Читать книгу Bring Me Back: The gripping Sunday Times bestseller now with an explosive new ending! - Б. Э. Пэрис, B Paris A - Страница 15

SIX

Before

The day after the New Year’s Eve party, I told Caroline it was over. And when you tried to move out of my flat, a few days later, I did everything I could to persuade you to stay. Without asking Harry, I told you that you could have the study, at least until you found a job, saying that he wouldn’t mind. But you were adamant that you wanted to move into a youth hostel, telling me that if you were to make a life for yourself in London, you needed to meet other young people. The realisation that you thought of me as old was hard to take – hell, I was only twenty-seven. But in your eyes, I was nothing more than an older guy who had given you shelter for a couple of days.

In the event, you stayed a little over a week. For a man who lives in the present, I can still picture every minute of the day you moved out. I helped you move into the hostel you’d found, hoping you’d soon become disillusioned with sharing a room with five other people. Your idea was to find a job as soon as possible, which would allow you to move into a flat-share.

When it came to saying goodbye, I gave you my business card, telling you to call me if you needed help of any kind. And then I went back to my flat and drank half a bottle of whisky, moaning at Fate for leading you to me when you weren’t going to become a permanent fixture in my life.

Harry was bemused, then fascinated that I’d fallen so hard for you, Layla Gray. He pointed out that my girlfriends to date had all been smart young city women and that you were unsophisticated in comparison. He couldn’t see that that was the biggest attraction for me. Even before you, I’d become increasingly disenchanted with the uniformity of it all; the smart business suits, the killer heels, the sharp fingernails that raked my back with dreary repetition during sex. Harry tried to tell me that what I felt was infatuation and I tried to believe him. I also tried to forget you, working and partying twice as hard as before, to fill the void you’d left in my life.

I lived in hope of you phoning me, just to let me know how you were getting on. When a month passed without news, I told myself that you never would. And then, two months after you first disappeared from my life, you walked back in.