When I risked opening my eyelids for half a second, light flooded into my eyes. The fucking pain ramped up and my assessment of the situation started all over again. I slammed my eyes shut again and issued another groan. Despite my sticky mouth, I tried to slick my lips with my tongue—which was pointless because both were as dry as the other.
“What the fuck did you think you were doing?” Her voice rose higher than before.
I almost felt like smiling at the frustration in her tone. That I recognised. That I could almost understand. At least, it made far more sense than the caring tone from moments before. Only I didn’t know what the fuck she could have been angry about.
Opening my eyes completely, I tried my hardest to ignore the light, and the pain, and focus on Alyssa’s face.
“Why did you go downstairs and drink the rest of that bottle? There was almost a whole fucking litre left.”
The room behind her was wrong. It was so out of place that I couldn’t focus on her words. Instead of neutral tones and a warm palette, it was white and expansive. Sterile. I raised my head again, ignoring the throb, and looked left and right.
“Where am I?” I asked, although I recognised the place on some level. My voice croaked and my throat was desiccated. I coughed to clear it, but the action pinched my ribs and sent a new agony rushing through me. I fell back onto the pillow with a fresh groan building in my chest.
“You’re in the fucking hospital. Where else would you be?”
With some effort, I focused back on Alyssa’s face. She looked like shit. Black bags rested under her eyes and her hair was a mess. Despite that, the sight of her was still enough to twist the knife in my heart and leave it red raw and bleeding. I pushed the agony to the side because there was something I was missing . . . something I needed to find out. “Why?”
“Because you’re a fucking idiot.”
I tried to sit up. “No. I mean what for? What the fuck happened?”
“I went to bed last night after . . .” She looked away and a blush crept up her cheeks.
Yeah, after you tied my heart up with your fucking strings. I kept my mouth shut even though the thought raced through me.
“Half an hour later, I heard a godawful crash. I ran downstairs to see what it was and found you, unconscious, over a smashed bottle. I was so scared. I . . . I didn’t know what to do.” Her voice sounded close to tears.
It was the breaking point for me. Biting the inside of my cheek, I closed my eyes so that she wouldn’t see the tears threatening me. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing what she had reduced me to.
“I didn’t even realise until after the ambulance came that you’d fucking cut your arm and almost bled out. They had to pump your stomach because of how much you’d drunk. Why would you do that?”
“I want to go home,” I murmured without looking at her. I didn’t want to be in the hospital anymore. Not with Alyssa at my side pretending that she gave a single fucking shit what happened to me when I knew the truth. Fucking with no complications was the truth. London no longer held any appeal—I just wanted to be home. In Sydney. Alone and coping with everything the best way I knew.
“I’ll see what I can get the doctors to do,” she said, clearly misunderstanding the meaning of my statement. Whether her lack of understanding was deliberate or not, I couldn’t say.
An hour later, after getting some painkillers, a little disgusting food, and a lecture on the dangers of alcohol abuse, I was released into Alyssa’s care. As I dragged myself down the hall—the painkillers had only dulled the ache in my body, not destroyed it completely—all I could wonder was what sort of fucking hell was I being forced into by the hospital quacks. I wanted to be away from her, not having her play nurse—despite the fact that my cock sprang to life at the thought of her in a sexy nurse’s outfit.
Alyssa hailed a taxi and gave the driver Danny’s apartment address. After helping me from the car, she unlocked the front door and led me through. The way she acted, it was almost as if she fucking thought she owned the place. I wondered how long would be polite before I could tell her to fuck off. Knowing her as I once did, she’d probably force me to follow the doctor’s advice to the letter, which would see her hanging around for another couple of days.
Just kill me now.
I climbed up the small flight of stairs to the open living area and walked straight to the couch. Folding myself into the seat as carefully as I could with my swollen side, I tried to relax. I stared off into the distance, unsure what I was seeing, or even what I wanted to see. After a moment, Alyssa sat beside me. I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to. No, I knew that I wanted her to; I just didn’t want to want her to.
She didn’t want me in her life again. She’d made that perfectly fucking clear the night before. Fucking with no strings. Another nameless, faceless woman to add to my bedpost. Except Alyssa was never that. I’d never wanted that of Alyssa. She was my one perfect woman, even if I didn’t always admit it, and she’d forced me to use her like any other woman in the world.
Fucking hell, Reede. You’ve cocked it up again haven’t you?
With soft, feather-light caresses, she ran her fingers through my hair. I was sure it was supposed to be a comforting gesture, but I wasn’t sure if I was helped by it. Instead of telling her to stop though, I just closed my eyes and leaned into her touch. For a moment, things were quiet, with only the sound of our breaths puncturing the silence.
“Do you know what the worst thing about our break-up was?” she asked in a breathless whisper as her head rested near mine on the back of the couch. Her words carried across my skin in a way that told me she was close. If I opened my eyes again, she would have been within kissing distance.
My heart constricted at the thought. I squeezed my eyes closed tighter to avoid the temptation of checking if I was right.
“That I lost my best friend too.” Her tears were clear in her voice “For almost eleven years we hadn’t gone more than what, a month, without talking to each other. Then all of a sudden you were gone. Right when I needed you the most.”
Even though I didn’t want to admit it, I knew exactly what she meant. I could still picture the first time I ever saw her. Every moment of our friendship crashed over me and I had to open my eyes to escape the barrage of images.
Even though I’d expected Alyssa to be close to me, I hadn’t expected her to be as near as she was. Another centimetre or two and her forehead would have rested against my cheek. Her eyes were closed now, tears staining her eyelids black with moisture and running down her cheeks. It seemed she was as deep in thought as I’d been, no doubt lost in the past too. I took the chance to examine all the little changes time had wrought on her face. She didn’t have wrinkles or anything like that, but the bags under her eyes seemed to have a degree of permanency and her skin was paler than it had been years ago.
She opened her eyes again and captured my gaze. The sorrow and loss buried within almost killed me on the spot. I didn’t know what could have caused it, but I couldn’t cope with it. My lips pulled down into a frown.
Her eyes darted away, as if embarrassed to have caught my gaze.
“You hungry?” she asked, pushing herself back up off the couch.
I closed my eyes and shrugged. My throat stung like a bitch and my stomach churned. The food they’d tried to force on me at the hospital just didn’t cut it, but I didn’t want to rely on her to be fed either. I could manage on my own if she would just go away. Even though I wanted her gone, the thought forced my heart into my stomach.
“How about some takeout,” she asked.
“Whatever.”
I heard her opening a book, no doubt some phone book she’d found on the roll-top desk. Obviously finding something she deemed suitable, she picked up the phone to place an order, walking from the room as she did. She didn’t ask me what I wanted, but I didn’t care. She knew what I liked. Despite the years that had passed, nothing had changed there. After a few minutes, the spri
ngs on the couch shifted as she settled back beside me.
“Did you want me to stay tonight?” she asked. “To look after you?”
Did I? Yes.
Should I? No.
Opening my eyes to look at her, I shook my head. “You should probably check into your hotel if it’s booked anyway.”
“Okay, if you think so,” she whispered. Then she bit her lip, deep in thought again. She took a deep breath. “Declan . . .”
She stopped. That’s what drew my attention. If she’d kept talking, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. I might have barely heard what she said after that. When she stopped though, she guaranteed she had my undivided attention. I turned toward her. “What?”
“You know . . .” She trailed off with a sigh. “Why is this so hard?” she added, but I didn’t think the words were meant for me.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “What is it?”
“There’s so much I need to tell you, and no way to start.”
“You open your mouth and let the fucking words out.”
A half smile lifted her cheek. “Thank you. For last night. It’s been a while for me.”
“What’s a while?” I asked. She had captured me with her eyes and I felt compelled to continue the conversation.
She looked off into the distance. “About two years. I was with Cain, Flynn’s brother, for a while, but I just couldn’t . . .” She took a deep breath. “I couldn’t commit to him the way he wanted.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Complications.”
“How did you know about the condom thing?” It was a weird, random thought that flew from my mouth long before I’d managed to stifle it. It had just sprung from my lips the moment it entered my head. When she’d said I always wore them, it wasn’t a question, she’d known. Somehow.
“Darcy Kinsley,” she said as if that name was supposed to explain everything.
“What?”
“You slept with her almost a year ago. She took great pride in telling me all about it, including the little detail that you’d told her about condoms.”
“Why?” I tried to remember Darcy. I remembered her from school, trouble-making bitch that she was, but I had nothing more recent than that. It must have been evident on my face because Alyssa laughed at something she saw there.
“Yeah, I figured it was like that. Apparently, it was at a masked ball on New Year’s Eve. She recognised you immediately because of your eyes. Such an odd colour blue; not many people have truly turquoise eyes like yours.” Alyssa seemed to smile at something unseen, before shaking herself back to attention. “Anyway, apparently you fucked her in the cloakroom. But not until you’d hunted through half the bags looking for a condom to do it, even though she swore she was on the pill.”
I swallowed heavily as her words jogged the memory of that night in my head. Truthfully, I had no fucking idea I knew the chick. She was just another blonde. Just another screw. Nothing special or memorable, except for the fact that we never removed our masks.
One thing didn’t make sense about Alyssa’s admission. “Why would she tell you all that though? It’s not like you’re friends. Or are you now?” Maybe that was one of the things I’d missed by being away.
Alyssa shook her head, the deep sorrow at the corners of her mouth back in force.
“No, we’re not friends. She told me because . . .” She stopped and stared at her hands for a second before bursting into tears “Because I . . . God, Dec, I—I tried to tell you . . . I really did . . . but . . .” She disintegrated into tears and giant, gulping sobs.
My arms were around her, comforting her, before I could even think of all the reasons why I shouldn’t.
“Hey, now, what’s wrong?” I asked, swiping the fresh tears from her eyes with the pads of my thumbs.
She shook her head and sobbed into my shoulder. “I wanted . . . I tried . . .” She was drawing deep gasps of air. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought she was having a panic attack. “You . . . you need—”
There was a knock on the door. I frowned at the interruption before I remembered the food that she’d ordered.
I unwrapped myself from Alyssa and grabbed my wallet. Because I’d left early and the cash exchange wasn’t open in Sydney airport, I hadn’t had a chance to get any money converted. When we’d landed, I’d been so focused on not letting Alyssa out of my sight the thought to get cash changed hadn’t even crossed my mind.
“Do you take Visa?” I asked the delivery boy after I opened the door for him.
He shook his head. “Cash only, sorry.”
“There’re some pounds in my purse,” Alyssa whispered. She was curled up into a ball on the couch. “It’s on the counter.”
I reached out to grab it, when Alyssa shouted. “No! Shit! Declan, stop!”
Practically flying from the couch, she leapt for me. She was inches from me, hand held out to grab her purse, but it was too late. I’d already found what she was clearly trying to stop me from seeing.
In her purse, in a clear pocket opposite her driver’s licence was a photo of a young girl. She easily could have been Alyssa. She had Alyssa’s face; the same nose and mouth. She even had the scraggly brown pigtails Alyssa used to wear on either side of her head.
It could have been Alyssa.
Except for the eyes.
Alyssa’s statement from earlier flooded back into my mind. “Not many people have truly turquoise eyes.”
Like mine.
I turned to stare at Alyssa. Her face was twisted into a mask of horror. She didn’t want me to see the photo. My jaw clenched. She didn’t want me to know. How the fuck could she keep it from me? For four fucking years, she’d kept this a fucking secret. Questions ran through my mind in an endless circle.
“Get out,” I hissed venomously.
I’d been right in the first place; Alyssa “small town” Dawson was fucking poison.
She looked up at me, her eyes wide and her body shaking. Tears ran freely down her cheeks and dripped to the floor even as her eyes welled over with fresh ones. She opened her mouth to speak, no doubt to spill more lies and bullshit, but I cut her off.
“Get the fuck out of my life!” I pushed past her and stalked up the stairs to the bedroom. The instant I was through, I slammed the door shut behind me and collapsed against it. I couldn’t deal with the revelation that had just been thrust upon me. It was likely that I’d never be able to fucking deal with it. How could I even begin to process something so huge? So monumentally enormous that my life had shifted completely off-axis in one instant.
I listened as Alyssa paid for whatever she’d ordered. There was no doubt in my mind that she would be apologising to the driver about the display—her cheeks probably burning with shame.
Good. She should have fucking told me!
She fucking owed somebody a great big apology, and I wasn’t in the mood to hear it. Her footfalls were slow and heavy as she made her way up the stairs and I could hear the sound of her tears, and her steady stream of sobs, but I ignored them. I could almost sense her through the door as her footsteps paused in front of the room. Not long after, they trailed into her room.
A few minutes later, I heard her on the stairs again, along with a thudding that suggested she was dragging her suitcase behind her. My anger must have made my hearing more acute, because I could have sworn I heard the sound of a key being dropped onto stainless steel counters and then the front door being pulled closed. Or maybe I just imagined, and hoped, that I could.
I couldn’t believe I hadn’t realised earlier. But then Alyssa had been very careful about keeping it hidden since the first time I’d spotted her. As I thought about the secrets and lies, the realisation that, against my better judgement, I’d fucked her with no protection smashed into me like a freight train. My stomach heaved emptily and I wondered if that’s what the previous night was for her. The chance for another child. A perfect matching fucking pair to the same unknowing, unwitting, arsehole fat
her. Maybe her boy, Flynn, wasn’t gay, just firing blanks and I was nothing more than a ready-made sperm bank she knew was up for anything.
The worst thing was that everything was crystal fucking clear. All the pieces of the jigsaw I hadn’t even known existed had clicked into place: the photo, the silences, the pauses, the strange half-completed words, the blow up about town scandals, Josh’s words at the airport, even the fucking scar. They all added up to one startling, fucking scary conclusion. That conclusion was Phoebe.
My fucking daughter.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: REGRET
I HAD NO idea how long I’d sat with my back against the door and my hands tugging through my hair, but eventually I realised that time had passed even though I hadn’t felt its passage. It was growing light again when reality eventually crept back in, shifting the bitter blackness that had taken up residence in my brain. When that left, regret steadily filled the gap.
I stood and threw the door open, darting down the staircase. With the new emotion building in my chest, I hoped that what I’d thought I’d heard was wrong; that Alyssa hadn’t left after all. Maybe she was just sitting downstairs at the dining table or on the couch. I pictured her like that, suitcase in front of her, tears in her eyes—but there. Ready to shout at me for being an arse, or plead with me to understand—but there. My hopes were dashed when I hit the bottom of the stairs. The whole space was too dark and too quiet to be occupied.
Even before I’d cleared the last step, I saw the key sitting on the kitchen island. A piece of paper sat next to it. Hoping it was a hotel name or phone number, or something—anything—that would help me get in contact with Alyssa, I grabbed at it. As I pulled the paper off the bench, a photo fluttered to the floor. Not just a photo, the photo. Of Phoebe.
Once more, I was caught by the oddity of my own blue-green eyes staring out from a miniature Alyssa. Grabbing my wallet, I tucked the photo safely away inside. I turned my attention to the piece of paper. At first I thought it was blank, but then I noticed two words, I’m sorry, in small, fine print along the bottom edge. The ink was splotched and leached into the paper around it, making it difficult to read. She’d obviously been crying when she wrote it.
Declan Reede: The Untold Story (Complete Series) Page 24
