The waiting room wasn’t much different to an ordinary hospital, if Mike ignored the fact that they’d been locked in, and they were allowed only the clothes on their backs—Shaunna had even been ordered to take the clip out of her hair and was currently in the process of braiding it.
“Thanks for this,” he said. He still couldn’t believe she’d offered to come with him.
Shaunna’s hand wrapped around his and squeezed. “Like I said, hun, no thanks needed.” She held his gaze, waiting for him to acknowledge what she’d said. He nodded and forced out a smile. He didn’t want to be here, was almost certain Rachel had no better side to appeal to, but he was desperate enough to try if it meant getting her off their backs for good.
The previous Friday, when Mike had called the hospital to book their visit, the hospital staff had told him Rachel needed to approve it, and he’d expected her to refuse. Then the confirmation letter came, with approval for both him and Shaunna, and it got him thinking.
Perhaps they’d fallen into the trap and were playing their predetermined parts in Rachel’s scheme. After all, Mike was a way to get to Andy, and Shaunna an obstacle she’d tried to remove. Yet, not once had Rachel attempted to cause Shaunna physical injury, and it had finally dawned on Mike why.
Rachel was clever, as he knew only too well. She’d spun a sophisticated web of lies that fooled everyone into believing she was a beautiful, innocent young woman. Her friends fell for it; Mike fell for it; even her own mother, who knew her better than anyone. Really, Jackie was the biggest victim of them all.
But there was one truth that underpinned it all: Rachel was in love with Andy. That’s why she refused to sever her connection to Bethan, because whatever happened, or however long Rachel stayed locked away, Bethan was Andy’s niece, a way to reach him. In Rachel’s warped, twisted reality, she still believed she stood a chance of getting him to love her, and the one surefire way of destroying that chance was to hurt the woman he loved.
A door was unlocked and opened, and a member of staff looked around the visitors gathered within. “Come through, please,” he ordered.
Mike and Shaunna got up and followed the others, who seemed at far greater ease with the procedure. They were led into another room, which reminded Mike of the canteen in his high school, with backless seats attached to tables that were, in turn, fixed to the floor. Mike and Shaunna held back, waiting for the other visitors to sit down before they took one of the remaining two free tables, grateful that it was closest to the door through which they had entered.
With everyone seated, members of staff opened one of the doors on the other side of the room, and several patients came through, each making their way to a different table. Mike had expected them all to be in some kind of prison overalls, but they were wearing their own clothes. Another door unlocked, more patients entered, and a young-looking woman strolled towards them. Shaunna gasped at the same time as Mike realised it was Rachel. Her hair was short and a much darker blonde than he recalled, her figure more rounded, her expression…blank.
“Hi.” She sat opposite Mike, her eyes unfocused, as if she were drunk. “Thank you for coming to see me. How are you?”
“I’m good, thanks. You?”
“I’m doing OK now I’m here.” She lifted her hand to indicate the room they were in and, by extension, the hospital. Her sweater sleeve slid back, revealing dressings on her wrist and arm. Mike stopped looking at them, but she’d already noticed. “I hurt myself,” she said.
“Your mum told me.”
“That’s why they brought me here. It’s a hospital. Did you know that?”
Mike nodded. Her words were slurred because of medication, he guessed, and he felt sorry for her. If this was how she would spend the rest of her life, she might as well be dead. He wouldn’t want to live like that.
“How are you, Shaunna? And the babies?”
“We’re all very well, thanks, Rachel.”
“Felix told me you had twins.”
Shaunna nodded but didn’t elaborate, either because she didn’t want to divulge further information or didn’t know what to say. Mike was struggling, too, although he’d never really been the talkative type, which had annoyed Anne no end, and Rachel had used it against him, accusing him of ignoring her when he wasn’t. He only had one thing to say to her, and now she was sitting in front of him, he wasn’t sure he could say it, but not because he was afraid of her. With the hospital staff dotted around the room and her drugged-up state, she was harmless, and the words he had planned felt like a death sentence.
“Is Andy OK?” Rachel asked.
“Yes, he is,” Shaunna answered.
“I’d hoped he would come and see me.”
Shaunna looked at Mike as she said, “He won’t.”
Rachel rubbed her wrist with her thumb. “I wish I didn’t love him.” For a moment, she frowned and then smiled. “How’s Bethan?”
That was all the confirmation Mike needed to know he’d been right. Rachel had done the social niceties and asked how they were. From there, she’d asked after Andy; Bethan was nothing more than an afterthought. “She’s fine,” Mike confirmed. “She won’t be coming to see you, either.”
“But my mum said you were thinking about it.”
“That’s not true, I’m afraid. You will have no part in my daughter’s life. Do you understand?”
“I’m her mum.”
“You gave birth to her, but you were never her mum. As far as I’m concerned, you gave up your parental rights the day you walked out on her. She doesn’t even know who you are.” It was fighting talk, and Mike’s fear returned—better than the pity that was breaking his resolve.
Something briefly flickered in Rachel’s dim, emotionless eyes, a hint of the heartless psychopath who had terrorised him for eight long months, made him fight to prove his paternity, tried to take his daughter away. Even now, when she was behind bars, she was still trying to manipulate him. She blinked, cutting her cold-as-steel glare from Mike to Shaunna and back again, and his fear dissipated, literally in the blink of an eye.
He knew her game now, and she no longer had any power over him. His mistake had been the same as Jackie’s, hoping to find a trace of compassion where there was none, because he, too, had bought into the myth that a mother’s love was unconditional. In Jackie’s case, as with his own mum, that was the reality. But this monster before him cared for no-one but herself.
Rachel got up from the table, staring hard, not at Mike—he was no use to her anymore—but at Shaunna. “Give my love to Andy,” she said. And then she turned and walked away.
“I won’t,” Shaunna muttered and grabbed Mike’s hand. “Are you all right?” she asked.
Mike nodded. “Yeah, cheers. Are you?”
“I will be once we get out of here.”
***
Jackie had taken Bethan to a nearby pub with a play area, not that Bethan was old enough to use it, but there was nowhere else for them to go, and Jackie was still under the illusion that once Mike had spoken to Rachel, he’d let her see her daughter. It was never going to happen. No child should ever have to go through that experience, especially to see a woman who was their mother in name only.
As soon as Bethan spotted Mike walking across the pub, she shouted, “Da!” and he strode over and scooped her out of her pushchair, cuddling her close until she bashed his face with her palm.
“Hey, baby girl,” he said. She grinned at him, showing off her teeth—four of them now. “Has she been all right?” he asked Jackie.
“Yes, she’s been a very good girl. How did it go at the hospital?”
“OK, I guess. She’s on some serious medication, isn’t she?”
Jackie nodded. “Yes. It’s to stop her from hurting herself again, and to control the personality disorder. It seems to me all it’s done is dull her senses.” She was watching Mike closely, and while he was aware of it, he kept his eyes on his daughter. “You haven’t changed your mind,” Jackie said.
“No. I’m sorry. I’ve told Rachel she won’t see Bethan.”
He’d expected Jackie to be devastated by his decision—even though, from his point of view, nothing had changed—and for a while, she was very quiet and thoughtful. Shaunna went to buy drinks and order food; they were remaining near the hospital so Jackie could attend the evening visiting session. Mike fussed unnecessarily over Bethan, uncomfortable with the silence but confident that reasserting his position had been the right thing to do.
Eventually, Jackie sighed and said, “I accept your decision, Mike. You have my word I won’t mention it again.”
After Jackie had left for the hospital, Shaunna went outside to call Andy. He and Dan had taken an overnight ferry to Dublin for a business meeting, and they’d taken the kids—all four of them, seeing as Shu was off school for half-term. Mike couldn’t imagine they’d get much business done with three babies and a preschooler in tow, but what did he know? He only had Bethan to worry about, or not worry so much anymore. She was sleeping, and the pub was quiet. It was the most relaxed Mike had felt in a long time.
“I miss this,” he said to Shaunna when she returned from her call.
“What’s that?”
“Going out for a drink.”
“Why don’t you ask your brothers?”
“Yeah, I might just do that. How’s their trip going? Everything all right?”
“Oh, they’re fine, apart from Dan failing to mention he got seasick.”
“Nice.”
“And Shu now wants a pet tiger.”
Mike chuckled. “They’d best look for somewhere with a big garden, then.”
“You’re not kidding. I think Andy found them a house, actually.”
“Has Dan really handed over the decision to him?”
“Yep. Only because he doesn’t want to fight Adele.”
“Fair enough.” Mike wouldn’t want to take her on, either. She was feisty, was Adele. She knew her own mind and had Dan right where she wanted him, but not in the same way Rachel had controlled Mike. He could see the difference now, between women who were strong and independent, like Adele and Shaunna, and women who were abusive and controlling, like Rachel. Thankfully, women like Rachel were few and far between, although it wasn’t so long ago he’d had trouble believing that.
“You know what I really miss?” Mike said. “Going for a drink with a woman. I don’t even need the romance—definitely don’t need all the crap that goes with it. The company’s enough for me, and it’s different from being out with the lads. No pressure to get hammered, for starters.”
Shaunna nodded. “I know what you mean. It’s what I like about meeting up with my male friends. I think, on the whole, the opposite sex judge you less harshly. Like, when I’m with Adele, she’ll pass comment on other women, and sometimes I just know she’s taking a poke at me.
“This one time we were at the beach, there was a woman there who was a bit bigger than me—not much—and she was wearing a bikini, which was really nice, gorgeous colours that complemented her complexion, and it fitted her really well, so it wasn’t as if she was bulging out all over the place.
“But Adele was looking down her nose, saying how big women shouldn’t wear bikinis. They should stick to swimming costumes, maybe even cover up with a sarong, which I do if I’m somewhere like that, because I don’t want people like Adele thinking the same about me.”
Mike shook his head, genuinely bamboozled. “But you’re stunning, Shaunna. Why would anybody complain about seeing you in a bikini?” He realised what he’d said and screwed his eyes shut. “Sorry. My bad.”
Shaunna laughed. “It’s OK. Dan’s done it a couple of times. It’s a Jeffries-man thing.”
Mike opened his eyes a fraction and peered at her through his lashes. She smiled and gave him a saucy wink.
“Dan flirts with you and gets away with it?” he asked, not believing it for a second.
“Not in front of Adele.”
“I was gonna say.”
“Anyway,” Shaunna continued, “with having Krissi and everything, I heard enough bitching to last me a lifetime, and it was almost exclusively by girls, who grew up into judgemental women. I’m not saying men aren’t judgemental; maybe they are when they’re with each other. But if they do judge me, it’s usually positive, and who doesn’t love a bit of flirting? I mean, if you’ve got it, why not flaunt it?” Shaunna rolled her eyes. “That sounds so bigheaded, doesn’t it?”
“Not if it’s true.” Mike knew he should look away. He was taking too much notice of the many assets Shaunna possessed—her glossy long red hair, still pulled back in a braid, a few escaped curls tumbling forward onto her face, long-lashed green eyes, plump dusky lips, large round breasts—he really needed to stop.
Shaunna laughed, her cheeks flushed bright pink. “I know what you’re doing,” she teased.
“Sorry.” Mike was getting a little hot under the collar.
“Don’t be. It’s only flirting…well, maybe a bit of ogling, but it’s a huge compliment. I’m not offended.”
“Yeah, Andy might not be quite so understanding.”
“Surprisingly, he’s OK with it. He says it makes him feel victorious. Other men can look all they like, but I’m his woman. Ha, that makes him sound like a caveman. But he’s not possessive or jealous.”
Mike understood what she meant; he’d felt the same about Anne, and then he’d lost her, although not to another man, which was something. To the end, they’d had a decent sex life. It was the rest of it that fell apart. “That’s the other bit I miss. The intimacy.” He hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
“Has it been a while?” Shaunna asked.
“Yeah. A long while. About a year, I think. I kind of blocked all memory of sex with Rachel.”
“Understandable.”
Mike delved briefly into the little he did recall of their relationship, such as it was one. He’d lost his attraction to Rachel almost as soon as she’d moved in, and fear was the only reason he’d got it up for her. He’d faked orgasms so she would leave him alone and was grateful she was out with her mates, and no doubt sleeping around, more than she was at home with him.
“You need a friend with benefits,” Shaunna asserted.
Mike laughed and shook his head. “Do they even exist?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s what Andy and Jess were.”
“I thought they were together.”
“Maybe on and off, but they were never exclusive.”
“I didn’t know that.” Whether having a ‘friend with benefits’ was the way forward for Mike, he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he didn’t want another relationship yet, but even if he did get lucky enough to form a friendship with a woman who wanted the same as he did, at some point, he’d need to tell her about his testicle, which would inevitably lead to telling her about Rachel. Still, he’d managed to tell Leah, and if the attraction had been there…
“Penny for them.”
Mike realised he was smiling. “I’m finally healing, Shaw.” He flinched as if expecting her to hit him, but it was all an act. “Na,” he amended.
She laughed. “Yes, Mi—Ke. You are.”
* * * * *