Starr Fated (18 page)

I sat by
myself in the kitchen, got out a bottle of whisky and a glass, and
then just sat and looked at them. This was how I used to handle
things when I was younger. I used to get drunk, very drunk indeed.
Then I’d get into fights, which is why I have a scar at the corner
of my mouth, a memento of a very nasty brawl that involved a broken
bottle. Or if I didn’t get drunk, I used to go for exhilarating
high speed rides on my motorbike. I’d acted pretty wild at times,
but all that had had to change when my father died.

I’d had to
grow up – fast. I’d had to look after my little brother because
there was no one else and he was reliant on me. So I learnt to
control my wildness by channelling all that energy into making the
family business a success. It was my way of making sense of having
to drop out of university and giving up the life I’d expected to
lead. It was hard, very hard, but I did it. But I'd always been
glad that my brother hadn’t had to miss out on things. I’d never
regretted making sure he’d always had everything he needed and
wanted. Until now. For the first time, I wanted something that he
had.

Seraphina.

In the end I
didn’t indulge in the bottle of whiskey. I decided there was no
point in revisiting that scene. Instead I went for a long swim and
a very punishing work out. Then once again I considered the option
of seeing if any of my old partners were free for a good fuck to
take my mind off things. But I ruled out that option as I knew it
wouldn’t solve my dilemma. They weren’t who I wanted anymore. They
hadn't been since the moment I'd laid eyes on Seraphina. I could
only hope that once she got her place on the exchange program and
moved away, Jamie and I could both forget about her and get on with
our lives. I just had to keep myself busy, and pray that Jamie
would knuckle down and do well in his finals.

That evening I
worked at my laptop for a few hours to keep myself busy, but when
my mobile rang at around eleven, I quickly answered it when I saw
it was Jamie calling.

“What’s
up?”

“Liam, I’ve
messed up…badly,” he mumbled into the phone. It sounded as if he
had been drinking.

“What do you
mean - what’s happened? Are you alright?”

“It’s Sera. I
don’t know where she is. She ran off…”

He had my full
attention now, as alarm bells rang in my head.

“What do you
mean, she ran off? What happened?”

“I just… it
all… she got upset… now they’re talking about getting the police…”
he rambled.

“Jamie, listen
to me. Calm down and start explaining, because right now you’re not
making a lot of sense. Where did Sera go? Is she alright?”

“I don’t know,
I keep telling you. She freaked out on me again, and I was so
frustrated…”

“What the hell
did you do to her?” I felt my worry and anger building, as I waited
for him to elaborate.

“Nothing. I
was just trying to calm her down, that’s all. She shouldn’t have
bitten me, and then I wouldn’t have reacted the way I did…”

“Why the fuck
did she bite you?”

“I did like
you told me, Liam. You know, about how women respect a man who
takes control; how they like it, even if they say they don't. I
knew it was just nerves when she tried to stop me, she didn’t mean
what she said, so I took control, but then she bit my hand.”

“You
didn’t…you didn’t rape her did you?” The words came out as a
whisper, as I closed my eyes in dread.

“No! Of course
not.”

“Then why is
there talk about getting the police involved?”

“Someone
reported hearing screams to the hotel security, so they got
involved,” he admitted.

“She was
screaming at you to stop? But you carried on and ignored her?”

“It sounds
worse than it is. It wasn’t that bad.”

“So why did
she run out on you?”

“She just
overreacted and panicked I guess. It wasn’t my fault, she’d been
coming on to me all evening, and she virtually dragged me up to the
bedroom, then she suddenly froze up on me again. How was I supposed
to keep up? Sera is one weird girl, I’m telling you, Liam. I’m done
with her. You were right. She might be really hot, but she’s way
too much trouble.”

“Have you any
idea where she went?”

“I'm guessing
she headed back to the house. The other guys are both away at the
moment, so she knows it’ll be empty. Look Liam, I’m worried,
because I know she told the security guy not to call the police,
but what if she changes her mind and decides to get them involved
after all? Nothing actually happened, but you know how these things
get blown up. What should I do?”

“You sound as
if you’ve had quite a bit to drink, so just stay put there at the
hotel. I’ll see if I can track Seraphina down to make sure she’s
okay, and find out exactly what’s going on. Has she got her mobile
with her? Did she have enough money for a taxi?”

“How the hell
should I know? When you find her, just make sure she isn’t going to
report me to the police, that’s the main thing, because I didn’t
actually do anything to her.”

~*~

As soon as I
finished the call with Jamie, I tried ringing Seraphina’s mobile,
but she didn’t answer. So I sent a text message, hoping that she
would see it and respond.

Where are
you? I heard what happened. Please let me know you’re safe. Call me
back as soon as you get this. Liam
.

I grabbed my
jacket and headed out to my car, calling her number again as I
walked out, but she still didn’t answer. I sent another quick text
before driving off.

I’m
concerned for your welfare. Just let me know you’re safe. Please
call me back. Liam
.

But there was
no response, and I felt a horrid sick feeling in my stomach. I
couldn’t bear to think of Seraphina all alone and frightened and
vulnerable. I had to find her. I felt this fierce overwhelming need
to protect her, and I hated to think how my brother had treated
her. I couldn’t help thinking that I was at least partly to blame,
because I’d virtually pushed her into his arms, hadn't I?

Luckily the
traffic was fairly light at that time of the evening, so I got over
to the student house quite quickly, and wasted no time in letting
myself in.

“Seraphina?
Are you here?” I called out, but there was no one downstairs.

I made my way
upstairs, thinking that if she wasn’t here, the only other place I
could think she might have gone was to her friend Abbey, but I had
no idea where she lived. As I climbed the second set of stairs to
the attic room, I saw a crack of light coming from under her door.
So unless she’d gone out and left the light on, surely that meant
she was in her room?

“Seraphina?
It’s Liam. Are you alright? I just need to check on you.”

I gently
tapped on the door.

“I know you’re
in there. Please, just open the door.”

It suddenly
occurred to me that she might be scared of me. She might think I
was going to jump her too, if she had been really spooked by my
brother.

“You have my
word that you’ll be safe. I promise that you can trust me not to
touch you in any way.”

I thought I
could hear the sound of muffled sobs coming from inside the room,
which really got to me.

“Please,
Seraphina. Let me see that you’re alright. Do you need a doctor?” I
pleaded with her, as I tried the door. It was locked.

“I’m fine.
Please, just go away and leave me alone,” she finally replied.

“I’m not going
anywhere until I've seen for myself that you really are okay. So
please, just open the door,” I insisted.

“I’ve told you
I’m fine. I don’t want to see you or anyone else. Now go away.”

“And I’ve told
you I’m not leaving until I’ve seen you. I’ll wait out here all
night if needs be. I’ll wait as long as it takes. You’ll find me
still here in the morning, so you might as well just open the door
now.”

I stood at the
door trying to listen, to see if she was moving about, or still
crying.

“Fine,
whatever. Have it your own way. Just a minute,” she replied in a
weary voice.

I heard the
sound of the key turning in the lock, then she called out.

“Okay, you can
open the door.”

I slowly
opened it. I saw Seraphina, wearing a red evening dress, but with a
green fleece jacket draped over her shoulders. She was sitting on
her bed with her face buried in her knees that were pulled up to
her chest, a box of tissues by her side.

“See, I’m
fine. You can go now,” she told me in a shaky voice.

“Look at me,”
I ordered her. “Please.”

I gasped as I
saw she had a small cut on her lip, and as I scanned the rest of
her, I saw red marks on her wrists and arms that would no doubt
turn into bruises by tomorrow.

“You look
anything but fine. What happened?” I asked her quietly, trying my
hardest to control the rage I felt. This was worse than I
expected.

“Well,
obviously Jamie must have already told you what happened, otherwise
you wouldn’t be here, would you?”

Seraphina’s
beautiful green eyes brimmed with tears as she looked up at me. I
pulled up a chair to sit opposite her as she sat on her bed,
desperately wanting to reach out and take her in my arms to comfort
her, but as I’d promised not to touch her, I couldn’t. She probably
wouldn’t want me to touch her anyway, not after what she’d
obviously just gone through.

Because my
brother had nearly raped her.

“Never mind
what Jamie said. I want you to tell me exactly what happened.
Everything. From the beginning.”

She sighed
heavily, as she wiped her eyes with a tissue, before she opened up
to tell me what the hell had gone on between her and Jamie earlier
on.

As
I sat
alone in my room once I got back to
the house after running out on Jamie, I felt totally and utterly
mortified. I never wanted to clap eyes on either of the Starr
brothers ever again.

It had been
bad enough to have been duped by Liam when we’d been at The Pink
Club. When Liam pulled me into his arms away from the gay couple
who were hitting on me, somehow I’d immediately felt safe and
protected. When we’d danced together, it had felt so natural and
right. And when we’d kissed, he seemed to blow a fuse in my circuit
somewhere, because I was incredibly turned on and aroused, which
had never happened like that when a guy had kissed me before.

We’d gazed
deeply into each other’s eyes, and just for those few moments I’d
felt so happy as I naively thought that Liam felt the same powerful
connection that I did. In that moment it all seemed to make perfect
sense. Only he had the ability to fire my libido up to such an
explosive level. This was what had always been wrong whenever a guy
had tried anything with me before. None of them had been Liam. It
had to be him.
This is right because he is The One,
the
voice inside my head had insisted.

But it turned
out he’d just been toying with me. He wasn’t interested in anything
other than establishing my sexuality to solve his brother’s
dilemma, so that I didn’t distract him from his finals. A pawn to
control in his game of family chess. I must have been out of my
mind to have thought of him as The One, and it must have just been
too much alcohol in my system that had skewed my judgement so
badly.

Well, screw
him, I thought to myself. I didn’t need Liam Starr, or his poxy
job. His HR team had already confirmed that I’d been employed as an
intern in his precious company, so I had no further need of
anything to do with him. He could just go fuck himself for all I
cared. As he’d driven me back in his big flashy BMW in total
silence, I’d made up my mind to hand my design work over to his
in-house team to finish off, as all the basic groundwork was pretty
much complete. Then I could cut all ties with him. At least all the
hard work I’d put into the designs meant that my final piece of uni
course work was nearly complete too, so I was actually ahead of
myself for once.

I decided the
best thing I could do to rid myself of this stupid notion that
there was ‘The One’, that only one man could possibly turn me on,
was to throw myself into having a great time with Jamie at the
ball, to get over this stupid hang up of mine. Once I’d finally
lost my virginity, I could be just like everyone else, just like
Abbey for example, who let herself freely experience all kinds of
sex, with whoever took her fancy. I should let myself be more like
her, I told myself.

When I arrived
at the ball with Jamie, I made sure I drank a generous amount of
alcohol as that always seemed to lessen my inhibitions, but even
so, I’m such a lightweight that it was nowhere near as much alcohol
as Jamie managed to quickly knock back.

Then I danced
with him, just as I had with his brother, reminding myself that
Jamie was much better looking and so much more my type than his
disgusting man-whore gorilla of an older brother. As Jamie kissed
me, I waited for the surge of sexual arousal to kick in, just as it
had so intensely with Liam. The previous night I would have
practically had sex with Liam right there in one of the booths at
the club, I'd been so wild with need for him. But with Jamie, I
felt nothing. I forced myself to keep trying and trying, because
this had to work. I was desperate to prove to myself that Liam
meant nothing to me. It had all been an illusion. Jamie was a very
good looking, very sexy and fanciable guy, and now I knew I wasn’t
gay, tonight was going to be the night I got myself deflowered. No,
correction, tonight was the night I was going to get myself fucked.
No more silly euphemisms, call it what it really was. Fucking. Not
making love. Love played no part in any of this. Love was not part
of the equation.