There were probably about ten bedrooms, and the fuckers couldn’t even be bothered to offer me one when my father died. No, they left me to rot in hell with a junkie, alcoholic, no-good aunt and then out onto the streets to learn the hard lessons of life. Not that I’d have wanted to stay here back then. He sure as hell wouldn’t have wanted me here, a living, breathing reminder of the crime he’d committed.
“Come through to the kitchen. I’ve been baking all morning.” Nina went to walk us down the corridor, but I stopped in my tracks when I saw Travis and Harry coming towards us.
“I think we have business to discuss first.” Harry’s sly, piercing eyes bored into mine, then like the seasoned pro he was, he turned to his daughter and winked. “Morning, RiRi. It feels good to have you home, where you belong.” He gave her a hug and then pushed her down towards the kitchen area. “Go and see Nate. He’s been looking forward to seeing you all morning.”
Ryley turned to face me and shrugged. I knew she was about to pull me down there with her, but Harry cut her off.
“Not you, Jackson. We have things we need to discuss.” Ryley stood firm at her father’s words and looked at me, trying to gauge my reaction.
“It’s okay, angel, you go and see your brother. I need to do this alone.”
She sucked on her bottom lip and bit down before giving a gentle sigh. She squeezed my hand in a show of support then let go.
“Come and find me when you’re done.”
She went to walk away then hesitated. She turned back and took two steps towards me and wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me down towards her.
“I love you,” she whispered as she kissed me.
“I love you too,” I replied quietly, but loud enough for her family around us to hear.
Nina grinned like the fucking Cheshire Cat, and Travis tutted in disgust.
“You too, Travis,” Harry ordered. “Go and spend some time with your brother and sister. Your mother and I need to talk to Jackson. Alone.”
Travis wasn’t impressed. “Fuck that shit.”
“Language, Travis!” Nina snapped, a deep frown marring her forehead.
“Sorry, Mum, but this is bullshit.”
Nina clucked her tongue at his choice of words.
“He tried to ruin my life. Why don’t I get a say in what happens next?”
Nina shot a questioning look at Harry. She had no fucking clue what Travis was on about. Harry had obviously kept her well and truly out of the loop.
“This isn’t about you, son. We need to speak to Jackson alone. None of which concerns you.” Harry was crystal clear that Travis wasn’t going to be in on our meeting, no matter how much he argued.
Travis glared at me with his nostrils flaring then stomped off down the corridor, muttering to himself about things not being over. That was typical of Travis, always thinking about himself and his own problems. He had a short memory. Only yesterday we’d almost lost Ryley. Yet there he was, still bitching about the fact that he’d fucked another girl behind his fiancée’s back, and it was all my fault. Hey, I just led the horse to the water, I didn’t force it to drink.
We walked the short distance to Harry’s office, all brown leather and mahogany décor, like some old school headmaster’s office.
“Drink?”
Harry lifted the decanter of whiskey, but I raised my eyebrow at him.
“It’s ten thirty in the morning. I think I’ll pass.”
Nina tutted. “For God’s sake, Harry, really? Whiskey at this time of the morning? What’s wrong with you?” She turned to face me, plastering on her smile. “Would you like a tea or coffee, Jackson? Or a juice maybe?” She was playing the part of the elegant host, but I wasn’t here to socialise.
“No, thank you. Like I said, I’m fine. Can we just get this over with?”
Harry pointed to a chair opposite his at his desk and we both sat down, eyeing each other warily like two lions ready to pounce. Nina crossed her arms and perched herself on a sofa next to us.
“Can I start by saying I’m so glad you’re here. We’ve missed you, Jackson.” Nina was so far off the mark with the purpose for this visit it was embarrassing.
I glanced to my side to see her grinning down at me. I didn’t smile back, why would I?
“I’m not here for a social visit, Nina. I’m here for answers.”
I turned towards Harry, hoping to find remorse or guilt, anything that’d show some kind of emotion hidden behind his cold-hearted, cunning mask. His face remained stoic, but the pulse in his neck and the way his hand twitched gave him away. He was nervous. I smiled, knowing I’d got him right where I wanted him.
Sensing the icy atmosphere, Nina pushed herself up off the sofa.
“Well, I’m getting some coffee. I think I’m gonna need it.”
We didn’t talk as we watched her saunter out of the room. Then Harry cleared his throat and in a low, hushed tone, he said, “She doesn’t know about the video.” He nodded to the door, indicating that he meant Nina, but I wasn’t stupid, I knew what he was getting at. “I’d appreciate it if we could keep that little episode between ourselves.”
I agreed. The last thing I wanted was to cause any more hurt or embarrassment for Ryley, especially where her mother was concerned. It was an incident she didn’t need to know about.
“Thank you.” Harry bent his head down in a way that made him look guilty. I guess he was. He’d brought this all on himself, and his family.
We didn’t speak again until Nina came clattering back in with a tray full of coffee, cups, and cookies. She really was the perfect housewife and mother. Or so she liked people to think. I, of course, knew better.
Once Nina had poured the coffee out and left a cup in front of me and Harry, she sat back down on the sofa.
“We never got a chance to say how sorry we were, about what happened to your father. Rob… he was…”
“Nina.” Harry held his hand up to stop her. “I think we need to cut the bullshit and just get down to the nitty gritty. Jackson didn’t come here for our condolences.”
“You’re about seventeen years too late for that.” I reached forward to sip the coffee. It was bitter, just like me.
“So.” Harry leant forward on his desk, threading his fingers together as if he was praying. Fucker probably was, secretly. “Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? You seem to have some problem with me and you’re using my family to… I don’t know? Get revenge for something? Do you think we did you wrong in some way?”
I narrowed my gaze at him. He was still skirting around the issue and he knew it.
“We tried to get to you, Jackson,” Nina spoke now, her face no longer a picture of contentment like earlier, but pained and remorseful.
“When your father died, we contacted lawyers. We wanted you here with us. You belonged with us, but we had no say in where you lived. The will your father had in place was so old, but it was still his wishes. He wanted you to live with his sister. She was your legal guardian. We tried to fight it, but we had no grounds on which to challenge it. There was nothing we could do. We didn’t even know where you were. Sure, we had people on the payroll looking for you, but by the time they tracked your aunt down she was already dead and you’d just vanished.”
I shook my head, not believing a word of her lies.
“You could’ve found me easy enough.” I looked Harry right in the eyes, making sure he understood my next words. “You just didn’t want to. I knew too much.”
It was his turn to bite down on a smirk and shake his head this time. “I don’t know what you think you knew back then, son, but trust me, none of that would’ve stopped us from taking you in. We would’ve raised you as our own, we both wanted that. You were always a part of this family, even before your father’s death.” He looked at Nina as he said that last part, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say a look of regret passed between them.
“I don’t know what this whole fake family bullshit is that you’re t
rying to feed me, but I don’t buy it.” I moved to face Nina. “I know you were having an affair with my father. I know you were leaving him and moving in with us,” I said, nodding at Harry. “And I know he didn’t like it one little bit.”
“Of course I didn’t bloody like it. She’s my wife, this is my fucking family.” Harry’s well-kept family man façade was slipping; he was pissed.
“So you took matters into your own hands, didn’t you? Sorted out your little problem and made my father go away.”
He frowned at me like I’d just spoken Japanese. “What exactly are you saying? Spit it out, son.”
“I’m not your son,” I snapped, banging my fist on the table and making the coffee cups dance around. “And you know exactly what I’m talking about. I was there that day. I saw your car parked at the side of our house. I heard the gunshot and then I saw you flee the scene like the rat that you are. You shot my father, made it look like suicide. You didn’t fool me though, I saw the whole thing.”
“Now wait just one bloody second! What the hell did you see? Yes, I was there at the house, but I didn’t pull that trigger. I did fuck all that day.”
Harry’s face was growing redder by the minute. Nina was panting like she was about to have a panic attack. But I just kept myself calm, breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth. I wasn’t about to unravel in front of these people. I wouldn’t give Harry Emerson the satisfaction of seeing how much he’d fucked my life up that day.
“Lies,” was all I could manage to say. I clenched my fists together so tightly it felt like my knuckles would crack open. My fingernails bit into the skin of my palm to dull the pounding pain in my head.
“No.” Harry shook his head in protest then looked up at me. “All this time you thought I’d killed your father?”
I didn’t grace his question with an answer, I didn’t need to. He knew the answer.
“Oh my God, no wonder you hate me… us.” His eyes were darting around the room, unable to focus on one thing. The signs of a guilty man in my books.
“Is this the part where you feed me some bullshit about him being your best friend, and how despite him fucking your wife you’d have never hurt him?”
He winced at my words, but I didn’t care.
“He was my best friend. Yes, he did a really shitty thing, they both did.” Nina dropped her head in shame. “But I’m not a murderer. I could never-”
“So, you tell me,” I butted in. “What happened that day? Why were you there?”
Seventeen years ago…
I sat in my car at the side of my best friend’s house, gripping the steering wheel like I was clinging to the edge of a cliff and it was my only saviour. Damn it, I was on the edge of a cliff. Only it was my whole family that were about to fall over, and this was the only thing I could think of to stop it happening. I had to talk to Rob.
Rob Caine. My best friend for more years than I cared to remember, and the biggest fucking asshole I’d ever met. When he was in his good place, on one of his highs, he was the life and soul of the party. But that didn’t happen as often as it used to. More often than not, he’d be hauled up in his room, treating that boy of his like a fucking slave. I got that he had issues, mental health problems, but I felt for that boy. I took him under my wing. Taught him to play piano, took him fishing whenever Travis and I went. I opened my doors to them both, and this is how he repaid me. He fucked my wife and fucked me over.
Now he wants my family. He’s like a fucking magpie. He’s seen something sparkly and he wants it. To hell with the aftermath, he doesn’t care. He wants Nina and Ryley to move in with him. Over my dead body. He might’ve fooled my Nina, but he won’t get his hands on RiRi. She’s my little girl.
I took a deep, steady breath in and opened the car door. Stepping out onto the gravel drive, the small stones crunched under my feet. Much like my heart crunched under Nina’s feet when she told me she was leaving me this morning. I hadn’t been the best husband lately, I got that. I’d taken my eye off the ball, taken her for granted and left her vulnerable to the charms of a chancer like Rob. If I could have gone back and changed things, I would have. I’d have worked less hours, been there for her, listened to her. But hindsight was a cruel motherfucker. Now, I had to do whatever damage limitation I could, and that involved keeping the kids with me. Safe in the home they’d grown up in, secure in their own beds. If Nina wanted to leave I couldn’t stop her, but when it came to the kids I would fight tooth and nail to keep them under my roof. They were mine and I’d be damned if I let another man take over my role. No matter who he was.
I knocked on the door, and when Rob opened it, his face fell.
“Shit. Man, I don’t know what to say to you,” was all he could manage. The fucker couldn’t even look me in the eye.
“Letting me in so we can talk would be a start.”
I could feel my body shaking uncontrollably, going into shock, or was it fury? I couldn’t tell, but I sure as hell wasn’t gonna show him the effect this was having on me. I had to keep a clear head. Well, as clear as I could considering my whole fucking world was on the line here.
He stood back and opened the door wider, so I tentatively stepped over the threshold, making my way to his study. I didn’t know if Jackson was here, and I didn’t want him overhearing anything I had to say. Rob’s study was the farthest away, the most private. We’d spent many hours in the past in there, drinking whiskey and chatting complete shit. Not today. Today, I was here with a clear focus, a purpose. He wasn’t gonna get what he wanted. This was not going to go his way.
He didn’t ask me if I wanted a drink, just poured me a generous helping of his best whiskey and sat down behind his desk. I dropped into the seat opposite and took a heavy swig to settle my nerves or rage, whatever.
“I’m sorry, man. We didn’t do this to hurt you. It just kinda happened.”
“Spare me the bullshit, Rob. We both know you could’ve stopped it at any time. You both could’ve. I’m not here to listen to your sorry excuses. What’s done is done.”
“So, why are you here?”
He wasn’t shaking like me; he wasn’t nervous. This guy had some big fucking balls to sit opposite me and act like all this was run of the fucking mill for him. He was breaking up a family, my family. But he was sitting in his chair like it was nothing but a walk in the park.
“You wanna hit me?” I swear he smirked after he spoke, then tried to hide it like the asshole he was. “I was expecting a right hook when I opened the door, but then you always were too laidback for your own good.” He sat back like he was some kind of mafia Godfather, all false bravado and fake power.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? What? Because I’m laidback I fucking deserved this? You’re a piece of shit, Caine.” I threw the last of my whiskey back, revelling in the burn down my throat. Anything to take away the pain in my heart. When I slammed the tumbler back down, he grinned. The fucker actually grinned at me.
“Is that all you came here to tell me? That I’m a piece of shit because I fell in love with her? Well, here’s a newsflash for you, I already know. Trust me, I feel like the biggest asshole, but I love her, Harry. I can’t give her up. Not for you, or anyone.” With that, his mask slipped and I saw what he was really hiding. The guilt. The shame. He was putting on an act, pretending to be cool about it, when in reality he was hurting as much as I was.
“I know my words aren’t worth shit to you right now, Harry, but I am sorry. I don’t expect you to ever want to see or speak to me again. I know I wouldn’t if I were in your shoes. Shit, things just happened and it all spiralled out of control. I knew it was wrong, we both did, but we couldn’t stop it.”
“I really don’t need a blow by blow account of how it happened. I have enough sick fucking scenarios floating around in my mind to keep me awake for years.”
I sneered at him as he started to unravel before me. His leg twitched with a nervous tic and his skin flushed like he was burning up.<
br />
“I came here today because you need to know that I’m not losing the kids. I don’t care what Nina says, or what she thinks is gonna happen. Ryley stays with me. They both do.”
He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, tilting his head up to the ceiling. Then he let out a slow breath through his mouth and looked straight at me.
“She won’t leave her behind. You and I both know that. She’s okay with Travis staying with you. He’s older, and she doesn’t want to disrupt his exams.” He shook his head. “But Ryley? She won’t leave her with you.”
“She won’t have a choice.” I was going to fight this one every step of the way.
“What are you gonna do? Take her to court? Break both your fucking hearts so you can have this victory?”
“This isn’t about victory. You think this is a victory for me? I love that little girl more than anything. She’s mine. I’d rather die than see her living under another man’s roof. Victory? I’ll make this a motherfucking war, you mark my words.”
He looked shaken now, like I’d just turned the tables on his sick game.
“I can’t lose her, Harry. I love her. But I know if she thinks she’s going to lose Ryley, she’ll leave me. Is that what this is about? You throwing your weight around, using the kids as bait to get her back?”
I choked on thin air. “Bait? These are my fucking kids, Rob. They’re not bait, they’re my fucking life. I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep them with me. This isn’t about you and her anymore. This is about my kids’ happiness. Do you think I want Ryley around you when you’re going through one of your dark phases?”
He lowered his head, acknowledging the reality of what he had to offer. “Jackson copes okay.”
“He shouldn’t have to. God knows we’ve done our best over the years to shield that kid, but he suffers living here.”
This Cruel Love (A Dark Hearts Stand-Alone Novel Book 2) Page 32