Exclusive Love (British Billionaires Series) (20 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Waking on Saturday morning for a second or two, Katy felt as though her life was as it should be. Transitioning completely out of sleep, her brain rushed to alert her to the priorities, concerns, physical and emotional traumas she had to assess and deal with.

Oscar hadn’t shown. Even though she had her goodbye on Thursday night, allowing her the memory of how potent sex and love could be united, a foolish part of her head or heart had been certain he would appear at 11pm. He never came.

Forcing the pizza down her gullet, enduring the movie, Katy hadn’t confided in her parents. Being stood up and rejected had an emotional impact to echo throughout the remainder of one’s life. To have to have your loved ones witnessing the ordeal, not only provided the extra ingredient of humiliation, but was heartbreaking for the observer. Her parents loved her.

Knowing what was happening they’d have insisted on staying up, waiting with her, praying the man would turn up and ultimately breaking their hearts knowing there was nothing they could do to prevent their daughter from being hurt.

Snuggling under her duvet, Katy could escape Oscar and the rest of the world. Time lost its meaning. A light knock on the door was the sign one of her parents was preparing to enter.

‘You’ve a visitor Katy. He said he’d wait on the patio,’ whispered her father gently.

Clean, fresh jogging bottoms and a loose sport shirt, not his usual style, Katy was stunned to see Oscar.

‘I wasn’t sure whether I should come or not. I mean it wasn’t even two weeks. Two weeks is nothing out of thirty five years. Not even fourteen days. Why all the drama? But here I am. I came out of a sense of duty.’

Katy would be damned if she’d thank him for that.

‘The phone rang as I was set to leave the office. I took the call and wasn’t surprised to hear it was Robert. Seems I’m easy to find online. I knew what was coming so I was able to be civil to him. He asked for my mobile number because Rupert wouldn’t pass mine on to him. I said he needed to get over his problems and stop disrespecting your wishes.

Of course, he scoffed at my use of the word disrespect, insisting he had something he could only send via text. I told him I was terminating the call. His last ditch to get my attention worked. He asked why I was so concerned you be treated with respect when you were flagrantly disrespecting me. I wish I hadn’t taken the bait.’

Pausing, Oscar wasn’t sure whether he wanted Katy to speak or not.

‘I got a photo through of you and a guy sitting cosily together at a restaurant. I rang him and asked him to be straight with me. Having the upper hand he said couldn’t there and then, but was free after midnight. I knew I was due to arrive at yours for 11pm but I didn’t think being late would be a major issue. Truth is I spent hours studying that photo. Blue-toothed it to my lap top to examine it in closer detail. I knew it was you.

‘Whatever garbage Robert spouted, you had some serious explaining to do. I was so wound up I didn’t even bother texting to let you know I’d be late. The wait between receiving that photo and midnight was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. People bandy the word torturous around. For me that wait was as close as I’ve come to experiencing torturous.’

Katy’s silence was stoic. Unmoving in her flannel pajamas, she wasn’t wringing her hands anxiously, crying or shivering.

‘I got to his pad to find him naked in slippers and a dressing gown which was also torturous in its own way,’

Momentarily a ghost of a smile played on both their mouths, but the present eradicated any shared sense of a joke they might appreciate now or in the future.

‘He’d obviously prepared well in advance. The phone was plugged into his TV screen. I saw six photos of you with six different men. The final guy snapped with you at 10.27pm last night. You’d have been out with him when I was driving up to see you. I’ve never been the violent type but I felt destructive. I was raging.

‘Robert ensured I couldn’t fail to miss the evidence. To make sure he logged onto Exclusive Love. Guess who hadn’t deleted their profile? Remember last weekend Robert telling me by not utilizing my subscription I was putting all my eggs in one basket. I cockily implied there was no risk. You must’ve had a good laugh at my expense.’

‘That wasn’t how it was. I wasn’t laughing behind your back and at no point did I derive any enjoyment from it.’

Finally. Some of his hurt from his encounter with Robert penetrated enough to elicit a reaction from her, however empty and shallow. Oscar wanted to scream at Katy. Verbally attack her insecurities. He knew her weakest spots and words were more effective than violence.

‘Robert tells me you’re a fraud and actually I felt relieved. It was like the pink elephant in the room no one will mention. My soul exhaled to finally be able to say to someone, or in this case agree: yes, Katy’s a fraud. I realize my incessant frustrations and sometimes careless behavior towards your feelings was because my ears and eyes were telling me one thing and my instinct another.

‘The conflict drove me mad. I’d test you, but not know I was testing you. I started to hate myself for doing it to you. My poor old body and brain were trying to communicate with no help from you. You had every chance to tell me and come clean. I loved you. I wouldn’t have cared. But you lied to me. Even on Thursday you still lied. I can only think it’s because you wanted something from me that wasn’t my unconditional love.

‘Robert’s supporting arguments did include you not recognizing the champagne and the drunken lie of holidaying in Italy. He had more than those two on his list of tell tale signs contradicting your necessary requirement for admission on Exclusive Love. If he’d expected me to flinch, slap my forehead at my blindness, he didn’t get that response.

‘After all, I knew you were a fraud from the start.’

‘You never once had a request for an autograph. Without a television station behind you, what journalist earns that kind of money? You weren’t posted on special assignment here this week. You work here.

‘Your clothes were vintage, but your accessories weren’t. It clashed to see you wearing shoes bought at a retail shop at the local mall and that designer dress on the yacht. I mean your surprise visit on Thursday night you were au natural. Jeans and a t-shirt, not a designer touch in sight. I wondered if that’s why the sex was so amazing, because you were finally you. Comfortable in your own skin you could be you. I didn’t want you to be fraud. I attributed your dress sense to your own unique style. It worked. You were always gorgeous.

‘The lack of a vehicle and unwillingness to ever accept the offer of a ride. That was because you live here. My driver would’ve told me where he dropped you if you’d accepted a ride.

‘The absence of an invite to stay at yours. Your eyes were like saucers for the entire weekend in the Hamptons. Everything you saw, everyone you met, everything we did impressed you. No one with a modicum of life experience would’ve engaged as actively as you did. But I saw those saucer eyes when you woke at the Four Seasons and I saw them when you walked onto the roof terrace at Gramercy’s Hotel. That feels like a lifetime ago when it was less than a fortnight.

‘There were moments when I’d never felt happier then when I was with you. Moments I was certain I was seeing the real you, as if you’d forgotten your act. Was the whole thing in my head? Katy? Katy, please? I need to hear a straight answer.’

Oscar’s voice broke. Pacing the length of the patio. Hands shoved deep in his jogging bottoms. Vocalizing every doubt and suspicion he’d had. Confessing to Katy how foolish he’d been, but not being fooled. In the end he sat on the swing seat to wait for her reply.

‘It wasn’t in your head. I felt it too.’

‘I’m twelve years older but you opened me up, taught me to love then abandoned me. I feel like crying but I can’t. I trusted you and you made a mockery of my feelings. I don’t have anyone to discuss this with.’

‘You have me. Ask me. Ask me any question you want. Ask me every question you have. I’ll answer it honestly, but when you leave, you leave knowing I loved you and I never wanted to hurt you and I never wanted to lie to you.’

‘I want to know,’ began Oscar brokenly.

‘Not yet. I need to know you know. I need to hear you say it.’

‘I believe you,’ he said icily.

‘Say it aloud,’ demanded Katy quietly. ‘I need to know that message has got through. If you can’t do that, then go. You’ll find someone new. Any questions you pondered over in relation to me will be forgotten. As you said, we aren’t even two weeks.’

‘I know you love me and I know you didn’t want to hurt me. I know that’s not your nature Katy. As for the lying. I can’t say that with conviction. Prove me wrong.’

‘Fire away,’ invited Katy.

‘Why didn’t you sleep with Robert?’

‘Because I’m in love with you.’

‘Given you could’ve saved this relationship if you’d slept with Robert why didn’t you?’

‘I was in love with you. That’s why I declined it. I’m not perfect but I try. I’d rather lose you by Robert revealing my real life than to ever betray you. Circumstance created very difficult situations for me. I responded to them as the person I was in that moment. The consequences of those decisions shifted my priorities. Decisions made in innocence have had seriously dark and damaging repercussions.’

‘When you came to me on Thursday night and we had sex. Were you thinking of Robert or wishing you had slept with him?’

‘No. Never. In case you didn’t figure it out, I had until midnight last night to fulfill any inclination I may have had to bed Robert. Visiting you Thursday, I knew we were over. Our relationship was unraveling at such a rate I hadn’t time to explain. Without the opportunity to explain I knew you’d go. I wanted to remember the last time I made love to you, the last time I kissed you. Every particle of me was focused on you on Thursday night.’

‘I didn’t ask for extra details. If I wanted to know I’d ask.’

The sentences ran out of his mouth in a jumble but Katy heard them. Each word a pinprick in her heart.

‘How did you bypass the financial screen check at Exclusive Love?’

‘My boss deposited a sum of money in my account to reflect the monthly salary of someone earning $100,000 a year and my grandparents let me borrow a lump sum to plump up the account balance. Monies were returned upon verification.’

‘Katy. I think I’ll go.’

‘If you’re done and you feel it’s what you must do.’

‘I want the facts but you push the details. Repaying your boss and grandparents. Not defaulting on an agreed financial arrangement. It doesn’t in any way negate your lies to bypass the Exclusive Love financial screening process. Confessing you used me for sex on Thursday so you’d have a pleasant last memory of us isn’t sweet. It’s selfish. When you left, I thought we were forever. I thought I’d be having sex with you again and again.

‘I was ecstatic from your spontaneous visit. I was caught in that feeling you came to save us. I didn’t capture the physical sensation of the sex. If I ever want to revisit us in bed, it’ll be a blur. I didn’t know it was the end, but thank god it was.’

‘Go, Oscar. I’m not keeping you here or begging on bended knee for you to stay.’

‘I’ve one last question and you did promise to answer. Afterward I’ll go and I guarantee you’ll never see or hear from me again.’

Eyes locked, she accepted his words.

‘Something didn’t tally. The photos of you and the other men,’ Oscar paused. ‘You need to seriously consider Robert might be stalking you or tracking you with a private investigator. He’s not right in head.’

‘Forget Robert. I’ll hear no more from him. He’s achieved what he set out to do,’ assured Katy.