See You at the Show (42 page)

But he’d started reading things into the way Stefanie was around him.
 
He’d mis-read signals, thought her wanting him around meant much more than it actually did, and when she’d finally agreed to help him sell drugs on the local estate he’d taken that as the last come-on he’d needed.
 
And she hadn’t seen it coming, she really hadn’t, because she’d been young and naïve and stupid and she’d paid for that in a way nobody should ever have had to.
 

Connor had come home to find her curled up in the corner of the living room, battered, bruised and terrified, with Luke screaming the house down.
 
Kyle had thought she’d wanted more than friendship and when she’d told him no, that wasn’t the way it had been at all, he’d turned on her and she’d fought back, she’d found the strength from somewhere, but not enough to stop him from beating her so badly it was all Connor could do not to throw up when he’d seen the cuts and slashes on her face and body, blood dripping onto the carpet from the knife wounds Kyle had inflicted on her all because she wouldn’t sleep with him.

She’d been kept in hospital for days while her physical injuries were treated and whilst they’d healed in time, with just a few permanent scars on her arms, the trauma of that attack never really left her.
 
The mental scars had taken much longer to fade.
 

Connor had persuaded her to go the police and he’d been with her every step of the way as she’d gone through the painful and frightening experience of re-living it all, supporting her through the months that had followed leading up to Kyle’s trial, but things had changed between them.
 
She’d found it hard to be close to someone again.
 
She’d still loved Connor but she’d become distant from him, and Luke.
 
Everything just reminded her of what had happened.
 
Of how stupid she’d been.

After a long and difficult trial, Kyle had been found guilty of assault and sent to prison, and she’d thought that would be the end of it, she’d thought that she could finally try and move on, try and make it work with Connor, try and get back that closeness with Luke, who by that time was a beautiful two year old toddler with his daddy’s dark hair and his mum’s piercing blue eyes.
 
But even moving house, getting well away from the area with a new job for Connor and a brand new start for them all, none of that had helped shake the ghosts from her mind.
 
A new start was still what she’d needed but not the one Connor had given her.
 

None of it had been his fault, and it certainly hadn’t been Luke’s, but she just hadn’t been able to cope with staying in
Manchester
.
 
She’d tried, but she just hadn’t had the strength to do it so one night, in the most cowardly way possible, she’d collected the bag she’d packed that day when Connor had been at work, wrote a tear-stained note explaining as much as she could about why she’d had to do what she was doing, and left for another new start.
 
With a wiped-clean slate.
 
She’d only been nineteen.
 
She’d had plenty of time to begin her life all over again and that was exactly what she’d done.
 
She’d changed her name, covered the scars on her arms with hundreds of tattoos and the rest was history.
 
Stevie Stone had been born and Stefanie Fredriksen had been laid to rest.
 

Now the whole story, some of it more embellished than it should have been, was there in the newspaper in front of her.
 
The story of her drug-fuelled past – slight exaggeration there – and her abandoned son, her ex-husband and the frenzied attack on her by his best friend.
 
None of which anyone in her new life had had any idea about.

Mark sat on the arm of the sofa, watching Stevie, her face stained with tears, as she finished explaining the real version of events as opposed to the tabloid version that was gracing the front of the newspaper.
 
He couldn’t deny that he wasn’t shocked by these out-of-nowhere revelations but he could also understand just why she hadn’t wanted to open up about any of it.
 
But he would have been there for her if she had.
 
None of it would have changed how he felt, and to keep all of that hidden away – especially her son – that must have been hard.
 
And looking at her now, he could see it was also something she regretted.

“I should have told you, Mark,” she said, her voice quiet as she waited for his reaction.
 

He hadn’t said much when Connor had turned up at the door; he’d just waited for the explanation, waited until they’d told him everything.
 
But she really hoped he understood why she’d done what she had.
 
She’d kept it all secret, told nobody about it for the best of reasons, or so she’d thought at the time.
 
But she’d been just as stupid here as she’d been back then, believing it would never catch up with her.
 
She’d been incredibly naïve and this was the result.
 
A result she regretted due to actions she should have put a lot more thought into.
 
A hell of a lot more thought.
 

Mark sat down beside her, pulling her into his arms, holding her tight as she cried again, and all he wanted to do was wave some kind of magic wand and make it all better but even he knew that this was going to take some sorting out, so all he could really do right now was be there for her.
 
Which meant he had a lot of growing up to do and fast, but he’d do it if it meant making sure Stevie was ok, because what he’d said all those months ago he still meant, he still loved her, if anything that had only got stronger, and this changed nothing.
 
Except the fact that their relationship had now very suddenly stepped up another level.
 
Neither of them could run away anymore.
 
It was time to face up to everything if they really wanted to move forward, and he certainly did, despite all of this landing unexpectedly on their doorstep.
 
Maybe she did too, time would tell, but he was sticking around to wait and see.
 
This time he was staying right by her side because he had a feeling she was going to need him.
 
This morning was only the beginning.

Connor leaned back against the wall, watching as this famous rock star held his ex-wife – a woman he hadn’t even had the chance to divorce; it was a marriage that had just dissolved into nothing after any attempts to find her had failed.
 
He watched as Mark Cassidy kissed her gently and whispered what he assumed were words of support in her ear as she clung onto him and cried.
 
It was more than evident that whatever relationship they had was strong, any fool could see that, and Connor felt a slight pang of something he couldn’t explain.
 
He’d never been able to comfort her like that, not when she’d needed him most, and that still hurt.
 
That was still something he regretted to this very day because if he’d managed to do that, if he’d managed to make all that pain she’d been feeling go away how different would things have been?
 
Would Luke have had his mum?
 
Would
he
have had his wife?
 
Because he’d loved her so much, more than he’d ever let her know.
 
But she’d changed since then.
 
She was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen but she wasn’t the same girl he’d known.
 
She wasn’t Stefanie.
 
The tattoos, the short hair with the bold coloured streaks, the heavy boots and torn jeans, she was most definitely a very different girl.
 
But she was still Luke’s mum, and Luke wanted to meet her and Connor had to tell her that.
 
She had to know how Luke felt.
 
She owed her son that much at least.

“I think you need to talk to Connor,” Mark said, stroking her hair and kissing her gently one more time.
 
“And don’t you worry about me, ok?
 
All of this, we’ll sort it out, baby.
 
I promise, we’ll sort everything out.
 
But I’m gonna go see Johnny now, leave you and Connor to talk but…you know…you know that Johnny, he’s gonna be there for you, Stevie, just as I am.
 
You know that, don’t you?”

She nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
 
“I never meant to shut you all out, Mark, but that part of my life…”

“Hey, it’s alright.
 
Baby, it’s alright.
 
I understand.”
 
He gave her one last, slow kiss.
 
“It’ll all be ok, I promise.
 
And this is one promise I’m gonna keep, you got that?
 
I’ll call you later.”

She watched as he grabbed his jacket, saying something to Connor on his way out that she couldn’t quite hear, before Connor moved over to the sofa, sitting down next to her, pushing his hands through his dark hair.
 

He’d grown into an extremely handsome man with the same blue-grey eyes and the slight stubble on his chin that he’d always worn.
 
He still looked like the Connor she’d once known, just a few years older and, she suspected, a whole lot wiser.

“I never meant for this to happen, Connor.”

He looked at her.
 
“No.
 
I know you didn’t.
 
It’s nobody’s fault…”

“Yes, it is.
 
It’s
my
fault, all of this is my fault, and it’s such a fucking mess!”
 
She lay back against the sofa and closed her eyes, hugging her knees to her chest.
 
“And in the middle of all of this is Luke.”
 
Just saying his name made fresh tears well up behind her eyes and she threw her head back, determined not to let any more fall.
 
Crying wasn’t solving anything.

Connor looked down at his hands, clasped together between his slightly open knees.
 
“Did you ever think about him?
 
Over the years?”
 

“All the time.”

He looked at her again, right into her eyes, and he knew she was telling the truth.
 
She hadn’t missed a beat in answering that question; she hadn’t had to think for even a second.

“So, what’s going on with you and mister rock star then?
 
I thought you were very much the partner of the P.M., hence all of this.”
 
He picked up the newspaper then threw it back down onto the coffee table.

“Things with me and Daniel aren’t without complications, Connor.
 
Especially now.”
 
She sighed, pushing a hand through her hair.
 
“We had a bit of a row last night because a million and one things had started to get on top of me, and Mark, he…he’s just someone I needed.
 
Someone I
need
.
 
We’ve been around each other for so long now, he’s a hard habit to break and I tried, y’know.
 
I really tried.”

“So, what are you going to do about Daniel Madison?”

She stared straight ahead of her, still trying to take in everything that was happening.
 
“I guess that’ll be taken out of my hands now.”

“You know they’ll probably get wind of this too, don’t you?
 
That you spent the night with Mark Cassidy?”

She looked at him.
 
“Are you still a journalist?”

He nodded.
 
“Still based in
Manchester
.
 
Never really hit the big time, but I know how this all works, Stevie…I still can’t get used to calling you that.”

“It’s who I am now.
 
All legal and official.
 
Stefanie doesn’t exist anymore.”

Connor looked down at his hands.
 
“He wants to meet you.
 
Luke.
 
He wants to see you.”

“Oh, Jesus…”

She didn’t think she could handle much more today.
 
It was only half past nine in the morning and she had yet to find out Daniel’s reaction to all of this, but that was something she knew she was going to have to face very soon.

The ‘phone ringing made her jump and Connor immediately leapt up off the sofa, running over to answer it.
 

“Let me do this, ok?
 
Now it’s all out in the open it’s likely to be more journalists trying to get your side of things and I don’t think you should speak to anyone just yet.
 
Not until we’ve got you sorted with some kind of representation.”

She had no clue what he was talking about but she was quite happy to let him handle it all because she was lost.
 
She felt as though she’d been thrust into some kind of surreal nightmare and she couldn’t quite think straight just yet.
 
Her whole other life had just been exposed and that was something she couldn’t really deal with right now, even though she knew she was going to have to, eventually.
 
Whether she wanted to or not.