop it.

“Jules, Jules, Jules, as much as you’d like to be the boss of me, you and I both know I call the shots around here.” He matches my grin and leans back in his chair, tilting it onto the back two legs.

“Liam I’m sure your mother has told you before, stop leaning on the chair like that, you’ll have an accident and either break the chair or hurt your pretty head.”

He lets out a sharp laugh before returning the chair back to its four legs, “You think my head is pretty? Well now Jules, if you want to flirt with me, no need to disguise it with concerns for my wellbeing.”

This boy is incorrigible.

I pick up the nearest thing I can grab from the top of the desk, in order to launch at his head. It just so happens to be a copy of a British newspaper. Liam’s eyes fly to my chosen missile and he dives towards it with a look of shock on his face. I avoid his flailing arms and roll it up, aiming it for his forehead, hitting my target sweetly and causing the paper to unravel and open up all over the floor at his side.

Normally, this would be the point where he finds something a bit more dangerous to throw at me but unusually, he doesn’t retaliate. He dives from his seat and begins to scoop up the sheets of paper instead

Okaaay. That’s not weird at all.

I
bend down to help him, ready to joke about his new, neat freak ways and how funny he looks frantically scuttling across the floor, when an image of Jake catches my eye.

“Is that Jake on the front page? Let’s have a look.” I hold out my hand for the now ruined paper but Liam totally ignores me and continues to gather up all the pages, scrunching them into balls, covering his hands in ink.

“Hey, Tabloid murderer, stop with the massacre, I wanted to read that.”

I reach out to grab the crumpled bits of newspaper from his arms and he turns his back on me, clutching them pathetically close to his chest.

“Liam, What the fuck? Stop being childish.” I reach around his back to grab them from him and he begins to twist and turn, trying his best to evade my manoeuvres.

“Em, just leave it be.” He ducks around my grasping hands and stalks towards the shredder. His use of my first name, instead of his nickname for me, immediately sobers me.

“You just called me Em.” I stand rigid to the spot looking at his back; he remains motionless with his hands poised over the shredder and the first page ready to be destroyed.

“Just drop it Jules, seriously. It’s nothing you need to see. Jake warned us all about the shit they print in the gossip rags.”

My stomach plummets, my mind raging with fantastical headlines, all concerning Jake.

“Let me see. I’m a big girl Liam and if there is nothing for me to worry about let me see.”

He sighs heavily, “Jules …..”

“No Liam, stop trying to protect me. Either you let me see or I walk straight out of here to the nearest supermarket and buy my own copy. Your choice.”

He hesitates for just a moment, before dropping the majority of the crinkled up balls on the floor and turning around to give me the sheet that he was just about to shred.

“Just use your head Jules, give him chance to explain and either confirm or deny it. Don’t believe every word you read.”

I stare into his eyes and see the worry lines form on his brow. He looks sad but also resigned.

“It’s bad isn’t it?” I’ve yet to reach for the paper he is offering me.

“Well….. it’s not a glowing article if that’s what you mean but I know my brother Jules and if he tells you this is all lies, trust him. He might be many things but a liar has never been one of them.”

I can see he believes his own words, believes in his brothers honesty. Trouble is whatever that paper he has in his hands tells me, it’s going to change everything.

I shakily reach out for the paper and gently extract it from his hand. My stomach twists and turns and I’m sure I’m making this worse by drawing it out.

In one determined move I look down at the front page of The Daily Saturn and my eyes are met with headline,

‘
BAD BOY FOX KNOCKS UP MARRIED WOMAN’.

W
hat. The. Fuck.

The headline is splashed above a shot of Jake being mobbed on his return to the UK, at Heathrow Airport. He looks every inch the bad boy the headline proclaims him to be, with his devilish good looks and pissed off demeanour.

Just below his picture is a smaller one of a stunning, dark headed woman, with poker straight hair and exotic features.

It’s the bitch from the club the first night we met. The one who shoved her tongue down his throat, while he was holding my hand.

“I
t’s bullshit.”

These are the only words I can form to speak out loud. I’ve been so engrossed in devouring every piece of the article in front of me, that I forget Liam is even here.

I look up at him, his face worryingly blank.

“I know this tart” I poke my finger viciously at her one dimensional face, “and I’m telling you I
know
this story is fucking bullshit.”

He doesn’t react to the anger in my voice; he just stands there looking at me totally mute.

I read back over the few words at the start of the article.

This Vanessa Havers claims that she has been in an extra marital relationship with Jake for months, she states she is four months pregnant with his child and has left her husband in order to be the one to nurse him back to health after he got lost at sea.

The lying WHORE.

W
ait a minute, Vanessa Havers?

As in Havers where I applied for a job months ago?

A memory hits me and I look back down at her exquisitely featured face, a face I just want to slap, hard.

This is the woman who interviewed me. Well that’s an exaggeration; she sat there bored, looking through her phone, ignoring me like I was shit on her shoe.

Vanessa fucking Havers.

Well I’ve got news for you bitch, I telepathically tell her printed face, he is
mine
.

J
ust as I go to open my mouth and address Liam, the office door opens and Liv enters with Nate close behind.

“I’ve been waiting ….. “ her words drop off when she spots what is in my hands.

“Oh fuck”, is Nate’s growled reaction only seconds later.

“Listen Em, I’ve spoken to Jake already about this and he swears its all fabricated bullshit. Don’t go making your mind up until you speak to him. In fact I think now would be a good time to call him as I’ve only just got off the phone and I know he’s home waiting to speak to you.”

I look from Nate to Liv and then across to Liam before addressing them as a group. “I know it’s absolute bollocks, I know exactly who she is and the games she likes to play.”

I meet each of the concerned faces again, well all except Liam as he still looks totally unaffected and emotionless to it all.

“It’s okay, honestly guys. I’ll speak to Jake and hear what he has to say. Until he tells me that this” I wave the paper in the air for emphasis, “is all true, nothing changes. I am still leaving in a few days to be with him.”

Liv speaks up first. “What if it is true Em?” she looks at me, anguish written all over her face.

I swallow past my dry throat, “If it’s true… I walk away and let Jake take care of his responsibilities. End of story.” I try to force out a smile to assure her I’m coping with all this.

“Honestly Liv, I’m okay. I’m not gonna lie and say it wasn’t a punch in the gut but Jake warned me, warned us all, about things like this. So until I hear from him, this is all just utter crap.”

I stride over to the shredder and Liam steps out of my way.

W
atching those lies get ground into dust should be soothing but my head aches with every sound the machine makes.

Once the paper is completely obliterated and the room falls deathly silent, I feel a pair of small arms wrap around my waist from behind. Liv’s signature fragrance hits me and I unconsciously lean into her embrace.

“Talk to him Em, hear his side of things and when you are ready to discuss it, come and find me. I’ll stay until you’re ready.” She gives me a small squeeze before turning to walk back into Nate’s embrace. They both leave the room and then it’s just me and Liam again.

I wait for him to say something but he remains mute. Turning to face him I take in his handsome face, so unlike Jake’s yet with obvious similarities.

He might not have Jake’s obvious dark good looks, he’s far more wholesome looking but no less striking.

“Cat got your tongue Li?” I stare at him, willing him to spit out whatever he has to say.

His blank, emotionless face transforms into something else. He looks hurt.

“I’m a joker Jules, carefree, easygoing and everyone’s friend. I’m not supposed to know anything about this, about relationships or how that one person can consume you, can obliterate you.” He looks down at the floor for a few seconds before meeting my eyes again. I’ve never seen this side to Liam and I’m worried my friend is about to announce he has feelings for me.

“Liam… don’t, you don’t need to say anything… I … you’re…” he interrupts my stammering and steps closer to me.

Oh God, I hope I’m reading this wrong.

“Jules I’m telling you this as your friend and not as Jake’s brother. You are worth more than any lies. Lies can never be undone. Lies can wipe out everything good in a single heartbeat.”

He looks away forlornly before running his hand down his face, his expression bleak. I’m not sure who is standing before me but this is not the Liam I know.

This Liam seems broken.

Who did this to him and why has it taken him so long to let me see that his heart is in pieces?

“T
alk to him, listen to him but do not let him lie to you. Tell him to trust you with the truth not soothe you with deceit.” He takes another step towards me and leans down to kiss me lightly on the side of my head. “I know Jake, he’s never been dishonest to anyone, about anything, including who he is and what he does. Just remember that but also remember he didn’t need to be dishonest before as he didn’t have anything to lose.”

He kisses my head again before adding “I’m always here for you Jules, who else am I going to pick on when you’re not around.” He ruffles my hair before grabbing some files and leaving the room.

I stare absently at the door he just exited, wondering why he shared all that with me. Liam is so young, the same age as me having not long turned twenty. Who could have hurt him so much that he hides the fractured pieces of his heart, behind a costume made up of smiles?

I guess we all have secrets we chose to keep hidden, even from those closest to us but I vow to myself to make sure that before I leave, he knows he can talk to me if he wants to.

That is if I end up leaving at all. There’s only one way to find out if my plans have changed and that’s to talk to Jake and hope he trusts me with the truth.

I
sit behind Liam’s desk and nervously slide the screen on my phone back and forth.

After a few minutes of avoiding hitting call, I summon up some bravery and scroll through my contacts until Jake’s face fills my screen.

It’s a selfie we took together before he left; only I’ve cropped out most of my face. All you can see are my lips puckering up to kiss his cheek. Jake is looking dead at the camera, his teeth flashing in a perfect smile, his eyes sparkling with happiness. He looks beautiful and in this photo there isn’t a single ounce of bad boy, Jake Fox to be seen.

This is
my
Jake. The Jake who begged me to go with him, who made me believe his need for me, was equal to mine for him.

Hitting call, I raise the phone to my ear and wait nervously for it to connect.

It only rings once before his sleep raspy and utterly delicious voice comes over the line.

“Emma?”

He knows.

He knows that even though I am a few thousand miles away, the news has already hit me smack in the face.

“Jake. We need to talk.”

I cannot help the nerves from showing in my voice but he needs to know how serious I am. How determined I am to believe him but only if he speaks the truth.

“I’
ve seen the headlines Jake.”

I let the statement float on the airwaves between us and when he clears his throat to speak I stop him.

“No please let me get out what I have to say first and then I promise to listen to you.”

His voice is barely audible but I hear him breathe out ‘Okay.’

“You warned me that this would happen. I just didn’t expect it so soon. I’m not naïve, I know the tabloids fabricate stories to sell papers and I know you’ve had some kind of relationship with that woman. The thing is I don’t care what you’ve done in your past. I care about what you do in the present.”