The billionaire's reluctant mistress

Chapter 8: The image that had faded

The thought of her next dance with Dalziel made Rachel's stomach twist. Suddenly everything around became overwhelming for her. The sound of people laughing, the sound of music, the sound of clinking glasses, all blended together uneasily. Rachel thought that she had perhaps drunk too much. She got up to go to the bathroom.

Leaving the winter garden, entering the main lobby of the hotel, Rachel shivered from the cold in her flimsy dress, wondering why people always kept the air conditioning so low. She asked a waiter for directions to the bathroom. The space was so quiet. She found herself walking down an unfamiliar hallway. Yellow and white marble columns that matched the rest of the decorations of the hotel stood motionless. Rachel's feet started to hurt from walking in high heels. She wetted her face with a moistened towel to soothe her cheeks. Rachel widened her eyes at her reflection in the mirror. She thought she looked beautiful. Her elaborately styled hair was now loose, making her seem more relaxed and lovely. Rachel reapplied her lipstick, taking a deep breath.

When she returned to the winter garden, the previous music had just ended. Dalziel's tall tuxedo-clad figure stood out from the crowd. He stood silently on the other side of the dance floor, eyes fixed on the gate as if he was waiting for her. Rachel inhaled with difficulty, trying to calm her pounding heart in her chest. Her eyes followed his graceful footsteps through the crowd to her.

Not saying a word, Dalziel offered his hand to her and took her to the dance floor. This song had a much slower tempo than the previous songs, almost as slow as a waltz. Trying to suppress the turmoil inside, Rachel closed her eyes to feel the rhythm of the music. Dalziel was a man of absolute grace. He knew how to lead his dance partner.

Seemingly noticing that Rachel's body was tense, he gently murmured, "Relax."

Rachel took a deep breath, trying to follow in Dalziel's footsteps and letting her mind blend with the music.

As she was more comfortable, he smiled lightly: "I thought you ran away."

Rachel didn't know how to respond, she was not as calm as she had hoped. It had been a long time since Rachel had been this close to a man. Their two bodies were almost pressed against each other, head to toe, drifting and swaying to the beat of the music. The masculinity emanating from her dancing partner made her feel nervous. He still smelled of the Bvlgari aftershave that she had noticed before when they had visited the director of the city's real estate office. Her hand could feel Dalziel's solid body beneath his vest. His long fingers curving around the bare flesh of her upper back set off a nervous trembling in her stomach.

“What are you thinking?” Dalziel asked, sensing her distraction. But perhaps he just wanted to say something to fill the confusion, without really caring what she thought.

Rachel, startled, tried to regain her composure. She smiled and said, "Nothing."

The chorus came. It was a song about a broken heart. The painful lyrics cut deeply into Rachel. As she turned, her soft breasts involuntarily pressed against his strong arms. Rachel blushed. She didn’t know if he felt what had just happened. She now regretted listening to Katy’s advice about not wearing a bra. The soft fabric that hugged her breasts was so useless. It wasn't sturdy enough to protect her from the warmth emanating from the man beside her. Her cheeks were hot. Rachel could hear his breath quickening over the top of her head. She dared not look at him.

Suddenly he asked: "Are you cold?"

Rachel didn't understand what the question meant, just replied that she was fine, but she felt that something profound was missing in her heart. Maybe it was because she had been lonely for too long. Perhaps her emotions were only temporary. Maybe it was just because he looked like the person she had once loved. Perhaps no woman could completely keep her cool in front of such a decent and handsome man. And, at the end of the day, she was just a young horny woman with a vivid imagination. Maybe it was time for her to meet someone. The idea of ​​having a man by her side and sharing her life suddenly sounded great. Dating a coworker, however, was not a good idea. Dating a company partner was even more risky. Rachel was torn. Even at a wonderful party like this, it was clear that there was still no man for her.

Looking up, she saw that the light from the electric bulb seemed to be spreading, flashing together, gorgeous but vague. Rachel felt helpless, but in her ears came the sound of a man's laughter, the sly, seductive sound that had haunted her sleep. She hadn't allowed herself to think of Flynn for a long time, because if she let herself be seduced, she would drown in the torrents of memories, filled with both pain and pure happiness. But at this moment, she longed to remember his figure. She would just allow herself to sit by the stream, perhaps touching it, letting the warm, magical feeling soothe her present loneliness.

Flynn. She whispered his name in her head. Rachel looked up at the man dancing with her. Unexpectedly, he was also looking intently at her. Their eyes met, the familiar gentle amber color in his made her head explode.

"Hey, frizzy hair, did you forget to brush your hair in the morning?"

Maybe that was the first sentence Flynn actually said to Rachel. He leaned against a tree, looking up at her sitting on the top of her uncle's old car. Like all the other girls in town, Rachel Evans was fascinated by Flynn Williams.

All her life, he had been a taboo, and she was drawn to him like moths into the light.

They grew up together in a small town where almost every kid knew each other. But they were never friends. The six-year age gap at that time seemed as big as an immense ocean. When she was thirteen, he had finished high school and spent a year working in her uncle's car repair shop to save money to go to London for university.

At thirteen, Rachel was just a teenager, beginning to be curious about s*x.

That day, she had just had an argument with her best friend Lyanna over a silly boy - Jade - who tried to ask them both out. It was the first time she quarreled with her friends over love. Thirteen-year-old Rachel cried all afternoon. Her eyes were puffy and her cheeks were red. She didn't want Aunt Rebecca to see it and ask questions, so she didn't go straight home after school. She didn't know where to go, and she decided to go to the workshop. When she was young, her uncle had built a treehouse for her nearby.

As it turned out, the tree house was now too small for her, the wooden stairs creaking with every step, and it scared her. Rachel ended up sitting on the top of an old car in the garage's backyard. It was an autumn afternoon, the sky was very high and clear, the air was chilly. This was Rachel's favorite weather. She thought about what had happened that day and started to cry. Perhaps her friendship with Lyanna would end here. The two of them had been hanging out together since they were little, without Lyanna she didn't know who she would have lunch with. Actually, Rachel hadn't given any thought to boys yet, unlike Lyanna. Lyanna had a crush on several boys and often wondered about her future husband. What did he look like? How did his voice sound? What was he doing? How old was he? Where was he? On a date, holding someone's hand, in the back of the middle school library? Or was he much older than that, already in college and full of experience with different types of women and the world? Was he the star quarterback or the drummer of a marching band? Would she meet him on a flight to Paris? Or in the Hale supermarket itself where Lyanna and Rachel used to buy chips.

Rachel cried so much that she felt her eyes swell. She threw her backpack aside, spread out her coat, and lay on her back watching the clouds drift freely across the blue sky.

She felt more relaxed, and sleep came slowly. Just when she felt like her mind was about to drift, a voice came from behind: "Hey, what are you doing here?"

That was Flynn. He wore his factory uniform slacks, with a plain white tank top revealing his tough, honey-colored biceps. He was lean and tall, his body supple and as strong as leather. His face was cold, with a strong jawline and sharp cheekbones. His dark hair cascaded over smiling eyes, sparkling ice blue. She'd always thought his hair looked good, like some movie stars in the eighties, a little shaggy and careless. Of course, she assumed that he didn't intentionally grow his long hair to be stylish. She guessed he was simply too lazy to cut it. Despite being very innocent, Rachel could clearly see that Flynn was a handsome guy. And that made her involuntarily shy.

“This is my uncle’s property, I can be here if I want to.”

“I know Mr. Hardy is your uncle. But this is no place for a little girl to hang around.”

"I'm not a little girl." Rachel argued.

“OK.” Flynn laughed, "Big girl then."

Rachel uncomfortably lowered her head. Standing in front of a man who, even though she had not had any romantic thoughts about him, she still wondered about her appearance. Rachel's curly hair was probably a mess right now. She must have looked like a cookie wrapped in a mustard-colored high school uniform.

Flynn's smile faded as he observed that something seemed to be wrong with Rachel. He was surprised: "Hey, frizzy hair, were you crying?"

Great, she thought, now you must look like a cookie with puffy eyes and a pink nose.

To this day, she still didn’t understand how, after that, he had listened to her rambling for more than an hour about her childish love triangle. Most of the time he just laughed at her silly thoughts, but sometimes he gave advice very seriously.

They had begun a friendship, she thought. Not the kind of friends that hang out together or text and call often, but enough for her to feel comfortable when he was nearby, to have fun with him every time she came to the workshop.

Gradually, she realized that the girls in town a few years older than her often found an excuse to hang around the garage and giggle when they saw him. Occasionally, on her days off, she would see him hanging out with one of them on his chopper motorcycle. The girl hugged his waist tightly, looking happy. She often wondered where he was taking them.

Once, she couldn't help it, and asked: "So, who is your girlfriend?"

"Girlfriend?" His laughter came from under the car where he was struggling to do something. "I don't have a girlfriend."

"Don't lie, I saw you taking Kira out the other day but last week you went with Lyth as well."

“Ah.” His answer was just that.

"What is it?" She asked impatiently. “I know that you are not normal friends.”

She emphasized the word "normal" trying to pretend that she was old enough to understand what was going on.

But he never gave her an answer. Maybe because there was no answer. He dated all of the prettiest girls in town but wasn't really serious with anyone.

Although they didn't really hang out - and he didn’t do much except listen to her complaints about all sorts of things in school - the strange friendship with him gradually helped Rachel relax around the boys. She gradually learned to talk to boys and was confident enough to be funny every now and then. Boys seemed to like Rachel more and more but Rachel wasn’t very interested in her schoolmates. She couldn't help but compare them to Flynn. With their faces still blemished with teenage acne and their childish attempts to impress, they seemed like oddballs who didn't appeal to Rachel at all.

But that year went by very quickly. Rachel turned 14 and Flynn stopped working at her uncle's car factory and moved to London to study economics. She remembered the last day he came to the workshop. She sat swinging her legs in front of a Mustang, her heart filled with sadness without knowing why.

“So, are you ever going to this town again?”

"Yes, I will still visit my mother."

"Mrs Joanna must be very sad."

In Rachel's heart, an innocent sense of loss arose. She was too young then to understand why she was sad. But then years later, when the image of Flynn had faded from her mind, that feeling of loss suddenly returned and she understood that she used to like him.