best. Just for once she wanted to be put first in someone’s life. But that someone wasn’t going to be Ruben.
That secret, hidden dream shattered.
What an absolute fool she’d been. He’d utterly played her with his acquiescence to her friendship request, with his phone calls and supposed sharing. He’d only been after the one thing—and he’d got it that night up in the mountain. There hadn’t been any kind of amazing more-than-physical connection for him, there’d just been sex.
How naïve to think he’d show up tonight. How naïve to think a friendship could work. How point-blank stupid of her to have said yes to any damn benefits.
And how it hurt. It hurt worse than any of those damn sports days or disappointments from her parents. She’d given her heart and got nothing back. But she was determined to hide it—even from herself. She was damn well determined to have a good night out.
When it came to announcing the winner of the category she was nominated in, someone else’s name was called. Someone else went up and collected their award. Ellie smiled lots and clapped loudly. Then she sipped some of that wine, ate another canapé and conversed enthusiastically with all those around her.
She should have been an actress—she could mask misery so easily.
But she went out with her colleagues, determined to find comfort in company. She’d hang with her true friends. And Ruben wasn’t one of them.
RUBEN’S head ached really badly. So did the rest of him. He was alone—just as he’d always believed he wanted. And, hell, he’d been wrong.
Sure there were people he could call. All those names in his contacts file—he could get any one of his ‘friends’ and they’d be there in a flash. But what would they do? Sit and talk sport or weather or politics? Not one of them really knew him—and he didn’t really know them. He’d kept a certain distance so well it was second nature. And now he realised how alone it had made him.
Because there was one person who’d slipped through those barriers. One person he ached to see. One person whose comfort he wanted. Someone whose arms he wanted around him—someone he wanted to confide every last little thing to. Someone he’d been trying to contact for the last three days.
She didn’t answer her phone. He rang five, ten, fifty times and every call went to the answer service. He tried ringing from a land-line so she wouldn’t recognise the number. Still she didn’t take the call.
So now he knew the reality of this new life. Accident or not, this would have happened anyway. He’d have finished that text and sent it, so the result would have been the same. She’d have been avoiding him. There’d be no contact.
And accident or not, he’d still be this bruised. Yeah, it wasn’t those real cuts and bruises bleeding him, but that damn muscle in his chest. The injury that he had sole responsibility for and that radiated agony throughout the rest of him.
He was an idiot. A powerless idiot. Stuck in a hospital bed with an IV needle deep in his arm and cracked ribs that meant an airline wouldn’t take him onboard. Not as far as Australia, so he couldn’t escape as he’d planned to. But he couldn’t escape anyway, aeroplane policy or not. He wanted to take it all back and start again. And while he might not be able to get on a plane, he could get into a campervan with a driver. He’d lie down most of the way, but he wasn’t living through another day without trying to make things right. He’d been acting the coward too long as it was.
* * *
Ellie had a new phone—a very cute new smart phone that she could download a zillion apps on. She was just deciding which music to set as her ringtone when it rang with a real call. She didn’t recognise the number. ‘Hello?’
‘Are you through punishing me?’ he asked bluntly. ‘Are you ready to talk to me yet?’
All kinds of emotions tumbled through Ellie. For a moment she couldn’t cope with the spike in adrenalin that boosted the performance of every vital organ. ‘I’ve been busy,’ she finally breathed.
‘This is how you treat your friends? Why have you been ignoring my calls?’
‘I haven’t been. I lost my phone.’ Okay, so she’d thrown it in Wellington harbour. Not the most adult thing to have done but, hey, she’d got glum in the wee small hours after the chaotic clubbing scene of the awards after party.
‘Good of you to give me your new number.’
How he’d managed to get it she didn’t know.
He sighed. ‘Can you just be mad with me, please? Just yell or something.’
She sat in a ball on the floor because her legs wouldn’t work any more. ‘There’s nothing to yell about, Ruben. I’m fine.’
‘Really?’
‘Sure,’ she said, pride surging. ‘I’m not in some kind of decline just because you didn’t turn up when you said you would. I had a really good night actually—it was quite a party.’
‘I saw the photos on the company’s Facebook page. I saw some others from the last tour too.’
‘Yeah,’ she reminisced with a fake smile that she hoped would sound real down the phone. ‘They were a bit of a wild bunch.’
‘And you had a good time with them.’
‘It’s my job to help them have a good time.’
‘More Scotsmen.’
‘What can I say? I seem to attract them.’
In one of those pictures she’d been wearing a Scottish flag and very little else. They’d had a toga party. It had been fun. There’d been bare-chested men in kilts. Nothing had happened with any of them, of course, but just the flirtation had made her feel better, right? She’d been popular. No matter that it was only temporary—for the two-day tour duration. She knew how to please people. But she’d once told Ruben that she didn’t feel as if she had to please him. She wasn’t going to please him now. She drew in a breath, dug up that deep resolve. ‘You know this “let’s be friends” deal?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘It’s not working for me.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well.’ She screwed her eyes closed as she went for brutal honesty. ‘I’m not going to meet anyone else when I’m still being “friends” with you.’ She held her breath, heard his whistle in.
‘You really want to meet someone else?’
‘I think that would be the best thing for me, yeah.’ Her toes curled and her skin goosebumped in revulsion at the thought of it. But it was the best thing. Ruben didn’t want her beyond an occasional bed buddy and she didn’t want to be mooning over him for the next millennia. She had to be kind to herself and cruel at the same time, because sending him away was hard.
‘You’re not even
