by Claire Allan
‘Maybe not,’ she said, ‘but still, I wonder would Cian want you around baby Jack if he knew your form?’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘No, I suppose I don’t. I suppose that isn’t what it looked like either. Just like you and Cian looking very much the little family climbing into his car yesterday morning.’
I felt panic surge, tears spring to my eyes. ‘What did I ever do to you to make you do this to me?’
‘I’ve not done anything, Emily. I’ve just told you what I know. It’s entirely up to you what I do with that information. But getting me closer to Cian? That might just make me forget certain things.’
I blinked at her – felt the tears I had been trying to hold in slide down my face.
‘I know there is a lot to think about, Emily. But there’s no reason we can’t be friends. We can make this work for both of us, can’t we? Here,’ she said, reaching into her pocket, ‘take my card. You can contact me on that number at any time. And if you do talk to Cian about me – and I sincerely hope you do – you can tell him it doesn’t do him any harm either to have someone from the press on his side.’
She turned on her pointed leather heel and walked away – leaving me shaking, crying in the street. Memories battering me from all sides. It might not have been in the way I had feared, but my past had still caught up with me and it was threatening to destroy everything all over again.
*
Two anti-anxiety pills, a glass of wine, a sob in the shower and a stern talking to and I had assembled something that resembled an attractive female. I had pulled on a pair of jeans and an off the shoulder, slouchy sweatshirt along with a pair of black boots. It screamed relaxed chic. I tousled my hair and slicked some lipstick and mascara on. I layered some concealer under my eyes, which were still red from crying.
While I dressed I pretended I was Maud – all five foot two of her, petite, thick dark hair, face framed by a chunky fringe. The kind of person who looked effortlessly cool. Maud rarely got flustered. Maud would have this sorted in an instant.
I figured I would be honest with Cian – well, a little honest. There was no need to tell him everything. I’d tell him Ingrid Devlin wanted to speak to him. That she had been hearing whispers and wanted to give him a chance to tell his side of the story. I wouldn’t tell him that I didn’t trust her. That she was threatening me. I sure as hell would not be telling him what she was threatening me about. Even though I knew the truth of what had happened with Ben, I didn’t want any of that mess to colour what he thought of me. It was everything that wasn’t Rose. A lack of perfection he wouldn’t fall for. The haze of the pills and the glass of wine would allow me to present to him what I needed him to see, and get him to agree to what I needed him to agree to.
As my taxi pulled into the drive, the front door opened and there he was, a smile on his face. As the car stopped, he walked across the gravel and pulled open the door for me, greeting me with a kiss on the cheek as I stood up. As he took my hand and led me towards the house I wanted to pull my hand away, wondering if anyone was watching me arrive. He must have sensed my reticence as we were no sooner in the house and the door closed that he asked if everything was okay.
‘You look stressed,’ he said as he opened a bottle of the same white wine we had drunk on Saturday night and poured two large glasses. On the coffee table in front of the sofa he had arranged an array of tapas that looked as though it was straight from a high-class restaurant.
‘I had this brought in,’ he said, as he sat down. ‘You like tapas?’
I nodded, sipped from my wine. ‘I do. This is great. Thanks. There was no need to go to any trouble.’
‘It’s not trouble at all,’ he said. ‘I just phoned the restaurant and they came and set it up and everything. All I had to do was open the door and pay the bill.’
I forced a smiled, and he looked at me quizzically. ‘You really are stressed, aren’t you?’
‘It’s been a long day. I suppose I’m just tired.’
‘And I forced you to come out? I bet you wish you were relaxing at home instead of providing a listening ear to me?’ He looked genuinely concerned.
I reached out and touched his hand. ‘No. No, don’t worry about that. Wouldn’t it be worse if I was going home and brooding alone? At least here I have company.’
‘I’m sure you have company most nights, Emily,’ he said, putting his hand on top of mine. There it was again. That sense of being grounded – weighted to the here and now. With Cian.
‘Not so much,’ I said, unable to hide my blush. ‘But look, I’m here now – and this wine is lovely and the food too. How has your day been? I feel churlish giving out about how tired I am when you have so much to deal with.’
‘Well, to be honest, it’s actually nice to talk about something that’s not directly related to Rose for a change and to someone who didn’t know her. I get tired of all the sad looks and the eulogies about how perfect she was – not that she wasn’t everything – but you know … it’s hard living with the ghost of a saint. Sometimes I want to just be me. To have a normal day. Does that sound awful?’ He ran his fingers through his hair, then turned and looked at me. ‘But look, let’s just have some of this tapas and drink some of this wine and we can start on the Blur back catalogue – if you don’t mind hanging round for a while.’
I nodded although this should have been the moment I told him about Ingrid Devlin and her request, but in that moment I wanted what he wanted – just to be somebody in a room with someone else. Without the ghosts of the past, mine or his, around me.
‘I don’t mind at all,’ I said. ‘Now, tell me what all this is,’ I said, gesturing to the table in front of me.
*
Everything became a little hazy after the third glass of wine. The kind of hazy where time becomes fluid and you experience things in moments and sensations without worrying about anything linear. I’m not entirely sure how we ended up kissing – but we did. I remember that we had been talking for a couple of hours. Cian had said he was incredibly lonely, I’d told him that I knew what that felt like. He said he couldn’t believe someone like me could ever find myself lonely. I’d told him when the time was right he might feel he could move on – not replace Rose but find someone who could ease his loneliness.
I hadn’t been expecting his kiss, even as he put his hand to my face, then in my hair. Even as he looked deep into my eyes and I could feel his breath, warm and sweet, close to my face. I don’t think I was even expecting his kiss as his lips brushed mine. Or as his hand moved behind my head and pulled me closer to him, kissed me more deeply. As his tongue met mine and I felt my body respond. As my hand touched his chest, then moved to the roughness of his stubble. Even as we pulled apart, and I heard a sigh loaded with desire slip from his mouth before he pulled me to him again, I don’t think I really believed what was happening.
His hand slipped under my sweater, his thumb brushing against my nipple over the thin material of my bra sending a shockwave of desire straight to my core. It was the kind of shockwave that overruled any doubts I had about what I was doing – what we were doing. I felt him lean over me, the heat from his body on mine as his mouth moved to my neck. I’m not sure if I was more intoxicated from the wine or lust – but I knew the combination of both was lethal. There was no way I could fight it.
In those moments when all I could feel were my nerve endings fizzing to life, I knew I was a lost cause. So when he whispered that he wanted to take me to bed, I was powerless to resist. I went with my instincts – let him lead me from the room and up the stairs where he kissed me again before taking me to the guest room and pressing me against the wall so I could feel his body, hard and hot against mine. I was lost then – there was no going back. I didn’t care about anything that was happening in that very moment except the physical sensations coursing through my body.
And as we lay together in bed, him inside me, the weight of him on top of me, moving over me – my body feel
ing alive, my heart beating fast, our sweat mingling together, our eyes locked, our mouths hungry for each other – I was sure that I was doing the right thing and that this was exactly how things were always meant to work out. Fate was a strange puppet master. Not that that crossed my mind as my orgasm surged inside me and made me cry out against his chest.
*
I woke sometime in the night with no idea what time it was. Cian was, to my surprise, still beside me in the bed, his arm draped across my waist. I lay there for a moment, trying to focus my eyes on him in the darkness of the room. I don’t know what I had expected – for him to scream immediately after sex that he had made a huge mistake and kick me out? For him to scurry off to his own bedroom leaving me to wonder what the hell had just happened as I lay in the guest room wondering if and when I should leave? But instead he had pulled me close to him and whispered ‘Stay, please stay’ as his eyes fluttered closed. I was too sated, too drunk and too comfortable to argue with him and it wasn’t long before I drifted off too. But now, in the small hours – feeling sober – I wondered what all of this meant? I knew better than to wake him and ask him, so I let myself enjoy just being close to him, our skin touching, my body aching in all the right places from our lovemaking. It was lovemaking, wasn’t it? Not just sex?
Still I knew this little haze of happiness couldn’t last forever – I had to work in the morning and it would be entirely inappropriate to land into work in my sexy sweatshirt, jeans and the previous day’s underwear. Not to mention the fact that my make-up was now resoundingly streaked across my face and my hair had a definite bed-head vibe going on – the kind of vibe that would get people talking. My heart sank a little when I thought of Ingrid Devlin – who could well be judging me as I lay there with Cian. I hadn’t spoken to him about her – the right moment hadn’t arrived. I was sure that as soon as I told him that a journalist really needed to speak to him and I was her contact, he would show me the door.
It certainly wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have with him while naked. I crept around the room as quietly as I could, picking up my clothes before creeping into the bathroom and getting dressed. I looked in the mirror – my cheeks were flushed, my eyes bright despite the early hour. I wondered why it had to be so complicated, and in that moment I was angry beyond words at Ingrid Devlin who was about to make me ruin it all.
I brushed my teeth, washed my face and tousled my hair. Then I crept back into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed while I put on my socks and boots.
‘You leaving?’ I heard his voice from behind me and I turned to look at him, his eyes fixed on me even in the darkness.
‘I have to work – so I need to go home to get ready,’ I said.
‘Stay,’ he said, patting the bed beside him. ‘Take the day off. Call in a sickie. They don’t deserve you anyway.’
‘I won’t get paid if I don’t go in,’ I told him. ‘I’m still on probation and my rent needs to be paid.’
‘I’ll cover your day’s pay,’ he said, ‘please, just don’t go. We’ve had such a nice evening, such a nice night. You don’t know what it means to me to feel normal for a bit.’
‘I can’t let you cover my wages, Cian. You know that. And Jack will be back from his granny’s this morning. You really don’t want Rose’s mother arriving and finding me here.’
At the mention of Rose’s name, he lay back flat on the bed and put his hands in his hair.
‘You think I’m a total bastard, don’t you?’
‘What? No! Why would I?’
‘Sleeping with you, being with you, and Rose isn’t long dead. You think I’m disrespecting her memory, don’t you?’ His voice sounded strange, angry, but as if he could break down at any second.
‘No. Cian, no. That’s not it at all. I slept with you too – I made that choice too. How could I judge you for it?’
‘Because people do, Emily. People have made their minds up about me. They won’t understand how I could love Rose so much, miss her so much but still enjoy … still need … to be with someone else.’
Me. Did he ‘need’ to be with me? I reached across the bed and took his hand in mine – feeling my nerve endings fizz as we touched. ‘I don’t judge you, Cian. I take people as I find them and with you, I like what I find. I don’t want you to feel I’m pushing you or forcing you into being anything more than friends …’
‘I think it’s clear we’re more than friends,’ he said, placing my hand on his chest so that I could feel his heart beating. ‘We were meant to be together, Emily. I know you feel it too.’
I nodded and he pulled me to him, before pressing his lips against mine so that I was lost again in the touch and taste of him. When we pulled apart, breathless, he asked me again to stay with him and I agreed and I allowed myself to push any thoughts of Ingrid Devlin to the back of my mind as he peeled my clothes off and made me lose control.
It was light when we woke again. I’m not sure of the time – but I was aware of a persistent ringing of the doorbell, followed by a few impatient knocks. I jumped awake, nudging Cian who sat up bleary-eyed.
‘Will that be Jack back?’ I asked, as I hurriedly pulled my clothes back on.
‘He’s not due back until lunchtime,’ Cian said, running his fingers through his hair and sitting up. The doorbell rang again, as Cian pulled on his jeans.
‘Mr Grahame,’ a deep male voice rang out. ‘This is the police. Can we talk to you?’
Chapter Twenty–Five
2014
Rose
Rose Grahame: An award and Hollywood beckons. I promise I’ll remember you all when I’m partying with the celebs! So proud of Cian!
A film deal! It was so incredibly exciting. Cian was like a new man – walking about, chest inflated like a proud peacock. I could hear him chatting to various journalists on the phone – saying he wanted to retain artistic control of the script and have a say in casting.
‘It’s very important that the story retains its integrity,’ he said. ‘I feel very strongly about that – I wouldn’t want to have the story made into something it’s not. It’s more nuanced than the average detective story – multi-layered. It would be important that it doesn’t get the full blockbuster treatment. I can think of nothing worse.’
I was impressed listening to his confidence in his work – it was such a transformation from the shy author I’d met seven years before who lacked self-belief and felt too nervous to share his work.
Now he’d talk openly about his achievements, his ‘craft’, his opinions on the literary world. I would never say it to him, but sometimes he came across as a bit pompous. I’d learned to keep quiet though – it was the best way. Don’t wake the Kraken. Don’t poke the bear. Just smile and nod, and make cups of tea, or pour glasses of wine and serve food at dinner parties in our home. Make sure the guest room was always in tip-top condition. Make sure he had peace to write – that he felt cherished and spoiled when he was in creative mode.
Even if it meant throwing the odd sickie at work to be there and be ‘his muse’. Even if it meant hiding my own reading habits from him like they were a dirty secret. Even if it meant being the butt of his jokes at times. ‘Oh, Rose wouldn’t get that. She prefers something a bit lighter – don’t you Rose? I feel grateful if she agrees to read my books.’
Everyone had laughed – so I had too. I didn’t see the point in correcting Cian. No good would come of it.
This was his author persona – the person he had to be to be a success. And I wanted him to be a success, didn’t I? I wanted him to win awards, to get the film deal. I enjoyed basking in his success – he said. I got my pay off – the nice house, the nice car, the jewellery, the fancy dinners out. The kind of lifestyle I could only have dreamed of when I was younger. He’d lifted me – lifted us – out of a crappy flat and into a lifestyle where it was entirely possible we could end up on the red carpet at the Oscars. ‘I’m giving you everything,’ he said and he was. So it would be churlish of me to be any
thing but grateful.
And who could I talk to about it? Who would understand? Poor Rose, in her double-fronted house with her designer kitchen and her Mulberry handbag and her hair coloured at the best hairdressers in town. And isn’t she just back from a weekend in London, eating at all the fancy restaurants, appearing in the newspapers? Yes, poor Rose, I’ll listen to her tell her problems while I’m trying to pay the bills and feed my children.
Cian was right; they’d get sick listening to me. My complaining would be pathetic. What would I tell them anyway? Admit what it was really like? Admit what he was really like? Admit what he did or more to the point what I let him do? What I let him get away with, because I did. I let him get away with it. All of it. I set the standard for how he treated me. How I bent over backwards to keep him happy. To try and keep him happy. It was my fault, because I didn’t challenge him. It was easier to keep the peace.
Maybe the house, and the clothes, and the status appealed to me too much to stand up to him?
I had to put up or shut up.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Emily
I watched as Cian pulled on the wrinkled T-shirt that I had pulled off him and thrown on the floor the night before. I didn’t know what to do or what to say.
The voice echoed out again through the letterbox while the doorbell rang – much too loudly. Cian didn’t bother putting on his socks or shoes. He paused at the door for a moment, turned to look at me. ‘Emily, you trust me, don’t you?’
I nodded. ‘Of course,’ I said, and I meant it. I trusted him implicitly.
‘You believe I would never, ever hurt Rose?’
‘Of course I believe you,’ I told him.
‘Then help me, Emily. Please.’ He held out a hand to me as if he wanted me to come with him. Slowly, unsure of myself, I reached out to him and he turned and led me downstairs just as a third call came through the door.
