Chapter 25
I’m here. I’m yours
Rafe
It was beyond a joke now. Clara had completely withdrawn from me.
Since the night she went to meet her friend, who she still wouldn’t tell me about, she’d retreated right back into her shell, barely speaking or eating, flinching away every time I reached for her.
She didn’t sleep in my bed any longer, and she was even muttering about returning to her dilapidated flat.
Her interactions with Ozzie were the only glimpses I had of the old Clara.
She put on a good show for him, but I guessed this was ingrained in her due to her career as a teacher.
And I knew first-hand how important it was to her that children weren’t let down by the adults in their lives.
I had this awful sinking feeling that something bad was going to happen.
The only explanation I could think of was that she was planning to go back to whatever arsehole beat her up.
After a week of Silent Clara, I begged her to tell me what was happening, but all she’d say was that she “didn’t think this was working for her”.
“Please, baby,” I’d begged. “Please just talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.
Of course you don’t have to be with me if you’ve changed your mind about us, but please, tell me what’s going on.
You’re scaring me, Clara.” Even when my voice cracked and I was near tears with worry, she wouldn’t make eye contact.
And when she did, her expression was completely blank.
So tonight, I was going to shock her out of it.
It was the Sterling charity gala that Poppy had organised.
The one I’d asked Clara repeatedly if she’d go to with me.
Even before Clara had retreated completely, she had been adamant that she wouldn’t come, citing Ozzie as an excuse, which was total bullshit.
Ozzie wasn’t a stupid child; he knew that I was with Clara.
He’d even asked me the other night if she was going to live with us forever, and I told him if I could convince her, then yes.
And even though Clara put on a good show for him this week, Ozzie could tell something had changed.
Last night, he had been about to drop off when he’d said sleepily, “Okay, Dad, she likes Branston Pickle and she likes reading and she likes me, so maybe you could, you know, use that stuff to get her to stay.”
Ozzie giving me tips on how to keep my girlfriend was a new low, but her withdrawal was making him anxious. If Clara’s aim was to protect Ozzie, then her pulling away from both of us was not going to achieve it. But for some reason, she just couldn’t see that, and I’d had enough.
I knew Clara cared about me, and I was going to show her what would happen if she continued to withdraw from me. Ozzie was at Sophia’s and, seeing as Clara wouldn’t accompany me to the gala, I’d found someone else who was only too happy to.
But now that Ophelia had arrived, I was realising I might have made an error of judgement.
The glamorous blonde swept into the kitchen in her designer dress, totally ignoring Poppy and Clara to drape herself over me.
She even went in for a kiss, which I only managed to partially duck at the last second, but she still caught the corner of my mouth, her cloying perfume making me feel a little ill.
Clara had frozen in her task of pulling one of Martha’s lasagnes out of the oven.
For a moment, as she looked between me and Ophelia, the blankness in her expression faded away, and I could see complete and utter devastation left in its wake.
I blinked in confusion at her. Why was she devastated?
She’d been openly planning to leave me for the last two weeks.
Why was she showing this emotion now? I hadn’t expected complete devastation, to be honest. I’d expected anger, maybe a bit of her fire back again – that I could work with.
That would have been better than the relentless nothingness. But I didn’t want to hurt her.
“Clara,” I breathed, pushing Ophelia away to move to her.
Her eyes glassed over as she stared at me across the kitchen.
She was still standing stock still, holding the lasagne but using only a couple of flimsy teatowels.
She flinched, looking down at her hands and arms as if forgetting where she was.
Then I saw a different pain flash across her features as she winced.
I looked down at the pan she was holding, realising part of it was in direct contact with her skin.
“Clara!” I shouted and she dragged her eyes from the lasagne pan to me as I flew across the space, grabbing a towel, then taking the pan from her, and throwing it onto the chopping block.
When I turned back to Clara, she was still frozen in place.
“What the hell are you doing?” I snapped as I grasped both her hands, turning them so that they were palm up.
There were red marks up her arms, some of which were starting to blister.
“Shit, shit!” I hustled Clara’s stiff body across the kitchen to the sink, turned the tap on to cold and enclosed her from behind to hold her hands and arms under the stream of water.
“Baby, you’ve hurt yourself,” I said, panic threaded through my voice.
“Step back,” Clara spoke for the first time that evening and I clenched my jaw in frustration.
“I will not step back. Not if you’re going to hurt yourself. You need to keep the burns under water, or they’ll—”
“Step back!” she shouted, and the kitchen went deathly silent.
“Clara,” I said softly, not letting her go. “You need to—”
She laughed then, but it wasn’t like any of the other times I’d heard her laugh. No, this was a hollow, bitter and utterly sad sound, full of pain.
“You’ve no bloody idea what I need, Rafe. Now, step back.”
“Rafey,” said Poppy carefully from behind us, her hand settling on my shoulder. “Maybe you should go. I’ll look after Clara and follow you there.”
Fucking hell, what was happening? How had I lost control of this situation so utterly? A wave of helplessness swept through me, quickly followed by anger. I wasn’t used to feeling out of control, and it was pissing me off.
“Fine,” I snapped, lifting my hands off Clara, holding them high up in the air above my head and stepping back. “I’ll leave if that’ll make you happy. Nevermind this is my fucking house, but fine. Have at it, Poppy.”
Poppy moved forward to Clara, gently guiding her back to the sink when she tried to step away.
“But you keep those fucking hands and arms under the water and I’m calling a fucking doctor to look at them. Understand me, Clara?”
She was still looking down and the wave of frustration that crashed over me was so strong that I felt like my head was exploding.
“Goddamn it, Clara! Look at me when I speak to you.” I slammed my hand down on the granite surface, and Clara flinched away so violently that it took her almost into a crouch on the floor. She was shaking. Christ, I’d made her shake.
“Baby, please—” I said in a broken whisper, but it was Poppy who cut me off.
“Just bloody leave, Rafe,” she snapped. “You’re only making her worse.”
Ophelia was looking completely baffled at the unfolding scene.
“Er, hi,” she said to Clara. “Sorry about your arms, babe.”
“Hi,” said Clara softly. “Sorry about the drama.”
Ophelia shrugged. “I live for drama.”
“Fi, you go on with Rafe,” Poppy said, smiling at her friend. “I’ll see you guys there, okay?”
The gala was a complete shit show, and I almost didn’t make it past the champagne reception.
Ophelia was all over me from the moment we exited the car, and the press ate it up.
It would be front-page news by tomorrow, with Ophelia being pegged as the next Lady Sterling, along with my ranking as the second sexiest aristocrat in the UK (the Duke of Fuckingham beat me last year, the bastard – but I was convinced that his very public love story with his gorgeous now wife playing out in the media a few years ago helped. I’d get him next year.)
All I’d wanted to do was go home and check on Clara.
I felt sick at the devastated expression on her face, and then at the fear in her eyes when I’d made her flinch.
I’d scared her, something I promised myself I’d never do again.
But although my mind was completely on Clara, I knew that for Poppy’s sake I had to at least stay for the dinner.
As soon as that was over, however, I made my excuses and left, Ophelia still in tow.
Thankfully, Dave agreed to drive her home as soon as he’d dropped me off.
Once I made it home and shut the door, I looked up to see Clara on the stairs only feet away as if she’d been waiting for me.
“Rafe,” she said, her voice full of that same longing it had held before all the blankness crept in.
“Clara,” I breathed, holding out my hand to her. But I hadn’t locked the bloody door behind me and Ophelia used the opportunity to push her way in and fling her arms around my neck. Clara froze on the stairs, her eyes going wide with shock and that same devastation from earlier.
By the time I pushed Ophelia away and instructed a sheepish Dave, who’d run after Ophelia when she’d given him the slip, to “take her bloody well home this time,” Clara had turned and run back up the stairs.
Once the door was safely shut and locked behind me, I ran after her and started pounding on her door.
“Clara, I’m not leaving until you let me in,” I snapped.
“I’m fine, go back to her,” she called through the door in a shaky voice.
I leaned my head against the wood. “Clara, please let me in.” My voice had changed from demanding to cajoling now. “Baby, open the door.”
It worked. When she pulled the door open, I felt my chest tighten at her red-rimmed eyes behind her glasses.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She shook her head. “You have nothing to apologise for.”
“Clara, I only took Ophelia to the gala because—”
She reached up and pressed her fingers over my mouth. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, her tone so sad it gutted me.
“Of course it matters,” I tried to say, but her fingers were still over my lips.
“Rafe, I love you,” she told me. “You’ve got to remember I love you, okay?”
She sounded so final.
I frowned, reaching up to pull her hand away from my mouth and hold it in mine.
“Clara, I love you too, darling. What do you mean by ‘I’ve got to remember’? Please talk to me, tell me what’s going on.”
She smiled a sad smile and went on as if she hadn’t even heard me. “You made me so happy,” she said in just above a whisper. “I felt so safe with you. I didn’t know that life could be this good. I didn’t know I could love anyone this much.”
A warm feeling spread through me and I smiled. “Sweetheart, that’s wonderful. I love you too. I’m so glad that we’re resolving this now. I’m sorry I took Ophelia out, but—”
She shook her head. “You looked right together. I can see that now.”
I frowned, searching her face. “I’m not interested in Ophelia,” I said slowly. “You understand that, right?”
Her hand came up to trace my jawline as she stared at me as if cataloguing every detail of my face. I caught her hand in mine. “Clara? I fucked up, but I want you. Not her. Yes?”
“Sometimes I think I’m dreaming,” she whispered, a lone tear falling down her cheek. “That I’ve finally snapped, and my mind’s taken me to an alternate reality where I’m yours and you’re mine.”
A trickle of unease went down my spine as I swiped her tear away.
“You’re not dreaming, baby. I’m here. I’m yours.
” Jesus Christ, something was really wrong with Clara.
What the hell was I thinking pulling that stunt with Ophelia?
“Clara, you’re scaring me. Please, can’t you tell me why you’re so sad?
Why did you retreat from me this week? I’d rather you got angry with me about Ophelia. I can’t bear this sadness, darling.”
Clara shook her head. “I’m not angry with you. I—”
There was a beat of silence, and then she moved, coming up onto her toes to close her mouth over mine.