Obsession (Forbidden #2) (33 page)

It’s the first day of my uncertain new start.

But I need just a bit more time before I get out there and start living it.

Neal

‘I really am sorry, Neal.’

I turn to see Helen standing by a brand new sculpture that arrived in the gallery this morning; a piece I ordered in for a much-treasured client of mine. He’s coming to collect it later and I need to make sure everything’s in order before he takes ownership of it. ‘Sorry for what?’ I ask, looking down at the pile of papers in my hand.

‘For the way things turned out, with you and Kira. I hope I…’

She stops talking the second I look up. ‘It had nothing to do with you, or Barry. OK?’

She bows her head and I sigh quietly. None of this is
her
fault, even if she
is
stupid enough to listen to my brother.

‘Look, I’m sorry. Really. I’m just a bit – I dunno. A bit tired. It’s been a long few days.’

She raises her gaze and throws me a small smile. She really is quite pretty, but she isn’t Kira. No one will ever be Kira. And there’s gonna come a day when I have to get over that, I know, but right now I’m quite happy wallowing in self-pity; in what-ifs and maybes.

‘She must be crazy, to walk away from you.’

I drop my head and turn my concentration back to those papers in my hands. ‘She had her reasons.’

‘Listen, Neal, if you ever… if you ever need to talk. About anything. I’m a very good listener.’

I look up, and throw her a small smile back. ‘I’m sure you are. But I’m gonna be fine. I’ve got a lot to keep me busy.’

‘Good, that’s… that’s good. Well, I’ll… I’d better get back to my own gallery. Got a lot of work to catch up on. Maybe I’ll, see you around?’

She phrases that as a question, but I don’t give her any definitive answer. Kira’s been out of my life less than twenty-four hours. I’m not really ready for another relationship just yet.

I watch as she walks out of the gallery, and I go back over to the sculpture, checking every little detail again, even though I’ve done that a dozen times since it arrived here. I’m just looking for another distraction.

‘Was that Helen?’

I hear Barry come out on to the gallery floor but I don’t look up. ‘Yeah. She just wanted to let me know how sorry she was, about what happened with me and Kira.’

‘You could do worse than her, you know.’

This time I
do
look up. ‘Seriously? You’re tying this
now
?’

He shrugs, and I could hit him, I really could. He has no idea how much of a prick he is. ‘She’d drop her panties for you in a nano second, bro. Any woman would.’

‘Yeah. ‘Cause that’s exactly what I’m looking for right now.’

‘Well, y’know, maybe it should be. I’m not saying go back to the days when you paid escorts for sex, I mean, look what happened when you kept on trying that…’

I throw him a look, because I really can’t be bothered with the confrontation anymore. I just want him to shut up. And I think he gets the message now.

‘All I’m saying is, maybe getting back on the horse, so to speak, is the best way to get over her. She helped you move on, I get that. And that’s good. You needed to do that. So don’t waste all that work, Neal. Get out there and find yourself someone who won’t walk away from you the second an old boyfriend shows up.’

‘I think he was more to her than just an old boyfriend, Barry.’

‘Maybe he was…’

I narrow my eyes as I look at him. Something didn’t feel right there, but I let it go. I’m reading shit into everything at the minute.

‘She lied to you. She hid things from you. Could you really trust her anymore?’

Yeah. I could. I’d forgive her anything if she’d just tell me she was staying here, with me. I’d forgive her fucking anything.

‘Just keep moving on, Neal. OK? Don’t let her leaving you set you back.’

He has no clue what he’s talking about. He can’t ever have really been in love or he’d understand just how I’m feeling right now. I feel like someone reached into my chest and tore my heart out with one, rough yank, leaving this huge empty space that can’t ever be filled. ‘I’ll move on when I’m ready, alright? Can you call Frank Carter and tell him his sculpture’s here? And let me know when he’s sending someone over to collect it. I want to be here when it leaves, but I need to go over to the club at some point this morning.’

‘Why?’

I look at him as though he’s just asked the most stupid question ever. ‘Because I own the fucking place, Barry. And I kinda like to be there for the odd staff meeting.’

‘And what about Kira?’

Just hearing him say her name makes my stomach lurch, and I suddenly realise my fingers are gripping the pile of papers I’m holding way too tight, almost ripping the pages. ‘Why would
she
be there?’

‘She still has a stake in the place, doesn’t she? Or is she very much a silent partner now?’

‘I asked you never to talk about her, so don’t. Give me that much, OK?’

He holds up his hands and backs away into his office.

She probably won’t be there.

She more than
likely
won’t be there.

But it doesn’t stop me from hoping.

Kira

‘I don’t believe you, Kira, I really don’t.’

I didn’t expect him to like the idea, but I hadn’t banked on him being quite so angry at my decision.

‘That man – that beautiful, kind, handsome man saved you from yourself, and you’re walking away from him? For the best friend of the man who
raped
you?’

‘He stopped having anything to do with Simon the second he knew what he’d done.’

‘And
you
should have stopped having anything to do with
him
the day you walked away from that life. But instead you kept on seeing him, kept on fuelling this fire until he…’

‘It wasn’t that simple, Joey.’

‘You should have walked away, Kira…’

‘I was pregnant.’

He can’t hide his shock at what I’ve just blurted out. And I don’t know whether I should have said anything at all, considering this is yet another massive secret I chose to hide from my best friend for all these years, but it’s something I’ve had to live with for a long time now. Something I’ve never been able to share with anyone, because it represented such a shift in circumstances for me, and Jon. It changed everything. And we just let it. And we’ve never talked about it, with each other, with anyone. Not since it happened, and yet, it’s something we
need
to talk about, because I don’t think we can ignore it any longer now. We’ve ignored it for long enough. All those secret, sordid afternoons he’d come to see me, pay to be with me, and we never talked about it. We just carried on like it had never happened. Like it wasn’t the reason; the catalyst for everything that’s happened since. But now that I’ve said the words out loud, after all these years, it’s kind of opened that door I need to walk through. It’s made it all real again. I think opening this Pandora’s Box… I think
this
is necessary.

‘Pregnant?’ He sits down beside me, and I can tell he’s still shocked. ‘When?’

‘A long time ago.’

‘Simon’s?’

I shake my head. ‘The baby was Jon’s.’

‘Jesus, Kira… How many more secrets…?’

‘No more, Joey.’ I shake my head, but I can’t meet his gaze, I’m too ashamed. Too scared. Too tired and frightened to tell him any more, but I have to. Now. ‘No more secrets. I promise.’

‘What happened, angel?’

His voice is soft, and that just makes me even more ashamed. He should be angry; he should be walking away from me after all the crap I’ve thrown at him, but instead he’s still here, and I don’t deserve him. But I need him, now more than ever. ‘We’d just started the affair. And we’d only been sleeping together a few months, but we were in love, Joey. We were head over fucking heels, crazy in love. And we thought we’d been careful, you know? We thought…’ Talking about something both me and Jon put behind us a long time ago is hard. This is a memory neither of us ever wanted to resurrect, but I really think we have to now. Because I don’t think we ever really got over it; over the repercussions it caused. ‘We thought we were OK.’

‘Oh, Kira…’

His voice sounds weary, and I don’t blame him for being tired of the secrets I keep throwing at him now. But they’d all needed to be kept just that – secret. Until now. Because now I know just how much secrets can hurt; how they can mess up people’s lives. And I should never have kept them. But hindsight is no use to me now.

‘What happened?’ Joey repeats, and I keep my gaze on the floor as every memory of that time plays back in my head like a sad and painful home movie.

‘I lost it. The baby. I lost it. I was only a few weeks gone, I’d only just found out I was pregnant, and me and Jon, we were trying to work out what to do, how to tell everyone…’

‘So, you’re telling me there
was
a point when you were going to leave Simon for him?’

I nod, and I can’t stop the searing shot of pain from piercing my still fragile heart. ‘We were going to come clean. When it was just… when it was just me and him, that wasn’t a good enough reason to mess up everyone’s lives. But a baby changes everything. A baby meant we couldn’t hide anymore, we
had
to come clean. Because the second we found out I was pregnant we knew we wanted to keep it. It was like someone had sent us a sign, sent us that baby as a message, a reason why we had to be together. So, yeah, we were gonna tell everyone. We were just waiting for the twelve week mark, and planning our future together, and we were excited. Scared, but excited. And then one day…’ I keep my eyes down on the ground, but even though I feel like crying, there are no tears. I cried enough over this. All those tears are used up. They’re done. ‘That morning, he woke up, and he turned me over to kiss me awake, and there was blood. So much blood… all over the sheets. All over
him
. I’d lost our baby. We’d had one, rare night together, because everyone else was out of town; we’d had one, rare, beautiful night together – and it was the night I lost our baby.’

‘Jesus Christ, Kira… Why the hell didn’t you tell me any of this?
Why
?’

‘Because all of that was behind me, by the time we met. Or, I thought it was. But when Jon found me…’ I shrug. It’s pointless, all these recriminations. All these what ifs and should have dones. They don’t change a thing. They don’t make anything any better. ‘I’m so sorry, Joey.’ I finally raise my gaze and his eyes instantly lock with mine. ‘But I promise you, there really are no more secrets. Every skeleton I have is now right out of the closet.’

He takes my hand and squeezes it, smiling a reassuring smile, and I feel like a huge weight has just been lifted from my shoulders. ‘I’m assuming, then, considering what you told me before, that you both decided not to come clean, after that?’

‘There was no point. The baby was gone, and with it our reason to reveal how we really felt about one another. We were obviously never meant to be together, the miscarriage told us that. I saw that as another sign, you see. A sign that we shouldn’t be messing with other people’s lives. We needed to keep things the way they’d been before. So, we kept on seeing each other, because we couldn’t give each other up. We couldn’t. We just had to accept that we weren’t meant to be together that way.’