Beautifully Unbroken (16 page)

“No more running, okay?”

I nodded. “No more running.”

Stepping back into Blake’s apartment after what had been the strangest day of my life, I was met with a whirlwind of emotions.

I was sad that I wouldn’t be seeing my mum, as I had wanted. But I was happy that Blake had stopped me from going.

I was nervous about what the future now held, yet I was excited that there would be a future.

I feared that thanks to Blake’s crazy show of affection at the airport, my anonymity here in New York was well and truly over, but I felt overwhelmed that he had done that, for me.

Blake placed my suitcase down on the tiled kitchen floor and turned to face me. A smile spread slowly across his face as he breathed out with what appeared to be relief. “Are you hungry?” he asked.

“No,” I sighed, smiling back at him.

Slowly he approached me, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me as close to him as was possible. Placing my arms around his neck, I snuggled into him and breathed in the scent that I had missed immensely over the past three weeks.

“God, this feels good,” Blake said, placing kisses against my temple. “You were moments from walking out of my life forever, but now you’re here. I am never ever letting you go ever again; you can kick and scream as much as you’re heart desires, but I am never going through this again, Jo, never.”

“I don’t ever want to go. I’m sorry, so sorry, Blake.”

We held each other for what felt like hours, just breathing each other in as we slowly started coming back down to earth from what had been the most dramatic roller-coaster ride of emotions I had ever experienced.

Blake pulled back his head and placed his lips gently to mine. “I love you so much, and I’m going to tell you that at least a million times a day for the rest of our lives.” He kissed me again, just as gently this time as the last. “And I will never let anyone hurt you or make you sad. I wasn’t there for you with your father, and I will never forgive myself for that. But I’m here now, and I intend on doing everything in my power to never, ever, let you feel alone again.”

“Can we talk?” I asked quietly. Blake’s eyebrows knitted together with confusion. “It’s time I told you everything. No more running means no more secrets; I need to tell you about my past and what happened to me.”

“Only if you feel ready,” he replied.

I nodded. “I’m ready.”

Blake smiled lovingly and took my hand. He led me through the apartment and out onto the terrace. It was stunning. It was like his very own little country garden placed thirty floors up in the air. There were pots upon pots bursting with flowers of all colours, shapes, and sizes. There was even a lawn that was cut to perfection.

Blake led me to a large sofa and told me to sit before he disappeared back into the apartment.

I took a moment to take in my surroundings. I felt as though I were home. It was weird; this was the first time I had been in Blake’s apartment, yet I felt so at home.

The switching on of twinkling lights startled me, followed by gentle music being played through some disguised speakers. It was perfect.

Blake reappeared a few moments later with two glasses and a bottle of red wine.

He poured us both a glass, handing one to me and taking the other in hand.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” he said as he sat next to me, placing one arm around my shoulder. Leaning into him, I took a sip of wine and focused on the moon that shone brightly above us.

“Four years ago,” I began, “something happened to me which took any faith I ever had in happiness and trampled all over it. It got replaced with this fear that you have seen so much in me. Fear and the need to run when things get tough. Running is the only way I have ever learnt to deal with a bad situation. When things get tough, run, and everything will be okay. That’s exactly how I have lived for the past four years.”

I felt Blake’s fingers softly starting to graze the length of my arm. “You don’t have to do this; not until you’re ready.” His lips met my temple, and he placed a lingering kiss there. I needed to tell him; he needed to know why I always found running the easier option.

“I had been dating Michael for just over a year. I was completely smitten with him; I thought I loved him. It’s only really now …” I paused. “It’s only really now that I know what love actually feels like, and mostly, what it feels like to be loved, that I’ve realized that the love I thought existed between us was just a figment of my imagination. It makes what happened even more painful to accept.”

I swallowed past the emotion that was beginning to surface. I needed Blake to understand. I needed him to know why I was so afraid to let myself become happy.

“My dad never liked him. He played for the wrong team, according to him. That was his excuse at the beginning anyway.” I let out a sad laugh.

“We became a media dream. Everyone always needed to know where we were, what we were both up to. It became a strain for me. It started affecting my work, my life, my relationship with my parents. I couldn’t concentrate because every day there would be a story about us, a picture snapped of us just leaving a restaurant or a club. I started hating going out because we couldn’t go anywhere without being pursued. Michael, however, loved it. He loved the attention it would bring, the publicity, the fans. He didn’t care; the more, the better in his eyes. Yet he couldn’t see why I hated it with a passion.

“We were snapped arguing in a bar one night. I had wanted to go home, but he was more interested in all of the attention he and his fellow players were attracting. He thrived on attention. Over the next few weeks, I refused to go out to clubs with him. We had already been the subject of one Sunday newspaper; I wasn’t going to let it happen again. They didn’t even know us as people, yet our pictures were plastered all over the covers, and the story to go with it was all lies – lies that they made up to help boost the sales of the damn thing.

“I spent the next few weeks miserable, avoiding public attention as much as possible and arguing with my dad over what being with Michael was doing to me. I couldn’t see it, but he told me how insecure he could see I was becoming. I refused to accept that. I refused to accept anything that he told me that would paint Michael in a bad light.

“One Sunday morning I heard the front door slam shut, and my dad’s voice echoed through the entire house. He never, ever, raised his voice to me apart from that morning. He was yelling for me to get downstairs right this instant. I knew something bad must have happened for him to react that way.”

I took a deep breath as I still managed to keep the tears at bay, at least for now.

“He threw the newspaper at me in disgust and all he could say to me was ‘I told you he would end up hurting you. When will you listen? When will you ever listen to a word I say to you?’ He stormed off to the kitchen just as I unfolded the paper to see Michael on the front cover being … He was … Well, they were …” A tear finally broke through. “The pictures were graphic, disgusting. I don’t even know how they got away with printing them.”

“Who was she?” Blake asked gently before placing a kiss on my temple.

“Her name was Imogen. She was a dancer in the club that Michael was so obsessed with. So it kind of made sense that that’s why he spent so much of his time there. Of course, he denied it all, said he was set up; she was a fan who apparently threw herself at him, and the paps just happened to be there.”

Blake pulled me closer to him, holding me even tighter now.

“He begged me to forgive him for getting close enough for it to look how it did. He promised me that he wouldn’t go there again and we could start over, spend more time alone, and things would change.” I let out a shaky breath. “I forgave him. I took him back against everything that I believed and everything that Mum and Dad had begged me not to do. I just walked back into his arms as though nothing had happened. I was so caught up with him that I just didn’t care. My dad stopped talking to me. My mum took Dad’s side even though I could see that it was killing her inside just as it was me. But he was stubborn.” I let out a sad laugh. “As was I.”

“I’d argue the fact that you are still a stubborn lady, Miss Summers,” Blake said lightly as he placed another kiss on my temple. It made me smile; I’d say I was still stubborn too.

“Michael asked me to move in with him, so because of the strain with Mum and Dad, I packed a bag and I went. He seemed to be making an effort, too. On the very rare occasion we would go out, he would be affectionate, kissing me in public, holding my hand. I truly believed it was going to work this time and that he had stuck to his promise and changed. The media, of course, didn’t buy into it; they still reported that he was sleeping around, but I shrugged it off. I knew the real Michael; they knew what would sell papers. I started to allow myself to feel happy again. I started to believe that what the papers had reported were just lies, like he said they were, that he wasn’t the person they had portrayed him to be. But I realize now that they were right. Everything about him was all just for show, to save his reputation. I couldn’t see any of that until it was too late. I was completely blinded by him and by what he was truly like.

“One night I had a late shoot. I was going to be out until the early hours of the morning at least. I’d told Michael that if I was going to be too late, I would stay over at Michelle’s house; she was a co-star and good friend, so she understood and didn’t mind me crashing there occasionally. I knew his match the next day was a vital one so didn’t want to disturb his well-needed rest.”

Once again Blake squeezed me gently just to make sure I knew he was there and he was listening.

“Filming went better than expected, and we managed to get away early enough for me to go home.” I sighed. “I was actually exited for the first time in a couple of weeks to be going home to him. I actually felt like we were going to be okay; like we were getting through it. Mum and Dad had even begun speaking to me again – not much, but enough to show they still loved me and cared about what was going on.”

My breath became shaky. Blake took my glass and placed it on the table in front of us before he pulled a blanket from the back of the sofa and placed it over me, wrapping his arms gently around me.

“The house was silent and pitch black when I walked in, so I assumed he was in bed. I started climbing the stairs, quietly so as not to disturb him. But I stopped suddenly at the sound that was coming from the bedroom. It was them. I could hear them, fucking in my bed.” An angry tear rolled down my cheek which I quickly wiped away.

“I forced my legs to move and climbed the rest of the stairs. I should have turned around and walked away, but I couldn’t. Something inside me wouldn’t let that happen. I pushed open the door, and there they both were, Imogen and Michael, having sex in my bed.” Another tear escaped at the memory of emotion that ran through me at that time.

“She looked as shocked as I felt. Michael looked like someone who had been caught with his pants down, literally. Do you know what he did?”

I turned my head up to see Blake’s face. He shook his head sadly. “What?”

“He pushed her off and told her to get out.” I shook my head. “Then he jumped off the bed and started grabbing her clothes, throwing them at her, yelling that she was nothing, just a mistake, and that he didn’t know why he had done it. He was screaming between me and her, telling her she was nothing and then turning to me and begging me not to walk out, saying that he loved me and she meant nothing to him.”

“Jo,” Blake whispered before kissing my hair gently.

“I was frozen to the spot. She was shouting at me, telling me that Michael had said I was nothing to him; that he just felt sorry for me so was letting me stay there until he felt he could ask me to go. Then she would turn to Michael and shout to him that I was fat and ugly and how the fuck could he beg me to stay when he had promised her the world. Eventually she gave up, got dressed, and stormed out. But as she passed me, she stopped and turned to face me. She told me to sleep with one eye open, that this wasn’t over and that she would make sure that I paid for what I had done to her.”

I took another deep breath and continued. “The sad thing is, I couldn’t see anything past Michael. He was my world, and I didn’t care what she was saying to me; he was kicking her out and asking me to stay. It was me that he wanted, and not her. That’s how naive I had become. But I couldn’t bear sleeping in the bed that she had been in. I moved into the guest bedroom. He would beg me night after night to let him in there too, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t get the image of what I had seen him doing out of my head; but I also couldn’t walk away.”

The tears were flowing now as I relived the bleakest memory I held.

“He started taking his anger out on the football pitch. The once perfect and fantastic Michael Robinson got sent off two matches running, so the papers once again had a field day.

“He started going out drinking, a lot. I feared then that it would happen again, even though he promised me that he loved me. He would come home so drunk and start blaming me for it all; then he would cry and apologize and beg me to go to bed with him. Somehow I found the strength through my weakness to say no. I was so scared of catching something that I ended up having tests; it was so humiliating, and it was the final straw. Everything came back clear, and I was so relieved, but then it made me stop and think. What was I doing? Why was I letting him drag me down like this? So that night I decided it was time to move on. To get out of what was a living nightmare. Michael’s team were playing in Newcastle that night, so I decided to pack my bags and go back to Mum and Dad’s. I had spoken to them about everything, and they were so angry that they had let me go in the first place. It wasn’t their fault, though. It was me, all me.”