Page 22 of Just Like You (Square Mile Rogues #2)

Julian

N ow I was freaking out. What had I just done?

I was drenched in sweat, sat at my kitchen table, my nose still running, like I was coming down with a monster flu.

It wasn’t the flu; it was just the crying.

Why the hell was I crying like this? I’d spent, what, six days in total with the guy?

Oh God. This was the kind of thing where people got themselves institutionalised and locked up because their delusion was so intense that they couldn’t actually function.

I couldn’t even imagine how I would manage to work tonight. Had no idea where my shirts were or what I was supposed to pack, but what I did know?

I couldn’t do this. Absolutely not. My hands were shaking as I paced the room, staring at my phone like I was willing it to ring.

I didn’t trust him. Didn’t believe a word coming out of his mouth. The bastard. The absolute bastard.

I couldn’t even text Sonny, who was somewhere in a different time zone no doubt fast asleep. And if I did ring him, all I’d get would be told-you-sos and grief.

My anger was irrational because… I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I felt betrayed in a way that made no sense.

He… I couldn’t even describe to anyone wanting to listen what it was about him.

Why he made me feel like this, because surely, this was too soon to have developed any kind of infatuation with this…

this absolutely infuriating piece of shit.

Bullshit.

He was gorgeous and soft and handsome and built, and he adored me.

Loved my body, every little inch of my now unkept, non-muscular, slightly hairy skin and bones.

I was just me, and he’d made me feel like I was special.

Lovely. Appreciated and worshipped. I blushed, even thinking those words.

How he’d made me feel. The way he had looked at me, sat on a beach somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

An illusion of paradise where I’d… The truth was.

He’d made me feel like he loved me, and that was the biggest kick in the teeth of all.

How dared he? How bloody dared he pull that on me?

He didn’t love me. How could he? Too much.

Too soon. And I was absolutely not ridiculously besotted with him back. No way.

I paced. Tried to pack. Dropped a glass on the kitchen floor and spent far too long trying to pick up the pieces. A small cut on my finger that I put a plaster on, wishing my mother was here to kiss it better.

I felt small. Childlike in my need for someone to just turn up and put me back together again.

Which was when the doorbell rang. I wasn’t expecting anyone, and I was too skittish to think clearly, deciding it was probably the postman, although I never got mail. Still too frazzled to function, I yanked the door open and then just stood there and stared at the woman on my doorstep.

Tracksuit. No make-up. Hair in a ponytail and dark glasses, a strange black car parked on my drive.

“Julian,” she said matter-of-factly. “Your neighbour is standing in his window with a phone at the ready, filming me. Usual thing. If you don’t want to be on the tabloid sites tomorrow, I suggest we take this inside.”

“Inside,” I said flatly. What was going on here?

“Gina,” she said, holding her hand out and at the same time pushing past me into the house. Handbag dangling from the hook of her elbow, phone in her hand.

“Julian,” I replied, wondering what the hell was going on. Again .

It had been what, a few weeks? Normality was apparently now out the window since I had Gina DeSanto standing in my kitchen. Sunglasses now on the top of her head as she flicked my kettle on.

“Nice place. Mind if I sit?”

“Not at all.” Did I have a choice here?

“Tea?” I offered.

“Please. I’m four years sober now and have given up smoking. Totally twitchy still, but yeah. You know.”

“I don’t, but I can empathise.”

“No vices?” she asked with a glint in her eye.

“Too much vodka on the weekend and I will have bad life choices coming out of my ears.”

“I figured. You hooked up with Kieron and completely destroyed him.”

I just huffed. What the hell?

“Hence, I am here because he just rang me and demanded my assistance in rescuing you from despair. You look okay to me. A bit scruffy round the edges, but I can see your appeal. He’s got a type. You’re kind of…”

She cocked her head and stared at me. Head to toe. Back up again.

“You’re nothing like what I thought you’d be. Way smarter. He likes airhead twinks with cute arses.”

“I’ve got a cute arse,” I protested. Fuck me. Oh God.

“You do. But you’re older. Good. He needs someone to keep him on track.

You’re probably exactly what he needs. Well, that’s what he told me.

He says he’s completely and utterly besotted with you and needs you to go along with all of this.

He probably used slightly different words, but the meaning was the same.

He fancies you rotten, and you’ve completely ruined him. ”

“Okay.”

“Also, you have his watch, which is a stupid game to play.”

“So, you’re here to pick up the watch?” The disappointment must have been right there on my face. Alongside the shock and another surge of anger.

“Oh God, no. I’ll take you down to the official Patek repair shop if you fancy it so we can get it adjusted to fit you; I wouldn’t give it back to him if I were you.”

“Okay?” Was that all I could say?

“I’m here.” She stopped and motioned to the kettle. “Shall I make it? I don’t mind. How do you take your tea?”

“With a shot of vodka?” I offered up, because this whole thing was absurd.

“Not on my watch. You’re working tonight, he told me, and he’s currently trying to get himself to some place in Brazil.

You’ve really got to him because that is not something he’d usually do.

Kieron is not impulsive, but he’s desperate to see you and knock some sense into you.

Not literally, but he wants to. When Kieron wants something? ”

“I’ve started to realise that he usually gets what he wants,” I said, finally standing myself up and getting the oat milk from the fridge, handing it to Gina so she could top up the two mugs she was preparing.

Like she lived here. Perfectly manicured red nails. Those big boobs right there in my face.

“Thank you,” I said, looking away. “For making the tea.”

She just glared at me, standing there with a teaspoon in her hand.

“They’re too big. Don’t you know I am aware of that?

You can stare; everyone does. But just like you put your uniform on and go to work, this is what pays my bills.

I get jobs just by looking like this. Stupid and vapid, but that is the reality.

I don’t mind, it’s work. It’s something I can do, that sometimes brings good things to people who need it.

These boobs may be ridiculous, but they keep me employed and make people give money to charitable causes.

And you know what? One day, my appeal will fade.

Someone else will take my place, and the beloved TV personality Gina DeSanto will be old news.

And the day that happens? It will be a relief because these things will get removed and my hair will be cut, and I will just quietly fade out of the limelight with my dignity intact, never to be recognised again. You see what I mean?”

I did actually, nodding and taking a sip of my tea, still standing by the kitchen counter.

“Sit,” she demanded. I did as I was told.

“Why are you here?” I had to take some control, and she seemed to appreciate my efforts .

“I assume you have some knowledge of who I am. Kieron hasn’t got that mindset, that I’m some kind of famous person. To him, I’m just scruffy Gina from his misspent youth.”

“You’re not scruffy.” Why was I even talking?

“I was back then. Abusive home, a stepdad who should have been in prison, and me trying to just survive. He beat up my mum, and I ended up in foster care. First place I landed? A transient group home, and boys and girls were not supposed to be housed together. But I had short-cropped hair, because I kept getting head lice, and somehow? It was a right fuck-up, but I got to share a room with Kieron. And for three glorious weeks, he kept me sane. He was just a kid, but we were terrified of each other, of everything around us, and the world felt like it was just caving in. He held my hand at night when I told him all my secrets. He told me nothing. But he held on to that hand. Things like that change a person. Then all hell broke loose, and I was yanked away and forced to take a pregnancy test. I was thirteen, for heaven’s sake.

But there you go. Not all grown-ups should be in employment.

Some should be locked up forever. Stupid people. ”

She tutted. “And that part is not in my autobiography.”

“I’ll have to read it now.”

“Don’t. It’s all a load of ghostwritten bullshit. They even got my parents’ names wrong. But real life doesn’t sell copies, so things were changed to make the public love me.”

“Do they love you?”

She laughed. “I see why Kieron loves you. You bite back. I like that. And yes, I have a certain appeal, and if you watch daytime television, you’ll find me on the ITV morning sofa every Thursday. Nine to eleven.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Your mum would.”

“She’s dead.”

“So’s mine. Went back to the bastard and let him take her out.”

“Gina…” I didn’t know if I was supposed to hug her or roll my eyes, but she just smiled.

“Julian, let me finish speaking. You keep pushing me off track!”

“I’m sorry.” I smiled. She did too. I thought I kind of liked her, with the way she huffed at me and rolled her eyes in return. Sipping her tea as she adjusted her hair. Long strands of black between her fingers.