by Janene Wood
Kate wiped the tears from her cheeks with trembling hands and slowly opened her eyes, forcing the memories to fade. Sensing Marc’s presence before she saw him, she was oddly unsurprised to find him sitting at her bedside, a book spread open on his lap.
“I was just dreaming of you,” she murmured ingenuously. The present hadn't caught up with her yet and her guard was down. She examined him curiously; he was so unlike the Marc from her dream it was disconcerting. Yet in a way, it was fitting; they were both so different to that naive couple who fell in love.
“I was dreaming of the last day we spent together…at the waterhole. It was such a perfect day–”
“Until I went and got myself shot,” he finished gravely. “You saved my life,” he said softly, his eyes riveted to hers.
She held his gaze until she could no longer bear the intensity of it. “And still I lost you,” she whispered, too softly for him to hear.
Kate pulled herself upright as the memory of last night – their encounter in the off-license, then the confrontation in Jules’ flat – came rushing back. Anger, fear and niggling doubt cascaded upon her in the same instant. Everything was so mixed up now! If only she'd had time to sort things through before having to face him again! She wondered again if what he told her last night was true, that he'd thought her dead all this time. He had never lied to her before...
But that was then. Things were different now.
Looking anywhere but at Marc’s face, she saw she was still wearing the same crumpled shirt she had gone out in last night. Her jeans hung limply over the foot of the bed and there was no sign of her boots or coat. She didn’t remember putting them away, or getting undressed for that matter. With a sickening jolt, the tail-end of the evening came back to her in vivid detail. The stink of the doss house... Ryan, wounded and bleeding... Her head spinning, her body falling...
“You brought me home and put me to bed,” she accused him benignly. She had no conscious memory of it but knew it was true just the same. That was the danger of passing out unexpectedly: you had no control over what happened to you while you were unconscious; you had to rely on friends, strangers and ex-lovers to keep you safe. Not that it happened often, thank God. Despite everything that had come between them, it was comforting to know it was Marc who had stepped up and taken charge. Despite everything that had happened between them, she knew instinctively that no one else would ever look out for her as tenaciously as he.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “That place was…unpleasant.” An involuntarily shudder ran through her body at the memory. “How was Ryan at the end?”
The muscles around Marc’s mouth tightened almost imperceptibly and his response was cold. “He was alive; other than that I couldn’t say. His health is not my concern.”
Kate flushed but made no comment. Jules would no doubt have filled him in on the exact nature of her relationship with Ryan, so she understood his resentment. It took no great stretch of the imagination to know she would feel exactly the same if their positions were reversed, the depth of their estrangement notwithstanding. Marc’s sudden reappearance in her life complicated everything, but changed nothing. It was important she make it clear where her affections now lay.
Pushing back the covers, she said, “I need to call him and make sure he’s alright.” Feeling ridiculously self-conscious of her bare legs, she dropped her feet over the side of the bed and stood up, intending to walk across and retrieve her robe from the back of the door. Marc had other ideas though, and grabbed her hand. A jolt of electricity flowed through her fingers at his touch and her eyes widened in shock. He must have felt it too; he flinched, as if he had been stuck with a cattle prod, and let go her hand. Abruptly he stood, snapping shut the book on his lap. It was the first book of her Tessa series, Kate noticed.
“That can wait,” he told her firmly, towering over her in a manner that would have intimidated anyone else. “We need to talk.”
Kate took a step back and crossed her arms defensively, trying to ignore her body's traitorous reaction to being so close to him, close enough to inhale the heady, masculine scent of him.
“No, we don’t,” she disagreed firmly. The last thing she wanted was to be drawn into a re-hash of the past. Once that started... No, no, no, she could not let that happen. “What’s done is done. There’s nothing left to talk about.”
“How can you say that?” Marc searched her eyes for some reason for her obduracy. “I need to know what happened, Kate. What changed? I woke up, 24 hours after you healed me, only to be told you’d been killed by the same sniper who shot me! Can you imagine how that felt?”
Kate’s face burned hotly. Unfortunately, she could imagine, far too easily. The hard shell around her heart began to crack with the force of her empathy. She knew it would take very little effort on Marc's part to shatter it completely, leaving her completely exposed. In her worst nightmares she had never imagined finding herself in this position, having to face him again and explain. Turning so he couldn’t see the emotion on her face, she forced herself to focus on what was at stake, on what she had to lose. It was like being thrust under an ice-cold shower. Instantly, the cracks began to fuse back together, strengthening the shell around her heart and making it impermeable to his pleas.
Marc was completely unaware of the battle he had just lost.
His fury building, Marc snapped, “Now I find out you were just gone! Goddammit, Kate! I need to know why!”
The heat of his anger had no discernible effect on her. “No, you don’t,” she disagreed calmly. “It’s ancient history. There's nothing you can do to change it, so you need to find a way to let it go.”
Still avoiding his gaze, she yanked her jeans toward her and began pulling them on. She managed the first leg without difficulty, but overbalanced when she attempted the second. When Marc put a hand out to steady her, she hissed, “I don't need your help!”
“My entire life fell apart that day, Kate. Don’t you think I deserve the truth?” he demanded.
The look she gave him was inscrutable and unwavering.
He changed tack. “Obviously there are things you don’t want to tell me. Okay. I can probably live with that, after so long apart. For now. But how could you let me think you were dead? In four years, why did you never let me know you were safe?”
Kate sighed, as if resigning herself to the inevitable. “Look, I was trying to spare your feelings, but if you insist on knowing the truth, then fine, I'll tell you.” Maintaining that same unwavering expression, she said, “It’s very simple, Marc. What I thought was love was just a passing infatuation. I knew it was never going to work between us and I didn't want a great emotional scene, so I took advantage of your unconscious state and slipped away. It was easier that way. Tayo was glad to help; he’d been telling me from the start you were wrong for me. I finally realised he was right. No one else knew about the empty grave. I’m not proud of what I did, but I still think it was the best solution all round.”
Marc stared at her in silence.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” she continued relentlessly, “but I knew you were strong enough to get past it. We only knew each other for such a short time, after all.”
Marc’s shocked expression would echo in her soul for all time. “I don’t believe you,” he finally managed to utter. “You’re not capable of such deception...such cruelty. Just tell me the truth, Kate,” he begged. His voice was strained, making her insides clench.
“It is the truth, Marc,” she insisted, looking him in the eye. “You’ll realise that when you give it some thought. What other explanation is there?”
The question hung in the air like the unpleasant odour of decay.
“Tell Jules I’m sorry.” Kate’s voice almost faltered, but she caught herself in time. Losing her best friend was going to be the worst part of this nightmare; Marc had been lost to her a long time ago.
“You need to go now,” she said dismissively. “I have to shower and get ready for work.”<
br />
Confrontation
Kate rushed out of her apartment building, dressed in the jeans and shirt she had worn the night before. She had taken a minute to run a brush through her hair, grab her coat and slip on the first pair of shoes she could find, but there wasn’t time for the niceties of a shower or a cup of tea, much as she could have stood them. Marc had been angry when he left, but that was good, right? Maybe he'd leave her in peace now.
After ensuring he was no longer in the immediate vicinity, Kate ran downstairs and jumped in her Jeep. Revving the engine, she slammed it into first and screeched off down the street, unaware of the white hatchback pulling out after her a few seconds later.
The drive to Tottenham gave her the opportunity to relive every ghastly moment of the confrontation with Marc, and though she wanted nothing more than to curl up in a tiny ball and cry away the memory of the pain she had caused him, there was a more pressing need to take care of first.
Tayo's home was a sprawling, cement-rendered mansion, complete with Corinthian pillars and wrought iron balustrades, its acre of manicured gardens filled with all manner of fanciful concrete statuary. Anyone with a modicum of taste would agree it was ostentatious and immodest, but Kate knew it was Tayo’s way of compensating for his youthful insecurities, and of reminding himself he was now a man of means. It was a far cry from the dilapidated cottage of his youth, when he had lived on both the physical and social fringe of town. A modest apartment, somewhere between the city and the airport, would have suited him better, reflected Kate, not for the first time, since he traveled abroad so often and was rarely home long enough to unpack his bags.
But the house was symbolic, and symbols had no price.
Kate rang the bell impatiently, once, twice and then again, taking pleasure in how much it would annoy him. When he finally opened the door, he was bare-chested, clad only in a pair of long pajama pants that hung seductively from his hips, emphasizing his lean, muscular frame. His eyes were red-rimmed and his hair was tousled, as if he’d only just woken up after a restless night’s sleep, but Kate knew better than to make assumptions.
“Ah, if it isn't the comely Kate,” he greeted her pleasantly, with just a hint of a suggestive smile.
The well-defined muscles of his chest rippled as he closed the door behind them, but she affected not to notice. Looking at him objectively, she acknowledged he was a fine physical specimen, but they had known each other for so long and through such trying circumstances, she could never think of him in a sexual way.
But others obviously did. “Come back to bed, Tayo,” called a high-pitched voice from somewhere upstairs. The presence of a lover explained his tousled appearance and the delay in answering the door; Tayo never had trouble finding volunteers to share his bed. Kate tried not to judge; what he did in his own house was his own business. She just wished he would keep his nose out of hers.
On the surface, Tayo was supremely confident, fit enough to run a marathon and usually groomed to within an inch of his life. To a casual acquaintance he was charming and witty, full of clever, amusing anecdotes that encouraged you to believe he was a person of substance and character. Marc believed his charm and affability to be a facade and had warned her to be careful around him. But Marc didn’t have the history with Tayo she did. Tayo had been a shoulder to cry on when no one else understood what she was going through. He understood tragedy and loss as fundamentally as she did, like no one else could unless they too had lost people they cared for deeply.
Tayo ignored the voice from above. “To what do I owe this unexpected – and might I say, ridiculously early – pleasure,” he drawled.
“Don’t play games, Tayo. You know why I’m here,” she said tartly, pushing past him and for once not cringing at the proximity of his hideous tether. Kate knew all Tayo's moods, and as unlikely as it seemed from his manner, she could tell he was as tense as a tightly wound spring. She doubted she had woken him prematurely; more likely he had been sitting up waiting for her.
“I’m teasing you, Little M. Of course I know why you’re here. I’ve been expecting you – although you might have let me finish my beauty sleep,” he said with an exaggerated yawn. “Join me for coffee and we’ll talk.”
Kate protested she had things to do and didn’t have time for coffee, but her words fell on deaf ears. There was no choice but to follow him out of the spacious foyer, down a wide passageway lined with valuable but mostly ugly art, to the minimalist, sleekly modern kitchen where matching stainless steel appliances gleamed dully under the overhead fluorescent lighting.
Tayo removed two tiny porcelain cups from a cupboard and filled them one at a time from the commercial-size espresso machine that occupied pride of place on the marble bench top. The smell of the strong brew made her mouth water. Wordlessly, he handed her the first cup, watching her carefully from the corner of his eye.
Despite herself, Kate felt some of her tension fall away with the first sip of coffee. Maybe things weren’t as bad as she thought. Perhaps she was worrying for no reason.
And pigs might fly.
“It’s not as strong as that filthy Turkish shit we used to drink in Istanbul,” remarked Tayo as they stood facing each other across the kitchen, “but it’s not bad, I think.”
Kate frowned at Tayo’s seemingly offhand comment, which regurgitated a host of mostly unpleasant memories. For a short while in Istanbul they had...come together; Kate didn’t know how else to describe it. She had been struggling with the breakup from Marc, and once again, Tayo had been there for her, supportive and understanding. He held her for hours at a time while she cried. He made sure she ate and drank and bathed. He listened while she ranted, agreeing with everything she said, even her most lunatic, paranoid accusations. They spent week after week in each other’s pockets – but that’s what friends do for one another. It came as a surprise then, when Tayo made known his desire to explore a more intimate relationship.
Things were delicate for a while after that. Rejection, even kindly phrased, can make the sweetest man bitter. And Tayo was never that sweet to begin with.
Their relationship changed irrevocably in Istanbul, but the bond between them was impossible to sever. Once Kate began seeing Ryan, the tension eased somewhat, but neither of them ever mentioned Istanbul again.
It seemed to Kate that Tayo’s reference to the past was either an attempt at reconciliation or a reminder of the bargain they'd struck, but she could only guess at his true motives. He liked to keep her off balance. Either way, it was unnecessary. Her thoughts returned determinedly to the reason for her visit, and she felt her anger rise. “How could you have let Marc believe I was dead all this time? That was cruel, even for you!”
Tayo gave her a smug smile which told her he was particularly pleased with the way his scheme had turned out. “Only from your point of view,” he replied, calmly unrepentant.
“If I’d known what you’d done…”
“What? You wouldn’t have agreed to my proposal? I doubt that, cherie.”
Kate cringed at the endearment. “Proposal isn't the word I'd use for what this is,” she said vehemently. “What are you going to do now?”
“That depends on Webb,” replied Tayo bluntly. “Why is he in town?”
Kate frowned at the question. She’d had other things on her mind when Jules originally mentioned her brother was in London and had to think hard to remember what she said. “He’s here for work, I think. It has nothing to do with me.”
“Are you sure? What did you tell him?”
“Nothing!” denied Kate vehemently. “I took the blame for everything. I told him it was all my fault. He’s very angry with me,” said Kate flatly. The coffee had turned to ashes in her mouth. She placed her cup on the marble bench with a loud crack.
Tayo frowned at the sound. “How did he find you?”
Kate shrugged her shoulders disconsolately. “We bumped into each other in the off-license near Jules' place, purely by accident.” That was true as far as
she was concerned. How Marc had really found her, she hadn’t thought to enquire; the shock of seeing him again had been too overwhelming. Perhaps Jules had put two and two together. She was disturbingly prescient at times. Tayo didn’t need to know any of that though.
“I don’t want you to see him again,” he ordered, petulant as a child not wanting to share a favourite toy.
“Don’t worry, I have no intention of seeing him again. You forget I’m in love with Ryan.”
“I haven’t forgotten. I’d wondered if perhaps you had, though,” he remarked snidely.
Kate dug her nails into her palms to stop herself lashing out and punching him in his condescending cake-hole. Gritting her teeth, she pleaded with him, “Tayo, be reasonable. Nothing has changed!”
“Perhaps. I’ll be watching to see how things develop.”
Kate gave a deep sigh of relief. It was a vague and unsatisfactory reprieve, but it was all she could reasonably expect from someone as completely unreasonable as Tayo. One other thing weighed heavily on her mind. She hated to ask but she needed to know. “Have you heard from Ryan this morning? Do you know how he is?”
Tayo replied with an indolent shrug, “I have no idea.”
“For God's sake, Tayo! Tell me you didn’t leave him to spend the night in that stinking cesspit!” she cried angrily. She wouldn’t wish that on her worst enemy.
“I didn’t actually have any say in the matter. Lover-boy and I had a bit of a disagreement and he chased me out of there while you were doing your thing in the other room.”