Broken Truth

by Beth Ashworth

  “We had only been going out for six months when I found out I was pregnant with Paige. Obviously I was thrilled, but Callum not so much. It wasn’t the right time for him to have a baby. With his company generating millions in turnover, his mind was never at home, it was always with work.” Claire continued, “When I told him I was pregnant, I saw the colour drain from his face in an instant. It was that look that confirmed everything for me...” Claire choked out her words as tears started to stream steadily down her face.

  Charlie’s voice shook. “Confirmed what?”

  “I just knew from the look on his face that he would never love me. He knew that effectively this baby was going to hold us together forever regardless of what happened in our relationship.”

  “But... He married you?” Charlie said not understanding what Claire was saying. “I don’t understand why he asked you to marry him if he didn’t love you? And why would you agree to marry someone who didn’t love you back?”

  Claire smiled weakly as she brushed the tears from under her eyes. “I assume Callum has told you about his rather unconventional upbringing?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “That is why he asked me to marry him. Not because he loved me and wanted to create a family with me, but because he didn’t want his child to be brought up in a broken home without love. His parents may not have divorced, but they didn’t give him the love and nurturing a young child needs in life,” Claire explained. “Callum wanted to make sure that our baby knew that they had two parents that loved them very much. He wanted them to know that each and every day, so he asked me to marry him.”

  Charlie stared numbly into the face of the woman sat opposite her. She was processing each and everything that came out of her mouth without feeling whatsoever. She refused to feel anything for this woman.

  “I don’t understand why you are telling me all of this?” she asked.

  “I’m telling you this because we do not have a marriage, Charlie. Everything is just one big, horrible and ugly lie. He has never loved me and he made it perfectly clear that he never will.”

  “But you live together?”

  “I led you to believe that, but we don’t...” Claire shook her head apologetically.

  “You’re a liar,” Charlie accused, crossing her arms firmly over her chest. “Do you seriously expect me to believe your sob story? You were at his apartment waiting for him to come back with your child. Are you trying to tell me now that you don’t even live together? That contradicts everything you just said about marrying for the sake of your daughter. What happened to not wanting to raise a child in a broken household?” she spat.

  Charlie was unconvinced with the story Claire was telling. Somewhere along the line things just didn’t add together properly. She knew that Callum was an honourable man, but even she refused to believe that he married her simply for the sake of their child. She knew him well enough to know that there had to have been a further motive involved.

  “Look, if you want me to believe you then you’re going to have to tell me everything,” Charlie stated firmly. She wasn’t going to listen to this bullshit any longer if Claire didn’t start laying it all out on the line.

  “Fine, if you want the truth then you’ll get it. He married me because he had no choice,” Claire said, reaching for her glass of wine. Taking a large gulp, she cocked her head to one side. “Is that the answer you wanted?”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Charlie scoffed. “Callum doesn’t do anything that he doesn’t want to do.”

  Claire took a further sip of her wine and placed the glass back on the table. “It was because of my Father,” she explained, her eyes pooling with moisture.

  “Your Father?”

  “Yes... My Father happens to be the biggest investor in Callum’s company. It was how we both managed to meet each other to begin with.”

  Charlie raised her eyebrows.

  “So naturally, Callum was in a bit of a sticky situation when I fell pregnant after six months. He knew that my Father would demand he take responsibility and do the right thing, which is exactly what he did. Although he did it, he did it for the love of his unborn child and not for me.”

  “He was afraid,” Charlie murmured, understanding the point Claire was making. “He was afraid of losing your Father as an investor, so he agreed to marry you for the sake of his business.”

  “I thought it would change once Paige was born,” Claire confessed. “I thought he would love us both as a family, but he didn’t.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “The moment he held his daughter in his arms, I knew. I knew there would never be a place in his heart for me.”

  Charlie maintained her poker face as Claire broke down in front of her.

  “I moved out shortly after Paige was born,” Claire said, dabbing her napkin under her eye. “Even when we were married and I lived at Callum’s apartment, we shared separate beds. Since we started dating, it was always something he insisted on.”

  Charlie remained quiet. She didn’t want to make any comment knowing that Callum had not enforced the same rule with her.

  “When I did move out, Callum made sure to buy a lovely house for both Paige and I to live in. We told my parents that we needed a house and that Callum was going to work from the apartment during the week. That way, he had his space and I had mine. He always came over a few nights during the week to see Paige and then he had her one day on the weekend...” Claire paused to look at Charlie, her lips pursing tightly. “But of course the weekend visits changed and he had her overnight in the week instead because he was spending his time in Manchester with you.”

  “You can’t tell me that there haven’t been other girls in between you and me?” Charlie asked, anxiously sucking on her bottom lip. She really didn’t want to know about Callum’s past lovers, but figured while she had Claire talking she was going to take advantage.

  “Of course there had been one or two other girls,” she grimaced. “But none of them lasted longer than a week. He always bored himself too easily with them until you came along. I knew it from the moment I first found out about you that I was in trouble. I could see it in his face when he came to see Paige. He was different,” she said shaking her head. “It was a side of him I had never seen in the few years I had known him. He looked happy.”

  Wrinkling her brow, Charlie studied Claire closely. “So why did you stay married to him knowing he was falling in love with someone else?”

  “I wanted to trap him!” Claire shouted, causing Charlie to push back her chair in alarm. “I wanted everything about your relationship to fail! He hurt me more than I can ever tell you, so I wanted him to realise that I wasn’t going anywhere. I knew that once he fell in love he would want a future with you and that he would want to divorce me.”

  She took a deep breath before settling her fiery eyes in Charlie’s direction.

  “I vowed that I would never consent to the divorce willingly. I told him that I would make his life a living hell if he ever tried to do it. He knows that my Father could cripple his business if he wanted to. Everything he had worked so hard to build over the years could be gone within seconds if we wanted it to,” she said with an evil grin.

  “You bitch!” Charlie cursed, slamming her hands loudly onto the table.

  Claire chuckled at her reaction. “Of course, the timeframe to put all of this into place would have still been a long way off it wasn’t for Annabelle’s help.”

  Charlie’s face flushed as her upper lip starting twitching furiously.

  “Annabelle was tasked with getting to know you and watching for the signs,” Claire enlightened. “And she did a bloody good job.”

  “Signs for what?” Charlie snapped.

  “The signs of trouble,” Claire smiled. “You have been Annabelle’s stylist for over a year now?”

  “Around fifteen months.”

  “She has been watching you a little more carefully than you might have realised,” Claire told her.
“You see, Charlie, Annabelle has continuously seen the young and charming version of you that has been sky high in love for the past fifteen months. Looking at how in love Callum has been since you both met, we knew that any trouble would boil down to him stalling the future.”

  Charlie felt her heart rapidly speed up knowing that Claire was right. It was the unknown of their future along with the obsession of work that had caused the most part of their arguments.

  “We knew that when the time came we had to be ready. We had to have a plan in place because we knew that Callum would be ready to start the divorce proceedings if it meant that he was going to lose you. We were already aware that he was having secretive weekend conference calls from your apartment with his solicitor that he was trying to keep quiet. He didn’t want us knowing that a divorce was still a possibility.”

  “How did your plan work?” Charlie bit back. “He lost me regardless, so none of this even matters now. He doesn’t have to worry about losing your Father as an investor. You can both stay in your fucked up marriage for all I care!”

  The emotions Charlie had tried so hard to hold onto during the course of their conversation finally surfaced. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes as she finally released the pain and grief she had been holding onto.

  “It’s too late for that. Callum filed for divorce the night you walked out of his building,” Claire said, watching as Charlie’s body stiffened. “That’s right... He went ahead with it and he has lost everything.”

  Still in shock, Charlie tried to understand what she was being told.

  “He gave up everything the moment he filed for divorce. My Father pulled out immediately which caused havoc amongst the other investors in the company. By the following Monday morning, the divorce was in with the judge and Callum’s company was slowly going down the drain,” Claire smirked.

  “So he asked you to come all this way to tell me this?” Charlie cried across the table.

  “Actually... While Callum did ask me to tell you the truth, he isn’t the reason why I am here today. It was actually Annabelle who convinced me that you deserved to know why Callum did what he did,” Claire revealed.

  “Annabelle?”

  Claire nodded. “It would appear that Annabelle has developed a soft spot for you and believed you to be the victim in all of this. I had prepared to come here today to give you the sugar coated version of events as Annabelle had asked, but it would appear that you saw straight through my act. I’m glad that I was able to truly fill you on everything.” She pushed back her chair and got to her feet. “Goodbye.”

  Charlie felt her throat drying up. She couldn’t speak and she couldn’t breathe. She had so many questions that she needed answers to.

  “Wait!” she choked.

  Claire slowly returned to her seat and waited.

  “Just tell me one thing...” Charlie croaked.

  “Fire away.”

  “What happens to your daughter now? Will Callum still get to see her?” Charlie asked this question knowing that she wouldn’t be able to live with herself knowing that the divorce had caused their little girl to lose her father.

  Taken aback by Charlie’s question, Claire couldn’t answer promptly. After taking a few minutes to collect herself, she finally spoke. “I would never stop Paige from having contact with her Father. The three years that little girl has been on this earth have been the best years of my life. I know that she loves her Daddy a lot and I wouldn’t want to be responsible for her hating me later down the line because I stopped her from seeing him.”

  “Thank you,” Charlie nodded, placing a twenty pound note on the table in front of her.

  Still digesting everything, she stood from the table and made her way towards the hotel lobby without looking back. She knew that she had some serious thinking to do about her now twisted future.

  Twenty Seven

  The black cab came to a stop outside of the little semi-detached house where Xavier lived. Pulling her mobile phone from the inside of her handbag, Charlie sent him a text to let him know that they were outside.

  “He lives in a really quiet area,” Amelia observed, looking out of the window at the few houses littered around the small cul-de-sac. “It doesn’t seem like the sort of area that a young guy in his twenties would buy a house,” she replied, wrinkling her nose with distaste.

  “He lives with his Mum!” Charlie laughed, poking her in the side.

  Amelia’s mouth formed a surprised O, before she too started giggling along with Charlie.

  “Shush! He’s coming!” Jack said, shaking his head in amusement at the two of them.

  Charlie looked past Amelia so that she could see out of the window. She spotted Xavier standing on the doorstep talking to a woman she knew instantly to be his mother. Although she looked petite stood next to Xavier, there was no denying the shared genetics between mother and son.

  “Look!” Charlie said, pointing out of the window. “He looks just like his Mum doesn’t he?”

  Amelia lifted her hand to her mouth in a poor attempt at disguising her laughter. “That is fucking scary... He is virtually a male clone of her, although he is probably the more feminine out of the two.”

  “Mia!” Jack scolded, a small smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. “We could say the same thing about you and your Mum. I thought you were both sisters at first.”

  Charlie rolled her eyes. “Whatever, Jack... Stop trying to get into her good books,” she teased, sticking out her tongue at him.

  Amelia leaned forwards to where Jack was sat opposite on one of the pull down seats in the cab. “My baby doesn’t need to get into my good books,” she winked, pressing her lips firmly against his.

  “Okay... That’s enough!” Charlie called out after more than a minute of them exchanging saliva in front of her. “Please leave all of that for the bedroom,” she said, gesturing animatedly towards their kissing embrace. “And by bedroom, I mean your bedroom at his place!”

  Jack grinned as he placed a swift kiss against Amelia’s lips. “We’ll finish this off later,” he murmured.

  Amelia giggled as she fell backwards onto the padded back seat. “Promise?” she replied with a girlish pout.

  Charlie wrinkled her nose. “I think I’m going to vom,” she announced as the passenger door opened and a light gust of evening breeze filled the space around them.

  “My bad,” Xavier apologised as he pulled down the seat next to Jack and closed the cab door. “My Mum was just giving me my usual lecture before a night out drinking.”

  “No worries, you’re here now. What lectures was she giving you?” Charlie asked as she tried to ignore the whispering exchange of filthy promises she could hear between Jack and Amelia.

  “Just the usual... If I’m giving it out then I need to wear protection, and if I’m receiving it then I need to make sure he’s got protection,” Xavier replied. He turned and stared out of the window as the cab made a U turn and headed back out of the cul-de-sac.

  Charlie looked at Amelia who was now sporting a rather large grin. “Thanks for that little lesson, Avi,” she smiled.

  “Shit!” Jack started to cough and splutter into his hand following Xavier’s admission. It wasn’t very often that everyone got together, so for Jack, it was still a learning curve being around Xavier’s unique and carefree personality.

  Turning his attention away from the window, Xavier focused on Charlie. “Why weren’t you in work today?” he asked, eyeing her curiously.

  Charlie pressed her lips together as she tried to fabricate a believable story. She hadn’t actually told Xavier that she was going to meet Claire because she couldn’t deal with the hassle and drama that would have followed. She hated to lie, but she couldn’t think of any other choice at this moment.

  “She had to take some time off work to come and get my arse from the dentist,” Amelia quickly answered on Charlie’s behalf. “I ended up having a damn root canal, so I needed her to come with me and drive my car home
afterwards,” Amelia said, taking hold of Charlie’s hand.

  “Oh...Okay,” Xavier nodded, turning to stare back out of the window.

  Charlie let out a quick breath as she squeezed Amelia’s hand in thanks.

  “We are here,” Jack announced as the taxi came to a stop outside of Zachary’s.

  It was a bittersweet reunion for Charlie as they exited the car outside of her favourite bar. She shuddered realising that it was her first time venturing out since that unforgettable night at Vision with Callum and Jay. The memory of the bloodied body lying on the floor along with Callum’s adrenaline fuelled rage had been enough to keep her locked away for a while as she tried to recover from the guilt that wracked and tortured her conscious at every waking moment.

  “We could go somewhere else?” Amelia whispered into her ear as she took in her obvious discomfort.

  Charlie knew that Zachary’s was also Callum’s favourite place to relax when he was in the city and more than likely the place where she would find him lurking.

  As she scanned the long line of people waiting to be let inside, her eyes landed on Big Jeremy who was guarding the entrance. She noticed that he was watching her carefully, his large and bulky arms folded tightly across his chest.

  “It’s ok,” Charlie swallowed, heading towards the large bouncer. “I mean... he may not even be here, right?”

  “Who,” Xavier asked, sliding his arm around Charlie’s shoulder.

  “Callum...” Amelia replied.

  “He won’t show up if he knows what’s good for him,” Jack muttered, pulling Amelia closer into his body. “Besides, Lucy and Ollie have been here for a while, so they would have said something if they had seen him. Keep your chin up, Charlie,” Jack said, shooting her a reassuring smile.

  “Miss Harris,” Jeremy nodded as she approached. He stepped to the side to let the four of them pass through with ease into the bar area.

  “They are upstairs in our usual suite,” Jack said, gesturing to the overhead balconies. “Don’t worry,” he smiled, taking in the puzzled expression across her face. “Callum isn’t the only one with money you know.”