Undeniable (Fated series Book 4) Page 15

  ‘That’s good… Look, on a slightly different note… I don’t know exactly where Lily has been, but I can only think that the people who have done this to her are a lot like the Antonescus? Can I suggest that you call John and get some help from him in keeping her, and anyone here looking after her, safe?’ I nodded at him. He slapped my shoulder, ‘It’s been good talking to you, Jack.’ I nodded at his words. ‘Ok, I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

  I walked him through to the front of the house, closed the door behind him and leant heavily against the aged wood. I pulled my mobile from my pocket and pressed the button. Charlie would be so fucking pissed with me, but I had to do what Lily needed.

  The mobile rang and eventually a sleepy voice answered.

  ‘Do you know what the sodding time is? You better have a good bloody reason for making this call, Jack?’ Hearing her voice brought a tentative smile to my mouth.

  ‘Katy… I’ve got Lily with me… She’s in a bad way, I really need your help.’

  I could hear her scrabbling around as she fought to wake up properly.

  ‘You’ve found her? Where? Tell me this isn’t another one of yours and my husband’s stupid jokes to get me to come home.’

  ‘It’s a long story, but Charlie and I brought her back here late last night. She’s a fucking mess… Would I use the only person I have ever loved as a joke? And Charlie ain’t gonna know from me that I’ve called you. She’s in a bad way and you’re a qualified nurse… could ya come and help us, please?’

  ‘Hmmm… of course I can. I have some holiday that’s due to be taken, are you at yours?’ I could almost hear her whole thought process.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I’ll be there sometime today. Just as soon as I can get some cover and things sorted out.’

  ‘Thanks, Katy.’

  ‘I’ll be there for her, Jack. But, I’m warning you… Charlie doesn’t need to know.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’ I knew what she was saying… and I knew that I would agree to whatever her demands were to get her to help.

  I heard the click as the line went dead. The other call I needed to make to John could wait a couple of hours.

  I made my way back through to the kitchen and over to the sink, to half fill a glass with water. Crossing over the floor I got back down on my knees next to her. I cupped my hand under her head and lifted it, placing the glass to her lips.

  ‘You’re ok, Lils… I’ve got ya and I ain’t going anywhere. I’ll always be here, never doubt that.’

  On instinct, and without opening her eyes, she sipped at the cool liquid. I pulled a cushion from the back of the settee, placed it under her head and lowered her carefully back down. She appeared to be peacefully sleeping, so I left her. I wasn’t ready to have her realise it was me she was with. I wasn’t ready to answer her questions or her possible demands to leave my house. As things stood, we were together and for a few short hours or even minutes I selfishly wanted to feel close to her.

  I got onto the other end of the four-seater settee and lifted my legs, placing them and my feet behind her back. I allowed my long limbs to gently rest against her body, I needed the connection to believe she was real. I reached into my back pocket with immense difficulty and pulled out my crushed box of cigarettes and lighter. With shaking fingers that were reluctant to do anything asked of them, I lit the broken stump of what was once a whole cigarette, and inhaled deeply. The thought flashed through my mind that I really needed to start keeping them somewhere else, but as I had always kept them there I knew that they wouldn’t feel right anywhere else. Like Lily, the thought of her anywhere but with me was wrong, so fucking wrong.

  ‘Do ya remember me, babe? I told you us being apart wouldn’t be forever. Did ya remember that I love you?’ I whispered the words out into the room.

  She didn’t move. The only movement in the room was my wafts of smoke spiralling up towards the ceiling.

  So, so tired.

  My eyelids felt heavy and I struggled to open them. The whole of my body hurt as I gingerly tried to move my protesting muscles to a more comfortable position. I had no idea how long I had been asleep. Moving my arms, I recognised the sound of sheets moving against my skin and realised I was in a bed. The room was bathed in semi-darkness, so it must have either been late in the evening or the early hours of the morning. I didn’t remember feeling this comfortable in my bed for a very long time. So comfortable, I was sure I hadn’t even dreamt, let alone had a nightmare and that was a miracle. The peaceful room that surrounded me was welcome. I lay appreciating the comfort and silence it had to give. Moments like this were so few and far between that I had learned very quickly to relish every single one. It was only in scarce minutes like this that I could look back at my train crash of a life and wonder about what might have been. However painful that was.

  I opened my eyes fully and slowly my bedroom came into focus.

  Only it wasn’t my room. How stupid was I? Feelings of panic began to rise inside of me. I needed to think back, what was the last thing I could remember? I willed my body to calm down as I tried to recollect anything that might answer my questions.

  Breathe in and breathe out.

  I could remember rope? I also remembered bright blue eyes that I saw every day, and in my dreams.

  I knew I couldn’t trust my recollections. For about the last year, I had been kept in a drugged stupor, so they could guarantee my compliance. I often wondered just how stupid they really were.

  They held the ace card, and I would do anything to protect it.

  The rooms I very often slept in weren’t this comfortable. It reminded me of the family home I once shared with my father and my poor mum.

  I tightly closed my eyes and I let the memory in.

  My arrival home had been met by ecstatic barks from Fox. I wheeled my small suitcase in the front door and knelt down to him. I caressed and rubbed all around his ears. He gave a small whimper of appreciation.

  “Hello, Lily,” my mum’s voice travelled over to me. Looking up I could see her stood in the doorway to the kitchen. “Good week?”

  “Hi, Mum… Yes, a very good week.” I casually ran my thumbnail over the piece of string I was still wearing on my ring finger and buried my fingers once again into Fox’s fur. I knew that I would need to remove it as soon as possible, but the thought of no longer wearing it hurt. I was far away from Jack as it was. I certainly didn’t want to increase that distance by removing the proof that he and I were together and going to be married.

  “I’ve just put the kettle on, why don’t you carry your case up? Sort out your washing and come back down?”

  ‘Thanks, Mum, yes I’ll do just that. Give me a few minutes.”

  Quickly, I turned in the hallway and started to climb the stairs in front of me that led up to the galleried landing. A sense of relief coursed through me at not having come across my father first. I knew he would have questioned the new accessory I was wearing.

  My father spotted everything.

  I pushed open the door to my bedroom and threw my case up onto the bed. Truth be told I had no washing, as it only contained the clothes I wore here at home. But I plunged my hand in and grabbed a few bits. Gathering them up to my chest I walked past my chest of drawers where I could see Anton’s hideous engagement ring. Dropping the clothes in my arms to the floor, I picked it up quickly and pushed it onto my ring finger. With a bit of messing around I managed to get the expensive ring to sit on top of my string one. I knew it was a myth that the Vena amoris vein ran from that finger straight to my heart. But still it made me happier knowing that it was Jack’s representation of betrothal that connected with my flesh and not Anton’s.

  I picked up my clothes from the floor and went back downstairs to find my mum.

  Pushing open the kitchen door with my hip, I walked into the kitchen to see my mum dancing around to the music that played on the radio in the background. That told me instantly that my father wasn’t at home. Until I had
started spending most of my time away from home I didn’t recognise just how much she came into her own when he wasn’t around. If I hadn’t been certain about leaving before, watching her sing and dance around the kitchen as she lost herself to the music clarified my decision.

  I couldn’t live the way I now realised she had to. I needed to be able to dance. I wanted to be able to sing. It was vital for me to live with love. It was crucial for me to be in control of my own life.

  “I’ll just put my washing in the machine then, Mum.”

  She stopped dancing and for a split second her eyes found mine, guilty at being caught out. I smiled at her in reassurance.

  “Turn it up, Mum. I won’t be able to hear it in the utility room.”

  She directed a smile at me then that I knew I would always remember. In that moment, for probably the first time in my life, we saw each other, really saw each other. I loosened my hold on the clothes I had brought down and kissed the fingers on my right hand. Pointing them at her I blew her over an imaginary kiss. Her smile grew broader as she grabbed in mid-air and brought her hand up to her mouth. Looking back now, I recognised that was the split-second moment that changed our relationship, irrevocably.

  “Tea’s been poured, Lily. Hurry up and we can have a good talk about your week before your father gets back home.”

  As we sat opposite each other in the warm kitchen, I told her things about my life at university. I carefully watched and gauged her reaction as I told her how I felt for the first time since I had entered adulthood. As our hands found each other’s over the top of the breakfast bar, she squeezed my hand willing me to continue. I then took a deep breath and I told her all about Jack.

  In the space of an hour, she listened to me as I opened my heart and poured out all my hopes and dreams. In that short segment of time I had basically handed my life to her on a plate, for her to do what she would with it. She could have gone either way, much to my relief she promised to get the documents that I needed. I couldn’t marry without my birth certificate and I couldn’t go to America without my passport. She wanted to help, we didn’t discuss her life with my father. I think it was then that I fathomed out it was less than she wanted, but she refused to go into detail. All she acknowledged, was that she wanted more for me, and Anton could only offer the same life as my father offered her. I told her that I didn’t want her risking her own safety, but she assured me that he would never find out that she had helped me. She decided she would remove the documents from the safe in my father’s office within the next two weeks. For the first time, the feeling between us was stronger than that of just a mother and daughter.

  We had a secret between us that I had no doubt could subsequently cost either, or both, of us our lives.

  Tears welled in my eyes at the memory, but they never fell. I had cried enough tears and it didn’t help remove the tightening pain that constantly seemed to be constricted around my chest. Tears were a waste of time. They say that time erases pain. Whoever had come up with that, had obviously never lived through what I had.

  I brought myself back to the present.

  I didn’t move as I made my eyes travel around my accommodation. The bed I was in was large and so was the room I was in. I made my body freeze while I took in my surroundings. I quickly fathomed that no one else was there. It wasn’t a bed I had been in before and the unknown in that frightened me. There was a long, brilliant white net curtain covering each of the large windows in the room. Occasionally they moved a little on the summer breeze that was blowing through the small window openings. As the breeze blew in, I could smell the aroma of a summer meadow in the early morning. It permeated my senses and I could almost picture it in my mind. As the curtains lifted here and there, little by little the room was shown to me.

  The house was old, the two large sash windows disclosed this. The room I was in was sizable and it appeared only sparsely furnished. The stripped wooden door was only pushed to, not closed and locked. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been in a room that I could leave at any time I wanted, that realisation alone was thrilling. The walls were freshly plastered and turning my head to the side I could see that the high skirting boards and the floor were stripped back to their original wood. It seemed to be a room that was in the middle of being done up.

  Placing my arm under my head I changed the angle of my view. There was next to no furniture in the room. An empty chair sat on either side of the bed and an old-fashioned wash stand was placed against the wall between the two large windows. I could see the back of an oversized leather settee that was positioned in front of what looked to be a very grand fireplace.

  I thought with a small audible laugh what a different person my life had made me become. In my previous life, I was so mollycoddled that I let others look after and protect me. Now, the only person I had to rely on was myself. I used every sense I had in a bid to stay one step ahead of my enemy, to protect me and the person I loved. I hoped he was ok. Luckily, he was used to me not being with him every day, although it was my deepest wish that I could be. I lay my head back down onto the soft pillow at the back of my head, flinching slightly at the dull ache that seemed to have settled in.

  Lifting the sheets carefully, I took in the fact that I was wearing shorts and a camisole-top. They weren’t mine. I smelt clean, soap clean. I could no longer smell the repulsive scent of the overwhelming perfume that Tony insisted I wear. I hated it, it made me feel like a cheap whore, but then again that’s exactly what I was, so why shouldn’t I smell like one?

  I inhaled again and the feeling of pleasure overtook me. Funny how something as simple as soap, clean clothes and a bed could make you feel on top of the world. They all meant one thing. Wherever I was, I was being taken good care of and I couldn’t remember when that had last happened. I pulled the sheets up to my chin, and snuggled a little at the thought.

  My happy bubble was suddenly burst as a sound hit my ears. Straining them again I caught the end of the sound, it was a noise I had heard before. A sudden burst of adrenalin exploded inside me and made my heart accelerate until all I could hear was the sound of my pulse beating against my eardrums. I willed myself to calm down so I could listen again.

  Nothing came to me.

  I lifted my head from the pillow. My eyes darted over to the one place where someone could go unnoticed in the room. I tried to hear anything to give me a clue that my ears hadn’t been deceiving me. I needed to know if anyone was lying down on the settee.

  Still, no sound filtered over to me.

  The only detail that made its way to my overworked senses was a subtle smell of spice and as the curtains shimmied a little more the smell of tobacco was carried over on the light breeze.

  It couldn’t be?

  I dreamt about him so often, he repeatedly seemed real.

  This time however he wasn’t a dream. I inhaled more of the tobacco, and with my eyes getting used to the half-light, I watched as a wisp of smoke curled and danced up from the settee to the ceiling. I felt my body relinquish itself to his presence.

  Jack was in the room with me. My soul, although I had long before and several times over sold it to the devil, now recognised the devil himself.

  He was the only man I had ever loved.

  He had lied to me, and for that I would never forgive him.

  My memories of him haunted my dreams and it appeared now he haunted my very waking moment.

  Night after night I had lain here listening to her soft shallow breaths and at times her fucking screams into the dark.

  Unable to believe that I was once again with the only woman who I had ever loved. The one woman who had taken my heart, run with it and never fucking returned it. I mulled over the fact that fate had thrown us together again as I worked out what the fuck I was going to say to her that might convince her to stay this time? I willed her to wake up and come back to me. But the thought of her opening her eyes and watching her, as she grasped that she was here with me against her wishes, ma
nifested feelings of terror that coursed up and down inside me.

  I knew that the time she was asleep was the easy part.

  My dad had run her blood work. The results had indicated that she was generally given medication to sedate her. He decided, thank fuck, that we could look after her at home. He was still sedating her but gradually decreasing the amount given to her daily. I had been told yesterday to expect her to wake up properly within the next few days, well let’s call it warned. Both of my parents were now fully aware of the strength of feeling I had for Lily.

  Mum and Katy had been expertly looking after her in the daytime whilst I worked on the farm, in the gym and studied. Last week, I had met with John, my brother-in-law who headed up his own security firm. I had told him how we had come across her and what I knew about Lily’s situation. He had listened carefully, and without hesitation he had decided that it would be his pleasure to pull apart the Vasiles’ dealings. This wasn’t his first rodeo, as it was mostly down to him and the Blackmores that we had managed to previously bring down the Antonescus. John had also made sure a couple of men were keeping an eye in and around the area we all lived, just in case they started sniffing around here looking for us. It shouldn’t happen, as it would take longer than the week and half they’d had, to liquidate their assets. I hoped that by tying her up when we had removed her from them, they wouldn’t have grasped that she meant something to me. Charlie was talking to people for me, quietly in the background, as we needed as much information on them as possible.

  But, I was starting to think that perhaps the information that John needed might have to come from sleeping beauty herself.

  I had agreed willingly to take the night shifts, while my mum and Katy cleaned and fed her in the daytime. Doing those jobs meant they had to be hands on and we all felt that, to offer her a sense of privacy, I should do none of those things for her. Even though I wanted to do everything for her.

  The night-time had quickly become the worst and very best time of my whole day. Lying on the settee in my room night after night, hearing the small noises she made as she stirred in her sleep, made my body ache for her. I had fought with myself, over and over again, not to hold her in my arms. A few times when she had shouted out in her sleep, she had shouted out for Harry, but the bastard wasn’t here and I was. So, I took his place. It killed me to take her in my arms, when I knew she wanted someone else, but she needed to be held and soothed. So, like the fucking fool I was, I would wrap her in my arms and stroke her hair until she eventually calmed down.