Kitty French - Knight and Day

Lucien frowned. “She’s left him with you for good?”

Dylan nodded. “ And I don’t have the first fucking clue what to do with a baby.” He moved the child awkwardly in his arms and the towel fell open. On cue, an arc of pee spouted all over Dylan’s knee, and both men looked on, aghast.

“Jesus, man. He needs a nappy.”

“I tried, they kept falling off,” Dylan said, exasperated. He mopped his leg with the corner of the towel as the baby fastened his gums around the bent thumb of his other hand. “Jesus. No one told me babies bite,” he said, trying to extricate his hand gently.

“I think he’s trying to tell you that he’s hungry,” Lucien said, and sighed with resignation. “Where are the nappies?”

Half an hour and a master class in the art of nappy changing later, Lucien picked up the baby boy and sat him on his knee, cradling his head in the way only a practised father can. He contemplated the tiny child for a moment and then looked up at Dylan.

“He has ridiculous hair.”

Dylan smiled for the first time since the moment he’d laid eyes on Justin last night. A half smile, a tired smile, but a smile, of sorts. “I kinda like it.”

Lucien nodded, digesting the implications of the comment. “I take it you’re planning to keep him?”

Dylan nodded. There was no question in his mind. From the moment that the baby had opened his eyes and looked at him last night, he’d known what he had to do.

“He’s my son. My responsibility.”

“And you’re going to live where? Here? On this boat with a baby?”

“Lucien, I don’t have a fucking clue what happens next. I didn’t know he existed this time yesterday. I’m not even sure how to keep him alive, but one way or another, yes. He stays with me.”

Lucien had to respect the conviction with which Dylan had accepted the parental responsibilities so unpromisingly foisted on him.

He scrubbed his hand over his chin, at war with himself, because the truth was that sitting there listening to Dylan, he almost understood.

He couldn’t condone the fact that he’d lied, but he could understand how one lie had led to the next, and that none of those lies had been borne of maliciousness or an underhand attempt to deceive.

But then he thought of Kara, hollow-eyed and heartbroken, and he wanted to grab Dylan around the throat out of pure frustration.

“And what about Kara?” he said.

“Kara.” Dylan said her name with the quiet reverence of a priest, then closed his eyes and sighed raggedly. Lucien looked away, settling the baby in the crook of his arm to give Dylan a few seconds to get himself back together.

“I’ve never met anyone like Kara before,” Dylan said. “She is good, and clean, and pure, and all of the things I’m not. She was falling for Dylan Day, and she made me want to be him forever. I still do. I can’t go back to life as Matthew McKenzie.” He looked down at the baby. “Especially not now.”

Lucien didn’t envy Dylan his new life as a single father. It seemed unfathomable that they were even having this discussion, when just yesterday they’d all laughed and toasted their idyllic Ibizan summer.

“Tell her I’m sorry?”

“You know I can’t do that.”

Dylan nodded. “These past few months have been the best of my life.”

Lucien looked down at Dylan’s son. “That’s good. Because these next few will be amongst the hardest.”

Lucien found Sophie sitting alone at the dining table when he returned to the villa a little while later. She looked up immediately as he came in the door, her face a study of concern as he dropped into the seat opposite her.

“Did you see him?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Where’s Kara?”

Sophie shook her head miserably. “She’s gone.”

“Gone? Gone where?”

“Home. Back to England. She threw her things into a bag just after you left. I couldn’t persuade her to stay. I couldn’t even get her to let me take her to the airport."

Lucien pushed his hands through his hair. He’d been gone a few hours. Numerous flights left the airport every day bound for the UK: there was every chance that Kara was already airborne.

“What an absolute fucking mess.”

“She couldn’t stand the idea of running into Dylan again. She was desperate.” Tears filled Sophie’s eyes. “I’m so worried about her Lucien. She went through so much with Richard, I really thought Dylan was…” her words tailed off as a tear dripped from her cheek into the mug of cold coffee cradled in her hands.

“I know, Princess,” Lucien said. “I know.”

“So did you see him?” she asked again, and this time Lucien nodded.

“Yes. I saw him.”

Sophie’s head snapped up, her eyes blazing.

“What did he have to say for himself?”

“It’s complicated, Soph,” Lucien said softly after a couple of seconds, making her frown.

“Please don’t tell me you’re about to defend him,” she said quietly.

Lucien sighed. “I’m not defending him. It’s just not as cut and dried as you think.”

She stared at him blankly. “If he has a wife and child, then it’s pretty cut and dried from where I’m standing.”

“She’s his ex-wife. They are divorced.”

“But she still turned up here, and he has a child with her. Was she there?”

Lucien shook his head. “No. She’s gone.”

Sophie looked at him steadily, waiting for more.

“She’s gone, Sophie. She dumped a three week old kid on Dylan and then shot through back to the rock she crawled from under.”

It was too ridiculous an idea for Sophie to process. “She left a three week old baby? For how long?”

Lucien nodded. “Forever. He’s all kinds of screwed.”

Sophie took the news in.

“Do you expect me to feel sorry for him?” she asked after a moment. “Because I don’t. For the baby maybe, but not for him.”

“I get that.”

Sophie shook her head, not convinced Lucien did get it. He’d left the house furious and returned almost ready to fight Dylan’s corner. Dylan, or Matthew, or whoever he was, was clearly a very accomplished liar, because Lucien didn’t suffer fools gladly.

Still she couldn’t find it within herself to be mad at Lucien for wavering. She’d watched him grow close to Dylan over the months, and it had warmed her to see those bonds of friendship.

Over their years together she’d watched him learn to open his heart, first of all to her, and then to Tilly, and over time he’d encompassed Kara in his circle of trust. Dylan had brought something new and unfamiliar to his life, a sense of brotherhood and friendship that he’d never before known as a grown man. It wounded her to think he was going to lose that, and it wounded her to think that Dylan wasn’t the man she’d honestly believed him to be.

She’d thought him a better man. A man worthy of Lucien’s trust, a man worthy of Kara’s love.

“I need to go home too,” she said gently. “I need to go back for Kara. The staff at the boutique are ready anyway, it’ll just mean bringing the handover forward a couple of weeks.” She’d already spoken briefly with Aida, their assistant manager, after Kara had left, and set the wheels in motion for her own early departure. Their flights were arranged, and Esther was packing Tilly's things up as they spoke. She knew Kara well enough to know that she wouldn’t go running to her family and friends for support when she arrived back in England. She’d try to shoulder her burden alone, most likely drowning her sorrows in the bottom of countless wine bottles. Sophie had been there herself, and she shuddered to think what might have become of her if Kara hadn’t come to her rescue with her unique blend of common sense, good humour and tough love.

“I’ll have to stay on here, for a couple of weeks at least,” Lucien said, disgruntled but resigned. He accepted immediately that Sophie needed to be there for her friend. For their friend. “There’s no way Dylan’s in any position to come into work.”

“Do we still even call him Dylan?”

Lucien studied her face. “He’s still the same man, Sophie,” he said, and the despondent expression in his eyes sliced through her heart. “Sometimes good people do bad things for good reasons.”

She stared at him for a long time. “And do you think he had good reason?”

Lucien shrugged. “The jury’s out. Go home and take care of Kara. She’s the one who matters right now.”

As it turned out, Kara hadn’t sought comfort in the bottom of a wine bottle. Not because she didn’t want a drink, but because she wanted one so much she feared that she’d drown her own lungs in alcohol if she let herself pour so much as a glass. She had previous form in heartache, after all, or somewhere on the scale, at least. When Richard had jilted her at the altar, she’d anaesthetised the pain and humiliation with liquor. She knew now that it didn’t really help. She’d thought at the time that she couldn’t possibly feel worse. She also knew now that she’d been very, very wrong.

Loving and losing Dylan Day made what Richard had put her through seem like a walk in the park.

The transition from loved to lonely had all happened so fast. Two weeks on and she was still reeling from the impact of that night on the beach, nurturing a glowing ball of pure hatred for the man who’d melted her heart and then stamped all over it.

He’d been so very, very lovely. How could it not have been real? Never for one second had she harboured even the tiniest of doubts, yet their entire time together had been nothing more than a fabrication.