Silence.
‘Dear God,’ whispered Coco.
She moved to sit next to her and Janine felt an arm around her shoulders, and took the strength, the unconditional support, and the love, offered.
Her eyes found Bronte’s who were swimming as she blinked rapidly and held her son close to her heart.
‘How can I tell my baby girl she was not conceived in love but in hate? How can I possibly tell her that her father tied and beat her mother until she bled and then repeatedly raped her. How can I tell her that?’
Tears flowed freely down her cheeks, Bronte’s cheeks and Coco’s cheeks.
‘I don’t know,’ Bronte whispered. ‘God, no wonder you’re not ready to give Josh a chance.’
Coco sniffed, swiped her cheeks. ‘Josh can just get over himself and get a fucking life. I take it you haven’t told anyone this?’
Janine shook her head. ‘Only the hospital who treated me after the accident. The nurses were more than kind, but the doctors, the men, couldn’t look at me. I thought it was all behind me, but I’m having dreams, flashbacks, and they’re getting worse. I’m so scared they’ll take my baby away from me. Find me an unfit mother.’
Now Coco took a deep breath and looked her dead in the eye. And what Janine saw there, not pity, not sympathy, but determination and belief, in her, gave her strength and hope to carry on. ‘Who is going to take your baby?’
Janine took a shuddering breath and spoke of the terror that gripped her heart day in day out. ‘Connor’s parents want to see her. His brother won’t take no for an answer and is threatening to report me to the social services. They believe every single word Connor told them. I refuse to let people who brought evil into this world anywhere near my child. And my father has written to me. He’s threatening to use lawyers if I don’t let him see her. He believed all the lies Connor told him for weeks, months. My own father refused to help me... I can’t let him near her... I just can’t.’ Panic made her voice too high along with something like hysteria.
Coco placed her hands on Janine’s shoulders and stared dead into her eyes.
‘No wonder you’re having nightmares. What happened to unconditional love and support from a parent? Nope. You are not going to lose your baby. It’s
not
even a possibility. And I’ll tell you why. Because I’m going to help you right here and right now. You leave dealing with Connor’s parents and your father to our lawyers at
First Step
. They’re kick-ass bastards.’
After kissing her on the cheek Coco rose and went for her purse, pulled out a card and placed it in Janine’s hand.
‘This is the telephone number of one of the best therapists in the country. She specialises in domestic abuse. Phone her now. And then we’ll make a plan of action.’
Janine’s hand trembled as her swimming eyes struggled to focus.
‘But today’s not about me, it’s about...’
Now Coco spun and her eyes went hard. ‘Do not give me that ‘
I don’t matter shit’
, Janine. That’s Connor talking, not you. Compared to what you’ve been through dealing with Rafael and my father is a walk in the park. They’ll keep. Are you going to phone that number or will I do it for you?’
When she still hesitated, Coco leaned into her and her eyes went dark with swirling emotions.
‘Do it for that little baby you’re holding. She deserves to have a mother who is whole and well and strong. Take the first step, darling. But most of all do it for
you.
Do
not
let the bastard who did this to you win.’
With her heart thundering in her ears, in her throat, Janine handed Boo to Coco and took the first step into a better future.
Chapter Forty Three
‘
Madre di Dio
,’ Nico breathed.
He held his weeping wife tightly in his strong arms as his heart broke for Bronte, and for her friend. From the very beginning he’d been aware Janine was nervous of him, shied away from him, and now he understood why.
He’d lived a life where he’d seen the worst of what men, his own grandfather, could do to a woman and a child. Nothing shocked or surprised him. But Bronte was different. She’d been brought up with unconditional love, with support and affection. Although that hadn’t stopped her being the victim of a controlling son-of-a-bitch, her ex-fiance, Jonathan Winthrop.
Why was it that father’s were such fools with their daughters?
What the hell was Janine’s father thinking?
How could he possibly have refused to help his only child?
‘Janine should not be alone at a time like this,
querida
. She should stay here with us.’
Bronte lifted her head from his shoulder, wiped her eyes with the tissue he thrust into her hand and blew her nose.
‘She’s not alone,’ her voice trembled and she cleared her throat. ‘Louise and Coco are staying with her at Sweet Sensation until they’ve sorted out lawyers and the therapist. They wanted to take her and Boo home with Coco. But with Rosie away Janine’s refusing to leave the business. She says she wants normalcy, a daily routine. God, she’s so stubborn, Nico. What the hell are we going to do with her? I told her we’ll manage, but she’s not having it.’
Nico pressed gentle kisses on her forehead, cheeks and chin.
‘Then we will do everything we can to show her she is not alone. I will have our security do a regular drive-by each evening. And I will tell her myself that if she has any more trouble from family to let me know immediately. I will not have her and Boo hounded like this.’
Bronte just closed her eyes, wound her arms around his waist and held on tight.
‘And then this mess Coco got herself into, she’s unbelievable.’
Nico lifted her chin to look deep into her eyes and recognised her anxiety. And felt an overwhelming sense of relief that she was not angry with him for keeping secrets.
‘Am I forgiven?’
She nodded. ‘Of course you are. I didn’t have all the facts when I blistered your ear. My God, the Russian mafia? What will she get up to next?’
His lips twitched at the look of outrage on her face, in her voice.
‘I believe Rafael Cavendish will have his hands full with her.’
Her brow creased as she thought it over.
‘I wouldn’t be too sure about him having his hands anywhere near her. She’s seriously ticked off with him and her father. And I can’t say I blame her.’
His mouth found hers and kissed away the delectable pout of her bottom lip.
Her response was immediate as she melted into the kiss, into his arms.
This was love.
The way they held each other, touched each other, murmured to each other.
And Nico promised himself to savour every single precious moment.
Chapter Forty Four
Six weeks later.
Wearing her favourite ratty bathrobe, hair like a bird’s nest and her disposition grim, Coco sat on the toilet seat in her bathroom and surveyed the car crash of her life.
Tossed on the floor was a trashy magazine with an exclusive
about a secret affair between Coco Monroe and Lord Rafael Cavendish written by Tabitha Crew. Along with details of their time spent at Ludlow Hall plus photographs of their
love nest
. Where the hell had she got the information?
Not only that, she had the skinny on
First Step
.
Well, it was bound to happen at some point.
People talked.
And when money was dangled in front of them people were prepared to talk, a lot.
Perhaps it hadn’t been smart to refuse the woman’s calls or answer her emails.
Since she wasn’t writing lies there was nothing Coco could do.
However, she’d drawn a line in the sand when the journalist had tried to access her land, her home. The bitch had actually published her address.
And her lawyers would have Ms Crew for that breach of the press code.
All that was bad enough, but Tabitha Crew was not the main the reason Coco was hiding in her en-suite bathroom safe behind a locked door.
Wasn’t this ironic?
And absolutely typical of the way her life was going to hell?
Coco Monroe, the woman with her life all planned out, the woman who helped others in a crisis, had just made a complete disaster of her own.
How could she run a foundation that helped women leave controlling men, men who took away their choice? And yet manage to fall madly in love with one herself?
How many times had she heard those bruised and battered souls say they loved the men who’d hurt them?
Oh, she knew Rafe would never physically abuse a woman. And she could more than hold her own emotionally with him too. Even comparing him to those men was not being fair to Rafe, deep inside she knew it. She’d hurt him. And by breaking his heart, she’d broken her own.
However, no one made her knees tremble the way Rafe did.
Coco hadn’t believed in knees trembling or the way a person’s breath caught in their throat until Rafe.
The bastard filled every single romantic bloody cliché.
In spite of all that, a bitchy journalist, trembling knees, a broken heart, none of those reasons were why she was conducting a life changing experiment in her bathroom.
According to a very helpful girl on YouTube, the best way to take a pregnancy test was to pee in a sterile cup. It had sounded like a good plan to Coco rather than the hit and miss of a mid stream test. And more hygienic too.
So she’d lined up the five bells and whistles pregnancy tests and diligently left each stick in her pee for the required number of seconds.
And yep, each and every one showed a positive result.
It wasn’t possible for five tests to get it wrong and apparently the results were ninety-nine per cent accurate.
To be honest she’d known something up due to the fact that her cycle ran like clockwork each month. Initially she’d put down the lack of the curse to stress. However, she was a woman in tune with her body. The clues were all there; the swollen breasts, the too tender to touch nipples, the sensation of walking through treacle. Then there’d been the early morning nausea, the draggy feeling low in her belly.
With her heart in her mouth, she’d googled the signs of pregnancy.
And God forgive her, she’d googled how not to be pregnant too.
Even as she knew that she’d never take that path.
The shame of even thinking the thought meant the burden of guilt weighed too heavy in her heart.
The child had been created from love, along with a heavy dose of lust.
Chewing on her bottom lip Coco checked one of the results again. This one told a woman how many weeks pregnant she was. According to this she was six weeks and three days with child.
The verdict swam in front of her eyes.
Taking a heaving breath, she placed the sticks in the trash and washed her hands.
Her reflection in the vast mirror showed a woman who was too thin, eyes wide with shock and hurt and a heart that was sick with longing for its mate.
Pitiful, it really was.
Deciding she looked and felt too crappy to face the day, Coco almost crawled on her hands and knees back to bed.
Snuggling down under the duvet, she suppressed a low moan.
Would the heartache ever end?
Every cell craved him; mind, body and soul.
The nights were the worst.
And the days were not much better.
Guilt did that to a person.
Those things she’d yelled in temper, words to devastate a heart, that he was abusive, wasn’t good enough for her, haunted her dreams.
The stunned look of dismay on Rafe’s face tortured her.
She’d hurt him, badly.
Closing her eyes and willing for the oblivion of sleep Coco knew she couldn’t stay in her darkened bedroom forever. But she simply could not face the day or the problems it was sure to bring.
Without warning her bedroom door swung open.
Footsteps stalked to the window.
She heard the low hum of her curtains as they opened.
Autumn sunlight beamed into the room.
‘This,’ Louise announced in a tone Coco knew well. Pissed off. ‘Is an intervention. We’re on day two of this pity party. And we’ve had enough.’
We?
Very reluctantly she opened one eye.
Louise, with Jezebel tucked under her arm and Honey next to her, stood at the bottom of the bed.
‘Go away,’ Coco said in a whiney voice.
Her best friend’s eyes narrowed into slits. ‘Are you sick? Should I call a doctor?’
The clear anxiety in her voice made Coco wince, close her eyes tight against the unrelenting glare of a new day.
Why the hell could people not leave her alone?
‘I’m not sick. It’s my hormones.’
‘What’s wrong with your hormones?’
‘They’re pregnant.’
Silence.
More silence.
Coco opened one eye as a white-faced Louise sank to the edge of the bed.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yep. The tests are in the trash.’
Louise dropped Jezebel on the floor, stalked into the bathroom, returning with the bin.
Her eyes were huge.
‘You did
five
tests?’
Jezebel leapt onto the bed. She didn’t approach but lay down and gave a heartfelt whimper.
Coco knew the feeling.
Louise sank to the bed. ‘What are you going to do?’
Coco sat, ran weary hands through her hair and told her the truth,
‘I don’t know. I’m not ready for this. I don’t want this.’
‘You know that no matter what you decide I’ll back you...’
Pressing her hands to her face Coco fought like a warrior not to fall apart.
Rafe was going to be a father.
Oh, God.
‘He has a right to know,’ Louise spookily interrupted her thoughts.
Something inside Coco ripped wide open.
She couldn’t help it, her voice broke.
‘I told him he wasn’t good enough for me. That he’d never be good enough for me. At the time I was so angry I ignored the hurt in his eyes. I haven’t seen or spoken to him for weeks. Lord, I sound like a pathetic, wimpy, loser.’