by Beth Abbott
“What makes you think I haven’t moved past it?” She challenged. “Or, should I say, moved past you.”
“I think Cerys’ ‘born again virgin’ comment says it all.” Evan shrugged. “Plus, Robbie told me you never date anyone. Haven’t dated anyone in forever.”
Megan could feel her cheeks turn red, but it was as much in anger as embarrassment.
“The fact that you stand there, having already judged me based on information you gained from my brother under false pretences, and that you’re quite willing to throw that judgement in my face without any consideration of my feelings, tells me once again, everything I need to know about you, Evan.” She whispered. “All you’re trying to do is justify what you did ten years ago, so you can clear your conscience. You don’t care about my feelings one little bit, as you’ve just demonstrated. This is all about you.”
Megan turned to walk away, and then stopped.
“Do you know what?” She looked him straight in the eye. “I forgive you. I actually forgive you, Evan, if that’s what it takes to get you out of my life for good. I’m sure you ended our marriage for perfectly good reasons, and that deep down you’re a good and honourable man who deserves the respect and admiration of his friends and colleagues. Now you can hold your head up and tell people that you have an ex-wife who bears you no ill will, it’s like you’ve finally got a clean slate. Good for you.”
Megan turned and started walking towards the door.
“Megan, for God’s sake! Would it be too much to ask for you to actually listen to me for once in your life?” She could hear him charging down the hallway after her.
She spun around so suddenly that Evan had to grab her shoulders to stop from slamming into her.
“Yes, it would be too much.” She hissed, quickly stepping back from him. “I owe you nothing, Evan. When are you going to get that into that thick skull of yours? Nothing! Just leave me alone to get on with my life.”
It took her a moment to realise that Evan hadn’t let go of her shoulders.
He stared at her for a second, frowning, before pulling her forward and crashing his mouth down on hers.
Shock wasn’t a strong enough word to describe Megan’s response to the feeling of Evan’s lips on hers for the first time in over eleven years.
As he moved his hands from her shoulders to hold her face gently, all Megan could do was stand there, letting his lips roam over hers exactly the way they’d done, so many years before.
He might be older, and physically his body might have changed, but his lips, the way he kissed her fiercely, claiming her… that hadn’t changed one iota.
Megan struggled not to give in and surrender to the memory.
Damn her mind for storing the recollection away for future recall!
And damn Evan for making her defences quake and her own body ache to betray her.
When he finally lifted his head, all Megan could feel was relief that the torture had stopped, and the tiniest hint of victory that she hadn’t given in and kissed him right back.
Her dignity was intact even if her nerves were shredded.
“Are you done?” She asked, putting as much scorn into those three little words as she could muster. “Goodnight, Evan. Thank you for dinner.”
Megan turned and walked slowly to her car, not waiting to see if he would stop her.
Her legs were shaking, her fingers trembled so badly she could barely get the car started, and her panties were damp for the first time in… eleven years.
Goddamn Evan Williams to hell and back for that little trip down memory lane!
How in God’s name was she supposed to forget he existed after a kiss like that?
Chapter 21 – Evan
“Well, you fucked that up, good and proper!” Robbie growled from behind him. “Way to go, shithead!”
Evan turned to see the young man staring at him, his arms folded across his chest, his expression fierce.
“I beg your pardon?” Evan wasn’t sure if he’d heard correctly.
“I said you fucked that up, good and proper.” Robbie repeated. “You had the perfect opportunity to say what you needed to say to make it right with Megan, and once again, you fucked it up spectacularly. Maybe you actually are the fucking shithead I always thought you must be.”
Evan stood in the hallway, his brain not able to make sense of the words coming out of Robbie’s mouth.
“Hang on a sec…!” He gasped. “You’re telling me you knew who I was, and you still let me near your sister? Are you fucking kidding me? Why would you do that? You adore Megan!”
“You’re right, I do adore my sister.” Robbie growled. “And for a split second I thought you might be man enough to do the right thing by her. But obviously, I wasn’t taking into consideration that you were a shithead ten years ago, so you’re probably still a shithead now! I was giving you the benefit of the doubt that you’d changed, because for the last few weeks, you’ve seemed like an Ok sort of guy.”
Evan couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Get outside.” Robbie pointed at the door.
“What?” Evan wondered whether he was getting fired.
“Move outside to talk about this.” Robbie pointed towards the door. “I don’t want Cerys overhearing anything that’s Megan’s private business.”
Evan stepped outside and moved towards the garage, which was a little more sheltered from the elements.
“How did you know who I was?” He demanded as soon as Robbie joined him. “We’ve never met, I’m sure of it. Back then your mum was completely estranged from Megan and Cerys.”
“I saw a picture of you at Megan’s place years ago.” Robbie shrugged. “She was going through some photo albums because I wanted to see a picture of her when she was a kid. I asked her who you were, and she fobbed me off. When she was in the kitchen making a drink, I looked at another album, and it was all of you and Megan in Vegas. Your wedding photos. She’d written your name and the date on the back.”
“And you recognised me from thirteen years ago?” Evan frowned. “I was a lot younger and about seventy-five pounds lighter back then.”
“True.” Robbie nodded, shivering in the cold air. “But I saw you going for a run after your shift one night, and I recognised the tattoo on your calf. The Welsh feathers with the intertwined E and M underneath. It’s pretty distinctive.”
Evan rolled his eyes. How many times had he been gonna get that tattoo fixed? He could never make himself do it.
“So, what else do you know, other than that we were married?” Evan asked.
“I know you dumped her.” Robbie scowled. “She never told anyone why, but I asked my dad and he reckoned you’d cheated on her.”
Evan sighed. He owed Megan the truth first, but if he couldn’t get to speak to her, he could at least make sure Robbie knew the whole story.
“I told her I was cheating on her, that there was someone else, but it wasn’t true.” He admitted. “I just knew she wouldn’t accept any other explanation.”
“So, what? You fell out of love with her?” Robbie scoffed. “Got bored with being married? What?”
“On my first tour of Afghanistan, my team suffered some heavy losses.” Evan said quietly. “A couple of guys were killed, and one came back with catastrophic injuries. It hit home to me in stark detail what sort of life I’d condemned Megan to, worrying that I might never come home. Or if I came home paraplegic, knowing that she’d be my carer for the rest of our lives. I didn’t want that life for her. It gave me nightmares.”
Robbie stared at him, trying to understand what he was hearing.
“So, you lied to get rid of her, rather than let Megan make her own decision.” Robbie nailed it pretty fast. “You decided things for her, rather than let her decide for herself. How fucking noble of you.”
“Robbie, we were kids back then. Only a year or two older than you are now.” Evan protested. “If I’d gotten injured, Megan’s whole life would have been as my nurse
. Would you have wanted that for her?”
“I would have wanted her to have the choice.” Robbie insisted. “You should have given her that.”
Evan growled his frustration.
“You don’t get it, Rob.” He argued. “Before it happens, you never think it will, and if it does, you think you can cope with anything. That’s what Megan would have thought, especially with her training to be a nurse. But then it does happen, and life becomes impossibly difficult, and it’s too late for her to walk away, because everyone will think she’s a bitch for deserting her poor disabled husband. It’s a horrendous situation for anyone to be in. I didn’t want it for her, or for us.”
“So, you took the coward’s way out.” Robbie didn’t mince his words. “You weren’t strong enough to take a chance on the sweetest, funniest, most beautiful woman in the world. She’d never have let you down.”
Evan shrugged.
“No, she wouldn’t have.” He conceded. “And that’s why I had to make the decision for both of us and walk away.”
“And now you want to explain that to her she won’t listen to you. She keeps walking away.” Robbie chuckled. “I like the irony. What goes around comes around.”
“She needs to know the truth.” Evan sighed. “I left her thinking I was having an affair, as though I’d found someone that I wanted more than her. Someone prettier or sexier than her. Megan didn’t have much confidence in herself back then. I used that knowledge against her, knowing that she wouldn’t challenge me.”
“Why didn’t you ever write to her and explain things.” Robbie pressed.
“For the first couple of years I stayed away, because I knew she’d take me back.” Evan grimaced. “As awful as I’d been to her, she would have forgiven me, and we’d have been back in the situation that I’d hurt her to get out of. And then, I guess I figured she would have moved on. It would have been beyond cruel to dredge things up like that.”
“So, what now?” Robbie stamped his feet to warm himself up. “Why are you so intent on telling her, particularly seeing as she doesn’t seem to want to hear whatever you have to say.”
Evan shrugged.
“She thinks it’s because I want her forgiveness, so I can feel better about myself.” He sighed. “I thought it was because I wanted her to be able to move on.”
“And now?” Robbie pushed.
“Now, I think it’s because I’m the one who hasn’t moved on.” Evan stared at his one-time brother-in-law. “There’s not been a single day in the last ten years when I haven’t thought about her, but all this time I thought it was because I felt guilty. My demons again.”
“But it’s not?” Robbie smiled.
“No, it’s not. Not all of it, anyway.” Evan scowled at him. “And that leaves me even deeper in the shit than I was a month ago.”
Robbie snorted a laugh before howling at the sky like a coyote.
“So, all you need to do now is convince her you’re a good guy, and that she needs to take you back.” Robbie slapped him on the shoulder, heading for the house. “Piece of cake!”
Evan stared at the kid’s back as though he’d sprouted wings.
“How the hell am I gonna achieve that when she won’t even listen to me?” He followed the teenager back towards the front door.
“You’ll employ the services of the one person she’s closest to in the world.” Robbie turned to grin at him as he pushed open the door. “The one person she’d never say no to. The person from whose ass, she thinks the sun shines.”
“Who might that be?” Evan didn’t really need to guess.
“Me!” Robbie grinned. “I’m done sitting passively waiting for you to get your act together. It’s time someone took charge who actually has a clue.”
As Evan watched Robbie virtually skip into the house, he wondered what he was letting himself in for.
But then, he figured, if Robbie could get him just a slim chance of winning Megan back, did he really care?
Hell no! Bring it on!
Chapter 22 – Ladywood, Birmingham
The banging of fists against the door of his flat was only marginally louder than the pounding between his ears.
Jay rolled over, pulling the duvet up over his head. Whoever it was could fuck off. He still had an important appointment with some sheep, even if he was way beyond counting those little fuckers.
The banging started again, and Jay groaned, the pain in his head making his stomach roll.
“Open the fucking door, Jay, or I swear to God I’ll beat you so bad our own mother won’t recognise you!”
Jay flipped the duvet off his head, sucking in some minimally fresher air as he squinted into the gloom of his bedroom.
If it had been anyone else, he would have turned over and ignored them. But Jay wasn’t stupid enough or hung over enough to think that ignoring his older brother wouldn’t involve serious repercussions.
Brotherly love and familial loyalty only came into play when it was them against the world.
When it was just the two brothers, Reggie dished out the orders and Jay followed them. Hesitation, or, heaven forbid, failure to obey one of Reggie’s directives almost always resulted in a severe beating, with no concession for their shared DNA.
He rolled off the mattress and staggered to the front door, just as the banging started again.
“Ok, Ok!” He groaned. “I’m coming!”
He pulled the chain back and had barely turned the lock when the door burst open.
“Hey! What…?” His bloodshot eyes were open now, as his brother’s hand grabbed his throat and slammed him back against the wall.
“Where the fuck were you last night?” Reggie hissed into his face. “You were supposed to meet us at the van at two o’clock, remember?”
Jay’s brain was still muddled from all the booze and coke the previous night, but even in his current state he wasn’t stupid enough not to realize he’d fucked up hugely.
He tried to look down to see whether he had any clothes on or not, trying to decide whether it was worth making a run for it. Possibly his boxer shorts? Possibly not a good idea, then.
“Something came up.” He gasped. “But something good, Reggie. Good for you and me, I mean.”
Reggie slapped him around the head a few times, making Jay wince.
“Something came up?” He jeered. “What, like a date with Ariana Grande? Some shit like that?”
“No! Fuck, Reggie! Leave my head alone, will you?” Jay tried to get his hands up to take the brunt of the blows away from his skull. “Listen to me first, fucker! Beat on me later if you don’t like what I have to say.”
Reggie released his grip very slightly.
“The guys will be expecting you to show up later with a couple of black eyes at the very least.” Reggie stared him down. “Nobody pulls that shit with me and gets away with it. Not even my brother.”
Reggie stepped back, giving him a final slap for good measure.
“I take it the job went well, even without me.” Jay rubbed at the tender skin on his neck.
“We picked up the shipment, if that’s what you mean.” Reggie grinned as he flopped onto Jay’s sofa. “The container was exactly where we expected it to be, at the old factory unit. The arrogant assholes only had two guys guarding it, and only one of those was carrying any sort of weapon. We were in, hooked up and hauling that motherfucker away within six minutes. Like fucking clockwork.”
“Did you change the serial numbers on the container?” Jay lowered himself into the armchair. “It slows down the tracking process if the cops are chasing the wrong container.”
“The cops won’t be looking for this container.” Reggie grinned. “Nobody will. It was supposed to be full of top of the line bedroom furniture and mattresses. It didn’t say anything on the shipping invoices about the extra twenty kilos of coke hidden inside one of the packing cases.”
“And you knew that was going to be in there?” Jay scowled. “You told us it was just high-end
furniture.”
Reggie shrugged, the tattoos down his neck and shoulders rippling like a wave.
“I couldn’t tell you everything that was going on, could I?” He grinned. “The other guys will get a share of the loot, and they’ve gone home extremely pleased with themselves that they have a share of two hundred grand’s worth of furniture coming to them. I hand off the drugs to a contact of mine north of the border, so I get to keep a hundred percent of that money to myself. A good deal all round.”
“So, nobody is going to report the furniture missing because they know what else is in the container.” Jay smiled. “Clever! But how did you know what was in there?”
“When you spend two years locked up with a bunch of drug-peddling assholes, it pays to have smuggled in the only mobile phone in the prison wing.” Reggie grinned. “It also pays to have an app on your phone that records all the conversations.”
“You sneaky bastard.” Jay grinned at his brother. “And you got this intel from your phone? Won’t they know it’s you?”
“I got this little snippet from a phone call I recorded over a year ago, and I’ve waited six months since I got out to put the information to good use.” Reggie grinned. “Luckily, these guys haven’t changed their stop-off points for at least eighteen months, or we’d have been left swinging our dicks if they hadn’t shown up.”
“You’ve got more patience than I would have had.” Jay admitted. “I like my rewards to be pretty much immediate, which is why I missed last night’s little jaunt.”
Reggie scowled at him.
“You’re still due a beating for that.” He warned. “Don’t think I’m gonna forget.”
Jay watched his brother deliberately flex his muscles and wondered whether he might have something that might change Reggie’s mind.
“Hear me out.” Jay grinned, knowing that what he was about to say was gonna blow Reggie’s mind. “I’ve got a possible job lined up that’s potentially worth an absolute fortune. Half a million pounds, maybe.”
“You’ve lined up a job that’s worth half a million quid?” Reggie laughed. “You’re so full of shit!”