Trace of Innocence | Sweet and Sour (Book 4)

Chapter 44 - part i

(No Control | Holding Me Ransom - 44 - You Might Have Moved On, first part)

I get an email acknowledgement from Karen on Monday morning, along with a suggestion of the thirteenth to the fifteenth of October, as this fits nicely between the Birmingham and Dublin dates and coincides with a photo shoot Georgia is doing on the south coast. She will be staying at Babington House down in Somerset, which is part of Soho House and therefore ideal for me as I am already a member. Karen offers to book me into one of their walled garden rooms, which are separate from the main building, for a couple of days' relaxation and a chance to spend some time getting to know Georgia. I email back my confirmation, and the subject comes up on Tuesday afternoon as I am having a brew in the kitchen with Mum.

"What are your plans over the next couple of weeks?" she asks. "Are we likely to see you up here again? Don't forget it's Mike's birthday party this weekend."

Mike is Robin's son, and my step brother. He's having a party for his thirtieth birthday, and I've promised I'll be there.

"I'll be home for that," I nod. "I'll come straight back here after Glasgow, and I'll stay here between the Birmingham shows, if that's OK. There's no point going back to London."

"Have you made any plans to see Jess?" she asks, carefully.

"No," I reply, staring down at my cup of tea miserably. For the last twenty four hours I've tried to put her to the back of my mind, but every time my phone has rung my stomach has clenched in case it is her, ringing to tell me she doesn't want to see me anymore. I don't know which is worse - the silence or the truth.

"I thought things were going well?" Mum says, her brow creased in confusion. "You seemed so happy at the weekend."

"She's made it clear we're never going to happen," I mumble. "She's been telling me to move on for weeks, and I've just been ignoring it and staring after her like a lovesick puppy, as Gemma so eloquently put it."

"Jess actually said that there's no hope for you?"

"Not in so many words," I sigh. "But a couple of things she said over the weekend... encouraging me to spend next year in LA, saying it had been fun 'just hanging out'" - I draw quotation marks in the air - "and some comment about Liam and Sophia finding a way to be happy without each other... she was letting me down gently, I know she was. And just before she left she was looking at me with this really sad expression on her face, like she was about to break it off for good. I practically ran away down the stairs to stop her from saying it. It was pathetic. I'm pathetic."

"Sweetheart, you're not pathetic," Mum says gently. "I had no idea any of this had happened. She seemed so happy to be around you. It looked to me like you were both finally getting somewhere."

I shake my head resolutely. "I've been fooling myself for far too long. I need to accept it's over and I need to move on."

"Move on?" she repeats, looking at me questioningly over the top of her mug. 

She knows. How does she always know?

"A girl called Georgia has asked to meet up with me next week," I admit. "I sort of know her - she's a Victoria's Secret model. I'm going to spend a couple of days with her, and see how things go."

Mum is clearly trying to hide her surprise.

"Are you sure that's wise?" she says eventually. "How do you think Jess would feel about that?"

"How do I think my ex-girlfriend, who doesn't want to be with me because she can't forgive me for cheating on her, would feel about me moving on with my life like she has been telling me to do for ages?" I muse, with more than a hint of sarcasm in my tone.