Page 117 of Green Flag
I tried to shrug it off. If only he knew how much.
“Do you just want his attention for our little project or… is it more?”
I couldn’t breathe.
Because—God. Is that what he thought? But… was he right? I’d always wanted Pedro’s adoration but wasn’t that just being young and in love?
It had started small. I laughed a little harder at his jokes, even when I didn’t get them. I posted things I thought he’d find interesting. I waited for the little “seen” to pop up beside my messages, then waited longer for his replies. I changed how Idressed—less colour, more skin. Not because he asked. He didn’thaveto. I just learned what got a reaction. I learned what lit up his gaze, made him fixate on me.
My sense of worth was hinged on his approval. But that had changed, hadn’t it?
Shouldn’t I feel relieved that I no longer needed to involve him?
He trained me to want his gaze, to measure myself against it.
I was a hound for attention, I knew that.
But not his.
I wanted him to see I was doing better without him.
I was with Luca. I wanted Luca weak for me; that wasn’t a secret. But I also wouldn’t change my foundations for him.
“I don’t want his attention,” I said, hands numb as I blocked @PVThrowaway and then wrapped my arms around Luca.
23
Chapter 23
Everly
Christmas Eve used to be spent with my Mum, Dad and Twinkle, our little bichon frise. I’d spend the morning with Mum down at the stables, then we’d come home to cook a dinner of fish and vegetables for Dad. He rarely made it home before Christmas Eve, with the last races keeping him in America.
Mum didn’t mind that so much when I was little, but when it came to my teenage years, she started fighting for family time.
The two years between him leaving us for my nanny and her relapse were the worst. I never knew what to do with myself. When I had no choice but to spend Christmas with my dad and his new family, I started to resent the holiday.
Last year, I spent it in Thailand.
The year before, New York.
Always with people I was friendly with, but not truly friends.
StormSprint made me realise: I didn’t really have friends before Arabella and Luca.
Other than my sister.
But, being eight years younger than me, we couldn’t exactly talk abouteverything. She was pouting on my bed, scrolling through her phone as I got ready for my night, a dinner with the grid girls and then my not-boyfriend’s charity fight.
In sexy lingerie.
I would be whatever the equivalent of a ‘grid girl’ was in the ring. If it meant I had to go out in my lacy, black bra and leather-look shorts then that was fine.
The flare-up on my back was mild, nothing like my stomach—but the shorts covered that. Still, I paused at the mirror, ignoring the burning need to itch.
I might also want to seduce Luca Mendes.
And I wasn’t going to let my psoriasis stop that.
