Breathe Into Me

by Michelle Betham

  “Quinn?”

  “Aaron told you, huh?”

  “He told me something. Although, what the hell it meant I have no fucking clue. But please, kiddo… Please, please tell me you didn’t go to him.”

  Quinn bowed her head, closing the fridge door and resting her forehead against it, breathing in deep. “What do you want me to say, Harry?”

  “I want you to tell me that you and Aaron – that the curveball you threw him, it gave you both a bit of a shock, that’s all. I want you to tell me that it caused a bit of a confrontation, nothing major, but enough to make you walk out and spend the night at the Beverly Hills Hotel because, y’know, sometimes you just need to be alone. That’s what I want you to tell me. I don’t want you to tell me you went to him. I don’t want you to tell me you slept with him, Jesus, Quinn, please tell me you didn’t…”

  “I slept with him, Harry.”

  “Come on, Quinn…”

  She turned back to face him as he slumped against the wall, both hands raking back and forth through his hair, his agitation evident.

  “Jesus!”

  “I knew I’d regret it, in the morning. I knew that would happen and yet, I did nothing to stop it.”

  “You regret it?”

  “Yes. I do. But I was weak and emotional and… No. They’re excuses. They’re just excuses, and I should’ve been stronger. Harry, I’m scared…”

  “What the fuck have you done, Quinn?”

  “What we knew I was always going to do. And no matter how much I try to deny that, it was always going to happen, from the second I saw him again.”

  “And what about Aaron?”

  “He’s my husband, and I love him.”

  “You spent last night in another man’s bed! And not just any other man, but the man who used you, abused you…”

  “He didn’t abuse me, Harry.”

  “He ripped you apart. He tore you into so many pieces I didn’t think anyone could ever put you back together again, but Aaron did. He made that happen, and you repay him by fucking your frigging ex-husband? Because he knows, Quinn. Aaron knows. He guessed that’s where you were last night. He knew you were with Lukas.”

  “Have you forgotten what Aaron and me were doing when we first met? He betrayed his fiancée, remember? He fucked me while he was still with someone else…”

  “You’re seriously putting that out there as some kind of defense?”

  “I’m not defending what I did. I can’t. I just know that – I know that it felt… I don’t know, Harry, OK? It’s a mess.”

  “You’re telling me. Where is he? Lukas?”

  “I don’t know. He’ll be on his way. He left before me.”

  “And you can trust the drivers they sent to pick you up, can you? You can trust that they won’t let slip that you were brought to the set from Lukas’s house? And which one were you in, Quinn? Which one of his homes did you leave from?”

  “The Venice house.”

  “Jesus… He still has that place?”

  She nodded, sitting down on the arm of the couch. “He still has it.”

  “You should’ve told me, Quinn. What was going on. You should’ve told me, because I could’ve dealt with this.”

  “How, Harry? How could you have dealt with this? By sitting me down and telling me to be a good girl? To ignore the fact that Lukas is back and he isn’t killing me just by being around? I can’t do it, OK? I thought I could. I really thought I could, but I’m not strong enough, to ignore him. To ignore what it is we both need to do…”

  “And what is that, huh? What is it you both need to do? Tie up loose ends? By doing what, Quinn? By fucking each other? ‘Cause that works every time, doesn’t it? You don’t know what the hell you’re doing here, you have no idea…”

  “No. I don’t. I don’t know what I’m doing. But I know I still love him.”

  “Because you had one night of great sex?”

  She stared at him, ignoring his flippant tone. She deserved that, but she didn’t have to rise to it.

  “And what about your marriage, huh? What about that, Quinn?”

  “I don’t know, Harry. You’re asking me questions I have no clue how to answer. Not right now.”

  “Well you need to get your fucking head together quickly, before the shit well and truly hits the fan. You need to sort this fucking mess out before everyone out there starts to grab onto any tiny detail they can, anything that could give away what’s going on here, because if that happens, have you any idea of the crap it’ll put you all through?”

  A sharp rap on the door caused Harry to swing around, and then he remembered he’d locked it.

  “Quinn? You in there?”

  It was Lukas, and Quinn felt her stomach contract in a beautiful succession of somersaults, and Harry didn’t miss that. He could read her so well, he knew her too well.

  “Quinn?”

  “Just a second, Lukas…”

  “I’m calling Carter.”

  “Come on, Harry! I thought you wanted as few people as possible to know about this.”

  “And that’s precisely why I’m calling him. Because I can’t fix this shit on my own. Not anymore.”

  He strode over to the trailer door and unlocked it, the look he gave Lukas as he made his way out down the steps telling the other man exactly what his feelings were.

  “He knows, huh?” Lukas shut the door and locked it behind him.

  “It wasn’t going to take a genius to work it out, Lukas.”

  “And Aaron?”

  “According to Harry he’s guessed, too. He knows, that I went to you. That I slept with you.”

  Lukas briefly bowed his head, his hands in his pockets as he walked over to her. And then he raised his gaze and his eyes met hers and she just wanted the world to go away, just for a few minutes. She wanted it all to go away. “Do you regret it, Quinn?”

  “No,” she whispered, shaking her head, and she wished she wasn’t crying but she was. Because she was lying. She’d told Harry she regretted it, and that was the truth. She regretted it all, every second, and yet, at the same time, she knew it had every chance of happening again, if she didn’t start to control this. Lukas Drake was her drug, her addiction; her lifelong vice and she’d never be rid of him. But she could control it, that addiction. She just needed to try that little bit harder.

  He reached out and rested his palm against her cheek, running his thumb lightly over her slightly open mouth, gently tilting her head back just a touch as he leaned in to kiss her. And she responded, falling against him, kissing him back, because those floodgates were open again and she was powerless to close them. And this was trying harder?

  “Everything leads back to us, Quinn,” he whispered, his mouth on hers as he spoke, his hand still resting against her cheek. “Everything.”

  “What are we doing, Lukas?”

  “We’re finding our way back home.”

  “I agreed to do this movie to prove to myself that I could live without you, that I really was stronger; that I could survive, that I was alive, even after everything you put me through.”

  “Quinn…”

  “But I can’t – live without you. And I’m not, surviving – without you. You killed me, Lukas. And I never came back to life.”

  “Baby, I am so sorry.”

  He kept his hand on her cheek as he leaned in to her, resting his forehead against hers and she closed her eyes and breathed him in because she knew what she had to do. She knew, and it hurt, it was going to kill her all over again but she had to do it. She had to be that stronger person she knew, deep down, that she really wasn’t, but she had to try. To be her.

  “So am I, Lukas.”

  He pulled back slightly and he frowned, and Quinn felt her heart crack, the pain sending a shockwave shooting across her chest. “No. Don’t do this, Quinn. Please…”

  “Aaron doesn’t deserve this – what we’re doing to him. He doesn’t deserve any of this, it isn’t his fight. He save
d me, Lukas. From you. And I need him to do that again, because I can’t go back there.”

  “I would never hurt you again, Quinn. I’m a different man now, that person I used to be, he’s gone. He’s dead, and he isn’t ever coming back…”

  “I know. I know that, I can see that. I can. But the risk…” She shook her head. “I have a life now, Lukas. And a man who is beautiful and kind and he doesn’t deserve this.”

  “Do you love him?”

  She felt her fingers tighten around his, and that pain in her chest, it wasn’t subsiding. “Yes. I love him. And all he’s ever done is love me back. He took this broken woman and he put me back together, and he doesn’t deserve this.”

  “Last night…”

  “Shouldn’t have happened. And it was my fault. I stayed when I should have walked away but I was weak. And I need to be strong now because nobody needs the mess this could cause. And I love Aaron, Lukas. I love him.”

  “I need you, Quinn, I…”

  She shook her head again, a little more vigorously this time, letting go of his hand as she stepped back from him. “You don’t need me. You don’t. You aren’t a weak man, you proved that by pulling yourself back from something that could’ve destroyed you.”

  “I destroyed us.”

  She wanted to run to him. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and tell him she was coming back but she couldn’t. Last night, it was everything she’d thought she wanted, but now, seeing Aaron, knowing what she’d put him through – it wasn’t what she wanted at all. “Some things can’t be put back together, Lukas.”

  “Jesus, Quinn, don’t say that.”

  He moved closer, but she stepped back. If he touched her again she’d break, she’d crumble, and she needed to stay strong. “I know it isn’t going to be easy now, working together, but – we need to be grown up about this. And I’m not throwing away my marriage because I had a moment of weakness. If Aaron still wants me, I’m his, Lukas. Because I want him. I want us to try and fight to save what I might have destroyed. I want us to fight. I’m his, OK? Not yours. And I’m staying, with Aaron. And even if he doesn’t want me, I’m not coming back to you. I can’t. It’s too dangerous.”

  “You think last night meant nothing?”

  “No. I didn’t say that. It meant something, of course it did. But it was a mistake. We were tired and emotional and things happen, when emotions run too high…”

  “We had a child together, Quinn.”

  She closed her eyes and threw back her head, sighing quietly because this – she didn’t need this. Neither of them did. It wasn’t helping anything.

  “We have that connection, one that’s always going to be there.”

  She looked at him, reaching out to touch his cheek, running her thumb gently over his slightly open mouth. “Who’s to say that, even if Noah had survived, we’d still have been together.”

  “You don’t know that, Quinn.”

  “No. I don’t. But I do know we were killing each other, Lukas. Our relationship had become toxic, and I’m not sure even a baby could have fixed that. And the last thing I would’ve wanted for our son was for him to watch us fighting, constantly, for something I’m not sure could ever have been ours.”

  “We loved each other.”

  “In the most dangerous way, Luk. We weren’t good for each other, and deep down inside you know that.”

  “No, baby, please…”

  “I need to go find Aaron, and I need to put this right. Before it’s too late.”

  She made to leave but he gently took hold of her wrist, stopping her in her tracks. “You never came back to life, Quinn. That’s what you said. After you left me you never came back to life. You don’t say something like that and not mean it.”

  She just looked at him, pulled her arm free of his grip, and walked away.

  ***

  Aaron looked up as Quinn sat down beside him on the steps of his trailer.

  “You know, they could’ve saved a whole heap of money by just letting us share one of these.” She was staring straight ahead of her, her hands clasped together between her slightly open knees and he watched as she slowly dropped her gaze. Her body language was nervous, that much was obvious. And he knew why, of course he did. He knew.

  “Come inside. Come on.”

  He stood up and held out his hand, and she took it, letting him pull her to her feet. “I’m so sorry, Aaron.”

  He didn’t say anything, he just threw her a small smile and headed into the trailer, and she followed him, closing the door and crossing her arms against herself as she leaned back against the wall.

  “I don’t want to know, Quinn, OK?”

  She looked up, her eyes meeting his. “I…”

  “What happened, between you and him, last night. I don’t want to know.” He walked over to her, sliding a hand around the back of her neck, keeping her head in place so she had no other option but to look at him. He needed to see her eyes, needed to see right into them. He needed to look at her, when they did this. “Do you understand, Quinn?”

  She nodded slowly, her hand on his wrist as his fingers lightly stroked her skin.

  “Because we’re gonna be all right, aren’t we, baby?”

  “Aaron…”

  “Are we gonna be all right, Quinn?”

  “Yes. We’re going to be all right.”

  He leaned in to her, kissing her so lightly his lips barely touched hers. “We don’t talk about it, we don’t even allude to it, because we are gonna get through this, together. Me, and you. We’ve kicked those rumors down so far, and we’ll continue to do that until they all get the message – Aaron Rogers and Quinn Baxter are stronger than ever. More in love than ever.”

  “Are you saying that because you think it’s what I want to hear? What you think everyone wants to hear?”

  “I’m saying it because I mean it, Quinn. We know what we’re dealing with now, because I don’t think we really did before. But we know now, and that’s gonna make everything that little bit easier.”

  She ran her hand over his forearm, and her eyes – he could see the regret so clearly. She’d slept with Lukas Drake, he knew that. He wasn’t naïve enough to think she would’ve ran to him and that wouldn’t have happened. He just didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want her to say the words, to make it real. He didn’t think he could cope with that, because knowing Lukas had held her in his arms, knowing he’d touched her; knowing he’d made love to his wife, that she’d lain naked in his bed as she slept beside him, that killed him. It cut him to his very core, it tore him apart, but he could deal with it, as long as she didn’t make it real.

  “It’s over now, OK, baby?”

  “It’s over,” she whispered, reaching out to run her fingers over his jaw line, his beard rough against her skin. “And we’re still here.”

  He smiled, and she returned it, and he felt like a weight had just lifted from his shoulders. “Yeah. We’re still here.”

  She slid her fingers into his hair, pulling him down until his mouth met hers, and he held her tight as they kissed because it felt like she’d been away from him for months, not just one night. Not just a few heartbreaking hours, but she was here, now. She was back.

  “You should probably go see Harry,” Aaron said, keeping her pressed against him because he didn’t feel much like letting her go just yet.

  “Yeah,” she sighed. “I should. Last I saw of him he was off to contact Carter Conway.”

  “Carter Conway?” Aaron frowned.

  Quinn looked up at him, her fingers continuing to lightly stroke the back of his neck. “He dealt with everything that went on after I walked out on Lukas. He made sure nothing got out about my being pregnant, he kept Noah out of it. He “fixed” that whole situation.”

  “And Harry thinks this needs fixing, too?”

  She shrugged, pulling back from him slightly. “I don’t know. Maybe he thought if me and Lukas…” She stopped talking, and Aaron was grateful for that.
He didn’t want to hear what she and Lukas may or may not have been planning, it didn’t matter. She wasn’t with him, she was here. “He’s just looking out for us, Aaron. For all of us.”

  “I know,” he sighed, dragging a hand back through his hair. “It’s just that, sometimes, don’t you wish our lives weren’t always under so much scrutiny?”

  She smiled and moved a little closer, sliding a hand onto his hip. “It won’t be forever. There’ll come a day when we’re old news and some newer, younger, more dynamic movie stars move in to take our place, and everyone’ll just forget about us.”

  “You reckon?” He smirked, and she laughed, and it was like a lightning bolt of normality had just hit them both. This was where she was meant to be, here, with Aaron, not re-living some sad and painful past with Lukas Drake.

  “Yeah. I reckon. So you better make the most of being Mr. Hot and Handsome movie star while you can, gorgeous, ‘cause you ain’t getting any younger.”

  “Oh, OK, you’ve done it now, missy.”

  She laughed out loud as he picked her up, playfully throwing her onto the couch, but when he lay over her; when he looked into her eyes and kissed her slowly, buried his fingers in her hair and felt her breath on his cheek, that’s when the atmosphere changed. He was in love with this woman. And he’d come too fucking close to losing her.

  He sat up, pulling her up with him, his arm holding her firmly around the waist. “We’re gonna be all right, Quinn.”

  “We’re going to be all right,” she whispered as she straddled him, pulling her dress off over her head. “We’re going to be OK.”

  He reached behind her and unclasped her bra, tossing it aside, his fingers brushing over her breasts and she threw her head back and moaned quietly as his hands slid lower, grazing her skin. His beautiful wife. His whole fucking world. And he’d almost lost her.

  “Two seconds,” she whispered, smiling as she slid off his lap, stood up and slipped out of her panties, kicking them away, letting him look at her for a couple of beats before he jerked his head back and she straddled him again, kneeling up to unzip him, taking him in her hand as she leaned in to kiss him.