CHAPTER 23
Dave drops us off in front of the building and comes up in the lift, seeing us in; he heads home once we are safely delivered but reminds us that he’s on 24 hour call if we need him for anything.
Jim and Ash haven’t said a word to me all the way home and I’m shitting myself that they know what I did with Cam. I need to get into the shower, I smell of sex, dirty, filthy, adulterous, guilty sex and I smell of Cam and I need to wash him away.
“I’m going to shower,” I tell the girls.
“George, wait, we need to talk to you,” Jimmie calls out. I turn and finally look at the pair of them.
“What’s wrong?” I ask as nonchalantly as possible.
“George, I’m really worried, Lens still not answering his phone, even Milo’s not answering.”
“Stop panicking,” Ash jumps in. “They’re probably drunk in some French bar or something and just can’t hear their phones.”
My stomach does a nervous back flip, the last time I couldn’t get hold of Sean, was the night Haley had made her accusations. Haley the f*cking whore, my fists clenched at the thought of that slut, despite venting my rage on her earlier, there was still so much more damage that I’d like to inflict, if Cam hadn’t been there to stop me.
Cam, the enormity of what I did starts to hit me. I swallow down the bile with my tears, which Jimmie mistakes for worry over the boys. I am worried, of course I am, chances are, Ash is probably bang on with where they are and what they are doing and I have absolutely no right to feel angry at what they might be getting up to.
“Ash is probably right Jim, it’s nearly morning now, they have an early flight home anyway and the planes landing at City airport so they’ll be here after lunch, let me have a shower and then we’ll make some more calls. We’ll call the hotel and wake them up if we have to, serves them right for not answering their mobiles.”
The second I step into the shower I let my tears go and I allow my brain to start trying to make sense of my actions, but I can’t. Why would I do that? Why did I do that? What a stupid, selfish thing to do. If this ever gets out, no I can’t even think along those lines, I have to put it all away, I have to never think of it again and carry on. I love Sean, I want to be with Sean, and nothing at all has changed there. My life is with Sean, we’re planning on starting a family next year and I won’t let my actions tonight come in the way of that.
Then it hits me.
Oh God.
No.
How could I be so stupid?
I’m not on the pill.
What if Cam’s made me pregnant?
What if, right at this minute, his sperm are heading toward my ovaries?
I grab the sponge and force it up inside myself, twisting it around inside of me, washing away every last trace of Cam from my body but knowing full well that I may already be too late, I may already have a piece of him and a piece of me forming, developing, dividing inside me right now.
I stand with my eyes closed, my face up to the ceiling, letting the water hammer down on the back of my head and hope that it can wash away my shame and my guilt and if it doesn’t, then I’ll just have to live with the consequences of my unforgivable actions tonight.
The door to the shower cubical opens and I’m startled out of my thoughts. Sean is standing naked in front of me, wearing a grin and an enormous hard on. Without saying a word he leans in and sucks on my left nipple, then looking up at me, he says, “Good morning Georgia Rae, I f*cking missed you baby.”
I laugh and wrap my arms around his neck and breathe him in. “How are you here so early?’ I ask.
“We just wanted to get home, Len rearranged the flight so we could fly right back after we played, but they didn’t have a pilot available so we had to hang about for a bit but we’re here now, six hours earlier than we should be. You not pleased to see me?” He’s kissing my neck and my jaw as he speaks.
“Of course I am.”
“Show me; show me how pleased you are.”
So I do.
* * *
When I wake up later that morning, the sun is shining through the wide open windows and a warm breeze is blowing on my bare back, I’m lying across the bed, alone it would seem. As I climb out of bed, I’m amazed at how well I feel; no hangover at all but a mouth that’s as dry as a nun’s crutch, I head for the kitchen in search of coffee and from where I can hear talking and laughter, as I walk out into the open plan living area. Ash is sitting on Jimmie’s chest, obviously demonstrating what I did to Whorely last night.
I pause for a second then say in my croaky morning voice, “You punch like a girl Ash, I hit her so much harder than that.”
All eyes turn to me, Marley starts a slow clap and says, “Here she is, our very own battle queen She Ra, well done George, you’re all over the papers.”
I let out a big sigh and fold my arms across my chest. I’ve pulled on Sean’s boxers and the t-shirt he was wearing last night and nothing else. I look at Len, my sensible brother. “I’ve been onto the lawyers; they’re doing what they can with regard damage control. You really do need to think about anger management classes George.”
“Like f*ck she does,” Ash says. She climbs off of Jim and comes over and gives me a kiss on the cheek. “That bitch got what was coming to her. If G hadn’t of smacked her, I would’ve.” She drapes her arm around my shoulders. “She’s my f*cking hero and she’s got the best legs and tits and if I didn’t love you so much Marls, I would totally bang your sister.”
“F*ck baby, you’ve just made me totally hard. Is that wrong, that the thought of you banging my sister has made me hard?”
“Yes,” we all say together. My eyes meet Sean’s and he holds his hand out to me, I walk over to him and he pulls me between his legs as he sits on a stool.
“One night G, I go away for one night and look at the trouble you get into.” I suddenly feel nauseous and swallow down the bile that rises to my throat; he has no idea exactly how much trouble I got into. No one does, except me and Cam. The colour must leave my face as he adds, “I’m only joking babe, don’t stress about it, I just wish I’d been there to watch you give it to her.”
“I bet,” Marley adds. “Bitch fights are the best. I always get horny when I watch them.”
I shake my head at my brother as Ash slaps him in the chest. “You are one sick individual Marls dya know that?” I ask him.
“Yep, just the way my woman likes me, nothing wrong with getting excited about a bit of girl on girl action, it’s f*cking hot, hey baby?” Ashley blushes and looks mortified.
“What!?” me and Jimmie both shriek together, Ash just shrugs. “Oh shut up you two, don’t judge, we were smashed and this bird come on to me and Marls got all excited so we just went to a hotel for a bit of fun.”
“F*cking lot of fun baby, it was a whole lotta fun.” I’m intrigued and oddly turned on, I lean back into Sean’s lap and realise, he is too.
“But were you okay with that Ash, Marley with another bird I mean?” Jimmie asks.
“Oh she didn’t touch Marley. No f*cking way was I having that, although they sort of did, but only ‘cos they were both fighting over me,” she grinned as she spoke.
“Shit!” Sean says a bit too loudly.
“See, I told ya Maca, it’s f*cking hot, all that shit we’ve done before is bollocks compared to watching another bird with your misses. It was f*cking incredible. Don’t get me wrong, I could never let a bloke go there, no f*ckin’ way but watching her with a bird was f*ckin’ mind blowing, for both of us, ay babe?” Ashley just nods as she looks at us all, waiting for a response.
I turn and look at Sean with raised eyebrows. “All the shit you’ve done with birds before?”
“G,” he sighs out the letter. “It was over ten f*ckin’ years ago and anyway, what about this?”
He reaches behind him and holds up one of the Sunday tabloids and there, half a page big, is a picture of me looking up at Cam. Alongside the head line – “Rock star Macas Wife hooks up with East End bad boy! Could this mean Carnage for the golden couple?”
I felt sick, I could feel my cheeks burn and my mouth was so dry I was incapable of speech, which was a good thing anyway as my brain was incapable of forming a sentence.
“Aw Mac, she was bloody lucky to have TDH there last night, calmed the whore down and stopped her from getting the Ol’ Bill involved, G was only saying thank you to the bloke.” Sean looks past me to Ashley.
“TDH?” Shit!
“Tall Dark and Handsome, come on Maca, you might be a bloke but you’ve gotta admit, he’s a f*cking good looking bastard, even for an old bloke.” Jesus, Ashley digs me out, then drops me right back into an even bigger pile of shit every time she opens her mouth. I don’t know whether to kiss her or slap her.
“That true?” Sean asks.
“What bit?”
“Did he stop her from calling the Police?” I nod.
“I had no idea he owned the place, I haven’t seen him for years, he probably wanted to avoid the Police getting involved as much as I did.” My heart is pounding so hard in my chest, I worry that Sean will hear it, but he says no more.
We all eventually shower and dress and make our way over to my parents’ house for a Sunday BBQ in the sun, they have babysat all seven grandchildren all night but don’t look in the least bit phased when we eventually arrive. Bailey and his new girlfriend Samantha, a glamour model, join us. It’s the August bank holiday weekend in England and none of us have to be anywhere on the Monday as it’s a public holiday so we all end up staying up, laughing and talking, drinking and getting stoned until the sun comes up, enjoying our first time all together as a family in over a year.
I spend the next three weeks like a cat on hot bricks as I wait for my period to arrive. Carnage are getting ready to record a new album so the boys are in the studio at the end of our garden from about lunchtime every day, sometimes finishing up at four, sometimes not till nine and even then Sean is usually off in his own little world, working on lyrics. I feel a little bit lost, it seems like ages since I’ve had this much spare time and each day seems to drag as I wait for my period to arrive and having so much time to think, brings me to a few conclusions.
I love our house in Hampstead, you would never know that we were so close to the city but I’d decided that when we did finally have a baby, I wanted to be closer to my Mum and the rest of my family, who all lived within a five mile radius of each other. So I had started to look for houses for sale in the Essex countryside near where my parents lived. I had left my number with a few agents with a list of specifications on what we were looking for. Sean’s success had meant that we had homes in several countries. We were lucky, we didn’t really live a lavish lifestyle but we had the money to do anything we really wanted to in life, so telling an estate agent that we had no limit on our budget for a new home had them calling me almost daily.
“Hello.” I picked the phone up as I stood deciding what to where and what to do with my day on this boring wet Wednesday.
“Good morning, may I please speak to Mrs McCarthy?” I was always wary when answering the phone. We’d been caught out before by journalists looking for a story and by crazy fans that had somehow gotten hold of our home number.
“Who’s calling?” I asked.
“It’s Vera White, from Blackthorn White and Co Real Estate.” I liked Vera, she was very proper but swore like a trooper, she was in her fifties and had made me laugh from our very first meeting when she told me that I was a lucky bitch and that despite being happily married, she would gladly jump my Husband’s bones if he ever decided he needed some attention from an older woman. She was also one of the few agents who’d actually shown me through the houses that had ticked most of our boxes. Although, as yet, we still hadn’t found ‘The One’. Like our home in Hampstead, I knew that I’d just know when we found the right house.
“Hi Vera, this is Georgia, what can I do for you?”
“Oh, hi Mrs McCarthy. Look, I have a property that’s just come on the market that you may be interested in.”
“Okay, can you give me some details?”
“I sure can, it’s a completely refurbished Georgian style farm house. It’s set on twelve acres, behind security gates and high fences all the way around, six bedrooms all en suite, plus two more bathrooms, five receptions, a cinema room, a gym, a sauna, an indoor pool, a games room, paddocks and stables for six horses and there’s a fully detached three bed roomed cottage on the grounds. I can email you a floor plan and some photo’s if you’re interested?” She asks hopefully.
“Wow, that’s a lot of house.”
“It is,” she replies. “And the best part of all is that it’s only three miles from your parents place.”
Now I’m definitely interested. “Okay, when can you get me through?”
“How does this afternoon sound?”
“Perfect but I’m sorry Vera, I’ll probably bring my Mum along with me, not Sean, he’s busy in the studio right now but if I like it, I promise I’ll bring him along next time.”
“Good girl, grab a pen and I will give you the address…”
Two hours later, I am walking through ‘The One’ with my Mum and Vera. It’s absolutely perfect, it’s big and spacious but not sprawling, there’s plenty of room on the grounds for Sean to build a studio and I love the fact that it already has stables. I had just taken up riding lessons again and was desperate to own a horse of my own; my Mum still had hers, but had gotten rid of mine years ago. I knew I wouldn’t be able to ride when I was pregnant but I didn’t plan on being pregnant permanently. We walked through the house twice and let Vera give her spiel on the property, the original part of the building had been built in the early eighteen hundreds and had been extended and renovated over the years and had undergone a major refurbishment ten years ago. It needed a more modern kitchen and the bathrooms needed updating but other than that, it just needed a lick of paint and new carpets. I loved it, it felt right, and it felt like home.
We stood in the kitchen, discussing the pros and cons of the property and the price. I was trying not to show too much enthusiasm as I wanted to be able to negotiate on the asking price, although all things considered, it was pretty reasonably priced. As we stood talking, we all became aware of a door closing and footsteps coming down the hall.
“Do excuse me; I wasn’t aware anyone was going to be here.” Vera turned to meet whoever the footsteps belonged to, when Cam appeared in the doorway.
You have got to be f*cking kidding me!
Cam!
Cam in jeans, a t-shirt and a pair of flip flops, looking larger than life and as hot as holy hell, I actually swayed on the spot as the air left my lungs and refused to allow any more to enter.
“Oh, Mr King, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t aware you would be home today, I was just showing… ”
His eyes met mine, he looked at me like he wanted to eat me, right there and then, in front of the estate agent and my mother, the yearning, longing in his eyes was unmistakable and I had to hold on to the marble bench top as he whispered, “Kitten” in that deep voice of his.
“Excuse me?” Vera asked and I nearly laughed. Did she think he was talking to her?
His eyes left mine and were on Vera’s then my Mum’s. “Mrs Layton, how are you, hope Frank’s well?”
My Mums eyes flicked from Cam to me and then back to Cam again. “I’m very well thank you Cameron, we both are.”
“Good, that’s good, please give him my regards.”
“I will do.”
He nodded his head, his eyes back on me, while he spoke to Vera. “I’m sorry Vera, I didn’t realise you would be showing someone through so soon.”
“Yes, well you did say we could move on it straight away.”
“I did and you are that’s good.”
“And what a coincidence that you all happen to know each other.”
None of us say anything for a moment, my Mum being the first to speak, “Vera, why don’t you show me the pool again, that’s going to be just perfect for when the baby gets a bit bigger.”
My Mum looks back at me as she speaks and shakes her head, my Mum’s not stupid, anyway, you would have to be deaf, dumb, blind and thick as shit not to notice the silent interaction between Cam and myself and my Mum was none of those things.
Cam stalked toward me. “You’re pregnant?”
He looks like he was going to cry, I shake my head. “No, but we’re hoping to be, next year.” I cannot give him a clue, that I may already be and that the baby could be his.
He reaches out and strokes my face with the back of his knuckles and I stupidly lean into his touch, my eyes fill with tears. “Why Kitten, why him?”
“He owns me Cam, I have no choice. My heart belongs to him.”
“Not all of it, I have a piece, all be it a very small piece, but I know; I just know if you gave me a chance…”
I shake my head. “No, no Cam, it’s too late for us, you would’ve had to have met me when I was ten to have ever stood a chance.”
“I don’t believe you Kitten; don’t have a baby with him. Please, wait a while, think about it, think about what you really want. Who you really want. If he owns you so completely then why did you let me f*ck you just a couple of weeks ago. All this time and the instant we are together it’s there, its back.”
His words and the guilt that I feel cause me actual physical pain, like an ice cold blade has been stabbed into my chest, dragged down to my belly and twisted around and around a few times and it’s no less than I deserve.
“I want you Kitten, no one has ever wanted anything more than I want you. Please, give me a chance, choose me, let yourself love me enough, let me show you how good it can be. I’ll never hurt you; I’ll never make you doubt me, not for a second.” A sob escapes me and fat tears plop from my lashes onto my cheeks, he wipes them away with his thumbs.
“I bought this house for you.”
“What?”
“That night, when we argued in the restaurant, when I behaved like a prick, I had put an offer in on this place, I knew you would love it. It was close to your parents and it had stables and you’d told me how you wanted to start horse riding again, that you hadn’t had time to get out to your Mum’s and ride and I saw the house, the location, the stables and knew you’d love it.” I shake my head in complete disbelief at what he’s telling me.
“I was all over the place that night,” he continues, “I was in negotiations to buy this place and I had a business deal falling apart in Amsterdam. Someone else was bidding on this and it looked like I was going to have to leave the country, that’s why I was in such a bad mood.” He swallows and I watch his adams apple bob up and down as his eyes dart over my face.
“But on the Saturday morning, the other party pulled out so the deal was done, this place was mine. That’s why I flew home from Amsterdam early, that’s why I came straight to the club. I wanted to tell you about the house, I wanted to ask you to move in with me.” I can’t believe what I’m hearing, I shake my head continuously, my tears flow, continuously and I hold my hand over my mouth, as I sob.
“I can’t do this, I can’t do this Cam. I don’t want to hear this, please, please, I’m begging you, leave me alone, just leave me to love my Husband in the way he deserves.”
He kisses each of my eyes. “I can’t Kitten, it’s killing me, I won’t chase you, but every chance I get, every time I see you, I will remind you of how it could, how it should be.”
He presses his forehead against mine.
“Buy the house kitten, live here and be happy.” He turns and leaves the room and I walk on shaky legs to the nearest bathroom, I splash my face with cold water and stare at myself in the mirror for a long while. I hear my Mum call my name, so I flush the toilet, wash my hands and head toward my Mum’s voice, wondering what the f*ck I’m going to do now. I’ve already called Sean, and told him that I’ve found ‘The One’ and arranged for him to view the place with me tomorrow morning. Could we live here, would Cam really be happy that I lived here or would he hate it because it would be with Sean and not him?
My mother absolutely glares at me when she sees the state I’m in. I claim a headache to Vera and arrange to meet her back at the house tomorrow at ten and we leave. I’m shaking as I get behind the wheel of my Range Rover and see Cam standing in the front doorway, arms folded across his chest, once again, watching me leave him.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on Georgia?” I sob as I start along the driveway to the gates at the front of the property and I have to stop the car as I can’t see to drive, my Mum just undoes her seatbelt, leans across and holds me while I cry, stroking my hair and shushing me gently, the way she hasn’t had to do since the night Sean and I broke up. When I’m able to, I speak.
“Oh Mum, I’ve done something terrible, so, so terrible, I’m so ashamed of myself, I love Sean, with all my heart, you know I do, you know right?”
“Yes babe, of course, of course.”
“Then why do I have these feelings for Cam? Why does he affect me the way that he does? Why did I let him f*ck me against his office door just three weeks ago? Why, why did I do that?”
She’s my Mum, I want her to have all the answers, I want her to tell me it will all be okay, that I’m not a bad person.
“Oh Georgia... you silly, silly girl, what were you thinking? Bloody hell child”
We swap places and she drives me back to her place, she pours us a glass of wine each and I tell her about what happened between me and Cam that night, then I tell her what he just told me about the house and then I drop the bombshell about not being on the pill and not using protection with Cam.
“Have you done a pregnancy test?” I shake my head.
“I did one before I went out that night and it was negative, I haven’t done one yet as I didn’t think it would show up and I didn’t want to give myself false hope that everything would be okay and any way, I had sex with Sean, later that same night.”
I start to cry again.
“When’s your period due?” she asks.
“In two days.”
“Well best to wait then but if it doesn’t come in the next three days, do a test and we’ll go from there.”
I smile at her. “We?”
“You’re my baby girl George; I’ll stand by you no matter what. We all do stupid things at some time in our life darling, believe me, you’re not the first woman to be in this predicament and you most definitely won’t be the last.”