by Lesley Jones
“You better fucking not.”
The door opens and Professor Curtis walks in, with his curly grey hair and bright yellow bow tie, any desire I might have been feeling evaporates and the nerves kick back in. I have a sheet over me from the waist down and thankfully nothing on show. We both watch at first, as the doctor slides a condom on the wand and then noisily squirts lube over it. I suddenly want to giggle and my eyes swing across to Sean’s as he makes a small sound, his lips are pursed together as he tries to contain a laugh, I narrow my eyes on him.
“Okay, let’s find out when this little one is likely to make an appearance, relax now Georgia and just let your knees fall apart.” I suddenly want to cry, I’m absolutely terrified that we are about to have all our dreams ripped away again. Sean squeezes my hand tight and I look right at him, there’s not a trace of a smile on either of our faces, we don’t look at the doctor or the nurse, we don’t look at the screen or around the room, we just look at each other.
“I love you G, so fucking much,” Sean whispers to me and a tear rolls down the side of my face and lands in my ear, there’s a whooshing noise, then the room is filled with the sound of our baby’s heartbeat, loud and strong and I let out a sob.
“There you go, right… there.” We both turn to look at the screen, where there appears to be a whole load of nothing going on, apart from a tiny pulsating pea, thrumming away.
Our eyes are back on each other’s and we both cry and laugh at the same time.
“Perfect,” the doctor says and after calling out some measurements to the nurse, tells us that our baby is due on New Year’s Eve, the same day as I told Sean that he was going to be a Daddy before. We’re reassured everything is as it should be and that I’m about eight weeks pregnant. I’m given another appointment for four weeks’ time but told to call if I have any concerns at all. Sean and I practically skip along Harley Street and back to our car.
“I’m starving,” I complain as we jump in.
“Thought you might be, good job I’ve booked us a table for lunch.”
“Really, where?”
“An Italian place in Knightsbridge your Mum recommended, I told her we were coming in to town for a meeting and I wanted to take you somewhere nice for lunch because I’d been away and wanted to spoil you.” I grin at him. We’d decided not tell anyone about the baby for another couple of weeks, after such a public loss of our last pregnancy, we want to keep this one as low key as possible until we are in the ‘safe’ zone at around four months.
“I love you,” I look across at him and say while he drives.
“You better,” he replies as he reaches for my hand and kisses it.
There’s valet parking at the restaurant and my door is opened for me before Sean gets the chance to get around the car, as I go to step out, I hear him say to the valet, “I’ve got it mate, you just park the car.” He throws him his keys, and his eyes meet mine as I go to step onto the footplate of the Range Rover, he takes hold of both my hands while I step down and he kisses me gently on the mouth, and then leads me into the restaurant. As we enter the reception area, we walk straight into Cam and a stunningly beautiful red head on their way out. Sean must spot him just as I do as his grip around my hand tightens, Cam stops dead in his tracks and I can feel his eyes remain on me as I move mine away to look at Sean. Cam speaks first.
“Sean, Georgia, how are you?”
Sean stops walking and let’s go of my hand and shakes Cam’s. “Good mate, very good.”
Sean looks across to me, I smile and nod toward Cam but I can’t look him in the eye, not with Sean and the red head looking at me so I just smile and repeat that we are good.
“How are your parents Georgia?”
“They’re good too, thanks.” I briefly meet Cam’s gaze, then move it across to the red head.
“Tamara, this is Sean and Georgia McCarthy. Sean, as I’m sure you know is the front man for Carnage. Georgia’s father is an old business friend of mine and the pair of them happened to buy my house out in Essex last year.”
Fuck.
“You what?” Sean gives a nervous laugh as he speaks, Cam’s eyes flash to mine, just for an instant as he realises what he’s just done, too late now.
“Well, yeah, sorry, did you not know, that’s my old place you bought, hope its erm… hope it’s working out for you there?” Sean’s nodding as he listens to Cam.
“Yeah, yeah, we love it, couldn’t be happier. Anyway, nice to see ya mate, gotta go, tables booked and we’re running late.” I smile as best I can at Cam and the red head and then follow Sean and the Maître d to our table as it starts to dawn on me that this is the same restaurant that Cam brought me to a long, long time ago.
As soon as we are seated and Sean has ordered a double bourbon and coke, his eyes are on me and I know that I’m in trouble, that’s the problem with lies and half-truths, they always come back to bite you on the arse. Sean’s legal team had dealt with the purchase of the house, he may have signed some of the documentation, but he never mentioned anything so I didn’t either.
“Did you know? And don’t even think about lying to me.” I nod my head and swallow.
“You fucking knew and you let us buy it, you let us move into your ex’s old home. Why, why the fuck would you do that? Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” The waiter brings our drinks. Sean drinks his straight down and orders another.
“I didn’t know.” I start. “Not at first, I looked around and loved it and then I called you and arranged for you to come and view it and then that’s when I found out, after I’d already called you and told you that I loved it.”
“So why the fuck didn’t you tell me then?” I shrug… because I’m a lying, deceitful, cheating, whore.
“You loved the place so much the next day when you saw it; I thought it would put you off.”
“He’s your fucking ex G, of course it would fucking put me off, would you like me to move you into Haley’s house without you knowing?” I throw my sparkling water in his face, get up and head for the door.
“Georgia, get the fuck back here.” The restaurant falls silent.
“Fuck you,” I call out back to him over my shoulder as I make my way outside.
Cam is just putting the red-head into a taxi, I stand and watch as the valet pulls up in a large black sports car of some kind, I have no idea what it is but he gets out and hands Cam the keys. I turn to the other valet and ask him to get me a cab. I assume while I wait, Sean will appear, then Cam’s at my side.
“Kitten,” he sighs out my name, the way he always does. “I’m so sorry, did I cause a fight?”
I give a little laugh. “Its fine Cam, just go.”
His eyes look into mine, through mine, into me.
“Are you sure, do you need a lift?”
“Cam, please, just go.” He nods but doesn’t move. I stare past him for a few seconds then finally allow my eyes to meet his again. “Please Cam, for me, just go.”
He nods and leaves this time.
I change my mind about getting a taxi and decide that if Sean is going to stay and get drunk, then I might as well take the car home, by the time its brought around and I’m in the driver’s seat, Sean walks out of the restaurant and jumps into the passenger side, he doesn’t look at me and we drive home in complete silence. Once we get back to the house he heads off to the study and I can hear him going through our filling cabinet, I leave it five minutes and then go to see what he’s doing, there are papers everywhere. Sean is leaning over the open drawer, drinking straight from a bottle of Wild Turkey, his eyes come up and meet mine and he looks at me with complete contempt.
“What are you doing?” I ask him.
“Looking for the paperwork on this place, is his name on it, if it is then why didn’t I spot it?’
“His name was on it, I thought you would notice then, that you would mention it and I would just tell you, but you didn’t so I just stayed quiet and it was wrong and I’m sorry. I couldn’t be so
rrier.” And it was the truth, we should never have bought this place without Sean knowing who the previous owner was, keeping quiet was now causing more problems than speaking up would have and had now spoilt what should have been an absolutely perfect day, and I had no one else to blame but myself.
“Do you have any idea how much of a cunt you made me feel earlier, in front of him, Cameron fucking King, your big time gangster ex-boyfriend?” I shake my head.
“I’m sorry, I should’ve told you, I didn’t realise it was so important to you.”
“Don’t lie G, this is me you’re talking to, you knew exactly how important that little piece of information would be to me, that’s why you didn’t say anything, that’s why you kept quiet.” I can’t meet his gaze, he’s right, I knew Sean wouldn’t want to live here knowing it was Cam’s, I never for a minute thought that he would.
“But what I don’t get Georgia, what I don’t understand is, if you knew it was his house, if you knew, then why the fuck would you still want to live here? Why would you want to move into your ex-lovers home?” He takes a swig from the bottle and sneers at me. “Hmm, tell me G, did you want to feel close to him, is he even your ex or have you still been seeing him all these years, sneaking around behind my back?”
“Fuck you, now you’re just being ridiculous.”
“Am I, then explain to me, fucking explain to me G, why the fuck would you want to live here?” he shouts and throws the bottle of drink at the wall, it smashes and glass flies everywhere, I shake my head at him and turn and leave. “That’s it, fuck off G, walk away and go and rock in a corner somewhere, shut it all out and make pretend it’s not happening. Ain’t that what you do best? Shall I ring Mummy and Daddy to come and pick their little princess up coz the big bad rock star is swearing and smashing the place up?”
I keep walking, I feel exhausted, worn down by the weight of the guilt that I carry for doing what I did last year. Seeing Cam today, the panic I felt when he revealed he was the previous owner of our home, just went to prove to me, how much I love Sean, why I did what I did last year, I will never understand and the thought that Sean is hurting because of me cuts me in half. I felt nothing today when I saw Cam with another woman, whatever confusion about the feelings I thought I had for him have gone. Losing my baby was a massive wake up call, I love Sean beyond measure, my life is and always will be with Sean and I am terrified in that moment that I may have completely fucked everything up.
CHAPTER 26
It’s dark when I wake up, my mobile is ringing and I badly need a wee. I sit up on the bed and see that Sean is sitting in the armchair that we have in our room, the lamp is on at the side of the bed and I can see that he’s just sitting there, staring at me, his index finger and thumb are cupping his jaw, his elbow is resting on the arm of the chair, his left ankle resting on his right knee. I stand on unsteady legs and go into our bathroom, the bathroom we sat in just yesterday so happily, so united in our love, so hopeful for the new life we have created. I feel sick to my stomach, it’s my fuck up and all I can hope is that Sean will forgive me. I go to the toilet, wash my hands and head back into the bedroom.
“Come here,” he orders. I go to where he’s sitting and stand in front of him.
“Is there anything going on between you and Cameron King?” My pulse throbs so hard I can feel it in my neck.
“I love you, I’m with you, and I will always be with you.”
“That’s not what I asked Gia.”
“No Sean, there is nothing going on between me and Cameron King, I love you. I didn’t say anything about the house because we both loved it, it felt right, if I had something going on with Cam, do you really think I would move us into his old home? Do you really think that I’m that kind of a person?”
Without saying anything, he pulls me toward him. I sit on my knees in the chair, straddling his lap; he looks up into my face. “I’m sorry about what I said about Haley, I shouldn’t have said that.”
I instantly fill with tears, I shake my head. “I’m sorry for all of it, it’s my fault, I shouldn’t have kept it from you, I should have told you the truth, given you the choice, we should have discussed it.”
“Don’t cry I hate it when you cry.” He pulls my face down to his and kisses me softly on the mouth, my hands go to his hair and I kiss him back harder as I grind my hips into his crutch, he holds onto my arse as I wrap my legs around him and he walks us over to the bed, where he lays me down and undresses me. When I’m completely naked, he takes all of his own clothes off, then pushes each of my feet up onto the edge of the bed, opening me wide to him, he kneels down between my legs and kisses me, from the inside of my knee all the way up to the inside of my thigh. He runs his nose down from my clit to my opening, then using the fingers on both his hands, he spreads my lips wide open and laps all the way back up to my clit.
“You taste delicious G, there’s nothing better than the smell and taste of you when you’re turned on.” He leans over and grabs a pillow and puts it behind me.
“Put your elbows on it, I want you to watch me; I want to see your face when you come.” I do as he says and watch as he looks down between my spread legs. “You have the most beautiful cunt Georgia and its mine, all fucking mine.”
He pushes his thumb down onto my clit and circles it, he slides his middle and index fingers inside me and curls them slightly, then he slides is ring and little finger into my arse, I arch my back and force myself down onto him harder, not losing eye contact with him at any time. “Fuck me, fuck my fingers, I want to feel you come all over my hand,” he says between gritted teeth. He tilts his head down and flicks his tongue over my clit a few times, then stands, his fingers still inside me, he strokes himself, his eyes still on mine and I find the sight so erotic, I come, bucking and clenching all over his hand as he spurts all over my belly.
We have a nice long bath together later and both repeat how sorry we are, we talk about the baby and how as soon as this one is born that we’ll go straight in for another, our plan had always been to be young parents but we’d been enjoying our life together so much, we just kept putting it off but now the time was right and neither of us could wait.
The house phone and our mobiles had been ringing while we were making love and bathing, they had rung so many times now that I’d started to worry, so I climbed out and went and retrieved both of our phones. We both had untold missed calls, the last being from Lennon so I called him first. I pulled the belt of my towelling bath robe tighter as a shiver ran through me, something was up, I just knew it.
“For fucks sake George, where have you been? Is Maca with you? Why haven’t you been answering any of your phones?”
“We were busy, whatever’s wrong?” I head back into the bathroom and sit on the edge of the bath that Sean is still lying in and admire my Husband’s chest and his tattoo with my initial. I reach out and trace the G with my finger nail and I smile when Sean shudders at my touch.
“What the fuck happened today?” Shit, did someone see us at the obstetricians?
“What, nothing, why?”
“Were you at Decadenza in Knightsbridge today?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Well according to the news, you and Sean bumped into Cameron King, and Sean wasn’t happy because, according to the news, you had an affair with him last year, remember the pictures in the Sunday papers?”
I nod and lock eyes with Sean, who is currently sucking on the finger that I was tracing his tattoo with. I sigh. “Yes, I remember.”
“Well the story being run in tomorrow’s papers and which the record label has been fielding questions about all afternoon goes like this… You had an affair with Cam last year because Sean is gay and you wanted a baby. Cam got you pregnant, you lost the baby so now you are back seeing Cam to try and get pregnant again and you and Sean run into him at Decadenza today. Sean is pissed off, you argue, you throw a drink in his face then storm off. While you’re outside, Cam declares his undying love for you, the
n jumps in his car and drives off, Sean comes out after him and now you two are getting divorced.”
I can’t help the simile that spreads over my face. “And you believe that do you Len?”
“It’s not what I believe that matters George, it’s what they’re gonna print, you’re gonna have the press all over your arse now. Oh and there are pictures, I don’t know how but there are pictures of you and Sean walking into the restaurant and of you and Cam talking outside.”
Shit, I never told Sean that I spoke to Cam outside. “George?”
“Yes, I heard you.”
“Are you and Sean all good, I mean, there’s nothing to all of this is there?”
“Of course not Len, we went to lunch, we bumped into Cam and his date. Sean and I argued about something completely random and yes, I did throw a glass of water in his face, but it was nothing. We’re fine, in fact we’ve spent the whole evening having make up sex, that’s why we haven’t answered our phones. Tell that to the fucking press.”
“What the fuck George, what’s going on?” Sean has sat up in the bath and is asking me now.
I try to sound as nonchalant as possible. “Someone’s gone to the press about us arguing in the restaurant today, they’ve put two and two together and come up with twenty seven,” I reply.
“And what about the rest George, what about what Cam said to you outside?” Len asks. I’m going to have to just face this so I look right at Sean as I speak.
“Cam was waiting for his car to be brought around when I stormed outside, he asked if I was okay and if I needed a lift. That’s all; there was nothing else to it.”
“As long as you’re sure.”
“I’m positive Len.”
“Good, I love you little sister Georgia, now put Maca on.”
“I love you too big brother Len.” I pass the phone to Sean, who hasn’t taken his eyes from mine and didn’t flinch as I confessed to talking to Cam outside the restaurant.
“Len,” is all that Sean says into the phone, he reaches across with his free hand and holds mine, brushing his thumb over my knuckles.
