Knight and Day

Chapter Forty-Two

As it turned out, Kara hadn’t sought comfort in the bottom of a wine bottle. Not because she didn’t want a drink, but because she wanted one so much she feared that she’d drown her own lungs in alcohol if she let herself pour so much as a glass. She had previous form in heartache, after all, or somewhere on the scale, at least. When Richard had jilted her at the altar, she’d anaesthetised the pain and humiliation with liquor. She knew now that it didn’t really help. She’d thought at the time that she couldn’t possibly feel worse. She also knew now that she’d been very, very wrong.

Loving and losing Dylan Day made what Richard had put her through seem like a walk in the park.

The transition from loved to lonely had all happened so fast. Two weeks on and she was still reeling from the impact of that night on the beach, nurturing a glowing ball of pure hatred for the man who’d melted her heart and then stamped all over it.

He’d been so very, very lovely. How could it not have been real? Never for one second had she harboured even the tiniest of doubts, yet their entire time together had been nothing more than a fabrication.

Her emotions veered wildly between the raw, gaping misery of loss and fury hot enough to want him dead. How dare he? How fucking dare he? She’d lost any faith in her own ability to know the bottom from the top, he’d robbed her of her self respect and dignity right along with her heart. Twice already she’d looked up flight information to Ibiza, half certain that she wanted to go back and face him, to make him tell her what she’d done to deserve it. Had he been looking for someone to lay the con on and judged her gullible enough to be the one? Someone to warm his bed in the absence of his wife? But why go to all that trouble? He could have found any number of willing women on Ibiza without needing to woo or lie. He was the beautiful boss of a sex club - if anyone could get sex without trying, it was surely him.

Was it just the thrill of the chase that turned him on? Or did he get his kicks from lying, from watching her fall into his web of deceit?

All of these thoughts and many other, darker ones filled Kara’s brain on a loop until she held her head in her hands and cried, needing the haranguing voices to stop.

He was married. He was divorced. He had a child. The child wasn't his. The child was his. He'd lied about so many things that she had no clue which amongst them were the truth anymore.

She didn’t get up from the kitchen table when she heard Sophie’s key in the door, but she was relieved to hear it none the less, grateful always for her friend’s quiet, strong solidarity at her side.

Sophie came into the room, flicking the kettle on as she passed it, toting carrier bags from which she began to unpack fresh food. She unravelled the soft woollen scarf from her throat and wound it instead around Kara’s neck, ruffling her friend’s hair. She swiped the cold cup of coffee from Kara’s hands and replaced it with a fresh one for each of them.

“Did you sleep last night?”

Kara lifted one shoulder. “Some, I think.” She sipped the hot drink and sighed, pulling the folder on the table towards her and flipping it open.

"Remember we talked about the possibility of opening some stand alone boutiques over the next couple of years? I've been doing some research and I think it's got potential." She sifted through the paperwork quickly, frowning. "I made some lists..."

Sophie reached out and stilled Kara's increasingly erratic hands. "Kara, stop."

"No, it's here somewhere. I made lists... locations..."

Sophie squeezed her fingers, knowing full well that Kara was using work to block out thoughts of Dylan. "Okay," she said. "We'll find the list, and we can talk about work if you want to, but you can't pretend that this hasn't happened forever, you know?"

Kara withdrew her hands and propped her forehead in them instead.

"It's all I've got right now, Soph." She sighed heavily. It wasn't all she wanted, but it was all she'd got. Every time Sophie came she battled with herself not to ask questions about Dylan. Today, she lost her battle.

“Have you spoken to Lucien today?”

Sophie nodded. They spoke all the time. She stroked her wedding ring beneath the table top, wishing he was here instead of still wrapping things up on Ibiza. A one-night honeymoon wasn’t what they’d had in mind.

“And is he still there?” Kara asked tonelessly, and Sophie didn’t need to wonder who she meant. She faltered, wondering how her friend was going to take the news.

“For now. He told Lucien yesterday that he’s decided it’s time to move on.”

Kara let the information sink in. “Move on where?”

“He didn’t say. Back to the States, I expect?”

The man Kara had thought she knew wouldn’t head back to the States. A slow, cold creep of panic stole over her bones.

He was going to disappear, and she’d never see him again.

But so what, she hated him.

He was going to disappear, and she’d never get the chance to force him to answer all of the questions that haunted her.

But he wasn’t worth even one single moment more of her time.

He was going to disappear, and she’d never have the chance to beat her fists on his chest until he was as black and blue on the outside as she was on the inside.

But he didn’t deserve to feel the touch of her hand ever again, even in anger.

He was going to disappear.

Dylan needed to disappear. It had been two weeks since Kara had left, two weeks since Billy had arrived.

It seemed a lifetime longer on both counts. He needed to step up to the plate and make a plan for the future, find some place to lay down roots for Billy, a job with regular hours.

The baby had turned his entire world upside down and inside out. He wasn’t just a tiny person. He was a mini-dictator, and Dylan his foot soldier as much as his father. The first few days had been a living hell of not knowing why Billy was screaming or how to make it stop, but little by little, he was learning to read his son’s cues. He wasn’t confident that he was doing a very good job, but he did at least feel pretty sure that he could keep Billy alive and well, which was several significant steps forward from the day Suzie had left him literally holding the baby.

He owed most of his new knowledge and a big debt of gratitude to Lucien. He’d fully expected to find himself unemployed and unwelcome, but Lucien had turned out to be a measured, loyal friend who didn’t turn away in times of trouble. Dylan knew that Lucien had found himself caught in the most delicate of positions, and his admiration for the other man deepened ten-fold as he observed how he managed to remain true to himself without feeling obligated to entrench himself on one side or the other.

Instead of firing him, he’d given him paternity leave. Paid paternity leave. Company rules, he’d said.

No big deal, he’d said.

But it was a big deal. A big, huge deal. It was the gift of precious breathing space, of time to get a handle on the enormity of what had happened to him, to get to know his baby, to grieve for the love he’d lost.

Billy was the most effective distraction imaginable when he was awake, but when he slept, Kara came. She came to Dylan in his daydreams and in the snatches of sleep he managed at night, sometimes smiling, sometimes furious, and beautiful all the time. His whole body ached with missing her, as if he’d been trampled by wild horses.

The only time of day when he could find any solace at all came at sunset. Most nights, Billy’s fledgling routine allowed for him to be fed, winded and bathed by then, and they’d developed a habit of sitting up on deck, one man and his baby, to watch the horizon darken.

Billy seemed able to sleep easiest held skin to skin, his tiny chest against his daddy’s, his blanket tucked around him until just his small round face and wild-child hair poked out above. Dylan often found his own eyes closing too, drifting into a doze along with his son.

It was there, in that exact position, that Kara found him, two weeks and two days almost to the hour after she’d left.