Saving Wishes (The Wishes Series) (29 page)

“Just put the money away and we can leave. Then we’ll talk,” He sounded much stronger than I was.

All my energy had been used fending off Mitchell and the Beautifuls. I didn’t have it in me to argue with him. I stuffed the money in the till and reached for my coat. Adam stood silent as I followed Alex’s closing up routine, locking the door and flipping the closed sign. He caught my hand as I walked past but I refused to stop, pulling him towards the back door.

The silence continued into the car park. His car flashed orange as the doors unlocked and he opened the passenger door. I stood looking at him for too long, unsure what I wanted to do.

“Please, Charli,” he said. “We can come back for your car later.”

It took me a while to realise it had started raining again. Adam made no attempt to escape it, reminding me of the very first day we’d met, in the car park over the road. Water streamed down his face but he ignored it. Realising I wasn’t in a hurry to get in, he closed the door.

“I know about the necklace,” I burst out. “Floss told me everything. I can’t accept it now.” I reached into my pocket and held it out to him but he didn’t move. “You have to take it,” I insisted. I grabbed his hand and slapped the pendant into his palm.

“I have never met anyone like you, Charlotte.” His eyes drifted away from me for the first time as he looked at the black gem in his hand.

“That’s because I’m strange. It’s a well-known fact. Ask anyone.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. He took a few probationary steps towards me.

“Stay back,” I warned, throwing my hands in front of me. “You still haven’t told me anything.”

He stopped. “What would you like to know?”

He bounced the necklace in his hand as if it was scalding, and I felt the need to let him off the hook. Confessing to what Gabrielle had told me seemed like a good idea.

“I know that your family is filthy rich, Adam. Gabrielle told me.”

The pained look on his face didn’t slip. It seemed an eternity before he spoke again.

“What about the life that comes with the money, Charli?” His voice faltered, like he’d considered changing his question half way through. “You couldn’t possibly know about that. I’m concerned that you’re going to hate my world. I’m not sure there’s enough magic in it for you.”

“You’ll be there. The rest I can deal with.”

“My family does have a lot of money,” he conceded. “They’ve always had a lot of money.” He spoke as if he was confessing to a crime.

“It makes no difference to me,” I insisted.

“I wasn’t trying to hide anything from you. I just enjoyed the fact that it meant nothing to you. Until I got here, I’d never made my bed or done a load of laundry. I’d never even made my own cup of coffee. I am the ultimate spoiled brat,” he confessed. He slipped the necklace into his pocket. “Anything I give you, Charli, can never compare to what you’ve given me.”

I fervently shook my head. “I don’t want anything from you.”

The small space between us felt charged. “Truthfully, I could buy you whatever you wanted. I’m manipulative like that.”

“You think I’m not manipulative? I manipulate everyone I know. You’ve seen what I’m capable of.”

He laughed shortly. “It’s not that same thing.”

“It’s exactly the same thing.”

“I fear you might be a little biased.”

The dimpled smile he gave me won out over my anger. I felt like we were finding common ground where I’d feared there might not have been any. A few tiny chinks in his armour brought a kind of hope to me. I had always known I was flawed and insecure. Finding out that he was too put us on a more even keel.

“I’m not biased. It changes nothing,” I said triumphantly.

“I might not be worth it, Charlotte,” he warned, looking confused.

The smartest boy I had ever known just wasn’t getting it. “You said my name while you were sleeping. Someone who thinks of me even as he sleeps is definitely worth it.”

The look he gave me was becoming familiar. It was the same puzzled expression that made me wonder if he thought I was a little unbalanced. Perhaps I was the one who wasn’t getting it. I stood for a long moment, searching for whatever it was that he thought I was missing.

He saw my preoccupation and misinterpreted it. “If you’re having second thoughts about coming to New York – ”

I put my finger to his lips. “I never have second thoughts. I always go with the first.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he murmured against my finger.

***

Being at Gabrielle’s house no longer felt like we were breaking rules. Adam got out of the car and I followed, not giving him a chance to open my door for me. We were almost at the house when I spotted two little red tulips jutting out from the rockery, bright against the mass of greenery that would be overflowing with flowers in spring. He saw them too and leaned down to pick them.

“No,” I protested.

He straightened up. “Why not?”

“I’ll tell you another time,” I promised, turning back towards the house.

“Not so fast, Coccinelle,” he said.

“I still have no clue what that means.” After my first attempt at translation, I’d been reluctant to research it again.

“I am prepared to make a deal with the devil. I will translate for you if you tell me why you just reacted as if picking flowers is a federal offence.”

As if on cue, my phone beeped. “Are you not going to reply?” he asked, studying me closely as I glanced at the message and retired my phone to my pocket.

I felt the colour fade from my cheeks and I wondered if I looked pale. “Its Nicole again.”

“The flowers,” he persisted.

“The translation,” I demanded.

Without warning, he dipped me backwards, so low my head was just inches from the ground.

“What are you doing?” I gasped.

His voice was serious but the smile was warm. “Ladybug. Coccinelle is French for ladybug.”

Adam loved small details. I’d all but forgotten the conversation we’d had on the beach where I’d confessed to saving ladybug wishes. I shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d remembered.

If a beep could sound urgent, that would have described the sound coming from my pocket. “Nicole must really need to talk to you,” he said, righting me. “Maybe you should call.”

I reluctantly took the phone and read the message. I struggled to look at him and he moved his head, trying to follow my eyes as they flitted everywhere but at him. No wonder he found it so difficult to read me. It was like watching him trying to navigate a road that I’d already smashed up.

I was about to do the unthinkable.

“It’s not Nicole,” I said. “It’s Mitchell. He’s at my house. He wants to see me.”

His lips formed a straight line. “So you’re going to drop everything and go running?”

“I have to put an end to this, Adam. Please understand.”

He nodded stiffly. He didn’t understand and unfortunately for me, I was too inept to explain it to him.

The journey home should have taken half the time that it would have in my old car but I drove ridiculously slowly. Caution and safety had nothing to do with it – I was buying time.

21. Memory Lane

I sat in the car longer than I should have, trying to prepare myself for the conversation ahead.

Mitchell leaned against the railing of our veranda with an unreadable expression on his face. It occurred to me that he probably wasn’t entirely sure it was me sitting in the Audi.

I enjoyed seeing him squirm for a short minute before getting out of the car and storming the veranda like I was about to charge at him. “You have five minutes and I shouldn’t even be giving you that.”

“I just want to talk, Charli. I’ve been trying to talk to you since this morning,” he said smoothly.

I could feel him standing behind me as I twisted the key in the lock of the front door. “You need to leave me alone.” I wanted to sound stronger and considered repeating the sentence with more anger – and maybe a growl. The gesture of throwing my keys down on the hallstand seemed to have the same effect.

“Calm down, feisty one. We’ll talk and then I’ll leave you alone,” he promised, reaching for my hand. I snatched it away.

“Four minutes,” I warned.

He smirked and walked through to the kitchen, unaffected by my hostility. “Do you still drink tea?” he asked, flicking on the kettle with the familiarity of someone who lived there.

“Can you please get to the point? I have better things to be doing right now.”

Mitchell sat down at the place usually reserved for Alex. “By better things, you mean the American?” I couldn’t pick the emotion in his voice. The expected tone of jealousy was absent, leaving me wondering if I’d become conceited as well as mean.

“Adam. His name is Adam,” I replied, trying to lose the attitude.

“So you’re going to shack up with him when your trip is over?” I raised my eyebrows. “Nicole told me.”

“I can’t wait,” I told him. “Have you been to New York?”

His lips formed a thin line. “Can’t say I have. I’ve heard that the surf isn’t that great there.”

“I’ll cope,” I muttered.

He leaned back in his chair. “Does he know you, Charli?”

It was a vague question but I understood perfectly.

“Completely.”

“Completely? Wow. Impressive.”

It was a bold declaration and he had every right to be sceptical. Mitchell knew everything about me by default. – knowing someone her whole life makes familiarity inevitable. To think I’d shared everything with Adam in just a few months would have seemed impossible.

“It’s the truth.”

“He knows that you have the ocean in your blood?” I nodded. “And he thinks New York is the place for you?”

I continued nodding. Mitchell was quiet. The cogs turning in his head were almost audible as he searched for something else to put forward – something he thought I would never share with anyone. I waited in silence, safe in the knowledge that he’d come up blank.

“What about
us
, Charli? Does he know about us?”

“He knows, and there is no
us
,” I said casually. “There never really was. You made sure of that.”

He straightened up. “Tell me something? If I had stayed, would you still have chosen him?”

I leaned back. “He knows everything about me and even after all that, he doesn’t think I’m crazy. I love him, Mitchell.”

He smiled but looked like it took effort. “I never thought you were crazy.”

“That’s because you’re off kilter too.” I kept my tone light, shying away from the direction the conversation was heading.

Finally he looked at me. “I wish things were different, Charli. I should never have left you the way I did.”

“You should never have let me spend the night with you in the first place. Nothing changed until then. Everything fell apart because you weren’t brave enough to stay with me.” I said it too loudly, putting too much meaning in it.

I could see the frustration building. It took a lot to rile Mitchell. Having the Beautifuls as sisters gave him superpowers when it came to keeping his cool, but his calm demeanour was fading fast. “You were just sixteen.” He spoke through gritted teeth. “Your brother would have slaughtered me.”

“So you left.”

“What was I supposed to do?” he asked in exasperation. “It wasn’t fair to ask you to wait for me. I couldn’t ask you to come with me. What could I have done differently?”

“Not telling everyone that I was the biggest mistake of your life might have been a start. Your sisters buried me after that,” I spat, raising my voice to match his.

“I never said that, never,” he insisted, drumming his finger on the table.

“Of course you did. That’s what elevated my social status to skanky whore,” I replied bitterly.

“No. I said that
leaving
you here was the biggest mistake of my life.”

I allowed my mind to wander as I tried to process his words. My life had all but fallen apart because I chose to give everything to a boy who’d changed his mind. I’d spent a year hating him because of it. Now that I had finally heard his side of the story the anger was slipping.

“It doesn’t matter now.” I sighed. “None of this matters now.”

Mitchell nodded. “I’m not going to bother you again. I just wanted to make sure you knew the truth.”

The truth wasn’t supposed to hurt so much. It was a strange moment and the only comfort I drew was from knowing that even if I had never met Adam – if my life had remained on pause since the day Mitchell left – I would never have taken him back. Regardless of what Alex might think, my tolerance for risk just wasn’t that high.

22. Conte de Fée

Adam never mentioned Mitchell when I returned. I was relieved and hopeful that maybe we’d manage to get through the rest of the day unscathed. It worked for several blissful hours until there was a knock at the front door.

Adam leapt up like he was expecting it.