No Matter What

by Michelle Betham

  “Don’t you see what you’re doing? Don’t you realise he’s happy with me and JJ? He’s happy and he’s settled and you’d take that away from him? If I don’t sleep with you?”

  “JJ isn’t his father.”

  “His father isn’t coming home, Michael. He’s not coming home, and you need to get used to that, you really do.”

  “And you need to get used to the fact that you can’t just fuck about and get away with it. Life isn’t that easy, India.”

  She shook her head, refusing to get into another argument. She didn’t want it and she didn’t need it. “Whatever, Michael. I’m tired of all this now. Let’s just get this movie finished and move on, ok?”

  “Like I said, India. Life isn’t that easy.”

  She stared at him again. She’d married this man and it had been one of the happiest days of her life. How had it all come to this?

  “Maybe not. But sometimes it’s best not to make things any worse than they already are. Isn’t it, Michael?”

  He watched her leave, his heart still beating like a jack-hammer every time he looked at her and he was so confused he couldn’t even think straight. Part of him wished he hadn’t taken this job, part of him wished he’d just left everything alone and let her get on with her life. But without her he couldn’t get on with his.

  Sitting down on the arm of the sofa he put his head in his hands for a second, pushing them though his hair. He didn’t have many options left now. He had to do it, he had to go through with it even though he still loved her with every inch of his being. But right now she wasn’t coming back to him. Not the way things stood at the minute. She wasn’t coming back to him, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever get his head around that.

  He got up, grabbed his jacket and gathered together everything he needed for the day ahead, checking himself in the mirror one last time before he opened the trailer door.

  He was left with no choice. None at all. Maybe now she’d realise that.

  ***

  “It’s so cold!” JJ laughed, as India wrapped herself around him whilst they waited for her to be called.

  She snuggled in against him, her arms round his waist underneath his jacket.

  “This is a good day, Joe, believe me.”

  He folded his arms around her, the heat of her body already warming him up. “Yeah, well, I’d have preferred it if we could have just stayed in bed, all day. Just you and me.”

  “Who else were you thinking of inviting?” she smiled, and he laughed, that deep, wonderful laugh and she closed her eyes as he kissed her gently.

  “Well, when we get back to the States we can always re-visit that Vegas lap dancing club and ask that incredible looking dark haired Asian girl to join us, the one with the fabulous legs …”

  India pretended to be shocked. “JJ Foster! I had no idea you harboured desires of a threesome.”

  “I don’t,” he said, his mouth resting on hers. “Not really. I just wouldn’t mind watching you two go at it.”

  “Joe!” she laughed, nipping him gently, unwilling to bring her hands out from underneath his jacket to hit him properly.

  “Come on, baby,” he whispered, his mouth kissing that place just underneath her ear, the place that always drove her crazy. “Are you telling me you wouldn’t do that? For me?”

  “I’m not getting into this conversation now,” she said, smiling as he kissed her again.

  “So, it’s not a no, then?” He smiled back, a look in his eye that India knew was a look he always got when he thought he was onto something.

  She laughed again. “Shut up and keep dreaming.”

  “Maybe, then?”

  “Joe! Pack it in will you?”

  He pulled her closer and kissed her again and Michael watched all of this play out from the sidelines. She looked so happy with JJ. As happy as she’d been with him? Who could tell? Only she knew the answer to that one.

  He watched as they continued to play fight, laughing and kissing and her face lit up every time she looked at her new husband. How could she be so happy when he was still so miserable and tired and confused? He was so confused. Was what he was about to do the right thing? He didn’t know, he wasn’t sure but he was going to do it anyway. Maybe it wouldn’t make him feel any better, but he wasn’t sure anything could anymore.

  She was giving JJ one more kiss, a long, slow kiss that Michael couldn’t take his eyes off, even though it hurt to watch it going on. Then she smiled at him, this younger man who now had everything Michael had ever wanted. She smiled at him and slowly pulled away from him, his fingers holding onto hers until he had no other choice but to let her go, and that’s when Michael made his move.

  Once she was out of sight he walked over to JJ, taking a deep breath as the young man who’d taken everything Michael had ever loved turned to look at him.

  JJ was surprised to see him standing there, and it wasn’t an altogether pleasant surprise. Something about India’s ex-husband really creeped him out. When Kenny had told him he’d never trusted him JJ could now see exactly what he meant. There was something about him that was disturbingly unsettling and it made JJ feel uncomfortable.

  “Do you want something?” he asked, looking away from Michael and out to sea, watching the waves lapping out over the sand, the sound they created a comforting antidote to the dark feeling Michael appearing had created. JJ couldn’t explain it but something just didn’t feel right.

  “Can I have a word?” Michael asked, folding his arms.

  “Is it important?”

  “It’s about your wife.”

  JJ looked at Michael. “India? What about her?”

  “I think there’s something you need to know about her.”

  JJ narrowed his eyes. “Oh yeah?”

  “And your brother. This concerns him too.”

  JJ was getting more confused by the second. What the hell did Ray have to do with anything?

  “I don’t understand. What’re you talking about?”

  “Come with me,” Michael said, the look on JJ’s face now telling him he couldn’t back down from this. He’d already said too much to leave it now. “I don’t think this is a conversation you’ll want to have out here, believe me.”

  ***

  Ray opened the trailer door and let India in.

  “What’s up?” he asked, continuing to tidy everything up around him. She watched what he was doing.

  “So, you’re quite happy to tidy up your trailer but you leave your own house like a pig sty.”

  He just shrugged. “This is a lot smaller. It’s not as much work.”

  She couldn’t help smiling. “Is that Ray Foster logic then?”

  He smiled back. “You could say that.” He put down the pile of papers he was holding and looked at her. “Are you ok?”

  “I spoke to Michael this morning. I asked him if he was going to tell JJ. About us.”

  Ray stopped what he was doing. She looked nervous, her arms folded against herself in an almost defensive manner.

  “What did he say?”

  She shrugged. “He said he didn’t know. He didn’t know if he was going to tell JJ or not. I just don’t know what to do, Ray. He knows everything; he knows the whole sorry, sordid story ...”

  Ray came closer, taking one of her hands, forcing her to uncross her arms.

  “Will you stop calling it sordid? None of what we did was sordid.”

  She looked up at him. “It was wrong, Ray. All of it was wrong.”

  He shook his head. “No, it wasn’t. We had sex; we had amazing sex, that’s all. What happened afterwards was a sad and upsetting mistake and I’m sorry you had to go through that. I truly am, India. But all we did was have sex. That wasn’t wrong.”

  “Wasn’t it?”

  They both turned around and India’s heart literally stopped beating as she saw JJ standing in the trailer doorway, his face telling her everything she’d ever dreaded. Michael had done his worst and she felt the bottom fall out of her wo
rld, right there. Right that second it stopped turning.

  “I think there’s something you two need to tell me,” JJ said, his face impassive, his eyes empty. “So ... shall we start at the beginning?”

  CHAPTER 69

  “JJ, listen to me, please, listen to me!” India was almost begging him, begging him to calm down and listen to her because this couldn’t be happening, it couldn’t be. She couldn’t be losing the man she loved so much it hurt. Not like this. She couldn’t lose him like this but he wasn’t taking it well, he wasn’t taking it well at all.

  He’d left Ray’s trailer after they’d tried to talk to him and she hadn’t been able to go after him. She’d wanted to, she’d wanted to forget everything else going on because he was the most important thing in her world, and God knows what he was going to do. But she hadn’t gone after him. Instead she’d had to get back out in front of those cameras, in front of a man who’d had a damn good go at destroying her life all over again. She’d had to finish a job she didn’t want to do anymore because the man she loved was out there with the information she hadn’t ever wanted him to know. He now knew that both his wife and his brother had lied to him, and it had been the hardest thing she’d ever had to do, to go out there and pretend that wasn’t going on.

  She’d eventually found JJ back at home in their bedroom, throwing his things into a suitcase, and she felt like the nightmare was only getting more real as she watched him.

  “I can’t do it, India. I can’t take this in, it’s too fucking surreal. How many more secrets are you hiding from me, huh? How many more?”

  She couldn’t tell him about sleeping with Michael, what would that gain? It could only make things worse and they were about as bad as they could get as it was. So it was more lies in a desperate attempt to salvage something out of a situation that was heartbreaking to say the least.

  “None, I promise you, Joe. That’s it, that’s all.”

  He looked at her. “That’s all? That’s all? You and my brother ...” He continued to throw things into his case. “Forget it. I’m out of here.”

  “Joe, please! Don’t do this! Don’t do this, baby, please! We need to talk ...”

  “No, India. We don’t.”

  She tried to take his hand but he pushed her away and that stung, that hurt. He was her world, he was her whole life and he was rejecting her and that hurt.

  “We don’t need to talk because I’ve heard enough.”

  “It was so long ago, Joe. Ray and I, we didn’t think ...”

  “No. You didn’t think.” He threw the jacket he was holding onto the floor, pushing both hands through his hair. He was in the middle of a nightmare; it felt as though everything he’d thought he’d loved - he felt as though it was all crumbling down around him and he couldn’t do a thing to stop it. “You slept with my brother, India. He’s seen you naked; he’s touched you in places ... in places I thought only I had seen and yet he … he was there first …”

  “Is that what’s bothering you? That he got there first?”

  “Of course that fucking bothers me, India! But it’s deeper than that, isn’t it? It’s, Jesus, I don’t know … I mean … you’re both out there, doing those scenes in this movie, kissing each other, and all the time knowing what you did together ...”

  “It was five years ago, Joe. Me and you, we hadn’t even met, I didn’t know you ...”

  “That’s not the point!” His voice was raised, he couldn’t help it. “The point is you both knew and neither of you ... neither of you thought me worth telling. You were pregnant with his fucking baby, you got that close to each other and yet you both thought it a better idea to make an idiot out of me and pretend you didn’t know each other at all.”

  “We didn’t want to hurt you, Joe.”

  “Well done. That worked. Didn’t it?”

  He looked at her again and it broke her heart. The look in his eyes was pure hurt, not anger. He was hurt and that was killing her because she hadn’t wanted to do that. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him.

  “I mean, exactly what am I worth to you, India? You don’t tell me about what Michael did to you, you don’t tell me you’ve slept with my brother, how is that supposed to make me feel? All I wanted was honesty, and you couldn’t trust me enough. I loved you, y ‘know? I loved you ... Jesus, this is messing with my fucking head ...”

  “Joe, I’m sorry ...”

  “Sorry doesn’t really cut it. India.”

  He closed his case and hauled it off the bed onto the floor. The bed that only hours ago he’d held her in, made love to her in, and she couldn’t stop the tears as she watched him grabbing his passport from the bedside drawer.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back to L.A.,” he replied, his back to her as he checked a sheet of paper pulled from his pocket that she could only assume were his flight details.

  She swallowed hard, wiping her eyes because crying wasn’t helping. It was only clouding everything. “Back to L.A.?”

  He turned round to face her, folding the sheet of paper back up and putting in the back pocket of his jeans. And once again the look in his eyes was like a stab to her heart. “I’m going home, India.”

  She shook her head. “No. Please, don’t go like this, Joe. Not like this. You need to know what went on ...”

  “I don’t care what went on, India.” He was shouting again, losing control of a situation he couldn’t get his head around at all. “I don’t care that you slept with my brother, I don’t care that you did that, not really. It’s the lies. That’s what’s killing me, India. That’s what hurts, what really hurts. The lies. Both of you lied. Both of you.”

  “There were reasons, Joe. Listen to me, please. There were reasons, and maybe we were wrong, maybe we handled this badly but please understand – there were reasons.”

  He’d stopped listening now, she could tell. He’d turned away from her again and she felt sick and exhausted. She didn’t want him to go, she couldn’t lose him now, not now, she couldn’t. She needed him. She couldn’t lose him but he was slipping through her fingers and she was so tired. She could feel the fight in her fading by the second.

  “What about Ellie?” she whispered.

  At the mention of his daughter he stopped and turned around, looking at her again. Her face was stained with tears, her eyes so red from crying they looked painfully sore but he couldn’t get the image of her and Ray together out of his head. And it was a pain he’d never felt before. The lies had hurt him, that was true. But he’d lied himself when he’d said he didn’t care that she’d slept with Ray. Of course he cared. Of course it bothered him. It may have been all those years ago but images of his brother touching her, kissing her, knowing he’d been inside her, knowing that had gone on was like a kick to the stomach for JJ. He couldn’t get past it, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. When Michael had told him he’d thought - he’d hoped it was just a big, elaborate lie, something he’d thrown at him to hurt him. He’d hoped that was the case, but when he’d gone to his brother’s trailer, when he’d opened the door and saw them, heard them talking, the truth had hit him full on. So of course it bothered him. It bothered him too much.

  “I’m not taking her with me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Joe ...” She reached out to try and take his hand but he turned away from her again. He had to get away, he had to think and he couldn’t do that here. He couldn’t get his head around anything here.

  “Leave it, India. Just, leave it. I’m going back to L.A. because I need some time alone, ok? So give me that. You owe me that much.”

  She felt the last of her energy seep out of her as she watched him open the door, kicking his case out into the hall. She didn’t want him to go. She didn’t. But the fight was over and she’d lost, she knew that. She’d lost.

  “What happens now?” she whispered, and he turned around one last time, the pain in his eyes still there as he looked at her.

  “I don’t know, I
ndia. I really don’t know.”

  He walked out into the hallway, closing the door behind him. He was gone.

  India leaned back against the closed door, sinking to the floor as the tears returned, streaming down her face, blinding her almost as she hugged her knees to her chest and cried like she’d never cried before. The pain was ferocious in its intensity, slamming into her with a force that was unreal and it felt as though her whole world had imploded. Everything had gone black, it felt as if it was all disappearing around her, and every ounce of will and strength to make this better had just gone. It was over and she couldn’t get it back. It had gone and she didn’t care. She didn’t care, because the only thing she really cared about had just walked out of that door and until he came back she didn’t even want to think anymore. Until he came back she didn’t want to go on. Until he came back ...

  CHAPTER 70

  “Where is she?” Kenny asked, coming into the kitchen of the main house.

  Reece was sitting at the table, his head in his hands, but he looked up as Kenny stood beside him by the breakfast bar, his arms folded.

  “She’s still upstairs,” Reece sighed. “Still in their room. She won’t come out; she won’t even talk to me, Kenny.”

  “Yeah, well, she’ll talk to me,” Kenny said, starting to make his way out of the room.

  “She won’t talk to anyone, Kenny. You’ve tried before, we all have.”

  Kenny stopped and turned back around. “So, we just leave her there do we? We just leave her on her own? Has she eaten anything? Has she even seen the kids?”

  Reece stood up, pushing the chair back under the table as he went over to the coffee machine.

  “No. She won’t eat; she won’t open the door so I can only assume she’s got water up there because she’s going to make herself ill if she hasn’t. And no, she won’t even see her babies.” He poured himself a cup of coffee and held one out to Kenny, who shook his head. “Martha’s taking them home today. We should have all been going home today, Kenny. But India’s refusing to go anywhere and I can’t leave her here on her own in this state. The kids need stability though. They need to go back to L.A. Although what I’m going to tell them about their mum I don’t know.”