Declan Reede: The Untold Story (Complete Series)

by Michelle Irwin

  I tapped gently on the window, hoping I could wake her from what I assumed was a nightmare. The curtain slid back to reveal Alyssa’s confused face staring at me. She opened the window a little.

  “Declan, what are you still doing here?”

  Fucking Josh. I knew he wouldn’t tell her. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back out, so that I can explain.”

  She rubbed her forehead as she assessed me.

  “Dec, what . . .” She trailed off with a sigh, as if whatever she was going to ask hadn’t been that important. When she continued, she sounded exasperated, as if I’d been wearing on her last nerve and had just destroyed it. “I’m not going to talk to you about this while you’re drunk. Can you just ring me later or something?”

  Her voice held the same finality I’d heard so many times when we were kids. The confirmation we’d reached tipping point and I’d pushed her too far. It almost felt like she was about to tell me to get out of her life just after I’d realised I needed her in mine. “W-will you talk to me if I call?”

  “Yes.” She frowned and started to slide the window closed. “For some reason, I can’t avoid you. Even when I want to.” Her words floated to me less than a second before the window clicked shut.

  Bile rose in my throat. I didn’t think she’d intended for me to hear the statement, but it was impossible to ignore now that I had. She wanted to avoid me. The words were knives to my heart, slashing at the still-fresh wounds on my soul. I couldn’t take it anymore. Certain aspects of my life might have been fucked up, but I’d never felt so much—good and bad—as I had in the last few days and I was ready to turn it all off again if that’s what she wanted. “Fuck it!”

  Without looking back, I turned and headed for my car. The thought solidified that maybe I should just give up and go home—take whatever consequence was coming to me.

  If she wanted to avoid me, that was fine by me. I would just have to cope with it the best way I knew. My life had been empty, but so had I. As far as I was concerned, empty beat the constant fucking ache in my heart since the moment I’d seen Alyssa on the plane.

  The night was filled with heavy, black clouds, just like the ones that surrounded my fucked-up soul. Even though I prayed that they’d hold long enough for me to make my retreat, I’d barely reached the end of Josh’s street before it started to spit. As if the sky itself wanted to take its shot at me, the raindrops grew heavier with each step I took and by the time I was halfway back to the car, it was bucketing down. Fat drops hit the road in loud splats, and soaked through my clothes in no time.

  By the time I reached my car, I was soaking wet and pissed off. I threw open the door and grabbed the second bottle of whiskey from the passenger seat. With barely a consideration of all the reasons I shouldn’t, I threw back a mouthful.

  Instead of helping, and easing the pain, it just reminded me of Alyssa’s ridiculous rules for trying for an us. A fresh wave of nausea rolled through my stomach. Even the booze couldn’t give me comfort now.

  Alyssa had charged back into my life, fucked everything up and now she wanted to avoid me. Worse, I couldn’t even soothe the ache in the usual way.

  Fuck her.

  Holding the bottle of whiskey by the neck, I drew back my arm and tossed it at the kerb across the road. The loud crash as it hit the cement offered a momentary salve that lasted only as long as the sound hung in the air. I wanted to do more damage. Needed to burn down the world, to lash out and tear open scars at least the size of the one on my heart.

  Just as it had with every other crossroads in my life, part of me screamed to run to get the fuck away from it all. Before I’d even considered what I was doing, I was in the car and the engine was running.

  It was only when I put the car in drive that I stopped. I froze because I didn’t want to run. Not this time. I wanted her. More than that, I wanted to deserve her. With a new determination burning through me, I glanced back in the direction of Josh’s house.

  “I will earn you back, Lys,” I said, as if she’d be able to hear me despite the distance between us. “Whatever it takes.”

  Putting the car in first, I drove away even as a plan for winning Alyssa back formulated in my alcohol-addled brain.

  Without really planning where I wanted to go, I headed for my parents’ house. No doubt Mum would be waiting to lecture me like I was a teenager again, but I’d deal with it. I’d take all the shit in the world for Alyssa. And I’d take it all twice for the little girl with turquoise eyes.

  For my daughter.

  For Phoebe.

  It was her name that burned through my heart and a vision of her that danced behind my eyes as something darted onto the road in front of me. I smashed my foot against the brake. The rain slicking the bitumen made it difficult to wrestle the Monaro back onto the road.

  My heart was in my throat as I lost control of the car and it went into a slide. I tried to correct but pushed too far in the opposite direction and the tail spun loose. With my usual instincts dulled by the whiskey, I couldn’t stop the car from pirouetting into the opposite lane just as a pair of headlights came around the corner in front of me.

  I lifted my arm up to shield my eyes from the light seconds before I heard the impact.

  I lurched forward against my seatbelt with a sickening crunch.

  Seconds later, everything went black.

  THE STORY CONTINUES IN DECEIVE

  DECEIVE

  DECLAN REEDE: THE UNTOLD STORY

  (Book 2)

  CONTENTS:

  CHAPTER ONE: WAKING UP

  CHAPTER TWO: PIECING IT TOGETHER

  CHAPTER THREE: WALK AWAY

  CHAPTER FOUR: REPAIRS

  CHAPTER FIVE: WILD ROSES

  CHAPTER SIX: GOLDEN ARCHES

  CHAPTER SEVEN: CLUELESS

  CHAPTER EIGHT: JAMMED

  CHAPTER NINE: COLLAPSE

  CHAPTER TEN: INTERUPTIONS

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: IT’S SEMANTICS

  CHAPTER TWELVE: A CHANGE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: A NIGHT OUT

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: PRELUDE TO A DATE

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: QUEENSLAND RACEWAY

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: LIFE’S A DRAG

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: IT’S ALL ABOUT THE STRATEGY

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: BREAKTHROUGH

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: WIGGLE ROOM

  CHAPTER TWENTY: INNOCENT TRUTH

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: DADDY ISSUES

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: QUALITY TIME

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: MY APOCOLYPE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: DO-OVER

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: CREATIVE VISULISATION

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: FOR WHOSE BENEFIT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: WINE AND DINE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: ALONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT

  CHAPTER ONE: WAKING UP

  A BANGING YANKED me from dreams of Alyssa. Of her panting beneath me as I kissed her. Of her body pressing against me.

  The sound smashed through me, echoing the throbbing in my head. Or maybe it was the other way around; maybe my head beat a rhythm in response to the banging. I didn’t fucking know. All I knew was that it was too fucking early to be awake and I didn’t want to be bothered by anyone. Not when it felt like my whole body had been passed through a meat grinder.

  Twice.

  “Fuck off!” I called into my pillow, not giving a shit who it was. I wasn’t interested in a conversation with anyone. Not until I’d had a handful of pain pills and at least another twelve hours of sleep. Maybe another bottle of whiskey.

  When the door opened regardless of my wishes, I groaned in complaint. I lifted myself just far enough off my pillow to pull it out from under me and stuff it over my head, blocking out all light and sound. The movement stabbed at my ribs, which were sore along one side from multiple injuries. First a crash on the racetrack, and then a fall while I was in London trying to recover from the accident. A cry of agony slipped from me as my other side joined
in the party, sending a cascade of pain rolling through my body before stealing my breath away entirely.

  Unable to breathe through the torture, I stilled and did what I could to will the blinding ache away. One thing was certain, there was no way I was moving again—not even to get painkillers.

  “Declan.” My father’s voice boomed through my skull, reminding me that I wasn’t home in Sydney.

  Instead, I was up in Queensland. Back in Browns Plains, the one place I’d sworn for so long to never return to. All in an attempt to woo back Alyssa, my one-time best friend turned ex-girlfriend. I’d spent so long pretending not to care about her that I’d almost convinced myself it was true. The wake-up call had come in the form of a battering on the racetrack by my subconscious mind. It was almost comical how pussy-whipped I’d become in the week I’d been home. I’d done almost everything she’d asked me to, and in response, she’d spurned me.

  A groan rose in my throat as everything that had happened in the last few weeks came flooding back in. When it had, the aches in my body seemed meaningless compared to the ones in my heart. I’d been gone for so long, denying the parts of myself that wanted to think of Alyssa, that I’d missed so much in the lives of those I’d left behind. My thoughts turned to my son, who’d passed away days after his birth, and had been mourned by everyone but me because of the fucking secret-keepers, who included my own damn parents. It was a good thing my eyes were screwed shut under the pillow because otherwise they might have filled with tears.

  My mind turned from death to life. To Phoebe, my daughter; already a little girl, even though I’d barely known about her for two weeks. I hadn’t spent more than a few hours with her, and I didn’t know whether I’d be able to after the way Alyssa had left the previous afternoon.

  My throat grew clammy at the thought. The recollection of my attempt to make her see that I was here to stay and the subsequent anger that had burned through me in response to her walking away from me came crashing back. Fuck! I wanted to go back to sleep and forget about how I’d lost her yet again. I wanted to rush to her and beg her to take me back.

  “Declan!” Dad repeated my name all too fucking loudly, his tone pissy and simmering with heat.

  “I thought I said fuck off,” I uttered in a breathless murmur before my voice was stolen by a fresh groan.

  The pillow was ripped from my hands, causing a stabbing pain to radiate through my ribs again. I growled as it sailed across the room.

  Fucking prick.

  “I cannot believe the stunts you pulled last night. What were you thinking? Do you know what it could do to your career if you were caught? Not to mention what people might say about your mother and me with the way you arrived home. Do you have any sense at all?”

  Taking my time in order to avoid more pain—not that it really helped—I rolled over onto my stomach to stop the influx of light burning my eyes even through my closed eyelids.

  “What are you talking about?” Every syllable hurt. Every breath wheezed. My head still throbbed and I couldn’t concentrate. What the fuck happened last night?

  The absolute last thing I needed was a lecture. My father’s tone made it clear one was coming regardless of whether I was willing to listen. Arguing with him would only delay the inevitable and quite possibly result in an explosion of anger from one of us. Probably me. It was better for me to lie there and at least pretend to pay attention. Even if I was really thinking about everything except what he had to say.

  While he started to speak about some shit, I did my best to concentrate on his words but failed miserably. I opened one eye, wincing against the harsh light, and raised my head slightly off the bed. Ignoring the shooting pain in my sides as I turned, I looked over to where my father stood watching me with an expectant look on his face. With a groan, I closed my eyes and dropped my head again.

  “Have you listened to a single word I’ve said?” he snapped.

  I shook my head against the mattress. My dark auburn hair, overdue for a cut, fell into my eyes as I did.

  A sigh escaped him seconds before he sat on the bed next to me. The jerk of the mattress as he sat down sent a fresh wave of pain rolling through my body.

  “Son of a bitch,” I muttered under my breath.

  “Honestly, you’re old enough to know better than this stuff.”

  I opened one eye again after something landed on the bed beside my arm. An empty scotch bottle met my eye and the throbbing in my head made a little more sense.

  How much did I drink?

  “Your mother explained how much you hurt her when we saw you in Sydney. I’d have thought you’d have learned your lesson about alcohol by now.”

  Even though I was barely awake, I was cognisant enough not to admit that it was a hell of a lot more than alcohol in my system when I’d apparently destroyed a cafe in Sydney rather than let Mum talk to me about Alyssa.

  “And drunk-driving? What the heck were you thinking? And as if all that wasn’t bad enough, coming home in the arms of that boy was the last straw. What will the neighbours think?”

  Like I give a shit what your neighbours think. Instead of letting the words fly from me, I swallowed them down. My ribs protested the action. In fact, they protested every breath and tiny movement. I had no idea why they were so much worse than they had been any other day since I’d injured them—why the other side now ached just as badly. I only hoped the pain meant they were healing and not getting worse.

  While I focused on the pain, more of Dad’s words made it through my treacle-like mind and my confusion grew. Drink-driving?

  As if a dimmer switch was being turned in my head, a little more of the picture grew clear. I’d gone to the Gold Coast after Alyssa had run from me when I’d made a reference to a future together. Then I’d . . .

  Fuck, he’s right.

  I had driven drunk, hadn’t I? The fact was I couldn’t remember much of what’d happened after I’d stopped at the bottle-o for two bottles of whiskey. All I’d wanted to do was drown the bitterness that the sight of Alyssa walking away had burned into me.

  Illuminated by the recollection, a memory niggled of kissing Alyssa. Even as it clarified, I knocked it down. There was no way Alyssa would have allowed me to kiss her that way under the rules she’d set when I’d asked whether we could try once more. She certainly wouldn’t have kissed me back like my mind taunted. It had to be a dream, an extension of the dream I’d been having when Dad woke me maybe. Only, it didn’t feel like a dream—my hands burned with the memory of tracing them along her body. My lips, though dry as fucking sand, felt heated and worked over.

  While Dad droned on about responsibility and stupidity, I spent a minute going over Alyssa’s rules again to be sure there wasn’t something I’d missed that would explain the memory of the kiss.

  First, one date for every psychiatrist session I had. Second, I had to wait for her to be ready to take things further, I couldn’t fuck random chicks or I’d lose her forever.

  And lastly, no using alcohol as a salve.

  Oh shit!

  I’d broken at least one of her rules—I’d drunk alcohol. To excess and in order to forget a problem. Fuck!

  Worse, I’d had so much to drink that I didn’t even know if I’d broken her second rule. The memory of Alyssa’s warm body beneath me, of her honey-gold eyes meeting my turquoise ones in the instant before we kissed, of her breasts pillowing against my chest, made me think that something had happened while I was drunk. But what?

  Maybe it was just a dream. I’d had enough of those about her lately. The theory made some sense. After all, the memory of my hands searching her familiar curves while she lay beneath me with her mahogany hair fanned behind her could only have happened in a dream. It just . . . felt too real in my mind for that to be the case. I wanted it to be real, but all I could do was hope to hell that I hadn’t done something stupid with a stranger and had just imagined Alyssa in her place. If only I could remember a little more of the night.

 
; As I nursed my aching head and sore body, I wondered whether Alyssa had a point about alcohol. Drinking so much only got me into trouble; it had certainly never done me any favours.

  Something else Dad had said finally registered as I finished berating myself for being such a cock-up. “Wait! What fucking boy?”

  “You’d have to ask your mother,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “All I know is that he all but carried you in from your car. Which is a mess, by the way.”

  At his words, I threw myself out of my bed. Even though my ribs and side stabbed me with even the smallest movement I made, and my head felt like I’d had cotton wool shoved into every spare inch, I had to see what he meant.

  My baby? A mess?

  I dragged my tired, sore arse through the house as fast as I could with the agony I was in and threw open the front door to get a look at the damage Dad was talking about.

  At the sight, my stomach fell to my feet and I almost dropped to my knees. Along the driver’s side of my once pristine black Monaro was a huge-arse scratch that went from fender to quarter panel. Around the main damage, the black paint was torn away to expose the bare metal underneath.

  My lip quivered as I took in the image of the side mirror hanging on by little more than the electrics. My baby was thoroughly fucked.

  “What the fuck happened?” I cried out as I headed back into the house, slamming the door shut on the sight behind me. If I looked at it for one more second, I’d lose it. I was used to seeing cars in various states of disrepair, but other people’s cars. Not my fucking Monaro.