I hurry down the long stone stairway that leads down to the beach, taking off my sandals as soon as I hit the sand. I look both ways but it’s dark, with only a half-moon to light the way. I don’t see anyone in either direction, but I hurry to the left, walking quickly through the soft sand until I’m around trees and bushes and the rocky outcrop that cuts into the sea.
This has to be where he meant. To go any farther would be to climb on the rocks, and with the waves crashing against them, it would be completely dangerous, especially in the dark.
So I sit down and I wait, running grains of sand through my fingers, over and over again.
I’m so nervous about what’s going to happen that time seems to pass even slower. Each second stretches on with each crash of the waves. And yet time is also skipping. I keep thinking that I’m going to see him, and then that’s going to be it and everything is going to happen so fast, and I don’t even know what I truly want.
I just want to trust him.
I want to let him in.
I want to lose myself to him, go up in the heat and flames, and somehow manage to not get burned in the process.
But he doesn’t show up.
I don’t see him.
I keep looking at my phone and watching the time tick on while the grains of sand run through my hands. Nine fifteen turns to nine thirty. Nine thirty turns to nine forty-five, then ten o’clock. I don’t even have Blaise’s damn phone number, so I can’t text him and see where he is.
I end up staying until eleven, thinking that maybe he got held up and couldn’t escape. That has to be it. He was so into me last night; I saw it, I felt it. That wasn’t a show. He would have come, right?
Even though it’s May and the days are hot on Mallorca, the nights can get cold, and by the time I get back to the villa, I’m shivering from head to toe.
And that’s when I see him.
Blaise, sitting on the veranda where I was earlier, drinking by himself.
I walk right up to him, rubbing my hands down my arms in an attempt to get warm even though the anger that’s starting to flare through me is doing a good job of it.
“Blaise,” I whisper harshly to him. “Where have you been?”
He doesn’t even look at me, just takes a drink from a glass of amber liquid. Probably Scotch.
“Blaise,” I say again. “What’s your problem? What happened? Just fucking look at me, will you?”
But he doesn’t. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows thickly and continues to stare out into the open. His jaw is held tensely, warring with his relaxed pose.
Something inside me starts to break.
I know I shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but I’m a mess inside; my heart, my gut, my pride, it’s all getting so twisted and tangled, threatening to choke me.
He’s going to fuck me over, isn’t he?
I put my trust in the wrong guy.
I need to be wrong.
I go and stand right in front of him, and he finally looks at me, his eyes looking me up and down. Maybe he sees the goose bumps on my skin and my shivering. Maybe he sees the confusion in my eyes. For a second he looks at me like something inside him is breaking too.
And then it’s gone.
Just like that.
The wonderful world of promises that his eyes held last night in my room, it’s all gone. Replaced by a void.
I thought he wasn’t like the rest of them, I think. Then I correct myself.
No, you hoped he wasn’t like the rest of them.
And I was wrong.
“Where did you go?” I say, trying to keep my voice calm but failing. “I was waiting out there for you for two hours,” I add in a harsh whisper.
He stares at me blankly. “Hi, Seraphine. Bit late to be out, don’t you think?”
What the actual fuck?
“What are you talking about?”
“You should probably head to bed.”
Wait, is that innuendo, like a hint, or . . .
“Just tell me what happened,” I tell him. “Why didn’t you show?”
His gaze gives me nothing, and his voice is bored. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
No.
I try to form words but can’t. My lips flap soundlessly as I try to understand why he’d do this.
I look around, wondering if maybe we’re being watched, but I don’t see anyone.
I lean in closer to him, my eyes searching his. “Blaise. Just . . . tell me that things are going to be okay.”
He tilts his chin up and gives me a chilling look. “They’ll be okay when you stop fucking annoying me like some little fangirl.”
It’s a fucking shotgun blast to my chest.
Little fangirl?
Is that what he really thinks?
Is that how I’ve been acting?
“But last night,” I say, my words shaking, falling from my lips as my heart continues to shatter in my chest. “Last night you . . . you . . .”
“Sounds like last night was a product of your imagination,” he says, motioning for me to get out of his way. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going out.”
“What? Out? Where?”
What the hell is going on? What is he talking about?
“A bar in town,” he says. “Have a good night.”
“Blaise!” I cry out, reaching for his arm.
He looks down at my hand and then pulls it off him, as if my touch suddenly disgusts him.
“I said have a good night. Maybe I’ll see you again in a year or two. Don’t go falling for the wrong boys, okay?”
And then he’s gone, walking down the stairs and around the side of the house.
And I’m left behind with a hole in my heart.
I can’t believe it.
I can’t believe him.
How could he do this to me?
But then I know why.
Because he’s a liar.
He’s an asshole, a selfish prick.
He’s like his father, his brother.
And I’m me.
I’m not a model. I’m an orphan, I’m from India. I can change my name and learn French, but I can never lose that past, that person I was—the person nobody wanted. The person people abused and spit on and humiliated.
And here I am, humiliated again.
By someone I dared to put trust in. Even when I thought I was keeping a cage around my heart, even when I thought I was protecting myself from the worst-case scenario, he still managed to find a way in through the bars.
I’ve been so stupid to think anything could be different for me.
I’m just a young, stupid girl who was fooled into thinking she was someone more.
Well . . . fuck that.
Never again.
Never again.
He’s as dead to me as I’m dead to him.
And that’s the way it’s always going to stay.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SERAPHINE
It’s been five days since I had the meeting with Cyril and Jones.
Five days in which I’ve tried to keep myself as busy as possible while waiting for news from Jones.
Five days of staring at my uncle at work and trying to imagine what I’ll say and do if Jones uncovers the truth and the truth points to him.
Time has never passed more slowly.
I feel like I’m living Groundhog Day.
I get up, I go to work, I ignore the curious stares from Blaise that seem more inquisitive and intrusive as time goes on, I put my head down more than normal and focus on doing the best job I can while helping to train the interns. I then go home after work and drink myself silly and pass out on the couch at nine, the phone always in reach, the phone that never beeps.