by Louise Hall
“We definitely need a couple of these,” Liv was about to put two large bottles of vodka in the trolley.
Cate raised an eyebrow, “really?”
“Too soon?” Liv giggled, quickly putting them back on the shelf.
“Maybe a little.” It felt so good to hear her sister’s laughter again.
Cate stopped to pick up Kian’s favourite shower gel because she’d noticed he was running short while Liv and Lola went on ahead. As she got closer to the fruit and vegetable section, she could hear raised voices. “I can’t believe you even have the guts to show your face around here. Your family might have been able to pay to keep you out of jail but you’re still going to burn in hell for what you did.”
“Mummy,” Lola ran towards Cate. “Auntie Liv isn’t going to hell, is she?”
“No, of course not,” Cate tried to reassure her daughter.
Liv was stood there, stock still, holding an avocado in her right hand. The joy and laughter that had been there a few minutes ago were now completely gone. She looked like a ghost.
Cate stepped in front of her sister, blocking her and Lola from the older woman, who she recognised now as Mrs Partridge from the photographs she’d seen in the church newsletter. When Mrs Partridge opened her coral painted lips to start speaking again, Cate put her hand up to stop her. “You’ve said what you wanted to say, it’s time for you to leave us alone.”
“But…” Mrs Partridge spluttered. “She almost burned down a church, a house of God.”
“My sister made a mistake and despite what you might think, she’s been paying for it every day since. But as a Christian, you should know that it isn’t your place to judge her, certainly not like this in the middle of the supermarket on a Saturday morning in front of her terrified, young niece. Where’s your love and compassion?”
Mrs Partridge turned on her heel and stomped off. “Thanks,” Liv said quietly.
As they were walking towards the front of the supermarket, Cate’s attention was drawn to the news-stand by the tobacco counter. There had been an earthquake a couple of days ago in Turkey and three British people had been tragically killed in one of the tourist resorts. She knew that it was dark and twisted but whenever something like that happened anywhere around the world, she always had to find out who the victims were just in case one of them was her biological father. He’d left them before Cate was born.
But he wasn’t one of the victims this time and Cate quickly pushed any thoughts of him to the back of her mind. As she put the newspaper back on the stand, she saw the front page of one of the trashier tabloids on the shelf below and it was a photo of Jax Taylor kissing a dark-haired model.
She quickly looked over at Liv to see if she’d seen it yet.
“It’s OK,” Liv said sadly. “Like she said, it’s what I deserve.”
CHAPTER 8
“Are you sure you’re going to be OK today, angel?” Kian asked as he pulled his jeans up his thighs. Cate had her 2nd appointment with Dr Green that morning.
Cate didn’t want to think about it just yet. She had far more important things to think about… Mm, she slowly trailed her eyes down her husband’s bare chest. The smattering of black hair was still damp from the shower.
She knelt up on the bed, feeling a flood of warmth between her legs. Darn pregnancy hormones. She hooked her fingers in the waistband of his jeans. His fly was still undone, exposing the thatch of black hair which led down to his groin. Cate tugged him forward until she could feel the scratch of denim against her bare thighs.
“Cate,” Kian growled. He knew exactly what she was doing. She didn’t want to think about her appointment with Dr Green. Yet, he was still powerless to resist. He slid his hand up her nightgown, palming her bare ass. His wife had the sexiest arse he’d ever seen; it fitted so fucking perfectly in his hands. Holding her still, he rubbed his burgeoning erection against the apex of her thighs.
Fuck, he wanted nothing more than to throw his sexy-ass wife back on the mattress, tear off that flimsy nightgown and bury himself inside her for hours but he had to leave for the training ground shortly.
“Kian,” Cate teased, wriggling her almost-naked body against his firm grip.
“If you don’t stop…” he began.
“Yeah?” Cate’s eyes lit up.
Kian felt her taut nipples drag against his skin. “I might…” he whispered in her ear, “just have to bend you over that mattress and fuck you so hard, you’ll be able to feel me there for days afterwards.”
“Kian?” Cate stumbled backwards, pretending to look scandalised by what he’d just said but the smokiness in her eyes gave away her true feelings.
He leaned forward and his stubble rasped deliciously against her soft cheek. “I bet if I slid my fingers between your legs right now, you’d be so ready for me.”
Cate shivered, clenching her thighs tightly together. He definitely wasn’t wrong.
“Don’t play with fire, angel,” Kian chuckled, kissing the tip of her nose. He stepped back, buttoning up his fly.
“I hate you,” Cate scowled. She hated being pregnant, it made her so freaking horny all the time.
“No, you don’t,” Kian grinned. He scooped her up and carried her into the bathroom, depositing her on the vanity.
“Hey,” Cate protested. Kian pushed her nightgown up around her waist. “Ow,” she shifted; the freezing cold marble was a shock against her bare ass. “What are you doing?”
If he teased her any more, she was going to self-combust. Kian nudged her thighs apart. “I’m taking care of my sexy-ass wife.”
Afterwards, Cate slumped forward, struggling to catch her breath. “That was…”
“Was that enough of a distraction?” Kian teased, rinsing his hands in the sink.
Cate was still sat naked on the vanity, her legs spread apart. “Um?”
Kian kissed the tip of her nose, “your appointment with Dr Green this morning?”
“I don’t think I need to go anymore,” Cate prodded her forearm; she felt boneless. “If I panic, you can just do that again.”
Kian chuckled, “you want me to be your sex slave?”
“Yep,” Cate laughed, “I’m going to get you a pager and everything.”
“A pager, really?” Kian smirked, “I think you might need a time machine as well then to travel back to the mid-90s.”
“Hey,” Cate swatted him. “I always wanted a pager. I remember Remy used to have one and she always looked so fierce.”
The post-orgasm haze had begun to clear. She ran her fingers through her mussed-up hair. “Ugh, I’d better grab a shower.”
As she adjusted the shower temperature, Kian came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Are you sure you’re going to be OK today, angel?”
“I’ll be fine,” Cate reassured him. “I like Dr Green plus I’ve blackmailed Liv into coming with me, I’m hoping she’ll think about making an appointment of her own.”
Later that morning, when Cate and Liv got to Dr Green’s office, it was chaos. There was a blonde-haired toddler sat in the middle of the carpet, surrounded by a mound of soil and a broken plant pot. The little girl was just about to put one of the yellow flower petals in her mouth when Cate intervened, “you can’t eat that, sweetie.”
“Where’s your mummy?” Cate asked, taking the toddler by the hand.
“There,” she pointed to the woman at the front desk, complaining loudly because there were no plastic cups by the watercooler.
After Cate had taken the little girl back to her mum, she got down on her hands and knees with Liv and picked up the remnants of the potted plant. “What the heck happened here?” Liv asked.
“I don’t know,” Cate shrugged, “it definitely wasn’t like this last time.”
After they’d finished, Cate looked around for a bin but she couldn’t see one. She approached the front desk. Dr Green was there, rifling through a stack of manila folders, looking incredibly harassed.
“Hi,”
Cate said softly. She didn’t want to startle her therapist. “You wouldn’t happen to have a bin, would you?”
“Yes, of course,” she passed them the small bin. “I’m so sorry about all this. My receptionist quit three days ago.”
“Could I maybe help?” Cate blurted out. She hadn’t thought about looking for another job but she liked Dr Green and it was sort of using her Psychology degree.
Dr Green studied her carefully, “if you’re serious, my last appointment is at five. Could you come back at six?”
When Cate got home that night, Kian had just finished cooking dinner. “How did it go?” he asked, stopping to give his wife a kiss.
“Mm, it was OK. Are we eating in the dining room tonight?”
“Yeah, go on through.”
Liv was quiet all through dinner, chasing her food across her plate. Cate was really worried about her older sister. After the incident at the supermarket, she seemed to be retreating even further into herself.
“Mummy,” Lola asked, drawing Cate’s attention momentarily away from Liv. “Have you decided yet?”
“Decided what, sweetie?”
“If I can have a baby brother or not?”
“Not yet,” Cate chuckled. She sincerely hoped that the little one growing inside her womb was a boy otherwise Lola was going to be very disappointed.
After dinner, Kian was washing the dishes while Cate tucked Lola into bed, when Liv walked into the kitchen. “Are you sure it’s OK me staying here?” She’d been staying with Cate and Kian for a couple of weeks now.
“Of course. What happened, Liv?” Kian asked.
“Ugh,” Liv covered her face with her hands. “I honestly don’t know. I could blame it on a thousand different things. If I hadn’t drank so much vodka… If I hadn’t seen the save the bloody date card pinned up in the kitchen at work… If Jax hadn’t picked me up on his goddamn motorbike… If we hadn’t driven past the freaking church at the exact time they were getting married.”
“I used to think that if Frederick Meyer hadn’t missed that penalty that I never would have cheated on Cate.”
Liv looked up at him, “can you fix me, Kian?”
“I wish I could,” Kian said sadly. He hated seeing his sister-in-law so broken. “All I know is that you need to get rid of all the peripheral bullshit – the missed penalties – and work out what the real issue is. Maybe Dr Green can help you with that.”
When Cate came downstairs a few minutes later, Liv and Kian were drying the dishes in silence.
“Is everything OK?” Cate asked, worrying her bottom lip.
“Yeah,” Liv kissed the top of her sister’s head, “I’m going to go upstairs, I’ve got some thinking to do.”
Kian led Cate through the dining room to the porch at the back of the house. “How was training?” Cate asked, lying down next to him on the daybed, looking out at the uninterrupted blackness.
As they chatted about Rovers, Kian inched Cate’s t-shirt up to just underneath her bra. “You’re obsessed.”
Kian pressed his lips against her warm skin. “Guilty as charged.”
Cate rested her head on the pillow, allowing him free rein to kiss and caress every inch of her stomach. As she stroked her fingers through his hair, she told him about the job in Dr Green’s office. “I really want to do it.”
After her last appointment, she’d met India at a coffee shop in the village and they’d talked for over an hour. For now, it was just a receptionist’s job but India had a lot of contacts and she might be able to help Cate secure some internship positions, which would look really good on her application for the Clinical Psychology course. The course was really competitive but Cate had wanted to be a Clinical Psychologist ever since she was a teenager.
Kian looked up at his wife, “promise me you won’t push yourself too hard?”
“Kian,” Cate rolled her eyes.
“Cate, I’m serious,” Kian said. “You’re pregnant. Despite what you might think, I’m not a complete caveman. I know being pregnant doesn’t stop you from working. I know that you really want to do this. All I’m saying is be careful, OK?”
“Hey,” Cate swatted him, “despite what you might think, I’m a grown woman.”
CHAPTER 9
“I’ll just be a minute, sweetheart,” Cate promised Lola, who was happily splashing about in the bathtub. “I want you to keep singing while I’m gone though so I can still hear you.”
Rovers were playing away at Spurs tomorrow so Kian was staying with the rest of the team at a hotel in North London.
Lola was singing her favourite One Direction songs as Cate leaned back against the closed bathroom door. A droplet of sweat trickled lazily down her spine from the base of her hairline to the waistband of her leggings. She pressed her clenched fist against her chest; her heart was beating so fast and hard, it felt like it was trying to escape.
“Cate, are you OK?” Liv came up the stairs carrying a large cardboard box.
“I’m fine,” she insisted. She didn’t want Liv to know that she was having another panic attack; her sister had enough worries of her own. “What have you got there?” she gestured towards the box.
“Just some stuff I picked up at Mum’s,” Liv shrugged. “Thanks for giving me the heads up that she wouldn’t be there this evening.”
“You can’t avoid her forever, you know.”
“I know,” Liv frowned, “but I just can’t deal with her humungous disappointment on top of everything else.”
“She’s just worried about you.”
“If you say so.”
“I’m going to finish getting Lola ready for bed and then did you want to watch a movie or something? We haven’t done that in a while.”
“I guess.”
After she’d put Lola to bed, Cate went in search of Liv. She found her sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed, surrounded by stacks of paperwork.
“What is all this?” Cate asked.
Liv quickly scooped up the sheets of paper and stuffed them back in the cardboard box, “it’s just a project I’ve been working on.”
She’d missed a sheet of paper so Cate picked it up off the bed. “Why have you got a copy of Mum’s birth certificate?”
“It’s nothing,” Liv quickly grabbed the page back from Cate and put it in the box.
“OK,” Cate was hurt that her sister was being so secretive all of a sudden. “Do you still want to watch a movie?”
“Is it all right if I take a rain check tonight?” Liv yawned. “I’m really tired.”
“Sure,” Cate got up off the bed. “I’ll leave you in peace then.”
She was just about to close the door when Liv said, “did you know that Mum and Dad were never actually married?”
It was so weird to hear Liv say the word “Dad” because Cate had never, not even for a single day of her life, had a dad. Her biological father had left them when her mum was still pregnant with Cate.
“What?”
Liv shrugged, “Mum and Dad were never legally married. I’ve only just found that out and I wondered if you already knew? I bet Remy did but you know what she’s like, she always refuses to talk about him.”
“Can you honestly blame her?” Cate asked incredulously. “He left us, Liv.”
“No,” Liv shook her head, “he didn’t. He didn’t leave you, Cate. He left me, Ben and Remy. He didn’t even know you.”
Cate stumbled backwards, “that’s a horrible thing to say.”
Liv sighed, “I wasn’t trying to be cruel. If anything, that’s a good thing. At least you know that it definitely wasn’t your fault that he left us.”
“Really?” Cate snapped defensively. “Did you ever think that maybe I was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back? Maybe he could cope with three children but when he found out that Mum was pregnant again, it was all just too much for him and that’s why he left?”
“Is that what you think?” Liv asked.
“It’s what I used t
o think sometimes, yes,” Cate admitted.
“What changed?”
“I see how Kian is with Lola. There’s nothing that Lola or this little one,” Cate rubbed her belly, “could ever do that would make Kian stop loving them or wanting to be their dad. Nothing at all.”
“They’re lucky then,” Liv said softly.
“Yes, they are,” Cate nodded.
She checked on Lola, who was sleeping peacefully, before walking down the hallway to the master bedroom. She wished fervently that Kian was there so he could distract her from the cacophony of voices inside her head. With everything else that she had going on right now – her worries about Liv and being pregnant again – she really didn’t need to add her biological father into the mix.
It wasn’t that surprising that she didn’t know that her mum and her biological father had never been legally married. Apart from a couple of very brief conversations, her mum never talked about him. They didn’t have any contact with his side of the family; she didn’t know if his parents, her grandparents, were still alive or if he had any brothers or sisters? She’d never met her mum’s parents either; her mum was an only child and her parents, who were orthodox Jewish, had disowned her when they’d found out that she was pregnant with Remy.
The only other person she could have talked to about him was Remy – she had the strongest memories of him because she was nine when he left but like Liv said, if they ever tried to broach the subject with her she would always angrily refuse to talk about him.
Ugh, her feelings about him should have been so straightforward. He’d cared so little about her that he’d left before she was even born. He hadn’t stuck around to make sure that she was healthy or even to find out if she was a boy or girl. He couldn’t have made it any more obvious that he didn’t care about her but there was still this tiny, little piece of her that stubbornly refused to be squashed that held out hope that maybe they were wrong. A thousand outlandish soap-opera plotlines streamed through her head – maybe he’d been in an accident and had amnesia or he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time, seen something that he wasn’t supposed to and ended up in a witness protection program?