Maybe that wasn't such a bad idea. He planned to stay away from her for a while. If only for his own sanity.
Chapter Eighteen
Kim couldn't believe he had given her an ultimatum.
Or perhaps she could. She'd pushed him too far.
Now, she had to decide what to do.
She considered going back to her own apartment. But she'd agreed to stay at Jake's until the Nadia situation was resolved. And she would not renege on her agreement. At least that's what she told herself, but she knew it was one more self-delusion. She wanted to feel close to him while she considered her future and whether she was brave enough to make that leap of faith he'd spoken of.
She thought about Jake knowing her father and wondered how the two really tied in together. She hadn't seen her father in years, and she'd believed he hadn't cared what happened to her. That he'd washed his hands of her after she married. She hadn't blamed him, and she hadn't gone back to see him afterward because she'd been scared of rejection.
Looking back, she seemed to have spent her whole life being scared. Like a rabbit. Never working out what she really wanted and going after it, because then she might fail.
If she stayed with Jake, she'd tie herself to one more man who in the end would see her for what she was-unlovable.
And she'd never faced her real fear, the one that lived in that dark place, because then she might have discovered that her mother had abandoned her because she hadn't loved her either.
She'd always thought being in control of her life would solve all her problems. Now she knew it wouldn't keep those she loved from leaving her. Instead, she had to learn to trust that they wouldn't let her down.
She did pop into her own apartment on the way up to pick up the post, and found a big, official-looking letter lying on the mat. She also needed to collect some clean clothes and something else. In the bedroom, she dug the pink pregnancy test from beneath her underwear. She stared at it for a moment, a lump forming in her throat. She could do this. Just not quite yet. Shoving the box in her bag, she left the apartment.
Once back at Jake's place, she phoned in to work and got someone else to take her shift. She didn't think she'd be good for much today; her mind was in turmoil. Part of that was exhaustion; she hadn't slept much over the weekend. She'd been too busy making love with Jake-because it had been making love, not merely sex. She could recognize that now.
So she took herself to bed. Not the one in the spare room she'd been using, but Jake's huge king-size bed. The sheets must have been changed because although she buried her head in the pillow, she caught no trace of him. She'd grown accustomed to his presence, the scent of him in her nostrils, and she couldn't settle. In the end, she sprayed the pillow with his favorite aftershave and tried to fool herself that he was there with her.
She woke a few hours later. The official-looking letter lay on the table beside her, and she picked it up and opened it. A smile spread across her face as she read the words. The letter was from Michael's lawyer. It was a restraining order stating that she wasn't to go anywhere near Michael. Apparently, there had been witnesses when she kicked him.
Hurray! Michael was scared of her; he was such a worm. As if she would want to go anywhere near him, ever again. The thought made her laugh out loud.
Jake's words came back to her. The bit about how she thought she'd put the past behind her when it still controlled her every decision.
Of course, he was right. She'd been scared of loving Jake because of her disastrous relationship with her father and her even more disastrous relationship with Michael.
No way was her cowardly asshole of an ex ruining anything else. She remembered him lying on the floor after she'd kicked him-he was a pathetic bully. She had no fear of him now, and from this moment on, she wouldn't waste a single thought on him.
That just left one more thing to face. Her biggest fear. The one that had haunted her since she was ten. The one thing she had been scared to ask.
She dressed in black jeans, her Doc Martens, and her "Kiss My Ass" T-shirt and headed out.
She presumed her father would be at work. He'd never missed a day that she knew of, and he'd always gone in early in the morning and returned late at night. So she took the bus to his office, close to Westminster. She informed the receptionist who she was and who she wanted to see, but if he refused to see her, there was little she could do-this place had unbelievable security, with armed guards at the doors and the elevators.
The woman spoke briefly into the phone, then turned back to Kim.
"He'll be down in a moment."
Her father looked the same and familiar: his tall, lean figure encased in an impeccable pale-gray business suit, his dark-brown hair cut short and brushed away from his bony face. Suddenly, she was sorry that she hadn't tried to make things up between them earlier.
"Nice T-shirt," he said drily as he came to a halt in front of her.
"I like it," she replied. "There's a coffee shop across the road. Can we go and talk?"
Once in the coffee shop, he slid into the booth opposite her. "So how are you?" he asked.
"I'm good." She took a deep breath. This thing had festered in her mind for too long. It was time to get it out in the open. "Did my mother kill herself?"
Shock flared in his eyes. He swallowed, cleared his throat. "Why on earth would you think that?"
"I heard you fighting the night she died."
He glanced away then back at her. "We were always fighting."
"I know." She forced herself to go on. "But that night she said that you didn't love her, that you wouldn't care if she was dead and then … "
"Then she went out and drove her car into a tree." He was silent for a moment, his expression bleak. "No, she didn't kill herself. You remember what she was like. She loved melodrama and she'd said the same thing so many times. She never meant it and she knew I loved her." He reached across and took Kim's hand where it lay on the table and squeezed. "Besides, she would never have purposefully left you."
She slumped in her chair, pressed her free hand to her eyes as she processed his words. Accepted them.
"Kim? You have to believe that. She loved you. She loved us both."
"I do believe it." It was the truth, and deep inside her, she felt the poison drain away. Later when she was alone she'd remember the good times with her mother, something she'd never allowed herself to do.
He shook his head, concern etched on his face. "I can't believe you thought that she committed suicide all this time. Why didn't you talk to me?"
"I was scared of what you'd say. This way, most of the time I could pretend I didn't believe it, just sometimes … "
When she was unhappy or worried, the idea would rise up and consume her. Those months with Michael, she'd thought about her mother a lot. About how much would it take to drive someone to suicide.
Her father sighed and scrubbed at his short hair. "We were never very good at talking, were we?"
"No," she said. "We were good at arguing though."
"We'll try harder from now on."
"I'd like that."
She felt weak with relief. If only she'd had the guts to face this years ago. Her life would have been totally different. She might never have married Michael. But then she might never have met Jake either, and that didn't bear thinking about. That reminded her there was something else she needed to clear up. Something that had been churning in her mind since she'd discovered Jake knew her father. "Did you employ Jake's company to keep an eye on me five years ago?"
"Did he tell you that?"
"No."
He was silent for a minute, and she held her breath. Finally, he spoke. "I didn't trust your husband. And you were stubborn. You've always been stubborn. I wanted to make sure you were safe."
She should have been mad-this was just another form of control-but all she could think was that he'd cared for her after all. An unpleasant thought occurred to her. "You're not still paying him to look after me, are you?"
Amusement flashed in his face. "No. In fact, he refused payment after he met you. Said it was a conflict of interest. We argued a little. He wanted to pull you out of there straightaway. I said you had to make your own decision. He came around to my way of thinking, but he wasn't happy. So how is he?"
"He's asked me to marry him."
"Does he know what he's getting into?" Her father smiled. "Of course he does. What did you tell him?"
"I haven't yet. I don't know that I can be what he wants."
He studied her for long minutes before he spoke again. "Sometimes we lose the people we love through no choice or fault of our own. And we have to go on, even though at the time it might seem impossible."
"Like you lost my mother?"
He nodded. "You might find this hard to believe, but for all that we fought, I loved her. Desperately."
"I'm sorry."
"So am I. But my point is, right now you have a choice, and maybe you need to stop worrying about what either of you want and decide what you can't live without."
At his words, she had a moment of clarity. That's why she'd been fighting her feelings-because she hadn't been able to contemplate a life without Jake. And if she accepted the lesser deal of being his friend, then she wouldn't screw everything up and lose him completely.