Page 60 of Conviction
“Feel better?” he asks.
“Much,” I reply, my cheeks flaming from the thoughts running through my dirty mind.
Conner pulls me a chair out, and I sit down next to him at the table.
“Sophie’s just been telling me what happened that night. Why you were at the hospital,” Josh looks across to me as he speaks.
“I’m so sorry, baby chick. I had no idea.”
“It’s not your fault, Josh,” I tell him.
“I spoke to my mum that night, she told me that you were all going off to a hotel to celebrate. If she’d told me the truth, I would’ve told Reed, and this could’ve all been sorted out years ago. I feel so fucking bad. Like I’ve played a huge roll in you two being apart all these years.”
Conner reaches out and takes my hand and gives it a squeeze while Josh talks, and once again, the move just seems so right, so natural and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Soph. She gives me a smile as our eyes meet. I smile back, a feeling of contentment settles over me for some reason I’m not quite sure of yet.
“Honestly Josh. I don’t blame you, Soph or your mum, she lied to protect me. I didn’t want anyone to know. Even my own parents don’t know.”
They’d probably have thrown a party in celebration if they had found out. Conner was most definitely not the type of boy they wanted a daughter of theirs to be associated with, let alone knocked up by at just sixteen. Now though… now he’s a rich and world famous rock star, my parents would be throwing me at his feet.
We all fall silent until Sophie speaks, “I didn’t tell them about your brother and the money yet.”
My belly does a few backflips, and my mouth instantly feels dry when I start to think about how stupid and naïve I was to let Pearce manipulate me in the way that he did.
I cover my face with my hands for a few seconds, then look up at the ceiling. Well, there’s nothing I can do to change things, so I might as well just admit to how I allowed myself to be taken advantage of.
“Like most of the choices I’ve made in my life, my parents didn’t approve of me becoming a hairdresser.” I look between Josh and Conner, leaving my eyes to rest on Con’s.
“When I lost you and the baby, I…” I struggle for a few seconds, trying to think of the right words to use, “I wasn’t in a good place, mentally. I dropped out of school and off the face of the planet. I cut everyone, including Soph out of my life. I stayed home, locked in my room. I piled on a heap of weight and just, I don’t know what… Anyway, I saw a job advertised in a local salon as I was walking by one day and went in and applied. Turns out, hairdressing was my thing, and I was good at it. I got my shit together, stopped the comfort eating, lost some weight, and got healthier both mentally and physically. I started seeing Sophie again, and ended up getting her a Saturday job at the salon.” I smile across at her, remembering those days and the laughs we used to have. “We both completed our apprenticeships, then worked a few more years to gain experience, before deciding to set up on our own.
“We found a shop for sale in town. A great location, right across from the park and a wine bar, so lots of passing traffic and a two-bedroomed flat above it. The bank wouldn’t even entertain the idea of lending me money and neither would my parents, so I asked my brother. He had some loan documents drawn up, and he lent me a hundred and thirty grand. I paid him back a small amount each month, and we agreed that the balance would be paid once the business was showing a profit and the bank would lend me the money.”
I let my wet hair out of the scrunchy that’s holding it in place, rewind it into a messy bun again and secure it. It didn’t need touching, it’s just a nervous move as I try to think how to tell Conner what I’m about to say next.
“Pearce was working with Marcus Newman at his dad’s law firm and doing well. Over the next few years, Marcus asked me out a few times. I always said no. I threw myself into work and didn’t really date anyone. That aside, I just didn’t want to go out with him.” I swallow a few times and run my tongue over my teeth. “My brother and Marcus started coming to the salon for haircuts and would turn up wherever I was out at the weekends and, of course, Marcus continued to ask me out. Eventually, I said, yes. There was nothing there, it was just…” I shrug my, acutely aware of Con’s eyes on me. “I didn’t feel anything for him. So there was no chance he could hurt me in the way I’d been hurt before.” Conner squeezes my hand. “Then he drops a bombshell and asks me to marry him. I tell him no, I’m too young, too busy, just not ready.” Talking about this, telling the story to others makes me even more aware of what an idiot I was. “We still kept seeing each other, and he tells my brother that he’s going to ask me again. My brother… my loyal, trusting big brother, tells me that his career is riding on my response. If I don’t say yes to Marcus’s marriage proposal, he threatened to go to the press with a story about how Conner Reed had sex with an underage girl and got her pregnant, then abandoned her to go out and sell drugs, leaving her alone in the hospital after she miscarried their baby.”
I watch Conner rake the fingers of his left hand through his hair. His right hand, never leaves mine.
“What a wanker. What a complete and utter wanker,” Josh says.
“Oh, but it gets better,” Sophie adds.
“Then he tells me, he wants all the money back that he loaned me. At that stage, it was still about sixty thousand. The business was doing well, but we were just about to open our second or third salon, I can’t remember which.”
I look Conner in the eye. “So I did it. When Marcus asked, I said, yes.”
His stare gives nothing away. “You married Marcus Newman?” he asks. I nod.
Josh and Conner know Marcus. We all went to primary school together so they would’ve seen him around town with my brother over the years.
“And that’s who you’re divorcing? Who you’ve been married to for the last eight years?”
I nod again. “He was safe, Con. I wouldn’t survive having my heart broken again, and there was no possibility he would be able to do that. I didn’t love him, so I was safe. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t try. I did. I tried to be the perfect wife for him. I gave myself over to him. I let him, my brother and my parents mould me into what they wanted me to be.” I don’t want to cry, so I decide to end the story there.
“So why the divorce? What happened to you being the perfect wife and daughter?” Conner asks.
I let out a long sigh and look over at Soph, who gives me a small nod, encouraging me to go on. “I was so lonely. After all the begging and pleading Marcus had done to get me to go out with him and to be his wife, once he had me, he wasn’t the slightest bit interested. We have nothing in common. He’s away most weekends playing golf. We only really go out together if it’s a work function for him, or some political event my mother insists we attend. But because I’m this stupid naïve woman, I’d convinced myself that we could make it work. That if we had a child together, it’d make everything right between us. But I can’t even get that right.” A tear drips from my lash and rolls down my cheek.
“Meebs,” Conner says very quietly, shaking his head. I put my hand up, I need him to know what he’s in for if we’re going to give a relationship a go.
