Surrender (Forbidden #3)

by Michelle Betham

  My head shoots up at the sound of her voice and I smile as she reaches out to gently touch my cheek. ‘Sorry, baby, I guess I drifted off there for a few seconds.’

  ‘You’ve been doing that a lot lately.’

  I sigh quietly, because of course she must have noticed that. I know myself how distant I’ve been with her as Joey and Benni’s wedding draws nearer. I know myself how I’ve questioned this relationship, time and time again, for so many different reasons. But I think I’ve finally come around to the fact that she’s exactly what I need now. There are just one or two more hurdles to get over and then, maybe, if I just start to believe in us, we really could be OK.

  ‘Has this got anything to do with the fact she’s coming back here?’

  Her question takes me by surprise, although, it shouldn’t, not really. She always knew how much I loved Kira. She always knew no woman was ever gonna match up to her, and yet still she persisted, biding her time. And her time finally came. But she knows – she knows that Kira coming back to New York, that’s not something I can ignore. I just don’t think she needs to be concerned now. I can do this. I’m finally moving on. Yeah, I can do this.

  I take her hand and bring it to my mouth, kissing it lightly before I touch her waist and gently pull her forward. ‘That’s all over now, Helen, OK? Me and Kira, we’re done. She’s getting married, she’s living her new life, and that’s exactly what I want to do, too. I want to live my new life, with you. If you’ll still have me.’

  She smiles and strokes my cheek and her touch is nice. It’s comforting and safe and, yeah. It’s nice. Is it giving me butterflies I can’t control? No. Not yet. But that’ll come. I just need to give myself some time.

  ‘I’ve loved you for so long, Neal. You know that, don’t you?’

  I take her hand and curl my fingers around hers, leaning in to kiss her softly, and while kissing her still doesn’t set my heart on fire, I kinda need what she can give me. I’d all but shut myself off from her, put up barriers to protect myself from investing too much of myself into this relationship, but now – now I think I need to lower those barriers and let her into my life that little bit more. She deserves that. She didn’t deserve the way I’ve been treating her these past few months. ‘Yeah. I know.’

  I smile and I kiss her again and she pushes herself against me but the spark is still barely there. And I know I need to be patient because, for a few, beautiful months I was used to experiencing the kind of emotions I never even knew were possible. But maybe that wasn’t reality. Maybe that was never meant to be my life. Maybe that was nothing more than a wake-up call. Kira Blu came into my life to wake me up, to drag me out of my stupor and remind me that there was a life out there I should be living. I was just never meant to live it with her. All she was doing was getting me ready, for this, for what I have now. And that’s how I’m always going to think of it. It’s how I need to think of it.

  ‘We’re gonna be OK, Helen. And I’m sorry, if I’ve been distant and cold towards you lately, I’m just…’

  She shuts me up with a kiss and I rest my hand in the small of her back, keeping her pressed against me. ‘We’re gonna be OK. And that’s all I need to know, Neal.’

  I smile again, and she returns it, and I really am starting to feel like this could go somewhere now. But, like I said, there are still one or two hurdles to get over. And they can’t be ignored. If she wants me, then she has to take all of me, and that includes the club owner as well as the art dealer. I’m both men now. And if she can’t deal with that, then we might still have a problem.

  Kira

  ‘Hello, Kate.’

  I can’t say anything. Another piece of my past has turned up out of the blue; it’s found me, and I don’t know what to say; what to do. I want to ask what he’s doing here, now, after all this time, but no words are coming. Not yet.

  ‘Not much of a welcome you’re giving me here, I have to say.’

  ‘Why now, Kris? What are you doing here, now?’

  ‘Dad sent me, Kate.’

  ‘Stop calling me that.’

  ‘It’s your name.’

  ‘It used to be my name.’

  He leans over the bar and reaches out to tuck a strand of hair that’s fallen loose from my ponytail back behind my ear. ‘They know, Kate. What he did to you. They know.’

  I take his hand and pull it away from me, looking behind me to see where Jon is. I need him now, to help me deal with this because I’m not sure how long I can keep up the calm exterior I’m trying so hard to show. ‘How did you find me?’

  He looks down and picks up a coaster, turning it over and over between his fingers, his eyes fixed on the bar. ‘Let’s just say, your past caught up with you.’

  I’m so confused I can’t think straight, and I just want Jon, I want him here, I need him. Here. ‘What…? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Look, Kate, I’m… I’m not here to scare you or upset you. I’m your brother… and I know I… we shouldn’t have left things the way we…’

  ‘You come looking for me now?’

  I’m angry. That’s the overriding emotion I’m feeling here. Anger. I ran because a man they pushed me towards hurt me in a way I still struggle to take in, and nobody even tried to make contact, to see how I was; to find out why I really ran. And I know I did my best to make it difficult for anyone to find me, but the fact they didn’t even try… My own brother. Did they really care so little? All those years I didn’t let it bother me. Whatever they’d felt; whatever they’d believed, it hadn’t bothered me. It bothers me now.

  ‘Things were very different then. You have to believe me.’

  ‘I have to believe nothing,’ I hiss, leaning forward so my face is right up in his. My brother. The one man I’d always looked up to, until even he showed me how little he really cared about me.

  He steps back from the counter, but his eyes never leave mine. ‘I’m sorry, Kate. Really, I am, because if we’d known…’

  ‘You’d, what? Have been on my side? Believed what I’d said? Taken my word over his?’ I shake my head, and still my gaze never leaves his. ‘No, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t have done that…’

  ‘Kate…’

  ‘Stop calling me that. Please, Kris…’ I take a long, deep breath and quickly glance around the bar. Everyone’s continuing to eat their lunch and enjoy their drinks and that’s good, I don’t want anyone here to know that my whole other life has invaded this one. ‘Come on. Let’s do this somewhere more private.’

  He follows me behind the bar and down the corridor that leads out into the back yard which is, thankfully, free of anyone else at the minute. We’re alone, but that won’t last for long. People come out here all the time, and I’m not ready to explain just who Kris is right now. Not yet.

  I close the back door behind me and look at the brother I haven’t seen him in almost eleven years. He looks so different to how I remember him. A lot different, but then, I doubt I look like the sister he hasn’t seen in over a decade. He’s older, obviously, and he seems bigger, like he’s been working out, and the beard is new. But he’s still my brother. And all of a sudden, memories of us as kids come flooding forward and I clamp a hand over my mouth as tears start to stream down my face. I’m in shock; it’s like my world has suddenly just frozen and the reality of what’s happening here, it’s hit me head-on, knocking me sideways.

  ‘Oh Jesus, Kate…’

  He pulls me into his arms and I cling on so tight I don’t know if I’m hurting him or not, but he keeps me there, in his arms, stroking my hair and whispering that it’s OK. It’s all going to be OK. Maybe one day I’ll actually start to believe that it can be. I thought it already was, now, but his turning up here like this – that changes everything.

  I stay there, just holding him, for what feels like a long time before I pull back and wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, leaning back against the wall to steady myself and letting out the longest, deepest breath before I speak. ‘You sa
id my past’s caught up with me.’ I look up to meet his gaze. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘You, and Jon…’ He digs his hands into his pockets and drops his gaze for a couple of beats before he raises his head, and his eyes are back on mine. And I still can’t believe he’s here, that more pieces of my messed-up past are slowly coming back to haunt me. ‘Why didn’t you just tell us, Kate?’

  ‘Kris, I… I need you to stop calling me Kate, OK? I’m not… I haven’t been Kate for a long time. Not since…’

  I stop talking, and it’s my turn to drop my gaze as a feeling of utter defeat swamps me.

  ‘Not since he raped you?’

  Hearing those words come out of my brother’s mouth makes me feel sick.

  ‘Look at me, kiddo. Come on.’

  I slowly raise my gaze and his eyes… I’d forgotten how much I’d loved my brother. I’d forgotten how he’d used to protect me. Could he have protected me from all the shit that happened? If I’d just trusted him; talked to him?

  ‘You should have said something. You should have come to me…’

  ‘Running was the only option, Kris.’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘Yes. It was.’

  He comes closer, and I just want to throw myself back into his arms and be transported to a time when we were young and innocent and thought we could change the world. Instead, I let the world change me. I made a mess of everything.

  ‘You and Jon. You were having an affair, right? Back then.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Simon.’

  ‘Simon? How…? How did he know?’

  ‘He knew all along. Apparently.’

  ‘Kris, look, I… this is crazy. This isn’t making any sense and I have to…’

  ‘He knew, and he didn’t care. That’s what he said. He said he knew you were sleeping with Jon but he didn’t care. He said he treat you like crap because that was all you deserved; that he only stayed with you because of the business and our families’ connections and what he stood to gain from that. And we’ve only just found all of this out because…’

  I want to stop listening, but I can’t. I can’t switch off, can’t stop the words from breaking my heart and stabbing my soul, and it’s hard. It’s so hard to hear.

  ‘Something happened, Kate…’

  I throw him a look and he sighs, raking a hand through his dirty-blonde hair.

  ‘What the hell am I supposed to call you, huh?’

  ‘If you know everything you claim to know, Kris; if you’ve managed to find me, if you’ve done that, then you’ll know my name is Kira now. You’ll know everything about me, so, please, stop calling me by a name I haven’t used in over eleven years.’

  ‘You’re my sister…’

  ‘Yeah. I am. I just have a different name now.’

  He throws back his head and sighs again. ‘OK. OK, I get it. I know why you don’t want to talk about this, I understand that, I really do.’ He moves closer still and I slowly look up until our eyes meet again. ‘Something happened, Kira… Jesus, I can’t get used to calling you that…’

  ‘What happened, Kris?’

  He briefly bows his head, his hands still firmly buried in his pockets.

  ‘Kris?’

  He looks up, and I feel my heart start to beat so loud and so hard it’s painful.

  ‘He hurt her. His wife, he – he hurt her.’

  I feel my stomach twist up into the tightest knot as bile rises in my throat.

  ‘And she told someone. She went to the police she… she told someone… Jesus! Why couldn’t you have just done the fucking same?’

  I feel more tears start to burn my eyes and I turn my head away slightly. ‘What happened, Kris?’ I’m surprising myself with how calm I’m managing to remain. Or maybe I’m just slowly shutting down, I don’t know. Everything’s starting to feel slightly unreal.

  ‘He was arrested, and then the floodgates opened, it all came out. He was spouting vitriol like he didn’t fucking care, blaming your affair with Jon for everything, for turning him into the man he became…’

  ‘Oh, Jesus…’ I whisper, closing my eyes and laying my head back against the wall. This isn’t happening, it can’t… it isn’t happening.

  ‘And when he admitted what he did to you… when he tried to say you’d brought it on yourself…’

  I keep my eyes closed, but I don’t say anything. I can’t. I don’t know what to say.

  ‘Mum, Dad, Simon’s family – Jon’s family, they’re all devastated, kid. And Dad, he blames himself for everything…’

  ‘It wasn’t his fault,’ I whisper.

  ‘He thinks it was.’

  I finally open my eyes and look at my brother.

  ‘I just wanted to kick the bastard into the next century. I wanted to pull him apart and rip him to pieces for what he did to you – what he took from us, as a family.’

  ‘I’ve felt like that every day of my life for years now.’

  My voice is still barely above a whisper. But at the same time a strange kind of calm is beginning to wash over me; a sense of finality, almost.

  ‘Dad’s in a bad way, Ka… Kira.’ He once more looks down for a couple of beats, and when he raises his gaze there’s a small smile on his face. ‘Do I really have to call you that now?’

  ‘Does it make you uncomfortable, calling me by my escort name?’

  He says nothing for a second, and that’s because I’m making him confront something he probably doesn’t want to even think about. But it’s a part of my life that was very important to me. It’s a part of my life I owe my survival to. That part of my life saved me.

  ‘You didn’t have to do that. You didn’t have to become that.’

  ‘Yes, Kris, I did.’

  He turns his head away and runs a hand back through his hair. ‘He was refused bail. So he’s on remand, until the trial starts. And they’d like to speak to you, Kira. The police.’ He turns to look at me again. ‘What he did to you he did to her, too, and I know you won’t want him to get away with that. He needs to pay, Kira.’

  ‘I’m not coming home.’

  ‘Dad, he – he’d really like to see you. And Mum, she’s in pieces. She just needs to know you’re OK.’

  ‘And for over a decade they didn’t give a shit, Kris…’

  ‘We were wrong, OK? We didn’t try to look for you because you’d made it very clear you didn’t want to be found, but we were wrong. We should have tried. And I regret what we did – what we didn’t do – every day of my fucking life. Believe me, Kira, I never stopped loving you. You’re my fucking sister. And we were wrong. We were so, so wrong.’

  I drop my gaze and stare at the ground. I don’t want to relive any of this, but I might have to, if I want him to pay for what he did. For what he was never going to stop doing. I can’t let him get away with that.

  ‘You don’t have to come home, kid. You don’t. Nobody is going to make you do that, not if you really don’t want to, but…’

  ‘I don’t.’

  His eyes meet mine again, and I think he understands. I hope he does. ‘Then I’m not going to make you. But the police, they’d really like to speak to you. It would help, it really would.’

  ‘I’ll speak to them. Soon. OK?’

  ‘Just tell them what happened, Kira. Tell them the truth.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know? What really happened? I mean, you’ve obviously heard his side, but, don’t you want to hear it from me, too?’

  ‘I don’t think I could do it.’ His voice is shaking, and only now am I beginning to realise how hard this must have been for him, to come here, and face me, after all this time. After hearing what he’s heard. ‘I don’t think I could listen to you tell me what he did to you. Hearing him say what he said, that was bad enough. But to hear you tell me what he did…’

  The words seem to choke him, and he coughs into his hand, turning his head away from me, but when he turns back to face me he’s crying, and I can’t bea
r it. This is killing me.

  ‘Kira?’

  I swing around at the sound of Jon’s voice, and his expression is one of shock as he sees Kris standing there.

  ‘Kris?’

  My brother looks up at Jon, and I can’t read either of their faces. I’m completely numb.

  ‘Everyone knows, Jon.’

  He looks at me. ‘Knows what?’

  Kris tells him exactly what he’s just told me, and I take Jon’s hand and hold it tight, feeling his fingers squeeze mine in an almost vice-like grip as he listens; as he tries to take it all in.

  ‘We tried to find you, Jon,’ Kris says, and I can’t help but notice the tears still falling slowly down my brother’s handsome face. ‘After he – after he told us you and Kate… you and Kira… after he told us you’d been sleeping together we tried to find you, because we knew that if we found you – you were the only link to her we had. So, when we found out you’d come over to America, your parents, they told me about the house you have here in town. It was the only hope, the only lead we had.’

  Jon squeezes my hand again and I lean into him.

  ‘I’m gonna go move the flights back,’ he murmurs into my ear, kissing me quickly. ‘Do you want Kris to come with us? To New York?’

  I nod, I don’t even hesitate. Yes. I want my brother to come with us. Now he’s here we need to sort this out. I need to finish this.

  ‘OK.’ He touches my cheek and kisses me again. ‘You alright?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  He heads inside and I turn to look back at Kris. His eyes are still full of tears as he runs a hand along the back of his neck, but I can’t cry. Not anymore. I’m done with the crying.

  ‘Is he OK?’ Kris asks.

  I fold my arms against myself and walk over to him. ‘He just doesn’t want to have to go through this again. It’s hard for him, you know? We went through so much together…’ I trail off, because they don’t know the half of what really went on; what me and Jon went through. And I don’t want them to know. They don’t need to. They know enough of the truth.

  ‘I really am sorry, Kira. That we made it so you felt like you couldn’t come to us.’