by K A Sands
“I love you.”
He was quiet, so quiet I wanted to take the words back, it was foolish to have said them. No, no - I meant them, and I wasn’t going to regret telling him. Life was too short, wasn’t it?
“Chrissie...” He moaned into my hair, shuffling us both down the bed. Once we were both lying flat, he pulled away and turned to face me. “I think I’ve loved you for a long time.” Stroking a finger down the bridge of my nose, he kissed me softly. “I just took a while to catch up.”
Smiling hurt but I gave him my best anyway “I can’t change my past.”
“I don’t care. People change, make mistakes. You’re not that woman anymore, haven’t been for a long time. Your past needs to stay where it belongs. It has no place between us. Lord knows I have my own.”
“Thank you. You say all the right things at all the right times.”
He grinned at me. “Now you just have to believe it. You are worth the world and more. Let me at least try to give it to you.”
“I need to shut down anything Charlie was involved in.”
He nodded, like it was a perfectly reasonable thing to ask. “We can do that. Tony would be a good place to start, his brother even. But I reckon that Yannick bloke will do most of the work though.”
The mention of Tony stilled me, and I remembered his brother, the detective, coming into the club looking for Charlie. “People are starting to look for him. You heard what he said, others will come looking to collect.”
A knock came at the guest room door, Warren inviting whoever it was inside. I was surprised to see Shaun poke his head around the door.
“I’m not interrupting, am I?”
“Not at all.” We both climbed up the bed again, leaning against the headboard. Shaun sat down in the chair looking between us both carefully.
“I need to ask you some things.” He rubbed at the back of his neck then rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. Warren gripped my hand under the duvet and squeezed like he’d done many a time before. He was there, he wasn’t leaving.
“Okay,” I said quietly unsure how much I wanted to tell him. He had a temper and a fist that knew how to inflict damage. I’d never been a recipient, but I’d seen it enough when he collected for Charlie, his knuckles split often, his victims bloodied messes.
“Did you recognize anyone?”
I sighed heavily because I didn’t want to do this, and he bloody well knew it. It was done. The war path Ryder was on would go nowhere fast except bloody. There would be no more on my behalf.
“Shaun. Leave it be. I’m okay.”
He raised his eyebrows and pointed to my face. “You don’t look okay. What that bastard did was not okay.”
“No, but it needs to be the end. He took a debt Charlie owed, he’s of no consequence any more. He got what he wanted.”
Sitting back in the chair, Shaun fiddled with the ring on his finger, the one that Ayden had given him when he’d asked him to marry him. I remembered Claire telling me months ago now, and suddenly I felt genuinely happy for him, not sour like I had when my bar manager casually slipped it into conversation.
“Your brother won’t accept that.”
I crawled out of the bed, my joints stiff and sore. My clothes lay in a pile at the side of the bed, but I bypassed them in favour of the clean ones stacked on the dresser across the room someone had thoughtfully left there.
“Then I can’t be here. This is over for me, Shaun. Understand?” I found my voice and put some backbone into it.
“Paul,” Warren piped up. “One of the guy’s names was Paul.” I turned to Warren who simply shrugged his shoulders and looked back to Shaun.
“Paul Denning?” he asked. “One of my old runners?”
Hanging my head, I gripped the edge of the dresser and hid my face. “Paul Denning,” I confirmed.
“Chrissie, this isn’t just about you.” Warren had got out of bed now and was standing just off to my side. “Who else?”
He was right, there was now a little boy involved that was innocent and needed protecting from the people who’d held us in that cellar. “Just Paul. I didn’t recognise anyone else. He cornered me on the street last week telling me he had a new job. I thought it was coincidence.”
“Clearly not,” Shaun huffed.
“He wanted another go around.”
I faced Shaun and watched with mild amusement as colour tainted his cheeks. Yeah, he knew exactly what Paul had wanted.
“He wanted what?” Warren asked, shifting a step closer.
“It was another life, Warren.”
“I don’t care,” he snapped. “He wanted another go around with what?” Switching his gaze between me and Shaun, I saw the moment the penny dropped for him. “Oh. Right. Of course.” His hand came out and curled around my bicep. “You told him to fuck off, right?”
Snatching my arm from his hold, I pierced him with a scathing look. “What do you think?”
Jealousy and insecurity looked ugly on Warren’s gorgeous face but who was I to feel slighted at that? My past life was something to be very, very ashamed of and Paul had been a reminder of the unsavoury things I’d gotten up to.
“Paul Denning. That’s it?” Shaun got up and walked to the door as he asked the question again, most likely getting out of dodge.
“Yes. He was the only one I recognised.”
Warren and I still stood in this weird standoffish position as Shaun left the room. He knew what I’d been like and I wasn’t in the mood to salve his ego with excuses for my tragic behaviour. I had none. I wasn’t proud of myself, but I wasn’t going to justify my actions either. Drawing a line under my past started here and now.
“I’m sorry. That was out of order.”
Ignoring him, I pulled at the pile of clean clothes. I needed a proper shower and then to leave. It was time to go home so I could deal with the past few days in private. It’s what I did best.
Besides, I had a club to open, a life to get on with. Nobody was putting me that far down that I couldn’t function ever again. Especially not Charlie. The man was gone and regardless of how I felt about it, I had the opportunity to start over. To make better decisions, to feel proud of myself for a change, not wallow in the worthless piece of trash I’d once been.
I just had to figure out how to get there and if I was going to let Warren all the way in. I desperately wanted a future with him, I did, but it came with Kieran, a child I didn’t know. I had to learn to be someone else - maybe myself - because I had no idea who I was anymore.
I loved Warren, of that I was sure, but I had some deep conversations to have with myself before he could get all of me. I didn’t even like the person who looked back at me every time I looked in the mirror. How could he?
“You want to go home?”
“Yes. Alone.”
Disappointment stretched across his face, but he didn’t fight me and instead wrapped me up in a comforting hug. “I’ll get someone to take you.”
“Thank you.”
Warren
“She didn’t show up.”
“What do you mean she didn’t show up?” Ryder asked down the phone. “I thought you texted to confirm.”
“Yeah, I did.” I sat in my car at the usual drop off point Kayleigh and I had been meeting at for years so I could pick up Kieran. Except she wasn’t there. I’d missed the past Sunday and Ryder had encouraged me to call her with a believable excuse and grovel. For once, Kayleigh had been reasonable and in hindsight, I should have seen right through it. My ex-wife wasn’t stupid, and with what I’d had planned, she’d had a right to be suspicious.
“Maybe she’s just being the spiteful bitch she usually is because I missed Sunday,” I said not really believing my own words.
“But you confirmed?”
I had last night, texting Kayleigh to confirm I could still get Kieran. She’d replied, and nothing had seemed out of character, my alarm bells had stayed silent. More fool me. I still wasn’t sure where my ex-
wife fit into the scenario with Chrissie or if she even knew who Chrissie was in the grand scheme of things. I wondered if she even knew I’d been on the other end of the two-million-pound debt she’d picked up. Now, my senses were tingling in a real shitty way.
I’d been sat in my car for an hour waiting and she hadn’t appeared, wasn’t likely to. Mild panic was setting in.
“Have you called her?”
“A dozen times. Her phone’s off.”
“Shit.”
Yeah, shit. I hadn’t seen Chrissie for two days either. She hadn’t opened the club, leaving Claire to do it. Every time I’d called, she told me she wasn’t ready and hung up. It was starting to feel like the bottom was falling out of my world at a rapid rate and I had no control over any of it.
“I’ll call Tony. What kind of car does she drive?”
“A Ford Explorer.”
“You know the plate?”
“No.”
He sighed, which he had every right to do. I was a fucking dumb arse; I should know it. Then I reminded myself that I wasn’t used to the world Ryder had grown up in, that they all lived through. Why on earth would I think to take her number plate?
“While we’re on the phone we need to discuss work.” I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind a time or two. Ryder still hadn’t let me back to the restaurant and something told me that wasn’t going to be changing any time soon. “I’ve kept on your replacement for now, two weeks at least.”
Closing my eyes, I leaned my head back on the head rest. “I get it. I’ll look for another job.”
Silence stretched over the phone and I was so ready to hang up on the conversation, done with this shit, with him. Kayleigh’s house was where I needed to be heading, I wanted to see Kieran.
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying, Ryder? Because you haven’t let me back since Charlie. If you’re telling me I no longer have a job, then just fucking put me out of my misery and say it already. I have bills to pay, I need to work.”
Ryder laughed, and I took great offence that he found it amusing. “Warren,” he warned.
If the man had been standing in front of me, I would have taken a swing at him - then ran in the opposite direction extremely fast. The men in Chrissie’s life were intimidating as hell, her brother the scariest of them all now that I knew the man was far more than my boss at the restaurant I worked at.
“You’re on full pay, Warren.”
“I can work. I’m not a delicate little flower that needs handled with kid gloves. If it’s a trust issue then fuck it, just fire me, because I don’t know what else to do about that.”
“Once we get to the bottom of your ex-wife’s involvement, we’ll talk again. You understand, right?”
I hung up and threw the phone on the passenger seat. Fuck him. He probably wouldn’t appreciate the fact I’d ended the call, but I was past the point of caring. I couldn’t sit in this stupid car park any longer.
Kayleigh lived in a half decent suburb just outside of London, thanks to my help paying her rent with the money I gave her for Kieran. I didn’t care what she used it for as long as Kieran was fed and clothed and had a decent roof over his head. The area wasn’t particularly rough, but it wasn’t posh either, perfect place for a kid to grow up. It was one of the things we never fought over, she gave Kieran a comfortable home, he was a seemingly happy kid.
I parked across the street from her double level council house and searched out her car. It was nowhere to be seen. Instead, I spied a man sitting in a big black Range Rover a few cars down the street.
Tony. For some reason, the man was being uncharacteristically obvious. Weird. The street was quiet, no kids out playing, no one walking the pavement. It was eerie.
I watched Tony get out of his car and walk toward mine, only once glancing in the direction of Kayleigh’s house on the way by. He opened the passenger door and folded his tall body into the front seat next to me. The man looked a little ridiculous all squashed up and I gave out a snort of a laugh.
“Shut up,” he said without an ounce of heat. “She’s not home.”
“I kind of gathered that. What you doing here?”
He smiled over at me. “Ryder called.”
“How long have you been watching her?”
“Since boss man called after the pickup.” He tipped his head down the street. “Not twenty-four hour though so I’ve no idea where she is right now.”
“Yeah. Me neither.”
“She’s packing up. Lots of boxes stacked in the bedrooms.”
“Fuck.” I bumped my head down onto the steering wheel. This was a goddamned nightmare of epic proportions. “You think she’s running?”
“Who knows? There’s not been much to suggest she’s anything other than a normal mum getting her kid to school and doing a couple of yoga classes. I’ve only seen a young lass coming and going, babysitter I reckon.”
“No men?”
“Nope, not a single one. It’s just been her, the girl, and your kid in and out of the house. She was gone before I turned up this morning, no idea where she went. Sorry.”
“How much would someone get paid to take a drop and keep quiet about it?”
“If she’s clever, then she’ll have made sure it’s a lot.”
“She’s not trustworthy. I have to find her before she takes off with Kieran. She’ll know I’ll come looking for her since she didn’t turn up with him today.”
“I’ll find her. Get you Kieran.” We sat in silence for a few minutes both watching the quiet house. “Go home. I’ll text Ryder when I have something.”
“I just want my kid, I don’t care about her.” Wasn’t that finally the truth? Something I could be honest about. I didn’t give a shit what mess I’d been dragged into with Chrissie, it was more than worth it, and a blip in our story, that’s all. Kieran had been dragged into his mother’s mess and wasn’t capable of walking away by himself. I had no idea the life she lived, and that was wrong, no matter how happy and healthy he looked. I should have known who was around my kid.
I was scared for him. The people that had held us in the cellar were far worse than who Chrissie had in her corner, far worse than the likes of Charlie and there was no way I was letting Kayleigh keep my son around those types of people. It wasn’t an environment for any child.
“Find something on her, please,” I begged.
“Warren,” Tony turned awkwardly in the seat. “When I find them, you’ll have him for good. I’ll make sure it’s legal. Trust me.”
Outside Chrissie’s front door two hours later, I wondered what the hell I was doing. She’d made it clear I wasn’t welcome. But fuck that, she’d had long enough, and I needed to see her. She wasn’t getting the chance to turn me away again.
When I knocked, she took entirely too long to open up, but I understood her trepidation and questioned if she even felt safe in her own home. The door inched open and she stuck her head around, my gasp loud enough to make her wince. She looked worse than when I’d seen her last, the handprint bruise was more pronounced and a cacophony of ugly colours. The multitude of ear rings she almost never removed were gone, and she wore not a lick of make-up, like she couldn’t be bothered to put her armour on. She was a sorry sight, but not for those reasons. It was her eyes; downcast. Her body folded in on itself. My vibrant woman was no more than a shell of who she’d once been.
“Hi.” Chrissie smiled weakly but drew the door open wider in invitation. It was a start at least, I wasn’t going to have to sit outside her front door until she let me in, which was what I’d resolved to do if she turned me away.
Slipping inside, I watched as she armed the alarm and slid the chain across the back of the door with a shaky hand. No, she didn’t feel safe at all.
“I didn’t realise I needed to see you until now,” she said, studying her sock clad feet.
“You don’t have to do this on your own.”
“I know.” Lea
ning against the wall, a weary Chrissie tried to smile again, and I lost the will to keep my distance. Taking a step forward, I brushed the front of my body against hers then gently took hold of her hips. “I don’t want to,” she said quietly.
“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Can you stay?” She searched my face hopefully.
“For how ever long you want me to.”
“Forever?” She laughed shyly, so at odds with the feisty woman I knew, and my heart broke a little more seeing her so subdued.
“If that’s what you want, yes.”
“And what if it is?”
“I love you, Chrissie. You have my heart, and I’m here, I told you I wasn’t leaving you. I meant it.”
A smile slowly spread across her face, dimming as quick as it brightened. “Will you take me to bed?”
“Chrissie...” It wasn’t that I didn’t want, I just didn’t think the timing was right. She looked lost, like a rabbit in the headlights, the stubborn and assured woman I was used to seeing floundered before my very eyes.
Twining her hands around my neck, his finger nails dug into the bottom of my scalp. “I missed you. So terribly. I need to feel you love me, Warren.”
“I do love you,” I said again bending down to stare into her eyes, imploring her to believe me. She didn’t need me to have sex with her to feel it.
“Take me to bed,” she whispered.
I knocked my head against hers and cursed the way she had me utterly at her mercy, I was powerless to refuse. I’d wanted this woman since almost the first time I’d laid eyes on her. What had started as just a bit of sex had turned into something beyond my wildest dreams. Even through the darkest doubts I’d had, I’d always craved more. I hadn’t thought it possible to give her more than I had back then, capable of giving her my all after Kayleigh, but something along the way had changed. For us both. For the better.
The possibility of a future with Chrissie had become something I didn’t stop thinking about. Now we were finally there, she was on board. I was stalling again but for very different reasons, nothing to do with my fear of rejection or not being good enough.
