The Only Way is Up

Part Fifty One

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he felt the guilt wash over him, "I..." He shook his head, "I don't know what to say Kim."

Reaching out she placed a hand over his, "I know. Which is why I haven't chucked you out on your arse. She needs you, and I believe you, about it all. I mean I'm not the police here, I have no control over what Nicole does, but there are things I would actively encourage, and on the other hand discourage."

"You want to encourage me?"

She smiled, "having the baby, being out in the sticks on her own...she needs support, she deserves someone who loves her, and her baby."

"I want to be that man."

"And like I say, I believe that, twelve months ago I feared that she'd end her life after the man who promised her that abandoned her at her hour of need. She may not have told you, but she lost a baby...almost six months in. There was no heartbeat, she had to deliver the baby, christen her, and bury her. It almost broke her. Last week she was ecstatic that she got past that marker, the same amount of weeks as when she lost Rebecca. I can't see anything stress her, I don't want history to repeat itself. She'd never cope with that happening again."

Max was stunned. He had no idea. He immediately knew that it would have broken her, Nicole was a beautiful person and the thought of her being devastated, losing everything. It hurt him deep inside.

"Shit."

Kim nodded, "maybe I'm speaking out of turn, but I don't care. I don't want you chasing after her unless you are a hundred percent sure that you want it ALL. Warts and all."

With that she got up and left the room, leaving him a bowl of hot pasta and a head full of worry.

"You told him?" Nicole gulped. She felt as though her deepest, darkest secrets were ripped open to the world. "Really?"

She heard Kim sigh, "I did, and I'm not sorry. I am thinking about you, and I can't watch him promise you the world then disappear, leave you high and dry. He needs to know that I will maim him, make his life a misery if he dares to upset you again."

Nicole wished she could smile, that she could appreciate everything that Kim was doing to smooth the waters with Maxim, but she didn't. The baby that she lost...it was anything but a secret, but bringing it all back up...it was so painful, still. She hated that anything linked to Vincent could hurt that much, but her baby...that had almost killed her.

"I never wanted to tell him that."

"I can understand that, but it's a vital bit of who you are, Vincent leaving you wasn't as painful as the baby. It just took you a long time to realise that. He's here at mine looking exhausted, all that angst and drama...I just want to know that he has you two as his priority."

"And do you?"

Kim laughed softly, "I definitely think so. He's broken...since I told him. But I'm not about to tell him where you are...though half an hour ago he did threaten to use 'any avenue' he can to find you."

That made her smile for the first time in what felt like days, "so he'll use his father's dodgy avenues hey?" She sighed, "so the father of my baby is the son of a gangster, and he's going to call on all that to find me. What the hell am I doing?"

As usual, Kim was the voice of reason, "that's not the man you met months ago, and it's not the man that Mike befriended. Let me know if you want me to tell him anything...like where you are. Ok?"