He looked at me for a moment, as if he was weighing up how much to tell me. “When I was a kid, my mum was murdered while I hid in my room.”
His admission took me by surprise. “Shit,” I whispered.
He shook his head. “It was a long time ago, but my dad never forgave me for not trying to protect her, and he sent me to boarding school. I never saw him again. I was eight.”
“Sorry. That is... God, that’s fucked up. My problems aren’t?—”
He didn’t let me finish. “I’m not telling you so you pity me or think my life is worse. It’s not. I wouldn’t be married or be a dad without my past. I’m telling you because that was the start of me believing I had to live a certain way... do a particular job, wear certain things, behave in an ‘acceptable’ way because that was what was expected of me.”
“That makes sense,” I replied before taking a smaller sip of my drink, the burn warming me this time, somewhat soothing the ache in my chest.
“It worked for a while. I built a successful business, I built this place...” he waved his hand around the building with his name on it, “but I was miserable. So caught up in the façade I was insistent I had to keep in place that I almost lost everything.”
“What changed?”
“Love.” He chuckled, which made me smile. “Sounds corny, but it wasn’t just finding love, it was believing I was worthy of it.”
I huffed out my agreement.
“Look, I’m sure your mum would be much better at this than me, but for what it’s worth, can I give you some advice?”
“Please.”
“You get one life. Make sure you spend it being happy. Don’t say yes to things that don’t set your soul alight, don’t eat crappy food or put up with rubbish friends, don’t do something because you feel like you should, don’t ever try to fit into someone else’s idea of what’s right. Your only purpose in life is to make sure you’re happy. If you’re not hurting anyone, then you can do it.”
I turned my attention to the view outside. “I don’t think I’m happy in one tiny part of my life.”
Thomas made a noise like he’d been hit and I twisted to look at him. “That’s a big thing to admit. Does your mum know you feel like this?”
I shook my head.
“So, now you know you’re not happy, you’re the only one who can make changes. They can be big changes that start an avalanche or they can be tiny shifts that ultimately will rock the foundations of your life. If you could do something today... no matter how small, what would you do?”
An idea popped into my mind. It was underhanded and not at all me, but it would give me more time to work out what the hell was going on. “Actually, I know exactly what to do.” I stood, straightening my jeans, before I looked at Thomas. “Thank you.”
He stood too. “You’re welcome.”
He walked me to the lift, pressing his keycard to the reader that opened the door. I stepped inside and held my hand against the door so it couldn’t close. “Can I just ask... was it easy? To change? To work out who you were under everything?”
He shook his head. “No. I had to lose everything to show me what was important.” I frowned. “But now ask me if it was worth it?”
He twisted his wedding ring as I asked him, “Was it worth it?”
“Absolutely.”
I dropped my hand and offered him a nod of thanks before the doors closed and the lift carried me down to the ground floor. As I walked back outside, I pulled my phone from my pocket and typed out an email. One I knew Travis Jones was going to be pissed about.
FIFTEEN
JASPER
“Looking sharp, bro.”
I looked to where Conner was leaning on the bar, a stunning woman on his arm, and if I were a betting man, I would put money on the fact he didn’t know her name.
“Why do you always sound like you’re stuck in the 90s?”
He frowned. “I was a baby in the 90s. I don’t know how people talked back then.”
