The Rose Petal Beach Read Online Free PDF

crisps. ‘That’s not for me right now. Sorry.’
    ‘You don’t see yourself going out with a white man, let alone settling down with him, do you?’ Scott said.
    I couldn’t help but sigh. He had to bring it up, didn’t he? He couldn’t leave it as it stood that I didn’t want to sleep with him. ‘I don’t think of you as a white person. You’re just Scott.’
    ‘But it’s true, isn’t it? If I was black, you’d think a bit more deeply about going out with me.’
    ‘And if I was white, you’d have asked me out properly instead of asking about sex, wouldn’t you?’ I snapped back. This was not a conversation I wanted to have, but he’d pushed it, he’d gone onto that precarious-looking spot of an old, rickety floor and had caused the whole thing to cave in. And because of that, we were tumbling through space with no idea where and when we were going to land, nor how we were going to be damaged by the fall. ‘Because in your head, if it doesn’t work out the way you want it to, you can always say it was just sex – nothing important, nothing to get upset about. You wouldn’t try to bed a white girl in the way you’ve tried to bed me so please don’t try to turn this on me.’
    He pressed his lips even tighter together, his gaze holding mine. I challenged him in return to deny it, to say that wasn’t the case.
    I circled my finger around the room, encompassing us in the invisible shape that I was drawing. ‘This whole thing, our friendship, our spending time together here, it’s all because you’re not comfortable with being seen with me. I’d even go as far as to say you’re ashamed of being seen with me.’
    ‘No!’ he protested. ‘That’s not true at all. It’s got nothing to with being ashamed of being seen with you.’
    ‘Then what is it?’ I replied. ‘Because it’s something to do with me being black. I’d say it’s to do with you being white, but you don’t see that as an issue, so I’m guessing you see me as the “problem”.’
    ‘There is no problem. I … I just find it hard, how we’re treated when we’re together. All my life, I’ve either had people be afraid of me because of my family, or treat me like anybody else because no one in Essex really knows what the Challeys are all about. But when I’m with you … I’ve never been treated with such rudeness and disregard as I am when I’m around you. The way people ignore you, or say things right to your face. It makes me so angry. And I don’t like to be angry. I find it hard to control myself when I’m angry.’
    ‘Fair enough,’ I replied.
    ‘So, no, it’s not you. It’s everyone else.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘I’d be proud to be your boyfriend. If you’d have me.’
    His skin was smooth, warm, silky almost as I stroked my thumb across his cheekbone. Desire thunderbolted through me again. ‘Not right now, eh?’ I said, the gentlest way I could think of letting him down. He wasn’t being completely honest with me. What he said might have been partially the truth, but it wasn’t all of it and I wasn’t getting involved with a man who wouldn’t be one hundred per cent honest with me, no matter how unpalatable that truth was. That path was the one taken by women who wanted to have their hearts broken and their minds messed with. I wanted neither for myself. ‘There are loads of women out there who are desperateto be with you, let’s carry on having fun as friends and leave it at that for now, eh?’
    Scott’s brown eyes lowered themselves from my gaze and then he shifted in his seat to face and watch the television. ‘OK. Sure. Fine,’ he mumbled.
    I have lived and waited a lifetime in the two hours I’ve been here. All the while avoiding my phone. It is burning an accusatory hole in my bag. I should have called Mirabelle by now. I texted her when I got out of the taxi to say where I was, then I texted her half an hour later to ask if the girls were still asleep, and she replied ‘yes’. Now it is