Eternally North (40 page)

I jolted back,
startled. "What did you say?" I asked softly.

He nodded, assuring me
of what he had declared. "You saved me, and for that I'll love
you forever."

I pursed my lips and
tipped my head, narrowing my eyes. "Are you saying all this
because you're still inside me?"

He laughed at my
incredulity but then looked out of the corner of his glittering green
eyes and sneered. "
Maybe?
"

I shrieked and slapped
his chest. “You pig!"

"I joke, I joke!"
he protested, gripping my wrists in his hands.

His face dropped,
serious again. "You really did, gorgeous. More than you will
ever know."

I lowered myself to an
inch from his face and kissed him passionately. He growled in
pleasure, flipped me on my stomach and off we went for round two.

Happy Birthday, Tash!

We were dozing, wrapped
in each other’s arms, fully sated and I was so damn happy. And
that’s when it happened.

Thunderous hammering on
my bedroom door broke us from our happy place and Tink, followed by
Tate, who was covering his eyes with his hands, burst into the room,
hysterical and swearing like a banshee and waving his phone in the
air.

I immediately sat
forward, trying to use Tudor as a shield to hide my naked state.
“What? What is it?”

Tink stared down at the
phone and glanced back up again. “There’s been a leak to the
press, it’s in all the papers… everywhere. Apparently you made
the evening news last night too, even in the UK,” he whispered,
tilting his head at Tudor.

I grasped Tudor’s
hand in support. “Why? Tink for God’s sake, why has he made the
papers? What exactly has been leaked?”

Tink winced. “Somebody
has sold the story about your childhood and the abuse you suffered
from your father, a very detailed story.”

He looked apologetic.
“It’s also come to light about the recent attack on your sister
and that your father is incarcerated awaiting trial for her attempted
rape.”

Tudor immediately
jumped to his feet, wrapping the sheet around his waist and began
pacing, clenching his hands over and over with frustration before
walking to the wall, slamming his fists against the cement and
pressing his head against it in defeat.

Tate, ever the
efficient assistant, ran into the front room to make the necessary
communications with Tudor’s team – his PR, lawyer and agent.

My bestie, actually
demonstrating some emotional intelligence for once, left to put the
kettle on, leaving me alone with Tudor.

I walked towards him
and took his hand in mine. He flinched and looked down, and went to
pull away, frosting over again, like he always did when things got
rough. This time I held on tight.

“No, don’t pull
away. Don’t shut me out again.” I begged.

He looked so torn. His
go-to response in life was to carry the burden himself, to protect
everyone else, but no more, not this time.

I squeezed his shaking
hand in mine. “I’m here with you, Tudor. This time we will face
this together. You’re not alone anymore, you have me. You are not
alone
.”

He stared at me for a
long time, fighting his inner demons and eventually pulling me to his
chest and whispering in a pained voice, “This time I have you.”

This time we had each other.

After hearing the news,
we immediately went to Tudor’s house, where we all – Henry,
Samantha, Tudor, Tink, Tate and I – gathered in the lounge to try
and come up with a plan of action to deal with the fallout of the
information leak on the horrific and abusive past of the Norths.

To say the atmosphere
was tense was an understatement. Everybody was nervous, angry or
upset, and everyone was bewildered as to who could have sold the
story. A family’s dirty laundry being aired to friends and
neighbours was bad enough, but add into the mix that one of the key
players was mega-star famous and the situation became exponentially
worse.

The world now knew that
Tudor, for much of his early childhood and teens, had been subject to
brutal beatings and both physical and emotional torment by his
father, and to be honest, the reports were so detailed in their
descriptions, that even I was learning new information about my
immensely private boyfriend and what he had been through: things that
he hadn’t even confided in me yet – and nor should he have if he
wasn’t ready. They were heart-breaking.

As an actor, Tudor's
response must be well-calculated and thought through: one that
protected his family, his career, the trial. There were so many
different things at stake, not to mention the fact that the topic of
all the hype was such a sensitive area. We were expecting his
publicist, Kate, to arrive in Calgary from LA so she could advise
Tudor on what to do next. Until then, there was nothing we could do.

Drawing on both my
Scottish and English heritages to cope with the situation, I made
cups of tea laced with whiskey for everyone, and the six of us sat
around the fire, no-one saying a thing.

Henry broke the
uncomfortable silence first, after shifting back and forth on his
chair for near enough the last thirty minutes. "What are you
planning on doing, Tudor? What do you think you will say to the
press?"

Samantha moved to sit
next to Henry, hands on his tense shoulders, and Tudor pulled me onto
his lap and began stroking my hair. It calmed him.

He stared into the
fire, watching the flames dance, lost in his personal thoughts. "I
don't know. Do I ask the media for privacy and not say anything on
the topic of abuse, but have it hanging over my head for the rest of
my career?
Or
do I come clean and admit to what we all went
through? But then that will leave me exposed, and I hate the idea of
that; the world knowing all about us when we've kept it so
well-hidden for so long." He laid his forehead on my shoulder,
defeated. "I have no idea what to do for the best."

He gripped me tightly
around the waist and groaned. I drew back and lifted his chin.
“What’s wrong? What’s going on that head?”

He looked sheepishly to
the others in the room, hesitant to talk. I looked in his eyes and
urged him to explain. His head slumped forwards. “I just don’t
think I’m ready to talk about it to the world, it’s all too raw.
My family needed the next few months to heal, to adjust. I was
willing to talk about it all in the future with the trial, but now?”

I squeezed his hand in
sympathy. He fixed his broken gaze on me. “Why, just because I act
on a screen, do I have to have my entire life made public? Why should
the world get to read about our problems while having their toast and
coffee on a Sunday morning? Just a hot topic, gossip material to
mention in passing to colleagues on scheduled breaks at work. Can you
imagine it? Our past being the topic of conversation to some
middle-aged couple in God knows where:
‘Oh honey, have you seen
this article about Tudor North, the actor? His father broke his jaw
and fractured his collarbone with a chair leg when he was fifteen for
spilling soda on the kitchen floor. Anyway, what time are we meeting
your parents for lunch?’
That’s
my
life, our lives,
that they are discussing. Why do people need to pick at every
God-damned part of me just because I act? Our lives are not
entertainment.
I’m
the actor. My family didn’t ask to be
given the lead roles in the latest fucked-up celebrity scandal.”

I felt sick listening
to him casually drop his past sufferings into his angry tirade. I
could feel my eyes misting at the description of his injuries – a
chair leg for spilling his drink?
Good God! What else must he have
gone through?

I know celebrities sign
up for the invasion into their personal lives when they pursue a
Hollywood career, but surely there was a line that must be drawn,
especially dealing with issues like this.

I heard a heavy,
pain-filled sigh and turned to face Tudor. He was staring at me with
regret in his eyes and pulled me closer into his embrace. “I’m
sorry, gorgeous. I shouldn’t have lost my cool and told you about
my past in such a way.”

I sniffed. “Why are
you apologising to me?”

“Because I upset you
with what I said.”

“That’s because I
find it hard to hear how you were treated when you were a child. I
can’t stand what he did to you. What he is
still
doing to
you. It’s like he has this hold over you all, I just feel so
helpless. I don’t know how to make it better.”

His eyes lost some of
their tightness, and he whispered in my ear, “You’re helping me,
Sunshine. Just by being you.” He shifted back against the chair,
tucking me around his body like a comforter.

Henry coughed to catch
his attention. "I'm sick of dealing with all his shit, bro. Tash
is right, how long can he possibly do this to us? Maybe if we’re
honest and show him to be the scumbag that we know he is, then he'll
have to leave us alone, he'll have no hold over us anymore. It might
be, I don’t know, freeing."

Samantha, obviously
proud of her husband, kissed his cheek and stared at him in
adoration. I had a lot of respect for Samantha; she had been
supporting Henry for years and was clearly his rock. We had both
fallen in love with the brothers North, and we both simply had to
help them get through this. We were both strong, modern women, and I
was certain that we could all do it – that we could face the
situation with poise and dignity. We would make Emmeline Pankhurst
proud.

Tudor was once again
running his fingers through my hair and nodding gently, taking in the
advice from his level-headed older brother. Henry stood and cracked
his back, Samantha followed suit and they headed in our direction. He
bent down, eye-level with Tudor and laid a hand on his head. “Get
some sleep, and we'll figure everything out tomorrow, okay? Today has
been trying for us all, and I think we need to let the dust settle
for a while, sleep on it."

Tudor pulled him in for
a long, manly hug, and Henry winked at me as he walked out of the
room, holding his wife’s hand incredibly tightly – maybe he
wasn’t as calm as he seemed.

I looked over to Tink,
who cocked his head with a tight smile and pointed to the hallway; he
was going to bed too, and he took his silent boy with him. We were
all staying under one roof tonight – group support to face the
trials of tomorrow as a united front.

When everyone was out
of the room, I snuggled into Tudor’s chest in front of the fire and
peppered kisses along his neck to soothe him. He nuzzled the top of
my head and sighed. "What are you thinking?"

"I don't honestly
know. I suppose lots of things really: us going public, what Kate
will say tomorrow, and of course I'm worried about you."

He guided my head to
face him. "Worried about me? Sunshine, your birthday has been
ruined by my problems. Just when one nightmare ends, another begins.
Why are you putting up with all of this?"

"Oh don't start!"
I said a bit too aggressively, and lifted myself from his embrace.

"Start what?"
he asked, slightly taken aback at my attitude.

"Blaming yourself.
I chose to be with you, babes, knowing everything, and still you
apologise? Your father is the one to blame, not you. I love you and
you don’t abandon the people you love when things get tough. In
fact, it’s love that gets people through unsteady waters unharmed.
I’m not going anywhere and you need to get that through your dense
noggin, butch boy!”

His lip curled in
amusement at my ‘dense noggin/butch boy’ dig, but he still didn’t
look convinced.

I settled back into his
lap, tracing each one of his protruding abdominal muscles through his
T-shirt, trying to measure his mood. “You are not responsible for
everything, every problem. I love you, I support you, and I am
staying put – I’m freakin’ cement!

“I've dealt with a
traumatic childhood too, granted it wasn't exactly like yours, but I
have some idea what it's like to lose your innocence to something out
of your control, and yet still, I'm determined to make us work. I
can't fight for us on my own though, Tude; you need to be in this
with me. Our road to happiness was never going to be easy, but that
doesn’t mean that I’m not going to strap myself in and enjoy the
ride – bumps, dips and all!"

He stroked my face with
his finger. "I am, gorgeous, I'm totally in, but I can't help
but think that all my shit is having a negative effect on you - your
job, your life, everything. Are you sure I'm worth it?" he
looked apprehensive.

I flicked my hair like
a L’Oreal advert, stared into his eyes like I was smouldering down
the lens of a camera. "You're worth it."

That at least got a wee
chuckle.

He took a final swig of
his bourbon tea and asked, “What do you think I should say
tomorrow?”

I thought about it for
a second. “I think what Henry said made sense. If you expose your
father for the bastard that he is it may liberate you in some way,
make it easy for you to move on. Will it bring attention to you? Yes,
of course, but you became an actor, and fame and press go with
celebrity hand in hand. It’s how you handle the topic that needs to
be considered.”

He played with the
fingers on my hand. “And what how would you handle it? If it was
you and your family?”

I sighed in sympathy at
how lost and vulnerable he seemed. I straddled his waist and wrapped
my arms around his neck. “Who were your idols growing up?”

He looked at me,
surprised. “Erm… James Dean, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood – I
suppose people who could handle themselves, didn’t take any shit.”

“And why do you think
that was? Why was it those types of actors that inspired you?”

He sighed. “I guess
it was because I had no control at home, I couldn’t fight back
against my dad, and I wanted to be like them. It’s why I got so
big, you know, why I body-build, and why I got the tattoos and shaved
my hair. I wanted people to look at me and see someone strong,
someone who could handle himself, not someone who got beat up every
day for most of his early life. I suppose how I look – big and
menacing – is like my armour, impenetrable. At least to most
people,” he said, poking me in my side, making me jump and giggle.