Making Our Way Back

by Jennah Thornhill

  Apart from my Dad, the only other person who could possible let slip to Lucy the reason behind my GBH charge, before me, would be her mum. The one person who I wish never to see again, and so far she hasn’t shown her ugly head in over a decade. And Lucy hasn’t once mentioned the pure evil witch in all the time I’ve spent with her.

  “Kane?” I hear her snap. Realising I’m away with the fairies, I whip my head back to her, pulling me back to the here and now. Not knowing what to say I just smile at her.

  “Ok… you’re acting weird now, so I’m going to go as it’s getting late.. I’ll see you next week in my office, we need to come up with an offer to give Sophie, hopefully she will accept it.”

  Shit!

  I forgot about that for a quick second, but that’s the effect Luce has on me, that woman could make me forget my own god damn name.

  “Yes you will, good night baby girl.” She gives me a sharp nod of her head in my direction and climbs out of my car, but before she shuts the door she turns to me.

  “Thanks for the ride.” She has the nerve to wink at me. “Good night Kane.” Slamming the door the second the last word leaves her mouth.

  I sigh heavily….

  That woman is going to be the death of me.

  I’m just about to pull out into the road when my phone starts to ring, I look to the dashboard and see none other than the bitches name show up. I wonder if I should let it go to answer phone, but I know she’ll just keep ringing me. So in the end I activate the built in Bluetooth.

  I’ve never hit a woman in my life and I never will, but the minute I hear her voice I just want to punch her straight in the mouth, she riles me up that much and not in a good way.

  “Why are you not at the hotel? Where have you been Kane?” Her voice is slurred. “Have you been fucking about on me? Is that why you want to leave me?” This woman is bloody crazy, the quicker this divorce is done and dusted the better. Right now though, the only way I’m going to get her to calm down is to pacify her somehow. She’s been drinking a lot as of late and when she does she tends to go totally off the rails. All the shit she’s spewing at me now… well let’s just say it isn’t the first time I’ve heard it of her. I may be a bastard to her half the time, but one thing I didn’t do was screw around on her when we first got married. I never did it, not once. That was until tonight with Lucy… and well she’s an exception. And in my eyes we may still be married by law, but we haven’t been a couple for months so I haven’t technically cheated on her.

  At this very moment, I’m wishing I hadn’t answered the bloody phone in first place. Where’s Marcus when I need him? He always manages to put her in her goddamn place.

  I let out a deep sigh down the phone line.

  “Look Soph, I’m really not in the mood for this. I’ve had a really long night at the club and I just want to get home, to sleep, nothing else. Dealing with your shit will just have to wait, in fact go find some other poor mug who will listen to you droning on. I’m done.” Why I’m explaining myself to her, I don’t know. I couldn’t care less if she thought I was going home with someone or not. I go to disconnect the call when I hear her start shouting down her phone at me.

  “Don’t hang up, please? I’m sorry ok, I shouldn’t have called you up saying those things. I… I just miss you baby, I’m not handling this whole divorce thing well. Can I see you please?” She’s practically begging me, and she very rarely says sorry, if ever. It’s just not in her genes.

  A part of me starts to feel sorry for her, she didn’t ask for any of this, this is all on me, but she still is a toffee nosed bitch. It’s not her fault I married her for all the wrong reasons. I’m torn at what to do now. I’m not a horrible person but something about her just grates on me, and I can’t for the life of me put my finger on it.

  “Humph, fine. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” Making it known in my voice that I’m not one hundred percent happy with this. I hang up on her not waiting for her to answer, I bet she’s jumping for joy because she’s got what she wanted, like fucking always.

  Putting my foot down, I head towards the house… my house.

  Already I’m starting to regret what I’m about to do, but I’m only human and we all have regrets.

  This one is going to be another one of mine.

  Lucy

  T o say this week has dragged would be an understatement, it’s only Wednesday and I’ve got another two days of this shit.

  On the plus side Kane is booked in to see me at 11am today. When his assistant Valerie rang and made the appointment for him, I almost died. Cole took great pleasure in telling me that Mr McHottie was coming back in to see me as I stepped into the office on Monday morning. Luckily for me, it gave me time to pull myself together, and prep for his meeting.

  I haven’t seen or spoken to him since our little mishap on Friday night, in a way I’m relieved. I’ve never been so mortified in all my life, when he drove me home in silence I didn’t know what to do with myself. When he finally let me out of his car, I stripped my dress off, kicked my heels to the floor and collapsed into bed the minute I staggered through my front door. Usually when I’ve drank my weight in cocktails I pass out like a light, only this time it didn’t happen. I spent the remainder of the night tossing and turning, reliving everything that had happened in my head. I can still feel him on me, his smell lingered on my skin and my lips are still tingling from his kiss. Then I remember how stupid I had been and I an back to being a nervous wreck. I can’t have a baby, shit like that doesn’t happen to me, I don’t have a motherly bone in my body. I want to focus on my career, that’s my main priority right now. I’ve come to far to give it all up because of one silly mistake.

  Before I knew it the sun was coming up, I shot out of bed like someone had lit a fire up my backside. I was soon showered, dressed and out the door. I found a pharmacy that was open on a Saturday, then I spent half an hour getting a lecture from the pharmacist on safe sex, apparently I should know better at my age.

  No fucking shit Sherlock… you don’t bloody say. Hence why I’m here. Prick.

  Once I’d had my dressing down and I was twenty quid lighter, I walked out of there with the morning after pill feeling a little shame faced by my careless actions. You’d think after what shit I saw with my mother I would be extra careful, but no... apparently not.

  Oh my god, am I turning into her?

  No… No. That is not an option. Not now, not ever.

  A shudder runs through my entire body at just the thought, as usual Cole is my saviour, saving me from my thoughts.

  “Luce… just to inform you, Mr Mchottie from last week is here for his appointment, shall I send him in?” He is practically drooling. Not that I blame him, Kane is shall we say... pretty fucking hot. Which I know first hand just how hot he can be.

  If the day ever came where Cole finds out all about me and Kane, I can pretty much guarantee he’ll blow a gasket. I try to hide a smile at the reference he makes for Kane with a fake cough, giving him a nod of my head and small grunt as my answer.

  Seconds later he comes strolling in like he just stepped of an Armani runway, my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth at the sheer sight of him. His suit sticks to him like a second skin, making his muscles stand out even more. He may have given me the best orgasm of my life, but I never actually saw him with no clothes on.

  “Luce… Luce… you're staring again.” He pulls me away from my thoughts, just in time. If he hadn’t, chances are I’d of stripped him completely naked in my mind. Shaking my dirty thoughts away, I finally straighten my back and look up at him… my smile soon fading.

  He’s got scratch marks running from under his jaw right down his neck into the collar of his shirt, they look red and sore.

  “What the shitting hell happened to you Kane?” Rushing out of my chair acting on pure instinct, I cup his face with my hand turning his head slightly to get a better look at the offending marks on his skin. My body starts to shake, I don’t know if
it’s because I’m angry that someone hurt him, or if it’s because I’m upset that I wasn’t there to protect him. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that these marks have come from a woman's claws, they look like angry marks or they could be marks from an act of passion. Then like a wrecking ball dread hits the pit of my stomach. What if it wasn’t a pissed off woman? What if he went and found someone else, someone who wasn’t bloody stupid when it comes to safe sex?

  I drop my hand from his face, to get a good look at him and that’s when I notice the look on his face, I feel sick. His eyes cloud over almost going a deep black colour, and his jaw goes so tight I think it might snap in two, that look alone tells me the answer I was dreading.

  “Well? Are you going to answer me?” I push.

  “It’s nothing for you to worry about, it’s all sorted now, shall we get started? I’ve got a meeting in two hours.” I know he’s trying to change the subject. I want to press him on this but for now I can’t as he’s here for a reason, and paying for my time. He’ll want to talk about his divorce not what he gets up to in his free time, because that’s what it is, his free time. Can I be mad at him for that, if he did? Technically he’s not mine, we’re just friends even if I did act like a complete deranged sex starved nut job the other night. Yet his words from that night still go around on loop in my head.

  ‘I know we’ve always being friends, but I’ve always loved you.’

  ‘You have no idea how long I’ve waited to do this.’ Then last one really got to me. ‘I’m his everything’.

  What does that even mean?

  And why has he never told me any of this before? He got released seven years ago, why has he not tried to find me in that time? Why now after all this time? From what I can gather he was thrown at me from his lawyer and my boss, if that hadn’t of happened then we still wouldn’t have found each other again. I’d still be wondering if he was dead or alive. Would he ever have made connect with me at all? I’m starting to wonder now.

  My head is a mangled mess. I’ve never been this screwed up over a man, but then again none of them were Kane, no one will ever be Kane.

  I make my way back towards my desk, he’s being short and straight to the point with me, that I did notice.

  “Erm, yeah ok. First things first, we need to get all the paperwork done and then we can get the ball rolling.” I find myself moving the papers around on my desk just so I have a reason not to look at him again.

  “Are we ok, Luce?” He asks as he takes a seat in front of me.

  “Hum, hum, yep absolutely fine Kane, shall we start from the beginning?” He hasn’t got a choice but to tell me what got him to where he is now, so I sit back in my chair and wait, pen at the ready for taking notes, all business like.

  “From the start, right. Erm there’s not really much to tell, but I’ll tell you all I do know.” He takes a deep breathe in before he begins. “It was about five years after I got out of prison and after I got my company LK Solutions up and running, I went to Vegas with a guy called Alec, he was my friend, my mentor. In fact he was more like my family, he took me under his wing as I had no one at the time, I didn’t have anything to do with my father when I got out, for reasons I’m not going to bore you with, even though you have a good idea why. So Alec was the one who helped me get started up, hence why I was in Vegas.” I stop writing, looking down at what I’ve just wrote. There in black and white are my initials in his company name. Hold on a minute…. That can’t be right? Was it a coincidence? Am I thinking too much into this?

  Curiosity gets the better of me and I can’t seem to stop myself from opening my mouth.

  "Back up a second? What did you just say?” I’m flabbergasted, I swear I heard him right I must’ve done because it’s there written on my note pad, staring me in the fucking face. Why would he do that?

  “What that Alec was my mentor? Or that he was like my family?” His eyes go wide, he’s realised his slip up, and knows that I heard it. “You mean the name of my company? LK Solutions.” He says sheepishly. Yeah I fucking mean the name of the company, I want to yell at him, but somehow I refrain from doing so. Instead I glare at him, willing him to explain further.

  “Ok… at the time it seemed right, when I signed the documents to make it official that’s what I come up with, I felt like I owed you something and in a way me putting your initials on it helped, well it helped me anyway it made me feel like you were closer to me than you actually were.” He’s waiting for a reaction from me, something, anything, but I’m in total shock. So I do nothing at all. Part of me wants to shout that he had no right in doing that without my permission, but the other part of me thinks that he didn’t have to do it because he felt like he owed me something. All I ever wanted was an explanation, not a bloody company with my initials on it. I’m not sure how I feel about it, weird, happy, grateful, I just don’t know.

  Because I’m in work, this meeting is official and because I value my job, I don’t press him for more information on the matter.

  “We’ll talk about this later, Kane.” I’m not done, I need to know more, but for now it’ll have to wait.

  “Ok, I’ll just carry on, where was I…. Oh yeah, Vegas. I was there for a business meeting with some owners of a big new casino opening up. I was trying to get them to use my company for their network and stuff, I won’t bore you with the details, but in the end they sign on the dotted line, it was a done deal.” I make notes of all this just in case I ever need it, but mainly so he doesn't see my reactions to anything he’s saying to me. I don’t want him to miss anything out because of what he may or may not think I’ll want to hear. I have to keep reminding myself that he’s a client of mine. I need to act professional.

  He’s stopped, so I lift my head, give him a quick nod and a small smile, before I whisper.

  “Go on…”

  “Ok…. that’s when I met Sophie, she was working part time as a waitress in the hotel I was staying at. The Bellagio.” Oh wow, what I wouldn’t give to spend along weekend there, and he knows this. The amount of times we would talk about going there when we were younger, we used to talk about the fountains and how we always wanted to throw a penny in them and make a wish. My eyes that are currently popping out of their sockets must have given away as to what’s running through my mind, because he starts to chuckle.

  “I know, funny right? I actually thought of what your reaction would have been like if you were there with me, but I pushed the image to one side. Thinking about you just made me do stupid, crazy things, but I suppose I was in the right place for that.” He let’s out an awkward little laugh at his confession. He’s playing with his hands, avoiding eye contact with me, like he’s ashamed at what he’s just said to me.

  He throws out a little cough, then carries on.

  “Once me and Alec sealed the deal, we decided to celebrate in the bar area of the hotel, that’s when I saw her for the first time, I had to do a double take because at first glance I thought… I thought..”

  “It’s ok Kane, you can tell me.” I try to ease him into telling me whatever’s inside his head in that moment, it’s obvious he’s struggling, but he pushes through.

  “I thought.. It was you.” He looks up at me, perhaps to see my reaction to his words. He won’t see one on my face, I’m chewing on the end of my pen to stop myself from giving my feelings away.

  He thought she was me? Does that mean she looks like me? I don’t know whether I want too like her or fucking despise her. But I don’t say anything, it’s clear to see he had issues back then.

  “Only it wasn’t you… in a way I was glad it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have known what to say to you. Even though I’d ran what I thought I would say to you through my head so many times, I’d forgotten it all in a beat…. Anyway… we ordered our drinks and waited at our table for them to be brought over to us.” I can see where he’s going with this, but I don’t interrupt him.

  “It turns out she was the one to hand us our drinks, first Alec, th
en me. Only when she put mine down there was a number on the napkin.”

  Bingo! I knew it. How cheesy can you get?

  “I didn’t think anything of it at first, but when I flipped it over, on the other side there was a message saying, she finished work at Ten that night and that she’d love to show us the best places to go for a drink. I was about to throw it away when Alec saw it, he told me I needed to loosen up a bit. Said I was young and single and that I needed to live a little, so we ended up waiting in the bar for her to finish up her shift. Well as you can guess, I waited for her to finish her shift. Alec went back up to the hotel room, apparently he didn’t want to be a third wheel, plus his wife would’ve killed him. And you know the rest so…” He’s starting to fidget in his seat now, but as much as I don’t want to know about him and this Sophie, I need to. I need to understand the reasons for filing for a divorce as the judge doesn’t just hand them out willy nilly.

  “Actually, I don’t know, but I need to hear it Kane in order to help you.” Even if it’s going to take everything I have in me not to break something.

  “Luce… baby girl. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea, you being my divorce solicitor I mean. You shouldn’t have to listen to this shit.” No he’s right, I shouldn’t have to listen to it. But I’m bloody amazing at my job, I can’t treat this case any different from any other just because it’s his case.

  “It’s fine Kane, please just continue. I need everything from you, especially if you want me to build up a damn good case against her. Or do you want her to get at least half of everything you’ve worked so hard for, if not more?” I state, adding the last three words just for effect so he’ll continue to talk.

  That seems to wake him up, he goes stiff in the chair and I can see that my last statement has hit a raw nerve.

  “That bitch is not having half of my life, because that’s what it is. I’ve worked myself to the bear knuckle to get what I’ve got Luce. She can’t have it, over my dead fucking body.” I swear he’s actually foaming at the mouth, he’s also got ants in his pants because his leg is going ten to the dozen jigging up and down.