Tainted Love

by Michelle Betham

  “If you think it’s all moving a bit too fast, Joss…”

  “No, I… I don’t know.” She looks at me, and there’s something there in her eyes that gives me hope, that she’s still with me. And then she turns her head away, looks out at the view below. “I do love it here.” She looks at me again, and she smiles that smile and I hate the idea of leaving this island. “I love it here, with you.” She kneels up in front of me, and her smile grows a little wider. “Can we afford it?”

  “Yes. We can afford it.”

  She looks at me through slightly narrowed eyes, and she’s guessed, that this isn’t just a spur of the moment thing. I’ve looked into buying a holiday home here before, that’s how I know we can afford it. I already knew what our price range was, how much we needed to be able to own something here, on this island. I just hadn’t expected it to become a reality, until I said the words out loud. Until now. Until everything changed.

  “Okay…”

  She leaves it at that, she doesn’t question me. Maybe she really does want this as much as I do. I’ve just wanted it for a lot longer than her, that’s all.

  “If you think we can do this…”

  “Is that a yes?”

  She nods, and she’s still smiling. And I reach out and pull her towards me, I kiss her. Gently. Slowly. I feel her lips move against mine, feel her body relax the second I touch her. I kiss her, and it feels right. It feels wrong. It feels everything I shouldn’t be feeling, but I am, feeling it.

  “This is our island, Joss,” I whisper, cupping her cheek, her eyes looking deep into mine. “This is our place. Our place.”

  “Our secret,” she murmurs, and I smile.

  “Yeah. Our secret.”

  She kisses me quickly one last time before she moves away, turns around to look at the little cabin behind us.

  “Do you want me to go and set the wheels in motion?”

  She looks at me, and her smile is her reply.

  I don’t want to leave this island.

  But I know we’ll be coming back.

  Together.

  82

  Connor

  “You’ll need to come down to London, Connor. To finalise everything. And then you can bring him home. You’ve been granted sole custody of your son.”

  I sit back against the couch and let the sigh of relief spill out of me. I can’t believe it’s happened, just like that, but I’m not questioning anything.

  “And you have Karen’s parents to thank for this. They saw sense, they knew what had to be done. They knew Bobby needed to be with you.”

  “They can see him any time, Jessica, they know that.”

  “You can tell them that yourself, when you see them. They’re even thinking about moving up there, to be closer to him. How would you feel about that? Because, if you’re okay with it, they’ve already been looking at places to rent there in the North East, until they find a place to buy. And I know it all sounds like it’s happening incredibly quickly…”

  “Jess, I’d be fine with that, I mean, if anything it would be a huge help, wouldn’t it? Having them around. I’m not Superman, I’m going to need as much help as I can, especially in the beginning. Until I get a routine in place, but that’s going to take time… Jesus! Now that it’s happening it feels kinda unreal.”

  “Well, it’s real. So, get used to it. Are you going to be all right, to come down to London this week? I know you have school and it’s a busy time…”

  “It’s fine. I’ve got a new Deputy Head, a teacher who’s been at the school for almost two decades, and she’s more than capable of looking after things while I’m away. She’s done it before, and I’ll only be gone for a couple of days, so... Jessica, thank you. Thank you, I don’t know what else to say…”

  “You don’t have to say anything, Connor. Just start getting that house of yours child-proofed, okay? Your baby boy’s coming home. I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

  I put the phone down and throw back my head. It feels like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Bobby’s coming home. I’ve got my son back. And now – everything changes, now. From this moment on he comes first. And yet, I still want Joss Coburn. I still need that woman, I can’t stop thinking about her. About what we did, how that messed with my head, made me realise so many things about myself that I’d never thought about before.

  I need to be loved, too. I’m about to become a single father, but I need to be loved, too.

  I need to love somebody back.

  Do I need Joss Coburn…?

  83

  Joss

  I throw the last of my clothes into the carry-on bag and zip it shut. I walk over to the window, go out onto the decked terrace and I take one last look at the harbour. I’m still trying to get my head around exactly what happened here, this weekend, because it all feels a little fragmented; unreal. Almost like this is a dream and I’m about to wake up any second now. Maybe that’s exactly what it’s been like. And maybe I don’t want to wake up. Not yet.

  “Are you all right?”

  I turn to see Alex join me at the glass barrier. “Yeah. Just taking one last look around. I want to take it all in, so I can remember it, when we get back home.”

  He reaches for my hand and I let him take it. “Maybe it’s good, you know? That it’s all out in the open. What happened, with you and Sam… Maybe we can start to work through it now, huh?”

  “You make it sound so simple.”

  “I don’t mean to. I know it’s going to be anything but simple, Joss, I just mean…”

  “I know what you mean.” I smile at him, and he smiles back. And I feel the weirdest sensation in the pit of my stomach, confusion mixed with clarity, I can’t explain it. I can’t. And even if I could I’m not sure I’d understand it.

  He squeezes my hand and I look at him. I look right into his eyes, I try to see beyond the man who’s almost like a brother to me. I try to find that other man, the one I was painfully attracted to last night. That one, crazy night when everything I thought I knew was tipped on its head. I want him to come back, because I need to see him, need to be with him one last time.

  I let go of his hand and head back into my room. He follows me, closing the door behind us. And neither of us says anything, we don’t need to. All our lives we’ve been able to tell what the other is thinking, we can read each other. Except, maybe we can’t, maybe I can’t, because I’d have known, wouldn’t I? That he felt this way. Because, unlike me, I don’t think this is a new feeling for him.

  I back up against the wall and he moves closer, and once again I look deep into his eyes. Beautiful, cool, ice-blue eyes.

  “Jag älskar dig, Joss,” he whispers, as his fingers lightly trace the outline of my collarbone, making my skin break out in goose bumps.

  “Jag älskar dig också,” I murmur.

  “Vår hemlighet.”

  Our secret.

  He trails his fingers across my neck, and I sigh quietly as his thumb brushes over my bottom lip, his mouth closing in on mine.

  “Vår hemlighet,” I gasp, and then he’s kissing me. And I lose myself in him, I hold him and I kiss him back, I press myself against him and I don’t care that it’s wrong, that what we’re doing feels so fucking wrong, I don’t care. My husband slept with my friend, what’s right about that?

  He grabs onto my hips, swings me around, pushes me down onto the bed and I arch my back as his mouth covers my neck in tiny kisses. Soft, beautiful kisses that take me to another world, one inside my head where this is right. Where this is special and perfect, I need that world. Because I don’t like the one I have to return to. Remembering that world makes me think about Sam. Summer. Connor.

  Hurt.

  Betrayal.

  Hope?

  I sit up suddenly, gently push Alex away and he stands back, drags a hand through his hair, his head down.

  “Joss, I’m sorry…”

  “Don’t be.” I get up, go over to him, take his face in my hands and I k
iss him. He tastes of warmth and safety, he’s where I want to be. Here. Just us, together. I want to run away, like we’d planned when we were kids, except, that was just playing. This isn’t a game. “Don’t be sorry.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you...”

  “You could never hurt me, Alex. Do you hear me? You could never hurt me. I’m just really confused right now, I’m still angry, and I think, if we did this…”

  I close my eyes and breathe him in, hold his hand so tightly, I’m scared to let him go. To let this go. But I think we have to.

  “Remember when we were kids?” he whispers, and I open my eyes and look into his. “We said we’d never leave each other. We promised, didn’t we? That we’d never leave each other. We even planned to run away, so it could be just you and me. Remember?”

  Of course I remember, and I smile at him, because I’m so happy he remembers too.

  “We can do that now, Joss. We can run away, maybe not forever, but sometimes. When it all gets too much, we can come here. We can run away. For a little while.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, we can.”

  His hand grips mine a little tighter, and the thought of running away – I like it.

  He slides his fingers into my hair, pulls me against him and he holds me. I cling onto his jumper, rest my head against his shoulder and I think, despite all the pain and the lies and the complications – I think this is the calmest I’ve felt since I found out about Sam’s betrayal.

  Something happened here, in Hönö Klåva, between me and Alex. Something happened. A box was opened, a line was crossed, we started, something…

  84

  Sam

  It’s late, when I hear her come in. It’s almost ten-thirty.

  I hear her, out in the hall, talking to someone, on her phone, I’m guessing. I can only hear her voice, nobody else’s.

  I hear her laugh. Hear her say goodnight, in Swedish.

  She’s talking to Alex.

  I pour myself another whisky and lean back against the counter. I ready myself for the inevitable confrontation, because there’s going to be one. But I’m not giving up, I’m going to fight for this marriage. And she’s going to listen to me.

  “I wasn’t aware I’d asked you to come home.”

  I look up as she walks into the kitchen, all beautiful and calm. I was expecting hysteria, so this throws me slightly.

  “It’s as much my house as it is yours, Joss.”

  She fixes me with a look, those ridiculously blue eyes of hers ice-cold. “Oh. Okay, so, you think you have every right to stay here, after what you’ve done?”

  “I made a mistake…”

  She shakes her head and walks over to the bottle of whisky on the counter. She pours herself a large measure and drinks it down in one, slamming the empty glass down hard.

  “Get out, Sam. I don’t want you here.”

  “I’m going nowhere, not until we’ve talked about this. I’m not just going to walk away from…”

  “I don’t care what you want, and there’s nothing to talk about. You can’t sweep this under the carpet, you can’t forget about it, it isn’t going to go away. You got my friend pregnant, Sam. End of story. End of us.”

  “Joss…”

  “I don’t want you here.”

  “Does the same go for Alex?”

  She narrows her eyes as she stares at me.

  “Do you want him here?”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s always been you and him, Joss. You and Alex. It’s like you come as a fucking pair – you get one, you get the other, whether you like it or not.”

  “Since when did you have a problem with Alex? What’s he ever done to you?”

  “You say he’s your best friend, that he’s like a brother to you, but, is that all he is? Is he just your friend, because, you know, I’m beginning to think there’s something more…”

  The slap she gives me knocks my head sideways. She’s angry, her eyes are like shards of cold-blue ice. Have I touched a nerve? Or does she really hate me that much now?

  “Don’t you fucking dare. Don’t you dare try and shift this onto me.”

  “I never really thought about it before because, I guess, I’d just accepted it. Accepted that he was always there. But now…”

  “He’s my friend.”

  “The night after we found out you’d never be able to conceive; do you remember that night? You didn’t want me, you wanted him. I was as devastated as you were, Joss, but you fucking shunned me, your own fucking husband, you pushed me aside and instead you let your best friend share your bed. You let another man…”

  “You’re seriously going to stand there and make that sound like something dirty, something wrong…?”

  “You let another man into your bed, Joss. Most husbands would think that was weird…”

  “I slept in my best friend’s arms, Sam. He held me while I cried, I needed him…”

  “And I needed you!”

  “Oh, no. No. This isn’t about me hurting you, Sam, not after what you’ve done.”

  “Do you ever stop to think that your best friend might be getting in the way?”

  “So, what? It’s Alex’s fault that you fucked Summer?”

  “That’s not what I meant…”

  “Just go, Sam.”

  “What happened over there, Joss? Hmm? Your ‘best friend’ weekend in Sweden, what happened?”

  She turns to look at me, and her eyes are still cold. She doesn’t trust me anymore. She barely likes me. But something Summer said, about Joss and Alex… the way he looks at her… I don’t know. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s just Summer messing with my head, trying to make me see shit that isn’t there.

  “What happened in Sweden, Sam, was nothing more than me needing some time away from you and your fucking lies. Now get out. We’re done here.”

  85

  Joss

  It’s only when I hear the door slam shut that I start to breathe again. Has Sam seen something I couldn’t see; didn’t see, until Hönö Klåva? Something I don’t understand? That scares me. But I’m so messed-up right now, I don’t understand anything. I’m so tired… And tomorrow – tomorrow it’s back to school. Does everybody really know the truth now? About what Sam did?

  If that’s the case, then tomorrow I have to face colleagues and students and pretend that I’m coping, when I’m not sure that I am.

  Tomorrow I’ll see Connor. And maybe that’s what I need.

  To see Connor…

  86

  Connor

  I can’t begin to imagine what Joss is feeling. I had no idea what Sam had done, not until Alex came to talk to me, just now, before school. And the fallout is going to be far-reaching. Joss’s family is a big part of this school. A family that’s just been rocked by a devastating betrayal.

  Alex explained why Joss had needed some time out; why those few days back home had turned out to be something far more important than just a long weekend away. And now that I know the real reason behind her and Sam’s separation, it explains why she’d needed me, that night. I understand, now. And I still don’t regret what happened.

  I watch from my office window as she leaves her car, walks across the yard with her head held high. I watch as Alex runs over to meet her. He slides an arm around her shoulders as they head towards the school’s main entrance, and I watch as she leans in to him, their heads close together as they talk, and I feel envious of that bond they so obviously have.

  “Connor?”

  I spin around at the sound of Maggie’s voice and I desperately try to compose myself. Quickly. “Sorry, Maggie, did you want something?”

  “Do you still want me to have a word with Joss? Fill her in with what’s in the diary while you’re away this week?”

  “Actually, Maggie, I’ll talk to her myself. I’m sure you’re aware – as is everyone now – of what’s gone on between her and Sam, so, I’ll talk to her.” I smile, and it’s more of a
dismissal than anything else. I could do with a few more minutes on my own before the school day begins properly. “If you could let her know I need a word with her, though, that’d be great.”

  I lean back against my desk, drag a hand through my hair. My head’s all over the place. Tomorrow, I get my son back. Today, I need to be with Joss, and not here, at school. I need to be with her.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  Her voice makes me jump, I didn’t expect her to be here so soon. Maggie must’ve caught her passing the office.

  “Yes… sorry, yes… I just…”

  “Sam sleeping with my so-called friend is common knowledge now, huh?”

  I look at her. She seems fine. Calm. Like she’s taking it all in her stride. Maybe her weekend in Sweden was exactly what she needed. Or maybe she’s just very good at hiding how she’s really feeling.

  “Are you okay?” Jesus! Talk about stupid questions…

  She closes the door behind her and steps further into the room. “I’m fine. It’s Savvi I’m worried about. This is going to be a bigger kick to the gut for her than anyone else. Sam and me, we’re like family to her. So she’s going to see this betrayal as something utterly devastating.”

  “Have you seen her? Since you got back? Do you know how she’s taking it?”

  “I haven’t seen anyone, we didn’t land back in Newcastle until gone ten last night… well, I saw Sam, actually. He was at home, when I got back, despite the fact I’d asked him to leave before I went to Sweden.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Did you… did you talk to him?”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. We’re done. And I assure you, Connor, none of what’s happened is going to affect the school, or my work here. Sam and me, we’ll keep our distance, remain professional. And I’ll keep an eye on Savvi. And Danny, if need be. He’s very close to Savvi, so, this could all rub off on him, too.”