Poison

No.

I couldn’t lose Millie like that.

But I could. I could lose Millie like that. Maya could be getting in the car right there and then as far as I knew, and I should have known it. I should have seen it coming. I could picture her so clearly, bitching along with Dawn while she packed, revelling in just how much losing Millie would destroy me. Because that’s what she’d do if she was hurting. She’d try to hurt me back harder.

I didn’t know what to do, just stood there mortified as Anna squeezed my arm and shoved me towards the kitchen door.

“Go,” she said. “Seriously, Lucas, just go. You have to. You have to get to her before she leaves!”

“Get back to her and stay if you have any sense!” Vicky snapped, but this time Anna snapped back.

“Stop!” she hissed across the kitchen. “Just stop a second. You don’t even know what the true situation is. Nobody does. I didn’t!” She turned back to me, and this time she pushed me harder towards the front door. “Go,” she said. “Please, Lucas, you have to get there before she leaves. Please, just go!”

So I did.

I grabbed my shoes and my tie and forced myself into some kind of order. I gave her one quick kiss and a squeeze, and then I was out of there, piling out onto the street and launching myself across town to Broad Street car park as fast as I could go. I daren’t have tried to message Maya ahead, just pressed my foot as hard as I could on the accelerator and tore through the lanes.

I let out a hiss of relief to see her car was still on her driveway. I threw myself out of the truck and raced to the door, and my fists were pounding on the wood so hard it shook the frame. Maya peered her way around the living room curtain to check out who was knocking, like she’d ever need to check who the fuck would be busting their way inside as she got ready to steal Millie to Hampshire.

“Open the fucking door!” I shouted, cursing myself when I figured that Millie must be able to hear me. Maya scowled and shook her head before she moved away from the window, and I forced myself to shut right up until I heard her on the other side of the door. It rattled, then opened an inch, and there she was, but the door was held tight on a security chain. There was no way I could bust my way in without creating one hell of a commotion.

“Oh, you want to come over now, do you?” she spat. “Done enough fucking Anna Blackwell for one weekend, have you?”

“What the fuck has any of this got to do with who I’m fucking?” I hissed. “We’ve been separated for months. YOU were the one who left ME.”

“BECAUSE I THOUGHT YOU’D COME RUNNING!” she screamed and her eyes were wild. “BECAUSE I THOUGHT YOU’D SORT YOUR FUCKING LIFE OUT AND COME RUNNING!”

Holy fuck, I stumbled backwards.

“You can’t be serious,” I challenged and stepped back closer. “You haven’t loved me for years. You’ve hated the sight of me for years…”

And that’s when I finally saw it in her eyes, the pain under the rage. The pain under the disgust. The pain under everything I’d ever been to her.

The shock was savage.

The shock was spiteful.

The shock tore me into shreds with a whole fresh round of guilt.

“You’ve never loved me!” she snapped, but her voice was weaker than I’d ever known. “I’ve been trying to make you love me for years, but you never have. Nothing I ever did was good enough, not even having Millie. So I wanted to show you. I tried to show you. Over and over and fucking over. Always trying to be good enough, but it never worked! Because you never believe, Lucas! You never believe there’s a bigger fate than the one you see in front of your smug face!”

My heart was beating a crazy tune, and the ground felt unsteady as it all came crashing in.

“Never believe in what bigger fucking fate, Maya? You hated me,” I countered. “You’ve hated everything I’ve done for years. I was the one who was never good enough!”

“Yeah, well, maybe I was trying to convince myself,” she hissed, and that pain was right there again.

And the reality took my breath.

Maybe she was trying to convince herself. Maybe she always had been.

Maybe the whole thing was one fucking endless pit of utter misery and carnage and nobody ever being fucking good enough.

But I’d married her.

I’d put that ring on her finger and promised to try.

I flinched as I heard Millie’s voice sound out from the hallway behind Maya. She called for her mummy, then she called for me, and my gut jumped right up into my throat.