Blurred Lines (Behind Closed Doors Book 2) (17 page)

“Why? So you can tell me my husband is abusing me? We've been through this, Ash, a thousand times. Wayne doesn't do this. I do this. I fell down the stairs. Wayne had nothing to do with it. Why do you do this to me, Ash? Not Wayne, you never call him out on this shit. Why not? Don’t you think it’s him? Then why me?” Tears fill my eyes. I blink and will them away. They don't go. “Why do you humiliate me?”

“I'm sorry,” she cries. “You needed medical attention and you refuse to go the ER anymore. And even if you had agreed I couldn't go to the ER dressed like this. Do you realize how much attention you'd have got? People snapping photos on their cell phone cameras and paparazzi sneaking around, pretending to be your family while they try to get your story. I'm sorry,” she says, taking my other hand. “Please, I just thought Soraya was a safer option. Forgive me, please.”

I don't say anything, because although part of me knows she's telling the truth, the other part feels like she had a hidden agenda and it backfired. “You have to forget these awful assumptions, Ashleigh. They're not true.”

“I can't.” She shakes her head. I snatch my hands from hers and turn away. “What if, for the sake of our friendship, we agree to disagree?” I look back over my shoulder. “I'll try to watch what I say, I promise.”

“Fine.” I sigh. “But I'm still going to Mom and Dad's.” I don't trust one of Ashleigh's promises. I know she doesn't make them lightheartedly. But still, she's too outspoken about the man who wronged her to mind what she says about him.

“You can't,” she says. “Not like this.” Honestly, I'm in a crisis over my marriage and she's worried about our friendship. “It's obvious Wayne did something.” I open my mouth to argue that she’d just broken her promise when she holds her hands up and says, “Whatever he said has made you want to run to the other side of the country, Jules. It’s not the answer to your problems.” I want to ask her what does she know about it, but she sighs. A rare expression crosses her features, the one that’s present whenever she talks about Sean. “Trust me,” she whispers. “It's never the right answer.”

I frown and turn away. What does she know anyway? She’s never had a serious relationship in her entire life and no one ever gets passed six weeks with her.

“God, Julia!” she shouts after me. “You know I want you to kick him to the curb but please listen to me. It's not my choice and if you love him then talk to him!” I carry on walking because I don’t want to listen to her right now. Not when I know she’s right. “You love him, Julia!” she shouts after me. “So don't make the same mistakes I did!”

I turn back. Somehow I know she's talking about my brother and if my headspace wasn't full of my own dramas, I'd have given that more attention, but I'm in crisis. My husband did something I didn't want and I don't know how I'll ever look at him the same. He took something from me tonight and I'm fooling myself by thinking I don't hate him, just a little bit, for not hearing me when I wanted him to stop.

“I promise,” Ashleigh continues. “If you still want to go to New York in the morning, I'll fly you there myself.”

Chapter Seventeen

From the sofa, where I've been ordered to sit and not to move, I stare at World War Three about to erupt. Of course, they're arguing. Wayne's the only other person I know, besides Sean and Mimi, who knows exactly which button to press to make Ashleigh's head do a full three sixty like the devil reincarnated. He's told her I'm not safe with her and she's exploded. She started with calling him out on every injury I’ve ever had, that she knows about, and now she’s on to insults. She’s been going for long enough that any normal person would have collapsed from the lack of oxygen but she doesn’t even appear to be running out of steam.

She digs her pointer finger into Wayne's chest as she tells him I’m not safe with him. He slaps her hand away. “Don't you think I regret letting her leave that night every single damn day of my life?”

“For God's sake, will you get over that already?” She waves his confession off like it's insignificant but actually, it's enormous to me. I stare at him dumbfounded. Is Wayne still so affected by my attack after all this time? “I'm talking about the state of her now. You did that to her.”

“She fell!”

“Just like she fell through the glass door eighteen months ago, or was it a table of crystal glasses? I forget. She's just so damn clumsy when you're around.” Ashleigh laughs. “Just you remember I’m the girl you cheated on when you decided to run off and marry my best friend. You might have everyone else fooled, but never forget I know you for exactly who and what you are. You were mine first, remember?” She gets all up in his face. “Or should that be I was yours.”

He gasps. The color drains from his face and I think it flows straight into me. Suddenly, I'm on my feet and heading straight for her. How dare she? How many times did I have to tell her? Wayne did not do this to me!

His head shakes violently like she's said the unthinkable to him. “I'd never do that to her!”

Ashleigh's cell phone rings and she glares at him. “If you leave this house before I get back I’ll go public and you can kiss your career goodbye,
Lieutenant
.” Her cold angry stare switches from Wayne to me and back again. But I’m not in the mood for placating her tonight. I have every intention of going home with or without her blessing.

She yells into the phone as she marches away. Seconds later, the door to the study slams shut.

The second we're alone I pick up my purse. “C’mon,” I tell Wayne. “Let’s go.”

Wayne hesitates. “Babe,” he says, taking my hand. “Just let her get this over with. You know what she’s like. She’s mad enough to spin this for the press so the golden light shines on her.” I don’t like that he’s bending to her unreasonable demands. “She’ll ruin me.”

“You shouldn’t have to put up with threats like that, Wayne. I’m sorry I called her.”

“No, precious.” It takes everything I have not to shudder under his touch. “I'm the one who’s sorry. I don't know what I did. I came home from work and you were gone. Whatever it was I'm sorry.”

“I know.” I’m glad I hadn't told Ashleigh exactly what happened. If she knew she'd probably have blurted it right out. He gathers me into his arms and I accept his loving kisses. I haven't seen him for three days. I look at the door Ashleigh disappeared behind. “If I... just... talk to you, like Ash told me to.” His gaze follows mine to the study door, behind which Ashleigh is roasting someone. “Believe it or not, she's been super cool about this. She's said nothing bad about you. In fact, I'd be in New York if it wasn't for Ashleigh telling me to sleep on it.”

“Really?” I nod. I don't know why I'm nervous about telling her I'm going home. She's kept her promise. But I think Wayne has the same apprehension because he lifts my fingers to his lips before whispering, “I'll talk to her.”

I have a sinking feeling this isn't a good idea. But he knocks and she opens the door to the study. She still has her cell to her ear, but when he asks if he can talk to her alone she nods, opens the door wider and tells the caller she has to go. I have a really bad feeling about this.

I pace the floor outside the study for at least ten minutes. There are no raised voices or anything. So maybe this is going to work after all? I decide to go into the kitchen and get a glass of water because all this adrenaline has left me feeling so parched, and there's still nothing from inside the study. Even when Liv comes into the kitchen a few minutes later, she hasn't passed World War III to find me. So I tell her what's going on.

She frowns at me and then laughs. “We'd better take cover, Jules. With two big egos in such a small space the house will blow apart any minute now.”

It's a good thirty minutes before I hear a thud against the door. I stare at the thick wall and wood blocking my curiosity for what feels like forever but there’s not another sound from within. Then Wayne yells a few curses, the door swings open and he marches through it. He shouts at me we're leaving and I stare at the empty doorway. Ashleigh hasn’t followed him.

“Julia!” he barks at me. “Let’s go.”

I look through the open doorway again but still Ashleigh doesn’t appear. Maybe I shouldn't have left them alone for so long?

Chapter Eighteen

August 2010

I can't believe Wayne keeps dragging me to these appointments. My marriage isn’t in a state worthy of a counselor. But for some reason Wayne thinks it is. He’s concerned that four months after I stopped with Ashleigh, I still can’t tell him why.

Part of me knows I should, it’s really coming between us, but I can’t. It’s not what he did so much anymore, it’s not. Not completely. It’s how much it will hurt when I tell him that maybe he crossed a line and how he’ll react when I do.

I don't believe he's actually telling a stranger that my best friend is right to accuse him of mistreating me. He's telling Doctor Fforde that he's to blame for my accidents. I've listened to him talk week after week to this stranger who we'd only met a few weeks ago, and he's admitting to her that his angry outbursts are the reason I hurt myself. He's telling her everything.

I haven't said much to her myself. I haven't admitted to her that I'm scared of him. Or that I'm so confused over all these contradictions when he talks about me, that I daren't trust his compliments anymore because he only follows them with an insult later. I won't tell her the real reason I've turned down work in the past, the kind of work that would shoot my career out of the stratosphere, is because he won't let me. And I definitely won't tell her that I'm starting to think something happened between my husband and my best friend four months ago, because Ashleigh has gone totally off the rails. She's moved out of her mom's house and is living in a hotel, which under normal circumstances would be okay. Her mom has remarried and Ash hates her new stepdad. But under these circumstances, it means my husband and best friend are keeping something from me.

“I don't know why she left,” Wayne mutters. “And she won't tell me. It's been four months and I still don't know why.”

The doctor looks at me. I don't like her. She makes me feel like somehow all of this is my fault and if I'd just come out with it then I wouldn't feel guilty anymore. We'll be all fixed again.

“Julia, communication is a huge part of your marriage, and if you're not communicating with your husband the problems just stack up until they all come out at once.”

Wayne squeezes my hand and turns back to the doctor. I hate that he's being so understanding about all this. It makes it so much harder. I open my mouth to speak but no sound comes out. I can't do it. I can't tell him why I went to Ashleigh's.

“After Julia fell down the stairs she promised she wasn't leaving me,” Wayne says. I don’t know if he’s reminding me or repeating something the doctor already knows. “We talked about starting a family and we were intimate.” Of course, he was a police officer and used to talking about that stuff, but heat burns my cheeks instantly. I don't want her to know in-depth details of our life. It's private. “And now she doesn't want to be intimate ever. We haven't been intimate since she came home.”

“Do you think she lied and then made love with you?”

Heat colors his neck around his collar as he nods. “I don't want to shout, or do whatever it was I did again. I don't want to lose her. But how are we supposed to have children if we don't...”

“Julia?”

“I, um.” I look at Wayne as I say, “You threw a cup of hot coffee at me.” He gasps. “I fell down the stairs because I dodged it.” The color drains from his face. It's as though he has no recollection of this event at all.

“Is that why you won't be intimate with your husband?” Doctor Fforde asks and I shake my head. “Julia, you need to be honest about what’s preventing you from starting a family, if that is what you both want right now.”

Beside me, Wayne gasps again. He gets the psychiatrist's implied meaning. “You lied to me. Why would you lie to me about something like this?” He twists in his seat to face me. “This isn’t a new car or a new dress you can return if you change your mind. It’s a life,” he says, and I want to hit him for being so insulting. “It’s our life, and the life of the child we make together. If you’ve changed your mind, Julia, then tell me. Don’t cold shoulder me.”

Cold shoulder him? How dare he accuse me of the tactics he— my mind halts as I think of all those times he’s shut me out by using the excuse I love the most ‘work stuff’ and I suddenly understand that he’s experiencing the same thing from my point of view, and me from his. Maybe he didn’t realize when he was shutting me out. I certainly hadn’t. I only want to protect him from the hurt I’d cause him.

“It's not that I don't want to have children, Wayne, because I do.” He frowns. “I want a family, Wayne. But... I... you...” I swallow and then bottle out. “Maybe we should take it one problem at a time.”

The horror in his expression kills me on the inside. “One problem at a time?” He drops my hand and climbs out of the seat. “How many problems are there, Julia?” He walks over to the window, rests his palms on the windowsill and then says, “As far as I was concerned there was only one, and everything changed between us after you ran to her.”

“For once this isn’t about Ashleigh,” I say. I look at my fingers twisting together. “She hasn’t said a bad word about you for months. This is about you and me.”

“Then tell me what the hell happened between you and me?”

“I can't...” How do I tell him? I shake my head as my eyes fill up with tears. “I don't want to talk about this.” I climb out of the chair. My husband is not as bad as the serial killer so I can't say these words out loud. This problem is all in my head.

I don’t even notice him cross the room after me as I head for the door, but his hand wraps around the fleshy part of my upper arm and he spins me around to face him. “Julia, please,” he begs. “What did I do that was so wrong that you can't bear for me to touch you anymore?”