Kismet

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  Ruben takes to his feet. “Who was the goon, Freya?”

  I hesitate. It’ll look bad. Not just for me.

  “Freya.” His tone is demanding.

  “It was Joey.”

  Ruben shuts his eyes, takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “That’s how he knew who you were, the day we went for lunch. He’d checked your name with his mates.”

  “I didn’t use my real name when I was a working girl. The only way he could’ve known what I used to do was if he gave me a cab ride once and has a fucking good memory, or…”

  “…or what?” Ruben looks furious.

  The day we had lunch with his parents, I’d felt a familiarity… like I’d met Fred before. Now I know how I knew him before… Laurent’s party. A mess like that wasn’t easily forgotten, but did become archived somewhat, given there was something new for me to deal with in that hotel on a daily basis and even disasters like that party ended up quickly forgotten.

  “He was only trying to rattle me. Maybe because at lunch that day, he remembered me from the hotel but wanted none of what happened there repeated. It was a veiled warning not to say anything to you or Alexia.” That all makes more sense, but my poor brain immediately decided he must have been making reference to my dark past. “He was in handcuffs that night and that’s why I was shocked to see him standing in a car park not fifteen minutes later. He thanked Joey for paying somebody off. I assume Freddie and his non-biological father weren’t so lucky and spent the night in cells.”

  Ruben is furious just thinking about it all. “I knew it. I knew it all.”

  “He sent me two cheques a few days later. One for the repairs, one for myself – in the amount of £5,000. He said I’d know what it was for but I never really knew. The woman standing here today thinks it was to keep my mouth shut and not make a big deal of what’d happened, keep it on the hush.”

  Ruben can’t help but smirk at my canniness. “This is who he is… that’s pocket money to him. He’s too used to throwing money around to bail himself out.”

  “When I was eavesdropping, the thing he sounded most concerned about was Alexia finding out. Maybe he thought if Alexia ever showed up at the hotel asking questions about why her son came home with cuts and bruises… I don’t know. His mind must work in strange ways.”

  “Money has become so meaningless to him, giving you that cheque was just a way of soothing himself… He thought it was going to fix their marriage, make my mother happy… he never saw that it was his psychotic tendencies that had her nerves in tatters. He’s the reason she’s ill, because she’s deep down terrified of him. Trust me. He can seem charming and generous, but there are caveats, always.”

  I walk to Ruben and hold his hands in mine. “After Joey left, your dad made a phone call. To a man, who, I don’t know, but it was a guy. He told this person that Laurent was a druggie who was only going to get worse because of the whole thing with a half-brother. He said he was going to make sure Freddie kept Laurent’s mouth shut with a continual supply… that if Laurent threatened to tell Alexia about Fred having a bastard child, he would tell Freddie to cut his supply. His priority was to keep the truth from your mother… and your brother’s mouth shut. It might have been a genuine accidental overdose, maybe even a suicide attempt if Laurent was struggling to live with the secret, but what I think is that Freddie knew your brother wasn’t taking drugs to have fun. I think your father was meeting up with Freddie for years before the truth came out. I think curiosity at first, maybe ego, but then he realised how much he and his namesake were alike and in some sick way he couldn’t stay away and groomed Freddie to be his little mini-me. Freddie knew what he had to gain if he got rid of Laurent. A bigger piece of the pie. With you in Europe, you weren’t a threat, but he was jealous of Laurent. I think he killed your brother.”

  Ruben’s biting his lip over and over. “I believe it, but I also know my father is most culpable. He knew Laurent was struggling and did nothing. He ignored his own son’s needs. He made a scene at his party and probably never apologised for that. He treated Laurent like a weakling because he was more sensitive and kept himself to himself.”

  I’m afraid of my last confession, but it must out. “There’s one more thing.”

  He frowns and takes a seat. I take mine opposite.

  “That night when you took me to Crimp Hill and I snuck around the back to say bye to Mum… she told me something.”

  His eyes fly wide open. “What?”

  “Apparently, my father chucked me out because I’d got together with you. They’ve lumped you in the same bracket as Fred.”

  He’s shaking his head violently and I know I need to get this out.

  “It’s not why he threw me out, Ruben. It’s really because he can’t stand to face up to what he did to me. He’s been looking for an excuse for years. Seeing me even a little happy couldn’t have sat well with him.”

  Ruben’s hands are shaking as he contemplates what my father might have done.

  “When I was an escort—that’s what I used to term myself—I got into a bad way. I wasn’t drinking or anything, but I wasn’t me, and I knew I wasn’t. One day, I looked in the mirror and saw a total stranger. I was twenty. I should’ve been at university puking my guts up every night, but instead I was living with a bunch of other working girls and spending my days picking out underwear and condoms and outfits according to the client’s preference. And when I said I ended up in hospital, that was all true. I did. But it wasn’t like you think. It was just this one night, this one guy couldn’t make it. We tried everything. He ended up crying. I ended up thinking it was me, why he couldn’t get off. So then he left the hotel room. I was alone. I couldn’t even get a guy to come anymore, so what was the point? I don’t know what happened inside me, but the whole thing set me off. I felt like a failure. I realised I’d gotten myself into this world because it’d seemed like there was no alternative and now it was becoming crap. It was becoming samey, even. The same sort of lonely, hopeless men, no vitality, nothing to offer me. I was alone. I wanted more from life and I knew that, but I’d been suppressing my desire for real life again for so long, that when I finally admitted I wanted a second chance, it tore me apart. I couldn’t handle what’d happened to me, it was like it’d always been happening to someone else, but then suddenly it was me, because it all became stark and devoid and bleak. And when I thought about going back home for help, just the thought of that crippled me, thinking about all that. It ripped at me inside. I was trapped by Joey, you see. Some girl had recruited me, got me in with his gang before I even had chance to say no. I feared if I absconded, he’d find me, demand what I owed, all that crap they always spin. I thought I had no way out, so I did the only thing I thought I could. I went back to the bedsit that night and took a load of pills, drank it all down with a few quarts of vodka.”

  Ruben rubs his eyes, tears pricking the corners.

  “The next day, I woke up in hospital. Mum was there. I couldn’t remember what’d happened at first, but then it dawned on me. It honestly felt like the woman who woke up in that hospital bed was someone different, someone detached. I couldn’t even cry when Mum cried. I told myself it wasn’t me who’d tried to take my life, it was some wretch the world had turned me into.

  “We never talked about what the police told my mother and why she decided it was best if she took me home. We never discussed in detail what it was I’d been doing with my life, but no doubt she got the picture. He must have known, too but he never said a word. It was that look in his eye, though. You know? Like hate, but worse. Like he couldn’t even stand to breathe the same air as me. It doesn’t matter what I do, I could win a Nobel Peace Prize and it still wouldn’t make him care about me. He’s probably too stupid to even wonder if maybe counselling might help him realise that he directed all the blame for a difficult time in his life onto a complete and utter innocent instead of working through that pain and processing it, not projecting it onto someone else.”


  “I’m so sorry, Freya. You don’t deserve any of this,” he says, voice shaky, eyes stinging.

  “I know these people as well as you do, Ruben. That’s what I’m saying.”

  “Now you understand why I got us out, Frey. They are rotten to the core, all of them, and the only way we will survive is if we never go back. We can never return. You know that, right?”

  I nod slowly. “Never. But what about Laurent?”

  “Laurent is just another druggie in the eyes of the law… another statistic. I realised only recently, where has the search for evidence and culpability got me? Nowhere, that’s where. Maybe to fight them, the only thing we can do is thrive without them, be happy in spite of them. Give them nothing to claim for their own. Live, be happy, let go.”

  I almost believe him, even when he continues…

  “My father doesn’t know that I know about Freddie’s parentage, which was one reason why I invited you to meet the parents, to make him think that running was the last thing I was thinking of doing. He didn’t know I’d been considering it since the day you and I met. He doesn’t know the extent of what I know.”

  I run and hug him, kiss him and cry with him.

  “Let’s do this, then.”

  “Yeah?” he whispers, and I nod.

  Chapter Thirty

  Dead?

  The next day when Ruben returns from his outing to get breakfast, my mood is a little different. I hear the front door click shut and leap from my chair in the living room where I’ve been waiting for him to return. I hate it when he leaves the bed without me, especially before I’ve woken up.

  He spots me chasing down the hallway towards him and drops the paper bags he’s holding on to the hallway dresser. He does this in seconds, right before I run and jump into his arms, our bodies colliding and slotting together instantly.

  Ruben’s soft bristles brush against my face as we kiss deeply, my arms looped around the back of his head, my hands lost in his hair. He catches his breath between kisses before forcing my back against the wall next to the closed door.

  My new silk dressing gown, pale yellow with subtle silver flowers, is probably the most beautiful item of clothing I’ve ever owned. I love this man and his understanding of me; I never want to lose these days we’re enjoying in Florence.

  He holds me in place against the wall, his heavy frame against mine, then pushes my hands above my head.

  Ruben takes his sweet time kissing my face, then inevitably my throat, my groans signalling I like this and don’t want him to stop. He smells gorgeous even though I don’t think he showered before he left the apartment.

  He starts to sweat through his jumper and I try to have him release me so I can remove it, but his fingers remain tightly entwined with mine.

  “Bed,” I whisper, just as Ruben opens my robe with his teeth and sucks my breast into his mouth. “Rube—”

  I try to tighten my legs around his waist because I’m slipping down the wall, unable to hold myself around him any longer. Thankfully he takes the hint and releases my hands so I can steady myself around his shoulders and he can hold me around my butt. At the same time, I grab his jumper and inelegantly force him to help me get it off.

  He kisses my mouth again, this time forcefully, his need and desire so sharp and clear. The last layer covering his torso is a cotton t-shirt which is sticking to his back with sweat, but I like it. I enjoy it.

  “Love you,” I mumble, as he kisses me, a little lip biting and nibbling doing wild things to my insides.

  He pushes my robe off one shoulder to expose more skin and digs his teeth in. I find myself rocking against him, my mound caressing the denim holding his erect cock hostage. I can’t bear it any longer and his grunts tell me he can’t either.

  A couple of swift moves… and he has his button open and his zip down. I see the briefest flash of engorged flesh before he plunges straight into me, my lungs and heart robbed for an instant of all sensation as he centres everything right at the core of me.

  I catch some oxygen and find his eyes staring into mine.

  “How can one person,” he breathes, pausing, “be everything?”

  “Easily,” I whisper, wrapping my legs tight around him.

  I kiss him deeply, my cheeks raw, my thighs sweating. It’s the mouth I’ve writhed under the sheets over, alone, for so long—but now it’s mine to have whenever I want. This is finally real.

  Yesterday, we had our tears and made our confessions, but today feels like the first day of the rest of our lives.

  Ruben moves his hands to the pits of my knees and spreads my legs open as wide as he can, taking most if not all of my weight. I scream as he pounds me so deeply, it hurts.

  Animalistic noises leave his mouth at the same time as he comes, his orgasm selfish and coarse as he spurts into my tender, sensitive core. I’m in pain as he carries me to bed.

  He cradles me in his arms, strokes my hair and kisses my cheeks as I breathe through the pain and try to let it go. I don’t know why it hurt that time, unless it was because he got too deep.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmurs.

  “Yes.”

  “Let me look after you.”

  “Okay.”

  I don’t know if it’s perverse, but when he brings me breakfast in bed, helps tie my robe back up and bundles me beneath the sheets, fluffing my pillows—it’s nice.

  He puts the paper cup to my mouth and handfeeds me cornetto, even wiping my mouth on a napkin afterwards. He undresses in front of me and walks into the bathroom where he runs the bath.

  I’m lowered into the hot, foamy waters and he seats himself behind me, holding me, washing me gently. The pain disappears without me realising it and I wonder if it ever hurt at all. I didn’t even come during sex, but that’s not important to me in this moment. All I care about right now is the look in his eye.

  He looks content, as if he finally found bliss.

  What did I just give him that he craved so much? Is he happy that I enjoy that selfish beast inside him, or is he pleased to have me like this? …broken and vulnerable, in need of repair and comfort.

  Or maybe, he wants to reach the furthest depths of me—needs it even—and this is enough peace for him, for now.

  He encourages me to tip my head back and kisses my mouth, giving me the tenderest kiss he ever has. Then using his body to pivot mine, my hips emerge from the water and I open my legs.

  We’re still kissing even as he brings me to a screeching orgasm, two hands between my legs.

  He’s even there to catch me as I collapse back into the water.

  We dined at a tiny little restaurant this evening which Ruben assured me was great (and it was). Now, we’re weaving our way through empty streets, suddenly reaching Palazzo Vecchio where Ruben grabs my hand and we run towards a carriage driver before he leaves for home for the night.

  It’s late and we were the last diners, and if this carriage driver takes our fare, then we’re definitely his last customers of the day, too. We spent most of the day talking, unpacking the rest of our new clothes and sharing ideas about which city we might visit next. We spent a little time at Il Duomo earlier this evening before I cracked first, demanding he feed me.

  And now here we are.

  The carriage driver takes some persuading but then we’re on our way.

  Florence reminds me of the oldest parts of Paris, except this city really is ancient. The tall Florentine architecture looms ominously over wide, immaculately paved streets and even in February, people can be found wearing flipflops and sunhats. Global warming? Maybe. Or perhaps it’s just Florence, with its bright, gleaming façade and Il Duomo shining like a beacon from wherever you happen to be. It’s a city of terracotta, stone and the creaking wooden beams holding it all up. I haven’t visited all of the world yet, but this is the most beautiful city I’ve ever been to, up there with Europe’s best. Venice is still on my bucket list, as is Rio, so it could all change yet—but I know that wherever I go, as long as Rub
en’s with me, it’ll be beautiful.

  “Are you comfortable?” he asks, pulling me against his body, his arm wrapped firmly around me on the carriage seat.

  “I’m the happiest it’s possible to be.”

  I’m wearing the lilac jumper dress he bought me, a tan leather jacket over the top and a tartan shawl around my shoulders. I’m in love with everything right now. It’s all sparkling… all of it.

  I don’t see much of anything but him as we’re driven round, the last of the tourists and locals trailing along pavements as they head back to their hotels or apartments for the night.

  It feels like rain is on the way… a slight metallic tang in the air. I also still have the taste of garlic in my mouth from dinner and he smells distinctly of red wine and steak. I had linguini with lashings of garlic, olive oil and other fresh herbs and vegetables.

  “I don’t think you’d like it in summer.”

  “Why’s that?” I turn into him, just that inch more.

  “Too hot… too many tourists. We’d have to head for Tuscany or maybe Naples. You’d like either, I’m sure. Or Lake Garda where there’s a little breeze.”

  I stroke my fingers through his beard. “Have you been to all these places?”

  “Many of them.”

  “With whom?”

  One side of his handsome face tips up in a boyish grin. “Mum and Laurent.”

  I take a deep breath. I don’t know what I was expecting him to say, maybe that he took Gia to all those places; perhaps that he did have a whole life before me, that we aren’t actually soulmates after all. I don’t know. Maybe he revels in my jealousy, or perhaps he accepts it and doesn’t want to make a big deal of it, only to recognise it and move on. That’s what the small smile meant, right?

  “Mum would take us everywhere,” he explains. “Sometimes on a shoestring budget. We’d all sleep in one bed. We’d eat bread and jam for breakfast in our laps in some hostel, and we’d drink disgusting cold tea or coffee from huge urns. She’d traipse us around gallery after gallery. She took us to the Uffizi, Louvre, d’Orsay, the Vatican, and all the little ones in between. She especially loved travelling around the South of France, from Nice with Chagall and Matisse, to Arles where some of the greats hung out. But her favourite places were those at home in Portugal. She’d find a hill and a group of landscape artists… and she’d join them. She’d see a guy with a pottery wheel in a window and buy half his stuff. She even had thirty seconds for the rip-off merchants in Paris who’d offer to draw her skinny.” Ruben laughs and I snicker. “They were some of the happiest days I ever had. Laurent and I would get bored, of course and cause merry hell, but we did take some of it in, and we were glad just to get away from Dad.”