To Fix a Broken Heart
Summary: She was broken, fragile and in pieces. Cora was a troubled girl who just happened to get involved with the Shelby family. No one ever asks for a dangerous life but when it's thrown at you, there are only two things you can do; let it engulf you or run away and she didn't want to run.
Broken Bonds
They crashed into the hotel room, both soaking wet from the lashing rain and sober from the freezing cold. She took Tommy's blazer from off her head and returned it to him with a sheepish smile. Cora felt extremely embarrassed and as she replayed her actions from throughout the night, she felt ashamed. There was going to be hell to pay with Edward in the morning, but that wasn't her problem now; her current problem was trying to save her reputation with a reputable donor to her father's academy.
"What happened tonight, that's not usually me." She couldn't bring herself to look Tommy in the eye as he stood in front of her, shivering. "I don't know what was going through my mind."
"You don't need to explain." He felt sympathetic towards the woman, he didn't know much about her but from what he had seen, he could tell that she didn't live a happy life. Everything was smoke and mirrors with her.
"Do you want a fresh shirt? It's the least I could do after all you've done for me. Or perhaps some tea?"
Cora looked as if she was about to burst into tears and although he didn't know her at all, he couldn't leave her in this state; not when she already tried to end her life once. He knew how she felt, to feel like there was no other way out; he would never admit it, but he had thought about it once or twice.
He sat on the edge of her bed, removing his soaked hat from his head. "Tea, two sugars."
She nodded and got to work, her hands trembling as she measured out the sugar. "Have you always lived in Birmingham, Mr Shelby?"
"Call me Tommy and yes. There's nowhere else I'd rather be; I've saw London and I've saw the deep country. Birmingham is the only place that's called to me." He stood up as she brought his tea over to him and took it off her carefully. "Where'd you call home?"
She took a sip from her teacup and thought very hard about her answer, but she was drawing a blank. "I don't know, I've never stayed in one place for too long."
"Did you grow up here?"
"I spent a few years in Moscow and a few years in London but once I started dancing professionally, I was shipped off here, there and everywhere." She sighed a little and sat beside him on the edge of the bed, daring herself not to look at his face. "There's only one place that I've felt happy enough to consider moving my life, but it was ruined for me very quickly." Cora took a sip of her tea quickly, hoping that it would stop Tommy from deep diving into her troubles.
"And where is that?"
"New York. That city made me feel alive again." She bit her lip as she thought about the man, she had met there. When she thought hard enough, she could still feel his warm embrace and the feeling of his skin on hers.
"I'm sure your father won't keep you in this city for long."
"I would love to tour but now that we've returned, I'm sure my father will have sunk his claws into Edward and made him reconsider another tour."
"Don't let your father get in the way of your ambitions." He smiled ever so slightly when she finally looked him in the eye. "He ain't gonna know what's best for you."
"I don't even know what's best for me," Cora stared at the band on her finger that bound her to a man she was starting to loathe, "clearly."
He watched her contemplate her decisions and grew curious about the drunken comment she had made as they fled the party. "Can I ask one question?"
"Depends what it is." She watched him from the corner of her eye.
"What did you mean when you said that Edward was only pretend?" He watched a smirk cross her face before she jolted up, taking their empty cups over to the sink.
"My drunken self has clearly gotten me into hot water." She turned and leaned against the wall, shrugging her shoulders as she stepped towards the bed. "Legally we are married but it's all a façade." She twirled the ring on her finger as she spoke. "The man that I married is a homosexual which I don't mind, I would just rather my husband not be one. We were engaged for a year, seeing each other exclusively for two and not once did he let on that he was screwing my dance partner."
"Why marry 'im if you knew?"
"Because I loved him when I married him, and I foolishly hoped that he would reciprocate it one day. I also thought that if I kept his secret shielded from the world that he'd realise that I'm not so bad and that his feelings would grow." She lowered herself back onto the bed, her hands instantly covering her face. "Now I'm stuck in a loveless marriage watching from the side lines as he has his cake while eating it."
As he watched her breakdown all over again, there was only one way for him to make her stop crying; he was going to have to take her mind off her own problems and expose his own. What he was about to tell her was something that he had kept to himself and nobody else. He turned to her and pulled her hands away from her face, handing her his handkerchief to dry her eyes with.
"You're not the only one who ain't in love with who they married."
"You too?" when he nodded at her, she appeared to be confused. "But you seemed to be in good spirits with your wife."
"I only married 'er because I knocked 'er up. My first marriage was out of love, but the second was out of pity. No one would go near 'er knowing that she had, had my kid."
She screwed up her face in confusion as she dabbed at her eyes; Tommy had been nothing but a gentleman to her and she saw no reason for anyone to be terrified of him. "Why would people be scared of you?"
"It's best that you don't know what I used to do for a living."
Cora nodded and noticed how exhausted his skin looked; he had endured many sleepless nights and fair share of heartbreak. His face gave it all away. "And do you feel trapped too?"
"I feel as if there's a weight 'round my ankles and I can't shake it free."
She set her hand on top of his for a fleeting moment and stared at him sympathetically. "You're not the only one who feels like that. If I could start over, I'd never accept Edward's proposal."
"If only we had hindsight." He changed his tone; he didn't want to drag her down anymore than what she already was. He wanted to see her smile genuinely, just once and then he would leave.
"Maybe some bonds were meant to be broken." She shrugged and tried to hand him back his handkerchief, but he gripped her hands and stopped her from passing the cloth over.
"You might need that more than me."
"I'll keep it as a memento; the only thing the man who saved my life gave me." She smiled and got back onto her feet. "I've kept you long enough, Tommy." She walked him towards the door and leaned against it, her hand rested on the handle. "I don't know how I'll ever repay you for what you did for me."
"You don't need to repay me." He stood in the middle of her doorway and placed his wet blazer back onto his shoulders.
She stepped into his personal space and placed a kiss on his cheek and that's all she was going to give him until they locked eyes as she pulled away from him. His arm hooked around her waist and pulled her into a kiss. It was brief but enough to stir up some sort of emotion inside of her; was it the alcohol that they had consumed at the party or did he have an attraction towards her? Cora didn't want him to leave, she'd invite him back in if he wasn't adamant on returning home.
"Goodnight Cora." His hand lingered on her back until he took a few steps back from her.
"Will I see you again?" she pressed her lips against each other as she watched him walk away from her room.
"Probably."
The moment he got back into his home, he took the pills the doctor gave him to stop his mind from racing, out of his pocket and swallowed it back dry. He wasn't expecting Lizzie to be awake, but she was, and she was waiting for him in front of the fire, staring into it as she held a half-drunk glass of whiskey in her hand. Her head turned towards him as he walked into the sitting room and she raised a brow at him, unimpressed with late he returned.
"Where were ya?" she said quietly. Lizzie didn't want to shout at him, and she didn't want him to hear the worry in her voice. She had no illusions about their relationship, but she expected faithfulness while he was still sleeping with her.
"I walked that ballerina that Ada liked back to her hotel." He said as he strolled cautiously into the room.
Lizzie swallowed back the last of her drink and turned her head back towards the fire. "You've been missing for hours. What did you do when you got there?"
"We just talked."
"Just talked? For hours?" she let out a sarcastic laugh and looked towards the ceiling. "How much in common do you have with a fuckin' ballerina, Tommy?"
"You'd be surprised." He took a seat, leaning into his armchair as he lit up a cigarette. He watched the smoke dance around his head as he tried to wrap his head around the emotions that flared up during that kiss. Would it be wrong of him to keep it to himself? It would only hurt her if she knew.
"You fucked her, didn't ya?" Lizzie whipped round; the fury written all over her face.
Tommy shook his head and took a long drag of the tobacco. "We just talked. She tried to jump off the side of the dance academy and I pulled 'er back over the balcony."
The fury faded and Lizzie's interest was piqued. She was curious now. "Why was she trying to jump?"
"She was too drunk to think clearly and 'er husband made a fool out of her." He thought about keeping Cora's secret, but it was her secret to keep; it was Edward's and right now, after seeing the state that he had left Cora in, he didn't feel like keeping it. He didn't deserve Tommy's silence. "And 'er husband likes men. He's been sleeping with the dance partner."
Lizzie placed her hand over her mouth, enjoying the sense of drama that Tommy's information instilled. "I don't believe that." She let out a tut and set her glass down by the fireplace. "That poor girl. I suppose you couldn't leave her, not when she was in that state."
"Couldn't risk her finishin' the job when I left." He looked at Lizzie as she stepped towards him. She stopped at the back of the armchair and wrapped an arm around his chest and placed a kiss on the top of his head. He felt nothing, no warmth and no connection.
"You're a good man, Tommy." She walked towards the door; her hand rested on the back of her neck. "Are you coming to bed?"
"I'm not tired, maybe later."
She jolted awake when she heard a furious knocking at her door. Cora looked at the clock on the wall and saw that it was too early for anyone to be visiting her. The sun hadn't even risen yet. She got out of bed and placed a long, silky robe over her frame and answered the caller at her door. It was Edward and he looked furious.
"What are you playing at, Cora?" he marched into her hotel room and stood in the middle of the room with his arms folded across his chest. "Why did you leave the party without telling anyone? I thought someone had stolen you and was holding you at ransom."
"You didn't think that maybe I had, had too much to drink and just went home?" she raised a brow at him and sat on her bed, the pillows supporting her back. She wasn't going to tell him what had actually happened to her. He didn't deserve to know, not when he was the reason, she tried to end it all.
"You could have told me or your father that you were leaving. We made a toast to you only to find that you weren't in the room, you weren't even in the building."
"A toast?" she placed her hand on her chest and feigned flattery. "What an honour."
He let out a sigh and rubbed at his eyes, trying his best not to show his frustrations with her. "Why are you being such a bitch?"
"After the way you spoke to me tonight, you're lucky I haven't shot you." She rested her head against the wall, her eyes rolling towards his shocked face. "Sometimes I think it would be easier, living life locked away instead of being trapped in this relationship."
"You're not trapped Cora," he sat beside her, his hand rested on her leg, "I've given you all the freedom you could dream of."
"I'm not free when I'm bound to you. What if I found someone that loved me the way I deserve to be loved? I couldn't marry them; I wouldn't be able to have a child with them and I wouldn't be able to walk with them hand in hand in the open world." She smiled cynically at him; her eyes wide. "How is that freedom?"
"Do you think I want to be married to you?"
"Yes, because it keeps the homophobes off your back." She pushed his hand off her leg and placed her hand under her chin. "I think I want a divorce, well an annulment; we haven't consummated the marriage."
"Be fair with me, Cora. If you find someone that you want to spend the rest of your life with then I'll happily sign divorce papers, but don't ruin me before that day."
Cora didn't know if it was Tommy's words or the wake-up call that was dealt to her has she stood on that balcony, but she needed to look out for her own wellbeing before putting anyone else before her. She was the only person she could count on and it was time for her to be the selfish one.
"Let me think about it because from now on, I'm putting myself first." She just raised her brow at Edward as he stared at her in horror. "The door is over there, close it on your way out."
A:N What happened to Cora in the last chapter is going to be like a kind of rebirth for her; she's not going to let the men in her life walk all over her and she's going to do whatever she wants, so expect loose morals and for Cora to have fun as she awaits her divorce. Thanks so much for reading, I appreciate the feedback! Hope you enjoyed :)