Lexi no. 1 Read online

  Lexi

  T Gephart

  Published by T Gephart at Smashwords

  Copyright 2014 T Gephart

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  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and scenarios are products of the writers’ imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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  Table of Contents

  Preface

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 - Roman Renaissance

  Chapter 2 - Dancing with the Devil

  Chapter 3 - One Wild Night

  Chapter 4 - The Great Escape

  Chapter 5 - Morning Disturbances

  Chapter 6 - Night-time Rush

  Chapter 7 - Legends and Vodka

  Chapter 8 - Tough Choices

  Chapter 9 - Changing Lanes

  Chapter 10 - Drunken Decisions

  Chapter 11 - Unravelled

  Chapter 12 - Stefania

  Chapter 13 - Home Sweet Home

  Connect with T

  About the Author

  Books by this Author

  Acknowledgements

  Preface

  When I first sat down to write A Twist of Fate I never imagined it would be anything more than a story I shared with a select group of friends. In my trademark impulsive fashion I set out to write a book that we would enjoy, I had never intended it for larger consumption. It was only after that small group of people had devoured it and insisted that I not only publish it but write another book that I thought maybe it was more than just a “laugh” among friends.

  In a complete ninja-stealth-move, I self-pub’d the book with no knowledge of what I was doing - no cover reveal, no blog tour, no teasers, no ARC’s (I didn’t even know what this was) and no blogs/blogger support. It wasn’t about the money so I listed it as free and joked that if 1000 people read my book I would pop the Champagne and toast my success.

  Never, and I do mean NEVER, could I have even imagined what would happen next. Readers from all over the world were downloading it, reading it, loving it. I reached that magic 1000 number within a couple of weeks, getting messages from all over Europe, Asia, North and South America telling me how much they loved Lexi and her story. To say I was floored would be an understatement; I was humbled beyond measure to think that something I wrote was in the hands of so many people.

  I have since released 3 complete novels and a novella in the Lexi series and have learnt so much about not only self-publishing but about the amazing human spirit as well. It wasn’t always peachy; there were people whose intentions and actions were anything but honourable and some who were downright hurtful. Despite this minority of detractors, I was bathed in kindness, generosity and support not only from my family but bloggers, readers and other authors (I still get giddy when I get messages from authors I adore).

  So this book, the final in the Lexi series, (which ironically travels back in time) is a free book and will remain so as a constant reminder of the kindness and love I have been shown by the thousands of people who loved the story and wanted a little bit more. It’s my thank you for your support, for reading, despite me not being the hot new thing, for taking a chance on a nobody who’s only goal was to tell a good story with some interesting characters.

  I hope over time to connect with as many of you as possible so that I can thank you in person and I will never take what I have been gifted with for granted. Being a storyteller is a privilege, being allowed into your hearts is an honour and something I will never forget.

  T xx

  Prologue

  “You know that I love you, right? That’s why I’m leaving you, ‘cause I love you more than you love me.” He hovered above me as I lay motionless on the bed. My body was curled into a ball as my hair fanned messily around my shoulders. I hadn’t showered today. I saw no point. I was so tired and I just wanted to sleep. The fact that it was two in the afternoon and I had blown off all of my morning classes was irrelevant. I was drained.

  “Ok.” I was resigned. I didn’t want to fight anymore and I had nothing left to give. If I didn’t love him enough then I would never love anyone enough because I was empty. Done. Finished. Spent.

  “You shouldn’t be surprised Lexi. I mean, you can’t really blame me, can you? Look at you? I’ve tried, but it’s impossible to stay with you.”

  I had no idea why he kept talking. He had clearly made up his mind. We were done. I wanted to cry, to beg him to stay but it wasn’t in me. I was a shell, there was nothing left. He had strategically peeled every layer away from me slowly and now I was bare. I had sold out, believed the commercial bullshit about relationships. I had given him everything I had to give and it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. I was beyond numb, I was cold and so devoid of emotion that I wondered if somewhere in the last couple of weeks I hadn’t accidently become a corpse. I sure as hell looked like one.

  “Are you going to just lay there?” He huffed in frustration, obviously annoyed that I wasn’t crying and clinging to him and telling him my life was over if he walked out the door. If that’s what he was expecting, he’d be waiting a while because it wasn’t coming. I may be broken but I was never going to beg.

  I didn’t move. I had no energy and if I had been religious I would have prayed. Prayed for anything other than this emptiness that echoed through my body, my mind and my heart. I hated it. I never wanted to feel it again. I never wanted to love or be loved again. Right now the only thing I hoped for was for it to be over.

  “Well I guess I was right then. I was too good for you. Everyone thought it, you know. I tried Lexi, I did. You pushed me to this. Just remember that. This is your doing. I loved you.” I heard the words and they should have cut me, like salt on an already festering wound. He was one more person I hadn’t been enough for. One more disappointment. One more person to abandon me. One more failure to add to my long list.

  My parents would be so proud. I was living up to the legacy that they had created. My birth had been a mistake; a fact they had never let me forget. I was unplanned and unwanted. They had their perfect family unit with the birth of my brother twelve months before me so I was damned because of my birth order, doomed from the start. Of course I hadn’t asked to be born, a fact that was conveniently overlooked. No, my dumb-ass, middle class parents who were too stupid to use birth control spawned me and had then been too heartless to accept the fact they were having another child. There had been no place for me in their life and I had clued on to that fact by the time I hit kindergarten. They fed me, clothed me and educated me and that’s where their obligation ended. I saw glimpses of what a nice, normal family could be like; school taught me more than just how to read. I saw other parents with their children, their beaming, pride-filled faces when they greeted them at the end of the day and I kept a secret hope that one day someone could feel that for me.

  Despite my secret longing, I had accepted that I was un-loveable when he walked into my life. His charming smile and attentiveness was like a mythical elixir and I fell hard and deep for the promise of love, acceptance and affection. It was so wonderful at the start, those initial few months where I was his world. While I had lots of friends
I was far from being popular, I could count on one hand the ones who would have my back, so to have someone want me like that was a novelty. Sure I had played hard to get at the start, wondering if he was the real deal but it hadn’t taken long for him to convince me that he had seen my true worth. It all seemed like such a blur, I don’t even remember when it all changed. I spent every minute possible with him, gave up time with my friends, gave him money but most of all I gave myself. I even forgave him when he cheated on me. We had loved each other so we needed to make it work. I don’t remember what I did to make him angry, for it all to change, but as much as he loved me and I loved him, he was leaving.

  I blinked but the tears didn’t come. I guess there was a limit to how much a person could cry and I had reached the quota. Something to cheer about I guess? Small victories.

  “Ok… Goodbye.” He tried to hide the slight smile that curved at the edges of his mouth as he backed away from me. He knew he had broken me. Whether that had been his plan from the start was irrelevant now. He had worn me down, month after month, and torn from me everything I had thought I was. Strong, independent, beautiful, intelligent. I was none of those things. I was weak. I was clingy. I was ugly. I was dumb. His words. His words that over time had seeped into my brain, burrowed themselves deep like lave ready to hatch and consume me. It was too late. I was infested.

  I watched as he slowly moved toward the door, affording me one last chance to beg him to stay. It wasn’t happening. I couldn’t say anything else. I couldn’t do anything else. Why bother? I would always be alone. I belonged alone.

  “God you’re pathetic,” He sighed as he lingered at the door, unable to resist one last blow. I felt nothing, I was dead inside.

  He walked through the doorway of my apartment and out of my life, shutting the door behind him. How was that for a metaphor? He was right about one thing, I was pathetic. I stared at the wall opposite me, its blank, dirty surface a reflection of my life. How could I have not noticed how soiled it had become? I didn’t even remember what colour it had been originally. Was it white? Yellow? Blue? I raised my hand and ran it along the smoothness of the now grey surface. I wondered how long it would take to clean it, to scrub the years of grime away. I don’t know why but I felt a compulsion to clean that wall, to see what was underneath.

  Slowly I stretched out from the protective ball I was curled into, my eyes fixed on the dirty wall. I pulled my hair back from my face and secured it into a messy ponytail as I made my way to my kitchen sink. My apartment was small, five steps either way would put you in an entirely different room, which had been handy as I had been able to watch him leave without leaving my bed. But that wasn’t my concern right now. No. I had a wall to clean. Completely on autopilot, I filled a bucket with warm, soapy water and grabbed a sponge before carrying my bounty back into the bedroom. The water sloshed, threatening to spill over the lip of the bucket as I placed it down on the floor. I slowly lowered the sponge into the warm, bubbly liquid and it felt good across my skin. I squeezed it, wringing out the excess water before placing the sponge flat against the wall. I scrubbed. Hard. I watched as each pass I made across the surface slowly made the wall clean. I couldn’t think about him, or my parents, or love. I had a job to do and I didn’t care how long it took me. I wouldn’t rest until I had scrubbed every single wall in my apartment clean.

  Chapter 1 - Roman Renaissance

  Twelve months later

  The warm afternoon sun danced across my exposed, tanned skin. This was the hottest part of the day, when not only did the massive fireball in the sky beat down on us unrelentingly, but the concrete beneath our feet could no longer absorb any more heat, forcing the warmth to spew from its prison beneath us.

  I stretched out my legs as I sat on an upturned crate, my shorts and tank top barely covered by my white apron. My head arched back to allow the full strength of the rays to blast my face. I squinted my eyes shut, unable to suppress my smile and I breathed in deeply. Rome was everything I had imagined it to be and more.

  I had left Melbourne shortly after completing my degree, clawing myself back from a broken heart and more importantly from a broken spirit. It hadn’t been easy but anything worthwhile rarely was. Somewhere I had found a glimmer of hope within myself and I decided that I was enough. I didn’t need love or to have a boyfriend or even a family. I could be just me, and I could be happy. I met boys and I slept around and I didn’t care. It was a wonderful thing, to have that physical fulfilment without the pressure of an emotional attachment. Relationships were for suckers and I was more than ok with mind-blowing sex with no strings. I didn’t need to hold myself to standards placed on me by others. I didn’t need their approval and if they didn’t like my attitude, or me, then that was their issue. I was free and it felt amazing. I wanted to see the world, experience life, after all it was mine for the taking. I had worked it out. Who I was and what I wanted to be, and you know what? I fucking ROCKED!

  My asshole parents had tried to shit on my dream of travelling, convinced it was career suicide if I didn’t enter the workforce straight after getting the fancy piece of paper that would see every pay cheque I earned for the next few years sapped to pay off my student debt, but I had stopped caring about what they thought. In fact, it made my decision that little bit more delicious, knowing it pissed them off. My smile widened as I remembered getting on that plane with a suitcase I had packed with too many shoes and a ticket with no return date. I had zig-zagged my way through countries until I had landed in Rome three months ago with almost zero cash and an inner peace I hadn’t known could exist.

  My hand wiped away a bead of sweat that trailed along the length of my neck then I twisted my long brown hair into a messy topknot securing it with a hairband I had been wearing around my wrist. I loved this time of the day and I loved the heat.

  “Alessandra, andiamo! Customers are waiting, si? No more day-dreaming.” Luigi the portly, bald and very high-strung restaurateur who happened to be my boss called from the doorway of the trattoria. I ambled from my place in the laneway to where he was standing. My ten minute break had evaporated quicker than I had thought.

  “Scusa Luigi, I’m coming right back.” I hoped my warm smile conveyed my apology. He had been so generous, not only providing me a job and three meals a day but also a place to stay. He and his wife’s kindness, which initially had me suspicious, was no longer feared. I’d given up on the idea that I would be drugged and sold to some eastern European businessman as a sex slave. After all, I was no virgin, so I doubted my going rate would be very high.

  “Lexi,” Stefania purred as I entered the main part of the trattoria. “Americano in your section is to die for. Beautiful blue eyes.” Mischief danced in her eyes as she craned her neck to see the American tourist sitting at one of my tables, who was currently engaged in an animated conversation with two other men.

  He was good looking but certainly not worth dying over. Of course Stefania always had been somewhat dramatic. I couldn’t tell the amount of times she almost “died” - it was an everyday occurrence so I really hoped she had her life insurance policy in order.

  “He’s ok,” I shrugged. Stefania was going to end up in a tailspin if I didn’t at least ask him to come out with us later. She was such a sucker for foreigners, and I meant that literally. She’d given some Australian a blowjob not two days ago and he had more than appreciated her commitment to international relations.

  “Get his number. You can play with us if you like?” Stefania beamed, jutting out her chest a little more as she caught the American staring at her tits.

  “He’s all yours,” I offered, not really up for being an alternate. I never did like sharing my toys. Men were no exception. Stefania had been trying to entice me into her bed since we met. She was happily playing for both teams and while she appreciated the love of a good woman she preferred if that came with a big throbbing cock as well. Some woman are just plain greedy but she was so adorable you couldn’t really hate her.
br />   I sauntered over to their table with a little bit more of a hip sway than was required but hell, a tip is still a tip and I had aspirations of seeing a little more of Europe. Their eyes gleamed with approval as I stood in front of them.

  “Good afternoon gentlemen.” I pushed the stray lock of hair behind my ear. “Are you ready to order?”

  “Well hello there.” The blue-eyed American tourist winked, now giving me his full attention. “What a pretty accent. What’s your name sweetheart?”

  I rolled my eyes at the typical loaded response knowing I wasn’t going to need to try too hard to get him to go back to the apartment I shared with Stefania. I was already bored.

  “My name is Lexi and thank you.” I politely smiled as my eyes grazed over his toned, tanned physique. He was certainly more appealing up close but he didn’t set my girlie parts on fire. While I may sleep around, I was still discerning.

  “Well Lexi,” he lingered over the syllables of my name a little longer than necessary and while I couldn’t place his accent, I guessed somewhere in his family tree there was probably a rebel flag flapping from one of the branches. “My name is Josh and this here is Thomas and Shawn.” He gestured to the other men sitting around the table. “We are waiting for a friend, perhaps you could keep us company until he gets here.” He tilted his head to the empty seat to his right. The other members of his party grinned approvingly at the prospect.

  “Nice to meet you.” I nodded and smiled, surveying each of the men individually. If I had to hedge a bet, they were all probably in their mid-twenties and judging by their fancy clothes and wrist-wear, they were all playing with Daddy’s money. “Shit is that a Patek Phillippe?” The words spilled out of my mouth before I had a chance to sensor as I stared down at the beautifully crafted Swiss masterpiece that glinted in the mid-day sun. I had only ever seen cheap Balinese knock-offs up close and the one around Josh’s tanned wrist was sure as hell not one of those.