by West, Jade
The world really could get fucked.
I loved Lucas Pierce and he loved me, and this time he was mine to stay.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Lucas
I took her up to bed and held her tight, but we didn’t sleep. We were out of words, and energy, and everything other than the need to be together.
I was never letting this go again. I was never letting go of the woman at my side.
I loved Millie so hard, of course I did. She was my world, and my love, and my zest through life. But so was Anna. And somehow, by some means, I’d have to make that balance work without making a choice. I’d never be making the choice between them for anyone. I couldn’t do it. Not even if that anyone was the mother of my daughter, and the woman I’d been a prick of a partner to for our entire life together.
Guilt is guilt, and failure is failure, but love is love too, and life is life along with it, and mine was with Anna.
Mine would always be with Anna.
The sunrise turned to morning with her in my arms, and that morning got brighter and brighter as the sun rose in the sky through the window. I heard her phone ringing and buzzing from downstairs, but she ignored it and so did I. She pressed even closer to my side and let out a sigh.
“I’m not ready to talk to anyone,” she said. “I will be, but not yet.”
“I’ll be ready whenever you are,” I said back. “I’ll be right there with you.”
I felt her smile against my shoulder. “I think this is the first night we’ve ever been together where we haven’t had sex, you know.”
I laughed and kissed her head. “I think you’re probably right.”
She looked up at me. “Don’t you dare turn me into a china doll now Sebastian forced himself on me. I’ve been a china doll for far too long, and I don’t want it from you.”
I squeezed her tighter and managed a grin. “I wasn’t planning on it. I certainly can’t imagine treating you like a china doll. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
She laughed at that.
I used the conversation topic to lead into something that needed saying.
“We need to call the police, Anna. He can’t be allowed to get away with what he did to you.”
I felt her tense up. “It would be my word against his, what could they possibly do?”
“That doesn’t matter,” I said. “He raped you, Anna. It needs to be reported.”
She sighed. “We can try.”
Yes, we could. But I’d be doing a whole load more than trying. She just didn’t need to know that yet.
Her phone sounded out again from downstairs and she let out a long breath.
“I’d better do this. The world needs facing.”
“We’d better do this,” I said. “We’ll be facing the world together from here on in.”
She reached out a hand to stroke my chest, and then she rolled away.
“Let’s get started then.”
I tried to keep as calm and steady as I could for her as she got her things together. She put on my coat and fastened her heels back up and told me she wanted to head back to her place to see her friends before she faced telling her parents. I told her we’d be heading wherever she needed to and, behind the scenes, I messaged both Maya and my mother saying that I needed to rearrange our meetups due to a weekend emergency.
Then I switched my phone off to avoid the abuse. I didn’t warrant any. They’d rearranged things a million times over and given me the middle finger whenever it suited them. They could bitch about me all they liked in my absence.
This weekend was all about Anna.
She said goodbye to Bill and Ted with a smile on her face before we headed on out, but her knees were trembling in the passenger seat all the way back into town.
I reached out to squeeze one and she flinched, but then relaxed with a sigh.
“Sorry, I’m just jumpy.”
“Totally understandable,” I said. “Don’t even think of apologising.”
I pulled up in her street and turned the ignition off.
“My heart is pounding,” she told me. “I’m so nervous.”
“Take your time,” I said.
She waited a few minutes, breathing deep with her hand in mine before she gave it a final squeeze.
“Okay,” she said, “let’s do this.”
I was as close to her as I could be as she fished her key from the bottom of her bag and pushed it into the lock with shaky fingers.
Nicola Henshaw was in the window staring out at us before we’d stepped inside, and her face was nothing short of a typhoon of rage when she stormed into the hallway to greet us.
“Sebastian’s been messaging us this morning,” she snapped. “We’ve been worried fucking sick, Anna, wondering what the hell has been happening. But now we know, don’t we?” She scowled at me hard enough that she could have burnt me alive. “He’s been happening, hasn’t he? That utter fucking cock you can’t stay away from.”
Vicky appeared in the hallway behind her, and she was scowling too, and I was ready to interject with some words of my own, but Anna was there before me, with enough pain in her voice that they stopped dead.
“STOP FUCKING TELLING ME WHAT THE FUCK I SHOULD BE DOING WITH SEBASTIAN FUCKING MAITLAND!” she screamed, and their jaws dropped. “HE’S NOTHING LIKE YOU FUCKING THINK HE IS!”
She pushed past them with her fingers holding mine tight, leading us both into the living room without looking back. She dropped down onto the sofa, and I sat alongside her, and my arm was wrapped tight around her waist as her friends rushed on through.
“What the hell happened?” Vicky asked. “What are you talking about?”
Nicola was right there with her. “Seriously, Anna. Please just tell us what the fuck’s going on.”
So she did.
She told them what had happened with Sebastian the night before. Everything from him taking her out of the club because she’d been having a prosecco, through to him storming upstairs when they got back home. And then she told them the finer details through her sobs, right up until she’d run away from him and rushed out into the night, and they were right there sobbing along with her, shaking their heads as they realised just how much of a cunt they’d been singing the praises of for a decade straight.
“We didn’t know!” Nicola cried. “I swear to you, Anna. We didn’t know!”
Anna was nodding through the tears. “Neither did I,” she said. “Not like I know it now.”
“He said you’d had an argument over prosecco,” Vicky told us. “He said you’d stormed out on him when he was trying to care for you. He’s told your parents that too. Everyone’s been so worried.”
Anna’s voice was so solid.
“He raped me. No argument matters. Nothing else matters.”
“Of course nothing else matters,” Vicky said. “He’s a disgusting cunt and he needs to pay for what he’s done!”
But it wasn’t the full story. Not the full story of just how much of a disgusting cunt Sebastian Maitland truly was through the days and months and years.
My hand was tight in hers, but I didn’t interfere, just let her express herself however she needed to the people she counted on as friends. And they were her friends. The genuine support and horror on their faces as they digested just how much of an evil controlling prick they’d been bigging up for years was so raw, it took my breath.
Anna took a break in her Sebastian Maitland revelations to light up a cigarette outside and they didn’t say a word as we smoked together. She sat herself back down with me held tight at her side, and I kissed her hard on her cheek, and they didn’t say a word about that either. Not anymore.
And then she told them how I’d found her by the fountain.
She told them how I’d been with her all night, supporting her through every breath.
They listened.
They listened to her tell them how the one thing she really was still confident of was that I loved her and she loved
me, and that there really had been one stupid mistake that had led to me leaving her, and that didn’t make me any less of an asshole for my fuck ups and my choices, but it made me an asshole she wanted to give another chance to.
An asshole she wanted them to give another chance to along with her.
I expected their eyes to be full of disbelief and disgust as they met with mine, but they weren’t.
They believed her.
They believed it was one stupid mistake and not me being a total prick of a man for months on end behind her back. I could read it in their faces.
But this wasn’t about me, it was about Anna, and I cleared my throat before I pulled the conversation back to the inevitable.
“We need to call the police,” I told her. “It’s hard, I know. But we need to call the police.”
She nodded, but then took a breath. “I need to see my parents first. I want to tell them what he’s done to me before I tell anyone else.”
“We’ll come with you,” Nicola said. “Just tell us what you want us to do.”
I was ready to face telling Jim and Terri along with Anna, but she turned to me and held me tight.
“I need to do this without you there,” she said. “I don’t want them wrongly connecting you with what’s happened. I just know they’d add two plus two and get six.”
“Are you sure?” I said. “I know it would be confrontational, but I’m happy to stand with you through whatever you need.”
“I’m sure,” she said. “Please just be here for me later.”
“I’ll wait here for you,” I told her. “I’ll be right here whenever you need.”
Her friends stood up to take her over there, and I fought the urge to charge along with them and face off the whole world at her side. But no.
This part wasn’t for me.
She’d made her decision, and I would respect everything she wanted, however she wanted it.
I walked to the door with her and she hugged me tight before she stepped outside.
“I love you,” she said. “I’ll never have enough thanks for how you were there for me last night.”
“I’ll never be anywhere else,” I said, and it took every scrap of me to let her go.
I wasn’t expecting Nicola to grab my arm on her way past me in the hallway. I expected her to be straight on out after Vicky and Anna.
I figured maybe it was for a hiss of we still hate your fucking guts, but it wasn’t.
Her eyes were open wide when they met with mine, a strange expression on her face I couldn’t read.
“You need to speak to Yasmin Boyle,” she said in a whisper. “Believe me, Lucas, you really do need to speak to Yasmin Boyle.”
“What do you mean?” I asked her, because I didn’t understand it. I hadn’t seen Yasmin Boyle in years. She’d been friends with Maya and around at our place at regular intervals, but then as far as I knew it she’d disappeared up to Newcastle.
What the hell would I need to speak with Yasmin Boyle about?
But Nicola didn’t answer me, she just looked me right back in the eyes once she was standing outside the doorway and said it again.
“Trust me,” she said, “just speak with Yasmin Boyle.”
And then she closed the door.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Anna
My parents were so scared as I stepped through their front door. They came rushing straight on through, and their fear only grew ten times stronger as I looked them in the eyes.
The gravity was too huge to hide, and they felt it. They sucked in breath as they felt it.
Nicola and Vicky stepped on in after me, and there was a terrible silence, everything hanging in the air in my parents’ hallway.
Until I burst into tears.
My mum came and held me, and eased me on through to the living room, and she was crying too as she sat me down in the chair and knelt down in front.
“My God, Anna. What happened? What on earth happened last night?”
My dad was as white as a ghost when he joined us, and Vicky and Nicola hovered to the side, and they were crying too.
I wasn’t expecting it. Not when Mum asked me the next question.
“What on earth did he do to you, sweetheart? What on earth did Sebastian do to you?”
I couldn’t remember a time I’d been asked that question. Not since he’d been in my life. It was always what did you do. You do. You do.
But not this time. This time it was all about him.
Finally, it was all about him.
So I told them. I held nothing back and I told them exactly what he’d done to me.
My dad was shaking when I’d finished, pacing the room like a man who wanted to kill. He was struggling to hold in the rage, but he was trying. His face was red, and his brow was heavy, and my mum was devastated along with him, her hand trembling as it gripped mine, her voice trying to be soothing as she told me it was all going to be ok. It was all going to be ok. It was all going to be ok.
And it was all going to be ok.
Now I could see the truth in what Sebastian was truly like, it was all going to be ok.
It was my mum who called the police. It was my dad that directed them inside as they came to the house and sat down in front of me and asked me what happened.
The officers listened, and they took their notes, and they had sympathy in their eyes as they listened to my story.
But that’s what it was. A story. That’s all they could take from it. One person’s opinion which would certainly clash against another’s. And there were no witnesses. No evidence. Nothing but a couple who’d gone home together where one of them was accusing the other of a terrible crime with no proof. Still, I told them it all as honestly as I could do, and they left there with a sympathetic smile and the promise they’d be looking into it as thoroughly as they could.
I went into the station with them, and Mum, Dad, Vicky and Nicola waited in the reception area. I was assigned a dedicated officer who recorded my account and sent me to a medical team to check me over, but I knew it there and then. That same little voice of intuition I should have listened to for so long about Sebastian.
They’d never be able to prosecute a monster like him. He’d be too slick for anyone to convict him of anything with no real evidence.
Mum and Dad tried to get me to stay over in my old bedroom to wrap me up tight for the night when we were done, and part of me wanted that. Part of me wanted to be looked after like a little girl safe at home. But I’d been that little girl wrapped up in cotton wool for far too long, and I’d been without things I needed in my life for far too long, too.
I didn’t want another night without Lucas for as long as I lived.
“We’re right here for you, Anna,” Dad said, and pulled me close before I left with Nicola and Vicky. “You’ll never see Sebastian again, or I swear I’ll kill the vile piece of shit myself.”
I didn’t doubt it.
I didn’t doubt it when Mum held me tight and told me that Sebastian Maitland was gone from my life, and he’d pay the price for what he’d done.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t so sure the police would be able to deliver on that.
I was quiet on the way back home with the girls, all of us exhausted and heavy with the upset, but it sure felt good to be there with them. For once in months, it felt so good to have them on my side.
Lucas was in the hallway as soon as we pushed our way in through the front door. He folded me in his arms, and I breathed deep and collapsed in the release.
He asked about the police and about my parents, and I told him everything I could do through the fog of tiredness. But it was blurred. Blurred and fading.
“Let’s get you to bed,” Vicky said, and reached for my hand. “Don’t worry, Lucas. We’ll make sure she’s alright.”
It was such a relief when he pulled me closer. “I won’t be leaving her anywhere,” he said. “Not ever again.”
I expected them to argue with him, but th
ey didn’t. They didn’t say a word as Lucas came through to my bedroom with me and helped me pack a suitcase with my things. They watched from the hallway as he helped me gather my toiletries together and fastened the case ready for my leaving, but didn’t they make a sound in protest.
They hugged me tight as I left, and watched me leave. No complaints. No arguments. No objections.
I was grateful – truly grateful – that I didn’t need to justify Lucas’s place in my life all over again.
I was silent for most of the way back to his place, facing him with my legs pulled up high in my seat, staring at his profile as he kept his eyes on the road ahead. The strength in his jaw, and his eyes, and the firmness of his shoulders as he drove me home. I remembered how he’d pulled up at the train station to pick me up for one crazy day, and how I’d known from that first single moment that it would be trouble, because he was him. He was Lucas. The man I’d always been in love with. The man I’d never really moved on from, not even with Sebastian the evil prince Maitland at my side.
“Penny for your thoughts?” he said, and I managed a smile.
“Penny for my thoughts is that I love you.”
“Well, that’s a good thing,” he said. “Because a penny for my thoughts is that I love you too.”
I was desperate for bed when we got in, but I took my meds, and ate a stir fry that Lucas put in front of me, and thanked him very much. I tried to help him load the dishwasher, but he shooed me away and finished up himself, and I watched him through tired eyes, realising all over again just how hard it would be to ever let him go.
I could never let him go.
Not again.
He showered with me, and wrapped me up in a towel, but he didn’t give me a running commentary on every little movement I should make.
He lit up a cigarette for me, smoked alongside me, and didn’t have a word to say on what I should or shouldn’t be doing for my health.
He was just him.
I was just me.
And we loved each other just for what we were. No conditions. No disapproval. No illusions.
He was so warm at my side in bed, legs twisted in mine and his arm so strong around my shoulder. My face was in his, breath against breath, and it felt so right.