Finding North (Naïve Mistakes Series) (16 page)

-1-

I was awoken in the morning by my phone's buzz. A message.

Kayla: I'm through denying it. I think I'm in love. And I'm scared.

I looked at Conall, still fast asleep.

Leora: Me too.

Kayla: Sorry I won't be at school today. I just NEED him somehow. I told him. Everything.

Holy shit, my girl was growing up.

Leora: Good for you.

Kayla: What do we do, L? I've never felt this way. So fucking VULNERABLE!

Leora: If either of them gives us shit, you and I still have each other.

Kayla: Tx. I needed to hear that. No jokes. Cos this is serious.

Leora: I'm also skipping school. 1 1/2/ days and he's gone...

-2-

"Can you explain what happened yesterday? I mean, at Raphael's place?" I asked as I sipped my morning coffee at the table. I was wearing his shirt. It's not that I needed his shirt. I just fucking wanted to feel what it was like to walk around in a guy's shirt the morning after!

"After Alexandra...you know, I hired a private investigator to tag my brother. I wanted revenge. Not on him. On the people behind him. The dealers. I used my family's money initially but then started using my own once I got good at what I do.

"We have seven years of dirt on these guys. Different cartels across the world. I haven't figured out what to do with any of it yet. The cops are in on the game in so many places. The only way to get them is to create a buzz in the press, maybe have a few people coming forward. And then hopefully someone gets sued, or jailed.

"Well, that was the initial plan. But there's too much risk involved. And so little return at the end of the day. One of the investigators I hired in the beginning was murdered a year later. I had my suspicions it was because of the work I had him doing. But of course I couldn't prove it. And I didn't want to snoop around too much in case they came after me.

"But this, here, was different. You were involved. And I knew nothing about the underage girls either. I snapped. I guess I acted rashly..."

He thought on that for a second.

"Stephen Jenkins is a newspaper mogul around here. He's also a big coke addict, and he likes his parties wild and private. Well, not so private. We have a bunch of dirt on him. My father's business also advertises in several of his papers. So I took a long-shot. With the photos of Mr. Jenkins' fetishes and his absurd desire for power and reputation, as well as the threat of losing my father's business, Raphael could be brought down.

"I know the Raphael-type. They're happy so long as they're at the top. That's all they care about. So, as I said, I took a long shot. That's the one thing he can't lose, because then he'll be nobody.

"He took the bait. That way you and Kayla (and me, come to think of it) are safe, and he goes on running his racket."

"Why didn't you just close him down? Why did you make a deal with him?"

"Well, initially, maybe I would have done it. A few years back at least. We tried with a few cartels up in England. Too many losses to make it worth it. And then the big guys behind them just put another sucker running the show. Raphael is one of those suckers. Take him out and another one appears.

"But then there was yesterday. Because I threatened him, humiliated him, I had to play it safe. If I took all his power away anyway, he'd come after you, or me, or Kayla. Because he'd have nothing left to lose. If we leave him in power, he keeps away from all of you because he knows I have the ability to bring him down.

"But, you have to understand that. It's: bring
him
down. Not the drug deals. There are much bigger people above him. As I said, they'd just put someone else in his place."

"So you gave him the choice. For my and Kayla's safety?"

"And mine! I'm not a knight in shining armor here. I didn't want to end up dead in the street. But, yes, seeing as you were there and he somehow knew we were dating, well, I had to include you and her and even her friends there."

"So..." I moved my finger along the top of my coffee cup coyly. "...I'm your 'girlfriend'?"

"I think so, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do."

And I also think I'm falling in love with you
.

Only I didn't say that.

-2-

"How's your back?"

"Better. I didn't take any painkillers and it feels like it did yesterday after the ones I took yesterday started to wear off."

He sipped some coffee, got a small smirk.

"What?" I asked.

"Where did you learn...you know? I thought you said you'd never
—"

"Oh, God!" (I covered my face.)

"Oh, let me guess, the internet."

"No! Gross! Internet porn is awful. They put women in such degrading positions! Always some burly dude banging into her and her screaming like she
likes
being in pain! It amazes me what men fall for..."

"Then how?"

Yip, my face was beet-red I'm sure. "I, um, asked Kayla."

"And?"

"Do you
really
need to know this?"

"And we, um, maybe practiced on...
amhhhmmmm
?" I covered the last word with my mouth.

"What?"

"On a
banana
!"

Coffee came out his nose and mouth when I told him. Some of it landed on the floor. "Sorry," he said. "That is just so, well, "unique." But I shouldn't be complaining. I mean, wow. Amazing. That's all I can say. You must've practiced a lot."

"Uh, yeah, let's say we went through a stage with a lot of bananas. After I practiced I had them in protein shakes."

"Whoa! Now
you're
the disgusting one!"

"Hey! What's so disgusting about that?"

"Not that, the connotations of— Never mind!"

His gaze fixed on mine. He looked at me wonderingly.

I looked at him as well, taking in every part of his face, his eyes, his red lips, his black hair.

"Is there something you want to say?" I said.

"Yes, I think there is."

I swallowed. "What is it?"

He sighed. "We should wait."

Screech. Crash!
"Say what?"

"We should wait, before we make love, until you're eighteen."

I was suddenly very uncomfortable, even a little irritated. "Well that fucking sucks."

He got off his seat and came over to me. "And we should do it in that cabin I told you about, where there is no one else, and nothing else, only you, me, and three whole days of pleasure."

My fingers moved up his chest and grazed down slowly. "Conall, I'm so afraid. And I don't know why—"

"I know."

"Wait, I'm not finished."

"Sorry."

"But I know one thing. No matter who I fall in love with, or who I spend the rest of my life with, or if you and I work out, or if you suddenly decide you like silicone blondes or...
guys
, even... No matter what, there's one thing I've decided I always want to have. And that is that you will be my first. No matter what happens. I want that."

"And I will be. Because I was your first as well. But when you're eighteen."

I was disappointed, but also not so much. Because this made it more certain. I'd be eighteen in a month. Conall would have been gone for the same amount of time by then. I could live with that. We were, as he'd said, "dating" after all. I mean, he'd called me his "girlfriend."

This was frickin
official
!

"Conall."

"Yes?"

"I think I lo
—"

"You are my North."

Crash! Screech! Earthquake! WTF?
"Wh—excuse—huh?"

"You are my North."

Mother. Fuck.

That was SO much better than 'I love you.'

"You really know how to make a girl feel weak in the knees, don't you?"

-3-

"Do you really have to go? I mean,
really
?" I pleaded with him at the airport.

"I really do. I'm sorry. If you want to keep riding in Porsches, I have to continue working."

"I don't want to ride in Porsches. I don't want to look cool at school. I don't want to have my own apartment. I don't want to wear Gucci, I hate Luis-Vuitton suddenly, I don't care about Tiffany's and I fucking hate Bloomingdales. I only want you."

I clutched his hand so that he'd have to pry it away with a crowbar.

"I'll be back. I'll fly here next weekend, I told you."

"It's too long."

"Final boarding call..." the speaker announced.

And then I let him go.

The voices around me became mumbles, the world swirled, my body was no longer anchored. I looked down and saw the jagged rocks, the waters crashing against them.

And I knew that, without Conall, I would hit them.

-4-

When Conall arrived, he texted me. He texted me a lot at first. Then the Block Party came and went. He delayed on booking his ticket. The following weekend came and went. I called him a few times. He rarely answered. When he did, he was curt, or "busy."

All the texts I got in response from him were the same: Busy. Things had come up. So sorry. But he'd come back, one day.

He told me that I should trust him.

Meanwhile, I was going silently nuts, drums and cymbals crashing in my head.

Brad and Kayla got closer and closer. She spent more and more time with him. My eighteenth birthday came and went. The end of school came and went.

Slowly, it began to dawn on me what had happened: I'd been played. I'd been nothing but a game to him.

Better to have loved and lost, they say.

I didn't agree with it. But there was nothing I could do about it.

I was completely, and utterly,
alone
.

The sick irony of it is that, by leaving me (which I had come to accept is what happened...), Conall finally achieved the one thing that kept him from me in those few days we'd been together:

I was now, finally, an adult.

Because my naivety was gone.

I fought it all the way. And in the end, my emotions won. If being an adult was about giving up, I wanted no part of it. I faced my mother and told her I was going to Europe, money or no money, with her approval or without it.

She had no leg to stand on in the end. I think she was even, maybe, a little proud of me for sticking up to her and for going with what I believed.

I texted Conall.

Leora: I'm coming to England.

Conall: Leora, don't. I will be back, I promise. I'm just busy.

Leora: If my glass was there now, would you be reaching for it?

Long pause. No answer.

Leora: Conall?

Conall: It'll be a while before I get back, Leora. I'm sorry. But I WILL come back.

Leora: Please, don't lie to me. If it's over, just tell me.

Long pause.

Conall: Leora. Please don't come. It's for the best.

I called. He didn't pick up.

I called again. He didn't pick up.

I called a third time. He squashed it.

I sank into my bed and clutched my aching stomach.

Then I cried myself to sleep.

Hi, I'm Rachel Dunning. I work for a big
Clothing Store in London. I have three cats and live happily with my husband in a small apartment just outside Notting Hill.

Of course, as with my pseudonym ("Rachel Dunning") none of the above is actually true...

Please click here to subscribe to my blog by email:
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.

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Wanna chat? Email me directly
at:
[email protected]
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Thank you for reading. The next two books in
this series are already in production. I am also working on another series which may or may not be released before that.

Love,

Rachel