Chapter 19
DAYNA
I wanted to wake up today and realise it was a bad dream.
He doesn’t love me.
I’m stupid for falling for it again. Maybe even harder and deeper this time. I believed he loved me, like Teddy said.
The crazy thing is I think I was going to turn down his offer to bid together for the well.
I hadn’t thought beyond that to what I’d do if we didn’t submit a joint bid, but after Teddy left the other night, I realised that I love Clark too much to close the door on us.
I love him more vehemently than ever. Teddy was right – I couldn’t watch Clark put the deal to his board, risk his reputation and make a loss just so he could protect me.
I didn’t have to back out, though, because Clark reneged his offer. Teddy was wrong. I was wrong.
I was his rebound. I naively let myself think I could be more than that, but the moment we left Dubai, as soon as we came back to reality, he changed his mind. He dropped me like I should have known he would.
I’m working from home, in an oversized shirt and skinny jeans, no make-up on, my hair wet, just staring at my draft email. I’ve rolled my cursor over Send more than a hundred times.
I have to do it. I have to submit my offer to get into bed with Hassan. I want the well. I want my father’s revenge. I want to wipe that supercilious look from Caspar’s face and show him that his threats mean nothing to me. That he can’t, won’t, break me.
I could walk away. Do as Clark suggests and let Caspar win, then wait for him to suffer a loss from the well, if he suffers a loss.
But Caspar is the reason my father took his life.
I roll my finger across the mouse pad of my laptop. This time, I’m going to do it. I jump when my intercom buzzes and instead click Save.
I’m starting to get seriously fed up of people coming to my apartment.
‘Hello,’ I snap.
‘Dayna, I need to talk to you.’
My chest tightens and a lump forms in my throat. ‘I have nothing to say to you, Clark.’
‘Good, because I have a lot to say to you.’
My eyes start to sting, again, as if they didn’t shed enough tears when I cried myself to sleep last night. ‘Please, Clark.’ My words are a drained plea, exactly how I feel. ‘If you care about me at all, just leave me alone.’
‘Dayna, I know I’ve hurt you. Again. But I need to talk to you. God, I shouldn’t and there’s a big part of me that doesn’t want to.’ He sighs, and for a second, I think he might be wounded too. ‘Have you submitted your bid yet?’
‘No.’
‘Please let me talk to you before you do. You’re going to want to hear what I have to say. Then I’ll understand if you never want anything to do with me again.’
That thought hurts so much I can hardly stand it. I respond by buzzing him in. That’s the best I can offer.
When I open the door he stares at me, scrutinising every inch of my face. His hair is messy, and he has dark circles under his bloodshot eyes.
‘Why would I believe anything you have to say?’ You told me you wanted to bid with me because you love me. Then you did what you always do. You showed me you don’t love me at all.
The way his face contorts makes me wonder whether he can read my mind. ‘Because it’s the truth.’
I leave the door open and walk into the lounge, my arms wrapped around myself, a small protective barrier between us.
The door clicks shut, and I feel him approaching. My shoulders tense at his presence.
‘Please look at me. I need to see you.’
I turn to him, but I can’t meet his eye. ‘Talk.’
‘Maybe you should sit.’ He rubs his chin, clearly edgy. ‘I just don’t— There’s no easy way to?—’
‘Say what you came to say, Clark.’
‘When we were young… years ago…’
‘Clark!’
‘Your dad. My mum.’
I have no idea what’s coming but the mention of my father makes me uneasy.
‘They had an affair.’
I blink several times, staring at him. ‘Come again?’
‘They had an affair. It obviously didn’t last. My parents stayed together.’
I let his words sink in. ‘What?’ I say disbelievingly. He stares back at me with pity in his eyes. Or maybe empathy.
I walk back until my calves touch the sofa, then I sit. My father had an affair? ‘You just found out?’
He walks to the patio doors, looking out of the window. ‘Yes.’
I fight against the feeling of my airways closing. ‘Why would you tell me that?’
He turns sharply. ‘Do you wish I hadn’t?’
I press a hand to my chest, trying to keep it from exploding, feeling my heart racing. My dad? ‘I don’t know. I don’t… I don’t… I don’t know.’
He moves to the coffee table. The fact that he comes closer pisses me off and makes my head spin more, if possible. He takes my hand and turns my knees until they’re pointing between his spread legs. He takes a breath that wavers. It scares me. ‘Dayna, I need you to process this, okay?’
How could my father – my dad, Roger Cross – how could he do that? ‘That’s why your dad hates me, us.’
‘Yes. He doesn’t hate you, he hates your father, and what they did to him.
’ He closes his eyes and starts speaking before he opens his lids.
His voice is cautious. His grip on my hand tightens.
Everything about the way he sits and sounds is disturbing.
‘Dayna, Little Princess… it wasn’t just Caspar. ’
I snap my hand back. I need to breathe. I need to breathe but I can’t.
‘My father…’
I hold my hands to my throat and eventually manage to drag air into my lungs. ‘No.’ My face contorts, and Clark becomes blurred through my glazed eyes. ‘No.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’ He reaches out to my face, but I slap his hand away.
My breaths are becoming quick and shallow, not enough to feed my body with oxygen. I grab my throat tighter until it brings to my mind the image of my father’s body, hanging lifeless from the shower rail, his head drooped to one side.
‘Your father and Caspar?’
I don’t know whether Clark replies, because all I hear are screams. All I see are flames as Little Princess lights up the Persian Gulf. I can smell oil, filling my nostrils and my lungs, the fuel drowning me.
‘Dayna, what do you need? Breathe, baby.’
I close my eyes, hoping everything will go black and stay black forever.
‘Dayna, say something. Speak to me.’
I manage to stand and move to the kitchen. I haphazardly empty a bag of fruit onto the bench and hold the brown paper over my nose and mouth, sliding down the cupboards to the floor.
‘Dayna, Christ, what should I do?’
I keep breathing, inhaling as deeply as I can. My neck feels wet with tears. Clark is kneeling on the floor in front of me. When I can, I reach out to his chest, pushing him away.
‘Go.’
‘I’m not leaving you.’
‘Go.’ I fill my lungs, and the room comes into sharper focus. I fill the bag again. Once. Twice. ‘Your father is a murderer.’
He shuffles back from me, looking shocked.
‘Get out. Get. Out.’
His eyes gloss and grow even redder than they were when he turned up at my door. Before he unravelled my entire life.
‘I didn’t know, Dayna. I swear I didn’t know.’
My whole world begins to fall apart. Everything I ever thought I knew.
Everything I believed. My mum didn’t leave; she was pushed.
I had the wrong parent on a pedestal. For years, I’ve oozed nothing but animosity towards my mum.
Then I climbed into bed with the son of the man who brought SP to ruin, the man who killed my father.
All my anger, all these years, has been directed at the wrong people.
Caspar Kahn and Harold Layton were in it together. Clark’s father.
A life with Clark that I’ll never have flashes before me. Every kiss, every touch, being his for eternity, having his child. I didn’t realise how much I wanted it until now.
‘I hate you.’
And I hate myself for the look on your face right now.
He stands slowly and rubs a hand roughly across his face. He doesn’t speak, he just nods, and he leaves me here, on the kitchen floor.
When I hear the door close, I wail. Endless sobs come, until I’m curled into a ball on the tiled floor, crippled with agony in every part of my body.
I start to cry so hard no noise leaves my mouth.
I have no idea what I’m mourning. My idyllic perception of my dad now shattered.
That I’ve spent years blaming my mum for something she didn’t cause.
That I have more enemies than I realised.
Or that I can never be with Clark. I can never be part of that family.
‘I don’t know what to do.’ My words aren’t heard by anyone.
The sky is darkening by the time I pick myself up from the floor.
I take two painkillers for my throbbing headache, and as I’m washing them down, my eyes bore holes in my laptop.
I sit down in front of the email I saved hours ago.
My alternative bid. My offer to get into bed with Bahrain, to have Caspar out to kill me, because I need that well, because I want revenge.
A shadow seems to settle over me as I read the words on the screen. Getting back at Caspar wouldn’t put an end to this now. I’d risk my life, and for what? This started with an affair. This started with my father. He’s not the man I thought he was.
I close the lid of my laptop without sending the bid.
* * *
I haven’t changed or washed my face as I drive towards Arthur’s home. I haven’t got my head around any of this. But Arthur should know the truth. He’s the one person who would understand.
A horn honks, pulling me from my trance, and I realise I’m drifting out of my lane. I straighten the car, not bothering to hold up a hand in apology to the other driver.
Why did Clark tell me? Why did his father tell him the truth? Why now?
I pull up at the driveway of Arthur’s townhouse. If someone were to ask me how I got here, I’d have to say I don’t know.
Exhaustion washes over me. I cut the engine and lean forwards onto the steering wheel, my head in my arms.
I have no idea how long I sit here, concentrating on keeping my mind blank. Eventually, I knock on Arthur’s front door. Evelyn answers, beaming at first, but her expression quickly turns to one of concern.