Destined to Fly: An Avalon Novel Read Free Page B

touching the top of my head. I try to stay strong. I try to push him away before I am forced to tear myself away, away from the man I have finally been reunited with after all these years, the man I have loved since I first understood what love could be.
    ‘Let it go, sweetheart. You don’t need to do this alone. I am here for you. Please, let me be strong for you, for all of you.’ His words penetrate through my implacable facade and my body crumples within his firm grasp. Tears spill from my eyes as his body remains the rock his words promised. Although I still knowwhat path I must take, I have to concede that Jeremy knows exactly what I need right now. He secures me in his embrace until my tears subside, understanding my emotional exhaustion before effortlessly scooping me up and carrying me into the master suite, placing my weary body and mind carefully on the bed as if I’m made of eggshells — a good reflection of how I feel, actually.
    ‘Do you need something to help you sleep?’ he asks gently.
    ‘You know what I’m like, Jeremy. Even the weakest drug seems to hit me hard. I’ll see how I go. Right now I have so many uncontrollable thoughts running through my head. I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. I don’t know what to do.’
    ‘Can I help in trying to subdue them for a while?’
    ‘How?’ Wondering where his mind is going.
    ‘I could run a bath.’
    ‘Ah …’ I relax a little. ‘What a perfect suggestion.’
    ‘Lavender?’
    The tiniest of smiles appears on my face, accompanying the worry that creases my brow. ‘Of course.’
    A few minutes later, slightly calmer, in the serenity of the surrounding warmth of scented water, I snuggle close into Jeremy’s chest as I lie nestled between his legs.
    ‘Just when everything was going so well, she pulls the rug from beneath our feet — again. Why can’t we find her, J? Why hasn’t she been brought to face any form of justice?’
    ‘Her time will come, sweetheart, I promise you. Someone like Jurilique will come unstuck eventually, even if it is by her own doing.’
    ‘Eventually isn’t soon enough. I need her to come unstuck in the next ten days before my life implodes into the unknown yet again.’
    His legs immediately tense around my body. ‘You will not be going anywhere near that woman, Alexa.’
    I know this isn’t going to be an easy argument to win with him, but he must know that I don’t have a choice given the circumstances, surely?
    ‘You’ve gone quiet. Why?’ he murmurs into my hair.
    He has always been able to ask me the unanswerable. I am quiet. I’m quiet because I don’t want to have this argument, one we should never be forced to have, an argument that will cause us both no end of pain because of who we are and what we know is imperative to our lives. Me to him and my children to me.
    I release a deep sigh filled with both frustration and resignation. ‘I honestly don’t know what to say. I feel numb.’
    ‘I can understand you feeling numb. Just as I feel furious with her heinous demands. But I know you too well, AB, to think that you don’t have thousands of thoughts running through that beautiful head on your shoulders. Please, share them with me. Now more than ever we need to communicate openly with each other. Don’t let her get between us by sending a piece of paper.’
    An anxious chuckle escapes me at his oversimplification of my dilemma. ‘Is that how you would describe those headlines if they were about you, Dr Quinn? A mere piece of paper.’
    The image of those headlines has been burned indelibly into my brain:
    Slut mother shuns kids for kinky sex experiment.
    Dr Blake bares all — check out her best angles here.
    Psychologist turns Psycho — would you leave your kids with this mother?
    Adultery — sadomasochism — is this what you teach your kids?
    ‘I’m not saying it’s great, obviously. But it’s nothing we can’t deal with. We are stronger than that.’
    ‘The photos, J, you