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She should’ve dumped Mark ages ago but she’d kept hoping that she could change him, that she’d wake up one day and he’d be…better. And, let’s be honest here, she adored the fact that she was centre of his unwavering attention, of being constantly and continuously wanted. It wasn’t the love she craved but it was something…
It was enough of a something for her to ignore the naughty text messages she’d seen on his phone, the teenager who’d rocked up at the door a couple of weeks ago looking for Mark, not to mention his ex-girlfriend who constantly called. She suspected that he’d dipped his ink in any and all of their wells but she’d never found the—what was Alex’s expression?—the smoking bullet. They’d fought about it—hell, they fought about everything!—and she’d justified staying with him by thinking that their emotional, loud, crazy see-saw of life was better than her being alone and loads better than the cold war she’d grown up in around her parents. Hot fights were always better than derisive comments, sarcasm, frosty insults tossed out with a contemptuous, sneering smile. She’d take loud and explosive over quiet and deadly any day.
At least with volatile you got some sort of warning and you could attempt to avoid or contain the emotional bloodshed.
Quiet but deadly…wasn’t that the perfect way to describe her parents’ formal union? She was quite sure that if she called it a marriage the gods of love would nail her with a lightning bolt.
Mark wasn’t perfect, far from it, but neither was she. But at least they expressed their emotions…loudly and often. Maybe too often to be healthy. And maybe he hadn’t been the poster-boy boyfriend but he was someone to wake up to, go to sleep with. Be with.
Except that his smokin’ bullet turned out to be a freaking nuclear bomb, Tori thought as the taxi pulled up next to her old home, the top-floor flat of a converted fire station with Ignite, an Italian bistro and coffee shop, on the bottom floor.
Wiping her now wet eyes with her fingers, she hauled in her breath and climbed out of the taxi, yanking her overnight bag from the floor.
How was she going to spin it this time? she thought, looking up to the window of Poppy’s flat. Since she was a little girl, Poppy’s home had been hers too, the place and person she ran to when life kicked her to the kerb.
Poppy and Izzy, her oldest friends and the people who loved her best. They’d welcome her back as they always did and then they’d settle in, waiting for the story…because there was always a story. For once she just wished that she had the guts to drop her guard and tell it as it was. That she felt battered and bruised and emotionally flattened. Sad and so damn scared that she’d never find what she needed, what she was really looking for.
Petrified that she would soon be thirty, then forty, fifty and kept around for her charm, her entertainment value, her pretty face but still, under it all, unloved, unvalued and, worst of all, unneeded.
‘Seriously, she was riding him so fast that I thought that her wings were going to launch her off him…’
Tori was in her favourite chair in the eclectic, messy, colourful sitting room of the flat, her bare feet tucked up under her and a glass of red in her hand. Poppy was in the wingback chair opposite her and Izzy sat on the ottoman next to her. Both were doubled over, clutching their stomachs and laughing uproariously.
Yeah, good job, Tori, she thought wearily. You’ve pulled it off again.
‘Oh, God, Tori, stop.’ Izzy whimpered between snorts of laughter. ‘Your love life should be serialised as a soap opera, hon.’
‘And Mark? How did he act?’ Poppy asked, wiping her tears away.
‘He didn’t even bat an eye, just turned and said, “Get naked, join in, and What’s-Her-Skanky will show you what to do.”‘
Two mouths fell open, perfectly synchronised. ‘And you didn’t know about this?’
‘Hell, no!’ Tori made herself smile. ‘If I had, I would’ve had a say in who to pick as contestant number three. But really, God—her? She looked like a walking mattress. Besides, women just don’t do it for me.’
‘You did kiss Melissa Butler.’
‘I was thirteen, Poppy! And you dared me to!’ Tori stared up at the ceiling.
Poppy sat up, leaned forward and sent Tori a searching look. It was her Poppy patented, sneaky you-talk-a-good-game-but-I-know-you-are-full-of-BS look. ‘Are you really okay, Toz? You’re acting like you couldn’t give a damn but—’
Tori tossed her hair and dredged up a reassuring smile. ‘I’m fine, I promise. Mark is welcome to dip his ink into her radioactive well.’
‘Talking of, please tell me that he’s clean and so are you.’ Poppy—Dr Poppy now—asked, frowning. ‘Maybe you should come in for a check-up, let me run some tests. Do a complete physical.’
She was stupid emotionally but she wasn’t a complete idiot. ‘Relax, Pops. We always used condoms, Doctor. No exceptions, ever.’
‘Promise?’
‘Promise.’ Poppy let out a huge sigh of relief and Tori was grateful that she’d never, not once—despite Mark’s bitching—deviated from that rule. And Mark could bitch for days.
‘On another subject…I’m homeless and I need to move back in. Can I have my old room back?’
Poppy and Izzy exchanged a frantic, oh-no look that had her heart crashing to the floor. If she couldn’t move back in then she didn’t know that she could hold it together. The only place she could contemplate being was in this flat, with these people. Poppy looked agitated. ‘The problem is that Alex and Lara are in your room and I’ve rented Izzy’s room to Isaac—’
‘But isn’t he away?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘She can have the boxroom,’ Izzy interjected, ‘since I’ve moved in with Harry.’
Ick, the boxroom. Tiny, cramped, child-sized bed. Jeez, it wasn’t even big enough to swing a fly. No cupboard space, a tiny window and you could hear every noise from the bathroom and its old, rusty pipes.
On the plus side it didn’t have her despicable ex in it. Win.
‘I’ll take the boxroom.’ Tori sighed. ‘Though I think that, as my mates, either you or Alex should consider giving up your rooms because I’ve been traumatised for life. I’m considering bleaching my eyes and brain with acid.’
Poppy stood up, patted her shoulder and took her wine glass. ‘Yeah, you’d think that. Here’s an idea—while you’re suffering in the boxroom, think about choosing a man a couple of steps up the evolutionary scale from pond scum next time, okay?’
‘Yes, Mum,’ Tori grumbled.
‘Seriously, she was riding him so fast that I thought that her wings were going to launch her off him…’
Matt Cross held the front door to his new digs open and considered reversing back through it. He instantly recognised the tone and notes of girl talk and it wasn’t something he wanted to interrupt by walking into the lounge. He supposed that this was something that he’d have to put up with, together with scented rooms, lingerie and a slew of empty wine glasses scattered throughout the house.
It had been a long time since he’d shared a flat with anyone. Sharing a house with Poppy and Alex would take some adjusting to, but at least his clients didn’t know where he was and couldn’t rock up on his doorstop at all hours of the day looking for reassurance or company.
His eyebrows lifted at the drawling, low-pitched voice that sounded as if it belonged on the other side of a phone-sex conversation. Matt, not wanting to give his presence away, left the door open and peeked through the doorway to the lounge and saw the perfect profile of a streaky-haired woman with mile-long legs.
Whoah! Sexy.
Matt dragged his eyes away to look from Poppy, his landlord, to Izzy, whom he’d met before. The knockout must be—geez, what was her name? Laurie? Laura?—the third of the three original flatmates he had yet to meet. Izzy was bent double, wheezing with laughter, and Poppy was wiping her eyes.
Her smile was negated by the fact that she was clutching the stem of her wine glass so hard that he thought it might break at any minute. Mmm, she didn’t think her story was quite as funny as they did.
Now that was interesting.
Then she lifted her face and stared at the ceiling and he caught the sheen of tears in her eyes, her rapid blinking. Hello…she was seriously distressed. Matt’s instinct was to head straight for her, to gather her up and to tell her it was okay to let those tears fall.
Weird, slightly scary, since he didn’t even know the woman. He watched, fascinated as she rearranged her features so that she looked like any other carefree woman in her mid-to-late twenties with wide eyes and a wider smile.
Oh, she was an excellent faker.
‘He didn’t even bat an eye, just turned and said, “Get naked, join in and What’s-Her-Skanky will show you what to do.”’ She carried on with her story.
Now he had the urge to rearrange some clown’s face.
Matt turned and lifted his eyebrows when Alex, Poppy’s brother and another inhabitant of the flat, stepped into the spacious hallway behind him.
‘Women just don’t do it for me.’
‘You did kiss Melissa Butler.’
‘I was thirteen, Poppy!’ she howled. ‘And you dared me to!’
Alex lifted his eyebrow at Matt before looking through the crack of the door and wincing.
‘What’s Tori’s story this time?’ he asked in a low voice, also seemingly reluctant to walk into the lounge.
Tori…Matt tested the name on his tongue and found that he liked it. He rubbed his hand over his forehead.
‘I just got here but, as far as I can tell, she got home and her partner had arranged a surprise for her,’ Matt quietly replied as he dropped his laptop case to the floor next to the battered hall table.
‘Tori loves surprises so what’s the big deal?’
‘The surprise was a threesome which I gather she didn’t expect and certainly didn’t agree to.’
Alex tossed out a curse. ‘And, let me guess, Tori’s pretending it’s a joke. Classic Tori.’ Alex shrugged out of his coat and Matt saw his fist clench, release and fist again as he struggled to control his reaction. ‘I’d happily rearrange his face, the bastard.’
Interesting, Matt thought. He knew that Alex was with Lara and could see that the guy was crazy mad over her. So why the instinctive reaction to protect Tori? And why didn’t he like it? ‘So that’s the third friend they are always talking about.’
‘Mmm. She, Poppy and Izzy have shared this flat for years and years but Tori moved out a couple of months back. I’m in her old room and you’re using the turret room—Izzy’s old room.
‘I warned her about Mark. God, why didn’t the bloody woman listen?’ Alex muttered. Matt was beginning to think that none of her friends liked Tori’s threesome-loving boyfriend. Alex peeked through the door and raised his eyebrows when he heard Tori laugh. ‘She’s taking it very well…knowing how melodramatic Tori can be, I expected her to be throwing glasses and, possibly, furniture.’
Matt shuddered at the thought. He was grateful that she wasn’t; he had to deal with enough drama from his clients without coming home to a hysterical, furniture-throwing woman.
And he put up with a fair amount of drama from his sports-star clients. As their agent, looking after the business side of their sporting careers was easy, he could negotiate deals blindfolded, but playing the role of psychologist, older brother, agony aunt and best friend was emotionally draining. That was why he was renting this room in an eclectic flat on the fringes of Notting Hill for the duration of his stay in London. He loved his job but he had so much to do while he was over here that he didn’t want, or need, his UK clients dropping in on him at odd hours of the night or day.
Having them calling him all the time was enough of a pain. He was pretty sure that he was getting a repetitive strain in his elbow from constantly holding his phone to his ear. He planned to have a mini-holiday from being their agony aunt, their solver of all problems. As for women…he was sort of avoiding them too since his last hook-up back in Cape Town turned out to be a mini-stalker, utterly determined to be the first Mrs Cross.
There had only ever been one Mrs Cross—his mum—and he had no intention of changing that.
Ever.
Alex reached for his coat and shrugged it back on. Grabbing Matt’s coat off the hook, he slapped it against his chest and tipped his head.
‘Tori is the type that when she walks into a room and she’s happy, birds sing, mountains move and the lights grow brighter. When she’s miserable, tsunamis form, lava churns and demons howl. She sounds reasonably together now but she can turn on a dime. Besides, do we really want to hear about their thoughts on our junk?’
‘Really don’t.’ Matt nodded his agreement.
He was happy to leave, if only to give the distress-concealing, lava-churning beauty some space. The friends wouldn’t be able to talk, or chew the heads off bats, or do whatever females did when their worlds got turned on their heads if a stranger was in the room.
‘Let’s go to Isaac’s place and grab a beer,’ Alex suggested. ‘He’s not there but what the hell?’
‘Which bar? He has a couple.’
‘Red. It’s an easy tube ride. We’ll sneak back in later when the coast is clear.’
That, Matt decided, resisting the impulse to take another peek at the woman who could launch tsunamis and make demons howl, was the best idea he’d heard all day.
As they clattered down the stairs Alex threw a conversational grenade over his shoulder, straight at Matt’s head. ‘By the way, I’ll wipe the floor with your face if you mess with Tori.’
Matt nodded. Warning received.
CHAPTER TWO (#ud80f8b98-2ec8-53f7-8612-86c8be602872)
TORI, LYING ON THE super uncomfortable, lumpy and thin single mattress in the cramped boxroom, looked at the flashing display of her mobile and ignored Mark’s call.
What number call was that? Sixteen, seventeen? She placed her forearm over her eyes, feeling drained, exhausted and so, so empty. She’d acted her ass off earlier but she knew that her friends, especially Poppy, hadn’t bought it. Some of it but not all; they were too perceptive for her own good. Sometimes she thought that Poppy and Iz laughed because, knowing her so very well, they knew that was the reaction she was most comfortable with, because she always handled hurt with humour.
Tori hiccupped a sob and couldn’t believe that she was crying over a man…again. It was what she did, she thought, a pattern of behaviour that started in her childhood and she’d yet to break. She’d throw herself into a situation, looking for attention—love, affirmation—and when it ran out, sometimes in minutes, sometimes days, weeks, months, she’d be left feeling flattened and…less than.
She was so tired of feeling less than. But the reality was that she’d never been enough…not for her parents, not for her previous loser boyfriends, definitely not for Mark.
Tori rolled over onto her side and groaned as a particularly large lump dug into her ribcage. On the plus side, she didn’t love Mark, hadn’t been able to open herself up to him and reveal the chronically insecure woman below her flash surface. Maybe if she found a man she could do that with, someone she allowed to peek below the partygirl, flirty-girl surface, maybe that would be the man she could fall in love with, the man who would give her the love and attention and the stability that had always been beyond her reach.
Tori thumped her wafer-thin pillow and rolled over again. This bed was disgusting, the room small and cramped. When she and Poppy and Iz shared this flat—happy, happy days of laughter, girl chats and wild parties—Izzy had used this room to store her clothes and Poppy her medical tomes. This bed had been a place to throw stuff on, now it seemed to be a repository for the lost and strayed, first Izzy, then Lara, now her.
But everything was changing…The flat was like Love Central recently, with Izzy falling head over heels in love with Harry and Alex losing his heart to Lara.
But she’d rather be here, in this horrible bed in the tiniest room in the house with friends who cared about her, than back at Mark’s with or without his plus one. This flat, originally a fire station with its exposed red brickwork and crazy plumbing, was the place she felt most like…well, herself, and the people who lived within its thick walls were more family than her own flesh and blood. Especially Poppy, who knew her in and out and roundabout.
But really, this bed…she’d never get to sleep.
‘Isaac is away…’ Poppy had said.
Isaac is away…mmm, gorgeous Isaac. If he were in residence she’d consider making a play for him; he would be a super excellent way to forget Mark. Tori bit her lip…except that there was a weird vibe between Poppy and Isaac, something that would have her hesitating if Isaac were around…
But, right now, the bed in the turret room directly above her head was big and comfortable and, best of all, empty! She could, at the very least, get a good night’s sleep, something she knew would be next to impossible in this coffin.
Her mobile buzzed again and Tori sighed at the display. For a minute she considered answering it, considered allowing Mark to talk her around, to persuade her to jump into a taxi and come home. She’d make him grovel and, after endless hours of discussion, she’d have a warm body to curl up around tonight…
No! She was not that pathetic, that weak! He’d crossed a line as big as the San Andreas fault line and it was not okay! She was worth more than that…
Mind made up, Tori switched off her mobile, slid out of bed and walked up the stairs to the turret room, avoiding the stairs that creaked and the floorboards that groaned. In the morning, she thought as she opened the door to Izzy’s old room, she would feel better, calmer, and more able to make rational decisions.
Maybe. Or maybe she’d cave and go back to Mark…
‘You’re sounding stronger, Dad.’ Matt leaned back against the headboard, mobile to his ear.
‘I’m fine. Don’t worry.’
Matt twisted his lips at Patrick’s sharp retort. Like him, he hated being fussed over, but Matt wasn’t convinced that his dad was fully recovered from the bout of pneumonia that had hospitalised him at the beginning of August. He still sounded weak, although he tried to hide it.
And also like him, his father was a night owl and they often spent time on the phone between the hours of eleven and one in the morning. They’d chat about sport or the news and every so often Matt would explain a complicated deal he was involved in. Despite his years spent working in non-profit organisations promoting sport amongst disadvantaged children, Patrick had never lost his cool, unemotional, law-trained mind and his insights were frequently sharp, concise and devastatingly accurate. He had a way of cutting through the waffle and discarding the emotion to reveal the heart of the problem, the soul of the dilemma.
‘How’s Angela?’ Matt asked, referring to the woman his dad had met a couple of months ago.
