Page 27 of The Island in Bramble Bay
‘High 5 began to be successful and Jared and I started to be invited to all kinds of events, we were treated like celebrities. It was fun in the beginning to have a glimpse into the world of the rich and famous. And we became very rich very quickly.
‘Jared lost sight of the business. He got caught up in the partying and could barely drag himself into the office most days so I was picking up the slack and it was too much. But around the same time, I guess a little before, when I was still kinda enjoying the partying, I met Jessica. In hindsight, I should have realised what kind of girl she was but in that world, she fitted in, seemed normal. I mean, she was normal for Silicon Valley, after a guy who had money and status. And she did a good job of making me think she loved me rather than my money or the lifestyle we had.’ He paused. It was so hard to talk to Maggie about Jessica. It made him feel like a fool, to admit to her that he’d been taken in by someone like that. That he hadn’t been able to tell whether a relationship was based on love or not. It seemed so obvious now.
‘That’s not your fault. You must have been under so much pressure to keep the business going.’ She slipped out of her chair and knelt next to him, holding his hand.
‘There was a meeting where we had VC’s we were pitching to for second-round funding, really important and Jared hadn’t turned up. We were partners, we’d been working towards it for months and I couldn’t do it by myself. I bombed it. I just froze and had a panic attack right in front of everyone. Tom, our CFO, sent everyone away and drove me straight home. Then when I walked in the apartment and went to the bedroom, Jessica was in bed with Jared.’
‘Oh Charlie.’ Maggie had tears in her eyes and when she reached up to touch his face, he realised she was wiping a tear from his cheek. ‘I can’t believe anyone could do that to you.’
‘Even now I don’t know how I missed it. I was just so caught up with work, I knew she’d been tagging along with him and his girlfriend, to some premieres and stuff. I was so preoccupied, it never occurred to me that she’d started seeing him. Or that he would do that to me either.’
‘You should be able to trust your best friend.’
‘Yeah. Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I have trust issues.’ He smiled at her. ‘And I know it doesn’t excuse how I behaved but I wanted you to know.’
‘I’d already forgiven you, you do know that?’ Maggie squeezed his hand tight and then pulled herself up off the shingle and sat gingerly on his lap. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he nestled her into him.
‘I know. But you know, if we’re gonna do this, I need you to know everything.’
Maggie leant in and kissed him slowly. ‘And I love that you told me.’
23
MAGGIE HAD GONE back to the cottage to fetch some snacks, leaving Charlie sitting on the beach. They hadn’t eaten and she hadn’t had an appetite until Charlie had called round. After their talk in the woods, she’d known that everything would be okay but there had still been an edge of awkwardness between them when they’d parted.
Hearing Charlie’s story had restored Maggie’s faith in him. Even though she’d had no problem forgiving his treatment of her following the holiday lodge revelation, knowing what he’d been through before he’d left America did help her to understand.
But now she felt that everything was one-sided; he’d told her his deepest personal story and she had told him barely anything about herself. It felt wrong to tell him now when he had just shared his deepest secrets with her. Tonight had to be about his story, not hers. One thing she was sure of was that she was definitely going to go with him when he had to go back to America to sign the papers for the business. There was no way she was going to let him face that alone. She wasn’t even sure whether he had ever spoken to Jared or Jessica since. Were they still together? Did Charlie even know?
Maggie managed to find a bag of tortilla chips, some houmous and a couple of carrots which she chopped into sticks. She also tucked the bottle of wine under her arm before she went back to Charlie.
He’d moved the chairs back from the water’s edge and had laid some bigger stones in a small circle which he’d filled with odd bits of driftwood.
‘Got a light?’
‘Yes, next to the fire in the lounge.’ How lovely to have a fire on the beach. It was one of those things which Maggie had romantic notions about doing once she’d moved to the coast. At the time she hadn’t considered that it might happen with a handsome man right outside her back door.
She watched him as he lay on his side, leaning on one elbow while he poked and prodded the fire into life, the flames lighting his face up as he watched it. He glanced over to her and smiled when he saw her watching him.
‘It’s a good fire, huh?’ he said lazily.
‘I’ve always wanted to have a fire on a beach.’
‘Back home, we used to have bake-outs on the beach. Have a few beers, cook a lobster or something. It was really cool.’
‘I’ve got absolutely nothing we could cook on a fire. Not even a marshmallow.’
‘We should do that sometime, not marshmallows but actual food. Maybe with Josh and Meg and the others?’
‘God, Charlie, I never thought I’d hear you suggest anything as sociable as that.’
He grinned and pointed a charred stick at Maggie, ‘Clearly you’re rubbing off on me.’ She moved to sit behind him and he put the stick down and twisted until he was lying in front of her. ‘Thank you, Maggie. For understanding.’ He put his hand at the nape of her neck and pulled her in for a kiss. Wanting to drink in the moment, Maggie lay down in front of him, between him and the fire and they lay together, watching the flames dance, Charlie’s arms wrapped around her, his whole body warming her through.
‘I want to come with you when you go back. You can’t do that by yourself after everything that happened. I know I said I’d come before but I just want you to know that I’m going to be there for you.’
He nuzzled a kiss into the back of her neck in answer.
They retreated into the house when the fire had died down leaving them chilly.
