Scarred by You

by Laura Carter

  “I toughened up, Clark, and I developed a B.S. radar.”

  God, she riles me. “Toughened up, or became a bitch?”

  She scoffs over the rim of her wine glass. “Much better. This is the Clark I know. Be nice to a woman for five minutes, then bring her back down to earth with a bang.”

  “I was being nice to you, intentionally so. But that was before I realised you have a gigantic pole up your arse and a chip on your shoulder.”

  She shakes her head with a smirk and pushes out her chair so she’s angled towards me. “For the record, most of my change in character happened in the last eighteen months, since the last time you fucked me and left.”

  I wince but can’t find the words to retort. The muscles in my gut tighten with guilt.

  “While we’re on, I didn’t ask you to defend me earlier, and I’d thank you for not doing so again in this company.”

  “I defended your business sense, Dayna, and for that you deserve praise. Your personality is another matter entirely.”

  She stands abruptly and picks up her bag. “Excuse me.”

  Fuck.

  When she returns, we eat our main course in a silence that speaks volumes about my chances of winning her over for the third time in my life. Dayna Cross is not like other women I know. She won’t bow at my feet because I’m wealthy or good looking. Getting her back would be like hitting the jackpot three times or lightning hitting the same spot a third time. And I’m pissed. Pissed at the situation, pissed at my father for being the catalyst to me walking away in the past, and mostly, fucking irate at myself for ever leaving her.

  I excuse myself from the table and go in search of fresh air to clear my head. Ironically, I find it on a terrace that’s being used as a smoking area. I thrust one hand in my pocket and another through my hair to stop me from doing what I really want to do and punching a wall or a door or something — anything — else.

  “Clark? I thought that was you.”

  Finnoula O’Hara, daughter of the Irish prime minister and, for one night many moons ago, a willing play-toy of mine. She practically runs towards me, holding her floor-length gown in one hand. She takes me turning to face her as a signal to put her hands on my chest and lean in for a kiss. I kiss her cheek almost on reflex, but it doesn’t alleviate my temper.

  “I’m here with Poppa. I’m sure he’d love to see you.”

  I nod. “I’ll make sure I say hello before I leave.”

  “You’re going?” Her voice is high and screechy. Her hands are back on my chest, groping unnecessarily at my pecs. “I thought I might get a dance, now that you’re single and all.”

  I peel her hands off me, and she locks her fingers in mine, holding me as I try to tug back. “Finnoula, I’m sorry. I’m just not in the mood for dancing tonight.”

  She looks up through heavy lids, her head on one side, still not letting go of my hands. “Well what are you in the mood for, Clarky?”

  I HAVE A pole up my arse? Me? How dare he? As if I should be nice to him. As if I want him to be nice to me.

  I’ve silently fumed my way through the main course, refusing to speak or even look at Clark. Now he’s leaving the table looking completely fed up, and I kind of feel bad for him, moronically.

  I watch him go, wondering if I should follow him and apologise. Knowing I shouldn’t. When I turn back to the table, Caspar Kahn’s attention is focussed on me, the ghost of a dark smile around his thin lips.

  Caspar’s presence at the table was enough to knock me off kilter. I delivered my speech with a weakness I hadn’t had in my voice when I’d rehearsed. But I stood up to him. I stood up to them all. I didn’t show how he affects me, how he makes me feel like I’m drowning in my own blood, how my neck feels like it’s constricting under the force of a rope when I’m near him. I stood up for myself, knowing he wouldn’t like it.

  Now the conceited prick looks satisfied and smug.

  I refuse to shift my line of sight as I take my linen napkin from my lap and dab the corner against my lips. He’s staring me out, and I won’t back down, despite the sense of unease that’s rapidly returning to my throat and chest.

  But it’s too much. This whole goddamned night is too much. I cast my napkin on my dessert plate and leave, not bothering to excuse myself.

  I head back towards the hotel entrance and turn down the short corridor leading to the cloakroom. It’s early; dinner hasn’t actually finished, we still have coffee and petit fours to come. Unfortunately, that means the cloakroom is unmanned. “For God’s sake,” I mutter into the empty space.

  “Oh dear.”

  I still at the sound of Caspar’s voice. My bones suddenly feel brittle and frozen like ice. Outwardly ignoring Caspar, I bang on the wooden hatch doors of the cloakroom.

  “There’s no one here, Little Princess.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to keep my cool, and shift to face him. “Do not call me that,” I say through gritted teeth, my trembling hands behind my back.

  He saunters towards me. I cast a quick look in both directions down the corridor. We’re alone.

  “Dayna Cross, the Subsea failure, or is it saviour? I forget your English sayings.”

  “So kind of you to walk me out, Kahn, but next time don’t bother.”

  I will my diaphragm to calm as he steps towards me and braces one hand on the wall by my head. I flinch when his fingertips brush my bicep. “Oh, pretty lady, I didn’t escort you. I came to tell you something you need to hear, that’s all.”

  His fingers continue to roam. I slap his hand away. “Don’t touch me!”

  To my surprise, he steps back, holding up his palms. I take a subtle breath that doesn’t show how relieved I feel. “I won’t touch you, Miss Cross, but hear this… I do not take kindly to competitors in my space. The Persian Gulf is mine.” He leans in too close to my face. His hot breath reeks of garlic and hard liquor. “I’ve proven once that I will do what is necessary to beat my competition. I’ll do it again.”

  I know the role he played in the sabotage of Little Princess, but his admission still strikes like a crowbar swinging at full pelt into my abdomen. He killed those people. He ultimately killed my father. Hatred burns through my arteries, my veins, my capillaries. It spreads to each cell in my body and sets them all alight. I straighten my back and search his soulless black pits. “If I ever find the proof I need to put you where you belong, you best believe I’ll use it.”

  He throws his head back on an exaggerated laugh, his skin pulled taut across his sinews. In this moment, if I had a knife, I think I’d take pleasure in piercing his flesh. Drawing the blade slowly through his muscles and his carotid vessels. Cutting the supply of blood to his brain. Watching him die slowly, the way my father must have died. In those final seconds, I’d smile and tell him I avenged the death of the men and women who died on Little Princess, their families who’ll never see them again, and my father.

  Caspar nods slowly and rubs his clean-shaven chin, dragging my thoughts from dark shadows. “I suggest you stay away from that well, Miss Cross. Or you’ll be sorry you ever stepped onto my radar.”

  My heart is pounding so fiercely it could break my ribs, but I take a strong breath in and feel my nostrils flare. “Your threats are empty, Kahn. The only thing you’re succeeding in doing is making damn sure I put in a winning bid. And if you come after me, or my company, it won’t be corporate sabotage you have to worry about.”

  “We’ll see about that, Cross.”

  “I guess we will.”

  The latch door rattles like someone is unbolting it from the inside. I step back from the wall as the hatches open.

  Caspar slips away as if I’d imagined the whole scene. But my hands are shaking as I take my token from my bag and hand it to the attendant, accepting his apologies for being on a short break. I pull on my coat, barely able to process directions from my brain to my nerve endings. With weak legs, I make my way out of the hotel via a terrace, because I know it’s the shortest rou
te to the carpark, and I just don’t think my fingers can navigate my iPhone to call my driver to meet me at the front entrance.

  I make it outside and try to fill my lungs with fresh air, but all I smell is smoke. Cigars. Cigarettes. My eyes begin to sting as fear takes over my thoughts. Pausing, I concentrate on breathing. It’s over, I tell myself.

  I eventually open my eyes. And there’s Clark, with Finnoula O’Hara’s fingers pressed to his chest. His hands are wrapped around hers.

  I have no idea why the sight of Clark and one of his many conquests makes the pain in my chest worse. Clark catches me in his line of vision. I just need to get out of here. I make a swift move to the stone steps leading off the terrace and down to the carpark.

  “Dayna!”

  I quicken my pace, waving an arm to Duncan, who is waiting in his Mercedes. Leave me alone, Clark.

  “Dayna, stop. That wasn’t what it looked like.”

  I have nowhere else to go because Duncan has turned on the headlights and is manoeuvring out of his parking bay. I turn sharply, wrapping my arms around me in an attempt to hold myself together just a little while longer. “Clark, your sex life really does not concern me.”

  “Then why are you running?”

  I look for the Mercedes. Thankfully, Duncan is heading towards me. “There was only ever one of us running, Clark. I’m going home. At a normal speed.”

  Clark reaches out a hand. I jump, startled by another man trying to touch me, and he drops his hands to his side. “Finnoula… she’s not… we’re not… ”

  Finally, Duncan pulls up beside me. He steps out of the car and moves to open the back door. Safety is just a few feet away. “Like I said, Clark, you do not concern me.”

  “You said my sex life doesn’t concern you.”

  I move to the Mercedes and place a hand on Duncan’s arm. I need to feel someone safe, someone I know isn’t trying to hurt me. I turn back to Clark. “With you, the two are really one and the same.”

  “Dayna, I’m not like that anymore, I swear. I’ve changed. I’m not with Finnoula, tonight or ever.”

  I dip my head to let Duncan know everything is okay. He takes the cue to get back in the car. “That doesn’t surprise me, Clark. Who in their right mind would want to be the rebound for a man who just got out of an eighteen-month engagement?”

  I get into the car and slam the door shut on two demons from my past. “Go. Please,” I tell Duncan. He pulls away, leaving Clark standing on the kerbside, dragging a hand across his face. He looks… lost. I shouldn’t, but I feel guilty and, possibly, sorry for him, too.

  I hold it together through the drive home and as I say goodnight to the concierge of my apartment block. In the sanctity of the lift, I can’t keep my mind blank any longer. I replay what I said to Clark before I got into the Mercedes and wish it were true. I wish I really didn’t care.

  But that’s not what’s making my skin itch now. It’s not what’s making me stroke my throat because I’m struggling to breathe. I scratch my arms, and goose-bumps form at the chilling memory of Caspar’s touch on my skin.

  When the lift pings, I walk quickly to my apartment, irrationally casting a glance to the door of the fire escape, feeling like I’m being followed despite knowing I’m not. I close the door of my apartment behind me and press my back against it, dropping my bag to the ground, not moving to turn on the lights. I try to take deep breaths but they come thick and shallow, and my throat is so tight I’m gripping it with two hands.

  “I can’t breathe,” I croak to the emptiness of my apartment.

  I know what Caspar is capable of. I know too well that his threats aren’t empty. But I need to win that tender. This is my opportunity to take back what my father worked for, and it’s my chance to stand up to that murderous bastard.

  Come on, Dayna. Snap out of it. I slam my bare back against the door and slide to the floor, hugging my knees to my chest. Finally, my lungs kick to life and take an enormous breath in. I hug my legs tighter and retake control of my diaphragm the way I’ve been taught to do. Silent tears stream down my cheeks.

  It’s not until I’m standing under the hot spray of my shower, my skin bright red where I’ve scrubbed it relentlessly, that I take in everything that happened tonight. I close my eyes and let the water run over my face. Those dinners are always hard. It should be my father sitting at those tables, competing with those men, not me. I’m doing the best job I can, but sometimes I feel like I’m massively out of my depth. I know I’m out of my depth.

  I didn’t think my adrenaline levels could get any higher in anticipation of my speech, but then I saw Clark Layton in the flesh. Not in the flesh, in a dinner suit—his hair slicked back, his blue eyes captivating. My pulse started racing the moment I felt his presence. In fact, I’m not sure my heart had been beating normally from the moment I realised that I’d picked my dress with his opinion in mind.

  Clark. The man I fell in love with four years ago. The man who tore my heart to shreds, not one time but two. The man who manages to break another piece of me, no matter how small, every time I hear his name, see his picture in a trashy newspaper, or catch him groping yet another woman. My tears come again, the salt blending into the shower water. This time, there could be a thousand meanings behind them.

  “DAD, I’M HOME.” I drop my handbag by the door and head to the kitchen.

  I pour a glass of water from the fridge dispenser and lean across the breakfast bar, holding my drink in two hands. Dad’s wallet and keys are on the kitchen worktop.

  I walk to the bottom of the stairs and call for him again. There’s no answer. In fact, the whole house is quiet. Too quiet.

  The wooden boards creak under my feet as I climb the stairs. “Dad, are you up here?”

  There’s still no sound other than my own breaths and footsteps.

  Each time I call for him my voice is weaker.

  I reach the door to his home office and whisper his name. When there’s no answer, I ease the door open. His desk chair is empty. The room is empty. I release the breath I’ve been holding.

  Shaking off a feeling of unease, I head to the master bathroom. After the weekend I’ve had, a bath is exactly what I need.

  Something pushes back against the door as I open it. I step inside…

  It takes a moment for me to recognise the scream in my bedroom as my own. My hair is drenched; my vest is soaked. I grip my throat as I wait for my panting to subside. I want to shower, but I don’t dare go to the bathroom. Instead, I switch on the lamp in my bedroom and head to the lounge, switching on every light in the apartment as I go. It’s only five in the morning, but there’s no chance of me going back to sleep, so I make myself a strong coffee and set up my laptop on the dining table.

  I’m going to win this tender. I’m going to win for my dad.

  I work through my bid document, taking on board the comments Arthur emailed to me late last night. As the morning progresses, I receive more thoughts from various members of my board. I add those I think are valid, making adjustments to the document where necessary to strengthen our pitch. By the time I head to the office, around lunch, I more hope than know that we have a decent bid.

  “Hey, how was last night? Did your speech go well?” Rachel takes my wet umbrella from me as I shake off my coat.

  “The speech was okay, thanks.”

  “Yet that’s not a happy face,” she says, plonking herself on the sofa in my office.

  “Just the same old story. They’re not exactly the kind of people I’d choose to dine with.”

  “Are you referring to Clark or the other men at your table?”

  I scowl at her. “You knew where I was sitting and you didn’t tell me?”

  “You know I get the table plans in advance, Dayna, and you didn’t ask if I knew. Plus, what was the point in stressing you out? Clark was supposed to be on his honeymoon, remember? He was only added to the table on Wednesday, and I couldn’t get you moved on such short notice.”

&nbs
p; “Did you try?”

  She purses her lips and drops her head towards her shoulder. “Did you speak to him?”

  “Only as much as I had to. He gave me the whole I’ve changed line.”

  Rachel sits forwards. “Why would he tell you that?”

  I shrug. “Because I caught him practically fornicating with Finnoula O’Hara.”

  “Fornicating? What is this, the thirties? Still, he wouldn’t need to defend himself unless he was worried about your opinion of him.”

  For a split second, I wonder if he might be interested. Then I remember. “He’s been interested twice before, Rach, but he only wanted one thing from me.”

  She slaps her thighs as she stands. “Would that be so bad? I mean, it’s been a while. If you keep it casual… ”

  I’d be angry at her flippancy, but Rachel only knows as much as I tell her about my past with Clark. She knows he was an arsehole, but she doesn’t know how he crippled me with pain in the weeks after he left. How when everything fell apart around me, I only wanted him to hold me and whisper in my ear that everything would be okay, but he didn’t even call. I played it like I always do outwardly, like he was just something that got me a little upset for a few days, nothing more. The truth is I only have myself to blame. I knew Clark’s ways with women before I met him, and Teddy made damn sure he reinforced Clark’s reputation for casual bedroom antics when he realised I was falling for him. And there were other signs, like his reaction to staying in, behaving like a couple might. But I was either too ignorant, too naïve or too delusional to see the truth.

  “Can we not discuss this, Rach? I have work to do.”

  “Fine. Your meeting with Marketing is in your office at two, and Douglas White is calling you between one and one thirty because the haulage drivers for the Portsmouth terminal are threatening to go on strike. Again. He’s panicking. Again.”

  “Okay, thanks. I’ve finished the tender submission for the Bahraini well. Could you work through the submission requirements this afternoon and send in the bid documentation? We need to submit corporate documents as well as the proposal. If you contact—”