What Doesn't Kill You

by Laura E. James

  For years, Griff tortured himself by staring at the ancient stack, blaming himself for Kieran’s death. Its existence and what it stood for had forced him to confront his own mortality, but he’d spent enough years tormented by ghosts. It was time to concentrate on the living.

  ‘I’m not dead yet,’ he said, breathing Evie in.

  She glanced up, her eyes liquid emerald.

  Always starts with the eyes, Griff thought, losing himself in the moment. He stroked her hair away from her face, trailed his fingers down her neck, and kissed a path from one ear to the other. Her breath quickened, each blow landing legions of shivers on his skin. ‘It’s not been easy,’ he said, his mouth finding hers, the bold playfulness of her lips making his curl. ‘And I never want us to go through anything like the past few months again. But you know what?’ He took her face in his hands, skimmed the pads of his thumbs over her flawless cheeks, and marvelled at the raw power of the love and desire raging behind her eyes. ‘I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but we are stronger.’

  Holding his breath, he ran his hands down Evie’s sides, stopped at her hips and pulled her into him. As he slid his fingers round the back of her thighs, a smaller, more youthful set of fingers grabbed his.

  His sense of place brought back to him by Dylan, Griff laughed, kissed Evie, whispering, ‘Later,’ to her, and swept their child into his arms. ‘I think we could all use an ice cream,’ he said, fanning the air. ‘What do you think, Evie?’

  Evie opened her eyes, adjusted her T-shirt and dabbed her lips. ‘I think I was just saved by my son.’

  Her smile lit up her face, illuminated the building, and radiated out across the Bill.

  And Griffith Hendry saw the world in a whole new light.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Logan

  * The End *

  We would love to hear how your enjoyed What Doesn't Kill You. Please leave a review on the eBook store where you purchased this novel. Reviews on eBook stores really do help the author. Thank you!

  Find out about Laura and her novels next including a preview of Follow Me Follow You.

  Thank You

  Thank you for reading What Doesn’t Kill You, the third, standalone book in the Chesil Beach series, and the first under Choc Lit’s Dark imprint.

  Why the Dark imprint? Well, my characters have a habit of straying from the main road and ducking into shady alleys, and Griff, Evie, Tess and Logan are no exception, although, to help them find their way, I’ve tried to ensure they each carry a metaphorical torch which they can shine into the blackest corners. The issues raised in the novel are hard-hitting and emotional, both to write and read about, so I thank you for keeping the faith and walking the challenging paths side-by-side with the Hendrys.

  I hope you enjoyed the beautiful and dramatic setting of the Jurassic Coast. The initial idea for What Doesn’t Kill You was sparked by the wild storms of early 2014, where England’s exposed south west coastline suffered horrendous damage. There were waves of epic proportion, debris and marine life washed ashore, and parts of the Dorset landscape completely destroyed, but the communities pulled together as beach clean-up parties were organised and the residents of Weymouth and Portland set to work. I have lived in Dorset for many years and consider it my home. I feel blessed to have such wonderful people, stunning scenery and incredible inspiration on my doorstep, not to mention the friendly, comfortable, beachside cafés on hand, that serve up spectacular views and amazing hot chocolate.

  Before I go, I’d like to thank everyone who takes the time to read and review books. Reader feedback is invaluable as it provides encouragement to authors to keep learning and writing, and recommendations to fellow readers. If you enjoyed What Doesn’t Kill You, reviews of any length, from two words to several lines or paragraphs, are always welcomed and very much appreciated. If you’d like to get in touch with me, or find out more about the Chesil Beach books, my details are under my author profile.

  Many thanks and happy reading.

  Laura xx

  Read about Laura and her novels next ...

  About the Author

  Laura is married and has two children. She lives in Dorset, but spent her formative years in Watford, a brief train ride away from the bright lights of London. Here she indulged her love of live music, and, following a spectacular Stevie Nicks gig, decided to take up singing, a passion that scored her second place in a national competition.

  Laura is a graduate of the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s New Writers’ Scheme, a member of her local writing group, Off The Cuff, and an editor of the popular Romaniacs blog.

  Laura was runner-up twice in the Choc Lit Short Story competitions. Her story Bitter Sweet appears in the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Anthology. Truth or Dare?, Laura’s debut novel, was shortlisted for the 2014 Joan Hessayon New Writers’ Award. What Doesn’t Kill You is the third novel in Laura’s Chesil Beach series.

  Read about Laura's novels next including a preview of Follow Me Follow You.

  Follow Laura:

  www.lauraejames.co.uk

  www.twitter.com/Laura_E_James

  www.facebook.com/LauraE.JamesWriter

  More Choc Lit

  From Laura E James

  Truth or Dare?

  Book 1 in the Chesil Beach series

  The path to love …

  Kate Blair’s sick of unrequited love. She’s quietly waited for Mickey for the past six years and finding a compass-carved heart, with their initials scratched through the middle, only strengthens her resolve: no more Mickey and no more playing it safe.

  It’s time to take a chance on real love and Declan O’Brien’s the perfect risk. He’s handsome, kind and crazy about her so it’s not long before all thoughts of Mickey come few and far between.

  But old habits die-hard. Kate may have started to forget … but has Mickey?

  Purchase from your favourite eBook store or visit www.choc-lit.com for details.

  Follow Me Follow You

  Book 2 in the Chesil Beach series

  You save me and I’ll save you

  Victoria Noble has pulled the plug on romance. As director of the number one social networking site, EweSpeak, and single mother to four-year-old Seth, she wrestles with the work–life balance.

  Enter Chris Frampton, Hollywood action hero and Victoria’s first love. His return from LA has sparked a powder keg of media attention, and with secrets threatening to fuel the fire, he’s desperate to escape. But finding a way forward is never simple. Although his connection with Victoria has lasted the test of time, has he been adrift too long to know how to move on?

  With the risk of them breaking, will either #follow their heart?

  Read a preview here.

  Purchase from your favourite eBook store or visit www.choc-lit.com for details.

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  Introducing Choc Lit

  We’re an independent publisher creating

  a delicious selection of fiction.

  Where heroes are like chocolate – irresistible!

  Quality stories with a romance at the heart.

  See our selection here:

  www.choc-lit.com

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  Follow Me Follow You

  by Laura E James

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘I hate you.’

  It wasn’t the first time Victoria Noble recoiled at her son’s hostility, but on each occasion she hoped, sometimes even prayed, it would be the last. Mondays triggered the worst attacks.

  She looked at Seth across the breakfast bar, his arms folded and his scrawny legs swinging, left right, left right. His face and colouring was totally his father’s, but his wild mop of irrepressible curls was hers. She sucked in his words. ‘Well, I love you. And you’re stuck with me.’

  Was that the right thing to say to a four-year-old? Apart from a few well-intentioned, but unsolicited pointers from her sister, what Victoria knew of childcare came from the Internet. In hindsight, she realised she should have sought a more personal approach for raising a challenging boy, but requesting assistance wasn’t a strength of hers. She was the Director of EweSpeak, Britain’s most successful social networking site, and as such, was expected to have all the answers. It had been the same at school; her old science teacher was shocked when Victoria failed to demonstrate what happened when molecules weren’t attracted to one another.

  The image played out in her mind and she tilted her head. This was her and Seth. With the ease of oil repelling water, he resisted her attempts to steer him. Did it all come down to chemistry?

  If he was one of her EweSpeak operatives, she’d have sacked him by now – or he’d have sacked her – but Victoria was intelligent enough to understand working with a child was nothing like working with employees. Not even young employees. They did as they were asked and weren’t prone to throwing a paddy by the water cooler. She had taken time to choose her colleagues. They’d completed application forms, taken part in isometric tests and attended three interviews.

  Seth arrived under less stringent controls.

  Was it too late to ask for help?

  The nanny was a godsend with day-to-day issues, but offered no insight into how she managed Seth, and today she’d called in sick with flu – news neither Victoria nor Seth were happy to receive, and the catalyst for the bullets of resentment Victoria was currently dodging. Both mother and child relied on the nanny to get them through the day. This particular one, Cerys, was the first to survive longer than three months, the first to find a way to relate with Seth, and, by some miracle, the first to whom Seth had become attached. All reasons why Victoria had said no to a temporary replacement and yes to waiting until Cerys was better.

  The upheaval of introducing another nanny to Seth was more than he or Victoria could bear. Seth and Cerys had formed a bond; a friendly, mutually respectful, genuine bond, and he would do anything for her.

  And nothing for me.

  The thought wrestled its way down to Victoria’s stomach and slammed it into submission. She used the excuse of collecting Seth’s trainers from under the counter to bend double, hoping to ease the cramping.

  She was thankful her son had someone he could love, who loved him back, and she was grateful for the care Cerys took of him, but it hurt. It hurt Victoria that as his mother, she’d fallen short of his expectations. And it crippled her not knowing how to set things right.

  The next couple of weeks were going to be tough.

  As she breathed away the last of the spasms, she straightened up. What did her sister say in times of trouble? It will pass? She was fond of Juliette, but she knew nothing about demanding children. She had four angels. Not to mention she was a natural-born mother. Victoria raised a brow. Juliette was a natural-born everything; communicator, socialiser, wife. The fact the two women were related was a constant source of amazement to Victoria who, by her own admission, was the complete antithesis of her sister.

  Victoria groaned. Give her computers any day. She understood those. There was a logic to them she never found in people, not even in her own child. Algorithms she could handle; especially rigorously defined algorithms, but the thought of dealing with people on a daily, face-to-face basis was enough to keep her locked away in a sterile white office hour after hour, with only Juliette for company. Victoria never engaged with her EweSpeak flock. She baulked at the notion. The irony of her situation had not escaped her.

  She regarded her son, who was still sitting at the breakfast bar, his arms still secured across his chest, and his legs still kicking back and forth. ‘Shoes on!’ she demanded, hoping the change in tone would spur him into action.

  Seth crossed his ankles and the swinging came to a gradual halt. ‘No.’

  The coolness with which he responded sent a chill through Victoria and she was at a complete loss as to how to exert her authority. She traipsed the length of the tiled floor to the balcony doors and gazed out into the grey London sky. If there was a God, which she had fair reason to disbelieve, why had he sent her a difficult child?

  She raised her hand to the glass and spread her naked fingers across the reflection of her face. There were days, like today, when she wondered if she was being taught a lesson for putting her career above having children.

  When Seth was born, her husband … her shoulders sagged … her ex-husband, agreed to be the primary carer. He’d vehemently objected at first on the basis changing nappies was a woman’s job, and in case Victoria had forgotten – because they’d not had sex since the birth of the child – he was a man. Victoria pointed out she was the main breadwinner and with EweSpeak to run, it made sense for her to go back to work. At the time, she was happy to do so. Nurturing was not in her nature.

  After two months of bitter complaints, declarations of emasculation, and continued assertions of ‘This is women’s work’, Ben Noble walked away, leaving Victoria shocked, and Seth fatherless. His parting shot was a scribbled note that read: It’s your turn to deal with the crap.

  Studying her image, Victoria noticed her brow had furrowed into deep ridges, and she backed away from the door. It was insane analysing Ben’s motives; his conduct was as she had come to expect from his gender. The male sex first let her down when she was eighteen and had continued to do so ever since. That was almost half her life. The one man to stand by her was her father. That wasn’t to say he never got it wrong, but when he did, at least he displayed remorse and that made his flaws forgivable.

  Perhaps that was all it was with Seth. A flaw. A glitch. If she accepted it was his way, they might get along. With a sense of defeat, she turned, faced her son and forced a weak smile. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I get it. You don’t want to come to the office.’

  His round face remained expressionless and his dark eyes still. His feet unhooked, he reached for an apple from the crystal bowl before him, and he jumped off the tall stool. ‘No,’ he said, clenching the fruit in his fist. Before Victoria had time to react, he drew back his arm and propelled the firm, green missile at her. It smashed into her chest. She took a moment to regain her breath, experience telling her it would take infinitely longer to recover from her despair.

  This was not the first time her son had launched an attack.

  She stooped to retrieve Seth’s ammunition and breathed away the response to cry.

  As she dropped the makeshift projectile in the bin, she kept her son under surveillance. He made no attempt to apologise; neither did he flee. His unrepentant eyes narrowed, and his knuckles whitened with the exertion of clutching another apple.

  ‘Put it in your rucksack,’ Victoria said. ‘And be warned, if you’re not dressed in five minutes, you’ll come to work in your pyjamas.’

  She trudged into the hall, where she gathered several large files and dumped them into her briefcase. She hoped it wouldn’t come to it, but if she had to drag Seth into work kicking and screaming, then she would. As to who would be protesting the most, she was uncertain.

  As Victoria slipped her feet into her s
hoes, Seth charged past and gave a forceful shove to her hip, knocking her off balance as he ran up the stairs of their split-level apartment. Victoria crashed into the wall and the side of her skull whacked the corner of the chrome coat hooks she’d had mounted a week ago. She steadied herself, fingered her temple and tested for blood. Dry. She left her hand resting on her aching forehead and concentrated on absorbing the pain threatening to swamp her. Enough was enough. She wanted to scream. She wanted to yell at the top of her voice and rant and rave, but the culprit was four years old. And he was her son. The fact he provoked such intense feelings within her was proof she loved him. Wasn’t it? The question banged around her sore head. She wanted love to flow through her veins. She wanted it to flood her heart and be her life force, but it was hard with a child who communicated with words of hatred.

  Victoria studied her ringless finger. Love was hard. Full stop. Especially with a trampled heart. Twice she’d laid it in the open and twice it had been ridden roughshod over. Both men had said they loved her. Both men had lied. At least Seth was honest. Not once had those three little words passed his lips.

  He struggled with Mummy.

  As the adrenalin ebbed, so did Victoria’s energy and desire to fight. Four years she’d lived like this. In bedlam. It was a miracle she hadn’t been sectioned.

  She yearned for the sanctuary of her office where she knew what to expect. In her virtual world, she was the one who pushed all the buttons and every response was as she’d programmed.

  She checked her watch, walked to the bottom step and rested there, with her back, tense and hunched, to her son. She had to get to work. ‘Seth. Please get dressed.’

  A second after Seth’s footfall halted, the apple clunked and thumped its way down each stair, coming to settle by the front door.