Page 3 of Stanton Adore

“Oh, Natasha, what color did you say the dress you are wearing is?”

“Not sure yet, I have two to choose from.”

“OMG.” Bridget holds up both of her hands as if to say stop. “Listen to this,” She exclaims as she reads an excerpt from the gossip pages. “Joshua Stanton has returned to Australia to be the best man at his brother’s wedding and will be staying for three months to reorganize his work visa. Look out for him and his entourage, ladies, he’s quite the catch.”

Oh shit. My heart sinks.

Bridget is so excited. “Holy crap! He’s like famous now, in the gossip pages. Just how rich is he?”

“He’s a multimillionaire,” Mum answers. “Entourage—what, so he travels with an entourage?”

“I suppose.” She nods and shrugs her shoulders. “I know he employs a lot of people.”

“Margaret said he has a PA and a bodyguard now.”

I feel sick to my stomach. No one knows about Joshua and me. It happened on a trip when I was seventeen and he was nineteen and he was just a regular sex-charged teenager before he went to America. Our parents would have freaked; they would still freak if they knew. This man is frigging haunting me. What is the hold he has on me? This is what I’m lost about. Is it that he was my first? Or that he is forbidden to me? Even just the memory of him raises my pulse. I have been putting myself through self-inflicted torture for years when I put a Google alert on him. Every goddamn girl he’s ever gone out with is splashed all over the internet. Models, actresses, socialites, sluts.

However the hell you put it, he has long forgotten me. My heart sinks.

“Oohh,” Bridget gasps, “has he got a girlfriend?”

Mum hunches her shoulders. “I have no idea. No one special I don’t think. His mother would have loved gloating if he had.”

A cold shiver runs down my back. His mother, piece of work that she is, loves nothing better than to gloat to me how great Joshua is doing. How wealthy Joshua is. How many beautiful models Joshua dates. If I didn’t know better, I would say she is rubbing it in my face. Although I know she has no idea about what happened between us. Nobody does. Maybe that’s the problem, I’ve lived all these years without telling a soul. I need to vent. My feelings swing from lovesick to angry, resentful and hateful, and back to brokenhearted, all within an hour. While he lives this exciting full life, I’m still here, the village idiot, pining over a man that doesn’t even know I exist. I’m pathetic.

Well, he’s going to know I exist after this wedding because I am going to look so unbelievably hot. I’m going to rub his sorry ass in it. I narrow my eyes as I rethink my diabolical plan. Look hot, turn him on, lead him on and then reject him. He’s going to be begging for mercy by the time I’m finished with him, if I have to ram it down his puny throat. I’ve been planning this for six months. Operation Payback is going to be a bitch.

I smile. I think the only relief I’m going to get is the satisfaction that I’ll have the last word. I had no say in our demise, although it has haunted me for years. Perhaps that was the problem. I lied to him about our breakup. Told him what he needed to hear and not the truth. I’ve been overanalyzing this for years. In my clinical opinion I am suffering guilt-associated trauma. I need to eventually tell him the truth somewhere down the line so I can just move the hell on, and he can release me from this invisible Spider-Man hold he has on me. He is the last person I think of every night. I wonder who he’s with now and whether he ever thinks of me and misses me like I miss him. I’m sad, sad to my bones, a deep regretful sadness that I can’t shake. No matter how hard I try. My seemingly normal existence and happiness is a stage show. Not all the time. I am happy. I just feel an emptiness like something’s missing, a hole in my life, maybe similar to someone who grieves a person who has died, a mother who has lost a child. Even when I am happy, there is an emptiness that somehow won’t go away. And the memories. God, the memories. They haunt me. My mind wanders constantly, imagining us together in bed, snuggled up, making love for hours and hours. His tenderness, his adoration of me and my body. He did love me when we were together, I know this for certain, it was just so long ago. So why in the hell am I still in love with him after all this time? Am I even in love with him? I don’t even know him. I know my emotions are coming to a head because he’s due to touch down in Sydney anytime and I will, no doubt, see him. I’m excited and terrified at the same time.

“Does Joshua still play polo?” I ask, feigning nonchalance.

“Uh-huh, apparently he has a stables property, and his horses are worth millions.” I nod, disappointed by the answer. “His mother said he is also into kickboxing now.”

“Kickboxing?” I repeat as I frown. “That’s random.”

“Yes, I know.”

“What color did you say your dress is, Bridget?”

“White.”

“White!” I exclaim. “You can’t wear white.”

“Who cares.” She smiles. “I need to look hot. Josh might be bringing some hot guys to the wedding.”

“Haven’t we just been hearing all about Jeremy for the last hour?” Mum looks to the ceiling in frustration.

“Yeah, Jeremy Schmeremy.” She rolls her eyes. “You know my boyfriend’s a dick.”

We all laugh.

“I’ll drink to that.”

“Me too.” Mum laughs and we all clink coffee cups. “Hurry up and dump him already.”

Joshua

Sydney Airport, 5:23 p.m., Sunday