I'd show her; I'd show both of us that she meant nothing to me.

Only I couldn't. In my mind I hit her again and again, even while she was screaming, even when she stopped screaming. I was turning cold.

Only what I was actually doing was completely different.

"Cara, I'm so sorry!" I gasped, breathing in and talking fast at the same time.

And every bit of warmth I'd been trying to deny came flooding back. All of Jude's rules, suddenly they seemed pointless. Dad, Callum, Lynny, and Mum – poor old mum. I didn't want them any more. I'd have swapped the whole lot for Cara at that second.

She looked up at me. "Steve? Steve! What was that for, are you really hurting so bad inside?"

I looked at her. I had to know. If she couldn't deal with it then I'd carry on and finish her off – filthy dagger bitch. If she could, then god help me. I looked at her eyes, half filled with hurt, half filled with love. Just like me. I hated Crosses, I hated them, for all the hurt they'd caused us. They'd never caused anything put pain to the McGreggor family. But I loved Cara. I needed the money Cara had for the LM, but I'd've swapped everything I had in the LM, my whole life; just to spend it with Cara. So she had to know. Her life was now in her own hands, or were they my hands, or was my life in her hands, mixed together?

"Cara, my name… it's not Steven Winner, its Jude. Jude McGreggor."