Fake (15 page)

“How long…?” I whispered, battling through the pain in my heart.

“How long have I known them?”

I didn’t confirm nor deny his question, I just stared at him. Silently begging him to tell me this was all just some sick joke.

“Since about two and a half years ago, when Jackson started dating one of my best friends.”

His best friends. Taylor and Harper. I’d heard a lot about them over the weeks at work, I felt like I knew them. Then something else struck me.

“You said, the first day we met, that there were
three
guys in your little group of friends. Who’s the third Jase?” He didn’t answer immediately, so I shouted, “
Jase! Who’s the third guy?
”

He flinched, but without breaking eye contact he answered, “Mason.”

I actually rocked back on my feet with the force of his words. The pain in my heart spread and I keeled over, holding a hand against my stomach to ease the ache.

“Oh God.”

My perfect, incredible boyfriend...
fiancé...
had a family, and friends and a whole freaking life that I knew nothing about. From the look on Jase’s face, I was guessing he was the only one who knew about me too.

Seconds later, the door burst open and slammed back against the wall. I slumped down into a chair and lifted my eyes.

*~*~*

Ruben

“
Ruben...
” She breathed.

Fuck!

I froze. I was fucked. I knew that already but my mind was racing with thousands of ways to talk myself out of the situation.

“Babe, I...” I had nothing. Not a single word I could say, or explanation I could give, would make this better in her eyes. I looked to the ceiling and closed my eyes; putting my hand to the back of my neck to ease the ache forming there, I muttered a pathetic, “I’m sorry.”

Silence.

Deafening silence.

The kind of silence that made my balls want to crawl back inside my body and my stomach plummet to my toes. Every muscle was tensed, ready for whatever it was that she decided to hurl at me, or hit me with.

“I don’t understand.” Her confused whisper made my heart beat falter.

I looked to Jase, standing at the side with his arms crossed over his chest and a face full of disappointment. He raised an eyebrow – silently giving me the floor.

I shrugged. “I don’t know what you want me to say, babe. I don’t know what you already know, what you think you know...” I didn’t get to finish, not that I really knew what I was going to say.

“That’s just the point though isn’t it
Ruben.
” My name sounded bitter on her lips and I flinched. “I don’t know a thing. Jack fucking shit. Everything I thought I knew is a fucking lie. In fact, I can’t...I can’t even look at you right now.”

She got up from the sofa, walked over to Jase, pecked him on the cheek and left without a single glance in my direction.

My heart was screaming at me to stop her, to make her see that everything I had done, I had done for her. To protect her. To keep her safe.

But my brain wouldn’t let me, like I automatically knew that she needed this time away from me to process. I still needed to find out how much she knew.

I turned to Jase, still simmering with anger that he thought it was his right to do this to her.

“How could you? How fucking
could
you? Is this what you wanted? Huh? Your other friends are going off, falling in love and making lives for themselves, but you’re still stuck in the same place you were years ago. Guess that makes sense, at least now you have a new toy to play with, someone else who you can leech off. I’m surprised you haven’t followed her already, running after her whining about how you’ll make it
all
feel better. I really, genuinely want to know what your fucking problem is.”

I knew I was displacing the blame, and I knew I shouldn’t have said those words as soon as they came out of my mouth, but I couldn’t take them back.

He puffed out his chest and stood taller. I winced, knowing he was going to give me a mouthful and I deserved it.

“You know, if I really thought you meant
any
of the things you just spewed at me, we would have real problems my
friend
. But I’m just going to leave, regardless of what you might be thinking, Lydia is right. She shouldn’t have to look at you right now because I Just told her who owns this place and she worked out the rest for herself.”

“She deserved to know and you cannot stand there like a spoiled fucking child and throw your dummy out the pram about this because I gave you chance after
chance
to tell her. We stood here not three weeks ago and you agreed with every word I said. Then yet again, you didn’t do a god damned thing about it. You’re a coward. Lydia might not be perfect, she might be stubborn as hell and she
definitely
should have paid a little more attention to what was going on around her but she would have done anything for you. Any, single, thing. All you had to do was open your mouth and say jump and she’d have dropped whatever she was doing and asked ‘how high’?”

I felt a muscle in my jaw tick and my face was cramping from clenching my teeth so hard. The smirk on Jase’s face said he’d noticed that too.

“I’d be wasting my time to say anymore because you clearly only ever do things your own way. But I’ll leave you with this. In all the time you’ve known her, have you ever,
ever
, left her on her own when she was upset? Devastated even? I know the answer to that as well as you do. Yet because it’s
you
that has caused it, you just let her walk out of this club with no way to get home, no coat, and a broken heart. Right now, she thinks the only man she ever loved is nothing but a liar – why would you also go and make that worse, by also being a let-down and a coward?” He shook his head and looked down. “I really thought you were smarter than that.”

He slammed the door as he left, drowning me in the silence.

“Shit.” I whispered. Then louder, “
shit!”

I stormed back out the door, back to security room to grab a coat for Lydia, then ran out the front doors ready to chase my girl.

I had some serious ass kissing to do.

Chapter Seventeen

Lydia

I didn’t cry.

Not when I was fighting my way out of the club, not when I stumbled on the steps, not when I was searching the streets and not when I realised I was a girl on her own, in the dark, in London.

But the second I heard the footsteps behind me and I knew he’d followed me, the first tears started to fall. Instead of doing what I should have done and jumped in the closest taxi to get as far away from him as possible. I stopped, and wrapped my arms around myself. Almost forming an invisible protection, I suppose.

He stopped inches behind me and we both stood in silence. My whole body was tense, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that there was nothing he could say that would make it feel better, make it ok.

But I was at least willing to hear him out.

“Come on, I’ll take you home and I can explain everything. I swear to you I can.”

I whirled on him.

“No. Just no. I don’t want you in my home. I want you to stand here, in the middle of the street and tell me exactly how you think you think you can explain,” I held up a hand and started counting. “One, the fact that you’re a liar. Two, that I have no idea who the hell you are. Three, you have this whole family that as far as I was concerned, you hadn’t seen since you were a kid. And
four
, the fact that we’ve struggled, every day for the last two years. Every single day. You didn’t have to do that, clearly,” I pointed back towards the club that could still be seen in the distance. “What was it? Like a challenge for you? See how long you could last living like the poor people?”

“It wasn’t like that! It just sort of...happened. Years ago, when I told you I was in care, which was
not
a lie, you changed. You were all bitter and bitchy and I couldn’t get through to you before that. The second you felt sorry for me, I had my chance to get you back and I took it,” he shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. “I don’t regret that and I’d take the same chance again if I had to. But it went too far and then I got stuck and I couldn’t get out. I loved you, I’m
in love
with you. I’m supposed to be the one who makes you happy when you get sad and the one who fixes all your problems and I just knew it was going to end up breaking your heart. Weeks passed, then months and years and…”

“And what?” I barked, still not getting it at all.

“I just, kept putting it off. I didn’t want Freddy anywhere near my family, I didn’t want you blaming my brother for the fire, I didn’t want you getting pissed off at the life I had. So I thought, maybe, it was almost better that you didn’t know about them and they didn’t know about you.”

Well that hurt.

It cut like a knife to the heart.

My voice croaked out in a broken-whisper, barely audible over the cars driving passed.

“So what am I then, Ruben? You didn’t want Freddy around your family, so am I not family? You didn’t want me to be pissed about your life, so you just refused to share it with me. And I don’t give a shit about the fucking fire!” I threw my arms up in frustration. “I got over all that shit years ago. You just don’t pay attention! You asked me to marry you, God damn it! What was the plan there? Just have a secret wife on the side? Unless…”

Something about the words I’d just said, struck something inside of me and the knife twisted.

“Oh my God. You were never planning to marry me.”

His back snapped straight. “That’s not true. I
love
you! I’d marry you tomorrow if you’d let me. But yeah, you’re right. I didn’t plan to ask you like that because for once I wanted things to be perfect!” He rubbed his temples like he was trying to ease a headache. “I
was
going to do it though, that’s why I had the ring. Don’t let my fuck ups spoil that.”

I laughed humourlessly. “Are you out of your mind? I can’t marry you now. You’re a stranger to me. We’re wasting our time here. I can’t just forgive and forget. You just need to let me know,” I choked on the words, but I forced them out. I meant what I said and I wasn’t sure I could ever forgive him.

But I’d also never forget him.

Sobbing, I continued. “I-I-I love Ruben. He’s the best thing that ever has or probably ever will happen to me. But you’re not that guy to me now. He would never have hurt me like this. You’ve literally stolen my heart - but instead of treating it with care and cherishing it like you should, you locked it away. You actually hid my heart in some dusty closet, like a dirty little secret. So I have to take it back because you don’t deserve it anymore.”

As I turned to leave, his hand came around my wrist and he yanked me back towards him. I froze in shock and he took the opportunity to put his hands on either side of my face and pull me in for a kiss full of all the love and hate and passion he was feeling.

And I did the same. I kissed him hard, sucked on his tongue, nibbled at his bottom lip and tugged at his hair.

It was an epic kiss, full of words that neither of us could get out.

But he was begging me to stay.

...When I was saying goodbye.

*~*~*

Ruben

It was the best kiss I’d ever had.

And the worst.

Because I could feel her slipping away with every stroke of her tongue. I’m not even ashamed to admit that I was openly crying on the streets of London. Her heart was breaking, but so was mine.

She blamed me, I blamed me.

I could taste the saltiness of our tears on my lips as she wrenched her mouth from mine. I tried to pull her back but she scrambled out of my reach and held out her hand to stop me.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t feel that.” I begged, but she was already shaking her head.

“We’re done.” She croaked.

And I knew she meant it.

But it didn’t mean I was going to accept it.

“Lydia…!”

She stopped again and threw her hands up in frustration.

“God! Just let me go! You’re hurting me, Ruben. With every word and every bullshit excuse that comes out of your mouth. You’re mentally
scarring
me. So just let me go, I’m begging you.”

“I…” I grabbed my wallet out of my trousers and held out a twenty pound note. “At least take this for a taxi. So I know you have enough to get home.”

She stepped forward, I assumed to take the money.

But her palm connected with my cheek so fast that I didn’t have time to react. My head swung to the side and a burning pain lit my face. I shook my head, trying to clear the buzzing. Lydia looked horrified that she’d just hit me, but she held her shoulders high.

“Don’t you ever insult me like that again. Keep your fucking money, it’s no good to you here.”

Then she turned and walked away. I watched until she flagged a taxi at the end of the road and got in.

Then I slumped to the floor, putting my head in my hands. I was surrounded by rubbish and god knows what else on the sidewalk but it could have been a snake pit for all I cared.

She’d walked away.

From me.

From us.

And I had never felt so lost.