Clara pulled both her lips in between her teeth and bit them. I waited until she was ready to speak. It was getting better, but Clara’s responses were still sometimes slow, as if she was weighed down too heavily with her fears to process the world around her.
“I don’t want Zach to see him,” she said, as always thinking of anyone but herself. “It might upset him.”
I held back a sigh. Zach was engaging with counselling, he was eating like a horse, he got on well with Ozzie and the rest of my family, and he was chuffed to bits to live somewhere he could revise in peace. She was worried about Zach, but in my mind the real concern was Clara.
“No, he only asked to see you.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay, you want to go?”
“I’m the reason he’s in there. I owe him a visit if it’s what he wants.”
“You don’t owe anyone anything,” I said through gritted teeth. When the request from Ruben had come through, I’d debated even telling Clara. But the PTSD counsellor I consulted told me that as long as Clara felt safe, seeing him might actually offer her some closure.
“Will you…” she broke off, looking down at her lap and fiddling with the sleeves of her cardigan. When she spoke again, it was just above a whisper. “Will you come with me?”
I sighed and moved to sit next to her on the sofa carefully, keeping my movements steady and slow as she tracked me with her brown eyes. Before, I would simply have jumped over the coffee table, snatched her into my arms and held her against me, but now that was not a good idea. A wave of frustration and self-loathing swept over me again. If I’d just been a touch less of an arrogant, self-righteous dickhead, Clara would not have been hurt again by her father, and she would likely not now be flinching at sudden movements. She wouldn’t startle at the loud sounds of the bin men in the morning.
“Clara,” I said to her softly once I was sitting next to her, my leg just brushing against hers. She reluctantly looked up from her lap to meet my gaze, that fucking wariness that I hated still lingering in her eyes. “There’s no way in hell I would let you go to HMP Wandsworth on your own. Understand me?”
“Letme?” she said, a little of the fire back as her eyes flashed. I almost smiled.
Come on, Clara, I begged in my head.That’s it, baby. Tell me I’m a bossy know-it-all prick.
I must have been the only man in history mentally begging a woman to snap at him. But then the fire died and the blankness returned as she shrank back into herself again, and I suppressed a sigh. Then Clara surprised the fuck out of me.
“I want to see my father as well,” she said, her quiet voice now edged with steel.
I frowned. “Clara, I don’t think that––”
“I’m going to see him, Rafe,” she told me, using my name for the first time since before the courtroom. Thecolour in her cheeks was heightened now. I looked down to see that her hands were clenched into small fists so tight that her knuckles were white. This was costing her. Speaking up like this was terrifying Clara. Great, the very first thing she asks of me is something I desperately don’t want to give her.
“Clara, you’re traumatised. Seeing that fucking…” I broke off and rubbed a hand down my face. My voice was rising, and the last thing I wanted was to shout at Clara. But the thought of her breathing the same air as that sadistic bastard was untenable. I took a deep breath in before I spoke again, trying to keep the rage out of my tone. “It’s not a good idea, darling.”
She met my eyes again, that fire back in hers. I would have been thrilled if she wasn’t fighting me on seeing her fucking father.
“This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen my father after he’s hurt me,” she said, and my chest felt so tight it was almost too hard to take a breath in. “But this time, you’ll be there. And you won’t let anything hurt me.”
I let out a long breath as I rubbed my hand down my face.
But then a plan formed in my mind and something clicked into place.
Closure, the therapist told me, was good.
That I could deliver.
Chapter 38
Now we’re done
Clara
I startledwhen Rafe’s large, warm hand closed over mine as we sat in the waiting area of HMP Wandsworth, then gritted my teeth in frustration. I was so bloody jumpy. He noticed me flinch and I felt his hand start to move, but I grabbed it in mine before he could lift it away. I knew I shouldn’t be using Rafe like this, leaning on him. I knew I was taking advantage of his guilty conscience.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said in a low voice close to my ear. “We can leave right now.”
I took in a shuddering breath, trying to calm my racing heart. The prison was exactly as oppressive as I’d imagined it would be: high brick walls, metal detectors, sullen-faced guards and the distinct smell of industrial cleaner failing to mask the underlying scent of hundreds of men living in close quarters.
