Chapter 246

Alexi isn’t at the club when we get back, so I wander into the office and place the brown bag on the desk. Not sure if he will be back at all today but I’m still planning on staying upstairs tonight regardless. I look around for a pen and a post-it note and scribble one quickly, so I can deposit this bag of hilarious socks for him to find. I lost the courage to give them to him face to face after Jackson’s little revelation, and now I just hope he might see the funny in them too.

If his gift was genuine and thoughtful, then I now feel guilty for buying these to mock him, and hope he just sees them as gratitude for the London themed gifts by New Yorking him back. Seeing as it’s my new pet name for him.

I glance at the note to double check it reads well, not too grateful and nicely nice, but appreciative.

‘From London to New York … Something every man needs when ruling his kingdom. X ’

I stick it to the bag and leave it there. Not even sure why I felt compelled to add a note or even still give him the damn things. He probably won’t get the joke at all and throw them out, but I couldn’t resist. Socks for the kingpin and it still amuses me anyway, making me smile as I leave them there and walk out shaking my head.

He did however, unwittingly make my birthday less of a shitty day. It’s been spent with my mind on other things—mainly him, and now even without trying, my brain is back there on his desk wondering if he will like my tacky little gift.

My mother couldn’t be further from my thoughts or my mood, and I actually have a modicum of happiness fizzing around inside of me anytime I look at my wrist.

I didn’t buy them to be a bitch, even if they were bought in humour. I bought them because they made me laugh, and possibly because I am thankful that he took some time out of being a prick to do something nice for me on a difficult day in my year. I just hope I don’t find out the real motive today and burst the bubble that’s keeping me from concentrating on the date.

I head back upstairs after nodding at the staff down here, ever watchful of the club and I’m glad to find the apartment empty.

There’s no sign he has been here at all today and I change into sweats and my yoga bra and settle in front of the big screen to trawl for a movie. My plans are simple … Jackson is picking me up Chinese takeout and munchies. I am going to watch a marathon of movies I have never seen before. Numb out my brain, pig out, get fat and have a night off from being anything except a couch potato. I am not moving from this spot at all until the day ends and I can put this one behind me for another year.

Zoning out, leaving it alone and forgetting all about her.

I’m home. I’m safe. I’m warm and fed. I don’t need to keep looking into the scars and sadness anymore; I just need to leave her buried in the past—Along with all that came before.

I have a future here, stability and security, thanks to the contracts Alexi had drawn up only days after my arrival here. I have a copy of a deed which gives me half the club, and that includes half this apartment. If I want to walk away he needs to buy me out and that little earner would set me up for life. Either way … Alexi has made sure that I’ll never go back to scrounging on the streets, even if he gives me reason to leave him in my past, and that IS something to be thankful for.

He’s taken care of my future, even if he isn’t in it.