No Matter What (144 page)

“
Jesus
,
India
... you went through all that alone?”

She looked up at him.
 
“Dr Goldman looked after me.
 
He made sure nothing got out; he made sure it was all kept under wraps and that I was fine.
 
But the pain never goes away, Kenny.
 
It never goes away, and not a day has gone by when I don’t remember what I did and wonder ... and wonder what if ...”

Silent tears started to fall down her face again as she looked down at her wedding ring.

“
India
, you said you “thought” nobody else had known.
 
What do you mean by that?
 
Does
somebody else know?”

She nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
 
“Michael.”

Kenny couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
 
“Michael?
 
How the fuck ...?”

“I don’t know, Kenny.
 
I have no idea, but you know as well as I do that he’s capable of anything.”

“Did he
tell
you he knew?”

She nodded again, searching round in her pocket for a handkerchief to blow her nose on.
 
“I went to see him yesterday morning, before filming began.
 
To cut a long story short he’s harbouring some idea that we can get back together and when he realised that’s not going to happen, he hits me with that piece of news.
 
That he knows about me and Ray, and that he’s sure I don’t want Joe to know about it.
 
Well, he got that right.”

“The bastard ...”

“What am I supposed to do, Kenny?
 
I don’t even know what he wants from me.”

“He doesn’t want anything
from
you,
India
.
 
He just wants
you
.”

She blew her nose hard, wiping her eyes again.
 
She was well aware what Michael wanted.
 
And she’d let him have it.

“There’s something else, Kenny.”

She had a look on her face that he recognised only too well, and it didn’t make him feel comfortable.

“What?”

“Michael.”

“What about him?”
 
He could feel his stomach turning over before she’d even replied, and he watched as she started fiddling with the leather bands on her wrist.

“In
London
, the night of the interview, the night I saw him again after all that time …” She looked back up at him.
 
“It shouldn’t have happened, Kenny, I swear I never meant it to happen, but, he’s under my skin, you know …”

“No, I don’t know.
 
What did you do,
India
?”

“I should have gone straight back to JJ.”

“
India
, what did you
do
?”
 
His voice was raised, but only because she was scaring him.

She looked at him again.
 
“I slept with him, Kenny.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ ...” He got up, pacing the floor, pushing a hand through his hair.
 
“What the
fuck
made you do
that
?
 
After everything he’s done … did he make you?”

“No he didn’t fucking
make
me, Kenny.
 
It just happened.”

He stopped and stared at her.
 
“It just happened.
 
How?
 
How did it
just
happen, huh?
 
Was there some invisible force that just pushed the two of you together and there wasn’t a thing either of you could do about it?
 
Don’t talk shit,
India
!
 
What the hell made you
do
that?”

She looked down at her hands, feeling sick with the stress of it all, every conflicting emotion she was experiencing fighting each other inside her head.
 
When she spoke her voice was quiet.
 
“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know … he fucking
raped
you
India
!”

“I wanted it, Kenny.
 
This time.
 
I wanted
him
.”

“He raped you.
 
Have you forgotten that?”

She just looked at him.
 
“What do you want me to do, Kenny?
 
Have you seen the mess I’m in here?”

“Will that be the mess you’ve just made Christ knows how much worse by fucking your ex-husband?”

“Don’t, Kenny.”

He sat down next to her.
 
“You are unbelievable … you let him go there again and then he does this to you, have you not seen the kind of man he is,
India
?
 
Do you not get that yet?”

“I never wanted this to happen …”

“Then you should have been stronger, honey.
 
You should have walked away from him.”

She knew that.
 
She knew all of that.
 
She didn’t need the lecture.
 

She lay her head against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes for a second, trying to stop more tears from falling.
 
“I really loved him once, you know?
 
I loved him so much, yet, when I looked at him yesterday ... I looked at him and he wasn’t the same man, Kenny.
 
I fell in love with a different Michael.”

Kenny got up, going over to the table in the corner, pouring out two glasses of whisky.
 
“Did you?”

She looked up at him.
 
“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t fall in love with a different Michael.
 
He’s the same man,
India
.
 
You just couldn’t see it.”

A sudden wave of tiredness washed over her.
 
She felt drained.
 
Talking to Kenny had taken every ounce of energy she’d had left but there was someone else she needed to talk to.
 
She had to do it while she had the strength and the will.
 
She had to tell Ray that Michael knew.
 
She had to tell him JJ couldn’t find out, not now, not ever.
 
She had to talk to him.

“I need to talk to Ray,” she whispered, looking at the fire again.

Kenny came over to her, sitting beside her, taking her hand and she turned to face him.
 

“It’s all going wrong, Kenny, and I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, I really don’t.
 
But I can deal with Michael.
 
I can.”

“Can you?
 
You’ve let him back in,
India
, and that’s probably the most dangerous thing you could have done.”

She looked down at their joined hands.
 
She really needed to sleep, but she had to talk to Ray.
 
Before any of this mess got any worse.

“I need to talk to Ray.”

Kenny sighed, sensing she’d had enough of him for one night.
 
The conversation was over, but it was nowhere near finished.

“Do you want me to call him?
 
Get him to come over?
 
I can go and bother Bobby, I’m sure he won’t mind.”

India
smiled, thinking he was right.
 
Bobby might be practically married to Miguel but he still harboured that little crush on Kenny.

“You guys can have some time alone.
 
Ok?”
 
He squeezed her hand.
 
“It’s the right thing to do,
India
, trying to keep this whole situation as much in control as it possibly can be.
 
For now.”

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
 
“Thank you, Kenny.
 
For listening.
 
I know that by telling you all this I’m putting everything on your shoulders too and I’m sorry for that …”

He smiled at her, squeezing her hand.
 
“That’s what I’m here for, babe.
 
I’ll go call Ray.”

It took just ten minutes for Ray to come over from the main house.

“You weren’t busy were you?”
India
asked, taking him into the living room and sitting down on the sofa.

He shook his head.
 
“No.
 
I was just watching some TV.”

“Is Joe wondering where I am?”

“He just thinks you’re here going over the script with Kenny.
 
He’s ok.
 
Last time I saw him he was playing football with Ethan in the hallway.”

“Is Ellie asleep?”

Ray sat down next to her.
 
“I read her a bedtime story and she’s fine.
 
Yes, she’s asleep.”

India
felt the tears start again, just thinking about her baby girl.
 
Thinking about the baby that never was.
 
The baby that had never had a chance.

“But you didn’t get me over here for small talk, did you?”

She looked at him, shaking her head.
 
“No.
 
Ray ... I want to talk.
 
About what happened, but ... but there’s something you need to know first.”

She told him about Michael, told him what he knew.

“He’s a dangerous man, Ray.
 
I just never realised how dangerous he could be, until now.”

“Is he going to tell JJ?”

India
shrugged.
 
“I really don’t know.
 
I don’t know what he’s going to do anymore.”

Ray ran a hand through his hair, sighing heavily.
 
“Maybe
we
should tell JJ.”

India
looked at him, a cold shiver running right through her.
 
“No, Ray.
 
No.
 
I don’t want him to know.
 
He can’t know.”

“Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if he hears it from us rather than Michael?”

She shook her head, desperately trying to keep the tears at bay.
 
She was tired of crying.
 
She’d cried far too much and it was time to get strong.

“Please, Ray.
 
I’m not even sure I’ve got my head around everything that happened myself.
 
I
can’t
tell him.
 
I can’t.”

“Ok ... ok.
 
But you’ve told Kenny?”

She pulled her knees up and hugged them to her chest, resting her chin on them.
 
“I had to tell someone.”

“You could have come to me.”

She looked at him again.
 
“You’re here now, aren’t you?”

He stood up for a second, taking his jacket off and throwing it over the back of the sofa, walking over to the table where the whisky bottle was.
 
“Do you mind if I ...?”

She shook her head.

“Do you want one?”

“No, I’m fine.
 
I’ve got one here.”

He got himself a drink and sat back down beside her, his eyes meeting hers, a sense of vulnerability emanating out of her as he looked at her.
 
She seemed lost, tired, lonely.

“What we did ... what
I
did, I didn’t give you a chance to tell me how you felt, did I?
  
Not really.
 
It was all about me when … when there was two of us involved.”

He took a drink and put the glass down, clasping his hands between his slightly open knees, looking down at them.

“Everything was a mess,
India
.
 
It was an unexpected mess and nobody’s to blame.”
 
He looked at her.
 
“
Nobody
,
India
.”

“Do you ever wonder though, Ray?
 
What that baby would have been like?
 
What might have happened if ...”

She started crying again, huge, silent tears streaming down her face and he instinctively moved forwards to hold her.
 
They’d been through this together, on opposite sides of The Atlantic but they’d gone through it together and he didn’t want to see her like this, hurting so much.
 
She didn’t deserve it.

“Come on, it’s alright, it’s ok.
 
It’s ok.”
 
He gently tilted up her chin and looked at her, his heart breaking at the pain in her eyes.
 
“And yes.
 
Yes, I do sometimes wonder but it does no good.
 
Really, it doesn’t.
 
We need to talk about this then put it behind us because it does no good to keep thinking about it, I know that now.”