by West, Jade
There was no self-consciousness inside me at all as he bundled the sheets up in the laundry. I was still grinning hard as we brushed our teeth in tandem and I smoothed my ragged hair down into some semblance of order.
We were having breakfast and watching the dogs charging around in the yard when conversation inevitably made its way around to the day before – but today it landed on somewhere it hadn’t stopped before.
It landed on Nicola grabbing him in the hallway before we left the apartment yesterday.
“She said I need to talk to Yasmin Boyle,” Lucas said, and pulled a face of confusion. “Do you have any clue what the hell Yasmin Boyle would have to talk to me about? I haven’t seen her in years.”
I shrugged. “She doesn’t like Maya. She was trying to tell me so at girls’ night, and then again at Amy Miller’s wedding, but I didn’t listen. I couldn’t bring myself to hear it. Didn’t seem relevant.”
“She doesn’t like Maya?” he asked, and his confusion intensified. “They used to be great friends when we got together.”
“Not anymore,” I told him. “She definitely doesn’t like her now. She said I owe her nothing. She said neither of us do.”
He finished up his toast and grabbed his phone, and I stared over as he flicked through his contacts.
“She’s in Newcastle now, I think. I don’t have her number.”
“I’ll get it.”
I grabbed my phone from my bag, and pinged Nicola since she must have had some contact details to get her to girls’ night.
I also asked her what was so important about Lucas speaking to Yasmin Boyle, but all I got back was a number and a Get Lucas to ask her himself.
Under normal circumstances, I’d have pushed her harder, but she turned the conversation into a run down on how I was doing, and when I was through with replying Lucas had already grabbed her number from me and made the call. He was on the phone to her when I finished up answering Nicola, and I messaged my parents and Vicky to let them know I was doing ok while he was speaking.
I didn’t listen, because it wasn’t my place, just kept my attention on my own conversations. But it seemed it wouldn’t have made all that much difference to his privacy if I had have done.
He looked puzzled as hell as he hung up the call and came back to me at the kitchen table.
“She wants to tell me in person. She says phone or text doesn’t cut it.”
I tipped my head. “But she’s in Newcastle, isn’t she? When is she down next?”
He reached for the cigarettes. “Not anytime soon,” he said, and lit one up.
This time I decided not to join him, and left the pack alone.
“Maybe I can push Nicola. She was trying to chat through something with me after Amy Miller’s wedding, but I didn’t want to listen.”
He shook his head. “I think I need to speak to Yasmin herself. I have a weird feeling about it. Dunno what. Slightly spooky.”
I smirked. “Not like you to believe in psychic intuition.”
He let out a laugh. “No. But I do believe in secrets and bullshit revelations.”
He barely smoked any of his cigarette before he stubbed it out in the plant pot by the side.
“You could head up to see her,” I said. “I mean, she’d give you her address, I’m sure.”
I expected he would brush it off as a no-go, such a long drive away across country, but he didn’t. He looked out of the window as he weighed it up, pulling at his beard in the way he so often did when he was thinking.
His eyes were the deepest mottled green in the sunlight, and I stared. Stared and watched him pondering.
Hell, I loved him so much.
Hell, I wanted to know what on earth was so important that Yasmin Boyle had to say.
So did he.
“I could get back before sleep time tonight,” he said. “And I could take the dogs in the car.”
“So do it,” I told him. “If you really think there’s something weird and worth knowing, then do it today.” I paused and weighed it up. “I mean, I could come with you. For the drive.”
His eyes were hard on mine. “Are you sure you’d be up to it? I could drop you back with your parents and pick you up later. Or I could stay, Anna. I’m not about to leave you anytime soon.”
I gave him a fake scowl at that. “No china doll, remember?”
He laughed, then got straight to his feet. “Alright then, little miss filth. Let’s head up to Newcastle for the grand revelation.”
So we did.
We drove up to Newcastle, stopping on the way to let Bill and Ted chase their ball.
We stopped for lunch at the services and talked about the world and life and the past decade en route.
We found Yasmin Boyle’s sweet little Newcastle terrace house easily enough by using the sat nav, and pulled up on her driveway, and she welcomed us in with a nervous smile and sat us both down for a cup of tea.
And then he asked her.
He asked her what the hell he needed to drive all the way to Newcastle to hear from her, and what the hell she could possibly know that had Nicola Henshaw grabbing his arm in our hallway.
She cleared her throat, and she looked him in the eyes, and took a breath.
My belly did a weird lurch, because I could see it.
I could see that what was coming was going to be every bit as serious as the build-up promised.
“I didn’t tell anyone the full story,” she told him. “Not even Nicola Henshaw, I just told her bits.”
“Go on,” he said. “Don’t hold anything back now.”
She nodded. “I’ll tell you everything,” she said, and pulled out her phone, and called up a screenshot and handed it over.
Lucas’s eyes were wide and wild before I’d seen it, and he swallowed, and paled, and it was enough to have my fingers shaking before I took the handset from him.
But his eyes were not nearly so wild as they were when she started talking.
Neither were mine.
Chapter Forty
Lucas
I managed to keep my shit together until Monday morning.
I talked with Anna happily enough all the way back from Newcastle, even though we were both frazzled to fuck. I cuddled up to her that night until she was asleep, then slipped away from her just long enough to use my laptop at the bottom of the bed.
Sweet fucking Jesus, I was glad I did.
I was back beside her when the alarm went off. We ate breakfast together and I dropped her at work when she insisted on going in as normal. I watched my beautiful minx smile back over her shoulder and blow me a kiss before she stepped in through the door and I blew her one right back.
And then I took my action.
Hell knows, there was enough of it to take.
I pulled up in the car park behind Lewton’s Consultancy and logged into my work office account from my laptop. I dropped a message to my team, saying I was too sick to make it in for the day, and then called up my Sebastian Maitland shitstorm from my embedded system files.
The police would do nothing with Anna’s word against his, and I knew it. I’d have relished the thrill of hunting him down and tearing his dick from his balls, but it wouldn’t cut it. Not to a son of a bitch like him.
Pain hurts most when it slams its punch straight into the heart – and Sebastian Maitland’s heart was firmly fixed in one position. So, I took it from him. I cut his fucking heart from his chest with one swift swipe and pressed send from my anonymous email server to seal his fucking fate.
And then I took my action, round two.
I drove out to Maya’s village and waited until she was back after Millie’s school run before I pulled up onto her driveway and stepped up to her door.
Holy fuck, I hammered that door to let her know I was out there.
To say she wasn’t expecting me was an understatement. She jolted back in shock when she answered, and then her shock turned to warmth with a glowing fake smile on her face.
; Confused.
She was so fucking confused.
Smiling.
Fake.
Trying to fathom what the hell I was thinking. Doing. Wanting.
Just like fucking usual.
Just like the whole last fucking decade.
Her expression changed when she saw the rigidity of my shoulders as I stepped over the threshold and headed on through to her living room. There’s no way she could’ve missed the bristle of disgust in my jaw when I turned to face her.
“Well?” she said, as though I was the asshole, just like usual. “What’s with the impromptu call? I could’ve done some coffee, but some notice would’ve been nice. Millie isn’t home from school until three.”
“Yasmin Boyle is the impromptu fucking call,” I said. “I went to Newcastle yesterday. We had quite a chat.”
I saw the flash of fear in her eyes at Yasmin’s name, but she shrugged it off and pretended to busy herself picking some of Millie’s toys up from the sofa. “Yasmin Boyle talks a load of shit sometimes, Lucas. I hope you didn’t make that whole bloody journey just to hear her bullshit stories.”
“No,” I said, and pulled my phone from my pocket. “It seems I made that whole bloody journey to hear yours.”
I called up the screenshot and handed it over, and if I’d have had any concerns whatsoever that there was anything misleading about Yasmin Boyle’s version of events, Maya’s expression of guilty horror in that one heartbeat of recognition would have sealed the deal forever.
“It’s not quite how it looks,” she said, but her cheeks were already burning bright fucking pink.
“Really?!” I spat. “Because it’s looking pretty fucking bad from where I’m standing. So how about you fucking enlighten me?”
She dithered, and shrugged, and then the look on her face came up that I’d seen a million times over. Victim Maya. Poor Maya. Poor innocent Maya being judged so bad.
She sat herself down on the sofa, and acted like the whole world was on her shoulders, but this time I was done. I was done with the whole fucking lot of it and everything she stood for.
“Just remember before we start this,” she whined. “Just remember that we got Millie out of it. We have Millie, and she’s everything!”
“Don’t fucking tell me what to remember!” I hissed. “Just fucking tell me what happened!”
She took some deep breaths and told me I should sit down to hear her out, but I didn’t want to sit down. I was edgy as fuck, hands in my pockets, pacing, pacing, fucking pacing. My heart was thumping and my gut was wrenching, because no matter how much you know someone’s a self-centred bitch at the core of them, it’s another thing to have it slammed in your face beyond all denial.
I watched her read through the screenshot over and over, my gut twisting a little harder every time. Then, finally, when I guess she knew there was no easy way out, she shook her head and dropped my phone on the coffee table.
“It’s quite a story,” she said, and I cursed under my breath.
“Go on, then. Get started.”
She took a deep breath, faking a trembling bottom lip that would have usually moved mountains in guilt, but not this time, and then she started.
“We went to Psychic Showdowns, that big fair over by Leominster, me, Dawn, Hannah and Yasmin. It was a weekend thing and we’d been getting ready for it for months, doing all the workshops and preparing for the classes and everything.” She paused. “You must remember what I was like back then, Lucas. Psychic spirituality was my whole life. Always chasing the higher purpose and applying it to the road ahead. That was my thing. Dawn’s too. And Hannah’s.”
“I remember plenty about what you were like back then, Maya,” I told her. “Just carry the fuck on, please.”
She shook her head a bit more, and I saw those victim’s tears brewing, but this time I wasn’t having it. Not any of her fucking bullshit. Not anymore.
“It was an intense weekend,” she said. “We were all sinking really deep into the therapies and the courses, and part of that was having a session with Kade Riley. You remember Kade Riley? You must remember Kade Riley?”
I stared blankly. “Who the fuck is Kade Riley?”
“The psychic guru, Kade Riley. The guy who has the TV show and does the weekend courses across the world. He’s incredible.”
“I don’t have a fucking clue who Kade Riley is,” I told her. “What the hell does it matter?”
“BECAUSE HE WAS THERE!” she snapped. “Because I’d been aching to see him for years! And he was THERE! And we were able to have a session with him, one on one with Kade fucking Riley! You can’t substitute that, Lucas! He was too good!”
I was still staring blankly, not quite believing just how much she was still buying into the fluffy New Age bullshit she’d been into for years.
“So?” I asked. “How does that apply to you being a lying fucking bitch, Maya? How the fuck does it apply to you fucking up my whole entire fucking life?!”
She breathed in deep, and there it was again, the whiny little victim part of her shining out through her eyes.
“Because he told me our destiny was together! Me and you!” Her stare was crazy intense. “I asked him to read my cards, and he did. He read them and told me about the man in my life who’d bear me a child and be my world, and how the road would be hard, and it would involve betrayal, but we’d make it. He said one night together would lead to a whole new life, and it was with someone I knew I had feelings for… someone I couldn’t resist…”
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!” I yelled, then cursed again under my breath. I kept it steady, forced myself to keep pacing, and she was shaking her head, finding the words.
“IT WAS YOU!” she yelled back. “It was you I had feelings for and couldn’t resist! I knew it as soon as I saw you that night out without Anna, and you were stumbling, and you climbed into the back of the taxi with me. I knew that you were the man in my life Kade was talking about.”
I stared in shock and started shaking my head, but she was nodding right back at me.
“It’s true, Lucas. You’re the one Kade was talking about. He even described you perfectly. Broad shoulders, and that dirty twinkle and the hard jaw… and the beard and the hair… and the suits you like to wear. He even said you’d be in a green suit, Lucas. Just like your favourite one. Hannah and Dawn said it was you straight away as soon as I told them. They said that’s Lucas Pierce, Maya!”
I stepped up closer, and my glare must have been pure fucking spite.
“So you lied to me about being pregnant with my fucking baby because some spiritual fucking headcase told you we were meant to be? That’s what you’re saying, is it? That you thought it was destiny to be a malicious, twisted, fucking bitch and wreck my fucking life?”
She shook her head. “No! I thought I might well be pregnant when I told you that. I thought it was better to get the betrayal out of the way when Anna first got home from her retreat. I thought it would be better for everyone that way around.”
“So you LIED!” I spat, and my rage was boiling over, I turned away long enough to catch my breath and she was bleating on in the background, mumbling on about how she’d been so sure it would be right, and so sure it should’ve worked out between us, and still could.
“FUCK YOU!” I screamed, and it was hard to keep it together. So fucking hard. My eyes must have been pure fire when they crashed back into hers. “You handed me that pregnancy test with shaky fingers, like you were scared for the whole fucking future, Maya! You saw me fight back the urge to fucking vomit, knowing I was losing my whole life to that bullshit you were spewing out at me!”
“For the bigger picture!” she insisted, but my hands were up to my temples.
I couldn’t hold back the roar. “THERE WAS NO BIGGER FUCKING PICTURE!”
She shook her head. “There was! The bigger picture was Millie! You can’t take away that the bigger picture was Millie, Lucas. We had Millie!”
I stepped
up close and leaned right into her. My voice was nothing more than a hiss, filled with rage and hurt and hate. “Don’t you ever, ever fucking use Millie against me again, you vile fucking bitch. I owe you fucking nothing.”
Her tears blubbed over then. “We had a good life all mapped out for us, Lucas. If you’d have just let yourself love me, we’d still be having one now.”
My voice was low and cold, without a scrap of sympathy left inside me to dull the blade.
“I held you while you sobbed over a miscarriage that never fucking happened, Maya. I tried to give myself over to you because of guilt. Because of trying to be a decent fucking man. But I didn’t need to be, did I? I didn’t need to be shit to you. Not then, not ever.”
“I thought I’d be pregnant by then!” she countered. “Honestly, Lucas, I thought I’d be pregnant for real by the time it came to it. I wanted to be.”
“So you faked the loss? And faked the pain seriously enough that I wanted to make it work between us? You’re a sick bitch, you fucking know that?”
But she didn’t know that. She was still victim-eyed and delusional.
“I thought it was short-term betrayal for long-term destiny. I didn’t realise you’d be such a selfish prick to live with and that you’d never get over Anna fucking Blackwell, did I? I THOUGHT WE’D MAKE IT!”
Even hearing Anna’s name from her mouth was enough to send me reeling. I stormed out to the front door and lit up a cigarette and puffed in deep drags while I heard Maya sobbing inside.
This time, for once in my life, I didn’t go in after her.
She could sob until the end of time and I still wouldn’t go in after her.
She was dead to me.
Yasmin’s screenshot had been enough to shine the light on the bullshit I’d been fed by Maya and her stupid fucking circle, but it was still so much harder hearing it for real.
I’d seen the message from Maya to Yasmin asking her to forget whatever she’d heard from Hannah Ames about borrowing her positive pregnancy test to show to me in the pub that one sad little day, and how we were so very happy, and sometimes people have to do bad things for the greater good, don’t they? Don’t they, Yasmin, hey?
