Deceive (Declan Reede: The Untold Story #2) (25 page)

After what felt like an eternity, Phoebe’s bedroom door cracked open.

I heard a sharp intake of breath.

“Declan?” Ruth exclaimed.

Fuck me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: MY APOCALYPSE

AFTER THE SMALLEST of glances at Ruth, I felt the panic and terror brand my face as it twisted into a contorted mask. I hadn’t felt a surge of fear so strong since hearing Josh’s voice at the airport. Working to pull my thoughts together, I put my finger to my lips to instruct Ruth to stay quiet. Which wasn’t entirely necessary because she just stared at me with her mouth gaping slightly anyway.

I shifted position, gently rolling Phoebe away from my chest. Silently, I stroked her cheek a couple of times to ensure she was still in a deep slumber before pointing to the door, indicating to Ruth to leave the room. Watching Phoebe the whole way, I backed out and pulled the door shut behind me. With the tones of the death march ringing through my mind as I went, I began the slow walk out to the living room.

By the time I spotted Ruth again, my heart was pounding as if Lars Ulrich was using it to practice his percussion. The more I thought about the things Alyssa and Ruby had said, the more I was certain I could hear the beat of “My Apocalypse” drumming against my chest. The words began to echo through my head.

Clenching my fists at my sides, I tried every technique I knew to stave off the panic attack I felt building within me. My chest was tight—my lungs too small to draw the correct amount of oxygen from the air. The room slanted to the left and began to spin.

Through the haze of fear that was rising within me I sensed, rather than saw, Ruth come from behind and circle around in front of me. A cacophony of sounds hit me. My own heartbeat became amplified in my ears. I could hear Ruth’s voice echoing above it, just slightly louder. It felt like she was screaming at me.

Louder and louder.

Words I couldn’t understand or hear properly. I crossed my arms on top of my head, using my biceps to block the violent rush of noise. The room skewed further off balance, and my breaths grew shallower. Hands clutched at me from what felt like all directions, pulling and tugging while the screaming and thudding continued.

I shut my eyes tightly and tried to chant my mantra silently to myself.
I can get through this. I’ve had one before, and I made it through then. I can get through this. I’ve had one before, and I made it through then.

I became aware of a second voice mixing with Ruth’s. It took me a moment to realise it was mine. Slowly, the rushing sound in my ears quietened. Something soft hit the back of my knees and they gave way beneath me. What felt like a large pillow stopped my descent before I hit the ground. Fingers closed around my hands and the yelling slowly abated, although the voice didn’t quieten, it just began to sound less harsh in my ears.

“Declan . . .,” was the first clear thing I heard, but then the voice faded back into obscurity.

I dropped my head down to my knees and began to rock softly. My mantra wasn’t helping. There was only one thing I knew for certain that would help and unfortunately she was at work.

“Declan.” Ruth’s voice broke through the haze again. She sounded . . .
worried?

Curiosity brought me back to the present. I tried to breathe again and was relieved when I found that my lungs seemed almost regular-sized once more. Lifting my head, I opened my eyes. Ruth was sitting on the couch beside me. She held her hands out toward me and her face was traced with concern.

“Declan?” she asked again as my eyes focused on her face. “Are you all right?”

I nodded, then shook my head, then nodded again. I honestly wasn’t sure whether I was all right or not. Whether I ever would be.

“Panic attacks?” she queried.

My lip quivered and I couldn’t find the word yes.

Her face softened. “You really did miss her, didn’t you?”

Tears welled in my eyes as I nodded again.

“Aw, baby.” She held her arms out in invitation. I crawled across the couch and into her embrace before letting the sobs overrun my body as it recovered from the rush of adrenaline that my panic attack had inspired. The last time she’d comforted me that way was when I was sixteen. It was after Alyssa and I had fought at school, over something as stupid as not saying I love you.

Despite our past, and how much she had been like a mother to me at times, I couldn’t fathom why Ruth was being so nice to me now. After everything I’d put her daughter, and her granddaughter through, why wasn’t she kicking my arse? I didn’t want to break the spell and ask, but eventually I had to. Extracting myself from her arms, I sat beside her on the sofa.

“Don’t you hate me?” I asked.

She brushed the hair off my face. A small frown graced her brow and her lips turned downward. “Sweetie, I may be disappointed in some of the decisions you’ve made, but I could never hate you. And it’s obvious you are in pain right now. That trumps everything else. Do you want to talk about it?”

“I was . . . scared,” I admitted. “When you came in. I thought . . . I didn’t know what you’d do. Everyone else hates me.”

She laughed, just a soft chuckle. It reminded me of Alyssa. “Curtis and Josh have thick heads, that’s all. You hurt their baby girl. But you know that, right?”

I nodded.

“And you hurt yourself just as much, didn’t you?”

Swallowing down the lump in my throat, I nodded again. Ruth had always been intuitive and there was no point lying to her.

“Ruby told me about your talk, and Alyssa told me about your dinner at McDonald’s. I can tell you’re trying to do the right thing. That means something. I wanted to see you sooner, to talk to you, but Alyssa asked me not to. She thought you might need your space.”

“Thank you,” I managed. I wasn’t sure whether to feel touched that Alyssa had thought to ask for space on my behalf—or offended because it was another sign that she still didn’t trust me. Did she think I could be run off? “But why are you here now then?” It wasn’t until after the words had escaped that I could see how rude they might sound. “Shit, fuck, I didn’t mean it like that.”

She smiled. “It’s all right, Declan. I usually drop by to see Alyssa a couple of times a week when she’s not working. Where is she, by the way?”

“She got called in to work. Apparently, it was a big emergency.”

Ruth raised her eyebrow at me. “And she left you alone with Phoebe?”

I bristled. Her amazed tone pissed me off. Was it really that hard to believe that Alyssa would trust me to look after my own fucking daughter? Okay, so I was apparently the last resort, but it wasn’t that unthinkable was it? After all, I’d had to endure the mother of all temper tantrums and I’d survived. With my mouth twisted in distaste, I went to say something but Ruth cut me off.

“I just meant that Alyssa very rarely leaves Phoebe with anyone. Me, Flynn, Ruby, and occasionally your mum. That’s it. We practically had to drag her down to enrol Phoebe in day care. She’s very protective of her. I think sometimes Lys still sees Phoebe as the broken baby who wouldn’t have survived without her brother’s gift, and not always as the strong, smart child she has grown into.”

Her words came as a shock. The thought of how hard it was for Alyssa to trust anyone else with Phoebe had never even crossed my mind. It dawned on me just how big a deal it was that Alyssa had allowed me to babysit at all so soon after coming back into their lives. A smile crossed my face as Ruth’s words cemented the fact that Alyssa did in fact trust me.

“Would you like to stay for the afternoon?” I asked Ruth.

“I wouldn’t want to intrude. I didn’t realise you would be here or I wouldn’t have come.”

“Don’t fucking worry about it. I’m glad you are here.”

“Alyssa was right about you,” Ruth said, as the corners of her lips lifted again.

“What?” I asked, wondering what Alyssa might have told her mum about me.

“You’ve lost none of your charm, but gained a real potty mouth.”

I laughed. “There’s nothing fucking potty about my mouth,” I joked.

“Come on,” she said, rising to her feet. “Why don’t I make us a cup of tea and you can tell me what you’ve been up to?”

“That, well, actually that sounds great. Thanks, Ruth.”

Without thinking about it, I hopped up on the kitchen counter while Ruth busied herself making the tea. I rarely drank the stuff these days, but she was being cordial to me and I didn’t want to fuck it up. If I made an effort, I had no doubt Alyssa would find out. Not to mention the fact that being on Ruth’s good side would help my cause with Josh at least—he was nothing if not a mama’s boy.

“So what have you been up to in Sydney?” Ruth asked as she set one of the steaming mugs on the dining table and sat in the seat across from it.

I smirked. “You really don’t want to know.” There was no way I could tell her about the scores of women I’d bedded, the alcohol I’d drunk, or any of the horror that was my first few months down there.

“Something must have been real fascinating to keep you away from our little Alyssa?”

“Not really. That was just me being a stubborn arse. I—” I took a deep breath. “—well, I almost had myself convinced that I was over her. It was only in the dark of night that I knew I wasn’t.”

“You dreamt about her?” she guessed.

Shrugging, I leaned forward for the hot mug and cradled it in my hands. “If I was lucky. If not, I’d lie awake for hours staring at the ceiling while memories of our time together ran endlessly through my head.”

“When did the panic attacks start, sweetie?” Her voice was still full of concern. I just wanted to hug her and say thank you again.

“Almost immediately,” I admitted, my voice almost silent. These were things I’d barely covered with Alyssa. “It started small. Alyssa would call and I would listen as she left a message. Within a week, I found I had to actually clutch tightly to something to stop myself from answering the phone. I honestly thought she’d be better off without any ties to me. I thought she’d move on eventually. Do the things she always wanted to do, you know?”

“That was never going to happen though, you should have known that. Even without the twins, she could never have forgotten about you any more than you could forget about her.”

“I know that now,” I whispered. “But I thought I knew better. Eventually, holding on to something wasn’t enough. That was when the insomnia started. All within a few weeks of being in Sydney. I should have known then that what I really wanted was to be back by her side. But the real problem was that I wanted to be at Sinclair Racing too. It was my dream job, and I couldn’t just walk away.”

Ruth glanced over the rim of her mug as she waited for me to continue the story.

I put my own mug back on the table and stared into the milky-brown liquid.

“That’s . . .” I sighed. “Well, that’s when things became dark.” I wasn’t going to tell her exactly how dark, I wouldn’t be able to bear the look of disgust or pity that might cross her face. “I began to manage the only way I was able.”

“Alcohol and women?” Ruth asked.

I nodded because there was no point denying what she clearly knew. It was pretty much public record after all. “For a while I tried sleeping tablets too, and they worked, but they just became another in a long line of addictions. The more time that passed, the harder it was just to pick up the phone. I think I knew that if I did, I’d be back in her arms in an instant.”

Not for the first time, I wondered what life would have been like if I had succumbed to the urge to reconnect sooner. Would I have had to give up racing, or would we have found a way to make it all work?

Glancing over at Ruth, wordlessly absorbing my confession like a priest, it became clear once more that the hole in my life hadn’t just been Alyssa-sized. There had been so many other connections I’d severed to avoid a reunion.

“I kept all her phone messages though,” I continued. “I would play them occasionally when I was unable to sleep. I did such a good job of convincing myself that I didn’t need her—I told myself it was only a piece of home I was missing, not her—that hearing her voice reminded me of easier times.” My words reminded me of my temper tantrum with the answering machine. I’d lost all of the messages because I’d thrown the damn thing against the wall. I hung my head. “I was a fucking fool.”

“But you’re here now,” Ruth said.

Raising my head again, I met her eyes. “And I’m not leaving her again.”

She smiled at me. “That’s all I need to know. Alyssa has made it clear to me what she wants and if my baby girl wants you, I’m not going to argue. I just need to know you’re not going to hurt her again.”

I shook my head. “Never.”

She stood and took her mug to the sink. “Then I wish you both well. And Declan?”

Twisting in my seat, I glanced at her.

She turned and gave me a small smile. “Don’t leave it so long before you talk to me again, yeah?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, giving her a mock-salute.

A noise from the bedroom—a small voice calling out—indicated that Phoebe was stirring.

“Shall I?” Ruth asked.

“Do you mind if I do?” I didn’t want to cause problems between Ruth and me, especially when I’d just aired my dirty laundry, but I was the one Alyssa asked to babysit and didn’t want to shirk my duties. Ruth shook her head and gave me a little smile.