The Castaway Billionaire by Serenity Woods

Author:Serenity Woods [Woods, Serenity]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-06-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Victoria

Seven years ago

I stand by the window, looking out at the busy streets of Wellington. The sun has already dipped below the high-rise buildings, and although it isn’t yet dark, the light is fading, and my apartment is cast in shadow.

My phone buzzes, and I look down, not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed to see it isn’t Theo. It’s just Beth, telling me she’ll be about twenty minutes if I want to wait to get an Uber Eats together.

I dismiss the text, then glance at the one below it that I received earlier. It was from my aunt Julia. She’s not strictly my aunt, she was my mother’s best friend, but I’ve always called her auntie.

It was an innocuous text, asking what I want for my birthday, but I’ve been in a strange mood today, and it’s stirred up memories and emotions about my mother I try to keep locked away.

I don’t have my mother’s suicide note. After the coroner returned it to me, I struck a match and burned it.

Now, I regret it a little, but the words are engraved on the inside of my skull, and I’ll never forget them.

She told me how devastated she was about my father’s infidelity. And she asked Julia to look after me, because she was the only person she trusted.

I look back out of the window, resting my forehead against the glass.

I don’t know why I’ve been thinking about it today. I suppose because of Julia’s text, and also because I have my own best friend to think of, and the absolute last thing I want to do is cause her any pain.

I feel as if I’m standing on the middle of a see-saw, and I have no idea which way it’s going to tip. I thought I had my life planned out. Beth and I have finished our degrees—mine a bachelor of health, hers in business management. Just under a year ago, we bought plane tickets to Europe, and we’ve booked accommodation in the major cities, rail and bus tickets, and an itinerary that makes me breathless just to look at it—London, Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Prague, Venice, Rome…

She sourced the most expensive video camera she could afford and I treated us to a top-of-the-range laptop, so we can upload my yoga videos wherever we are in the world and get our YouTube channel going right away.

We created the Wanderlust Yoga website, organized a free gift for signing up to the mailing list, created Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts, and we’ve worked hard on our branding to make sure everything has the same logo and look. We’re all ready to launch our new business into the stratosphere.

And then, on a strange whim, I changed the day I normally go to the gym, and I met Theo.

I breathe onto the window and draw a heart in the steam. How could I have foreseen that? He was running on the treadmill, dressed in shorts and a gray vest, a dark V stain on his front, his hair damp at the temples and on his forehead.

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