Mark steps into the house and I close the door behind him, gesturing for him to go through to the kitchen.  

"This place looks amazing now.  You and Ben did all this yourselves?" he asks looking around.  When was he here?  Then I remember he came with his then wife, and Rob and Dan to the housewarming Ben and I had thrown when the house was still a shell.

"God no, not all of it.  For the big stuff we hired the professionals," Ben, an orthopedic surgeon was utterly useless at any sort of DIY.  Something we actually used to laugh about.   "The rest was a labour of love."  I say as I walk ahead of him through to the kitchen.    Mark smiles and nods but that serious look doesn't really leave his face.   "Can I get you something to drink?  Tea, coffee?  Something cold?" I ask, heading straight for the kettle.

Mark shakes his head. "No, thanks Alex, I'm good.  You're probably wondering why I'm here?"

"Yes I am.  Rob and Dan related I presume?"  Some surprise he has planned related to the wedding maybe.   

"No. Rob and Dan have nothing to do with this," He purses his lips before taking a deep breath.  "Alex, I wanted to talk to you about Jake." 

My stomach does a little flip flop as his eyes narrow a little on me.

"What do you mean? Oh, wait, is this to apologise for how you treated him at dinner? You were a little rude." I say pointedly.

Mark's expression flickers. "Rude?  Really?  No, that's not why I'm here."

"Ok.. then I don't understand." I say.  

Something has begun gnawing deep inside me though, something small and unwelcome.  Mark stares at me a long time before running a hand through his dark hair.   When he speaks again his voice is serious, and concerned.

"How much do you know about this guy Alex? How well do you know him?"

I flinch a little, as though I've been pinpricked.  I'm not sure why the question is such a shock since it's something I've thought about a lot since I met Jake.  I'm used to asking it.   To myself.    Mark has no right to ask me that.   I feel defensive.

"I know him as much as anyone knows a guy they've been seeing a few weeks." I cross my arms over my body, hating myself for the spin I've just put on that.  He's so much more than a guy I've known a few weeks.  I'm in love with him.   Why am I spinning this?  Mark nods and purses his lips.

"So then you don't know." He says. 

The gnawing sensation that a moment ago was deep and small begins to get a little larger and climb a little higher.

"Know what?"  I frown.

Mark leans up off the counter and it's only then that I notice he has an A4 size brown envelope in his hand.  Why didn't I notice that before?  My body backs away from it slightly, like it might be dangerous.  It looks dangerous.

"Who he is Alex, what he is," he says.    "That he has a criminal record.  That he's been inside.  That if he wasn't so good at hiding what he does then he'd be going back."

The bottom drops out of my stomach a little and some of the air disappears from my lungs.  Inside.  Prison.  The words go in and zip around my head knocking things over.    Then an instant later I feel defensive again, fiercely so, and Mark is the attacker.   What on earth is he doing?  How dare he waltz in here like this and try and ruin everything that Jake and I fixed together yesterday.

I narrow my eyes at him. "Why are you telling me this?" My voice is high and accusatory as I move away from him to go stand by the sink. 

"Because it's true.  I'm telling you because I'm a friend.  You're Dan and Rob's friend and you're my friend and I'm concerned about you.  I'm only trying to help you."  His voice is soft but I hate it.   I hate his soft almost pitying tone.  I hate the words.  They make me feel foolish and sick. Can I throw up in front of Mark?  I sense him come toward me and when I look round he has his arm outstretched, envelope thrust toward me.

"How is this helping me Mark? How is telling me things Jake should have the right to tell me himself helping me?" I ask, shaking my head as I glare at him.

"But he didn't tell you did he?" he points out.    "And I'm pretty sure he had no intention of ever telling you.   Why would he? You have a right to know.  Someone had to tell you.  I had to."  He sounds sorry for me now.  Oh Marks pity is awful.  I don't want his pity.  I want him to leave. 

I think about the words he's just said though.  Did Jake ever have any intention of ever telling me this?  Yes. He promised to tell me everything.  As soon as he was sure I wouldn't run a mile.  Oh god, is this one of the things that he thought would have made me run a mile?  A criminal record? Prison?  I shake my head again and glance at the envelope.

"I don't think he's the man you think he is Alex.  This is a dangerous criminal we're talking about here."  Mark says.

My mouth practically drops open.   A dangerous criminal?  What the hell does that even mean?   It doesn't mean anything. It could be anything.  Oh god.  I need to talk to Jake.

An image of his face smiling at me over breakfast this morning swims to the front of my mind and I shake my head and close my eyes.   There's a loud crumbling noise inside my head, the sound of the walls of my delusion as they come crashing down. 

A dangerous criminal.  

I don't believe that.  I can't.  That would mean that I truly know nothing about this man.   The one I'm sleeping with.  The one I'm in love with. He'd be a total stranger. He's not that.   He can't be that. 

I would have killed him Alex.

No. He was a scumbag who threatened his son.  That doesn't mean anything.  I turn my head away from Mark to stare out the kitchen window.  I should open it.  Its so stuffy in here all of a sudden.  I stretch forward and twist the handle to let some fresh air in. 

"Do you want to know what for?" I hear Mark say finally.   He sounds as though he's far away and I've honestly no idea how much time has passed since he last spoke and told me Jake was a dangerous criminal.  

As I turn my head around to face him my eyes dip warily to the envelope in his hand. What could be in there?   My mind runs through all sorts of possibilities, of horrible horrible things that I know Jake isn't capable of.  He just isn't.   I picture the scumbag again who threatened Caleb.   He didn't kill him.  That's what's important. 

Marks eyes rove over my face, and I wonder what he's thinking about me right now.  Probably that I'm a naïve idiot who knows nothing about the man she's sleeping with. 

"I think I'd like to hear that from him.  If what you're saying is even true." I mutter but of course it's true. Mark is hardly likely to come here with this if he wasn't certain. 

I really want him to leave now.   So I can collapse to the floor and start ordering this into neat manageable little piles.

"What about what he does for a living.  Is that something you guys spoke about?" He sounds a little condescending now, as though I'm some poor victim of some horrendous crime that he needs to treat delicately - it flicks my defensive switch back on.   What the hell is he talking about now?  Why is he still talking?

"He runs a nightclub for a living Mark.  It's how we met." I say sharply. 

Something glimmers behind Marks eye but it's no more than that.

He sighs and takes a step toward me. "Perhaps you should just have a look at this," He stretches his arm out and I take another step back, away from the brown envelope. "That's who Jake is Alex.  The Jake he had no intention of telling you about."

I laugh a little hysterically. I feel hysterical.  "There is no way I'm reading that Mark.  I want to hear it from him.  He can tell me whatever it is, himself." As I say this though I wonder how true it is. I wonder if deep down its no longer what I want. Do I really want to hear Jake tell me that he's a dangerous criminal?

"Or he can lie through his teeth like he's clearly been doing since he met you."  He says.

How often do you lie to me Jake?  Only when I have to.

"Well I guess I'll have to take that chance then won't I, because I do not want to hear it from you, or from a piece of bloody paper." I snap.

He sighs again and nods, before thankfully stepping back taking the instrument of my torture with him.   "I didn't come here to upset you Alex.  That's not what this was about.  I came to warn you,  because I care about you."  His eyes go soft then and when he speaks again his voice is soft too.   "This is not a good guy we are talking about and I'm worried. I'm trying to protect you here."    I want to laugh again.  Because Jake said both of those things to me too, repeatedly.   He told me he wasn't a good guy and that he was only keeping things from me to protect me. I believed him each time he told me those things.  I believe Mark too.  I know Mark isn't doing any of this to upset me.  It just doesn't make any of it any easier to hear. 

When I say nothing Mark nods and turns and walks over to my oak dining table where he lays down the envelope, before walking back to me.   He takes a deep breath before he speaks.

"Does the name Danny Ward mean anything to you?  Did Jake ever talk about him with you or introduce you to him?" he asks.

"No," I shake my head.  Kevin, Vicky and Caleb were the only people from Jake's life I was introduced to.    Ward is Vicky's name though.  

"Okay good." He nods. Then his eyes go concerned again. "I know you say you want to hear it from him, and I know you don't want to believe what I'm telling you is true but I strongly suggest you read what's in that envelope Alex."  He says.   He looks to be debating something else and drops his eyes and seems to look over every inch of my exposed skin, my neck, my arms and down to my legs very quickly, as though inspecting it, before bringing his eyes back to mine.   "The most recent suspicion is the serious assault and battery of a woman.   She was beaten pretty badly - broken arm, broken ribs and a fractured jaw," he says gravely.  I can tell he's holding something back, and whatever it is isn't likely to help with what's happening to my chest. He sucks in a quiet breath.  "We suspect she was sexually assaulted too."

My legs almost buckle beneath me and I have to grab onto the rim of the sink to keep myself upright as the bile rises in my throat.   I swallow the bitterness and force it back down.  No. No. No. This is not who he is. I'm shaking my head now. "What are you talking about?" my voice is a hint of a whisper when I turn back to him. 

Mark nods gravely.  "The wife of a known associate of his was assaulted a couple of weeks ago.  Jake was known to have had... relations with this woman. Her husband was seriously injured a week before and we suspect it's related in some way. We don't how and neither of them are talking to us.  These are the kind of people who don't talk. Certainly not where Danny Ward or Jake Lawrence are concerned."  Mark says.    Hearing Mark say Jakes full name like that almost makes him sound like a different person altogether.   Someone I don't know.  Maybe even someone who assaults women.    

No. I don't believe that.   I can't seriously think that he would do that.  Jake would never do that.  

"Alex if I had any say in this I'd tell you to pack a bag and go to Rob and Dan's or to your parents for a few days and tell this guy its over.  I'd tell you to stay away the hell away from him.  He's dangerous - you have no idea what he's capable of."   When I look back at Mark his face has that same sad concerned look it's had since I opened the door.   "But you're not going to do that are you?" he shakes his head. 

"Jake would never hurt me." I tell him in a hollow robotic voice. 

A woman.  Serious assault and battery.  Possible sexual assault.  The words are loud and painful and there's a sharp ringing noise in my head as though a bomb's gone off inside it.

Mark nods again. "Well I sincerely hope for your sake that you know him better than we do."

He looks around my kitchen, then reaches down into his pocket and brings out his wallet and pulls out a small white business card from it.   When he tries to hand it to me I stare at it like I did the envelope, as though it's dangerous.  "Please take it Alex.  At least do that for me.  I need you to know you can call me if you're ever afraid.  If he ever does anything or says anything that makes you feel afraid."

With uncertain hands I take Marks card and stare at it hard. It has his full name, his rank, direct telephone number the address of New Scotland Yard.   Will I ever need to use this because I'm afraid of Jake?   It's almost unfathomable.   Almost.   If I'd been asked the same question a few hours ago my answer would have been with complete certainty no.  Now? 

Now I know nothing.

"You knew him didn't you?  You recognised him? At dinner." I ask, still staring at the card.

He lets out a breath.  "I knew the name -  we all know his name and what it means - but I'd never actually seen him in person before, I'm not directly involved in any of the stuff relating to him. So I had to check afterwards that it was definitely the same guy I was looking at." He tells me.   They all know his name and what it means?  Does he mean the entire Metropolitan police force?  I feel sick. 

"Do Rob and Dan know?  Did you tell them?" I glance up from his card finally.  I don't know why I'm asking this or why it even matters but them thinking badly about Jake makes me feel me feel cold and ill. More ill. 

"No," he shakes his head.  "They think he owns a nightclub.  There's no reason to tell them anything other than that."  He reaches out slowly and puts his hand on my arm and squeezes it gently, a gesture of comfort I assume.   His touch is firm and warm but not as warm as Jake's. 

"Alex, promise me you'll call me if you need to. Promise me if he ever says or does a single thing that makes you feel in the slightest bit afraid?  Promise me that."  His tone is authoritative and forceful and I find my head nodding in response.  "Good.  I'm only at the other end of the phone."  He smiles reassuringly at me.   It's the sort of smile I give my patients when I tell them not to worry about something until the results come back.   The kind of smile that I'll also have to use to tell them it's treatable.  

Then, because I don't know what else to say to him, I nod and tell him thank you.   Thank you.  Thank you for coming in here and breaking my heart with some words and a brown envelope.  

As soon as he leaves I bend over the sink because I've been holding the bile down since Mark opened his mouth.  Nothing comes out though.  My body feels entirely empty.   I feel ill. Hot, lightheaded and weak as though I might have the flu coming on.  

I rinse my mouth out and drink two glasses of water but the nausea doesn't pass. Neither does the lightheadedness.  With trembling legs I walk over to the dining table and take a seat and then I stare hard at the envelope.

I'm scared to touch the thing.  But I'm also scared to throw it away.   Cowardice has been what has brought me here I think.  Denial and cowardice.   Jake's secrets that I kept telling myself I needed to know and wanted to know were finally right here. It's then that I realise something - I don't want to know what they are.   Maybe I never did. Maybe deep down I was always afraid of what he might be hiding from me and of what it would mean for us.

The face of a woman, beaten to a pulp flashes across my mind.   What makes you think I let them get away with it? Yes he has a temper and these people threatened his son and cut him open and like he said, no one gets to walk away from that, but that? 

God, I can't possibly be considering he would do that.   A man I've made love to and allowed inside my home, and my heart, and my body.   A man I'm in love with.   I can't be considering he'd do that.    Im not. No.  He wouldn't.   I've never sensed that in him, not once, not even the night he came to my house furious after my date with Sam.  I never once felt afraid that he would hurt me.  I'm different with you Alex.  I'm better.

My brain is circling and retreating and manoeuvring at 100mph but my body is completely and utterly still. With my back straight and my hands flat out in front of me on the table I keep staring at the godforsaken envelope.  

I should be tearing it open. But of course I'm not because I'm afraid. I've never been this afraid in my entire life.   I'm not ready to know whether I've been beguiled by a lying violent dangerous criminal or not.  I'm not ready to know whether I've fallen in love with one either. 

When I look up at the clock I see I've been sitting here for over an hour.   Over an hour of staring blankly into space and trying to hold down vomit.   I can't think about this any more right now.  Jake will be here shortly and I haven't even started the lasagne.

I need to cook.