Page 35 of Her Diamond Deal with the CEO

‘Good workout.’ Mark smiled. ‘But maybe do some yoga later. You were losing focus a little,’ he added by way of explanation as Jack gave him a narrow-eyed look. ‘I know you’re not a big fan but building muscle and increasing endurance can only happen with the right mindset.’

They shook hands. ‘See you on Wednesday.’

Jack nodded. ‘Wouldn’t miss it.’

‘You can try,’ Mark called over his shoulder. ‘But you know I’ll find you.’

Picking up his protein shake, Jack took a gulp. Mark was based in New York, but they had trained in London, Paris, St Barts, Tulum, Ibiza. They weren’t friends. Truthfully, he knew as much about his trainer now as he did when they started working together four years ago and yet, after his grandfather, Mark was probably the most constant, most reliable person in his life.

Jack glanced around the silent gym. His heartbeat was still elevated from the training session but there was another beat behind it, not of panic, not yet, but he could feel it creeping in from the edges, just as it always did whenever he was alone and there was nothing to distract his thoughts from slipping into the dangerous territory of his past.

Not just his past, he thought, his chest tightening.

From the outside, it looked as though he were part of a series of overlapping social circles. There were friends of the family, friends of friends, people he knew from the various schools he’d attended and all of them were regular fixtures at the parties and events that punctuated his calendar. But were they hisfriends? Could he trust them? Did they care about him?

He stared across the gym, his breath jabbing his throat as if it were a punchbag, the panic lost in the numbness that was pushing into the gaps between his ribs.

Is there anyone I can call?

Ondine had asked him that all those weeks ago when the shock of nearly drowning had finally caught up with him. Her question had been simple enough, and it came, he knew, from a place of concern. But the answer he hadn’t given, the answer he was too ashamed to give her was, no: there was no one. Not his so-called friends, none of whom had bothered to check up on him that day. Not that it was all their fault. He’d been hurt too early, too much, too often to allow friendship to happen. Speaking of which—

His muscles were burning, and his hands throbbed from hitting the punchbag but as he tried imagining his parents’ reactions he felt an older ache in his chest.

He knew exactly how it would have played out. If by some miracle his mother had picked up, she would no doubt have told him to call his father. But what would be the point? His stepmother always fielded his calls and she would probably just have said what she always did, which was that his father would call back.

Fat chance.

He knew from experience that if he had waited for that to happen he would still be sitting in the hospital now.

There was only one person he could have reached out to: his grandfather.

And he’d wanted to call him so badly that day in Palm Beach. But he had called him so many times in the past. There was the DUI in LA; the party in that hotel in Cannes when the room got wrecked; the arrest in Aspen for possession of a controlled substance. All of them managed and tidied away quietly and discreetly by a man who had been a guardian, a mentor, a father as much as a grandfather. John Walcott was the one person who cared about him, and enough to dispense tough love.

And he had wanted to prove he was getting his head straight, recalibrating his life, only what had happened on the yacht hardly qualified for either. But that wasn’t the only reason he hadn’t dialled the number. He’d known that if he heard his grandpa’s quiet, authoritative voice he would weep.

His jaw clenched. He hadn’t cried since he was five years old and he fell off a chair and broke his arm. He could remember the sharp snap as his elbow hit the floor, the bright white pain that blurred his sight.

Later, at the hospital the nurses kept telling him he was brave, but he wasn’t. It was just that he knew then there was no point in crying; that the power of tears to stop bad things from happening only worked in fairy tales.

None of which changed the fact that his grandfather had cared and worried about him for three decades already. For once, he hadn’t wanted to add to those worries.

Besides, he was scared that if he started weeping he might never stop.

Outside the window he caught a flicker of blue the exact colour of Ondine’s eyes and, glancing down at the swimming pool, he felt his heart miss a beat. That wasn’t what had happened with her. Okay, he hadn’t actually wept but he’d been closer to tears than he’d ever been with anyone.

He could see her fingers as they curved around his, feel their warmth and the firmness of her grip. It was the same steady grip she must have used when she’d pulled him from the sea. He had only the briefest memory of it before he’d lost consciousness but in that shifting liminal space between water and air, life and death, the touch of her hand had been reassuringly, unquestionably real.

And it had felt just as real yesterday afternoon.

When Ondine had asked whether he had been swimming since the ‘accident’ he had panicked and done what he always did. He’d pushed back, and, as expected, she’d stormed off.But—and this was a first—she had come back and he had ended up telling her the truth.

Not every sordid detail but it still felt seismic.

To her too.

He could see,feelher shock and confusion, but she hadn’t given up on him like his parents or chosen to look the other way like his so-called friends. Instead she’d taken his handand sat with him just as she had at the hospital and afterwards, while he’d slept in her brother’s bed.

A brother she clearly adored. And yet, she was also a manipulative little hustler who had tried to convince him that he was the father of her baby.

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