Inevitable (19 page)

I heard him tell his lapdog to go back and dance. We exchanged a few more words with the good-looking guy and then it clicked as we both watched him run his hand through his hair. I knew where I had seen him before. Frankie and I shared a knowing look and I exclaimed.

“Oh bloody hell, you’re Nathan Blackmore aren’t you?” We had looked up her new client on her iphone whilst travelling in, the day before. It appeared that here he was almost magically standing in front of us, soaked by Frankie’s own hand, it was laughable. Once he realised we had recognised him, he and his entourage left. I turned back to the bar, otherwise I knew my stalk-like eyes would have followed him and kept on looking for him all evening. That was something I had never done before and I wasn’t about to lower myself to that standard. Men followed me, men wanted me, not the other way around. Once my itch had been scratched, I was happy to say goodbye.

Why on earth did I want to know more about Nathan Blackmore?

Why the hell did my fingers long to touch him again?

I made sure that the drinks kept coming. For the first time in forever when Frankie asked to leave early, I was grateful and agreed.

BELLA

M
y body was screaming at me by the time we pulled into our scheduled stop. It was like the onset of flu, my whole body ached and my stomach churned, over and over. We had travelled at quite a speed today and I couldn’t open my eyes most of the time. Unfortunately travelling with your eyes closed doesn’t help your head work out what’s going on, and in turn brings on travel sickness, well it did with me anyway.

The motel we had pulled into looked slightly better than the previous two, but I was getting to the point of beyond caring. As long as the bed was clean enough to sleep in and I couldn’t find too many pubes in the bathroom from the previous occupants, I was good to go. It was surprising how your standards can lower, and just how quickly. On a much brighter side there seemed to be a bar alongside the motel and it offered dancing and a meal. It would be great to do something else for a change.

‘Nathan, do you think we could have dinner in the bar tonight?’ I questioned, after taking in my surroundings. I watched him remove his helmet and take a quick glance around.

‘It’s possible… let’s get a room. Then I need to catch up with Alex, if everything is as it should be… then I don’t see why the hell not.’

While I waited for him to sort out the bike, I grabbed my rucksack from the pannier. I hoped they had some complimentary toiletries in this place, my few bits and pieces were running out and right now even that faded old wrapped bottle of embalming fluid would do.

‘OK… we’re good to go.’ A smiling Nathan returned from the reception area, slamming the door behind him and twirling a set of keys around and around his index finger. ‘Apparently, darlin… we have the honeymoon suite for tonight,’ he added for good measure. His face was practically alight with the amusement.

‘That’s supposed to make me feel better? What the hell does a honeymoon suite have that’s extra then?’ I replied, crossing my arms over my chest. My stomach was returning to normal and a smile broke out over my face.

‘Let’s find out.’ He extended his free hand behind his back and wiggled his fingers, encouraging me to grab hold of his hand. I quickened my pace to take hold of it, and he pulled me closer to him as we made our way the few steps to the door.

It was certainly brighter inside than the last couple of motel rooms and that had to be a bonus. Hopefully brighter meant cleaner. But the colour scheme left a lot to be desired, I was definitely not into the white and pink, fluffy marshmallow look. With a quick scan around I realised it wasn’t just the colour scheme that was vomit inducing, every bloody thing was in the shape of a heart, including the bed. It was like entering a porn set. Nate flung himself down on the bed and patted beside him, to indicate for me to join him.

‘No way… do you really think I’m that stupid… I want to go out tonight.’

‘I just want you to experience the pleasure of this 1980’s throwback…’

‘What do you mean?’ I stood at the foot of the bed smiling at him. I watched him break out into a loud all-consuming laugh.

‘I hope you don’t get seasick? As this, Bella, is a fucking waterbed.’ He jiggled himself around and suddenly I could hear the water lapping inside its rubber shell.

‘No way!’ I shrieked. ‘How have they still got an antique like this in here?’ I jumped up next to him and started to wiggle my bum around. It was liberating sitting with Nate on the waterbed, both moving around listening to the water move beneath us. I loved the lightness, it was like being a child again.

‘How ya doing, Bella?’ He didn’t look at me whilst asking the question, he just continued to stare at the ceiling.

‘With which bit Nate? The motorbike travel? Or the knowledge that we are possibly being followed by men that I know, for absolute certain, wouldn’t think twice about ending both of our lives if the mood took them? Or the fact, I am with the only man I have ever really loved, and I’m still not certain we can put all of our emotional baggage behind us and have a life together?’ I was sitting cross-legged next to him, picking at a piece of skin to the side of my thumbnail. I couldn’t meet his eyes that were now definitely focussing on me. I could feel his gaze as easily as my skin could feel sunrays upon it. The room seemed to contract under the heavy weight of the pressure in between us.

‘I promise you, Bella… we’ve got this… and nothing will happen to you. We will not allow that fuckwad anywhere near you.’ He sat up abruptly and caught hold of my chin, turning my head and tipping my eye-line up to meet his. ‘You just need to fucking trust us… that’s all.’ His lips came down gently and brushed against mine. Once he had pulled away slightly he spoke, his minty breath caressing my lips. ‘I vote we do confession time now, what d’ya say? Come on lay down and let me hold you.’

I lowered myself gently back onto the rippling mattress and waited for him to adjust us into a spooning position. I loved the feel of his weighty leg over mine. I closed my eyes and waited for him to start.

‘With Alex and Ruby gone, all of our step-father’s frustration and anger came down upon Scott, our mum and me. We were scrawny nine-year-olds.’ I could feel him shaking his head behind me and I squeezed tighter on to the arms around me, willing him to carry on. ‘He started to abuse my mother, verbally and mentally at first. I hated the way he spoke to her, that was the first goddamn lesson I learnt from him. He spoke to her like she was a piece of shit he had stepped in. He obviously got such a fucking kick out of that, it eventually turned into physical abuse… Scott and I can still remember the first time we saw him hit her, it was like being hit ourselves. He, the fucking bastard, seemed to get high on it. That was the second lesson I learnt from him.’ I could feel my face as my brow furrowed with that last confusing sentence. ‘We felt sorry for her, but we were helpless to try to get him to stop. We attacked him when he went for her, and got beaten black and blue for our trouble. To the world outside we were the perfect fucking family, so of course none of our bruises came above the collar line and were kept mainly to our torso. When it came to gym and games at school, if we were too badly marked then a letter would go in with us to school, asking for us to be excused. We had no friends at school. As far as the other kids were concerned we were two namby pamby rich boys. When the doors closed on the outside world we were as fucked up as families come…’ I was lying rigid in Nate’s arms, trying not to make any sudden movements that would stop his reminiscence. His breathing was deeper as he tried to control his feelings. Looking out of the window, I could see that dusk was falling.

‘Can I ask you something?’ I questioned gently.

‘Yep.’

‘You talk about the lessons you learnt from him… what are they?’

Nate moved slightly behind me. I clung on to his arms, trying to get him to maintain contact with me. ‘Well lesson one was talk to people with respect in the first instance, unless they fucking do something that no longer means you should respect them. Lesson two is a bit harder to explain.’ I felt him run his fingers through his hair. ‘After watching him so closely, I began to feel the need for highs… highs that I could control. He seemed to get off on causing us fucking pain and misery, so as I got older I looked for my own outlets. Speed and racing became one of them, but others have been more destructive, alcohol, drugs and…’

He moved unexpectedly behind me and I turned over, as his arms left me, to see what was happening. Quickly he undid the ties on his leather wrist cuffs. One by one they fell to the bed. I had never seen him with them off before and watched transfixed as instinctively he first rubbed one wrist with the opposite hand and then the other. Finally, he placed both arms together in front of me with the inside of his wrists pointing upwards. I grabbed both of the large fists presented to me and studied his arms. I could see a myriad of lines on both wrists, criss-crossing. Some were deeper than others, some were long and others were short. I ran my index finger over the scars, tracing them with my fingertip. His skin was rendered with different textures, dependant on the deepness of the cuts. I brought both of his wrists to my mouth, and placed several kisses over the scars, trying to convince him of my acceptance of him and of them. The fact he used to cut held no fear for me, I knew him now and I knew just how strong his past had made him. Didn’t they say “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” I believed in that. It was my mantra.

‘The scars that ya can see on my wrists, Bella, are the result of the cutting I started as a teenager.’ His gaze sought out my own as my right hand came up to my mouth to stop an outpouring sob, a sob not for the man in front of me, but the pained vulnerable boy he once was. ‘You see, this is a pain that I could fucking control myself and it gave me a sense of release from all the other shit going on in my life. So here I am, darlin… laid bare in front of you. What do ya think of me now?’

‘The knife you carry in your boot… it’s the one you cut with, isn’t it?’

‘It’s the one I used to cut with. There’s a huge goddamn difference.’

‘Of course there is.’ I flung myself into his arms and together we fell back down onto the bed. ‘I don’t think any differently of you, Nate, well actually I do.’ I felt his body tense slightly at the last sentence. I propped myself up on his chest, with my hands under my chin and I looked at him, ‘You sharing that has meant the world to me. In my eyes it means you can take anything I have to tell you, hopefully you will accept it for what it is and just maybe we can step into the future together…’ I looked down a little and traced one of his dimples with my finger. ‘Is there more?’

‘Yeah, a bit more… but I’m all talked out tonight, darlin…it’s your turn.’ He brought his hands down onto my bum cheeks and squeezed them simultaneously. He rolled me off him now and down to his side. I turned my back to him and reversed into him until I was as tight as I could possibly fit myself. I squeezed my eyes shut and opened up the forbidden compartment in my brain.

‘Ioan’s courting of me happened according to the very traditional way it was done in his country, initially we only met when there were other friends around. He didn’t like my friends though, so slowly I was encouraged to drop them. He said they were tarty and their language was not to be desired amongst ladies.’ I burst out in a nervous laugh, ‘so we would meet at his family’s house, always with other members of his family present to oversee our courtship. I couldn’t believe how many of them lived together. Sure it was a bloody huge three-storey house, but still. There was, I later found out, three generations of the family in there. I didn’t realise at the beginning, but slowly he was moulding me, it was like being brain washed. I stopped working at the pub because the men in his family always provided for the women, therefore I would never need a job. My choice of clothing became more drab and demure in colouring and style. My schoolwork suffered, because females just didn’t need an education. I cannot believe how stupid I was to put up with all that crap, I can’t believe I very nearly threw away my life on that complete and utter sadistic arsehole. Most of my free time was spent being taught by the women in the house how to cook and clean, and I was at his beck and call, like a servant. Which is so utterly crazy, probably the reason I don’t cook and clean at all now. The only friend he would allow anywhere near me was Frankie, and boy did he underestimate her. I had her on the outside world trying to encourage me to step away, and his little brother, Petre, on the inside, trying to make my now subservient lifestyle as comfortable as possible.’ I took a deep breath in, trying to control the shudders that were coursing up and down my cold body. Every hair on my body stood to attention.

‘Go on.’ Nathan’s voice was encouraging.

‘It took a few months to work out that there were always at least four other younger women in the house, all of them were foreign so it was really bloody difficult to talk to them. I finally realised that ones I had exchanged a smile with before, would suddenly no longer be there. It just didn’t add up… I couldn’t work out what was going on… but there was definitely something. When I spoke to Ioan about it, he just said they were cousins of his family and now they had gone back home. As soon as I stopped to think about it further, I was convinced it was more… I finally met a girl who was roughly the same age as me and she knew a few basic words of English. At last I was going to find out exactly what the nature of the Antonescus’ business was. It took a few attempts, because she wasn’t sure she could trust me enough to open up to. I managed to understand from her that she was sixteen years old, her family had sold her to the Antonescus.’