The Felix Factor: Sometimes love finds you, page 1
The Felix Factor
Sometimes love finds you
The Laws of Love
Book Six
Davina Stone
Copyright © 2023 by Davina Stone
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
E-book ISBN: 9780645681420
Cover design by Bailey McGinn, Bailey Designs Books
Edited by Vanessa Lanaway, Red Dot Scribble
Content Warning
While The Felix Factor is a romantic comedy it does address mental health issues and post-traumatic stress related to a kidnapping. There is frequent cussing and the sex scenes are explicit!
Please only proceed if this will not upset or offend.
* * *
This book is written in Australian English which may differ in some instances from US English.
Thank you for your understanding, dear reader.
Preface
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~ Rumi
* * *
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
Sample - The Evie Effect
Also by Davina Stone
About the Author
Prologue
In retrospect, it had been a bad idea to wear Louboutin strappies and a gold lamé dress that hardly covered her panty line, Paige decided as an icy wind blasted onto her bare legs.
It was almost midnight.
And where the hell was Trent?
“Just gotta take an urgent call, babe,” he’d said, pecking her on the lips.
She’d opened her mouth to protest, but he’d already disappeared round the side of the building, his phone plastered to his ear.
Shivering, Paige clasped her wrap around her—a strip of white fur that was definitely synthetic, not mink or rabbit or anything that had ever been alive. Even so, she was careful not to take selfies wearing it. You never knew when the haters would clog up your Instagram and TikTok feeds with mean comments.
Truth was, she was tired and premenstrual, and hadn’t been in the mood for one of Trent’s schmoozy business dinners with his creepy associates. She’d been looking forward to going home to bed, so her heart had sunk when some idiot said, “Let’s go to Glitteralia.”
She hated that club. Full of influencers all trying to outdo each other. Okay, so she was an influencer too, but that was different.
She was a real influencer. With her own successful cosmetic company. They were all wannabes.
She hugged herself and stared down at her feet. Peered harder. Jesusss! Her toes looked like ten little sausages. Were they actually swollen? Even in this freezing cold weather?
Crapola. Like seriously, she’d just turned twenty-five and her feet had swollen up? Next she’d develop cankles. Did that mean she was old already? Well, she had lived for a quarter of a century. Phrased like that, it made her sound freakin’ ancient.
Turning towards the street lamp, Paige took her compact out of her bag, widened her eyes and studied around the edges for lines. Should she start injecting Botox? Her friend Candice used it, as a—what did she call it—precautionary measure, like those lines were horrible little gremlins waiting to pounce and you had to prepare your skin, ready for the onslaught.
Maybe she should stop smiling. She hated her smile anyway—her slightly crooked bottom teeth had, despite very expensive braces, somehow jiggled their way back to being a teeny-tiny bit not perfect. When she asked her friends, they said you wouldn’t even notice it. But friends always told you what you wanted to hear, so now it was hard to know what to do. No way could she put up with braces again, not with her career taking off. She’d just have to use the filters on TikTok that made your teeth look like a toothpaste commercial.
She was fumbling in her purse for her very own brand of Lush-O-Lash mascara when Trent bowled into her from behind, grabbing her roughly around the waist.
“Let go of me, you oaf!” she squealed, jabbing the mascara wand in her eye. Ow, that really fucking hurt!
And then a hand clamped over her mouth, and another pinned her hand behind her back.
And a voice—definitely not Trent’s—growled menacingly in her ear.
“Boyfriend’s left you all on your lonesome, has he sweetheart?”
Paige had felt fear before, quite often as a kid—with the camera crews and all the strange people in her parents’ house, sure she’d been scared. But never, ever like this. Like her heart had grown twenty times bigger and was beating so hard it was going to crack right through her ribs. Like her eyes were startling out of her head like a cartoon character. Like… oh god… like she may have even peed herself.
“Don’t scream and I won’t hurt you, baby girl,” the voice growled again, the guy’s horrible hot breath against her ear. “It’s your low-life boyfriend we’re after; you’re just bait.” This was accompanied by another sinister laugh.
She was shaking so badly her knees had turned to mush. The guy was dragging her now, like a rag doll, and… No! Fuck him. From somewhere, her survival instinct kicked in. No way was this creep going to rape her or kill her. She couldn’t go like that. Wouldn’t.
Tears of rage pricked her eyelids.
And then she bit him. Right on his meaty, fat, horrible finger.
Wrong move.
With a sharp expletive the guy yanked Paige’s head back. Pain ricocheted through her neck. Simultaneously, a car screeched to a stop, right next to them.
“You’ll pay for that, little bitch,” he rasped in her ear.
Paige whimpered as she heard car doors opening, footsteps. Muttered instructions. “Where, gov? Boot or back seat?”
Then a gag was thrust hard into her mouth, a blindfold tied over her eyes.
Oh fuck—Oh Christ, she had peed herself, she could feel the warm liquid running down her bare thigh. Her breath came in sharp short snorts. But then, as rough hands thrust her into the back of the car, once again the need to stay alive surged through her, and with all her strength she gave a desperate kick with the heel of one of her Louboutins.
She felt the impact as her foot struck one of the guys in the stomach. He yelped out a harsh curse and rammed her legs into the car.
Then the door slammed shut.
And all she could hear was the crazy cascade of her blood in her ears, the rasp of her breathing like a tornado thrashing around inside her skull.
This was really it.
She was going to die.
At only twenty-five years old.
That was way too young to die.
Chapter 1
Plop!
Something fell on the grass at Felix’s feet. Clippers in hand, he glanced down to see a tiny ball of pale brown feathers. It was a baby sparrow, he realised on closer inspection, its beak opening and shutting, eyes bright with shock. It must have fallen out of the nest in the tree beside the flowerbed where he was working.
Felix knelt down. Was it hurt? He doubted it could fly properly yet. Most likely it had been jostled out of the nest by its siblings, or had simply miscalculated its abilities.
“Hi, little fella,” Felix murmured.
The sparrow eyed him warily, then flexed its neck so the feathers parted, exposing its vulnerable pink skin. Then it puffed itself up, and with obvious determination fluttered a few inches before nose-diving—or, more accurately, beak-diving—headlong into the grass. Moving slowly on all fours, Felix reached out a hand and gently scooped it up.
For a moment it sat right there on his palm, blinking up at him. And then, with a lean on it like an old vintage plane, it flew into the top of a nearby bush.
Mission accomplished.
Felix got to his feet. Playing good Samaritan to injured creatures was something he considered part of his job as a municipal parks gardener. He’d done it many times before.
The fledgling was out of danger now at least. Felix dusted down his hands and picked up his secateurs. He worked diligently, engrossed in the task of clipping and cutting and working out the exact places he needed to prune, until Neville’s familiar voice brought home the time. “Well, lad, I’m done for th
Felix looked up and smiled. Neville was technically his boss, though Neville was too gentle to ever act superior to anyone. “An ant is as grand in the scheme of things as any of us, lad,” he’d say (or something similar) as they chewed thoughtfully on their sandwiches and drank their flask of tea each day. “And those bloody politicians would do well to remember it.”
Neville’s Yorkshire heritage was evident in his long vowels, and the way he shoved back his cap with a gnarly hand and scratched his head with his thumb. After ten years of working with him, Felix knew Neville’s life story backwards. Neville had worked for City of London parks since he’d come down south when he was a young’un, nigh on forty years ago. Felix knew exactly how Neville had met Donna: in the foyer of the picture theatre in Leicester Square. Neville even remembered the movie, a showing of Kramer vs. Kramer. It had been love at first sight across the popcorn vending machine and they’d never looked back. Felix sometimes wondered if he’d end up like Neville: still a parks gardener at sixty, with thick knuckles and a spine like a wizened old tree trunk.
He also wondered if he’d ever have a Donna of his own.
Felix squinted at the flowerbed, trying to work out the spring planting scheme in his head. He loved his life. Okay, he’d concede there was a gnawing feeling in his belly at times, of missing the closeness, the intimacy of a relationship, but he reminded himself he’d chosen to be alone—at least for now. Eyes wide open. The priority was to tread lightly on the earth, to hopefully leave the world a better place, if only by saving a sparrow or planting a sapling. If he achieved that, Felix knew he’d die happy. Or contented, at least. Happiness was fleeting at the best of times.
With this thought, he made his way back to the shed that doubled as a lunchroom, placed his sandwich bag in the back of his bike canopy, along with his slim volume of Rumi’s poems (he liked to read one before he started work for the day), and wheeled his way out the gates of Clissold Park onto Church Street for his ride home.
Felix biked everywhere. He didn’t need a car, and couldn’t really afford one anyway, not on a gardener’s salary. He’d learned to tune out the smell of fumes, be constantly vigilant for large red buses and lunatic taxi drivers. After a decade of playing dodge the vehicle, he considered himself an expert at cycling around London.
Finally reaching the three-storey Victorian villa in Islington where he rented the ground-floor flat, he hauled his bike up the steps and left it in the shared entry, along with his bike helmet, work boots and jacket.
He eyed the letters on the bench, a pile for each of the three flats. There were the usual circulars from local businesses, an electricity bill and… Felix felt his scalp tighten as he eyed it. An officially printed but discreet envelope. He sliced it open to see a reminder of his appointment on Monday. He’d booked it weeks ago, but he hadn’t forgotten.
How could he?
Shoving the paper back in the envelope, he entered the flat and padded down the narrow passage, until he reached the kitchen with its brightly painted yellow walls and Frida Kahlo prints. On the fridge was a magnet that read “A clean house is a sign of a wasted life” (left there by Felicity, who had now moved to Australia to marry the love of her life) and three little figurines that Evie had constructed out of oven-baked clay and magnetised. There was Evie with her bright pink hair, Felicity sporting a big pink hat and sundress and Felix in his standard green overalls and work boots.
Those fridge magnets always made Felix smile. Evie – being a sculptress – had caught the essence of each of them perfectly. He stuck his appointment letter under the butt of his own figurine, then re-arranged Evie and Felicity so they were on either side of him, almost touching. It was his way of keeping them close now they were gone. And while his new flatmate, Adjo seemed like a really nice guy, they’d only known each other a couple of months – it was too early to suss out if they’d become friends.
Strolling over to the window, he gazed out at his tiny tomato seedlings, the pots of herbs and the broad bean shoots making an appearance in the small backyard, and removed his phone from his pocket. It was off as usual. Technology was something else he minimised, switching his phone on for an hour a day to make calls and check messages. But now as he flicked it on, a string of messages pinged.
Unusual. His brows tightened as he checked them.
They were all from Evie. She was in Australia with her rock star boyfriend Byron, on his first ever tour there. Felix liked Byron, but the guy could be a loose cannon at times. If he’d done anything to hurt Evie…
His frown deepened as he read, “Answer your ffffuckin phone!”
“Pleasssse pick up!”
“I need your HELP!”
Christ, this must be bad. Felix brought up Evie’s number.
He wasn’t sure of the time in Sydney, but almost straight away she answered. “Oh thank God. Finally!”
Yep, this sounded bad. “Are you okay? Byron hasn’t—?”
“Oh no, we’re good. It’s not about me. It’s about Paige.”
“Paige?”
Felix had met Evie’s younger sister barely a half dozen times. She was tall and willowy, with dark hair that panned to her waist and big brown eyes. Pretty, very pretty. The male in him could acknowledge that. But he’d found himself making a rather snap judgement about her when her main topic of conversation was the false nail that she’d snapped opening a can of Coke. At the time he’d rebuked himself for stereotyping her. Paige was a successful millennial entrepreneur. Just because he didn’t dig what she was successful in didn’t make her any less successful.
And then the most godawful thing had happened to her, and there was no room for petty judgements. He’d supported Evie while she in turn supported her sister through the aftermath of the kidnapping, the police interviews and media frenzy that followed.
But… he’d thought Paige was going okay now. It must be at least six months since the incident. “What’s up with Paige?”
Evie sighed heavily. “You know how she seemed to bounce back fine?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “Well… no fucking way has she. She’s a complete mess, pretending to be fine on her Instagram posts and her dumb-arsed TikTok videos, playing the I’m so resilient card and I’ve sacked my therapist ‘cos I don’t need them. She sucked us all in, Mum and Dad as well. I’m so pissed that she’s lied about this—”
“Okay, slow down. What’s happened exactly?”
“She finally admitted to me yesterday that she’s locking herself inside and… hiding.”
“In her flat in Soho?”
“No, she’s moved to Dad’s house in Hampstead. The one he bought last year for him and Marcia to move back to from LA sometime. We all totally got that Paige didn’t want to be in the city, and she liked the idea of staying in Hampstead for a while. But we thought she was okay.” Another breath. “I think she’s got agoraphobia, Felix.”
“How badly?”
“Quite badly. She’s cancelled appointments, is ordering in all her shopping, not going out at all as far as I can tell.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah, I know. I really need you to go and see her.”
“Me!” Felix felt his eyes widen with surprise. “She’s literally only met me a handful of times—am I the best person? What about your mum?”
“Mum’s on a cruise in the Caribbean, and you know what she’s like, she’d only make things worse. Dad’s trekking in the Himalayas on some spiritual reawakening thing and we’re only halfway through Byron’s tour. And sure, if I need to, I’ll come back, but Byron really wants me here because, you know, with it being his first tour in Oz, it’s emotional for him and… Oh Felix, you are literally the one person I totally trust.”
