Chris Tate wasn't the first man she had ever been with. Wasn't even the first man she regretted being with. But he was the first in a long line of fucked up relationships that she couldn't believe she had allowed herself to get into. He was manipulative and controlling and angry. At her, at himself, at the world. Some would say that they made a perfect match and she supposed in some ways they did. Each saw and used the other for what they wanted. She was a warm body for him and he, in return, was a big bank account for her.
They probably could have lived in some kind of warped happiness during the time he had left after his terminal diagnosis; had he not committed suicide and tried to frame her for his murder. Granted, she had cheated on him with his sister and her cousin but, in the grand scheme of things, the punishment did not fit the crime. She had bore his son. A beautiful little boy who looked so much like his father, especially during his younger years, who Chris never got to meet because of his actions and inability to react to things like a normal human being. And despite what she currently thought of the man, Noah had deserved time with his father, even if he never would have remembered it.
After Chris had come Tom King and what in God's name had she been thinking with that one? She knew of course. She had been, once again, thinking about money. She had never loved Tom, didn't even bother lying to herself about that, but it still stung when he left her at the altar. She hadn't done what she had been accused of, not that time.
Looking back know she knew that she would have grown bored with Tom and it wouldn't have taken long for her to jump into bed with someone else. Likely one of his sons because when Charity Dingle fucked up she did it in style. But she hadn't cheated, and she hadn't betrayed him. She had been set up and robbed of a future for her and her kids that she could never provide on her own. That's what she had always hated the most about the entire situation. She had let Sadie King get one over on her. And yes, she had had her revenge, but revenge was only sweet for a moment. Tom King's money would have been sweet for life.
Her failed relationship with Tom had driven her from the village in search of a fresh start. It had taken her a while, but she finally found some kind of contentment when she met Michael. He was handsome, kind, rich, and good dad to Noah. She hadn't loved him, but she liked him and that was a big step up from what she had ever felt for a man before. She could've been happy with him. So, naturally, he had been having it away with her own daughter. And to top it all off, she didn't find out until she was at the flaming altar.
In dramatic style, Debs and Cain had turned up and ripped her perfect life away from her and had all but forced her back to Emmerdale kicking and screaming. She just wished Noah hadn't got caught in the crossfire. He had thought of Michael as his dad and he deserved better than the way everything had gone down. It had been the first in a long line of disappointments for someone too young to really understand what was going on.
The fiasco with Michael had led her straight back into the arms of Cain. No matter what she and he seemed unable to stay apart. They had been on and off since she was 13 and somewhere in the back of her mind she had always thought that they belonged together. As if they were star-crossed lovers who would eventually get it right. As if it was destiny or fate. What an idiot she had been.
Thankfully she'd long since shaken that idea. She and Cain were destructive together. They tried and tried and tried but it only ever ended up in heartbreak. For her, for him, for Debbie, for any other unlucky soul caught in the middle. They shared a history too littered with violence and deceit to ever work. They could never trust each other, not really. She knew that now. She just wished she had figured it out sooner. It would have saved her a bloody load of hurt.
Cain and his inability to trust her had sent her seeking refuge with Jai. And for a while she was happy. Really happy. They worked well together, and he doted on Noah. Of course, now she hated the bones of him after everything that had happened between them, but at the time she supposed he was the closest to love that she had ever come. She just wasn't enough for him no matter how hard she tried to be. He had needed a child and no matter how much he said he loved Noah, the fact that he wasn't his was too much for him. And because she wouldn't give him a kid he went off and had one with the cleaner behind her back.
She had forgiven him a lot over the course of their relationship, and him her, but that was one thing she couldn't forgive. The cheating she could have gotten over, like he had done when she had cheated on him. She could probably have even wrapped her head around the fact that his indiscretion had landed him with a kid. But the secrets, lies and sneaking around had been too much for her. He had made a fool out of her and that hadn't sat well with her pride. She was not the type of person to take that kind of thing lying down.
And she hadn't. She left Jai, got with Declan and the two of them had quickly formulated a plan to frame Rachel for a fire that Declan had started. And just like that she was back to a loveless relationship built on lies and a thirst for riches that could never be quenched. That's not to say that her relationship with Declan was all bad because it wasn't, but neither of them loved the other like they claimed. And when it became clear that Declan was losing interest she got pregnant, had a secret abortion, married him and then faked a miscarriage all in quick succession. She wasn't proud of what she had done but there was no way that she was going to lose Declan. She had finally been living the life she had worked and wished for and she would have done anything to keep it.
But a lie that big couldn't even dare wish to be maintained for long and the next thing she knew she was kneeling over her own freshly-dug grave with blood matted in her hair from Declan's attempt at mashing her brains with a mallet, and her crazy husband rambling on and on above her. How she survived that day is beyond her. He had been hell-bent on killing her and she had never known fear like it. She had been on the receiving end of brutality more times than she could count in her life, but that day stuck out in her mind like nothing before had. The man who was supposed to love and protect her had stood in front of her, with nothing but hate in his eyes, gearing up to kill her and his face still haunted her dreams now.
It made sense then, that after her turbulent history with men, that it would take a woman to show her what love really was. Vanessa was kind to her in a way that no man had ever been. It was as if the other woman understood her past, even before she had opened up about it, and was trying to replace every rough, greedy touch she had ever endured with something soft and pure. She hadn't been looking for love when Vanessa came along, had actively been avoiding it if truth be told, and she had made things a bit more complicated than they had needed to be to begin with, but Vanessa had swept through her defences and firmly situated herself in her life and her heart. And to everyone's surprise, her own included, she hadn't fucked things up, and as time had worn on their relationship had gone from strength to strength.
So, as she stood in front of the mirror and smoothed down her immaculate white dress she knew that she would never again have to worry about her heart or her security. She had found the person she was supposed to be with and in a couple of minutes she would once again, and for the last time, earn the title of 'wife'. In that moment she couldn't bring herself to regret her past because everything that she had been through had led her to this day and she knew that, for Vanessa, she would endure anything. She had found happiness in the most unlikely of places and she wouldn't have it any other way.