The Forbidden

Beep!

My eyes snap open and I gasp for breath, my chest pumping. More pain, except this time it’s worse. This time I know why I’m hurting.

“Annie.” I hear Jack in the distance and turn my eyes, finding him suspended over me, his face grave. “Annie?” He reaches above my head and slams his fist into something before returning his attention to me, watching me convulse on the bed.

His hands are stroking my face as I look up at him with wide, frightened eyes. “Jesus, baby.” He chokes, reaching for the button again and smashing it hard. “Come on!” He looks over his shoulder when a hive of activity breaks out, the door swinging open. “She’s awake but I think she’s seizing.”

A nurse appears above me, pushing Jack out of the way. “Annie?” she calls loudly. Too loudly. She pulls the skin under my eyes down, looking closely into them. “Annie, can you hear me?”

I nod, fighting to rein myself in to stop the pain. A mask lands over my face and I suck in air ravenously. The hit of oxygen gives me instant relief, widening my airways and dislodging the panic.

“Is she okay?” Jack asks, appearing by the nurse’s side. He looks just awful—drained, tired, and anxious.

“Are you in pain, darling?” the nurse asks, ignoring Jack.

I nod again, and she immediately looks across the bed. “Check her chart and tell me the last time she was given morphine. Intravenous.”

“Eight this morning,” a female voice replies. “Straight after the first transfusion.”

“Hook her up again.”

“Straightaway.”

“Annie, we’re getting you some more pain relief, darling. Won’t be long, okay?” The nurse makes fast work of hooking up a fresh bag of liquid, and I close my eyes, welcoming the cool liquid into my body, hoping it numbs not only my broken body but my mind, too. The door closes quietly and I try to relax, focusing on Jack’s closeness. He’s here. Everything will be okay because he’s here.

“Annie, can you hear me?”

I feel his touch on the tips of my fingers and force my eyes to open, my head resting comfortably to the side. Jack pulls the chair closer to the bed and perches on the end, leaning forward to take my hand in both of his, squeezing gently.

“Hello, gorgeous,” he whispers, his expression harboring all kinds of trepidation. It doesn’t matter how terrible he looks. I’d put money on the fact that I look worse. I flex my hand a little in his, my way of replying, and he smiles, his lips trembling as he exhales deeply and drops his forehead to our cluster of hands on the bed.

I stare at the back of his head for an age, building up my strength to speak, soothed by the relief from pain that the morphine delivers. “J…ack.” His name comes out of my mouth jagged and broken, and I find myself able to lift my head a little, now that the pain isn’t hindering my movement.

His own head whips up considerably faster than mine. “Don’t move, baby,” he rushes to say, gently pushing my head back down to the pillow. “Don’t move.”

“I’m stiff,” I complain, feeling like I need to crack every bone in my body into place, especially in my hips.

“You mustn’t move.” Jack moves in and faffs with my pillow, not really making much difference, but I let him tend to me nevertheless.

My arm feels like lead, and I look down to find it concealed in a cast, from the tips of my fingers to the very top of my arm. It’s ramrod straight. I look at Jack, who’s watching me assess my injury. Or one of them. His bristly face is close and straight, his gray eyes cloudy. He drops the most delicate kiss on the corner of my mouth, and I manage a small smile.

“Better?” he asks, scanning my face for any sign of discomfort.

I nod. “How are you?” I ask, watching as he more or less plummets back to the chair, leaning in and resting his forearms on the bed, his hand holding mine.

He huffs a short, quiet puff of amusement. “Don’t ask me how I am when you’re lying here looking like you’ve been run over by a bus.”

“It was a car, wasn’t it?” I reply simply and emotionlessly, making Jack pull up in his chair.

“You remember?”

“Who was driving?”

He starts patting at the bedding around my thighs, avoiding my eyes. “Let’s not do this now.” He’s trying to avoid the conversation that we’re going to have to have at some point, but I’d rather just get it done with. “For now we focus on getting you well.”

“It was her, wasn’t it.” I don’t mean to allow emotion into my voice, and I wholeheartedly hate myself for letting it, because Jack’s face is a picture of pure misery as a result.

“She was arrested at the scene,” he whispers. I look away, my lips pressing together to stop the cries of devastation from escaping and crippling him some more. “She said she didn’t see you in the road.”

“She saw me,” I say quietly, looking down at my tummy, not wanting to ask the question that’s most important to me. Jack’s hand appears in my downcast vision, coming to rest lightly over the bedcovers on my stomach. I look at him, my eyes brimming with tears that are ready to tumble. “Our baby?” I murmur, my hand coming to lay atop his, hoping and praying that my battered body protected our unborn child. “Please tell me our baby is okay.”

Tears begin to stream down Jack’s cheeks as he shakes his head. And my heart breaks clean in two. “I can’t.” He swallows, his handsome face distorting with grief. “I can’t, Annie. I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so so sorry.”

A ragged sob rips through me, my broken body jerking as a result. I’m in agony. “No,” I whimper, my eyes bursting with tears, encouraging more from Jack. “No.” My body begins to spasm uncontrollably, my world exploding into a haze of devastation. “No, no, no!”

Jack shoots up from his chair and bends his body over the bed, getting as close to me as he can to comfort me. “I’m sorry,” he sobs, trying desperately to console me as we cry in each other’s arms. “I’m so sorry.”

I shake my head, not prepared to accept it, hiding my face in his neck. “She killed our baby.”

Jack doesn’t say anything more—no apologies, no attempts to calm me. All he has the energy left to do is hug me and cry his heart out along with me.

The darkness returns, and so does the pain. But now it’s agony. She tried to kill me and she succeeded in killing our baby. This is my penance. For all of the wrong decisions I have made, for touching the forbidden, this is the ultimate punishment.

I will never forgive myself.

Chapter 29

I’ve had so much blood pumped into me, I don’t even think I’m me anymore. I had internal bleeding caused by a splintered rib that nicked a blood vessel. The mass of blood behind my ribs was excruciatingly painful, but once it started to disperse, the pain lessened over the weeks until regular paracetamol sufficed and I could lose my drip. My left arm is broken in three places and three tendons were severed above my wrist. I have a tidy gouge in my thigh, and I’m all kinds of black and blue from scrapes, cuts, and grazes. Quite honestly, I look a royal mess, even six weeks later.

Yet I’d endure this pain forever and happily look like this for the rest of my life if I could change just one thing.

But I can’t. My only comfort is that our baby didn’t suffer like we have.

Stephanie was charged with attempted murder. I didn’t know, but a few neighbors up the street have CCTV cameras installed to the front of their properties and after careful analysis, apparently her intent became clear. The footage of her coming at me with a knife only moments before cemented it for the police.

I chose not to see that footage, but Jack did. I don’t know why he needed to, and I didn’t ask. They also did tests on the car; the speed on impact was estimated to be around 50 mph. I shouldn’t even be alive. Stephanie’s been put on suicide watch while on remand, and her lawyer has appealed for mental assessments. I’ve heard she’s declared a leave of senses. I’m hoping that means she’ll be certified mad and shipped off to a mental

institute. I don’t care where they take her, just as long as it’s far, far away from me and Jack.

After my parents got over the shock of the accident, my father ripped into Jack with an anger I’ve never seen before. Jack bowed to his fury, putting up no fight, and not retaliating with any kind of excuses. The guilt that consumes him worries me more each day. He’s here, but he’s not here. He smiles, but behind the smiles there’s a perpetual sadness. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. No one was supposed to suffer this much.

My friends and parents have been in and out of my apartment checking up on me, but their help hasn’t been needed. Jack’s taken compassionate leave from work to be with me, to wait on me hand and foot and fuss over my healing body. I can’t say I don’t like having him around so much after all the time we’ve spent snatching hours here and there to be with each other. But I just wish the circumstances weren’t so tragic. We lost our baby. It’s something neither of us knows how to deal with. All we have is each other; I pray that’s enough.

We’ve watched Top Gun a hundred times and eaten a million Giant Strawbs between us. Jack has taken me to physiotherapy every other day since my cast was removed. In between sessions, I perform the exercises that were given to me, on various hard-backed cards, at least six times a day. Six times! So basically all I’ve been doing are arm exercises, and Jack has made sure of it, sitting with me for twenty minutes each time and doing the movements with me, as well as pulling me up if he thinks I’m not doing it effectively. I’m bored of arm exercises.

Now I’m reclined on my couch, flicking through the channels when Jack wanders in with those damn cards. “Not again,” I sigh, the remote control falling to the cushion with my limp arm. “We just did some.”

“Be quiet,” he scolds me gently, shifting my legs and sitting next to me.

“But it’s much better. Look.” I reclaim the remote control and aim it at the television, ignoring how heavy it feels. “I can do this.”

“Yes, but I want you to be able to do this.” He fists his hand and starts thrusting at midair, mimicking some hand action on an invisible cock. I gape at him, not because it might be inappropriate for him to do that, given where we’re at, but because I see a slight glimmer in his gray eyes that’s been missing for weeks. The corners of his mouth twitch, and I find mine following suit. And then he laughs lightly, the sound acting like the best kind of medicine there could be. I giggle, my head falling back to the cushion. It feels good, another piece of my broken heart slipping back into place.

My grief will never diminish completely, but I have to hope the pain will eventually become bearable enough for me to move forward. I hope Jack is moving in the same direction, too. I drop my head and find he’s smiling. It’s such a stunning sight, and it fills me with hope that with my fading pain comes his fading guilt. “You’re very good at that,” I say, reaching for his hand and squeezing it. “Been getting a lot of practice?”

He flicks through the cards, looking up at me with a raised brow. “Wanking pales by comparison after you’ve had the hand of the woman you love wrapped around your cock,” he replies huskily, winking, expanding my grin.

“Did you just say that?”

“Yep.” He holds the card up and I look, seeing the familiar pictures. “Now focus on this.”

“After you’ve just said something so romantic?”

The full-blown Jack Joseph smile makes an appearance. “Concentrate,” he orders.

Begrudgingly, I look at the card. “Easy,” I claim, starting to clench and unclench my fist, over and over. “Next.”

“This one.” He holds up another card.

“There.” I bend my arm at the elbow on a stifled yawn. “Next.”

“Annie, you need to extend your arm fully.” He reaches over and pulls my arm straight. I hiss, feeling my stiff tendons stretch too much. “Yes, much better,” he quips sarcastically. I scowl. He gives me a warning look. “Are you going to carry on arguing with me?”

I grumble my annoyance and start to bend my arm, slowly this time, stretching it back out as far as I can. “Happy?”

“I’m just trying to help.”

“Help me by taking me out,” I plead, with no hope that he’ll listen. I feel like a prisoner, and aside from my mundane visits to the physiotherapist, Jack’s kept me safe inside wrapped in cotton wool. I’m slowly losing my mind. “Or at least let me in my studio so I can do some work.”

“I was thinking of taking you somewhere, actually.” He reaches up to my face and traces the line of a cut on my cheek. “But I don’t want you pushing yourself.”

“I feel so much better.” I need to get out and try to pick up something close to normal instead of lying here with nothing to do other than relive that awful day. This isn’t healthy for Jack, either, being my nursemaid twenty-four-seven. He needs to get out, too.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he says, bending over my reclined body and coming in close to my face.

“What?” I’ll do anything.

“I’ll take you out somewhere if you…” His words fade, his eyes flicking past me fleetingly.

“If I what?”

“If you agree to move in with me.”

I recoil. I don’t mean to. We haven’t spoken about this. Or anything, for that matter. Since I was discharged from hospital, all of our efforts have gone into my recovery, and we’ve both seemed content doing that. I didn’t want to go over and over the horrid events that put me in hospital and snatched away our unborn child. Jack’s been here at my apartment the whole time, and I didn’t question it. Move in with him? Where? His home has been empty, since he’s here and his wife has been locked up. And I know he never wants to step foot in the place again. My apartment is small.

“Maybe we could buy somewhere,” he goes on, sensing that I’m spinning off endless silent questions, and maybe knowing what they are. “I can’t sell my place just yet, until we know what’s happening with…” He trails off again. There’s been no mention of her name and I doubt there ever will be. Jack’s filed for divorce and has left the complicated logistics of it in the hands of his solicitor. “I want somewhere with you. Away from here. Somewhere to call ours.”

“Ours?” I ask, liking the sound of that.

“Just ours.”

“Just ours,” I parrot, struggling for what else to say. Somewhere that is just ours.

“A fresh start. Me and you.” He takes my wrist and fingers my bracelet, prompting me to look down at it. “If you want me.”

Another small piece of my shattered heart drops into place. I add my fingers to his and join him in playing with the precious charms. The dynamics of our relationship have been forced to change. Before, when we were only able to see each other in stolen moments of time, our clothes were usually ripped off within seconds, both of us ravenous with hunger for each other, our time together spent losing ourselves in our private bubble of happiness. Now, when we’re spending every second of the day with each other and I’m laid up, our time is spent…just being. Loving. Supporting. Healing each other as best we know how while being physically unable to take each other into a mind-numbing haze of pleasure that’s got us through so many months. But it’s still pleasurable. Through the grief I’ve been dealing with, being with Jack is still beyond fulfilling. And if anything, it’s only strengthened our love. He’s seen me at my weakest. I’ve seen him at his. Yet together we’re probably stronger than ever. I look up at him, letting my lips tip a little at the corner. “You were always mine, even before I knew it.”

He nods, combing his fingers through my hair. “I’m just so sorry that—”

I take his nape and pull him closer, our lips nearly touching. “I’ll be okay,” I say, cutting him off. “I have you, so I know I’ll be okay.” I’m mindful that my hurt could eat him alive if I let it. I mustn’t let it.

“I’ve put you through so much,” he whispers.

“I put myself through it,” I point out. This isn’t just his doing. I

accepted the repercussions the moment I knowingly got caught up in a web of lies and deceit with a married man. I just didn’t anticipate the extent of the pain and heartache we would go through. I didn’t anticipate Stephanie.

His lip curves a little. “I didn’t exactly give you much choice, did I?”

“You mean when you relentlessly tempted me with your gorgeousness?”

He closes the space between our mouths and kisses me carefully. “I knew I was supposed to find you drunk in that bar that night.”

“I wasn’t drunk.”

“Of course you weren’t.” He smiles against my mouth. “Want some help in the shower?”

I nod against him and let him help me up from the couch, making myself keep the slight discomfort quiet so he can’t withdraw from his end of the deal.

“You’re in pain, aren’t you?” he muses as he holds my waist, walking behind me and matching my sluggish pace.

“I’m fine,” I retort, my face screwing up a little when an unexpected shot of pain bolts through my thigh. I’m still limping slightly, but I’m pretty sure that’s simply because of my lack of regular movement. My muscles and bones are just objecting any time I move because they’re used to feeling redundant.