Authors: Michelle Betham
Michael hurriedly closed the door and followed her, her undoubtedly expensive four-inch heels click-clacking their way across the marble-floored hallway as she made her way through to the living room.
‘What are you doing here, Layla?’
She swung round to look at him.
‘What am I doing here?
Well, since you didn’t really have the courtesy to end things properly between us before you left
L.A.
I just had to assume that our life together was over.
Am I right?’
He sighed, sitting down on the arm of a nearby chair, throwing the magazine down, watching as it fell open on a page which carried a photograph of India snuggling into Dominic on the movie set –
his
movie set – Dominic’s arms holding her tight as they smiled at each other.
‘Michael…?’
He looked up at Layla.
‘I’m sorry.
You didn’t deserve to be treated the way I treated you.’
‘No.
I didn’t.’
She walked around the room, picking up pictures of Ethan that Michael had scattered around the place in an attempt to try and make his temporary accommodation feel more like home.
Family photos.
And a lot of them were not only of Ethan, there were also plenty of pictures of his incredibly beautiful mother, too.
Putting a particularly happy photograph of
India
and Michael in happier times – cuddling their little boy as a baby – back down onto the sideboard, she turned to face Michael again.
‘But I accepted it, Michael.
I accepted that it was over and I tried to move on.
Me and Kenny even got back together for a short time.’
‘Kenny?
You slept with Kenny Ross?’
She folded her arms.
‘What did you expect me to do?
Live like a nun?
You left me in limbo, Michael, remember?
I wasn’t going to just put my life on hold while you made some ridiculous attempt to try and win
India
back.’
‘I haven’t been trying to…’
‘Oh, save it, Michael.
Of course that’s what you were trying to do.
Until Dominic MacDonald got in the way.’
She walked over to him.
‘So, you’ve got one hot young movie star for a son, huh?
Looks like Michael Walsh has skeletons in the closet even
he
didn’t know about.
Who’d’ve thought?’
Michael got up, walking into the kitchen, but Layla was right behind him.
‘This must be quite a difficult time for you,’ she said, leaning back against the kitchen’s breakfast bar, watching as Michael busied himself making coffee.
‘I mean, there you are, trying to win back your ex-wife when the kid you never knew you had was right under your nose, taking her away from you before you’d even had the chance to get close.’
‘I
was
close,’ Michael murmured, spooning coffee into the machine before swinging round to look at her.
‘When we first arrived here in Vegas I was getting close to her.
Things were okay, y’know?
We were good.’
‘And then
he
turned up.’
Michael looked down at the ground, pushing a hand through his hair.
‘Look, Michael, I didn’t come here to hurt you, really, I didn’t.’
Layla walked over to him, taking his hand, and he looked up at her.
‘
I
was hurting when you left
L.A.
though, do you understand that?
I was confused and upset, and then all of that turned into some ridiculous anger that did nothing but drain every ounce of energy I had left because I knew that
you
couldn’t carry on our relationship because you still wanted
India
back.
It was obvious.
And I thought Kenny might be a distraction, y’know?
Something to take my mind off things, but in the end I had to walk away from that because I just knew that
he
was harbouring some notion that maybe
he
was still in love with India too…’
‘Kenny’s still in love with
India
?’ Michael asked, looking at Layla through narrowed eyes.
‘Kenny’s
always
been in love with
India
.
He’ll be in love with
India
forever, any idiot knows that.’
For once Michael felt as though he and Kenny finally had something in common.
Because
he
was going to be in love with her forever too, whether he liked it or not.
‘I guess what I’m trying to say is…’
‘Why are you here, Layla?
I mean, is there a reason?’
She kept hold of his hand and he made no attempt to let go.
‘I know you wanted her back, Michael.
I know that, and I accepted that, and if you and
India
had
got back together I would have accepted that too.
Really, I would have.
But…’
She shrugged,
‘… then came Dominic MacDonald.
He walked into her life – into
both
your lives – and she fell for him.
Even after the shit hit the fan, Michael, she’s still with him.
You have to face up to that.
You’re too late.’
Michael looked into her eyes, saying nothing.
He had nothing
to
say.
Layla rubbed his knuckles with her thumb.
‘I know you still love her, Michael.’
She looked up into his eyes.
Blue, blue eyes that she could never fully trust, but she could handle that.
‘But, the thing is,
I
still love
you.
God help me… I still love you.
And I want you back.
You can’t have
her,
but you
can
have
me
.
So, what do you say, Michael?’
***
‘I shouldn’t have gone to see him,’ Charley sighed, shoving a pile of freshly washed black towels into a cupboard.
‘I’ve made things worse, I know I have.’
Kenny watched as she ran around the large and spacious store cupboard of
Charley’s @ The Amber Palace
, trying to keep herself busy, but it was more than obvious that it wasn’t really working.
Charley stopped what she was doing for a second and looked at Kenny.
‘Well, aren’t you going to say
“I told you so”
?’
Kenny shrugged, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his black jeans.
‘What would be the point in that?
You’ve just said yourself, you shouldn’t have gone to see him.
But I’m just as much to blame.
I shouldn’t have let you talk me into finding out where he was.’
Charley sighed again, beginning to line up trade-sized bottles of shampoo that didn’t really need sorting.
‘Shit!’
She swung round and leant back against the shelf unit, pushing a hand through her long, dark, naturally curly hair, staring up at the ceiling.
‘What the fuck have I done?’
Kenny walked over to her.
‘What exactly did he say, Charley?’
She looked at him, scrunching up her eyes and nose as she tried to remember a meeting she’d rather put out of her mind forever.
The stench of that seedy office still stuck in her nostrils, the sight of that evil man so close to her something she just couldn’t forget.
‘He said… he said something about hurting everyone else.
I asked him how he could possibly hurt me any more than he already had done, and he said… he said something about hurting all the others… Kenny, I’m scared.
After what happened with Terry… What does he mean, Kenny?’
Kenny had no idea.
But they were dealing with Jimmy Cash here, so whatever he meant it wasn’t going to be good.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied, almost dismissively, because he was still finding it hard to believe they were in this mess all over again.
‘I really don’t know.
But you need to talk to Vince, honey.
You’ve got to let him know what you’ve done…’
‘No, Kenny, I can’t do that.
He’ll go ballistic!’
‘Yeah, and with good right, don’t you think?
He was dealing with it…’
‘Jesus, come on, Kenny!
He was never going to be able to “deal” with a man like Jimmy Cash.
Not even Vince can manage that.’
Kenny watched as she resumed her pointless tidying-up of a more than well-ordered store cupboard.
If
he
was concerned about the situation they were fast getting into then
she
was ten times more nervous about it, and probably with good cause.
Not a day went by when her name wasn’t in the press, when new and more damaging photographs of her weren’t being published, and he knew that she was exhausted from the constant fighting she had to do in order to try and keep that unwelcome past from ruining her future.
‘Where’s Vince right now?’ Kenny asked.
‘He’s in
L.A.
’ Charley replied without turning round, busying herself folding more towels.
‘There are things that need sorting out at the
Beverly Hills
salon…’
She finally turned round to face Kenny, and he felt his heart sink as he noticed her eyes filled with frightened tears.
Frustrated tears.
‘I just haven’t got the fucking strength, Kenny.
I haven’t got the strength to deal with it all right now.’
He pulled her into his arms, holding her tight against him as she started setting those tears free, crying it all out, and Kenny didn’t know what to say.
What
could
he say?
That it was all going to be alright?
That it would all eventually sort itself out?
That wasn’t true, so he couldn’t tell her that.
She didn’t need false promises and pretend hope.
Because nobody was entirely sure just what it was they were dealing with here.
Nobody was sure at all.
CHAPTER 31
‘You can’t just go barging on in there, Reece, not with the amount of press and paparazzi still hanging around.’
‘So, you tell me that Michael Walsh raped my daughter – something she didn’t feel she could tell me…’
‘For good reason, Reece.’
‘Oh, you think so?
You think it was for the best that she kept something so important from me for all these years?’
‘Yes, I do.
I do, alright?
Because if she’d told you, you’d have reacted exactly like this, going in there all guns blazing…’
‘And what the hell do you
expect
me to do, Martha?
Sit back and forget what you’ve just told me?
I’m her father.
She should have come to me…’
‘She dealt with it in a way
she
felt was best, Reece.
She put Ethan first, she did everything she could to make sure that little boy still had a dad... She dealt with it.’
‘She
dealt
with it?
You really think that, do you?
Shit!’
He pushed a hand through his hair, turning away from her for a second as he began to pace the floor.
‘Everything makes so much more sense now, y’know?’
He turned back to face Martha, trying really hard to keep his feelings under control but it was becoming increasingly difficult.
‘All those years she spent shutting him out of her life, then everything that happened after she saw him again, after all that time…
It all suddenly makes sense.
And I had no fucking idea…’
‘She did it to protect you, Reece.
And to protect Ethan, especially to protect Ethan, you have to know that.’
He leant back against the wall, briefly staring up at the ceiling, sighing heavily as he looked at his wife.
Martha’s face was full of anxiety and he knew that was because she’d be worried about what he might do next, concerned about how he must be feeling after hearing news that would knock any father for six.
‘She never dealt with it at all, Martha.
She might think she has, but she hasn’t.
Now it’s so obvious why her marriage to Joseph didn’t work out… Jesus!
And now she’s involved with Michael’s fucking son!’