With shaky fingers I scrolled through his messages and they were all from Jennifer/Claudia:
You want to marry the fat bitch? Don’t make me laugh!
She actually believes you love her?
You deluded prick. You’ll never have happiness.
We’re trapped in this nightmare together… no escape for either of us.
I know what you did.
She’s so wrapped up in your beauty, she cannot see the fakery.
I hope your cock drops off, you little shit. You don’t deserve happiness.
You took my sister away from me.
You will not marry her. I will be dead before that happens.
So, she was still pretty ill then. These were all recent, all sent since we left Sub Rosa and came back home. Since I’d told her Cai and I planned on marriage and babies, she’d gone assfuck crazy as Cai often coined it.
“Is this the way she treats you? The way she talks to you when I’m not there?” I wiped my nose, but it was a never-ending stream.
“Yeah, this is the way she’s always talked to me. Like to keep me close, she has to treat me so badly I won’t leave. Won’t go.”
I burst out crying, crying so hard it hurt. “Oh… my… god. That’s why… that’s why… that’s…”
“…why your father did that to you, too.”
He kissed me and my tears away. For once, his kiss wasn’t exacting. I felt his lingering need to show me how he really felt and I don’t know why, but I just wanted my mum.
Chapter 48
WE WENT TO bed but neither of us could sleep. It’d all been a lie… all this time. I didn’t know how to feel, or what to do.
“I love you, I do. I just didn’t want to let myself. I want to try and help you understand, if you’ll listen?” he asked, laid behind me, his arm around my waist.
We wore our nightwear, which was a first. Normally we always slept naked.
“You can tell me, if it helps.” Though how long I could continue to negate my own needs for everyone else’s, was another thing entirely…
“Before I met you, I walked down the street angry. At everything. Nothing made me happy. Nothing at all. I was just so wound tight. Couldn’t see past the fog of need to use my fists. I went drinking and it didn’t exactly get me any brownie points with the ladies. I’m not a drunk or an addict but I can drink.”
“I know. I’ve never seen you drunk.”
“Yeah, because if I were, I might have given myself away and anyway, it takes a lot to get me hammered.”
“Go on.”
“Being me was like not feeling like a person, it was like not feeling like I deserved anything good. I can’t explain it in words but I just felt like… a nothing. You know?”
“I know. I know what it’s like, but it didn’t make me so cold, Cai.”
He wrapped me tighter in his arms. “I know. Because you’re better than me. Yet, at the end of the day, you had a loving mother. You still do. I never did, Chlo. I know from talking to Claire that my mother couldn’t even bottle-feed me. Even my dad helped out with that. You know… the docs always said it was post-natal depression but they obviously didn’t dig deep enough.”
“You said you only realised what love was this week…”
“Hmm. I said that. It’s true.”
“Tell me, exactly…”
“When I watched you fighting, the way you looked… the way you moved. I finally saw you and I just knew, I loved you enough to tell you the truth. To spare you future hurt. I wanted finally, to share this with someone. You… I wanted to share it with you. Not to hurt you, but because I do want to make a family, to marry. I do want those things, for real. I love your strength and your anguish and your guts. I love that you don’t see yourself at all. You just feel… and I absolutely love that. I absolutely love you and I would do anything for you, now. I’d do anything. Please, let me show you how much I really love you. I need to show you, please.”
“You hurt me, damn it,” I blubbed.
He lifted my hair and kissed my scar. “I want to worship you until all that’s left of me is the tiniest piece of life left, and rightly so, I’d die happy knowing the rest you took for yourself.”
He buried his nose and mouth in my hair, kissing my scalp, nuzzling my skin. “I love you so much, it hurts, because I know you don’t believe me. You still doubt it?”
“I can’t help it, Cai. This isn’t easy.” Tears streaked my face. Elated ones, sad ones, confused ones.
He pulled the strap of my top down and kissed my shoulder. “All this beauty is mine?”
“Yes,” I cried, tears choking me.
He rolled me to him and pressed his mouth against mine, running his tongue fiercely around my mouth, his body overpowering all my defences.
He reached for the hem of my shirt and lifted it away, so we were chest to chest. He pressed his mouth to my breast and kissed me. Slowly. Dragged his teeth through my aching pressure points and groaned into my flesh.
“Cai.”
“Tell me.”
“I want you to—” make love to me.
I never got chance to tell him. He ripped his pants down and mine too. He laid on top of me, his fingers making me come. Then he pushed inside me.
He pinned my arms down and I didn’t get chance to respond to him in any way. I was his to do with as he pleased and he was careless and fraught in his approach. His teeth ripped at my flesh, and wherever they pinched down, it was miraculous.
“You’re so soft and warm, it’s not an effort loving you.”
“You’re my handsome man, Cai. I love you.”
He grunted and sucked in breath, madly running his mouth all over me still, devouring me at a pace I couldn’t keep up with. His hunger was unparalleled and I felt it in the strength of his erection and the unapologetic way he fucked me deep.
Before he made me come, he pulled out and leaned down to feast on my pussy. He buried his nose deep inside me and groaned louder than I’d ever heard him do before. He filled me with his hand knuckle-deep and I ejaculated for the first time in my life. Real, streams of pleasure. From the look on his face, he knew that was something new.
“Damn it, I’m aching for you.” He motioned at his cock, straining uncomfortably from his body.
He sat on his knees and I placed myself astride his lap, my back against his front. He kissed my back and whimpered when I lowered myself onto his heavy shaft. He bounced me until I cried with ecstasy again, his fists wrapped around my breasts, my hand on my clit. He hadn’t come so then he placed his hand on mine and kept pumping inside me, both of us rubbing my sore clit. He was loud, I couldn’t get over it. How loud. He no longer held back in his cries. He broke down toward the end, begging for mercy.
“Tigress, please don’t leave me. Please.”
“I won’t. I won’t. No more lies. I love you.”
I turned to his front and lowered myself the other way. I saw in his eyes he was desperate for release but he was upset. I gripped his hair and swung into his hips aggressively. “This cock… this body… these arms. I love these arms.”
The aroma of hot sex between us, sweat binding us, I was so aroused and he was the hot shaft I needed to burn myself down on.
I smacked his face and he yelled, “Again!”
I slapped his other cheek.
“Yes!” he growled.
He lifted me in his arms and tossed me beneath him, pinning me down so I couldn’t move anything. My hands and feet grappled by his. His face red raw and his eyes streaming, he growled, “Say it.”
“Mine.”
He kept fucking me, deep. “I want to be your shelter, Chloe. Your home.”
Come already. I was dying for him. He was testing my limits, again.
“Cai, I want to have your baby. I need to have you.”
He rested on my body and latched onto my throat, sucking until we came together, his assault on me so reckless I was unable to remember it afterwards. I just knew pain, and suffering, and him cryin
g on my shoulder. He rolled away and I wrapped my arms around him, my legs around his body. I tucked my face between his bulky shoulder blades and covered us with the blankets.
“I want your baby, Cai. I want to grow a big belly and have you look after us. I’m in love with you so deep… I need it. It’s all I want, now.”
“You can have it. I’ll take care of you.”
He kissed my hand and nodded, wiping his tears on the pillow. It was all the proof he needed—I still loved him that much.
I wanted him to see what I could see… and believe it, too.
Chapter 49
WE WENT BACK to normal, except what is normal, really? On Monday morning, anyway, I caught the subway to work and acted as if I didn’t know that Claudia was hiding inside the persona of somebody else. On the internet I’d researched what she had—dissociative identity disorder—and it still didn’t seem plausible to me. Could someone unknowingly yet convincingly assume the identity of somebody else? Even if that person were your sister and you used to be close—years had gone by, time when they didn’t know one another. Time when Claudia was drinking and wasting her life, not working out all the ins and outs of a world Jennifer probably found hard to climb.
When an editorial meeting was called for the human interest side of our department, I found myself uncharacteristically quiet, lest I said something to give myself away—something along the lines of, ‘I KNOW YOU ARE A BITCH WHO SENDS YOUR NEPHEW/SON HORRIBLE TEXT MESSAGES!’ I couldn’t stop myself thinking that, but I had some control over saying it. ‘YOU ALSO CALLED ME FAT!’
Bitch.
You know how it is when it’s January and everybody is pissed off and narky because it’s dark all the time, we’re still having to wear boots because of the snow and the joy of the season is dispensed with for another year—well that was the scene of that meeting. Many pissed off people and no joy. No inspiring tales, just sour faces that wished they were back in front of the fire, passed out on eggnog.
Ideas like useless bullets dangled in the air until they dropped like lead weights and were lost amongst a table full of crap swatches and reclaim belts. Everyone knew she HATED belts.
The woman was angry and upset, I could tell. She had always been cool as a cucumber before, unreadable but not overtly annoyed like she was that day. She sat through most meetings bored out of her skull until some idea actually struck a chord with her.
We were trying to agree on an angle for the Fall issue, which was the biggest of the year. Everyone knew she was unimpressed from the way her arms remained folded and her face was trained on the desk in front. This seemed to make everyone around her even more nervous and stuff just flew through the air like sticky shit that wouldn’t shift.
“Lady GaGa getting fat, what about that?” Sasha, a junior, said rather inopportunely.
“She is not fucking fat,” I retaliated. Everyone looked and knew, she’d hit a nerve. I dipped my chin and rectified myself… “She’s curvy.”
“We are about one quarter of a per cent onto something,” Jennifer said. “Right now, I’d still rather be inspecting antique shoe buckles… and please god, you know how I love a buckle.”
Ice clunked, smashed all our heads in, in fact!
The young girl wouldn’t cease. “Well, my friend at Zara said fat is the new thin.”
“For fuck’s sake Sasha, will you piss off with the fat and thin, eh? I’m a size eight and am I fat? Or thin? Or just fucking normal?”
I sank in my seat. I don’t know what had come over me. A size eight in the US wasn’t a British size eight but it was still something I was proud of. I was slimmer than I’d ever been thanks to my boyfriend and I wasn’t going to work at a magazine that engaged in these ridiculous debates.
“Chloe, dear.” Jennifer looked at me with not one facial muscle out of place. “It’s okay. I don’t know who hired this girl, anyway. She obviously didn’t realise GaGa is a friend. Tssk. Sasha, go find a bag from the closet. Take any one you like. Then hand your papers to HR on your way out. Good luck to you, dear.”
Sasha stood, fire in her eyes, then Carl said out of the corner of his mouth, “The Hermés is more than your salary anyway.”
The girl left, tail between her legs, dollar signs no doubt in front of her eyes. The first casualty of the year. It didn’t need to be said but Jennifer didn’t tolerate ignorant people. It wasn’t what the magazine stood for.
Jennifer’s lip curled and everyone else nodded quickly. Right move. They all assured her like the loyal lapdogs they were.
“What about rape? They’re trying to change the laws. Could be interesting.” Ben, Carl’s best buddy and an editor too, put that out there. He might have offended her if he weren’t wearing a Brooks Brothers suit that day. He’d bragged earlier he had an important lunch date later on, with god knows who. I didn’t dare ask how people in Frame really networked.
Jennifer stared vacantly around the room and decided. “Rape isn’t for Fall, Benjamin. Maybe hopeful domestic abuse survivor stories are, however. Facts. Statistics. Undercover. Truth. Real women… and curves… a sideline idea perhaps.” She crooked a brow at me. “Spin it if you can possibly dredge a brain cell or two between you. I mean… if something actually of human interest comes up, please do let me know.”
She left the room wearily and Carl took over. “What a fucking nightmare. Sasha… damn it. I’ll pay for that… I employed her.”
“Oh dear.” I gave him a look. “She was just ridiculous, who the fuck was she anyway?”
I found myself left with Carl, Ben and two wise researchers who had sat quiet. Carl nodded for them to go so it was just us three.
“She was on trial so it hardly matters but I hate pissing Jennifer off, she’ll probably tell me I’m not allowed to use her spa anymore.”
“Oh no, not the hallowed spa?” Ben exclaimed. The man was rugged and handsome but not beautiful like Carl or Cai. I meant to ask about said spa but didn’t get chance…
“We’re meant to be brimming with ideas… with people wanting to give us their stories.” Carl moaned, hand on his forehead, then remembered he shouldn’t touch his face with fingertips. Cooties.
“It’s sodding January for fuck’s sake. How are we meant to plan while stuck in the mire of this gunky slush puppy of a city. Hell… I tell you what people really want…” I had their attention, smirks on both their faces… they waited. “Escapism… it’s what everyone wants. I should know, I grew up in Barnsley… and I do have an idea. Not just a throwaway comment on celebrity lifestyles and their weight.”
“Oh, yeah?” they both said at the same time.
“I know just the artist to help me, too.”
“I want it on my desk by Monday next week… whatever it is. Now, off with you… Ben and I need to discuss how we’re gonna stop Sasha running to all her friends about this.”
“I’ll make a call to that guy at Facebook I know. Get her banned,” Ben said nodding, and they both shouted, “Ciao,” as I left the room.
I escaped quickly, knowing how the mood could change in that room!
AFTER that disastrous editorial meeting with Jennifer, I got home late that night. A new restaurant had opened in town and as was the custom, we always got an invite. It was my turn to have a freebie so I dragged Tiff along, knowing she rarely got any perks of the job except drooling over Carl’s ass all day long. It was a celebrity chef place which I personally thought overdone and hardboiled but hey, I’d still write it up as favourably as possible for the online content team to do what they could with.
So when I got in through the door, I found Cai in his studio looking at some thumbnails. We hugged and kissed before he asked, “You okay? You look tired.”
“I am tired. Think I’m gonna bathe with a glass of wine, then hit the hay.”
“I’ll finish up here then meet you there,” he smiled behind an eyeglass, “if you want the company?”
“I would kill for a neck massage, one of your most famous,” I begged, m
y bottom lip out.
“Coming right up, tigress.”
Submerged in the water with one eye open, I saw him chuckling when he later entered the room.
“That bad?”
“I seriously may fall asleep if you touch my neck.”
“I bet not many guys get an offer like that,” he said in a rush of hilarity, settling himself on the floor behind the tub. He placed a towel under my head and shoulders to raise me a little.
“Oh gawwwd, your hands, ooh, your hands,” I moaned, as he got to work.
“Glad I’m appreciated,” he sniggered, then cut himself off. “So… how was today, really?”
“Hard,” I admitted. “Not as bad as I thought, though. She stuck up for me in an editorial meeting.”
“She did what?” He was incredulous.
“Yeah, she sacked someone.”
“You’re kidding me. She really fired someone? For you?”
“Well, the girl was being dumb anyway.”
“Jeez, she’s never done that before. Not in front of other people anyway.”
“It surprised me, I have to admit. I must say she wasn’t her normal self this morning. She was noticeably pissed off and yeah… she got rid of Sasha in a heartbeat.”
“Something must be going on,” he started, pausing his massage of my neck, “she was still acting like Jennifer… but she was just a bit more pissy than normal?”
“Yeah.”
“I wonder…”
“She complains of headaches, doesn’t she?” I turned to look at him.
He was biting his nails. “Yeah.”
“It could be that she’s at war with herself… inside. Or it could be that she’s not happy to know we’re planning a future together… and her cool’s slipping again.”
“Could be.” He frowned and scratched the back of his neck.
“What?”
“I think she’s losing it. I think you telling her we might stay together has tipped her over… taken her someplace worse than she was before maybe. Jennifer has never, ever lost it in that way before. Everybody knows she’s pretty uncompromising but she would have Carl fire the douche in a room 50 blocks away rather than let other people have observation of her true personality.”
Unbind (Sub Rosa Series Book 1) Page 36