Cherry Girl (Neil & Elaina #1)(24)
Author: Raine Miller

It f**king hurt to stay hidden, lurking in the shadows while she settled all three of them onto the beach. But stay hidden I did. In total agony.

I watched her build sandcastles with the girls until the tide came in and washed over their creations.

Washed away…wiped clean…erased…gone… As if it had never been.

I couldn’t bear to see anymore, and quickly realized it was not a good idea for me to be there stalking her. I felt ashamed for my covert methods and worse than if I’d never seen her again. Seeing Elaina once more with my eyes just made everything so much harder for me. I knew what I had to do.

The time had come for me to finally let her go.

Just as I was taking my last drink of her, she turned in my direction. Elaina turned to me and looked over. She couldn’t see me, I knew because I was well hidden, but she felt me. I know she felt my presence.

I’ll never stop loving you, Cherry Girl. Never. I can’t stop…and I won’t.

In that moment my heart just exploded, and what was left turned into a hardened mass of bits and pieces that weren’t worth very much.

My heart stayed hardened like that for a good while too. It had to in order for me to take my next breath and to function. So I learned to live with myself and got on with it. I didn’t have much of a choice, and in the end, accepting the hand I’d been dealt was easier than bluffing over the shit cards I was holding.

I worked hard, and lived hard, doing those things that a man needs to do to survive, no matter how hollow the aftermath leaves you feeling.

I did the most difficult thing I’d ever had to do in all my life.

I let her go.

I let my Cherry Girl go.

Part Three

Us

And now these three remain:

faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I Corinthians 13:13~

14

Five years later

Blackstone Security International, Ltd. was housed in a sleek high rise building off the Liverpool Street station in downtown London. My new place of work. The company did a great deal of global business and had need of a receptionist with some fluency in the languages of Europe. I had Italian and French down well enough—I was still working on the German and the Spanish.

As it turns out, this job was perfect for me in a lot of ways. I’d missed England in the nearly six years since I’d been gone, so it was lovely to be home again and close to my family. Three years in Italy, and two in France had allowed me to experience other places and practice the native languages first-hand. And since there would be opportunity for travel around Europe, the job at Blackstone Security was sort of a combination of both worlds for me, and I liked that.

When Mum suggested I apply for the position, I’d thought it was because a friend from her card club had suggested how well suited I was for the job. Frances Connery was executive assistant to the owner and a longtime friend of my mother’s. My brother, Ian, had also put in a word for me apparently. He was a high-powered London solicitor now, and Blackstone Security International was one of his top clients. He worked in the same building only two floors down, so we saw each other quite a bit. Sometimes a little too much because I’d discovered just how much all the ladies loved Ian. And the reasons behind it. Disgusting hearing how good your brother was in bed. Bleh. Talk about someone who needed to settle down.

My new job seemed almost too good to be true, and I’d been only been working there for about two weeks, when I found out why.

“The team is back today from the job in Madrid. You’ll get to meet Mr. Blackstone finally. He’ll probably be in later than usual though from all the traveling. I’ll introduce you to him and the rest of the crew as soon as they all get in. Coffee, dear?” Frances, my immediate supervisor, gestured to the pot in the break room.

“Yes, please. I still have so many people to meet before I know everyone that works here.” Several were always out on large-scale team jobs, so that the whole company was never all together at the same time.

“Not to worry, my dear.”

She handed me a cup of coffee that I immediately started doctoring with sweetener.

“Well, I hope I’m a good fit for them, you know, Frances?”

“Oh, you are, dear, you are. You’re doing an excellent job so far, and I know Ethan will be pleased to have someone with your skills here at BSI, now that there is so much international work for them.”

“Thank you for that. I’m really loving it here. I’m nearly done with the contract from the Italian consulate and can get started on the others later today.”

“You’re a gem, darling,” she said, breezing out of break room with her coffee.

I got back to work at my desk, engrossed in translation and fielding calls when the most handsome man came through reception. Handsome didn’t really accurately describe him though, stunning was more like it. Dark hair, blue eyes, tall, built, serious, and acting like he owned the place. The light bulb went on. This was Ethan Blackstone, and he actually did own the place.

“Morning,” he said, with a nod and a thorough look at me.

“Good morning, sir,” I said as he passed. He used his key code, and walked through to the main floor.

I blew out a breath and hoped I’d passed the boss’s screening. This job really suited me and I wanted it to stick.

****

I preferred to take my lunch and eat outside in the courtyard if the weather was decent. If I had any extra time, I’d pull out my Kindle and read for a few minutes. I loved reading fiction of all kinds and found that if I purchased the popular books in other languages, it helped me stay sharp, and gave opportunity to master the ones I was still working on. Right then I was enjoying JR Ward’s Lover Unbound in Spanish and really captivated by the angst of urban vampires fighting extinction in the modern world. Until the space on the bench beside me was taken up, that is.

“Hello gorgeous, what have you brought for me today?” He poked a finger into my floral lunch bag and peered in.

“God, Denny, don’t you ever stop?”

He took a grape from my bag and popped it into his mouth. “Why should I stop? You’re back in England, and you work somewhere near, because you come out of that building over there like clockwork to eat your lunch.” He nodded his head toward my building.

“Because I’m not interested?” I gave him a fake smile.

“Aww, baby, don’t be harsh. I just want to take you out and show you a good time, you know, for old time’s sake. What do you say?”