‘I wanted to talk to you before you left.’
‘I don’t fly out until Monday, Eleanor. That’s two perfectly good days you had to come knock on my door at a time I wasn’t—you know—sleeping.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘I didn’t think you’d mind.’
But obviously, he did.
Just three weeks ago he’d held her hand at the cemetery, his pockets stuffed full of tissues for her—and now he couldn’t even look at her?
Jake crossed his arms. Not exactly the body language of someone open to a declaration of love.
Not that it was going to stop her. She’d come this far. Jake acting strange didn’t make a difference.
She understood strange, anyway. She could barely remember what it felt to feel normal—to feel like herself. All she had was little pinpricks of the normal and familiar amongst a near blackout of grief.
And this thing with Jake—well, she wasn’t stupid. She’d seen the way he looked at her sometimes. She wasn’t imagining it. Something had changed. She was sure of it.
Maybe she just needed a different plan of attack.
She shot across the room before her nerves got hold of her. Jake’s eyes widened as she came closer, but he didn’t move.
A ruler length away from him, she stopped, and had to tilt her head upwards to meet his eyes.
She considered reaching out to touch him. The popular girls at school made it look so easy—they’d absently hook an arm over their boyfriend-of-the-moment’s shoulder at lunchtime, or wrap themselves around him at the bus stop.
But she wasn’t one of those girls. And she didn’t know what to do.
Frustration made her talk quickly. ‘I love you.’
It ended up being more a mumble, but that Jake heard every word was obvious in the way his body jerked away from her.
Not the reaction she was after. The churning in her stomach stopped dead.
‘No, you don’t,’ he said. As if that were a fact.
‘Yes,’ she said, more clearly this time. ‘I do.’
He shook his head. ‘You’re just confused because …’
‘Of my mum? No. I knew before. It was her idea I tell you.’
Now he walked away, just a few paces. He turned his back to her, resting his hands on a desk covered in keyboards and hard drives and floppy disks—and a lot of stuff Eleanor couldn’t possibly name.
At the back of her mind, she had the feeling she should be crying. But instead, she felt oddly still. Calm.
She needed to walk away, straight across to the fence that separated their houses, then through the three-paling-wide gap they’d used to cross back and forth for years. Back to her room. Tomorrow morning she could come back here, pretend she hadn’t meant it, and things could go back to normal.
But Jake was about to leave. Things were never going to be normal again.
‘I think,’ she said, her heart pounding, ‘that you might love me, too.’
This made him spin around, and suddenly he was right in front of her. Crowding her.
‘You need to go, Eleanor. Your dad will be worried.’
No, he wouldn’t. Her dad wouldn’t notice if she stripped naked and ran laps down at Port Beach.
Jake was so close.
She liked the width of his shoulders, and his chest, too. Some of the pretty girls had noticed, but Jake hadn’t been interested. And she’d been glad—really glad—when he’d shut them down. Actually, he’d laid his geek act on pretty thick—thick enough that, if anything, his weirdo label had been even more firmly reapplied, which was of course exactly what he’d wanted.
The guy standing right in front of her now, in his bedroom, with his shirt off, was definitely not a weirdo in her book.
He was her best friend. The guy who made her laugh, and helped her with maths—which she hated—and that she helped with his English—which he hated. They were a team.
She loved him. And she needed to know if he loved her.
‘Eleanor—please, you need to—’
But before he got the words out, she kissed him.
Or at least, she tried to. But by the time she stood on tiptoes, closed her eyes and leant forward—her lips only collided with his cheek.
His cheek.
And it was this—this—that finally kick-started what should’ve been her immediate reaction. People who loved you did not respond with ‘no, you don’t’.
They definitely didn’t turn away from your kisses.
For a moment, the icy horror of humiliation froze her. Froze her with her lips still whisper close to his skin.
‘No. I can’t do this. I—’
What was he saying? Eleanor could barely hear him, overcome by her own voice in her head.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
How could she have really believed that Jake could love her? Why? Why on earth would he?
She wasn’t pretty. She wasn’t super smart like him.
She didn’t wear the right clothes like the popular girls. She didn’t know how to flirt, or to kiss a guy. Obviously.
She had to go. She should never have come.
Without a word she stepped around him, climbed onto his bed and halfway out of the window before she registered he hadn’t said a word.
Wow. She’d actually thought he’d tell her to stop. To stay.
She looked over her shoulder as her legs dangled outside, her skirt all rucked up around her waist—but she didn’t care. As if Jake would even notice.
Jake was watching her. His gaze was full of … what?
Regret?
No. Now she was just being delusional. She knew what it was.
Pity. Definitely.
And she had no interest in staying around for that.
So she jumped to the ground, and walked—even though she badly wanted to run—back to her house. Without a backward glance.
Later, as she stared at her ceiling, incapable of any more tears, she managed to unearth one single positive out of the whole horrible mess.
This was another one of her mum’s ideas—the absolute belief that something good could be found in absolutely anything. She was pretty sure even her mum would’ve been stumped as far as finding a positive in having her ripped away from Eleanor far too soon—but this thing with Jake? Yes—there was a positive.
She’d never have to see him again.
CHAPTER ONE
Sydney, New South Wales Today
IT WAS AN ambush. Plain and simple.
Jake Donner knew it. Every one of the board members who currently watched him with matching unreadable expressions knew it, too.
How long had this been planned? Hours? Days? Weeks?
‘No.’
Jake figured that was pretty much all that needed to be said.
‘There’s no other option, Jake.’ This came from Cynthia George, a silver-haired, retired chief executive of one of Australia’s