LITMIR.BIZ

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him; so much so, that he stood up from the bed and reached down to pick up his bag. ‘Lucy, I know that I slept with you and we’re having a baby, but it doesn’t feel right that I should live here as if we’ve been dating for years. We don’t know each other all that well, and so to play the happy family game right away doesn’t sit comfortably with me. Surely, you understand?’ He looked at her with his face half turned away, but it was definitely not easy, with her standing there naked. ‘I think for now I’ll stay elsewhere until I can figure this out. I don’t intend to shirk my responsibilities, but I need time. You do realise that, don’t you?’

      Lucy felt like a schoolgirl. The way he pronounced his words – with no trace of an accent or slang – he bordered on being posh. She wasn’t used to it, and she felt a little intimidated. She wouldn’t be put off, though; his looks and money more than compensated for his more genteel and less manly ways.

      ‘Don’t be like that. Look, Justin, if you want to sleep in the spare room, then do that. Christ, all those things you said to me, I guess you never meant them, eh?’

      ‘What things?’ he snapped.

      ‘That you really liked me a lot, how you wished you were with me, and how things would be so different. Well, Justin, you have me now and a baby on the way. For fuck’s sake, she burned our … sorry, I mean your bloody house down and nearly killed the neighbour. Seriously, you aren’t telling me you’re having second thoughts, are you?’ She began to snivel and left the room.

      It was bizarre. One minute, he was in his perfect world with Kara, where they shared his lovely home and enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle, with a deep sense of closeness between them, and now he was facing a life with Kara in jail and Lucy swanning around like she’d been with him for years. What the hell was he doing? Was being a father so important that he was blinded by the notion? He thought back to his childhood, and yes, he longed to have his father in his life, but could he really sacrifice Kara for this unborn child and Lucy? Who the hell was she, anyway? He knew absolutely nothing about her.

      Still gripping his bag, he sighed. Perhaps he’d gone too far. ‘Lucy!’ he called out. She didn’t answer, so he wandered to the bathroom to find her sitting on the edge of the bath sobbing. She looked vulnerable and very different from a few minutes ago. With a towel wrapped around her, she whispered, ‘I’m so sorry, Justin, I guess you’re right. This is all too soon. I never knew I could get pregnant. The doctors said I couldn’t. I would never have put you in this situation, but you did say how much you liked me, and when you came back here for the second time, I assumed I wasn’t just a one-night stand. But it’s okay. I understand. You never really did like me.’

      She wiped the tears away and pulled the towel tighter around herself. ‘You’re a good man, Justin, and I will admit I fell in love with you the first time I met you, and so having your baby is not a heartache for me. I just hope he or she grows up to be just like you. But, I promise you, I’ll be a good mum, so never worry about that. I’m just sorry you don’t feel the same way about me. I’m not Kara, and well, I couldn’t possibly be. I grew up in a foster home, a few actually, so I’m a bit wilder, I suppose. I can’t take her place, and so it’s best that you go and forget you ever met me.’

      With a heavy sigh, Justin placed the bag on the floor. ‘It’s not you, Lucy – you’re probably a lovely person. It’s just so soon. We don’t even know each other, and I wish you wouldn’t act like we have done so for years. I feel suffocated.’

      ‘I only wanted it to be nice for you. I didn’t want you to feel awkward. Perhaps I wanted too much.’ Her voice was softer and gentle, and it tugged on his heartstrings. It wasn’t Lucy’s fault. After all, the only person who had caused all this mess was him. He needed to man up. Only he could put it right. He had played away from home and got this woman pregnant. He couldn’t bring himself to mess up two women’s lives.

      ‘Why she had to burn the house down, I don’t know. She could have stayed there. I suppose, she really hated me for what I did.’

      Lucy looked away. ‘Babe, she did something terrible. The neighbour is in hospital, fighting for her life. That could have been you. Kara isn’t the person you think she is.’

      Justin chewed the inside of his mouth, going over Lucy’s words in his mind. Perhaps she was right. Maybe Kara did have a vindictive side to her. ‘Okay, I’ll stay in the spare room, and we’ll see if we can work this out. I’m not ready for a full-blown relationship, so give me some time, eh?’

      With an obliged, compassionate smile, Lucy nodded. ‘I understand, love, and I’ll back off, although it will be hard, because I do love you, Justin.’ She paused, as if wondering if she sounded convincing.

      Those words kept repeating themselves in his mind. Still numb and racked with guilt and grief, he made his way into the spare room. It was little more than a box room, with just a single bed, one pine wardrobe, and a bedside table. The window looked out over the row of houses opposite, and as he stared, he shuddered.

      This was worlds apart. His house was in a close and the property opposite was so far away, that he never felt hemmed in. Lucy’s flat was in what was once a large house with three floors. The property was now split into two flats. The basement flat that was accessible from the side door to the building was on one level, whereas Lucy’s flat had an upstairs as well as a downstairs floor. There were two separate entrances, but the back garden was only available to the basement flat. At least it was kept very neat and tidy by the old lady who lived there.

      * * *

      Lucy smiled to herself. She had to keep him there, close to her, and work on him. Acting as if they had been together for years wasn’t working, so she would have to change tactics. But she noted how he responded to her when she appeared needy. She would have to put on a first-class act, although she shouldn’t denigrate her acting skills. They’d made her what she was today. They had been honed to a fine art, and she knew she was good at disguising her true inner self.

      She believed she’d been dealt the shitty hand, being left with her father, while her mother upped sticks and got on with her life, leaving her behind to live with a bastard of a man. She didn’t care what anyone said. Even the shrink, Julien Spinks, with his stupid ideas that she had an unhealthy vivid imagination. What did he know, anyway? As far as she was concerned, her father was a short-tempered, evil bastard.

      The tears she’d put on for Justin, though, were fake. As she recalled it, all her life, no matter how much she cried, she was told to stop snivelling, don’t be a baby, and grow the fuck up. Her recollection from the age of six was that she’d had to cook, clean, and pander to her father’s needs or suffer a violent backhander. The freezing cold bath or the metal cabinet were two of his favourite forms of retribution, although no one believed her. She vaguely recalled being locked away overnight, unable to sit down because the space was too small, and standing in the dark, desperately hoping that he would let her out soon, feeling the cold walls and hearing the rustling of rats outside and the scurrying of spiders.

      Then, there was her father’s face when he opened the cabinet, and her blinking furiously with the bright light and the silhouette of his big frame and thick neck. ‘Have ya learned ya lesson, then? Now, will you stop telling lies?’ he would bellow.

      Lucy remembered a woman from the social services, called Rhonda, a big black woman, smiling sweetly at her father and then tutting at her, shaking her head, and with those condescending words, saying, ‘Now, now, Lucy, this has to stop. You have to attend your weekly appointments with Dr Spinks and take your tablets every morning.’ But they had her all wrong – even Dr Philippa Shelby, her GP, the condescending bitch, with her curt words and sharp tongue, telling her that without the medication, she would be sent to a home.

      She hated Rhonda and Dr Shelby nearly as much as Spinks, and she also detested her teacher, Mrs Lyons, who always insisted she sat at the back of the class and refused to believe a word she said. Still, what did they know? They never had to take the vile gag-inducing pills. They were probably all being bribed by her father, Les, anyway, to pretend she needed psychological help. She put up with the shit until she was old enough to change it

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