I felt nervous. Fuck, he seemed so serious. He drew me to the sofa, and we sat down side by side. I wasn’t about to get my hole, after all.
I gulped. ‘You can tell me anything, Jimmy,’ I reassured him, wondering if this was maybe the moment the entire mystery was about to be solved.
He sighed a little before starting. ‘I know I mentioned before about being in the foster system, yeah?’ His eyes looked heavy, and he sat with his hands interwoven, focusing on them.
‘Yes, I remember.’ I nodded.
‘Well, the truth is .?.?.’ He glanced up from his hands, and there was a long moment of silence between us. ‘Look, Ella, when I was younger, I was wild. I did some bad shit, which I went to juvie for. I was taken away from my mom and Fee, and ended up in the system, but when I got out, I never did that shit again.’ I could hear the determination – and the truthfulness – in his voice.
‘OK. Erm .?.?. What .?.?. what did you do?’ I asked. He’d hinted at this before, but still my heart raced, wondering what type of man I’d been falling for.
‘My friends robbed a liquor store, and I was there. One of them punched the old guy in the face, knocked him out, then we ran off.’ He shrugged, and I thought I’d never seen him look so defeated. ‘That was the final straw. I was always in and out of trouble, hustling away, but charges were brought against us and I got sent to juvie for six months.’
I breathed, taking it in. I almost felt bad for him. I could see how ashamed he was, telling me his darkest secret – he looked vulnerable, clearly wondering if this was a dealbreaker.
‘When I got out, I vowed never to be that man again, and I’m not.’ He cleared his throat. ‘But I thought you should know the truth of who you’re getting involved with. You have a right to know, and you’re so inquisitive – every time you asked me something, I felt like I was lying to you.’
I shook my head and held out my arms, reaching for him. ‘Jimmy, that was a long time ago. You’re not the same person you were. You were a child,’ I reassured him as I cradled his head in my arms. ‘I don’t care about who you were then, just who you are now.’ I felt his body relax in my arms as he finally got this huge fucking secret off his chest. But I couldn’t help wondering if any of his past friends or acquaintances held a grudge against him. Maybe they were jealous of the man he was today? Of what he’d achieved? Maybe they wanted to bring him down?
‘What happened to the old man who was hurt during the robbery?’ I asked, running my hands through his short, close-shaved hair. ‘Was he OK after the incident?’
Jimmy sat up. ‘He’s good. He’s keeping an eye on you.’ When I gave him a puzzled look, he smiled. ‘He’s your doorman, Otis. I reached out when the block his shop was on got bought up a few years ago and brought him and his family out to the city, set them up. It was the least I could do.’
I couldn’t hold back the smile that spread across my face then. Yes, he was precisely the man I knew him to be, if not better. Using his wealth for good, treating people right, making amends for past mistakes.
‘Ella?’ he asked.
‘Yeah?’
‘I haven’t scared you off, have I?’ His voice was full of worry. ‘Or given you the ick, as Katy would say?’
‘No ick here,’ I replied. ‘I don’t think there’s anything that could scare me off you, Jimmy Link.’
He stared up at me for a few more seconds, gratitude pulling at the corners of his mouth. Then he leaned in for a kiss. I pushed my body against his, feeling things instantly steam up between us. I stood up, took hold of his hand, then led him through to my bedroom.
Chapter Thirty-One
Zola
Zola entered the tech suite and forced a smile as she noticed Ethan already sitting at his desk.
‘Morning, Ethan,’ she said cheerily. He glanced towards her, then back at his screen.
Great, she thought – another morning of not entirely comfortable silence. She pulled out her phone and opened her archived messages. Still nothing from Curtis. She then scrolled through his Instagram to check his uploads and number of followers – still the same as yesterday. She sighed, feeling sickly and troubled. She hated what Curtis had done, but she also wondered if she could have done more to save their relationship. Curtis wasn’t a horrible person, Zola knew that. But he had no ambition, no motivation, and as the years passed, they grew into entirely different people.
‘So, how are things progressing with the app? Did we get the final candidates downloaded?’ Zola asked, finally pulling out her seat and sitting.
Ethan grunted back, and Zola felt herself getting more irritated. Ever since she’d arrived, he’d only offered one-word answers or shot her daggers when she entered the room like she was an intruder, an inconvenience. Today, she’d had enough. She’d just endured a thirty-minute car ride listening to Katy read out every increasingly explicit message from her Tinder porn star who was promising to rearrange her ovaries. She was on high alert with the stalker, and Curtis was AWOL. She was craving a normal, polite conversation. Darren was on his paternity leave, and with only Ethan as backup conversation, Zola flipped.
‘Look, Ethan,’ she began, putting her coffee down on the desk with a decisivethunk. ‘I get that my being here is a new thing for you, and you don’t like change. But I am here, whether you like it or not. So maybe if we worked together, we’d get this project finished a lot quicker, then I’d be out of your hair, back to Scotland, and you’d be happy!’
In the wake of her outburst, she closed her eyes briefly, then leaned forward to switch on her laptop. In the process, however, she knocked her coffee off balance and watched in horror as the hot black liquid cascaded over her laptop.
‘Fuck!’ she shouted, jumping up, making sure she didn’t spill anything on her new cream playsuit.
‘And that is exactly why no liquids are to be consumed in the tech suite,’ Ethan replied as smug as ever, pointing to a sign that clearly stated the drinks ban.
Zola reached for a bundle of tissues, frantically patting her keyboard dry. ‘Yeah, yeah. You’re right,’ she agreed sarcastically. ‘As ever.’
