Page 49 of Here Comes Trouble
He looked up at her again, the hazy look in his eyes clearing as if her words had finally penetrated through to his brain.
‘Hell, Jess, sorry, I was right in the middle of a thought. Yes, sure, I’ll let you know.’
There was a steely look in his eye now, as if he’d hardened himself against her leaving.
A hot wave of despair crashed over her.
She needed to get out of there before she made a fool of herself and did something stupid and crass like asking him to be her boyfriend.
‘Okay then. Well, it’s been a blast. Good luck.’ Without waiting for a response, she turned on her heel and walked away from him before he could see how much she wanted him to ask her not to go.
All the way through packing her suitcase she wondered whether he’d come and stop her.
As she walked down the corridor, then out of the villa, then got into her car, with her heart hammering against her chest, she wondered whether he’d come running up at the last moment and say, ‘I want you to stay’.
Then as she drove the car slowly out of the driveway and crept down the lane to the main road, her breath short and a hard pressure behind her eyes, just waiting to spill over into tears, she wondered whether she’d see him in her rear-view mirror, running after her car.
But she didn’t.
He wasn’t coming. He was letting her go.
9
Xander spent the next couple of days trying to convince himself it was a good thing that Jess had gone. He needed to concentrate on getting the paintings finished and having her around would have been disruptive.
But he couldn’t convince himself.
The loneliness bit at him, sinking its teeth deep and leaving him on edge and distracted.
After a couple more days of failing to summon the energy to finish the final painting he decided that Italy and seclusion wasn’t working for him any more. He needed energy and life again and that meant going back to London.
As soon as he arrived back, he went straight out to a party that some friends were holding at a bar in Hoxton Square, expecting the buzz of the city to perk him back up, but it didn’t work.
He felt tired and drained and ended up going home early, telling his friends it was because he’d expended so much energy on his art recently, but even as the words left his mouth, he knew that wasn’t the real reason. Normally, when he was excited about a piece of art he was working on he was full of adrenaline – wanting to talk about it with everyone he met, but he felt protective about this exhibition for some reason.
He couldn’t quite put his finger on why.
* * *
Jess had also returned to London in a state of bewildered confusion.
Walking back into the noise of theSparkoffice had been a shock to the system after the peace and tranquillity of Lake Garda and it took her a few days to get back up to speed with the big city pace of life.
To her annoyance she’d found Pamela was off sick with the flu when she first arrived back and so hadn’t even looked at the piece she’d written yet – perhaps it was karma catching up with her for playing hooky. The thought that she could have stayed for a couple more days with Xander flittered through her mind, but she knew that would have only prolonged the agony of having to say goodbye.
Despite her determination to get over Xander and move on with her life, she was having an awfully hard time getting him out of her head.
Spending time with him had been life changing – letting loose without the fear of being judged had excited her more than she’d ever felt possible, and she’d loved being touched and explored and worshipped, and then having his permission to do the same back to him. He’d woken something inside her that had been slumbering for years.
For the first time in her life she’d felt desired, sexy. Beautiful.
She found she was walking around now with her head held higher; making herself look at the world around her instead of staring down at the floor like she had before she’d met him. He’d opened up a whole world of possibility in her mind and now she’d experienced great sex, she could barely believe she’d gone without it for so long.
Life seemed full of new possibilities, alive with promise.
But on the flip side, no Xander making her heart race and her blood pump with excitement just by being close.
She realised, of course, that she’d run away from him again, only this time he hadn’t chased her. Perhaps he’d thought there was no point, that she didn’t want him to ask her to stay? He wasn’t a mind-reader after all so how could he have known what she wanted?
