One Night: Denied Read Free Page B

been hot all day.
    ‘You did?’ he asks, surprised. ‘That’s great. What did you do?’ He starts dancing around on the pavement. ‘A bit of circuit training? Some yoga?’ He bends into the most obscene pose and looks up at me with a grin. ‘Downward dog?’
    I can’t help but return his smile, pulling him back upright. ‘I punched the crap out of a bag of rocks.’
    ‘Rocks?’ he laughs. ‘I think you’ll find those leather bags are full of sand.’
    ‘Felt like rocks,’ I grumble, looking down at my knuckles and seeing a row of red blisters on each.
    ‘Shit!’ Gregory grabs my hands. ‘You did go to town. Feel better for it?’
    ‘Yes,’ I admit. ‘Anyway, don’t let Ben mess you around.’
    He chokes on a laugh. ‘Olivia, you’ll forgive me if I don’t take any notice of your advice. What about you? Have you heard from the coffee-hating prick?’
    I resist the urge to defend Miller again or to tell Gregory about the text message and gym scene. It’ll get me nowhere, except lectured. ‘No,’ I lie. ‘My phone’s knackered, so no one can contact me.’ That thought suddenly thrills me, and it’s undoubtedly a good thing should Miller decide to text me again. ‘This is me.’ I point at the bus stop.
    Gregory dips and kisses my forehead, giving me a sympathetic face. ‘I’m going to the parents’ for dinner tonight. Wanna come?’
    ‘No, thanks.’ Gregory’s parents are lovely people, but keeping up with conversation requires brainpower, and I have none to spare at the moment.
    ‘Tomorrow, then?’ he pleads. ‘Please, let’s do something tomorrow.’
    ‘Yes, tomorrow.’ I’ll find the enthusiasm for a full-on discussion within the next day, as long as the discussion remains on Gregory’s diabolical love life and not mine.
    His happy smile makes me smile in return. ‘Catch ya later, baby girl.’ He roughs up my hair and jogs off, leaving me to wait for my bus, and as if the gods detect my gloomy mood, they open the heavens and let it pour down on me.
    ‘What?’ I exclaim, wriggling out of my jacket and covering my head, thinking it’s just typical that my bus stop is one with no damn shelter. And to rub it in, all of my fellow bus waiters have umbrellas and are looking at me like I’m stupid. I am stupid – for more reasons than not just carrying an umbrella. ‘Shit!’ I curse, looking around for a doorway, anywhere to escape the pounding rain.
    I circle, hunched under my jacket, but I find no place that’ll protect me. A heavy, defeated sigh falls from my mouth while I stand hopelessly in the pouring rain, thinking that the day couldn’t possibly get any longer or worse.
    I’m proven wrong. I suddenly can’t feel the rain pelting my body, and the loud pounding of it beating the pavement dulls out, leaving my hearing saturated with words. His words.
    The black Mercedes slows and pulls up at the bus stop – Miller’s Mercedes. In an action based on pure impulse, because I know he won’t want to get his perfection wet, I turn and start jogging up the road, the chaos of London rush hour attacking my frenzied mind.
    ‘Livy!’ I barely hear him in the distance over the pounding rain. ‘Livy, wait!’
    When I reach a road, I’m forced to stop, the traffic zooming through the green light, leaving me among many other pedestrians waiting to cross, all with umbrellas. I frown when the people on both sides of me jump back, but by the time I’ve realised why, it’s too late. A great big truck zooms past, straight through a lake of a puddle by the roadside, kicking oceans of water up my body.
    ‘No!’ I drop my jacket on a shocked gasp as the freezing cold water drenches me. ‘Shit!’ The lights change and everyone else starts to cross, leaving me looking like a drowned rat on the kerbside, shivering and brimming with tears.
    ‘Livy.’ Miller’s voice is quieter, but I’m not sure if it’s because he’s far away or the rain is drowning him out. His warm touch on