by Louise Hall
Kian reached for her hand. “We’ve got to tell him at some point.”
“I was kind of hoping Mum would do it so I wouldn’t have to be there.”
“Maybe, it’s better this way,” Kian said. “Your Mum can stop him from killing us both?”
It was meant to be a joke but neither of them laughed. Cate took a deep breath. “Promise me one thing before we go in,” she said to Kian. “Whatever happens in there, promise me you won’t change your mind?”
Kian smiled a little. He leaned forward and gently kissed her. “I promise.”
Irene answered the door. “Cate, why are you ringing the doorbell? Have you lost your keys?”
“There’s something we need to tell you,” Cate said.
Irene realised that Kian was there as well.
“Okay,” Irene said.
They followed Irene inside the house and it felt strange, like a thousand years had passed since Cate had been there last. This wasn’t her home anymore.
As they walked into the lounge, Ben came out of the kitchen. He looked like he hadn’t slept for days but he brightened up a little when he saw Kian. “Hey man, where’ve you been?”
“Hey,” Kian replied, not answering the question.
Cate had never been so scared in her entire life. Irene sat in the armchair near the mantelpiece. Ben followed them in and perched on the arm of the chair.
She looked at her Mum and her brother and it felt like she was about to lob a hand grenade at them. On the flight home, while Kian had dozed, she’d thought about what she was going to say to them but there were no right words. They were going to be hurt and so, so angry.
Now that she was sat here, with the silence suffocating her like a thick blanket, Cate knew that she needed to say something but she wasn’t sure that she could, her throat felt so dry.
They’d agreed that she’d tell her family and Kian would tell his.
“Will somebody please say something?” Irene snapped, unable to take any more silence.
Cate looked at Kian, trying to tell him that she couldn’t do it.
He held her hand and Cate focused on that, the comfort of his skin against hers.
Ben noticed it and jumped up from the armchair. “Hell no,” he shouted.
“Sit down,” Irene said sternly.
“But Mum?” Ben turned to her, his eyes blazing with fury.
“I said sit down,” Irene said, the sharpness in her voice left no room for argument.
“Last week…” Cate started. “I wasn’t in Brighton with Zeke.”
“No shit,” Ben said but he soon shut up when Irene glared at him.
“I was with Kian in Las Vegas…” Cate took the pin out of the grenade and pulled her arm back, ready to throw it. “We got married.”
The colour seemed to drop from Irene’s face. “Why would you do something like that? Wait a minute, are you…?”
She looked pointedly at Cate’s stomach. Cate quickly covered it with her hands as if she could protect it from whatever came next. Cate briefly nodded her head.
“You’re what?” Ben roared.
“Go home,” Irene quickly got up, as if she knew what was about to happen.
Ben looked at Cate covering her stomach with her hands and it suddenly dawned on him. “You bastard,” he yelled, launching himself at Kian. Irene tried to stop him but ended up grasping thin air, he was too quick for her.
Ben grabbed Kian up off the sofa and threw him against the wall. “That’s my sister,” he said, picking Kian up off the floor and then slamming him against the wall again. Kian didn’t fight him.
“Ben, please stop,” Cate begged, grabbing his t-shirt and trying to pull him away.
“Cate, stay back,” Kian warned.
“Shut the fuck up,” Ben shouted. He reached up and punched Kian hard in the face. The sickening sound of bone against bone reverberated around the lounge.
“Mum, do something,” Cate pleaded with Irene.
Irene grabbed Ben by the back of his hair and pulled him away. “Ben,” she said softly. Cate couldn’t believe that her Mum was talking to him like that, almost as if she condoned what he’d just done. “Go home.”
Cate went over to Kian who was slumped against the wall holding his face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, holding on to him. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“You could have had anybody,” Ben snapped at them. “Why did you have to pick her?”
Irene walked Ben out to his car, leaving Cate and Kian alone in the lounge. Cate went to the kitchen and got some ice for his cheek. “I’m so sorry,” she kept repeating.
Why her? Ben’s words kept going around and around her head. As angry as he was, even her own brother didn’t think that she was good enough for Kian.
“How far along are you?” Irene asked bluntly, when she came back into the lounge. When Cate answered, she nodded and then said, “good, you can still change your mind.”
Cate couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I’m keeping my baby.”
When they got to Jean’s house, Kian didn’t say “it’ll be fine.” They both got out of the car, without saying anything. Kian didn’t hold her hand or even look at her as they walked up the short driveway to the front door.
“Hey bro, what happened to your eye?” Sinead asked when she answered the door. “Mum, it’s Kian.”
Jean came out of the kitchen. “Oh dear, that looks nasty. Why don’t you come through to the kitchen so that I can have a proper look?”
Sinead was just about to shut the front door when she realised Cate was stood there. “Hey Cate,” she said, giving her a hug. “Did we have plans today?”
Cate shook her head. She stood there on the front step, wondering what to do. Could she leave and let Kian tell his family on his own?
Kian held out his hand. “She’s with me.” He pulled her inside the house and Sinead looked at them with her mouth gaping open.
“What are you talking about?” Sinead asked, as she followed them through to the kitchen.
Cate was grateful that Kian was holding on to her hand otherwise she would have been tempted to run away.
“Mum, can you come through to the lounge,” Kian said to Jean. “I need to tell you something.”
“Sinead,” Kian said, “don’t you have something else to do?”
“No, I’m staying,” Sinead said firmly.
“Cate and I got married last week and we’re having a baby,” Kian said quickly, as if saying it all at once would make it easier.
Jean didn’t say anything.
“This is a joke,” Sinead laughed but stopped when she was met with total silence. “Come on guys,” she cajoled. “This is a joke, right?”
Cate shook her head.
“We’ve been seeing each other since last Christmas,” Kian said.
“But what about that bitch Nicole and Alice Devereux? And you,” Sinead turned her attention to Cate. “You’re dating Zeke.”
Cate shook her head, “I’m so sorry.”
“She’s just after you for your money,” Sinead said, erasing all those years of friendship between her and Cate with a single sentence. “I bet she got pregnant on purpose. Did she tell you she was on the pill?”
“Sinead, stop,” Kian said. He put an arm around Cate and pulled her close to him.
Sinead saw this and her eyes narrowed. “Are you sure it’s even your baby? She told me she slept with Zeke.”
Sinead came and stood really close to Cate. She was so close that Cate could see all of the hurt in her friend’s emerald-green eyes.
She put her hand on Cate’s stomach. “She’s not showing. Are you sure she’s even pregnant?”
“How many months are you?” Sinead demanded from Cate.
When she answered, Sinead gasped and took her hand away from Cate’s stomach. “But that was when… Dad died?”
After the initial shock had worn off, Sinead’s face twisted up in hatred. “Let me guess,” she cackled, “you seduced him th
e night of Dad’s funeral, didn’t you? That’s when this…” She waved her hands wildly in front of Cate’s stomach, “this thing was conceived.”
When neither of them denied it, Sinead knew that she’d guessed right. “I tried calling you that night but there was no answer. Stupid me, you had far more important things to do than comfort your supposed best friend, like warm up her brother’s bed.”
Cate flinched but Sinead continued, “I always knew you had a crush on him. It was pathetic, I mean, look at you… My Dad dying gave you the perfect opportunity, didn’t it? You were already staying just across the courtyard at Ben and Erin’s house. You seduced him that night because you knew that he wouldn’t have looked twice at you if he hadn’t been grieving our Dad.”
Sinead turned to Kian. “You didn’t have to marry her. She’s not even three months yet. She could still lose it and you’d be off the hook.”
Cate had to get out of there. She ran out of the house as fast as she could and she kept running all the way up the road. She ran all the way to the Memorial Park, which was deserted because it was just starting to get dark. She sat down on one of the swings and got her breath back. “I’m sorry you had to hear that,” she said, slipping a hand inside her t-shirt and pressing it against the warm skin of her abdomen. She hoped that the baby couldn’t hear her; that it hadn’t heard anything that had been said today.
It started raining but Cate had nowhere to go. She didn’t have a home anymore.
There was a crack in the tarmac by her feet. Cate watched the raindrops falling into the puddle. As she kicked her feet on the ground, her feet squelched inside her trainers. Her denim jacket was soaked through and stuck to her skin. The rain landed on her head and streaked down her face, like cold, relentless tears. There was a flash of lightning and then a few seconds later a loud, crack of thunder.
“Angel?” Cate looked up to find Kian stood in front of her, carrying a huge blue umbrella.
Cate quickly looked away; she didn’t want him to see how much she was hurting.
Kian threw the umbrella down and sank to his knees in front of her. He put his hands over hers on the metal chains of the swing. Her skin was ice-cold and he could feel her trembling. “Let me take you home.”
Cate shook her head; she was trying really hard not to cry. “I don’t have a home anymore,” she whispered softly.
He hadn’t defended her. He’d let his sister say all those hurtful things about her, about their baby. Maybe Irene was right, maybe she’d made a huge mistake.
“Don’t ever say that,” Kian said angrily. Of course, he’d known that his sister would be upset when she found out that he and Cate had secretly got married and were having a baby together but he hadn’t expected her to attack Cate with such vitriol and hatred. He’d been stunned by her outburst, only spurred into action when the front door slammed behind Cate.
He kissed the knuckles of her right hand before swiftly removing them from around the chain. He slid an arm under her legs and lifted her up off the swing as if she was weightless. He held her tight against his body, his grip firm on her thighs and back. It was only when she felt the warmth of his body that she realised just how cold she was. She buried her face in his t-shirt, breathing him in.
When they got back to the house, Kian carried Cate upstairs to the master bathroom. She’d never been there before, the night before they flew to Vegas she’d showered in one of the guest bathrooms.
Kian switched on the lights. The bathroom was stark and imposing. The sparkling tiles on the walls and floor were jet-black. There were square, white his and hers sinks in front of a huge mirror. In the corner was a large shower cubicle easily big enough for two people with two silver side jets and a deluxe shower head in the centre.
The main feature of the room was the bathtub, which was by the far wall. It was less a bathtub and more a small swimming pool. It was so deep that there were three, black-tiled steps leading up to it. The bath was positioned in front of a large window, which looked out across the rolling hills at the back of the house.
The house was so isolated that outside there were no lights, there were just strange shapes and shadows and inky blackness. The trees nearest to the house were bending and bucking in the strong winds. It felt like they were in the midst of a gathering storm. Rain smacked hard against the windowpanes, like it was demanding to be let inside.
Kian put her down on the floor just inside the bathroom. Cate shivered and hugged herself, her damp clothing still clinging to her skin. She was a roiling mess of emotions.
Kian turned her around so that she was facing away from him. When he’d found her soaked through and huddled on the swings at the Memorial Park, he’d seen the doubts in her big, black eyes. He needed to prove to her that she’d made the right choice when she’d said yes to that tinfoil ring; that he could and would take care of her and the baby.
He covered her wet hair with a fluffy, warm towel. He was filling the bath with hot water and the air was sweetly scented with jasmine from the bath oil he’d used. Cate closed her eyes and surrendered to the feel of his fingers gently stroking her hair and scalp.
“Mm,” she whimpered softly.
Kian felt the tight knot of guilt in the pit of his stomach transform into something else. “I don’t have a home anymore.” Her soft words ricocheted through him, drawing every muscle in his body taut. The ring on her finger and the child growing inside her belly weren’t enough, Kian wanted to join her to him in the most primitive way possible.
“Turn around.”
When he was satisfied that her hair was dry, he balled up the towel and tossed it in the corner of the room.
His eyes locked on to hers. She knew what he wanted, she wanted it too but she was still so angry with him.
She started to say something when he leaned towards her, running the tip of his nose slowly down hers. Cate closed her eyes, surrendering to the feel of his skin against hers. He brushed his cheek against hers; the coarse stubble rasping deliciously against her soft skin. He sucked on her earlobe, circling the metal stud with his tongue.
Cate stumbled backwards against the cool tiles and Kian was soon on her, his proud erection pressing against her hip. He cradled the back of her head to prevent it hitting the tiles and ran his tongue over her soft, cushiony lips, gently licking every bump and dip.
His kisses were so arousing, Cate couldn’t suppress a moan. As she parted her tingling lips, Kian seized the opportunity, pushing his tongue inside her mouth.
Cate grabbed a fistful of his t-shirt, needed to anchor herself. She felt the muscles in his back bunch up beneath her fingers.
Kian buried both of his hands in the depths of her glossy, black hair, tilting her head back so that he could kiss her more intensely. He touched and stroked the darkest recesses of her mouth.
Deep down, Cate knew that she was supposed to be angry with him but she couldn’t remember why. All coherent thought had been pushed aside by this desperate, clawing desire.
She writhed against him; pressing her aching breasts against the hard planes of his chest.
As she rubbed her tongue underneath his, she felt his erection thicken against her belly. She reached down and stroked his hard ridge through his jeans.
“Fuck,” Kian growled. He lifted her hand up off his cock and kissed the palm. “You can’t do that.” He took a step back, breathing heavily.
His cock was painfully-engorged but he realised that he couldn’t fuck Cate tonight. After everything that had happened with Ben and Sinead, he was so fucking angry that if they tried to have sex tonight, there was a very real chance that he would be too rough with her and she could end up getting hurt.
He slid his hand gently down her throat. Unaware of the battle raging inside of him, Cate was so desperate for contact that she leaned into every touch. Holding her hands above her head, he rubbed his knuckles down the side of her breast. Cate arched forward, her nipples were so tight they ached inside the confines of her bra. Kian smir
ked as he looked down at the two little points sticking out of her damp t-shirt. Cate followed his gaze, blushing furiously.
He knew that he was playing with fire but just because he didn’t trust himself to have sex with her tonight didn’t mean that he couldn’t still make her come.
Kian hooked his fingers under the hem of her t-shirt, lifted it up over her head and tossed it to the floor.
With one hand keeping her hands pinned above her head, Kian stroked his fingers down the thin straps of her bra and along the lace edging of the cups. Her skin was still damp and covered in goose bumps. He bent down and nuzzled the thin fabric of her bra. He could feel her heartbeat thundering through her body. Cate gasped as he rimmed her nipple through her bra; she could feel the heat of his mouth on her sensitive skin. He circled her with his tongue. Cate curled her toes, it was excruciating. He looked up, pleased to see that she was watching him. Then suddenly he took her nipple between his lips and sucked down hard.
“Please,” Cate begged, her knees buckling. “Please.”
After that, Kian quickly undid the front clasp of her bra and peeled it off, revealing her full, aroused breasts.
“So beautiful,” he murmured.
He kissed a trail down her stomach, darting his tongue inside her navel as he popped open the top button of her jeans. Cate squirmed, her panties were so wet.
He slowly undid the zip and eased her jeans down her legs to her ankles. He hooked his fingers inside the waistband of her panties and slid them down her legs. She held on to his shoulders as she stepped out of them.
Cate stood there completely bared to him. He was on his knees in front of her. He looked up at her again, his dark eyes glittering with intense lust. Cate shivered, feeling the warmth of her arousal trickling down the insides of her thighs.
Kian felt like such a bastard, he wanted nothing more than to dip his head between her slender thighs and use his tongue and fingers to bring her to a shuddering climax but he just couldn’t risk it. Cate was his addiction and if he started touching her, if he tasted even a drop of the sweetness between her legs, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop.
He stood up and pressed his lips chastely against her forehead. Cate wanted to cry with frustration; she felt so raw.
