Breathe Into Me

by Michelle Betham

  “Quinn…”

  “They make him sound like some kind of sordid secret.” Her voice was still unable to rise above a whisper and it broke Aaron’s heart to see the obvious pain etched on her beautiful face. “And he was never that.” Then she suddenly looked up, her eyes meeting his, and he had to breathe in deep to dislodge the lump in his throat. “Did I make him that? Did I turn him into a sordid secret? Because of the way I handled everything? Was it me? Did I do that?”

  He reached for her hand again, and her eyes still bored into his as he touched her cheek, resting his palm against her damp skin, traces of tears she’d obviously cried still evident.

  “No, baby, none of this is your fault. Do you hear me?”

  “No one was supposed to know, Aaron.”

  “I know. I know, sweetheart…” He turned to face Harry. “What the fuck do we do now?”

  “I’m dealing with it, Aaron.”

  “You keep saying that, Harry, and yet more crap keeps happening.”

  The intercom ringing out around the kitchen interrupted them, and Harry headed out into the hall to check the cameras at the gate.

  “It’s Lukas,” he said, returning to the kitchen. “You should let him in.”

  Aaron closed his eyes for a beat or two, taking another deep breath as a barrage of messed up emotions all clashed together inside of him. But the prominent one? Fear. That was the one that was wrapping itself around his heart and holding on for dear life. Fear. That was the one that was here for the long haul. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

  He watched Harry go back outside before he turned his attention back to Quinn, but she was still verging on catatonic. Had she even heard that? Did she know Lukas was here?

  “We’ll get through this, Quinn, I promise.”

  “Last night you were ready to walk away.”

  “But I didn’t, did I?”

  He didn’t know whether to be pleased that she seemed to have snapped out of her almost trance-like state, or whether to feel nervous of the way this could all go. Yeah, that fear wasn’t going anywhere.

  “All we did was fuck,” she went on, lowering her gaze back to the newspaper. “We didn’t talk, not really. You stayed because we were supposed to talk, but we didn’t. All we did was fuck. We’re no further forward. “She pushed the paper away from her, and Aaron watched as it slid across the table, teetering off the edge. “But I guess this has just messed everything up even more now, huh?”

  He didn’t know what to do, how to handle this. And the second Lukas got here was that even going to be his job? To handle this? Or was that all going to be taken out of his hands as Lukas and Quinn played mommy and daddy? He was out of his fucking depth here, he was lost.

  “Quinn?”

  Her head shot up the second she heard Lukas’s voice.

  “Quinn, I’m sorry.”

  Aaron dropped his gaze, his hand balling up into a tight fist as he listened to Lukas speak to Quinn as though he wasn’t even there. He was already being pushed aside, cut out of the picture because this wasn’t his fight, this wasn’t his pain. It was theirs. And he watched as Quinn’s gaze met Lukas’s; watched as she shook her head. He watched their eyes lock; felt the atmosphere shift. And he knew. And it killed him.

  ***

  It was all out there now. Every last lie. Every final secret, it was out there; exposed. The one thing she’d never wanted anyone to know about was now the one thing everyone was talking about.

  “Was this Dawn?” Quinn whispered, her eyes never leaving Lukas.

  “She says this was nothing to do with her. She doesn’t know where this has come from, but she swears down it wasn’t her. She had no idea, Quinn, and I believe her.”

  She looked over at Harry. He gave her a small nod, pulled out his phone and walked out onto the terrace.

  “I’m not ready to do this.” She stood up and went over to the French doors, watching Harry as he paced back and forth outside, talking animatedly into his phone. “I can’t go out there and talk about this, I can’t relive this in front of a fucking audience, I can’t.”

  “Nobody says you have to do that, Quinn.”

  “And if I don’t, Aaron, is it just going to go away? Do you think they’ll just leave it alone if I stay silent?”

  “Aaron’s right,” Lukas said, and Quinn suddenly wished everyone would just leave her alone, give her some time to get her head around this. “If you don’t want to talk about…”

  She swung around to face them both, her arms crossed tightly against her chest. “I know that nobody is going to force me to do anything, OK? I get that. But what they’re saying… It wasn’t like that. I was a mess, when all of that happened, and making me out to be some kind of…” She leaned back against the window and threw back her head, closing her eyes, taking a few deep breaths as her chest tightened. “Nobody knows what was going on in my head. Nobody. And I don’t want to go there again. I can’t…”

  She felt a hand take hold of her arms and pull them away from her, and she knew it was Aaron. She knew his touch, his smell; she knew the way he felt. And she let him wrap his arms around her and just hold her because, right now, she didn’t want anything else. She didn’t want to talk or think she just wanted to be held…

  ***

  Lukas bowed his head and dug his hands deeper into his pockets as he watched Quinn fall into Aaron’s arms. He wanted to be the one to hold her, the one to tell her it was all going to be all right, after all, this was his son they were talking about, his and Quinn’s life they were dragging back up and kicking around. But patience was the key here.

  “I’m assuming the amount of press outside has grown since I arrived?” Harry said, tucking his phone back into his pocket as he ventured back inside, glancing briefly over at Quinn and Aaron.

  Lukas nodded, raising his gaze and following Harry’s, closing his eyes for a second or two as Aaron kissed Quinn’s forehead, stroked back her hair and whispered things to her that he should be telling her. This was their story, their fight, not Aaron’s.

  “You OK, Lukas?”

  Harry’s voice pulled Lukas back into the room. “Hmm? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I’m fine. It’s not me I’m worried about.”

  Harry glanced back over at Quinn and Aaron. “She’ll be OK, too.”

  “I really don’t think this had anything to do with Dawn, Harry. I spoke to her this morning and she…”

  “I know. I don’t think this was her, either. And I’ve asked Carter to try and find out where this came from, but in reality it doesn’t matter now, does it? It’s out there, and as usual the only thing we can do right now is try and deal with it, and move forward.”

  Lukas leaned back against the counter and looked down at the newspaper teetering over the edge of the table, the sound of the TV droning on in the background causing him to glance up briefly when he heard Quinn’s name, saw a picture of him and her together in happier days, when she’d been his. When they’d been happy. Before he’d fucked it all up.

  “I think back to what could’ve been, and it kills me,” he said quietly, his eyes back on the newspaper and it’s heartbreaking headline.

  “Don’t go there, Lukas. It isn’t gonna help anything.”

  He looked up, his eyes once more falling on Quinn and Aaron as they stood holding each other, her husband’s T-shirt clenched tight between her fingers as he rocked her gently in his arms, and Lukas felt a tug on his heart so strong and painful he couldn’t breathe for a second. “She could’ve still been mine.”

  “Lukas…”

  “We could’ve tried for more kids, been a family…”

  “Don’t do this, Lukas. Please. Don’t make this any worse, don’t play any more games…”

  He stared straight at Harry. And he’d never before seen anything more clearly. “Who’s playing?”

  Twenty-Three

  Talking about Noah was hard. It was tough, probably the toughest thing Quinn had ever had to do but she’d insisted it had to be done. She neede
d to explain her actions, the reasons why she hadn’t wanted Lukas to know at the time, and she’d needed Lukas by her side as she did that.

  Aaron watched from the studio floor as she sat beside her ex-husband on one of America’s most popular late night chat shows, talking about a time in her life he knew she didn’t really want to revisit. She’d done it enough times over the past few months; telling Lukas, telling him about Noah had been painful enough, but now she was telling America – she was telling the world how she’d given birth to her dead son while his father was in rehab with no idea of what she was going through. And he could see the pain in her eyes as she spoke. She was trying to keep it together, but it was obvious she was close to tears so when Lukas reached for her hand and squeezed it tight Aaron didn’t react. It would’ve looked heartless on Lukas’s part if he hadn’t tried to comfort her, and besides, Aaron could tell Lukas’s reaction was genuine. He didn’t want her to be going through this any more than he did, and if he – her husband – couldn’t be there to comfort her then someone had to be.

  “She’s doing good,” Harry said quietly as he sidled up alongside Aaron.

  “Is she?”

  “She’s keeping it together, Aaron. And she’s telling the truth. And I know it might not seem like it right now, but in the long run, this is a good thing. Getting it all out there, it’s cathartic, for Quinn. And that’s only gonna help her deal with everything, the right way.”

  Aaron crossed his arms over his chest and bowed his head, closing his eyes and taking a long, deep breath. “I should be out there with her, Harry.”

  “It has to be Lukas. And I know that’s hard…”

  Aaron’s head shot back up. “Hard? You have no fucking idea how hard this is. Because every second she’s with him I feel like she’s slipping further and further away from me. All this crap, all of this…” He pushed a hand through his hair and threw back his head as he tried to suppress a heavy sigh. “I should be out there with her, Harry.”

  Harry reached out and squeezed Aaron’s shoulder. “In a few weeks this will have all been forgotten, Aaron. You know that. Someone else will come along with a bigger secret, a more interesting scandal, and this – this’ll be old news.”

  “Until the press tour begins. Until the publicity bandwagon starts rolling, and then it’ll all be dug up again. You gonna stand there and tell me that isn’t gonna happen?”

  Harry dropped his gaze and sighed quietly. “Just look after her, Aaron. OK? Lukas really doesn’t need to be a threat.”

  Aaron looked back out on to the studio floor, his stomach turning as he saw the way Lukas looked at Quinn; the way she looked back at him. She was still clinging onto his hand, her fingers still curled tightly around his. “Doesn’t he?”

  ***

  In one respect it had been the toughest thing she’d ever had to go through, and yet, it had also been an incredibly cathartic experience. It was all out there now. Everything. And even though all those secrets becoming exposed in the way that they had meant the focus was probably going to remain on them all while this movie continued to shoot, there wasn’t anything else that could be thrown at them now. Whatever Dawn Jenner had wanted to happen, Quinn wasn’t entirely sure she’d succeeded, and she only hoped that once this interview was over things could start to slowly return to normal. Whatever that was anymore.

  “You all right?”

  She swung around to see Lukas standing there, his hands in his pockets, his blue eyes staring at her as she quickly stubbed out her cigarette. “What’re you doing out here?”

  “Looking for you.” He leaned back against the wall beside her, staring out ahead of him. “I thought you’d given that up.”

  “I have. But when I’m stressed I guess I’m prone to lapsing.”

  He smiled slightly, bowing his head briefly before he looked back up at her. “You did good out there tonight.”

  “Yeah, well, we did what we had to do, didn’t we?”

  “You sure you’re OK?”

  She shrugged, breaking the stare and dropping her gaze. “You never really get over something like that. You just learn how to deal with the memories. How to live with the pain. And maybe I didn’t help things, you know? By locking it all away and pretending it’d never happened at all, but…” She looked up at him, and she felt something deep in the pit of her stomach that she knew she’d been trying to ignore for so long now, but it kept reappearing; kept making its presence felt, even though it was the last thing she wanted. And she needed it to stop. For all their sakes. “Like I said out there tonight, I just did what I thought was best, at the time. I did what I needed to do, even though it wasn’t necessarily the right thing. And I mean it when I say I’m sorry, Lukas. For keeping Noah from you, for not telling you about him…”

  “Don’t, Quinn, please.” He reached out and gently cupped her cheek and she closed her eyes as his thumb lightly stroked her skin. “It’s OK.”

  She laid her hand over his, running her fingers down until they wrapped around his wrist, but she didn’t pull his hand away. She left it there. “I’m not sure I know what OK feels like anymore.”

  He pulled her closer, and she kept her eyes closed as she rested her forehead against his, feeling his breath warm on her face, her fingers tightening around his wrist. “This will be over soon, Quinn. I promise.”

  She felt her heart start to beat a little harder as he moved even closer, his mouth closing in on hers, but the second he touched her she pulled his hand away and stepped back from him. “Don’t, Lukas.”

  “All we’ve done, Quinn, is talk to everyone else about all of this when what we really need to do is talk to each other. And we haven’t done that yet. We haven’t even come close to doing that, but we need to start telling each other how we’re really feeling before…”

  “Before, what?”

  “Before it’s too late.”

  She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes again, her heart still beating just a little too fast, making her slightly breathless, for what reason she couldn’t really say. Her head was all over the place, she couldn’t work out what she was really feeling right now.

  “I love you, Quinn. And I still need you to believe that.”

  She opened her eyes, and he was still there in front of her, this man who’d stolen her heart all those years ago, then yanked it from her chest and stamped all over it. And she still loved him, too. She’d never fucking stopped. “I believe it, Lukas. I just don’t want to.”

  “I want you to be happy, Quinn.”

  “Then leave me to live my life without you.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Then you’re being selfish. You want me to be happy but you refuse to let me try and be that…”

  “Because I don’t think you are. Happy, I mean. I don’t think you need Aaron the way you need me…”

  She threw back her head and laughed, because they were back to this. And she wasn’t taking this crap, not from him. Not anymore. “I need him more than you will ever know. And it was you who made me need him so much, Lukas. You.”

  He took a step forward, his eyes burning into hers, and even though every fiber of her being wanted to walk away, she couldn’t. She couldn’t do it, she couldn’t move. “He’s been nothing but a buffer, Quinn, between you and me. And all of this, you don’t think it’s bringing us closer? You don’t think Dawn actually did us a favor, exposing us the way she did?”

  “You’re unbelievable…”

  “Aaron Rogers was a stop-gap, and I’m not saying you guys weren’t happy, that you didn’t have some great times; that your marriage wasn’t strong. But you were only ever waiting for me to come back. You going to tell me I’m wrong?”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “And you’re kidding yourself.”

  She’d slapped him before he’d had a chance to get the sentence out, and she made to slap him again but he caught her wrist and pushed her back against the wall, his eyes blazing with a ter
rifying intensity that sent a warning signal hurtling through her. And then his mouth crashed down onto hers, their fingers intertwining up against the wall, his body pressing into hers as the kiss deepened. Teeth bumped teeth, tongues entwined, her skin prickled as every nerve-ending screamed out, so loud she could almost hear them. But as he reached up under the hem of her dress it was like a freezing cold smack of reality. She pushed him away with a force that surprised even her, and she didn’t look back as she walked away.

  ***

  Harry frowned as Quinn strode purposefully back inside the green room and headed straight for the table full of beer and wine, grabbing a bottle and downing a long mouthful.

  “Something going on I should know about?” He took the bottle from her and set it back down on the table.

  “Where’s Aaron?” she asked, ignoring his question, her eyes darting around the room as she looked for her husband.

  “I don’t know. Where’s Lukas?”

  She turned to look at him, her eyes narrowing a touch. “How should I know?”

  He reached out and lightly dragged his thumb over the space between her chin and lower lip, taking a handkerchief from his pocket and wiping it clean. “You need to keep a check on that make-up situation, kiddo. One day it’s gonna give you away.”

  She turned and reached for the beer again but Harry stopped her, discreetly pushing her hand away and she looked at him, her eyes narrowing even further. “It’s been one hell of a night, Harry, so can you please…”

  “Here, Quinn? Seriously? You and Lukas, here?”

  “Nothing happened…”

  “That lipstick smudged itself, huh?”

  “I don’t need this…”

  “And neither do I, sweetheart, but this crap is happening and it’s about to get out of control unless you sort your fucking head out and start acting like a grown up.”

  She faced him head-on, her eyes blazing, an anger forcing its way upwards like a volcano waiting to erupt, but she needed to keep that in check, while they were still in public. “You have no idea what’s going on inside my head right now, Harry…”