“Who says you’re not.” Luke asked her quietly and she felt that lurch low down and her heart flipping around with something that resembled fear mixed with excitement and sprinkled with a little anticipation.
“I… Um.” She cleared her throat.
“Don’t worry Cassie. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. I promise.” He told her.
And there in lied the problem, there wasn’t much that she didn’t want him to do. Damn she was in real trouble, curse her so called friends.
“Can your divorce friends?” she asked him, trying to divert his attention onto something else. Anything else that was safer than what they were talking about.
Luke stood up in panther like fluid moves. Wow, she swallowed and felt the heat sting her cheeks again. What was it with the blushing?
She had never been one prone to it except recently with Luke. When he was around her she seemed to revert to a giddy school girl. It was very disconcerting to say the least.
He took hold of her wrap that was draped on the back of her chair as he helped her out of it and then wrapped it around her. His arms staying around her for a fraction as he brought his head close to her ear.
“Unfortunately you can’t, you are stuck with them.” And he put a hand on her arm to guide her from the room.
They walked at a leisurely pace now. Unlike earlier when he had whizzed her past everything at the speed of light and everything had been like a blur. “They seem to be very good friends.”
“Huh, they abandoned me to fend for myself.”
“I could fend for you if you would like.” Luke told her as he handed a ticket to one of the staff as they went out to the reception. “I really don’t mind.”
“I don’t need anyone to fend for me. I am quite capable of doing things on my own.” She told him.
“There is no fun in that.” Luke said as they walked down the red carpet and by the time they reached the end of it his car was pulling up and the valet was getting out.
“Yes well, I don’t need anyone. I am quite fine by myself.” She told him.
“Yes you told me that earlier. I find myself disbelieving it more now than I did this afternoon.” He informed her. Huh, that showed how much he knew.
Luke opened the passenger door for her and she thanked him stiffly as she slid into the seat and then, once Luke was settled in the driver’s seat they were driving away. “So, you’ve known them since University?” Luke asked as they travelled along. She looked at him. “Adam and Joe.”
“Yeah, we took art together. If it wasn’t for them.” She stopped and sighed. “I think I would have lost my sanity years ago. Well that’s assuming I had any in the first place.”
“They became someone to talk to about Faye.” Luke guessed.
“About Faye, about my Mum. All of it really.” She told him.
“There was no one before?”
“I didn’t have time to make friends at school. Between Faye and Mum… well.” She looked down at her hands. “Faye took up a lot of my time. When I woke up each morning I had no idea which Faye I was going to get.”
“How do you mean?”
“There were two Faye’s back then.”
“Tell me.” He asked her, his voice inviting. She should have kept her mouth shut. but she had had a couple of glasses of wine and a glass of champagne. So her guard was down and her tongue loosened somewhat.
“Well there was up Faye, you’ve had the misfortune of meeting her. She does stupid things, and makes a nuisance of herself. But then there was down Faye, and she was… scary.” Cassie admitted. She hated down Faye. Down Faye was nasty and dark and twisted.”
“Has she ever tried to commit suicide?” She heard Luke ask her, so matter of fact, but then he was a doctor and he was probably used to asking these sorts of questions.
“A couple of times, not in recent years. After Mum, she lost it for a while. But that’s not what made her scary.”
“What made her scary?” he spoke softly, keeping his voice low.
“She…” Cassie stopped, did she really want to tell him this. Did she want it to come out? “She could get nasty.”
“How nasty?”
“She didn’t like a boy I was seeing once and she…” Cassie took a breath. “She got angry, told me to leave him or else.”
“Or else what?”
“She threatened to cut herself. I had just got out the bath and well…”
“Yes.”
“The next thing I knew, I was feeling myself being pushed down in the bath and she was holding me down, under the water.”
“She tried to drown you?” Luke sounded horrified, she guessed it was. Funny how she saw it all as quite normal.
“Oh she would never have done it.” She instantly jumped to her sister’s defence. “I mean it was scary at the time and I had almost passed out before she pulled me out of the water but…” Luke swore savagely under his breath. “But she was really sorry about it afterwards. I mean really sorry. She cried her eyes out all evening.”
“You make it sound like it was a regular thing.”
“Only when down Faye was about. I got pushed down the stairs. She tried to set light to me once. Silly things really.” She tried to cast it off.
“Silly things.” Luke echoed. “You make it sound like it was your fault. Did she cry every time she did something like that? Promise to never do it again? Tell you that if you had just listened then she wouldn’t have been forced to do what she did?”
Silence fell in the car. Yes, she promised never to do it again. Yes, she had told her that if she hadn’t kept on at her she wouldn’t have done it. But she wasn’t about to admit to that. She knew he would take it the wrong way. He would see those actions as deliberate, calculated and controlling. And that wasn’t it. It just wasn’t.
“She was inconsolable, sometimes I had to sit up with her all night while she slept. It would take me a long time to finally get her off to sleep.” Cassie told him. “And she would apologise and beg me not to stop loving her and not leave her and well…”
“And you never tried to get her help?” he asked her and Cassie heard the harshness of anger in his voice. Had she angered him somehow?
“Of course I did, lots of times. But I can’t force her. What else can I do.” She shrugged.
“Walk away and tell her that unless she is prepared to get help you want nothing to do with her.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why?”
“What if she hurt herself?”
“What if she killed you?” Luke asked her.
“She wouldn’t.” Cassie denied.
“She held you under water until you were at the point of passing out. But before you get that far you would have taken water into your lungs. When you were thrashing about fighting for your life. You could have died from secondary drowning hours later.”
“Yes but…” she sighed. Yes, but… what?
“She pushed you down the stairs, that cannot be controlled. If you had fallen just at the right angle it could have broken your neck, or you could have struck your head.”
“Yes but…”
“And I don’t even want to think about the fire one.”
“But when down Faye isn’t there things are better and down Faye doesn’t show up very often. Just in times of high emotional distress. She hasn’t shown up for years now. The last time was…”
“Go on.” Luke prompted.
“When I was at University and she found out I had a boyfriend.” She cleared her throat.
“Ah…”
“Ah… what?”
“Ah… nothing.” He said and shrugged a shoulder.
“Ah… something.” She accused him.
“That’s why you placate her so much. Why she gets away with it all. You don’t want to wake up down Faye.” Luke guessed correctly.
“No that’s not it.” She defended but it sounded hollow even to her own ears. She knew that is why she did it.
“No she does not. It’s not about that.”
“Yes, it is definitely about that. She needs you to be complicit. She needs her punching bag when life gets too much for her.”
“No, you don’t understand. Faye is delicate.”
“Not as delicate as you think. Cassie I can help you. I have a really good friend, someone that I have been talking to these past couple of months. This is his area of expertise. He runs a specialist residential unit. He has agreed to take her as a patient.”
“You talked to someone… about Faye?” She oddly felt the bitter sting of betrayal by that. She shouldn’t have, she knew but she couldn’t help it.
“Please don’t be hurt. I needed to understand. Like I said it’s not my area. I know enough to get by in my role but not anything in depth.” Luke told her quietly. But still he had spoken to someone about Faye. She didn’t like that at all.
“Thanks for the offer.” She said.
“Cassie, she needs help. This unit is a brilliant place. They do fantastic work. It’s residential so she would have to stay there but it wouldn’t be forever.”
“No… she wouldn’t like that.” Cassie told him as panic set in.
“She wouldn’t? or you wouldn’t?” Luke asked.
“I…”
“Cassie, let me help you.” Luke asked her. “I am not suggesting anything that is going to make her worse. In fact, quite the opposite. There are very good treatment options. She needs a diagnosis, she needs the right medication and she needs the right counselling. The unit can provide her with all of those things and more. They even teach new life skills. This would be good for her and for you.”
“I’ll think about it.” Cassie finally agreed.
“Will you?”
“Yes.”
“Will you?” he sounded sceptical.
“I promise.” She said.
“That’s a start.” Luke told her. “I’m not going to let it drop though.” He promised quietly
They fell silent then, as he drove her the rest of the way to her home. All too Soon Luke pulled up in front of her home and he shut off the engine and went to remove his seat belt.
“No.” She said and put a hand on his arm to stop him. “I can take it from here.”
“I’ll see you to your door.”
“No.” She said, her voice rising in alarm. She had a feeling that that might not turn out well at all. “It’s fine really.”
“I can see you to your door.” Luke told her, he sounded amused.
“Really it’s okay.” If he took her to her front door, well, there was every chance he would be stepping over that threshold and there really was only one way that was going to end up.
“It’s no trouble at all.”
“I am sorry you got lumbered with bringing me home. I shall be having very stern words with my friends about that.”
“Will that work?” Luke asked and she heard the note of disbelief in his voice. He was right it would make no difference.
“I know you went out of your way to bring me home. I do appreciate it.”
“It was my pleasure really.” she removed her seat belt and turned in her seat to look at him.
“No it was unforgivable of my friends to put you on the spot like that.”
“It really was no trouble.”
“Don’t worry, I shall make sure they understand never to do that again.”
“Cassie…”
“I am really sorry that your evening was spoiled.” She ploughed on not giving him a chance to speak.
“Cassie…”
“I know that you are a busy man.”
“Cassie…”
“And I know you felt pressured into saying yes to giving me a lift back.”
“Cassie.”
“But I shall be letting Adam know that his actions were –”
“Cassie, shut up.” And before she could say anything else. Luke leant over and captured her mouth with his. His hand came up to cradle the side of her face as he kissed her lips.
His teeth nipped at her bottom lip and she groaned, a deep guttural sound that came from somewhere deep in her lungs.
Cassie’s hand found its way to rest on his chest and he pulled her closer to him. He lifted his head to look at her.
“I should get inside before…” She stopped.
“Yes, you should or else…” He agreed.
“Or else what?”
“The wolf is going to be knocking on your door.” He told her.
“I…” she felt that delicious shiver again.
“Believe me if I come knocking you will let me in.” His voice dropped seductively. Oh boy, she was in trouble. She needed to get out of the car.
She pulled away from him and fumbled with the door, her hands shaking. Her breathing staggered. She pulled the handle and it gave under the pressure. She spilled out of the car and then ran up her path to her front door.
With fingers that were still shaking she reached into her bag and removed her front door key and then brought the key to the lock.
The door moved, she frowned, her door was unlocked and open. She pushed the door open slowly and stepped inside before pushing the door to.
“Faye. Are you home?” She called out. What had happened? Had something gone wrong and she had come back?
Cassie reached for the light in the hallway and flicked it on before she gasped as the colour drained from her face and she looked at the scene that confronted her eyes.
Chapter 25.
Things were strewn all over the place, her things. She stood rooted to the spot as she took in the carnage before she.
Even the books on the small book shelf in the corner of the hallway had been dumped on the floor. All tossed about with little regard.
She realised quickly that her home had been broken into and that she had been burgled. Why would anyone do that? Do this? She had nothing. Worse than that she had more than nothing. Nothing worth taking anyway.
She brought a shaky hand to her chest to try and calm her breathing and her racing heart. Her eyes swept around in confusion and shock.
The feeling of violation ripped through her as she looked at her belongings and cushions all scattered about. Tears welled up in her eyes and she held her breath as she stood stunned feeling small and vulnerable.
The feeling of safety she always felt when she came home completely taken from her. It was as though her home had become a stranger to her instead of warmly inviting like it normally was.
She could smell the faint smell of what smelt like an unfamiliar aftershave. Was that the aftershave the intruder had been wearing?
“Great.” She mumbled and she gingerly made her way into the living room, preparing herself for seeing what damage had been done in there.
But just as she was about to turn on the light someone grabbed her.
She screamed out in terror as she turned round to face her assailant. She couldn’t see in the dim light but it was definitely a man.
Hands came round her throat and they squeezed hard. She couldn’t breathe. she scratched at the person holding her trying desperately to free herself. She pushed and wriggled. Her throat hurt. She could feel the fingers biting.
She was no longer able to take a breath and a strange relaxing dizziness invaded her brain as she felt pressure build up in her face.
Her eyes felt as though they were going to pop out any minute and she felt the throb of her pulse beating on her skin all over her head. She was going to die. She realised sickeningly.
She tried to push herself away from whoever had her, in a last ditch attempt at saving herself. Her knees began to buckle beneath her and a strange noise escaped from her.
And then, he let her go and she stumbled, her arms flailing about as she tried to correct her balance. she felt him shove her hard, her neck snapping back, the muscles in the
back of her neck and across her shoulders tensing painfully in response as they were wrenched and she fell.
There was the sound of a loud sickening thud and she felt the side of her head hit the corner of her coffee table. A sharp stinging pain exploded at the impact and then she was lying still on the ground.
With severe pain exploding though her head and her throat sore and bruised. She coughed and spluttered and gulped in large quantities of air. Her body began shivering as though she were cold.
She laid still on her rug, not daring to move. Her body shaking as shock set in filling her with a strange numbness. She would lie here for a while, she decided. Catch her breath and then get up. The man had gone, she had heard him run out the door. So she would be fine to just lie here for a while. She was tired anyway.
“Cassie?” She was dimly aware of someone calling her. It seemed to come at her from a great distance away. There was a noise and a rustle. Then she heard the click as someone turned on the light.
She groaned as the light hit her eyes and made them sting. “Cassie.” The voice came again, closer this time. It sounded worried and tortured.
Hands were on her arm. Gently turning her so that she was lying on her back and looking up into Luke’s worried face.
She groaned again and tried to bring a hand up to her head where it was throbbing and stinging. Wow it really hurt. Why was Luke here? Why was she lying on the floor?
Luke gently took hold of her hand and moved it away. Bringing it down to rest it on her stomach as he brought his hands back up to her head.
She watched him work, watched the look of concentration as he frowned. She wanted to reach up and smooth away those tight lines. “Keep still, let me stop the bleeding.” Bleeding? Was she injured. What had happened? Where was she? Why wasn’t her brain working properly?
“Hey.” She greeted him cheerfully. Her voice sounding a little croaky.
“Hey yourself.” Luke said as she felt him hold something against the side of her head.
“How are you?”
“Fine,”
“Are you sure?”
“I am sure.” Luke told her as he continued to work. She winced as she felt him apply pressure to the wound. “Sorry.”
The things we do for love. Page 17