For a second, they locked eyes, and a cascade of warring emotions rushed through Jade's system. She felt at once weak, vulnerable, hopeless – and also angry, betrayed and insulted.
And attracted, madly attracted to this powerful, handsome billionaire. She couldn't deny it; she still wanted him. And that made her feel even worse.
What emotions were running his mind she could not tell. His eyes remained cold as she stared at him, and after a second he looked away, no longer acknowledging her presence. She turned on her heels and walked off, not looking back once as she did.
As the traffic light changed she heard the Maserati roar off, and that was that.
“I've seen the last of you, Brenton Huxley,” she whispered under her breath as tears of sadness, regret, anger and betrayal began to burn in her large, dark eyes. “I've seen the last of you, and you've seen the last of me. And you'll never see me again.”
She walked briskly off to her apartment, crying softly in the falling rain, impatient to begin the interview that would take her to a new job, new city, and a new life.
Two weeks later everything had been arranged. Her belongings had been packed and shipped across the country to LA, to her uncle's house, where she would be staying while she looked for an apartment. She had vacated her apartment a week earlier, and had spent her last few days in New York City crashing on Jenny's sofa, listening to her endless gossip and stories about the rich men she was dating and deceiving. Quite frankly, Jade was very relieved to be escaping that environment, and New York in general. To her it had come to represent everything she resented; failure, heartbreak and broken dreams. LA would be a fresh start, a clean slate. A place to lose old and painful memories, and to write new ones – happy memories, and stories of joy and success.
Still, even as the cab pulled up to the entrance of the airport, she found her thoughts wandering back to a certain billionaire. A certain business mogul with a hard-as-rock body, piercing blue eyes, a granite jaw and the passion of a wild beast.
Try as she may, she could not forget Brenton Huxley, and the moments they had shared.
She exited the cab, gave the driver his fare and took her luggage out of the back. She watched as an airplane climbed from the airport high into the grey sky, disappearing eventually among the clouds. Soon, she would be up there, in one of those great metallic crafts, leaving this city and its landscape of broken dreams forever.
As she walked into the airport to check her bags in and get her boarding pass, she wondered briefly if Brenton ever thought about her, the way she thought about him. Did thoughts of her dance through his mind in the late hours of the night? Did images of her face flash, uninvited, before his eyes. She wondered. She really wondered.
Did he regret what he had done? Had he bothered to read any of the messages she had sent, explaining the situation, explaining that it had been a message from Jenny, not her? That everything that had transpired had just been because of a simple, but terrible misunderstanding?
No. No, she thought bitterly, he probably doesn't. He's got his blonde secretary now, with her supermodel looks and long, slim legs. He probably hasn't thought about me for months.
Jade checked her bags in and got her boarding pass. She went and had coffee in one of the airport cafes, and read a novel while she waited for her boarding time to arrive.
It did, eventually, and she started making her way to the boarding gate to get on the plane that would whisk her away to a new beginning, and leave this old life behind.
As she walked, however, she couldn't resist turning back for one more look behind her. She half-expected to see Brenton running through the airport at full speed, pushing through the throngs of people and shouting “wait Jade, wait!” at the top of his lungs.
There was nobody there.
She turned around and continued walking, and this time she didn't look back.
CHAPTER 8
Jade stared out over the Pacific Ocean as it rolled its breakers in from the deep. The sun was setting, sizzling the edges of its red fire against the water in the distance. Since she had moved to Los Angeles over two months ago, Jade had come to the ocean as often as she had been able to. Her job kept her very busy, but on the rare moments that she had free time to herself, she enjoyed coming out here, to be alone with the sea and the sand. One of her favorite films had always been The Shawshank Redemption, and in it the character Andy DuFresne had said that the Pacific Ocean had no memory. He had also said that he wanted to live out the rest of his days in a warm place, with no memory.