Hate to Love You (13 page)

“How’d the interview go?” she asked.

I murmured noncommittally and craned my head around her body to watch the TV. This was the good part, right at the end, and I sighed in anticipation. Watching Bill pounce on Sookie was as close as I ever got to the real deal.

“Well?” Marcia said impatiently.

“Uh-huh.”

She snatched the remote and paused the DVD. “You do realise you’ve got the hots for a bunch of guys who menstruate.”

I put my hands over my ears.

Marcia smirked. “Vampires don’t produce any body fluids of their own. They get their fluids from the blood of their victims. Because they’re dead, right? Which by the way is pretty disgusting—lusting after dead guys, I mean. If you went to the morgue you’d change your tune.”

“Okay, thanks for that. Can I watch now?”

She pointed the remote at the TV but didn’t unfreeze the picture. “When vampires cry, the blood streams out of their eyes.”

“White noise,” I chanted.

“And when a vampire ejaculates it isn’t semen he spurts. It’s b-l-o-o-d. Like he’s menstruating out of his penis. A dead man menstruating with the blood of his even deader victims and spurting that into you. What if he had filthy tramp for dinner? Or he couldn’t get fresh O-positive so he sucked on the murder victim they pulled out of the Thames?”

She released the pause button and went to her bedroom, leaving me deflated. I heard her ask Fleur Anise what she’d had for dinner and I was glad I hadn’t given in to my goddaughter’s demands for chocolate biscuits. Marcia always checks first thing and Fleur Anise hasn’t learned how to lie yet.

I continued watching but it was no use. As Bill pumped into Sookie, all I could think of was blood and death and how she’d have to do a massive clean-up afterwards. I turned the TV off just as Marcia came back from her bedroom.

“Where the hell am I supposed to get my kicks now?” I huffed.

She sank down next to me, shut her eyes and stretched out her legs. “There’s no point falling for werewolves or warlocks either, because men are all bastards. I’m going to be a lesbian.”

I stuck my lips together and pressed tightly. Marcia had loved being married and she’d loved Trevor. Unfortunately, he’d loved a whole bunch of other people as well as her. When she surprised him having a threesome with the neighbour and another woman, Trevor said he’d married too young and days later he walked out. He blamed Marcia for getting pregnant and said having a child had held him back from landing a Premier League contract. In one of those unfair twists of fate he was now playing for a famous team and dating a gorgeous celebrity model. As for Marcia? Well, she’s in praying mantis mode so I kept my mouth shut.

Besides, I’m hardly an authority on happy relationships. Lots of guys wanted to have sex with me but weren’t interested in anything else. They might have been, eventually, but when you’re cursed with the ability see peoples’ truths, why stick around and find out?

I’m not bitter about it, just resigned. I don’t lump all men together in the bastard pile like Marcia does. I can’t imagine not wanting to have sex again, although nothing has compared to—

I cut the thought off hastily. It was bad enough I couldn’t control my dreams. My memories didn’t need to intrude on my daylight reality. “Did they mention ‘TB’ at the interview?” Marcia said.

She equates “Trash at the Bash” to a fatal, contagious disease. I gave her the condensed version until we got to the bit about working with James.

“Are you nuts?”

Crap, I deliberately hadn’t told her that James worked at Flintfire to avoid her reaction. She jumped off the sofa and put her hands on her hips, glaring at me. Oh God, when she does that I know I’m in for a lecture. And if she starts pacing I’ll never hear the end of it.

“They are going to haul you down the clink again and this time they won’t take the cuffs off! You’ve been lucky so far but this exceeds everything else you’ve done.”

True, but with Francesca taking out a restraining order against me on Ryan’s behalf, I wasn’t allowed within two hundred metres of his primary school or James’s house, Matham Manor.

I stuck my chin out. “I know what I’m doing.”

Marcia started pacing. “Yeah, ruining any chances you might have of getting what you want.”

Like I ever had a chance anyway.

“James’s revenge has lasted long enough. I’m going to wear him down, make him so sick of hearing my voice he finally gives in.”

“Antagonising him is your new plan to convince him to let you see Ryan?” she said incredulously. “He holds all the cards where your son is concerned, remember?”

“He can hold ’em, shuffle and deal, but that doesn’t mean I can’t trump him,” I said, my anger rising. “Just because he’s a posh blue blood doesn’t mean he can get away with it forever. He thinks he’s better than I am just because he has money.”

Marcia glared at me. “All you ever do is bitch about James’s snobbishness and prejudice, as if you’re any better yourself. You were ready to dislike him even before you met him. Don’t look at me like that, because I remember it well. You had it in for him because he was marrying Caroline and he was rich. Then you discovered you’d read him wrong but you still weren’t happy even though he’d rocked your world. And now that you’re back, you’re bent on finding fault with him. You’re not that screwed-up eighteen-year-old anymore but you’re just as prejudiced as she was.”

“I am not prejudiced against James,” I said hotly.

Liar!
my mind shouted.

Marcia crossed her arms. “What you need to do is play nice, be humble and not piss James off. Not to mention that Caroline is going to hate you more than ever. Better to have stayed in Valencia for all your new plan will help you.”

“Running away was a mistake,” I said, punching my fist into my hand. “I shouldn’t have bowed to his lawyer’s threats and given Ryan up.”

“But you did,” Marcia said softly. “There’s no use trying to change the past.”

“Yeah, yeah, and hindsight is a bitch,” I said, springing up from the sofa. “Fuck the past. It’s the future I’m going to change.”

I grabbed my baseball cap and headed to the door. It would be light for a few hours yet. Plenty of time.

Her mouth hung open. “No way. You are
not
going back to Matham Manor. If James catches you...”

Marcia calls what I do “stalking,” whereas I think of it more as “observing discreetly while trying not to get caught.”

“I’ll be more careful this time,” I said. “No climbing trees and scaring the neighbours. Cross my heart.” I jammed the cap on and picked up my house keys. “Don’t wait up.”

“Fucking bonkers,” she said as I shut the door behind me.

Chapter Ten

Enemies: Signed, Notarised and Apostilled

“If I’m ever rich I’m going to invest in sugar because Kahlu’s magic really works,” I said, an ecstatic grin on my face.

Marcia snorted. “You’ll let me know when you do that, right? So I can have you committed.”

I laughed and wished her good luck at the lawyer’s office, then clasped the letter in my hand to my chest. It was the Monday after my interview and I’d come home to the crisp job offer from Flintfire & Associates detailing my basic working conditions: Monday to Friday, nine to five, some travel and a good salary. My new plan was taking shape and I was so happy even Marcia’s dour predictions couldn’t dampen my mood.

In the days that followed I convinced myself that seeing James again would be awkward but not paralysing. He’d hate being forced to work with me, of that I was sure. But knowing that he couldn’t fire me unless I did something outrageous calmed my apprehension, somewhat.

And the night before my first day at Flintfire I woke up in the midst of an erotic dream so powerful I had an orgasm, aching for a man I’d never truly had. Damn it, every time I thought I’d put that memory to rest it would come back to mock me.

I lay in bed, wide awake. My window was open and I could hear the faint sounds of police sirens and night buses. Was James wrapped around Caroline, making love to her or holding her as she slept? My gorge rose and I hit my pillow, frustrated at the direction of my thoughts.

It was a clear night but no stars shone above the thin layer of cloud; no lights flickered to brighten the darkness of memory. I didn’t want to remember my messed-up teenage feelings for James. I hated him. He’d taken Ryan from me and I would never forgive him. A useless tear trickled down my cheek. It didn’t matter that I’d never touched another drop of alcohol after Caroline’s wedding. How many times had I watched “Trash at the Bash” and seen the indisputable evidence of my negligence? The damage was done. When social services saw the video and looked over my history they treated me as if I were the druggie mum in
Trainspotting.

James’s lawyer wrote letters demanding I sign over my parental rights, citing the video as evidence of my unsuitability as a parent. He wanted me out of Ryan’s life forever and I said no. But Francesca badgered me incessantly. She used every argument she had to convince me Ryan would be better off never knowing me. In the end, self-loathing and the belief that I was ill equipped for parenthood made me sign away my parental rights while I was still pregnant.

I wiped away another tear. As soon as Ryan was born I had regretted my decision. I’d had an emergency C-section and stayed in hospital for five days. During that time I’d realised I couldn’t give Ryan up no matter what I had signed. When Francesca came to take him she ignored my tears and didn’t acknowledge my hysterical pleas to talk to James. Without sparing me a glance she took Ryan out of my arms and told me that I was no longer entitled to call him my son. Inconsolable, I had fallen to the icy December pavement and watched Ryan disappear from my life, driven off by Bonaparte Muir of Barbados.

Running away to Spain had done nothing to dull the pain, no matter how I tried to quell it. A Valencian colleague whose daughter died in a car crash once told me that losing a child was not something you get over; it was something you learned to live with. Well, I was tired of living with it, goddamn it! And goddamn James for taking advantage of my fragile state of mind and forcing me to.

I tried to get back to sleep but guilt and regret twisted my body as they did my mind, and I was denied its dark release.

* * *

When I arrived at Flintfire, a sunny Velma scanned me from head to toe. Her eyes grew so wide I was able to see that their violet colour was contact-induced. She thought my clothing was a ploy to find a rich husband at the firm but I brushed off her opinion like a piece of lint. So what if I wasn’t a walking advertisement for staid and bland? There’s no black, grey or navy in my wardrobe except for my stalker outfit, and that was hardly the thing for a job in the City.

For secretarial work I wore hip-hugging skirts in any shade except boring and colourful tops that enhanced my shape but were modest enough for the work place—mostly. Today my silky shirt was more figure hugging than usual but only because I hadn’t ironed anything else. Honest. And I always wear stilettos; they’re good for your posture.

My hair was up and my makeup was light. Marcia had given me the thumbs up along with a sly look I refused to acknowledge and Fleur Anise, my harshest critic, said she liked my top. I thought I looked professional, but with pizzazz.

I shrugged off my insecurity and surveyed the office suite with a practiced eye. My desk was a long L, placed so that I faced anyone coming in. My new bosses had side-by-side desks to my right, at the end of the room and in front of the glass wall.

I usually relished the first days at a new job, but apprehension was making me queasy. It was one thing to hatch a desperate plan and hope it came to fruition, and entirely another to find myself sitting in the office I would share with James, about to meet him for the first time since making my infamous speech.

Nervously, I walked to the glass wall and looked out at the City of London, taking note of the famous Gherkin building and the other high risers glinting in the sunshine. Sixteen floors below me there were black cabs, buses and people going about their daily business, oblivious to my existence.

This was the city I had fled to at fourteen, the city where I had lived a desperate nightmare, by day picking pockets and by night sleeping in shop doorways. I didn’t want it to look vibrant or happy but it did. It probably had back then too. I just hadn’t been high enough to see it—not in the same sense I was now, if you know what I mean.

I shuddered and turned my back on the view, eyeing the two desks in front of me. One of them was neat to the point of bareness; the other looked like its owner had lost the battle of the paper bins. A copy of my CV was centred on the former and tossed carelessly on the latter. Was James the neat freak or the slob?

I noticed a few pictures on one of the bookcases. One was of a pretty brunette in a sunhat with three little girls—Greg’s wife and daughters presumably, and the other was of a little boy of about five or six. It had to be Ryan. I snatched it up and gazed at him hungrily. He had my blue eyes and my lips, and yes, he still had a tear-shaped mole on his neck. His little jaw was square.

I tried to see Alex Novak in Ryan’s face but I couldn’t. Had Alex’s hair been that shade of brown? And did he have a jaw like Ryan’s? Well, it didn’t matter anyway. No one would ever know the truth about Ryan’s real father, least of all Ryan. Telling him would only hurt him and I’d done enough of that already. I didn’t allow myself to think about who else would be hurt by the truth.

I gazed at the picture fixedly and then angled it towards my desk so I could see it better.

If only
I
had a picture of Ryan!

I glanced at the wall clock. Velma had informed me that James and Greg came in late on Mondays, so there was plenty of time to do what I needed. The silver frame was heavy and the twisty bits at the back so tight I had to yank them hard to get the picture out. The frame slipped from my hand and fell, sharp corner on pinky toe, before smashing open on the floor.

“Shit!”

The damn thing had drawn blood. I picked Ryan’s picture out of the broken glass, shaking off the little shards as I stood up. James chose that moment to arrive. He walked into the office, saw me and stopped abruptly. Every barrier I thought I’d built, every wall I’d reinforced and double-checked, fragmented. Carefully planned words stuck in my throat.

James was as devastatingly handsome at thirty-three as he had been at twenty-six. His thick, dark hair was shorter and the cut more severe but it only added to his attractiveness, lending his features a captivating maturity that was new. His muscular body filled out the dark expensive suit just as I remembered.

Damn it, James wasn’t supposed to affect me like he had when I first met him. It wasn’t right! My body was tingling all over, moistening, making me feel lush and provocative. I was angry as hell, bitter over James’s intransigence and yet I wanted to have sex with him on the floor, the desk, or whichever surface we could find that would hold us.

Oh for fuck’s sake! Was I going to allow my existence to be defined by
I
breathe
,
therefore I want to fuck James Xavier Scott-Thomas?

Hatred had fuelled my decision to work with James; it powered my resolve and was supposed to obliterate my desire. Nevertheless, the sense of being inexorably linked to the man in front of me heated my blood and swamped me with a confusing mixture of longing, frustration and sadness.

I probed his eyes, searching deep.

Nothing.

I squinted in earnest but other than obvious, furious bewilderment there wasn’t a single word to be read in his frosty greens. His mind was closed to me, just as it had been after my wedding speech.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he said.

“Lifting a picture of Ryan so I can photocopy it and take it home.”

Well, it seemed I’d stumped him. James’s scowl was replaced by a look of surprise. I picked up the broken frame and when I stood up he was in front of me. How had he moved so quickly? One minute he was about ten feet away and the next—the next he loomed over me, his body only inches from mine.

“I’ll get you another frame,” I said quickly.

My words came out soft and breathy as if I was offering to get him something else entirely. His pupils widened and his gaze went to my mouth. He reached out and my pulse jumped but then I realised he wanted the picture I’d pilfered. I gave it to him without thinking. He didn’t step back, staring down at me as if he couldn’t decide whether to strangle me or pick me up and throw me out.

I forced myself to stand my ground but I felt as though I was a P-shaped magnet trying to resist the pull of a refrigerator. I edged around him and went to my desk. No sitting down though, not when James was still standing, looking like he might close the distance at any minute.

James set his briefcase on top of the neat freak desk. He picked up my CV and skimmed it, his face darkening as he discovered exactly who his new secretary was. A perverse little part of me wanted him to try and fire me, but he wasn’t going to give me the satisfaction.

“What do you want, Ms Benítez?”

He’d said my name like my mother used to say my father’s.

I lifted my chin. “You know what I want.”

“If you believe that by insinuating yourself into my place of employment I will accede to your demands you are mistaken.”

Oh God, did he still speak as if he had a pole stuck his arse? And a huge helping of haughtiness to boot.

“Now that you are conversant with my position you will tender your resignation.”

Not to mention arrogance. “You can like my working here or you can lump it. Or, sorry, if my mode of discourse is too plain for your comprehension—I will remain in this employment regardless of any endeavours to ensure otherwise.”

James took a step towards me, caught himself and then turned his back and went to the glass wall, looking at the view as if I would somehow disappear before he turned around.

“You and Caroline aren’t going to keep me away,” I said.

James’s shoulders stiffened—an almost imperceptible little move I picked up because, well, it seemed I still picked up on everything James.

“Caroline?”

“As in my sister and your wife?”

“She divorced me.”

I gaped at him. “Caroline would never do that.”

His short laugh was harsh. “I can assure you that she did. She married my cousin Reginald a year later. They have two children.”

My lips wanted to stretch into a grin and I was ashamed of my reaction, regardless of my anger towards James. What kind of woman rejoices in hearing she caused someone’s divorce? I felt like the lowest of the low and a little winded to be honest. All these years I’d thought James and Caroline were together, gloating over my pain and suffering, when in fact they’d moved on with their lives.

Was I the only one who hadn’t been able to?

My inner compass shifted a notch and I readjusted what I knew about James along with it. Why didn’t he turn around? Was he pining for Caroline and blaming me for ruining their relationship? Maybe I should say something, but what? I didn’t think James would believe me if I said I was sorry. Hell, I wouldn’t believe me either.

“I’m sorry about your divorce,” I offered, hoping I sounded sincere.

James didn’t budge. “I’m waiting.”

“Waiting?”

“For you to tell me more lies.”

Shit, was it that obvious? The more I thought about the impact my speech had had on James’s life, the worse I felt.

“I’m sorry you were hurt by what I did,” I said, genuinely remorseful this time. “I never meant for that to happen.”

I didn’t pepper my apology with lame excuses about the motivations behind sleeping with him or my wedding-day revelations. I’ve never understood why people think throwing in explanations will make what they’ve done any less awful. As if they should be forgiven simply because they had a reason for what they did. I had ended James’s happy future with the woman he loved and for that there was no excuse.

James turned around. “Forcing yourself on me won’t change my opinion of you or my decision.”

Hearing my defeat declared so unequivocally made me want to throw something at him. One of the heavy legal tomes would do for starters. “All I want is the chance to show you that I’ve changed and convince you to let me see Ryan.”

“After all these years you think you can—” He got control of himself with an effort but his look could have frozen a lava flow. “If you believe I’ll allow you to disrupt the life of
my son
, the child you happily signed away, you are mistaken.”

“There was nothing happy about it,” I retorted.

“You
sold
him because you care more about money than anything or anybody else. You don’t deserve a scintilla of Ryan’s time, or mine.”