THE DEAL: Novel (9 page)

His house was huge and going from the ground floor up to the second floor of the house was furbished in a contemporary way, with white classic standing out with the many windows and high doors with black iron balconies on the first floor. The entrance had four steps that gave access to a small entrance under a small arcade protecting to who needed to get inside from the rain. The door entrance was made from solid wood and was black painted with a silver lion head in the middle with a hanging ring for decorative purposes and the door handle was also in silver colour. Inside, the decor was contemporary classic but the furniture was very smooth in plans traits with neutral colours, going between beige to beige-gray, with small sofas and upholstered chairs with wooden rim, making different environments with low tables serving as centres decorated with candles, books or just with big decorative items. The walls were decorated with huge paintings bought in the modern galleries in London and some were full confusion of colour, letting our imagination flow and wonder what the painters would want to express in each painting.  Strategic located they found themselves surrounded with beautiful floral arrangements of white flower and dark green foliage giving to the whole place a sublime elegance. The access to the rooms on the first and second floor was separated from the stairs with a wooden banister and the rest was black wrought iron throughout the top, the second-floor ceiling down to the ground floor elegantly narrowed a chandelier strategically illuminating all the stairs, giving the place an airy and elegant look.

Nils’s bedroom was welcoming, simple and elegant. The headboard of his king size bed was padded in an almost golden brown that went from the floor reaching the ceiling, giving the bed the illusion of being bigger and the most important piece in the room. A corridor lined up with closets on both sides giving access to a bathroom with shower and bath was part of this cosy bedroom. They ended up spending the night together at Nils place.

In his house everything was as she remembered last time she was there, it was as if they never ended their relationship. Being with him again was nice but left a bitter taste in her mouth, she couldn’t concentrate having sex with Nils, she couldn’t get JP out of her head, JP was haunting her mind and she felt frustrated walking to the irritation not being able to concentrate and enjoying the moment with Nils.

Nils was sweet and affectionate with her as she always remembered he has been that way, nothing had changed. She struggled and tried to shake JP out of her mind, she wanted him to disappear from her head, but he wouldn’t go away. JP was like a phantom insisting on appearing in such a clear picture in Carolina’s mind that the she found herself closing her eyes and imagine it was with JP who she was making love, it was JP that she was kissing, and it was JP who was inside her. She knew it was ridiculous, but she couldn’t help it.

Keeping her eyes closed she desperately searched for the taste and the smell of JP, awaking to reality when she couldn’t find JP’s taste and smell. Carolina was really fortunate that Nils was a great lover and knew how to pleasure a woman, at least to her, because she was able to skilfully reaching her climax. She couldn’t compare with JP, and she didn’t want too, because JP was incomparable.

Nils was good and that was enough for now, giving Carolina hope that he wouldn’t notice her mental absence. The very next day JP initiated messages but Carolina wasn’t interested to read his messages and less reply to them. She didn’t want to talk about her relationship with Nils, ending up replying with dull answers avoiding giving straight answers to JP in the end of the day. She felt terrible for using Nils to forget JP because she was going through a torment and a whirlwind of feelings that she couldn’t describe how she felt.

But Nils would be her JP’s savvier. By the time they were dating almost two years ago, she loved having sex with Nils, but last night was something inexplicable to her, she had never felt something like that, she couldn’t feel the same pleasure she had when she used to be with him before, the more she wanted to forget JP the more his image appeared in her mind while having sex with Nils, it was a horrible experience for her. The more she thought about it, the more agonizing was the situation. But now she didn’t want to go back, it was not fair to Nils and she had to forget JP at any cost.

I can do it, I will forget JP with Nils help
- thought countless times since she returned to Nils.

To worsen the whole situation in which Carolina was in, emotionally she felt as if she was in a Russian roulette, because now JP was sending her several messages a day, asking questions about her about her boyfriend, she didn’t want to be nasty to him, sometimes she would reply, other times she just stayed in silence. JP began to send her messages on a daily basis, several messages a day saying that now that he knew he couldn’t have her, he only thought of her, that he needed her, she was wonderful and that he wanted her. Carolina was confused and happy at the same time for having provoked in him a reaction.

But it didn’t last.

The illusion exploded a few days later when Carolina realized he was like a child trapped in an adult’s body. He act the same way as when child has to many toys, normally neglect who likes least, not playing with it and despises it because he knows that is available on the shelf, but when another child appears showing interest in the toy left on the shelf, he wants the toy back, just because the other child also wants it. It was the same way JP made Carolina felt, if she wasn’t in a relationship right now with Nils he wouldn’t even contact her the way he was doing. If she was still available he wouldn’t show any interest or contact her, but now that he knew she wasn’t available, he was trying to get to her.

Unfortunate for JP, he chooses the wrong way to do it. Carolina knew what he was after, he wanted only sex and walks away after like if nothing happen, he was probably thinking if they had sex once and it was nothing more than sex, it wouldn’t hurt continue trying the same thing as before.

He didn’t want her for a relationship, why should he?

He had her already for sex.

She knew he only wanted to use her and then throw away as a sex object again, it was pointless. JP behaviour only made Carolina tried her best to invest in the relationship with Nils. She continued to see Nils which was always charming to her and he was just a man that any woman would want to have, she felt grateful to be the chosen one by Nils. Carolina couldn’t help but feel sad, because unfortunately JP and the whole text conversation would always lead into sex, there was nothing else to explore with him, and he made no effort to be nice to her, he wasn’t romantic or even strove to pursue her.

Like Tess told Carolina:

In his mind, he thinks that the first time was easy to take me to bed, if it was easy the first time it will be easy all other times as well, so he would come always for the same.

JP was dry, cold and direct.

Gradually the relationship with Nils went back to what they had before and she really began to appreciate the moments with him. At this point Carolina began increasingly getting hold mentally of JP whenever she was with Nils, but that didn’t meant she had managed to overcome the incomprehensible feeling she had for JP. She only managed to put him in a small corner in the back of her head, allowing continuing her live and living the best way she could with Nils. JP continued trying to convince her that they had to meet again. At certain point she said him that she wanted to remain only friends, now that she had someone and he needed to respect her decision.

After one month JP says her, he will delete Carolina’s number, because he can’t stop thinking about her, continuing sending her messages that he can’t stop thinking about her, about being inside her again. The only way he could stop sending her messages would be erasing her number, that way he wouldn’t bother her anymore. Now he wanted to stop contact her and delete Carolina’s contact. She didn’t want to continue his text messages the way he was sending them now, but erasing contacts?

Do they need to be so dramatic?

Maybe they did.

Cutting off contact with him completely was the sensate thing she should do, but she couldn’t do it. JP had a magnetic power over her that she couldn’t understand. She ended up convincing JP, managed to speak and try to be just friends, trying to keep her contact.

He replied with a message:

"It isn’t very friendly when I just think making you oral sex"

Again everything was ending in the intention of wanting only sex and Carolina was tired of all that sex talk. At this point Carolina had hoped that he would continue interested in her, just for her having the pleasure to say no to him, like he did to her before, he could start genuinely liking her. She just wanted to feel loved by him that he wanted her for more than just sex because she still had the illusion that they could go out and discover each other. But she couldn’t or wouldn’t tell him, he needed to find out for himself. And she wouldn’t leave Nils if he didn’t change the way he view Carolina. Ignoring the fact that he only thinks about sex with her, which he wants her only for sex was very difficult for Carolina to remain indifferent to everything he told her, when she still has that secret wish to be with him again.

All that talk made her think about the extraordinary sex they had. It had been such a wonderful experience that every time she thought about it, she couldn’t help but blushing. Always maintaining the same posture of an engaged woman, JP didn’t try hard enough to win Carolina to fall back into his arms again. He didn’t get what he expected, and the conversation ended up cooling down naturally and they stopped to communicate with each other over time. Carolina was convinced that he had forgotten her for good and she made a daily effort to forget him too.

Weeks and months passed by, she tried to live a day-a-day the best way she could, from time to time she find herself looking at infinity and thinking about JP, as soon she realized she was doing it, she diverted immediately her mind to work, forcing JP’s image to dissolve in the infinity of her mind.

The worst was over, I was able to put him finally in the past
- she thought.

Carolina was sympathetic to many causes and one of them was particularly personal to her, breast cancer. Carolyn's mother had died of cancer when she was young and since then she reads everything she could about breast cancer, learned about charity organizations and what they used to do. Some of them supported the discovery for healing and others support women who were with undergoing treatments. So every now and then she was invited to charity events, and always accepted helping in anyway and actively participates in what they needed.

This time it was an organization that intended to raise funds to open a centre to welcome women while on treatments in the hospital, where they could stay there to rest and recover from chemotherapy. The organization held a charity ball at the Dorchester Hotel in central London. It was a diner gala and dress code was formal, meaning men had to go in a tuxedo and women with long dress.

It had been about six months since Carolina had switch the last message with JP, although she hadn’t forgotten him, the fact that Nils be occupying a very important part of her life made her stop thinking about JP on a daily basis. She overcame the anxiety to contact and thinking about him constantly.

Tonight would be the night Carolina and Nils would appear as a couple in public, many of their friends knew they were together, but Carolina and Nils took it slow and every time they were together they rather be alone then going out to public events. As Nils was a public figure in the fashion industry, he needed to be careful with his image and with what he was putting out there of himself, especially regarding his private life.

For Carolina it was a good thing that he cared and wanted to keep their relationship private. When they started to date almost three years ago, they went public for the first time a couple months after they were together, it catch Carolina entirely by surprise, as she didn’t realize at the time how famous he was. A photo from them went viral online and in the magazines when they walked out together hand in hand from Hakkasan restaurant in London, taken by paparazzi that recognized Nils as a fashion raccoon.

This time Nils said to Carolina he wants to keep it private for as long as possible, she was grateful as she preferred to stay in the shadows as long as she could too. When Nils saw Carolina so enthusiastic helping organizing the gala ball with the charity committee, he knew he needed to be there and support her and her work. So he invited himself to go with her, she was very happy that he was a man who could be at her side when she needed him. Both, friends and the London society in general would be at the ball, she knew it was time to make their relationship public, including the press that loved one gossip from one of the owners from the UK’s largest fashions company with his new relationship. Nils picked Carolina at her house, coming already prepared with his slick and stylish tuxedo, it didn’t really matter what he wore, he looked always very elegant and because he was tall and thin every type of clothes always looked magnificent on him.

He was a man with excellent taste in clothes, it didn’t matter what he was wearing, he looked always very fashionable and everything fit him as costume made, probably they were, but Carolina never asked.

 Getting a little nervous about tonight’s development, she knew it was time letting the relationship with Nils move forward, it was the right thing to do, for her, and for Nils. He was the man who loved and respected her as a woman, hoping she could love him back the same way he loves her one day. She started to believe that one day she really would get there, she deserves it and so does Nils. At each passing day she learned to throw away her thoughts about JP whenever they insisted to return. She started genuinely appreciate everything about Nils, every time she was with him.