Starr Destined (Starr Series) (3 page)

“What the hell…?  What’s going on, Sera?”

She was supposed to be ill with a headache, so what was this all about?  Was she having some sort of a weird panic attack or something?

“You know what
really
gets me, Liam, what
really
winds me up, is that I’d actually let myself start believing that maybe you meant what you said.  How stupid was that?  I let down my barriers, started letting myself believe that maybe you did actually care for me, when all along…  And now you’ve got the nerve to come here and act as if you’ve done nothing wrong,” she yelled, as she picked up the nearest object to hand - a shoe - and threw that at me too.  Her aim was pretty good, and it bounced off the arm I put up to defend myself.

“What on earth are you talking about?”  I asked, as I started to make my way towards her.

“Don't come near me.  Don't even
think
about trying to sweet talk me round again this time,” she spat at me, her eyes glowing with feral anger - she really looked like some sort of a wild cat.

“You’re not making any kind of sense whatsoever, Sera.  What’s got into you?” 

I slowly tried to get closer to her, but she backed away from me further into the bedroom.  I noticed an open suitcase on the bed in there, with some clothes hastily flung into it.  As I glanced round, the room looked as if a tornado had ripped through it, with things flung all over the floor, and more shattered glass where a framed photo of the two of us appeared to have been smashed against the wall.

“Don't act the innocent with me, Liam.  I saw you.  I saw you with
her
.”

Fuck. 

The penny dropped.  I realised that Sera must have come up to my office just after Kimberley had dropped in, and I supposed it could have looked as if I'd gone back on my word not to see her again.  But Sera had jumped to conclusions, bolting before she’d given me a chance to tell her about my uninvited visitor, which I'd fully intended to. 

“Ah, right.  I take it you saw Kimberley?”

“Oh yes, I most certainly did.  You promised me you were not going to see her again, and yet there she was, large as life, cosying up with you in your office, making herself right at home.  Obviously you called
Kimberley
in to service your needs, because I’m such a failure, such a poor substitute, compared to an expert like her.”

“Don’t be so ridiculous!  Nothing like that happened between me and Kimberley.”

“Ridiculous?  You are such a liar.  I know what I saw, Liam.  I’m not that naïve.”

“And what exactly was that?  Just what did you see?  What has you so convinced that I've been cheating on you?”  Why was she always so fixated on me cheating on her, when I had no inclination to do so, and had never been a liar or a cheat?

“I saw that bitch
Kimberley
literally licking her lips as she walked away, doing up her blouse, and you… you were doing up your trousers, putting your no doubt very satisfied cock away.  I bet she gives great head, just how you like it.  I know I was useless the other night when I tried to go down on you, but you said you didn't mind… but you were just lying again, weren’t you?  If you want Kimberley, that’s fine, but I won’t be your bit of fluff on the side, Liam.  I thought I'd made that quite clear.  So get out and leave me alone.  We.  Are.  Through.”

“No, we are
not
through.  You’ve got this all wrong, Sera.  I can maybe see how it looked, but…”  I tried to reach out to her, but she lashed out and slapped my face, really hard.  I recoiled at the stinging sensation, and then nursed my cheek as I listened to the vitriol pouring out of her.

“Just don’t, Liam.  I can't take any more of your lies.  This is what happens when you let people in and let yourself start believing in happy endings.  You’d think I’d know by now that life just isn’t like that.  I trusted you, and this is how you repay me, by lying and cheating.  Well, guess what?  I don't need you.  I don't need anyone.  I was just fine before I met you, and I’ll be just fine again, once I've got you out of my life for good.” 

She picked up a letter from where it was lying on the bed and started waving it at me. 

“Turns out I’ve been offered a place on the exchange programme in Barcelona, because someone has dropped out at the last minute.  How providential is that?  It’s perfect timing, because it’s my ticket out of this whole sorry mess.  So just get the fuck out of here, and get the fuck out of my life,” she
screamed at me furiously.  Angry tears scalded down her cheeks, which she hastily scrubbed away, as she went to move past me and out of the door, but I stood my ground in front of her, preparing myself for another face slapping, determined that she wasn’t going anywhere until we’d got to the bottom of things.

“So that’s it?  You’ve made up your mind, you’ve jumped to the conclusion that I'm the worst sort of bastard who would do that to you, without even listening to what I have to say?  Despite ever
ything between us, despite how good we are together?  You’re prepared to ditch it all by running away again, without even considering that there might be another explanation for what you saw?” 

“Here we go again, Liam.  You twisting things round, telling me all sorts of plausible lies and e
xcuses, until I fall under your spell again. But not this time.  It’s not going to work.  I know what I saw.”  Sera stood there with her arms crossed over her chest, trying to look in full control of her emotions, but her trembling lip gave her away.

“Really?  So tell me what you saw.  Did you actually see Kimberley down on her knees, sucking my cock?  Did you actually see me fucking her mouth, or fucking her anywhere else come to that?”  Sera was so far off the mark here that it was almost laughable, but this was no joking matter, not if I didn't want to lose her.

She stared at me, and for the first time, I saw her pause in her wrath for a few seconds to consider my words.

“Well, no, but obviously that was what’d been going on.  Why else was she there with her boobs hanging out, and why else would you be doing up your fly?”

“So you think, despite everything I’ve told you about us, despite all the amazing sex we’ve been sharing, that I was still desperate for a blow job from Kimberley?  You think that I'd set up an assignation right under your nose, right there in my office, at the time that you were due to meet me and could walk in at any moment?”

“It was the only free slot in your busy schedule, wasn’t it?  And you told me to ring first before I came up to your office, remember?  So you thought you had that covered, that you’d only tell me to come up if the coast was clear, if it turned out your first choice wasn’t free,” she argued back.  “But silly me, I forgot and came up a little early, because stupidly I couldn’t wait to see you, only to di
scover that you were otherwise occupied.  The look on that slut’s face when she walked out… smiling and preening because she’d been fucking with you…”  Sera’s face contorted with jealousy.

“Stop it!  You’re letting your imagination run away with you, Sera.  I hadn't arranged to see Kimbe
rley, so I was totally surprised when she just turned up unannounced and marched into my office.  Apparently, she’d been told that I wanted to play out a secret fantasy I had about indulging in some kind of power exchange role play, something about a sexily dressed secretary coming on to me and forcing herself on me.  So Kim enthusiastically threw herself into acting the part, and started undoing my trousers, even though I told her I wasn’t interested.  She really got into it, and took some convincing that I wasn’t just play-acting, and that I
really
wasn’t interested.  Once I managed to convince her to stop, she felt pretty stupid.  I mean, for God’s sake, I'd have thought she knew me well enough to realise that I’d never be interested in a scene like that.”

I ignored Sera’s scowl - she knew Kim and I had history, so this was nothing new.

“We talked about how this misunderstanding had come about.  When I found out what she’d been told, I understood why she’d acted the way she had, and it was obvious that we’d been set up.  So, even though it was totally inappropriate, I could see that she wasn’t to blame, and we parted on good terms in the end, and even managed to find some humour in the situation.”

Kimberley hadn't appreciated the little game that Scott Franklin had played with us any more than I had, and I intended dealing with him as soon as I could, to put a stop to his shit stirring.  Trouble was, I knew it was a deep pot of shit he had the potential to stir up.

I
had
to convince Sera of my innocence in all this, knowing that I was going to have to fill her in about some of the seedier aspects of my past that were coming back to haunt me.  I tentatively tried to move closer to her, but she moved away from me, until her legs were backed right up against the edge of the bed.

“No, keep your distance, Liam.  I can't think straight when you get too close,” she warned.  I sighed in frustration, but did as she asked, not wanting to spook her into another display of her very fiery nature.

“What do you mean, you were set up?  Who would do that and why?” she asked suspiciously.

“I haven’t worked out all the finer details yet, but I’ll explain everything as far as I can, if you’ll just sit down and talk this through sensibly with me, and  hear me out?”  I pleaded, needing her to calm down before I told her my suspicions, because it wasn’t going to be pleasant.

“No, Liam.  Just stay where you are.  You’re not going to twist the truth this time.  Bottom line is I trusted you, and you betrayed that trust.”  She put her hands up to halt me in my tracks as I tried to get closer.

“I haven’t betrayed you.  I’m not a liar and a cheat.  How many times do I have to tell you?  I wouldn’t do that to you.  I haven’t been cheating on you.  Don't you understand, Sera, I
couldn’t
do that to you?  You must know that.  Surely you understand how I feel about you?”

“No, I don't understand anything at all, Liam.”  When she turned those beautiful green eyes on me, I looked straight into them, and took a deep breath.

“Don't you get it?  I love you, Seraphina Jones.  I’m madly, insanely, crazily in love with you.  I thought you knew, I thought you understood.  I love you so much that it hurts every second I'm apart from you.  You’ve become my reason for drawing breath.  You are my world.  You are my everything.  I never thought I would ever feel this way, I didn't believe that love like this even existed, but now I know for certain that it does.  I love you from the bottom of my heart, irrevocably and forever.  So I don't want any other woman. Only you.  That’s the way it’s been for me since the first moment I saw you, although it took me a while to work it out.  No one else holds the slightest interest for me.  So I could not cheat on you, I have not cheated on you, and I will never cheat on you.  Ever.  And that is the truth, plain and simple.”

I didn’t hold back, however strange it felt for me to be declaring my feelings in this way.  I knew that this was not the time to be shy or reticent, because I just had to make Sera believe me.

She stood there staring at me open mouthed.

“Did you just say… did you just actually say that you
love
me?” she whispered.

“Yes, I did, and I’ll say it again.  I love you, Seraphina.”

I tentatively reached over, took her hand and placed it on my chest, over my heart.  “I don't care how sentimental and slushy it sounds - my heart belongs to you, and only you, and it literally beats faster just at the thought of seeing you.  I can’t stop thinking about you, all the time, every minute of every day.  I've never felt like this before, and I thought it was obvious and that you understood how I felt.”

Sera looked up at me, as she slowly flexed her fingers against my chest.

“I had no idea.  I mean, I know there’s this strong attraction between us, but love…?” she shook her head disbelievingly.

“Yes.  L.O.V.E.  Love.  Are you saying that you don't love me too, that you don't have the same feelings for me?”  Sera didn't answer - instead she avoided my eye and looked at the ground, so I continued.  “Because I would say that your extreme reaction here today proves that you care for me too.” 

I looked around at the trail of destruction her rage had left behind.  Basically, from what I could tell, she’d trashed the place, smashing anything that was connected to me.  I slowly pulled her into my arms, waiting for her to react against me, but she didn’t.  She let herself rest against my chest for a few seconds, as I wrapped my arms around her.  Then I felt her tense and try to pull away again, but I wouldn’t let her.

“I don't think I can do this, Liam.  I can't go through this again.  It’s too painful.  It hurt so much when I saw you with her, I literally wanted to curl up and die,” she whispered.  “But first I wanted to kill both her and you.  Maybe I'm just better off being on my own, because I just can't cope with these feelings, this roller coaster of emotions.  Maybe it’s best we just finish things now, before it goes any further.  Let me go and make a fresh start in Barcelona.”

“No!  You are not running off to Spain.  That is
not
going to happen, because I’m
never
letting you go, and nothing is going to break us apart.  We are going to sort this mess out, for once and for all.  First off, you have to trust me and believe me when I say that it was all a set up and that I wasn’t doing anything wrong with Kimberley.  Do you think you can do that?”