Dirty Little Secrets (20 page)

“Where are you, Megan?” James asked quietly. He sat up and wrapped his arms around her. She did not fight him. She closed her eyes and relaxed into his solid form. His body was so strong and yet always so gentle. This must be what safe felt like. “You’re away again. Where are you?”

“Just thinking about how different you are to my stepdad and my brothers. I had forgotten there are nice guys in the world.”

“What about Ben?” he asked.

Megan opened her eyes, suddenly startled by the realisation she had forgotten about her husband. “What about Ben? I don’t want to talk about him. He’s not part of this.”

“Seriously? The first time we had sex you were desperate to get home and tell him. What’s changed?”

Megan shrugged her shoulders.

James let out another long stream of air. “So smart, my little wombat, but sometimes you have no clue when it comes to feelings. So let me tell you. The difference is the first night we were strangers and now…” James stopped and shook his head. He ran a hand through his dark hair and swore.

Megan went rigid. “Now what?” she pressed.

“No, Megan. If I tell you what I’m thinking, you’ll freak out. Let’s just leave it at things have changed.”

“No, you can’t say something cryptic and then leave me hanging.”

“You don’t want to hear what I have to say, Megan. You rarely do when it comes to anything about us.”

Megan stood up and wrapped the sheet around herself.

“Getting ready to run?” James asked pointedly. “Your shoes are downstairs.”

Megan shook her head. “Just tell me what you were going to say.”

James stared past her in the direction of the closed door. “We aren’t strangers any more. This is different. This is new for me too. We are in a proper relationship. You still want to pretend we’re fuck buddies but we’re not, and right now I am not the journalist doing a story on your gay husband. When you told me about your family, you were just a woman confiding in her boyfriend.”

Megan backed up without turning. She could feel the blood draining from her body as panic squeezed agonizingly at her heart. “No.”

James stood but did not make any effort to close the distance between them. “Yes, Megan.” He pointed from him to her. “That’s what this is. This is what a relationship looks like.”

Megan shook her head. Her legs ached, a tight coiled energy that would only ease if she ran. “No. This isn’t a relationship. Just because we have had sex a few times doesn’t mean we’re in a relationship. Trust me, if it did, I would have had a shitload of relationships in my life. This is sex. This, whatever this is, isn’t real. This is just us using each other and feeling good. What the hell do you even know about relationships?” She would only disappoint him.

James stroked the dark stubble of his chin with the pad of his thumb. “I know what they aren’t because I have done it plenty of times. Christ, I knew you would freak out,” he mumbled.

Her arms and legs were shaking now. The more she tried to stop them the more apparent the jerky movements became. “I’m not freaking out; I’m giving you a reality check. The only relationship I am in is with Ben. My husband,” Megan screamed; her frustration and anxiety rising up in her until she could no longer push it down. This was not what she had signed up for. She couldn’t do this. James thought she was brave and loving and a million things she could never be. She knew what she was. She was hard and cold. That is how she survived and she couldn’t change for him or anyone, even if she wanted to.

“Your husband? You mean the closeted gay man who threw you under the bus and would not bat an eye at doing it again. Some fucking relationship that is.” Anger was rising in James, dark and uncontained. She could hear it in the harshness of his deep voice.

Megan’s hands clenched into tight angry fists. “Don’t ever talk about Ben like that again. You don’t know him. Long after this is over, Ben and I will still be together. Strong.” She spat out the words, punctuated by fear and anger. She didn’t believe what she was saying. She had no idea what would happen, all she knew was that she had to end it. She had left it too long, allowed herself to feel too much, let herself begin to believe she really was the woman James thought she was.

“Really, sweetheart? Is that what you’re telling yourself? Wake up, woman. He is using you and he will keep on doing it until you have nothing to offer him and then he will toss you aside.”

“Fuck you!”

“You already have.”

Megan opened her mouth to speak again but there was nothing she wanted to say to him. She needed to get out of there. She couldn’t breathe. The walls were too close, the room was too hot.

From behind her she could feel the reverberations of James’ deep voice. “That’s right, Megan, run. You are great at that. Maybe you will stop running once you grow up.”

James waited until he heard the front door close and then he screamed profanities he reserved for when Megan tried to blind him. He ran a hand violently through his short dark hair. She was fucked up. He always knew that but he finally realised it was beyond him to deal with. Every time they turned a corner and James felt like he was starting to really know her, she freaked out. She wasn’t going to change. She didn’t want to be happy.

He was done trying.

He lay down again and stared up at the stark white ceiling. “Megan,” he said in exasperation. He had never met a woman more frustrating. She took caustic and volatile to a whole new level. She had the temperament of a rabid animal.

And yet he had never met anyone so loyal. The things she was willing to endure for her husband, humbled him. When Megan loved, she loved deeply and unwaveringly.

His jaw clenched until his teeth ached. The annoyance mounted in him as he considered just how unworthy Ben McCoy was of her loyalty. She owed him nothing. Any debt she had to Ben McCoy was long since paid. She stayed because she loved him.

His stomach knotted as he processed that bit of information. Megan loved her husband: deeply. An uneasy feeling burned through him, tearing at his insides, leaving him sore, a pain that he felt in his gut but was born somewhere else, a place he was unaccustomed to answering to. So, this is what jealously felt like, a strange combination of longing and anger.

James swung his legs off the bed and stood up. He knew exactly how to push those feelings back exactly where they belonged. He made his way to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. He took out two beers to save him from needing to make another trip. “Screw that,” he mumbled as he grabbed a third bottle and made his way to his study.

James opened the first beer, threw back his head and downed half the bottle in a single steady stream. Christ, she was infuriating. Never had a woman driven him to drink. He drank for a lot of reasons, thirst and fun being top of the list, but never for a woman. Why Megan? When he thought about it logically, he was dumbfounded by his current predicament. He really should not give a shit. She was an average-looking woman with an above average ability to thoroughly piss him off.

And yet all he wanted at the end of a hard day was to see her. He was as happy to have sex with her as he was to chat and watch quiz shows. He just wanted to spend time with her. All his time. When he wasn’t with her he was thinking about the next time he would get to see her.

Every time his phone went, he hoped it was Megan, and he was disappointed when it wasn’t. God he was as fucked up as she was. He shook his head before he finished the first bottle of beer and opened the second.

He had no idea what he was going to do about Megan but he knew his only chance of finding an answer was at the bottom of a Tooheys. He just hoped he found it before he finished the case.

James swore as he remembered Megan’s morning run. He wasn’t going to let her do it alone but he sure as hell was not going to chase after her like a puppy, begging for any attention she was willing to part with. He asked himself again why he cared and the only answer that made sense to him was that someone needed to care about her. Someone needed to look after her and protect her because her husband was doing a pretty shit job of it so far. James’ gut clenched as he thought about the way Ben had used Megan and the way she had happily sacrificed for him. Fuck, she had agreed to public humiliation for him.

James glanced at his watch. He needed to find someone to go running with Megan or, more to the point, someone to follow from a safe distance to make sure she was OK, but did not get close enough to be on the wrong side of pepper spray.

Christ, that woman was hard word. James shook his head but despite himself he smiled. He shouldn’t even like her but he did and it made no more sense than liking Vegemite, but that didn’t stop him from putting that on his toast every morning.

That was exactly what Megan McCoy was like: Vegemite. Most people did not like the stuff, but the ones who did, couldn’t live without it.

Chapter Thirteen

Megan dug her index fingers into her temples with all her might but it did nothing to dull the relentless agony. The pain was a sharp stab behind her eyes that pulsated with every beat of her heart. She stood up from her bed and stumbled to the en suite. Her sight was blurred now, a golden halo encircling the periphery of her vision, but she could still see the medicine cabinet well enough to search for her medication.

Shit, where is it?
A sinking feeling descended on her, followed by a panic as she pulled out the contents of her cabinet. Tampons and deodorant went flying across the bathroom. A bottle of multivitamins opened and spilled into the sink. Shit. She had forgotten to get her prescription refilled. How the hell did she forget that?

Oh God she was going to be sick. She wasn’t going to make it the toilet. She managed to pull her hair back as a wave of nausea hit her. She turned on the tap and waited as her migraine continued to ravage her body and her sanity.

Megan wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as she sat down on the toilet and made a pathetic sound that sounded like a dog whimpering. “Ow,” she cried as the excruciating pain intensified. “Shit.” She needed her medications. She was either going to get her injection or she was going to stab her eyes out. She righted herself and walked back to her bed trying to ignore the fact that she could feel every step as the impact travelled like sonic daggers through her eye sockets. She reached for her phone and lay it on the bed because she feared her limbs lacked the requisite strength to hold it. Every fibre of her being was focused on not letting the pain overtake her. Her fingers shook as she texted Ben.

Migraine. Need my medication. Please pick up at the pharmacy on the corner. Need now. Please
.

She waited for a response. When it did not come after five minutes, she texted him again.

Where are you? I need my injection. Please text to let me know you got this. Don’t call
.

The sound of her phone ringing really might kill her. A minute later a text came through.

Sorry Megs. Very busy. Won’t be home tonight. Will bring it home in the AM
.

Megan shook her head when she read the message but instantly regretted the small action. She started to type another message to Ben begging him to help but she realised she would be wasting what little sanity she had left. He wasn’t going to help her. “Fuck you, Ben.” She threw her phone across the room. She shook from the pain and anger. Who else could she call? Ben was supposed to be her person. They were supposed to be able to rely on each other. That part of the marriage was real, to her at least.

Louise. She could call her maid. Louise would do anything for her. If Megan wasn’t in so much pain she would have smiled but then she remembered Louise telling her she was going to the Temple this weekend. She wouldn’t have her phone.

For the first time in years, Megan thought she might cry. But she didn’t; instead she shook. There was no one else to call. On the surface, Megan had lots of friends, all of her co-workers liked her, even her clients liked her, everyone in law enforcement thought she was great, but in reality she had no one, no one she could ask to drop everything and come help her.

Maybe she could drive to the pharmacy. She stood up and another wave of nausea hit her. Her vision was even more blurred. She wasn’t even safe to walk downstairs by herself.

Megan dropped to her knees and crawled across the room to retrieve her phone. There was one other person she could try. Her hands trembled as she texted him. She had no right to ask him for anything.

Thirty seconds later a response came through.

At White House. Will take me half an hour to get to you. Will phone in prescription to make sure is ready. Need anything else?

Now Megan really could cry. Well, if she was a normal human being she could. After what she had done, how she had ended it, James was still there for her when she needed him. She had not spoken to him in over a month. She hadn’t even bothered to respond to his texts. She really was a bitch, a horrible broken bitch. Why couldn’t she just be normal? He was too good for her, too nice, too beautiful, too functional.

She could not think about it any longer, it made her head feel like it was being hacked away from the inside. Thirty minutes. He would be here in thirty minutes. She could manage until then.

Megan crawled to the bathtub and turned on the water and ran it until it was almost too hot to bear, then she lowered herself in, resting her head against the soft inflatable terrycloth pillow. She closed her eyes and focused on breathing. She imagined each breath pulling in clean healing air and each time she exhaled she pictured the pain easing away. It didn’t help but it gave her something to concentrate on.

When the water became bearable, she used her foot to turn on the hot water. Only a scalding burn could begin to numb the pain in her head.

After what felt like an eternity, she heard the door open downstairs. Thank God she had not locked it. She tried to lift herself out of the tub but she lacked the strength and feared she would fall back and hit her head.

“Megan?” James called from the landing at the top of the stairs.