Mr. Knightsbridge (The Mister 1)
I flopped down on a green damask settee. “I’m not sure if closure is the way to describe it.” Beck being there had pulled my focus. He’d been a complete distraction.
“It does seem like you’ve moved on. Hopefully, you can get your design business back up and running, leave that recruitment consultancy, and forget about Matt and Karen. Especially now you’re seeing someone else.”
“I’m not seeing someone else,” I said. “Beck and I . . . It’s nothing. And now we’re back in London, so . . .”
“What?” Florence asked, finally pulling herself away from the Chinese basin she’d been eyeing up and joining me on the settee. “What happened? You both seemed so into each other.”
I’d been into him. Too into him. I’d gotten so caught up in it—the sex, the way he held my hand as if he wouldn’t let go for anything. The way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t looking. We’d been fast-forwarded into the honeymoon stages of a relationship and all of a sudden we were home and our relationship had been annulled. “I guess we put on a good show.”
She nudged me. “Come on, we both know it was more than that. What happened?”
“I’ve just learned that I’m way too trusting. I’ve got to toughen up. Assume the worst. See things how they are and not how I want them to be.” I stood and started scanning the room for more inspiration.
“Stella, what on earth went wrong?”
“Nothing. But Beck—I barely knew him. And one thing’s for certain. I’m not jumping from the frying pan into the fire.”
“No, there should be no jumping into any fires. Did he end things between you?”
“Things? There were no things to end. It was just casual—something to pass the time.”
“So he didn’t bring up seeing you again in London?” she asked.
“Kind of. I mean, hardly.” I swallowed, trying to get rid of the disappointment I’d felt when he hadn’t even tried to convince me we could combine the professional and the personal.
“So he did?” she asked.
“He said something about celebrating him getting the building.”
“Right,” Florence said. “And what did you say?”
“Nothing much. He didn’t seem too bothered. I said something about how because we’d be working together, we should be professional.”
“He asked to see you again and you said no.” Florence rolled her eyes and pushed herself up from the settee.
“No. This wasn’t me. I . . . When Beck wants something, he goes for it. Fights for it. And I just wasn’t ultra-enthusiastic about his idea of a celebration, and he agreed and went cold. He clearly wasn’t that bothered. I gave him an easy out.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “He seemed pretty smitten to me.”
“Yeah, well I thought Matt was smitten.” I shrugged. “People can’t be trusted. No, wait—men can’t be trusted.”
When she didn’t respond, I glanced over at her. Her nose wrinkled like someone was making her sniff sour milk. “We’re friends, right? And friends tell each other
when they’re being idiots, agreed?”
My stomach sank to my knees.
“Matt couldn’t be trusted. He was an arsehole. Doesn’t mean Beck will be. Keep Matt behind you. Don’t let him ruin your future. Don’t let him take what you and Beck have.”
My heart spluttered in that same way it did when I thought I’d fucked up at work or when I’d inadvertently made a friend cry. “Wait, no,” I said. This wasn’t me. “Beck didn’t want me. It was obvious. I might not have jumped at his idea of a celebration, but he didn’t seem bothered. Not at all. I know what he looks like when he’s determined he wants something.”
“You’ve seen what he looks like when he wants to buy a building,” Florence said. “Not when he’s asking a woman on a date. The biggest egos are the ones most easily crushed.”
The idea that I’d crushed Beck’s ego was ludicrous. “I’m sure he has plenty of women willing to kiss him and make him feel better.”
“Maybe not the one he wants, though,” she replied.
I folded my arms and headed over to the window. I needed to think—get my head straight.