Page 33 of Win Some Love Some
Or he didn’t want me there.
“He’s the only decent mechanic around for miles. He services all of Calico Cove, but most of the surrounding towns as well. He’s always backed up with billing and he’s shit at scheduling appointments. He needs help.”
“Yeah, well…maybe,” I said, hedging my answer when in my head the wordsno waykept flashing over and over again.“I’ll see about Petite tomorrow. I think I’d be better suited to waitressing. Besides it’s French cuisine. I could really bring some authenticity to the place. It’s a great fit, don’t you think?”
Dad grunted.
Mom sighed.
“What?” I asked, picking up their hesitancy.
They looked at each other and had a silent conversation – about me – right in front of me. Finally, Mom sighed and said, “We just want you to be happy. If waitressing is something that calls to you, then great.”
“But…” With parents there was always a but.
“But,” Mom supplied. “We just don’t want to see you reach for something just because it’s different. As if every previous life decision you’ve made was wrong. Nora, at some point, you’re going to have to forgive yourself for being the victim of a criminal and stop punishing yourself.”
The wordvictimrankled. It did when I was being interviewed by the officers of the Police Nationale. How could I be a victim when I’d willingly said yes to everything?
When I’d fallen for the flowers, the private jet, the weekend in Ibiza. When he’d told me he was the bastard son of a Saudi Arabian prince who owned zillions in oil, it sounded reasonable. When he told me he lived in Paris because that’s where his Parisian mother raised him, that was also credible. Rene was mixed race, clearly native French speaking and ridiculously wealthy.
Or he gave the appearance of someone ridiculously wealthy.
I had never been interested in his money. I had my own money from being an influencer, but I’d been raised by the most frugal people on the planet and extravagance went against everything they taught me.
So Rene’s extravagance had been…different. Exciting. I had gotten sucked into his lifestyle and it blinded me to what had been right in front of my face.
When Rene told me about the unrest in his family, the tug-of-war over the land and oil, it had sounded plausible. That his cousins wanted himout of the way,I thought that meant they didn’t want him returning to the family home. Not that they were trying to have him killed. But when he showed up at my apartment with a bandage on his neck and blood on his shirt, I believed him when he said he needed as much cash as I could put together so he could go into hiding…
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Then I gave him access to my credit card, which somehow got him access to my checking account.
“Oh, I forgot,” Mom said. “You got some mail delivered here.”
“Oh great,” I muttered. It was either more bills, or worse, one of his other girlfriends/victims looking for answers.
Three months ago my DMs were full of messages from women who were exactly like me.
My boyfriend said he needed money to get away from his family. That they were trying to kill him. But now I think he was lying.
My boyfriend took me to Morrocco and bought me a diamond necklace. It turned out to be fake. He took all my money and I had to ask my parents for money to get home. I’ve never been so embarrassed.
This is a picture of my boyfriend who took ten thousand euros from me. Is this your boyfriend, too? I can’t believe I was such a fool. I thought I loved him. I thought he loved me.
I couldn’t handle all the secondhand humiliation and heartbreak. It was like a cheese grater across what was left of my dignity. I’d met two of them who also lived in Paris. I thoughtcommiserating with them might help, but it only made me sick to my stomach knowing he’d sent the same texts to them that he’d sent to me.
I need more money. My cousins have frozen my accounts.
You are all I think about. You are the moon and the stars.
When will you be able to send the money? I’m sorry to ask but things are desperate.
Canned text messages. What kind of animal did that?
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“They’re over there in the mail bowl,” Mom said, pointing back to the kitchen.
