Never Say Love (12 page)

“He asked me to beg you to go back to him, please.” James pleaded, “Please Lucy, he really wants to talk to you.”

“You’ve got to be bloody joking. I am not
a
quick shag.
He told
whoever
he was talking to that he didn’t want a relationship. I never want to see him again as long as I live, he’s a bastard. I didn’t expect what we had to last forever, but I at least expected to be let down face to face, not to hear him discussing me with someone else.” Unable to stop the tears she sobbed. “Tell him to go to hell.”

“Lucy, sweetheart,” James said quietly, “please.”

“Go away James.” She snapped before taking several deep breaths, she did her level best to compose herself.

“Lucy, please just talk to me, please.” He sounded
so sincere as he spoke, his deep, soft voice, not unlike Benito’s but without the accent.

“James, he referred to me as
a quick shag! You do know he was my first!”

“Oh shit!” she heard James huff.

“He’s a bastard James. He should never have done it. I didn’t expect it to last long, but I never expected to be told like that.”

James didn’t reply. What could he say, the girl was right. He would never refer to any of his ladies as
“a quick shag”, certainly not when they may hear it anyway. “Where are you going?”

“I’ve told you!” She snapped, “
home, to mum and dad’s.” Reaching for a tissue from her bag she wiped her eyes again. “I’ve already called my dad.” She sobbed again. “I’ve given up my job, my home, everything for him. I’ve been such a bloody fool, giving everything up so quickly. My old boss might take me back.”

James shook his head as he listened, “No Lucy, don’t go back there, please.”

“Why?”

He sighed, and breathed deeply before answering, “Because Benito had Lee and Jake go in. They told him what they thought of letches.”

“So he’s ruined that for me as well has he?” Now feeling furious as the cab pulled up outside her parents, she grabbed her bag and flung some of Benito’s change from lunchtime at the driver as she climbed out onto the footpath. Her phone to her ear as she walked the length of her parents driveway she yelled, “Tell him he’s a fucking bastard of the first order and I never, ever want to see him again.”

James breathed deeply as he heard her, a mix of sobbing, fear and anger.

“I’ll tell him Lucy.”

At that, she cleared the call.

Benito quickly left the office telling the staff that he probably wouldn’t be back. He legged it down the stairs to his car. Climbing in quickly, he pulled onto the busy London roads. The traffic seemed to have built up since he arrived earlier today making the journey to his apartment take longer than normal.

Pulling up at the kerb, he raced inside the building, straight to the lift and up to his apartment. Charging through, he ran straight to the wardrobe—all her clothes remained, she hadn’t been back here.

Feeling wrecked, he sat on the edge of the bed, head in his hand. What the hell had he done?

Did James speak with her?

Reaching for his phone he called James. “I tried mate,” came the reply, “talked to her but you’ve really upset her. Sobbed her bloody heart out you bastard. What did you do?”

“Fuck off James. I know what I did.” Benito yelled.

“Well you’ve done a good job on her! I bet she’ll never have a bloke again. You’ve ruined her in what, a few weeks? You should never have gone with her to start off with. She, she
is
too nice. As for taking her innocence, you’re no better than that bloke you…”

“Piss off.” Benito snapped again.

“Fine, you’re on your own mate!” James hissed.

“Where’s she gone?” Benito asked.

“I thought you didn’t want my help!” James retorted.

“Oh, hell Aconi, where the fuck has she gone?”

“She’s gone to her parents and was on about going back to work for the letch.”

“Fucking hell!”
Benito hissed.

“Yeah, that just about sums it up. Great job you did Benny boy.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Well it’s what you deserve. Now, if I were you, if you really, really like her, I’d be going to the ends of the earth to get her back. She’s a pretty girl, Franco would approve. But if you’re not committed, I’d leave well alone, let her lick her wounds and get over you. I’ve got to go.” He hung up leaving Benito with his thoughts.

Lying back on the bed, the last few weeks ran through his mind. He liked her, hell he liked
her a lot, but didn’t want to fall for someone so much that he couldn’t live without them. Standing, he walked to the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of Armagnac, flicked on the TV and downed what was left in the bottle. Once it was empty, he staggered back to his room, crashing on his bed, wrecked.

Lucy crept down the stairs at her parents’ home early on that first Saturday morning since she’d moved home, listening to the conversation from the kitchen, her mum and dad were talking about her.

“Something’s wrong,” she heard her mum say, “has she still got a job? What about the girls she was living with?” Sitting on the stairs, Lucy listened as her parents chatted. She heard her mum boil the kettle, imagining her dad sitting at the kitchen table, watching his wife making the early morning drinks and preparing breakfast.

Listening to her dad, tears started to prick her eyes. “I’ve no idea, but she sounded dreadful when she called me yesterday. She won’t say what’s happened, other than she’s been an idiot. Poor love.”

Staying on the stairs, Lucy listened some more to the conversation. She had moved out of the family home as she didn’t really get on with her mum. Nothing major, just two women in the same house, the law of nature dictating that there would be ructions with two females in the same nest. She loved her mum and believed that her mum loved her too, they just couldn’t live together. In her heart, she knew she wouldn’t be able to stay here too long.

The conversation between her parents came to a stop, her indication to stand and make her way into the kitchen. As she stood there in the doorway looking at her parents at the kitchen table, she felt yesterday’s tears threaten again. Her dad, looking up at her, at his beautiful daughter, his only daughter, just started the waterworks off again.

“Dad, I’ve been
so
stupid.” She sobbed.

Both of her parents stood, her mum walking to her and opening her arms, “Oh Lucy, what’s gone on? Tell us love, please.”

She pulled back from her mother. “I can’t. I’ve just been stupid.” She choked through the tears. “I need to find another job and somewhere else to stay.”

“You can stay here as long as you need to.” Her dad stood and joined the now family hug. “But I’d really like to know what’s happened.”

Lucy looked at her dad, “No, I can’t say, but I’ve just been an idiot, that’s all.”

Benito woke with a stinking headache and an incredibly sick feeling in his stomach. Walking slowly to his kitchen, he prepared himself a cafetière of coffee and dry toast made from the bread that Lucy had insisted he now kept in, although he had no idea if he’d be able to eat it.

After showering, in an effort to make
himself feel just a little more human, he checked his phone—two missed calls from his father.

Wrapping a towel around his waist, he called his father whilst waiting for the painkillers to work. If he didn’t call him back, he’d only get pestered until he had spoken with him.

“Dad, sorry I missed your calls.”

“What the hell is going on Benito? What has happened to this girl that’s apparently gorgeous, beautiful, kind and caring? What have you done?” Franco snapped down the phone.

“Dad, my head hurts. Don’t shout!” Benito held his head in one hand and the phone to his ear with the other.

“Fucking hell Benito, I send you to the UK to drive the business forward, and all I hear is that you wrecked some girl’s life. What’s got into you? Who is she, this beautiful girl I have been hearing about?” Franco bellowed at his son.

Benito shook his head. Moving towards the fridge, he looked for cola that was flat, reverting to his old hangover cures—anything to make him feel human again. Shaking his head as Franco bawled him out, “Can I call you back when my headache is gone?”

“No, you fucking can’t. You tell me now son or I’ll come over and sort you out myself. What the
hell
is going on?”

Benito
sighed, nobody crossed Franco, not even him. “It just went wrong, that’s all. She was lovely, beautiful. She
is
beautiful. Dad, she reminded me of mum in so many ways, not
looks
, but in every other way. She was too good for me, that’s for sure. I just didn’t want it to end like this. It shouldn’t have happened like that and now, now I think I’ve ruined her.”

There was silence from his father’s end, Benito just listening to his father’s breathing, his head in his hand waiting for the onslaught, for the lecture that would surely come. There was a deep sigh from Franco and then, the
talk
.

“Benito son, how many times have I told you? You find a good woman, you need to woo her, make her feel like she’s the centre of your world. She
has
to feel special.”

Franco continued his pep talk, all of it Benito had heard before, all of it, he knew was right. The pep talking ending with “We look after our own in this family…”

Lucy sat at the kitchen table pushing a piece of toast around her plate and sipping a cup of weak coffee that her mum had made, it had far too much milk, her parents watching her.

“I’ll be out of your way as soon as I can,” Lucy looked up to her mum. She knew she couldn’t stay here long, two or three days at the most before her and her mum would start arguing again, both independent women—it didn’t make for good living arrangements.

“No, love,” her dad jumped in, “you stay as long as you need. Come Monday, you can contact the agencies and try to get yourself another job. Do you want me to ask at the office? There
was
a vacancy for a dispatcher. I don’t know if they filled it?”

“Would you ask for me?” she looked at her dad, “please. I could do that I’m sure.”

Nodding his head, he looked at his daughter, “Lucy, you could do it with your eyes closed. I’ll ask. I’m on the early shift Monday.”

Lucy really didn’t want to work for the courier company that her dad was a salesman for, especially as a dispatcher for the same day couriers, but it would be better than nothing. At the very least, it would allow her to find a room in a student rent again.

She continued to push her breakfast around, nibbling at the corner from time to time as her parents left the kitchen.

Feeling stupid and used, she gave up with the toast and started to clear away as her mum appeared with the telephone. “Your brother wants to speak to you.”

Glaring at her mum she took the phone from her. “You haven’t told him, have you?”

Covering the mouthpiece her mother hissed in low tones, “Told him
what
exactly Lucy? I can’t tell him anything because you haven’t
told
us what’s gone wrong. All I know is that you’ve been stupid, that’s what
you’ve
said. Now, take the bloody phone and speak with Michael.”

Thrusting the phone towards Lucy, her mother stood by and watched as her daughter spoke.

“Hey, Mikey, haven’t spoken to you in ages,” she tried to sound brighter as she spoke with her brother.

“I know baby sister. Mum said you’ve moved back in, sucker!” he laughed.

“Not for long,” looking at her mum who was still watching, she chose her words carefully before wandering out of the kitchen “I’ll be gone as soon as I find another place.”

“Can’t you talk Luce?” He asked.

“Give me a minute…” she headed towards her room. “Right, I’m in my room now.” Sitting on her bed, she poured her heart out to her brother, despite the age difference and the fact that Michael was married with a family of his own, the brother and sister remained so very close, often sharing their secrets with each other. Lucy knew before her parents that Michael and his wife, Lisa, were expecting their first child.

“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” she cried down the phone,
“a quick shag, that’s all I was.” The only piece of information she left out was that she was innocent before Benito. She left it out deliberately because she knew that if Michael, or her dad, knew this, they would go looking for Benito and probably wouldn’t win. In fact, she knew who would come off worse.

“Oh sis!
Do you want to come here, stay with me and Lisa for a few days? I know she’s desperate for a night out,” he referred to his wife.

“Could I? Anything’s better than staying here. Dad’s great, but I’ve not been back for long and mum’s already breathing down my neck all the time.”

“Sure, get your things together, and I’ll come and get you. Give me a couple of hours.”

Ending the call, Lucy took the phone back to the cradle in the hallway of her parents’ home, knowing that there would be hell if it rang and couldn’t be found, a lesson she’d learned long ago before she moved out. “Was Michael okay?” her mother asked.

“He’s fine. I’m going to stay with him and Lisa for a couple of days. Lisa wants a night out.”

“Do you good Lucy,” her dad called from the kitchen, “get yourself out, you go and you have a good time, you understand me? You’re too young to be settling down just yet anyway.”

Shrugging her shoulders and not really wanting to speak to her parents about what had happened, she took herself back upstairs, showered and packed a few things in a holdall. Perching on the side of her bed, she waited for her brother.

Each time Lucy heard a car outside, she stood, looking out of her bedroom window, checking if her brother had arrived.

Mikey pulled up outside as Lucy watched from her window. Parking his standard company Ford at the kerbside, he walked to the front door. Dressed in a scruffy pair of jeans and a t-shirt, Lucy heard the doorbell ring.

Grabbing her bag, desperate to leave her parents home yet reluctant to leave her dad, she ran downstairs and straight into her brother’s extended arms, weeping as she did.

“Lucy, come on sis, no more tears.” He pushed her back slightly, looking into those beautiful blue eyes of hers.

Michael and Lucy were totally different in colouring, him being dark haired, his skin tone darker just like his father, whereas Lucy was blonde and fair like her mum.

After a chat with his parents, a coffee and a biscuit, Lucy and Michael set off for his house, a short drive from her parents. Lucy couldn’t wait to see Lisa, who was just a few years older than herself. The sister-in-laws got on so very well, although they hadn’t been out together for a while, something that Lucy missed, but with the arrival of Lisa’s children, in common with other young mum’s, Lisa found it difficult to get out of the house without a child attached to her leg!

“Lucy!” Lisa smiled as she opened the front door to their home, “such a long time. Come on in. Charlie’s staying with my mum this weekend and Lilly’s having her morning nap,” referring to her son, the older of the two children, and her baby daughter.

“Oh, when is he coming back? I was looking forward to building things with Charlie. Still, I can play peek-a-boo with my favourite baby niece!” Lucy laughed.

“Come on sis, I’ll show you to your room.” Mikey started up the stairs as Lucy followed.

“Try not to wake
Lilly,” Lisa said quietly, “I want an hour with Lucy on my own.”

Following her brother up the stairs, Lucy started to feel a little more relaxed than she had felt at her parents. She followed her brother to one of the smaller rooms of their home.

Mikey was just like their dad, a successful salesman, but rather than selling courier and carrier services as their dad did, he sold printed packaging. Both of them, father and son, having the gift that was often perceived to make a good salesman, they could both sell snow to Eskimos if they were ever required to. His success was evident from the home they had for a relatively young man of just 28. He and Lisa had a lovely home, not huge, but in a great location within excellent school catchment areas. Lisa worked from home as a transcript typist, chose her own projects and worked her own hours.

After leaving Lucy in her room, he ventured back to his wife finding her in the living room with a mug of coffee and a magazine. “She’s a mess Lisa.” He said quietly, shaking his head, a worried look in his face.

“What’s going on?” Lisa placed the magazine by her side and looked up at her husband.

He shrugged, “All she said is that some guy took a fancy to her, mega-loaded by all accounts. She stayed with him in a penthouse, one of those posh new ones. She has eaten at that Reid’s
Hotel, you know the one in Covent Garden? She’s given up her job and taken up one that he offered her with a huge salary. He persuaded her to leave the hovel she was staying in,” he looked at his wife, “Now
that
I am pleased about. He made out that they had something going, you know a relationship, and then she caught him telling someone on the phone that she was a
quick shag!
”

Lisa gasped, “Oh, no wonder the poor girl is a mess. So she’s got nothing now, no job, no home?”

“Yep, walked out on the job, probably not a bad thing, but also walked out on the new job, the one that this guy gave her. I’d love to know what’s really gone on, but knowing Lucy, we’ll never know.”

Lisa watched as her husband relayed the reasons, as much as he knew anyway, for Lucy being homeless. “We’ll go out tonight. You’ll be okay looking after Lilly? Charlie’s at my mum’s until we collect him tomorrow.” She suggested.

“Sure,” Mikey smiled, “Take her out, give her a good time. I’ll get some cash for you both.”

Standing, Lisa walked towards Mikey, her hand brushing his shoulder. “I’ll go up to her, ask her if she wants to go out. I’ll call the girls and see if they want to come with us.”

Creeping quietly upstairs, Lisa tip-toed past her sleeping baby’s room and knocked quietly on Lucy’s door.

“Come in,” Lucy whispered, smiling as Lisa wandered in.

“Shall we go out tonight, uptown? I can ask Clare and Kim to join us. What do you think? Michael said he’d give us some cash.” Lisa winked and smiled and the prospect of an evening out funded by her husband.

Lucy sat on her bed, thinking. “Okay, yes, I’d like that. I haven’t seen Clare and Kim since, well I suppose just after you were married.”

Sitting next to her young sister-in-law, Lisa placed her hand on Lucy’s back. “They always talk about you, how you got drunk at our wedding. Gosh Lucy, you were only, what, 17 at the time? I remember Michael trying to get you to sober up before your mum found out. What a night that was!”

Forcing a smile, Lucy recalled the event. “Hey, it wasn’t my fault, it was yours, giving me cider. I remember it well, until a point. I remember you saying, you can’t get drunk on cider. You said it was only apple-flavoured pop!”

They laughed quietly as they reminisced about the nights they’d had out, when Lucy was much younger. How Lisa had helped her to dress up to look much older than she was. Lisa was more than just a sister-in-law; she was more like a big sister.