The Hunt for Summer (NSC Industries) (40 page)

He didn’t answer me
but he took my hand in his and squeezed tightly. “How are you, Lay, after last
night events?”

I shrugged but
glared at him, “Don’t even try and avoid this, Mase. You need to talk to me.
You do realise how much you’re hurting Ava, don’t you?”

He sighed again but
nodded “Yeah, I know” he answered quietly and I frowned at him.

“Then what are you
doing it for?”

His expression was
full of pain and anguish and my heart went out to him when I realised he was
really struggling,

“This life, Lay.
What the hell am I doing? It’s all going… pear-shaped. Everything I do gets
turned and twisted. I put my wife and children in danger every day. I put Ava
in danger that day with Kenny because of my life. And you… you took the
repercussions of my
business
.”

I nodded in
understanding but squeezed his hand. “And what will you do if you give it all
up?”

He shrugged and
looked confused for a moment and I lifted my eyebrows at him, “Mase, Ava knew
what you did before she married you. If it was a problem for her, then she
wouldn’t have married you, hell, the woman holds her own and if I know Ava, she
relishes the life. The twins? Mason, how many children go missing nowadays?
They could be playing out and then suddenly disappear. Katie and Georgie are in
no more danger than any other child in this shit faced world.”

He regarded me for a
moment as my words sank in but then the darkness covered it again, “But, what
happened to you Lay, wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for me.”

I scoffed loudly at
that. “No, Mase. What happened to me wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for
Kenny. And besides, look what could have happened to me with Diablo if it
wasn’t for you. There’s good and bad everywhere, Mase, everywhere, no matter
what your job or your life entails.”

“What the hell?” he
suddenly exclaimed and I frowned at him. “How come a little girl can make
everything seem better?”

I smirked at him
“I’m not that little, Mase.”

“No you’re not,
Little Willow. You have the biggest heart around, and now you need to face up
to things and fix it once and for all. You’ve found your soul mate, fucking
fight for him” he commanded.

“If only it were
that easy, Mase. She has his child, how the hell do I compete with that?”

He stared at me for
a moment before a scowl morphed his face. “You remember years ago when Rebecca
told me her child was mine?”

I nodded and looked
at him in confusion. How the hell did that help?

“Well, even when I
believed her, it never stopped me loving Ava, not one fucking bit. Why do you
think because Lucas has a kid with this woman that he’s gonna love you less?”

Oh. Well…

“I dunno really, but
it was the way they were on that sofa. The way she looked at him and the way he
looked at her…”

“Lay, babe, he had
just discovered the woman had kept his son a secret for two years. She fucked
off, left him then turns up two years later with a child in tow. How the fuck
would you feel. I can imagine confusion, shock, doubt and insanity are just a
few. How do you know what Lucas was thinking? You can’t read his mind Lay, you
have to hear it from him.”

He was right, I knew
he was but it still didn’t stop the insecurity and hurt flowing through me at
the way Lucas had reacted.

He was down on one
knee, asking me to marry him for god’s sake, then he just stopped and forgot
about me, and I had never felt more like a fool than I had then.

I can still see
everybody’s eyes on me as I walked through that room, my humiliation and hurt burning
a hole straight through me as they all stared.

“I dunno, Mase,” I
told him eventually “I don’t know what’s gonna happen but I do know you need to
get home to Ava and apologise your fucking arse off.”

He grinned
mischievously at me “Don’t worry little Willow, what I have in store for Ava;
I’ll have her fucking begging and screaming my name.”

I rolled my eyes and
flapped him away “Go, before you spill even more details…”

He laughed loudly
before he threw a twenty pound note on the table, kissed my cheek and
disappeared.

***

I saw him pull up
outside my flat as I sat in the window with my chocolate.

He saw me too as he
climbed out and his face lifted to me whilst his eyes asked me to open the door
and talk to him.

He had texted me and
rang several times over the last twenty four hours but I hadn’t been ready to
face him, so I had ignored him, thus bringing him to my door as his next
attempt to talk to me.

I nodded to him and
climbed off the window and went to open him the door before settling myself
back down.

He emerged in the
room five minutes later, his dominance and slight anger at me filling the
pockets of air in the room; the sheer size of his body also sucking up all the
remaining oxygen.

He didn’t say a word,
just sat in the chair beside me and we both glanced at each other, both of us
wary and upset.

“You gonna tell me
why you ran, then refused to answer my calls?” he asked eventually. His ire was
evident in his tone and I lifted my brows at him in astonishment.

He sucked in a large
breath in an attempt to control his anger but it was still written all over his
face.

“Maybe, because you
had other things to deal with before me” I told him quite sarcastically and I
chastised myself silently at my own tone.

He narrowed his eyes
on me, the irritation in them boring through me and into my bones.

“You always come
before anything else, Red, you know that.”

I laughed bitterly
then. “Is that so Lucas? Like I came before Alana when you were down on one
knee and just shut me down, leaving me feeling, as well as looking, like a
fucking fool.”

He scoffed as he
shot out of his chair. “Is that was this is about, cos’ I made you look like a
fool when I was confronted with a son I didn’t even know I had?” he spat
angrily.

“Oh no, do not twist
my words, Lucas. I didn’t say that and you know it. The way you looked at
Alana, when you were down on one knee, well it told me and every other fucker
in that room, that she was back and you no longer wanted me, I no longer even
existed in your mind. That’s why, Lucas, and don’t fucking deny it. I saw it on
your bloody face!”

He stomped across to
me and brought his face within an inch of mine. “I will fucking deny it, Red,
cos’ whatever you think you and everybody else saw, was not what was actually
going through my mind at that moment.”

I stood and pushed
past him, not liking where this conversation was going but he grabbed my arm
and spun me around to face him. “Come on then, Red. Tell me exactly what you
saw on my face cos’ I bet it was nothing like what I saw on yours when Diablo
died. And Ry, we mustn’t forget how much you loved him, Red” he hissed nastily
and my palm connected harshly with his cheek.

“Don’t you dare drag
my feelings for Ry into this. Ry is dead and buried Lucas, whether I loved him
or not, he is not what matters now, Alana is.”

“And Troy?” he asked
with a glare and I frowned in confusion.

“Troy, my son. Is
that the real reason for this, Red? Now I have a son it changes how you feel
about me?”

Unbelievable.

I stared at him in
shock. “My God, Lucas. Do you even know me at all?”

He looked thoroughly
chastened then and he turned, groaning loudly as he ran his hands through his
hair in frustration.

“This is all a
fucking mess” he grumbled and I thoroughly agreed with him.

He kept his back to
me but carried on talking. “Alana had an affair with my best friend, for eight
months whilst she was with me,” he divulged and I swallowed at his evident pain
in their betrayal. “And whatever you might think Red, that kinda crushed any
feelings I ever had for her, there and then but… but she is obviously the
Mother of my child, a child I knew nothing about until last night, and I can’t
just push that connection away.”

I nodded even though
he couldn’t see me.

“When she… when she
just stepped out yesterday, my eyes weren’t on Alana, they were on my son, so
whatever you think you saw, it definitely wasn’t any emotion for her, it was
for Troy, cos’ I knew as soon as I saw him that he was my son.”

I remained silent,
letting him tell his story; he needed for me to listen, so I did.

He turned to look at
me now and his eyes held so much hurt, that I found myself fighting against my
instincts to just wrap him in my arms and comfort him, absorb all the damage
and sorrow from him.

“Yes, I won’t deny I
was in love with Alana, and I was gonna ask her to marry until I found her in
the bath, naked with my best mate since school, fucking like animals whilst the
water slopped all over my bathroom floor,” he took a large inhalation and held
me with his eyes, their intensity demanding every part of me.

“And yes, their
betrayal hit me hard and I had a meltdown for a few months but only cos’ of the
hurt at what they were doing, not because I loved her to the ends of the earth,
not like the way I love you, Red. My love for you, it consumes me, every single
fucking fragment of me. You’re inside me, your breath is my breath, your soul
is joined with mine and your heart, it’s mine Red, every fucking sliver and
beat of it. Mine.”

I nodded as I walked
slowly towards him and he took my hands as I came to stand before him.

But then I surprised
him as I dropped to one knee.

His eyes widened and
I could see the pump of his heart hammering against the tight material of his
shirt.

“And every breath I
take, you breathe; every time my soul shudders, yours does; and every time my
heart beats, yours beats along with it because you are inside me also, you own
me Lucas Hunt. You own my breath, my soul and my heart and without you they
would all shut down and watch me die, and I’d rather die than lose you. I love
you so much and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want you to
marry me, Lucas. I want you to be with me until the day I die and then I want
you to share the afterlife with me.”

He dropped to his
own knees before me and cupped my face. “You are on Layla Summers, I’ll always
be yours and you’ll always be mine, Red. Always, baby.”

I snivelled like a
hormonal teenager as tears rolled down my face and nodded at the man before me.

My man, the man that
I knew would love me until the day I left this world and then I knew he would
be right behind me, his control and dominance refusing to see us ever
separated.

“By the way, baby.
Your delightful arse is gonna so connect with my palm tonight. I think we
better start counting your misdemeanours. Number one, being so damn beautiful.
Number two….”

We never reached
number three.

Epilogue

Lucas

Oh God, this was so
fucking hard. “I can’t do this.”

“Yes you can, stop
being so bloody childish, Lucas.” My Mom scolded and I took a deep breath.

“But, she’s dying in
there, Mom. I can’t watch her die.”

“For goodness sake
Lucas, man the hell up.”

My brows lifted at
my Mother’s words. She had never been one to curse, so I knew I was in trouble
when she spat the ‘Hell’ word at me.

“Get in there and be
by your wife’s side, Lucas Hunt, before I really lose my temper with you.”

I nodded
frantically, knowing this woman would keep her word and thrash the life out of
me in the hospital corridor.

Logan smirked at me
and I narrowed my eyes on him. “Wait until Sara drags you in here.”

Logan lifted a brow
and me and snorted. “Aint no chance bro. Yeah, I love Sara to bits but… nah, no
fucking way.”

Logan and Sara had
developed a relationship after my thirtieth birthday, two years ago, and they
were joined at the hip so I knew Logan’s words were just meant to torment me. I
knew it wouldn’t be long before he was stood exactly where I was.

“In. Now!” My Mother
barked at me and I jumped at her ferociousness.