‘You’ve hurt Tress, Max. She is the most incredible thing that ever happened to you, and this will break her heart. I think it already has. Because you know where she is? Could you hear what I told you earlier? Or did you get her message and that’s why you were speeding in that car? Panicking that you’d been caught out?
‘Let me tell you anyway – she’s over in the maternity wing of this hospital and I had to lie to her all day and tell her you were coming back to her. And you know what? She believed every word because she loves you more than life and she thinks you are the best fucking guy on the planet. I think we both know now that isn’t true.’
Noah had sobbed, struggled to get the words out, his heart breaking.
‘And the only reason I left her to come and see you now is because she’s not in labour any more. Because, yeah, that was the other consequence of this, Max. You missed the birth of your baby.
‘You’ve got a boy, Max, and man, he’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. You missed him. Tress had to bring him into this world without you and I need to tell you she was amazing. You don’t deserve her, you really don’t. And you don’t deserve him either.’
He’d put his hand on top of Max’s, just as he’d done with Tress so many times that night.
‘So here’s what I have to say to you, buddy. All my life you’ve been my best mate, and I have loved you every day of it. I wouldn’t go back and change a single thing about our lives until now, because we made each other better. I know that. I’d have done anything for you, and I know you felt the same. We both proved it a million times. I don’t know how this is going to end, but if it’s not good, then I need you to know that I love you still. Because to lose that would make me look back and regret so much and I don’t want to do that.’
Noah’s tears had fallen, dropping on to Max’s face, and he’d gently wiped them away. ‘But here’s the thing… And if you were awake now, I know you’d call me a sanctimonious prick, but I don’t give a crap because you need to hear about the rest of the consequences.
‘Tress would never lie, so if he asks, then your son will know that you weren’t there on the day he was born. And the truth always comes out. That kid is going to grow up and one day he’ll learn that his father wasn’t there because he was screwing his best friend’s wife. Tress, or me, is going to have to explain just how someone could do something so fucking terrible. Your kid is going to have to think about that, and find a way to deal with it. We all will.’
Tonight, freezing his arse off on an old wooden park bench in the middle of the night, Noah knew he wouldn’t take those words back. But he also knew now that they would never tell Buddy the truth. The little one would never know what his father had done, because Noah and Tress had agreed to protect his father’s memory. Even in death, they were still protecting the man who’d betrayed them all.
Back then, he’d held Max’s hand, stroked his hair, and the final words he’d spoken to his best friend summed up exactly why this had happened.
‘All because you made the choice to take something that wasn’t yours.’
Now, a year later, everything had changed.
His girlfriend wanted to leave him. His ex-wife wanted to come back.
And him?
Revisiting that night, and then everything that had happened today, had put a different thought in his head. One he’d been denying for a long time. One that scared him to death.
Noah Clark had just realised what he wanted to keep and what he was prepared to lose.
24
KELI
The white test stick was sitting in front of them both and Keli wasn’t sure if she or her mum was more terrified as they watched the little squares on it, waiting for it to predict her future.
As soon as she’d walked in the door and told her mother she had something she needed to talk to her about, her mum had acted exactly as she always did when it came to her kids – she’d switched off the cooker, taken Keli’s hand and led her to the kitchen table. It had always been that way, whether she was nine or twenty-nine. Their mum was no pushover, and she could dole out the rollockings when they were out of line, but they always knew, no matter what, that they came first. Keli could only hope she would be the same when she had kids. She just prayed that wouldn’t be any time soon.
‘Okay, tell me, honey. And don’t look so terrified, because unless you’re dying, we’ll fix it or deal with it or find a way to help.’ Then she’d paused, before blurting, ‘You’re not dying, are you? Can we get that out of the way first?’
Despite the absolute nightmare that she appeared to be living through, she had laughed. ‘No, Ma, I’m not dying. Although,there’s a good chance you might want to kill me or someone else when I’ve finished telling you this story.’
Her mum’s eyebrows had knitted in consternation, yet even with that expression, she still looked beautiful. Gilda Clark had inherited her own Ghanaian mother’s incredible cheekbones, piercing brown eyes and, even well into her sixties, there was barely a wrinkle on her gorgeous face. ‘Well, your dad just left for a golfing weekend with his buddies, and none of your siblings, except Noah, are coming over and he won’t be here until later, so you’ve got plenty of time. Take a deep breath and start from the beginning.’
Keli had done exactly as she was told. She’d taken her mother back to the night she’d met Ryan, and how they’d got together. Her mum’s eyebrows had gone from knitted together to raised in surprise at that point, but she’d said nothing, just listened, even though Keli knew she’d be issuing death threats on the inside.
She’d got to the part where she’d been ghosted for the last month, when her mum had cracked. ‘What? What kind of miserable excuse for a man is that? Coward! That’s what he is! I’ve got a good mind to track down his mother and tell her the kind of man that she raised.’
‘We haven’t even got to the worst bit yet, Ma,’ Keli had told her, beginning to wonder if this was such a good idea.
‘Well, in that case I’m going to need wine. And a baseball bat by the sounds of things.’
Despite the prevailing tension, that had made Keli laugh again. The prospect of Gilda Clark, a respectable, upstanding woman of mature age from a picturesque village on the outskirts of Glasgow, doling out baseball bat justice to any bloke was hilarious. However, she did work as a legal secretary for one of the most feared criminal solicitors in the country, so she probably had contacts whose services could be bought. Keli had shuddered at the thought.
‘Ma, before we go on, tell me you’re joking.’
