Obsession (Forbidden #2) (20 page)

‘I’ve heard he’s married now.’

His voice drags me back from the brink but I keep my eyes on the ground. Just hearing him talk about Simon makes me feel sick.

‘To Gail Trenton-Barclay, remember her?’

I try not to remember too much about my old life. But sometimes circumstances mean I have no other option.

‘Her family still runs the brewery in the next-door village. Our parents all used to hang out together…’

‘Yes, Jon, I remember her.’

His eyes meet mine, and he gets the message. I don’t want a reminiscing session. I don’t care what that bastard’s doing now. I don’t care whether he’s alive or dead, although, I’ve wished the latter on him many a time. I can only hope that, somewhere along the line, he became a better man because the thought of someone else having to go through what he did to me…

‘You had no right coming here, Jon.’

‘I had to see you, Kira.’

I shake my head and drop my gaze, another shiver wracking my body as a blast of cold air hits us and he reaches out to pull his jacket further around me, but I jerk my shoulder away from him. I really don’t want him touching me. That could light a touch paper way more dangerous than either of us could imagine.

‘You need to go.’

‘Not now I’ve found you, darlin’. I’m going nowhere.’

‘I don’t want you here.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘I don’t want you here.’

‘I need to see you.’

‘Why?’

‘Jesus, Kira, you
know
why… You walked out on me, kid. Twice. You walked out on me. Twice.’

I shake my head again, sliding his jacket off from around my shoulders and I hand it back to him. ‘I’m not doing this. This – it’s over, Jon. It was over months ago.’

I turn to go but his voice somehow stops me in my tracks. My head is screaming at me to just keep walking, but my body’s refusing to go anywhere now.

‘It’s never been over for me, Kira.’

He stops talking and laughs, and I turn around to see his head bowed, his hands once more raking through his unkempt hair.

‘Kira… I still can’t get used to calling you that.’ He looks up, and our eyes lock, and as much as I want to tear mine away I can’t. I can’t do it. ‘To me you’ll always be…’

‘Don’t, Jon. Don’t do it, don’t say that name, don’t call me that. She’s dead. Do you hear me?
She
is dead.’

‘You could have come to me
.
’

I still can’t tear my eyes away from him and I want to, so fucking bad. I need to get out of here, he needs to go. He really can’t be here.

‘You could have come to
me
.’

‘You know why I couldn’t do that.’

He comes closer, and I back away, but I hit the wall behind me and he’s there, right in front of me, so close. Closer than he should be.

‘All of that – it could have been sorted, kid.’

‘If I’d told you what he’d done; if I’d come straight to you that night and told you what had happened, you’d have killed him.’

‘Yeah, I would’ve hurt him, of course I would. I would’ve laid into that bastard so hard he would’ve been unrecognisable after I’d finished with him. And I still wanted to kill him the night you finally told me. The night I found you after months of searching. I wanted to kill him then, and I still want to kill him now. That anger, it still lives inside me, darlin’. Every day of my fucking life. Because he didn’t deserve you. He never did. He never, ever wanted you, not like I did. He never loved you, like I did.’

‘You should never have come looking for me, Jon.’

Again. He should never have come looking for me, again. But the fact he did – that’s the reason why I’ve always known this was going to happen. I just chose to pretend it never would.

‘If I hadn’t come looking for you, back then… would you ever have found a way to let me know what he’d done to you?’ His eyes search my face, as though making sure it’s still me he’s looking at. ‘Would I ever have known why? Why you’d ran? Why you’d turned your back on me, just like that?’

‘I don’t know.’ And I’m being truthful now. I really don’t know if I ever would have found a way to tell him the truth. I hadn’t expected to ever see him again, so, I don’t know. ‘You really shouldn’t have come looking for me.’

I feel my heart racing inside of me, thumping hard and heavy behind my ribs and he places a hand on my chest, his eyes meeting mine as my heart beats against his palm. ‘Then, or now?’ he whispers, and I’m aware of his mouth moving further towards mine, I’m just trying to figure out a way to stop this from happening. ‘I should never have come looking for you then, or now?’

‘Both,’ I breathe, and I really am trying to dig some strength up from somewhere deep inside but this man, he’s pulling me backwards, back to a time when Kira Blu didn’t exist, and I’m terrified and excited and so fucking scared.

‘I wanted you for so long. So fucking long, and I had you, Kira. I almost had you. And he ruined that.’

I swallow hard, and I try once more to push the past right away, even though he’s all I can see now – him, and who we used to be. What we used to have. The secrets we kept. The ones we still keep now. ‘Jon, please…’

‘I need you, Kira. I let you walk away and I tried to pretend it was for the best, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t lie to myself any longer.’

‘What about Sara? Does she even know you’re here?’

‘Sara’s history. We divorced not long after you and me…’ He briefly looks down, and I take the opportunity to breathe in deep again before his head’s back up, his eyes burning into mine. ‘We’re divorced.’ He shrugs. ‘She’s moved to Jersey, to be with her parents. It’s over.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘For tossing me aside? Or the fact my marriage broke up?’

I don’t answer him. I’m not playing his games.

‘You broke my heart, darlin’.’

‘What we did… it was wrong.’

He shakes his head and I’m determined now, to end this. Right here. He needs to leave, and I need to find Neal. I need to get back to my twisted reality and this, it needs to end.

‘It wasn’t wrong, Kira. What we did.’ He reaches out and touches my face and I flinch slightly, and he frowns. But he has no idea how that tiny touch made me feel; what it stirred up inside of me. He has no idea. ‘Nothing we did was wrong, sweetheart.’

‘You were married.’

‘Not when we were at school I wasn’t. And I loved you even then, you just didn’t know it. I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember, Kira, and yet you went to him.’

‘You
know
why I had to do that, Jon, please… don’t make me do this.’

I’m angry at myself because I’m crying; hot, stupid tears are streaming down my face and I’m so fucking angry that this is happening. He has no right to do this, to be here, he has no fucking right.

‘You should have come to
me
.’

‘No,’ I whisper, but it’s pointless, because I can’t stop the kiss. I can’t. And I want to, don’t think I don’t, I do. But his mouth’s on mine and he’s kissing me and a million memories are racing to the front of my mind at a breathtaking speed, and I’m not sure I can handle this. He’s brought a terrifying reality here with him, and it’s going to take every ounce of strength I have to fight this now.

‘You know it was always you and me, Kira…’

He suddenly pulls away, backs off, and once again he starts raking a hand backwards and forwards through his hair in an agitated manner, but it’s something so familiar to me. I’d forgotten all about it, forgotten all about
him
; I’d forced myself to. It was the only way. I’d forgotten all about him, until a few minutes ago, when he walked back into my life, and now my world’s been turned on its head all over again and I can’t handle this. I don’t want to remember the habits he used to have, or the way he spoke; the way he’d make me laugh so much when we were together. I don’t want to remember any of it but I’ve got no choice now. I’m remembering it all. And suddenly Kandi-Ann being here in New York, that means shit. That’s so fucking irrelevant now it’s almost laughable.

‘I can’t keep calling you Kira. I can’t do it, kid.’

‘You did it for almost ten years, Jon. You had no problems calling me Kira when you were handing over money and fucking me hard…’

‘Kira Blu isn’t
 
you
, she’s a front. A barrier you put up to…’

‘She’s who I am now.’

‘No.’ He shakes his head and takes a step back towards me. ‘That’s who you were when you were riding me cowgirl; when I was spending countless incredible afternoons with my head buried between your beautiful thighs,
paying
to be close to you because that was the only way you’d let me near you again. Jesus, you played hardball, kid. You made me work so fucking hard… after everything we were…’

‘That’s who I am, now.’

‘No, it isn’t.
That
isn’t you.
That
was an act, a game, it was all pretend…’

‘This isn’t fair, Jon…’

‘What isn’t fair is that we never got our chance. Kate.’

That word – that name – it rips into me like a missile, shattering my soul, and I hate him for doing that. For bringing her back. For reminding me of everything I didn’t want to remember. For reminding me of everything I don’t ever want to be again.

‘And I’m tired, kid. I’m tired of fighting this now. All the shit we went through, all the pain and the fucking heartbreak and…’ He bows his head and runs a hand along the back of his neck and I’m glad, that he decided not to finish that sentence. I don’t
want
him to finish that sentence. He looks back up at me, and his eyes are carrying a sadness that’s all too familiar to me. ‘I want that chance now. I think we deserve it, don’t you?’

It’s my turn to shake my head, to let him know this isn’t right. This isn’t fucking fair, no matter what he thinks. This is cruel and painful and I want him to go. Before he kills me once and for all. ‘I need you to leave, Jon.’

‘Tell me you didn’t think about me, every time you closed the door on me. When you were tucking those twenty pound notes into your purse tell me you didn’t wish things had been different. And they
could
have been different, Kate…’

‘Don’t call me that.’

I’m angry now. I’m so angry I forget all about the tears still streaming down my face, I just want him gone.

‘Kate is dead. She ceased to exist the second your bastard best friend took what wasn’t his to take…’

‘That wasn’t my fault…’

‘I didn’t say it was. I’m just telling you that the woman you think I still am, I’m not her. She died, and she isn’t ever coming back, so you need to go. You’ve had a wasted journey.’

I finally find the strength I need to move away from the wall and start walking back towards the club, until his hand on my arm stops me again. But I don’t turn around. I’m not looking at him, I’m not doing that.

‘You think she’s dead, huh? You really think you aren’t that woman anymore? The woman I have loved since fucking high school? You really think you aren’t her? Because I think you are. I
know
you are. Kira Blu – the escort; the woman who fucked for money and hid behind those beautiful barriers for far too many years, she’s just a front.
She’s
the one who doesn’t exist.’

‘You’re wrong,’ I whisper, but I still refuse to turn around. I can’t look at him, it’s too dangerous. ‘You’re so wrong.’