Undeniable (Fated series Book 4) Read online

  Like a small child, I did as I was told and lifting the sheets up, I wiggled my body forward and back down into comfort. ‘Day shift?’

  ‘Yes. I share the day shifts with Lynn. My face quizzically asked her the question. ‘Lynn is Jack’s mum, and the Dr that’s been gradually bringing you around from your drugged-up sedation is…’

  ‘Jack’s dad.’ I filled in the blanks. ‘Jack is taking care of me?’ It wasn’t so much a question but a statement of fact from the small bits of information she had just offered me. I needed to know much more but my eyelids had started to bob up and down in front of my view and I allowed sleep to engulf me.

  ‘Hello, my dear, how are you today?’

  I blinked a few times as I took in the bright light the room was now bathed in. It was wonderful to wake up without the shakes and palpitations the drugs normally gave me. A man was stood at the end of my bed and although I thought I had heard the gentle tone of his voice before, I couldn’t place it. Fear and acceptance of the possible situation I was now in, filled me. So, for the second time they had loaned me out to some other depraved bastard.

  I must have dreamed about Jack and Katy.

  My mind could be so cruel to me at times.

  On instinct, I grabbed the covers closer to me, but made sure my gaze never left his. Whatever he wanted from me, whatever vile act he wanted me to participate in, he would never reach or have the real me. Lily would be put aside until I was back with the one person who loved me.

  ‘Don’t be afraid… Katy will be back in very soon, she’s just gone to the bathroom.’ He held up his palm at me as he watched my initial reaction to waking up in a room with him in it. ‘I’m Dr. Carpenter, I’m Jack’s dad. I was on my rounds and decided to pop in to see how you were feeling. Jack phoned to say you woke up early this morning.’

  I still hadn’t answered him, it took me longer these days to mull over my thoughts and memories and sort them into any order. The door pushed open and Katy appeared, in a hurry it seemed at hearing our voices. She was rubbing her wet hands down the front of her shorts, to dry them.

  ‘This is Dr. Carpenter, Lily.’

  As I took in the welcome sight of Katy, I started to calm down. I hadn’t dreamt about her and Jack then, that was a relief. She came and took a seat on the chair next to my bed, inching her hand over the bed covers until she found one of mine and she gave it a reassuring squeeze.

  ‘Sorry, I was just a little taken a back at waking and finding a stranger here.’ I swallowed down my fear. Eager to find out any information I could from the two of them.

  ‘No problem, young lady, no problem at all. Now tell me how are you feeling today?’

  ‘Tired, on and off… and I’m having a few nightmares.’ I wrapped my arms around myself and held on tightly. ‘But generally, I’m alright, thanks.’ My stomach growled at me. ‘In fact, I feel hungry.’ My stomach sounded again. ‘Scratch that… I’m starving.’ I smiled at him.

  ‘I’m afraid those things are to be expected with what you have been through. It’s your brain’s way of sorting through what’s in your head. Hopefully they will recede with time…’ He offered me his best conciliatory tone of voice. ‘The hunger though, that’s good news. Jack’s freezer is bursting with all the food Katy’s been making when she hasn’t been watching over you.’ He laughed and made his way to the side of the bed. ‘But, before you eat, I need to examine you and make sure everything is as it should be.’ He paused and took my wrist into his warm hand.

  I looked over at Katy to find her grinning broadly at his words. I had seen that beautiful face in my dreams. It had smiled and laughed with me and at me, as we shared banter and girlie chats in university. I couldn’t believe that I was witnessing it again in real life.

  He continued, ‘You’re very lucky indeed, that Jack and Charlie found you when they did. I’m not sure your body could have coped with much more of their sedation techniques.’ My eyes found his kind blue ones as he checked me out.

  ‘You say that Jack found me?’ I questioned, feeling my forehead pull tight into a frown. ‘Is that true?’

  His eyes looked up from the watch he had been keeping time with as he checked my pulse.

  ‘The way he tells it… maybe it’s more like you found him.’ He gave me a smile and all I could see was Jack smiling back at me. It was very evident that they were related by the way his mouth lifted as he smiled. It showed off his deep cleft chin, another thing Jack had inherited. ‘At his last fight, he watched you being hurt by one of the men, and I use the term “men” very loosely.’ His eyes found mine to make sure I had grasped his meaning and then he carried on. ‘Jack saw it, and it hurt him to see a woman being treated that way. When they couldn’t pay what they owed him, he accepted you as part payment for the debt. After what had happened to one of his sisters, I know he’d have been only too pleased to rescue you over accepting any payment at all.’

  I couldn’t answer. I was too busy trying to make sense of what he was saying. I thought back to a previous conversation Jack and I had years ago about his sister and his subsequent issues. My mind wouldn’t allow me to bring up the details of the conversation.

  ‘So, he brought me here and all of you are ok with what he does? You’re quite happy to help him?’

  A deep laugh came from his belly as he folded up his stethoscope and placed it into his leather bag.

  ‘Well, to be honest until you arrived here with him that night, we still thought he held his job in the city.’

  ‘His job in the city?’ I could imagine the gormless expression on my face as I repeated his words back to him.

  ‘Investment banking?’ He nodded at me, thinking it would help with my understanding. ‘You know, using his economics degree?”

  I was beginning to think that I was in a parallel universe. Jack was what my father had said he would be, wasn’t he? He was involved in bare-knuckle fighting, drugs, money laundering and human trafficking. Wasn’t he? Dr. Carpenter’s voice cut through my thoughts. My head hurt as I forced it to think, to answer my questions.

  ‘Yes, once he got his degree that’s where he went to work, of that I’m sure. When he arrived back with you ten days ago, he contacted me for help in looking after you… He had to tell me then that he was now fighting for a living.’

  I nodded my head at him wanting him to continue.

  ‘It’s hardly a parent’s dream, knowing that it’s the way he makes his living. But I trust him, he has assured Lynn and I that it’s a means to an end… It’s how he bought this house.’

  ‘So, him bringing women here is not a normal occurrence?’

  A deep laugh left him again as he clicked his case shut. ‘No, my dear, the only other woman we have ever seen here is Laura, she’s a stable girl.’

  ‘Laura, oh ok.’ I was nodding but not really managing to get to grips with all the information he was now giving me.

  ‘Jack cares very deeply about you, Lily. He hasn’t really let us in for years. But when you needed help he told us everything, to ensure you had the help you needed.’ He stopped and shook his head. ‘Listen to me, I’m sorry, I’m doing exactly what I have advised everyone else not to do. I’m filling your head with information you don’t need and getting you to ask questions that your slowly awakening memory could definitely do without. Don’t think on it, my dear, not now. Allow yourself time to rest. Time to sort through your thoughts, memories and feelings.’

  I sat dumbstruck, just churning everything around in my head. However hard it was to sort through all the information, it seemed to only point to one thing. It appeared the cards had been played, and my father had played his hand extremely well indeed. I felt sick to my stomach. How could I have been so stupid as to have believed him? But I knew how. Pain of a memory gripped my heart and stuck its sharp claws into the tender flesh. I could still see the broken and beaten frame of my poor mum. Why was it I could always remember what I would prefer to forget and vice versa?

  ‘I will le
ave your dose of medication for the day with Jack, he’ll administer it this evening. Things are looking very good from my end. But, we must still be cautious. You will need bed rest for a further few days. Build up your strength and eat well and hopefully by next week you can convalesce in the garden, instead of being cooped up in here.’

  ‘Thank you, Dr. Carpenter. Thank you for everything.’

  ‘Like I said before, it’s no problem, and you really must call me Will. I’ll tell Lynn you could do with a bite to eat and she’ll be up shortly.’

  He pulled the door to behind him and left me with my thoughts and the throbbing pain in my head as I tried to unravel everything.

  What had I done?

  ‘Lily, stop it. Stop overthinking. For now, just concentrate on getting better. You’re safe here and you’ll have the time to work it all out, I promise.’

  I looked over to the very welcome sight of my best friend holding my hand and rubbing her thumb over my fingers as she tried to offer me her reassurance.

  ‘I may have the time to work it all out, but I think it’s too late to make it better.’

  As usual, the morning sunlight burst into the beautiful room I was occupying. I stretched out my body in the comfortable bed and listened. It had become my habit to see if anyone was in the room with me.

  Not one sound met my ears. Disappointment flooded my system and I blew out a sigh on my lips. I hadn’t seen Jack in a week.

  Since last week, a few things had changed. I felt stronger and had even started to put on a little weight thanks to all the good food I was now eating. Slowly but surely my strength was returning. The amount of sedative I was being given at night was reducing every few days and I had been told that it would stop altogether very soon. My head however, was still labouring behind the leaps and bounds my body was making, and it refused to offer me all the answers I was constantly demanding.

  Katy had left a couple of days ago and with her had left the light relief she brought to the house. Her holiday time had run out, but she said she would be back as soon as she could arrange some cover for her job. Although it was Katy I had spent the most time with she still hadn’t asked me any questions at all, she had just let me be. I, in return, had offered her the same privacy. I could see she wore a wedding band, but she hadn’t told me anything about being married. I found it strange that the comical stories she wanted to share with me had all been about her job, while she told me nothing personal. Listening to her stories had given us both a welcome release from things that we both knew sat between us. I knew things would have to change once she returned. I was looking forward to her coming back as we needed to have more than the light, jokey conversations that were so far all we had managed.

  Lynn, Jack’s mum, had stepped up to replace Katy and she was always around to help me where necessary in the daytime. I had been a little wary of her at first, and her feelings about me. However, that had changed the more days we spent together. I had wondered if she was aware I had broken her son’s heart? If she was, the woman was a wonder, as it certainly didn’t show in the way she talked to me and lovingly cared for me.

  Jack still came in at night-time. I felt his presence, it wrapped around me protecting me. I was sure that a few times I had even felt his arms around me as I thrashed around in the large bed I slept in, but come the morning he was never around when I woke. All I found was crumpled sheets and dented pillows where he had once been.

  It broke my heart all over again.

  The care and attention I was being given was fantastic, but I knew it was all in vain. I knew that I wouldn’t be here for much longer, the Vasiles had loaned me out once before. I knew Tony wouldn’t want me out of his sight for more than a few weeks at most. My time here catching up with people from my past was disappearing quickly. My current life would very soon consume me once again, and I knew there was nothing anyone else could do about it, especially not me. Tony held on tightly to the only leverage that he would ever need. That leverage would make sure that I returned to him, even if it meant crawling back to him on my hands and knees.

  Enough thinking! My head began its normal ache when I pushed it too far.

  I forced my arms out of the covers and threw them down on either side of the bed next to me, causing little bits of dust to fly into the air around me.

  Today, I thought, things were going to change and change for the better. I eased myself up onto my elbows and tried to find the clothing that had been brought in for me yesterday. The heap of different materials caught my eye, it had been moved from being draped over the back of the settee to the seat of the chair next to me. That proved to me that yet again he had spent some of the night on the settee, I was sure of it.

  Today was the first day I was going to be able to take care of myself. It was the little things I was looking forward to. I was going to shower myself and get dressed. I was looking forward to the bit of independence I was going to finally get back.

  Lynn had brought the bits and pieces of clothing for me to use mainly from Jack’s sisters, who apparently lived nearby, but a couple of the shirts were Jack’s. I recognised the checked material as ones he had worn when we had been together. I just knew I was going to punish myself that little bit more by wearing them like I used to.

  I pushed back the plain white-covered duvet that had surrounded me while I slept and swung my legs to the floor. Hearing voices, I found my feet and stood up, walking carefully over to the windows. Lifting the net away I looked down onto a gravel driveway. Three cars sat to one side of the gravel turning circle, a grey sports car, a beaten-up four-wheel drive and a shiny truck. The three cars looked completely out of place together, they looked like three different lives trying to cohabit next to each other.

  Suddenly, movement caught my eye and I immediately dropped the net back into place, as I jumped back slightly. Slowly, I moved back to my original position praying in my head that the sudden movement of the nets wouldn’t attract the attention of the two people who I could now see directly below me. My heart skipped as I recognised Jack and I smiled as I realised that his dress sense hadn’t changed since we were together. I couldn’t see his face as his back was to me. I looked him up and down. His legs were covered in his standard jeans, and his broad, muscular physique was being shown off in an extremely faded and stretched old T-shirt. I couldn’t see what was on it as I couldn’t see the front, but I knew that without a doubt it would be a Marvel character of one sort or another. A smile crept over my lips. I watched him from behind the covering of the net curtain, as with his arms crossed over his chest he held a conversation with a woman. I couldn’t see his face as he looked at her, but she looked at him with such utter adoration that I felt physically sick.

  Being quite tall she placed a kiss on his lips with ease. I jumped away from the window again like I had been burned. Unfamiliar feelings of jealously uncurled themselves from deep inside my gut.

  What had I expected? Jack had never been without a woman for all the time I had known him.

  But the difference was, that before that woman had always been me.

  The shower was refreshing, but it did nothing to calm my very persistent thoughts. I mulled over everything as I tried to make my head place memories in the correct order. I found as usual that my head couldn’t or simply wouldn’t comply to my demands. I stepped out of the shower resigned to the fact that Jack and I needed to talk.

  The bathroom I was in, was stunning. It had been painstakingly restored to its former glory. The floor was tiled like a checker board in bold black and white. A roll-top bath ran along the longest wall. The walls were tiled halfway up with rectangular, black glass tiles, while the ceiling and top half of the wall had been painted brilliant white. Every fixture in the large room was original apart from the large walk in shower, but even this modern addition had been added with a touch of class. The glass, floor-to-ceiling enclosure separated old from new with ease.

  Placing my foot up onto the bath I began to slowly rub a
t my leg. I wasn’t used to being up and out of bed for so long. Just something as simple as having a shower was taking its toll on me. Gradually the steam abated and I considered my reflection in the mirror above the large vanity unit.

  My deep green eyes stared back at me. They at least seemed much brighter now I was no longer the drugged-up mess I had previously become. I always found it strange looking at myself nowadays. I knew it was still me on the inside but the outside? I hardly recognised my reflection anymore. Tony insisted I always had my hair dyed blonde and I hated it. Although I was grateful that it meant that neither he or anyone else ever got the real me.

  I dropped the towel I had been using to the floor and reached out for a hairbrush. I combed through the mess on my head. My roots were beginning to show, it was as though the real me was beginning to emerge from my disguise. Had this happened in the place I lived, I would have beaten for my non-compliance. But here, I felt comfortable with the few centimetres of dark brown roots appearing.

  I pulled my semi-dry hair up into a high ponytail and put on the clothes I had brought in with me. The underwear was white, basic but brand new. The denim shorts I pulled on may have once been someone else’s but they fitted well. I finished with one of Jack’s old checked shirts. I rolled up the sleeves and after fastening a couple of buttons across my chest for decency, brought the two sides together to tie at my waist in a knot. I hung my towel up and left.

  The house seemed to be completely empty. I went down the stairs slowly, gripping hold of the walnut scrolled banister tightly. The hall was in the same state as the bedroom I had been cooped up in for almost three weeks. Stripped floorboards and newly plastered walls. I wondered how long Jack had lived in this old house and why it seemed to be taking so long to do up?

  The door to the kitchen creaked as I pushed it open wide. I was holding my breath, not knowing who I was going to find in the room beyond, but again it was disappointingly empty. I had opened and closed two other doors on my way here. When I had opened the doors I could see why they were closed off. The rooms I had found behind them were in a bad state. Jack obviously hadn’t touched them yet. But one day when he did, I knew the house was going to look breath-taking.