Special Relationship (32 page)

“I can't believe what you did Alex.”

“All I want is to talk...I just want to explain, and please believe me I can explain.”

“Explain what? I thought I was in love with you and before you commit to any serious relationship you are having some guy following me. I want to know what the fuck is going on. Who are you – we already knew you are not the person you claim to be - and what it's all about. Why?”

“I can't explain over the phone. Please...just a chance to talk to you .”

“I'll be back at my flat tomorrow night at about nine. On the advice of my driver rather than my minder I will let you in, which shows just how stupid I am.”

“Christos is right, I promise you.”

She went up in the lift only to find the glass door barring her entry to the apartment. Nick was nowhere to be seen. Fuck it, she thought and quickly pressed the '0' button but nothing happened. She tried again and still the lift didn't move. She began to wonder what had possessed her to come and was about to press the alarm when he appeared beyond the glass to let her in. “Sorry, I was on the phone.”

She tried to hug him but he moved away, coldly. “Drink?” he asked.

“No,” she replied.

“Nick, I have to tell you why, please just listen.”

“It better be good,” he said.

“It is fucking good, it doesn't get any fucking better, believe me.”

“You are not even Alex Anderson, are you?” he asked angrily.

“No I'm not...well yes I am...but there is a reason,” she shouted back, trying to control herself. “Just give me the chance to tell you because, Nick, I think I might be in love with you and I want you just to listen and then you can make up your mind.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“I'll tell you if you'd fucking listen,” she shouted again.

He poured a large whisky and sat on a single chair away from anywhere she could be close to him. “Go on,” he said.

She sat on the sofa opposite, rubbed her forehead and began to think where to begin.

“I don't know why I've come here. Believe me, there is no person in the world that I love more than the one I am about to betray and, please understand, what I am about to tell you I've never told any man, not all the guys I've fucked in meaningless encounters. And, nor you, the one man for whom I've ever had true feelings. And I do mean 'ever'.

“You are right, or Tavis is right, or fucking Katherine is right or whichever one of your lackeys first raised your suspicions about me. But...” She paused to wipe away her tears. "What I did was idiotic but there were reasons..."

“Plenty of women fall in love and the
guy leaves them, get over him, whoever he was,” he said without emotion. “Or is this about money...”

“Shut the fuck up and listen to me.”

He drank some more and she took the opportunity to collect her thoughts.

“It wasn't a guy I lost Nick, it was a girl, a very young girl.”

She then dropped the bombshell. “She was my daughter.”

He looked at her, first wondering whether she was the maddest women he had ever encountered and then considering
whether the girl he had fallen for like no other in his life truly did have reason to do what she had done. He was sure he wasn't going to say anything until he had heard what she had to say.

“My daughter's name was...is...Megan... Megan Harris. My name was Leigh Harris and before that Leigh Emerson.”

She looked at him and waited before continuing. “I fell pregnant very young – I'd just turned 20 - and married her father, David Harris. He came from a wealthy family, nothing like in your league but they were quite successful real estate developers. They owned the apartment I rented in Brooklyn and that's how I got to meet him.

“He was charming at first, and I thought for a time I was in love, like for the first time in my life, but I was having doubts just around the time I became pregnant.

“Can I have a drink, please?” she asked, approaching him and wiping her face against the arm of her shirt.

Nick gave her his glass, still half full with whisky and she went back to sit on the sofa. She gulped most of its contents before continuing.

“I told him that I was pregnant and he didn't seemed excited or anything, at least not genuinely, but he did smile a lot, say things like, you know, 'that's great babe' so although even then I was half-considering bringing the baby...Megan...up alone I made a foolish mistake and went ahead and married him.”

She took a deep breath. “So everything at first was fine. We moved to Queen's, into a big house with big garden, paid for by his parents, and I painted the nursery and bought loads of baby stuff. And although by now he wasn't the man who I would have chosen to spend the rest of my life with, I sort of figured that women had experienced worse.”

She paused and drunk the rest of the whisky. “Megan was beautiful and when she was born I realised what love really meant. She giggled at me as though...as though we had known each other always...you know, since previous lives or something or since the beginning of time. I could never imagine that I had ever been - or ever would be - without her.

“Nothing else mattered, just me and Megan. She was so happy, smiling, laughing, and found fun in the simplest things. Me and her were just meant to be. I know it's hard telling a man...but it was a bond that existed even before it did and still exists in me today.”

Nick looked on, terrified about what Alex was about to tell him and fearing that it was him and not her who had made an horrific mistake.

“So...so about six months after Megan was born I realised he was having an affair. He was probably screwing around from the beginning, keeping his mobile to himself, unexpected business trips...that sort of thing. I could even smell the other women on him at the times he did come home before I was asleep. But you know what? I didn't care...I hated the rare occasions we had sex, didn't want to touch him and when he was at home I just wanted him to leave so we and Megan could be together in our own little world of fun and make-believe.

“And that's why I fell for you Nick, because despite all your riches you love having fun and you have fun the way most people of your wealth don't.

“I'm sorry, I'm not sure I can go on. This is like torture,” she sobbed furiously.

Nick went to the sofa and hugged her. “I need to know, Alex.”

He pushed her away gently to look at her face. He had never seen someone so tormented before.

“We can take a break, you know?”

“No, I want to tell you,” she said before crying some more.

From feeling the victim, he now felt the abuser as he wiped away more of her tears before sitting beside her.

“Where was I? OK, so I got more and more bored with David and eventually I couldn't bear him to touch me. He made me physically sick. The crunch came when one night he pushed me down on him and I thought I was going to throw up. I resisted, but instead of asking what was wrong he pushed my head harder towards him until I slapped him. He slapped me back really hard, enough for me to bruise badly, and I knew from that moment that I never wanted to share the
same bed as him again, and more importantly, I didn't want him to be Megan's father.

“So, Megan and myself moved to a house nearby.
It was one of his parents houses and they charged rent twenty-five per cent below market value, not out of concern for me, nor even Megan but to placate me, so I wouldn't have their son charged with assault. For me and Megan it was a port in a storm, and I didn't have much choice. I did though file for divorce and couldn't wait to get him out of my life.

“Megan didn't seem affected and she thrived at school...she was so bright and she loved to learn,” Alex said, before breaking down again.

Nick knew by now this story was going to end tragically. He hoped beyond hope that Megan had been adopted or put into care but he feared it would be far, far worse, And he felt like torturer in chief for having earlier demanded to know. But he said nothing. He didn't know what to say.

“I liked being free of him and started to date again, but, you know, when he had me he didn't want me and when he didn't, as the divo
rce was going through, he did. Manically so. He became very possessive and of course we had to keep in contact because of Megan. But even while taking her to the zoo or somewhere he would call me all the time wanting to know where I was and who I was with. He just wouldn't accept we were over.

“It was unbearable. I thought I'd got him out of my life but he became more and more obsessed. He sent huge bunches of flowers, love notes and even tickets for two to Paris – ironically enough - although, of course, I didn't go.

“He followed me often and even attacked a guy – a guy I wasn't even dating, just a friend – when he saw us in a restaurant together, so I got a restraining order. It still allowed him access to Megan – twice a month – but if he hassled me any further he would most likely end up in jail.

“Then one day, Tuesday, August 7
th
, he called and asked if he could see Megan at the weekend. I can hear his horrible voice now and it will stay with me until I die. I told him that she was having a sleepover at her friend's, Addison's, at the weekend, as she was - or at least that was what was planned.

“But Addison's mother called me on the Friday to say that Addison was sick and she didn't want Megan to catch anything. I already had an evening planned at the theatre, and a stay over with a girlfriend, so my mother said I shouldn't let the tickets go to waste and she would come over and look after Megan.”
Nick looked on horrified. He was about to find out the full story about Alex's past. And if it was traumatic for him he couldn't believe what she was going through. He knew that he had never loved anyone so much.

“So we went to the theatre, and enjoyed the show, then we went to grab a late snack.

“We stayed in the deli about an hour, you know, having a good time, and not a care in the world, and then we went back to Katie's. At just gone three in the morning my phone went. It was an unknown number and I thought it was probably David up to his usual tricks. But I answered it and it was the police, asking if I was Leigh Harris and what my address was. They also asked me where I was now and told me not to move.

“I knew from that moment that something dreadful had happened. I thought at first it was my mother and they were coming to tell me that she'd had an heart attack or something – she'd had heart problems since my father died. I thought Megan must be in their care.

“When they arrived they wouldn't tell me anything, they just needed me to come with them. So Katie – my friend – and I got in the car and she held me really tight as I was shaking so violently and I just wanted them to tell me what had happened. Even if my mother was dead I'd rather know and why weren't they telling me that Megan was safe?

“I kept asking and asking them but they said they couldn't say anything 'at this time' and drove me to the police department.

“As soon as I arrived I was guided quickly into a room where there were two police officers, a woman and a man, and a civilian woman who I found out was a counsellor.”

Nick could hardly bear to see her suffering. “Are you sure you want to tell me?”

“It can't hurt any more, Nick. Nothing can hurt me anymore.”

He cursed himself for putting her through this.

“So, the police woman asked me to sit down. She said there had been a fire at my home and as soon as she said it I knew that...”

“OK Alex, don't go on.”

“No you wanted to know Nick. So fucking listen.”

She paused.

“I knew that the beautiful, wonderful, love of my life Megan had gone and I knew that my mother had gone with her. I didn't need the policewoman to carry on – I could see it in her face. I even didn't want her to say anything because until she did I still had hope.”

“But she did - you know 'I am very sorry to have to inform you'....”

She looked at him through red eyes. “Happy now?”

He walked away, not knowing what to say and walked back to her.

He hugged her more tightly and with more feeling than he'd hugged anyone before.

“She was only six, Nick, and she was the most beautiful, wonderful, fun-loving little person you could imagine.”

She pulled out her phone and showed pictures of a smiling, happy little blonde-headed girl, a little girl that Nick knew would find happiness in the most simple things, drawing a birthday card for her mother or helping to decorate a Christmas tree.

“She looks like you Alex, she is so beautiful,” Nick said, looking at the picture of a giggling little girl on a pink tricycle. “I can't imagine your pain.”

“You had yours too, didn't you?”

“Chloe, yes. But as horrible as it sounds, she died so young so I never got to know her. It was far worse for her mother who had carried her for nine months of course and and she never recovered.”

“Do you wonder what she would be like now?”

“Of course, every day.”

They looked each other, totally bonded both in the happiness they had shared in their short time they'd known each other and in the grief of their previous lives.