Bought and Sold Read online

  ‘How did you get this number?’ I asked.

  ‘First, you have to ask “Who is this?”’ he answered in a mock-serious tone.

  ‘I know who you are,’ I said. ‘You’re the guy who watches me at the club. I’ve told you, I don’t want to talk to you. I’m not interested. Don’t call me again.’

  As I pressed the button to end the call, I felt uneasy. I knew we didn’t have any friends in common, so how had he managed to get hold of my number? It seemed odd, but not enough to be any real cause for concern.

  He phoned me a few more times after that, and each time I told him the same thing – that I didn’t want to talk to him; I just wanted to be left alone. Then, one night at the club, when Serena and I were dancing and he was standing in his usual place at the side of the room, he caught my eye and started bowing down to me. It was ridiculous, but I couldn’t help smiling and the next moment he was standing in front of me, pleading, ‘Why will you never speak to me? I have to talk to you. Please don’t make me suffer in this way. Let me take you away and marry you.’

  I laughed as I said, ‘You don’t even know me!’ But, despite the absurdity of what he was saying and the fact that I had no intention of responding to his interest in me, I felt a small thrill of pleasure. I was surprised, too, by how disappointed I felt when Serena and I went to the club one evening and he wasn’t there; I told myself it served me right for being so unkind to him when all he’d been trying to do was talk to me.

  He didn’t come again after that and shortly afterwards Serena fell in love and we stopped going out together as often as we used to do. Each time I did go the club, though, I looked for him and, for reasons I didn’t understand, felt a sense of missed opportunity when he wasn’t there, as I was certain I would never see him again.

  John and I stayed together for almost three years, although for a lot of that time we led separate lives and avoided acknowledging the fact that any romantic relationship we’d had was over. We were still together when I got a text message one day from a foreign number.

  ‘Guess who?’ it said, and I knew immediately who it was.

  ‘It’s Kastriot,’ I texted back.

  I don’t know why I was so sure. I hadn’t seen him for almost two years and there was no reason on earth for me to think of him then. But somehow I just knew.

  Within seconds, I received another text: ‘How can you know this? I noticed you but you never noticed me.’

  So I described the leather jacket he used to wear, the way a thick, dark wave of his hair fell over his left eye and how he always stood at the side of the dance floor with his friends.

  ‘So you did notice me!’ he answered. ‘Why were you always so mean to me? Why did you never talk to me? You broke my heart, but I’ve kept your number all this time.’

  ‘I was horrible back then,’ I told him. ‘I hated all men and didn’t want to talk to anyone. It wasn’t just you. I’m sorry.’

  I’d always felt guilty about the way I’d treated him. Although it had been obvious he liked me, he’d never pushed or harassed me or been unpleasant in any way, even when I’d been cold and unfriendly and had refused to give him a chance and get to know him.

  ‘You were the most unapproachable girl I’d ever met,’ Kas told me. ‘It was as though you were in a bubble with a big sign on it saying DO NOT COME NEAR ME. You were the girl everyone wanted to talk to but no one dared to approach. You have no idea how much courage I needed to step forward and speak to you.’

  ‘I’m ashamed,’ I texted back. ‘I didn’t mean to be unkind to you. I was just trying to protect myself.’

  ‘I fell in love with you the first time I saw you,’ he answered.

  I laughed as I tapped out the words, ‘How is that possible? You can’t love someone you’ve never really spoken to.’

  ‘And you can’t know how I feel,’ he retorted. ‘Every girl I see has your face. I can’t get you out of my head. I remember everything about you – the song that was playing when I saw you for the first time, all the music you ever danced to, the clothes you wore, the way you smiled …’

  I’d never met any man who talked about his feelings in that way and I didn’t think for a moment that Kas was serious about loving me. And in any case, I was still living with John. But gradually, over the next couple of years – initially when he was living at home in Albania and later, when he moved to Italy – Kas and I became good friends. At first we just texted each other and then we began to talk on the phone, until eventually we were in almost daily contact and he had become the one person I could talk to about anything and everything that was going on in my life. When I was upset about something, he always seemed to understand and to say the right thing; when I was tired or fed up, he could make me laugh. And as my trust in him grew, I began to think that maybe I’d been wrong and not all men were like my father.

  Even before I’d begun to talk to Kas on the phone, I’d been feeling increasingly stifled by my relationship with John. Ironically, his habit of taking charge and planning what we were going to do each day – the thing about him that used to make me feel so safe – was the thing that finally made me realise I wanted to get away from him. We seemed to have less and less to say to each other, and as I felt more detached from John, I grew closer to Kas. I would tell Kas about the arguments we were having and my suspicions that John was cheating on me, and he’d listen sympathetically and then say, ‘I don’t think this man is right for you. Maybe you shouldn’t be with him.’ And eventually, with Kas’s help, I found the courage to leave and to tell John, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t love you and I can’t do this anymore.’

  John and I had been together for three years and even though our relationship had clearly run its course, splitting up was still hard. So I was grateful that Kas was always there, at the other end of a telephone, to help me through it. He was like a big brother as well as my best friend and he seemed to understand my doubts and suspicions. He made me feel as though I’d done the right thing in leaving John, and whenever I was miserable about it, he reminded me how good my life was going to be now that I was ‘free’.

  In reality, however, I was 21, had never really lived on my own, hadn’t made many friends independently of John, and was frightened by the prospect of having to start my life all over again, alone. After Serena met her boyfriend, we’d more or less stopped going out together in the evenings. So I was grateful when Natasha, a friend I’d made at work, suggested a night out at a bar that had just opened. After that, she and I started going out together regularly and suddenly the future looked less bleak and lonely; life seemed to be full of possibilities.

  And then, just a few months after John and I had split up, I fell in love.

  Usually when I meet someone I’m attracted to, it’s an instantaneous thing: I look at them and bang! – I’m smitten. And that was exactly what happened when I walked down the stairs at a nightclub with Natasha and the guy working behind the bar looked up at me with big, brown eyes. While Natasha bought us some drinks, I stood beside her with my back to the bar, trying to breathe normally and hoping that the sound of the music was muffling the heartbeat that I could hear thumping loudly in my head. Eventually, Natasha turned and handed me a glass and I said to her, ‘That is the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen in my life. I have to know who he is.’

  It was quite early in the evening so the club wasn’t yet heaving with people as it would be later and Natasha surveyed the dance floor with growing scepticism. Raising her eyebrows in mock bemusement, she pointed at a boy who was throwing his arms around like a demented windmill and asked: ‘Who? Him?’

  ‘No,’ I hissed at her. ‘Not there. The boy at the bar. The one who served you. No. Don’t look round!’ But it was too late, and as she turned her head to examine him, he looked up at her and smiled. Natasha smiled back at him sweetly and then scanned the room for a moment, pretending – unconvincingly – that she’d been looking at everyone. When she turned back to me she said, ‘He’s certainly
good-looking,’ laughing as she added, ‘Oh I see! You’re really serious.’

  We’d planned to have just one or two drinks in that club before moving on to meet up with friends at another. But when the most beautiful boy in the world leaned across the bar and started talking to us, all I could think was, I don’t want to leave. Why did this have to happen tonight? So, when Natasha touched my shoulder and I turned to see her tapping the face of her watch and nodding towards the stairs, my heart sank.

  ‘Okay, well, we’re going now. So … Well … Goodbye,’ I told the barman, flushing crimson with embarrassment at the thought of how awkward and stupid I sounded.

  ‘What do you mean, you’re going?’ he asked. ‘You can’t be leaving already.’

  ‘Well, we have to meet some people and …’

  And then I was walking up the stairs with Natasha, stepping into the cool night air and feeling as though I was about to burst into tears. What if he’s the man of my dreams, I thought. And I’ve just turned my back on him, walked away and let him go? What if I never see him again? I started to feel as though I was going to have a panic attack, which was only averted by Natasha reminding me that, as he worked in the club, he would in all probability be there almost every night of every week.

  When we returned the following Thursday, he saw us as soon as we walked down the stairs and by the time we’d reached the bar, he’d already poured two drinks. He handed them to us and said, ‘You’ve come back!’ and for a moment he looked directly into my eyes before turning to Natasha and smiling. But she just waved her hand, laughed and said, ‘Oh, don’t mind me. I’ll just stand here and enjoy my cocktail!’

  As soon as he spoke to me, my heart started to crash against my ribcage and my mind went completely blank. I tried to think of something to say, but all I eventually came up with was ‘Hi’. Luckily, though, I said it at exactly the same moment as someone further down the bar caught his eye and, with an apologetic shrug, he moved away, while I turned to Natasha and cried, ‘Oh my God! I can’t even talk to him. What shall I do? I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ she told me, grinning as she lifted my hot, damp hand off her arm. ‘Just take a deep breath and smile.’

  And to my surprise it really was as easy as that. When he’d served the customer, he came back, and with our heads almost touching across the bar, we began to talk as though we’d known each other all our lives. Although his English was good, he spoke with an accent and when I asked him where he was from, he told me to guess.

  ‘Albania,’ I answered immediately and he almost dropped the glass he was holding.

  ‘How can you possibly know that?’ he asked. ‘No one has ever guessed it before.’

  From that moment, we became a couple. We went on our first date two days later and it was as though we had always been a part of each other’s lives – me, the over-cautious ice queen who rarely spoke to men and didn’t trust them when she did, and Erion, the kindest, gentlest, most beautiful man I’d ever seen. It sounds corny, I know, but it was as though he was the missing piece of a jigsaw I’d been searching for. John had filled the empty gap for a while, but had never really fitted the space like Erion did.

  And it seemed that Erion felt the same. On our first night out together, he told me, ‘I never notice anyone who comes into the club, but from the moment you walked in, all I could see in my mind were your eyes, just looking at me. I kept thinking, What if she never comes back? What if I never see her again? I couldn’t bear the thought that I might have missed the opportunity to get to know the person I was meant to spend the rest of my life with.’

  ‘I felt that too!’ I told him. ‘I felt as though I had to know who you were and that if I didn’t find out, there would always be something missing from my life.’

  Erion is still the only man I’ve ever truly loved, and I believe he’s the only man who’s ever loved me. One of the greatest regrets of my life will always be that I didn’t fight with all my strength and determination not to lose him.

  Tap here to buy the full eBook now.

  About the Publisher

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

  Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street

  Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

  http://www.harpercollins.com.au

  Canada

  HarperCollins Canada

  2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor

  Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada

  http://www.harpercollins.ca

  New Zealand

  HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited

  P.O. Box 1

  Auckland, New Zealand

  http://www.harpercollins.co.nz

  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  1 London Bridge Street

  London, SE1 9GF, UK

  http://www.harpercollins.co.uk

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  195 Broadway

  New York, NY 10007

  http://www.harpercollins.com