“Are you free for dinner tonight?”
“Sorry… I have to work tonight.” I wasn’t lying. Amber had the night off so I had to man the phone. Which he was clogging up with his call.
“Tomorrow night then.”
“Busy then, too. How about Monday night?”
“Oh, I’m busy. What about…” I heard him flicking through what sounded like a diary. “…Wednesday? I have nothing much going on that day.”
“Can do.”
“Oh, really? Great. I thought for a moment there you were blowing me off.”
“No such luck I’m afraid.”
He laughed. “I’ll pick you up, unless you want to come into town?”
“I’ll come into town. Will be nice for a change of scenery.”
“Good, then I’ll book something and text you.”
“Okay.”
“Great. See you then.”
“See you.”
He hung up and I put my feet up on the desk, wondering if it would be a friendly dinner or dinner and expectation of sex. Why had he left it two weeks to get in touch? Ego bruised… maybe?
It bothered me, though.
I turned him down in Ireland and… now…?
Something about it all didn’t ring true to me.
Who left things up in the air for two weeks? No text to ask me how I was? Nothing! Maybe he was playing hard to get.
Whatever was going on with him, I would definitely drive and not drink and then I’d find my own way home afterwards.
***
WEDNESDAY arrived far too quickly. I didn’t feel prepared. I’d spent most of the weekend and the start of the week trying to find a new look for Pernox that would work. I had worked through a ton of sample towels, robes, slippers and other equipment for the spa upstairs, still not sure which I wanted. Ever the uncertain, me. I should’ve just kept ordering samples and settled with having mismatched linen.
I drove into London in a new car I’d bought myself, an Audi TT roadster with a soft top I had open as I drove through the unusually warm September weather.
Switching off my stereo and letting the top fold shut, I parked up in the car park of the restaurant we were meeting at and waited by the side of the car to make sure it was safely closed. It was then I noticed Edward walking towards me.
He wore a suit with a shirt, unbuttoned to reveal some of his chest hair.
He came right up to me, kissed my hand and smiled. “You look fabulous, Ciara.”
“What, this? I just threw it on.” My dress was Prada and I’d ordered it special delivery to make sure it got here on time. Navy silk buried my body while also accentuating all my assets. Edward looked pretty pleased. Paired with the dress were my nude Dune pumps. Just so comfy. Plus anything else would seem like I wanted sex, when I didn’t. I just wanted dinner out in London with a friend…
We walked from the car park into the restaurant together, a vaguely familiar TV chef smiling back at us from a picture on the wall as we walked inside.
We were seated quickly and when I was asked for my drinks order, I chose a glass of sparkling water.
“Sorry, I have to get back tonight,” I told him, “lots on at the moment.”
“Too busy for me now?” He cracked a smile, appearing offended I hadn’t cleared the whole of tonight for him.
“It’s an enterprise so I’ll see it through to completion.”
“A shrewd businesswoman?”
“Why not, indeed,” I said, and I let my eyes wander the menu rather than his exposed chest.
“What do you fancy?” he asked me, and when I looked briefly into his eyes, I fancied that was a loaded question.
“Well we’re all doing a detox next week so perhaps before then, I should carb up. Right?”
“Detox?” He frowned. “Why?”
“Well, we’re a spa. We still need to know our therapies work so we try them on ourselves first.”
“We both know it’s not a spa.” He winked but the manner of his tone didn’t sit right with me. Since I’d turned him down, something had changed and it was him. No longer was he so bothered about laying on the charm.
I ignored his words and let the waiter know, “I’ll have the calzone but could you ask the chef to go light on the pepperoni and maybe add more cheese.”
“Certainly madam.”
I had never understood why pizza always had to come with meat when all I wanted was lashings of greasy, gooey cheese.
“I’ll take the seafood pizza with extra octopus, please.”
“Certainly, sir.”
After the waiter was gone, I felt a shiver down my spine, like someone had just walked over my grave.
Looking around the room, I couldn’t see anyone familiar.
I shrugged it off as a draught of cold air across the room or something (though the halogen lights in the industrial ceilings above were so bright, you could feel the heat off them).
“So, have you been busy since Ireland? I didn’t hear from you and I wondered–” I cut myself off before I said anything more, waiting for an explanation.
“I just needed some time to think.”
“Yes, what about?”
He looked uncomfortable in his chair. “I thought I was okay with my divorce and then it just dawned on me… the whole enormity of it all. I am going to be a divorcee. I never thought this would happen.” A dark shadow crossed his face and I squeezed his hand from across the table.
“I’m sorry.”
Soon our food arrived and I filled the silence with talk of towel sizes, towel shades, towel embroidery, towel stitching… he looked bored but hopefully I distracted him from his other problems.
AFTER dessert, we seemed to leave the table without the verbal agreement that it was better that we go. Somehow we just ended up paying the bill at the bar and leaving. Something told me he was eager to determine if this night would end in sex.
By the side of my car, I asked him, “Do you need a lift?”
“Are you going back to Pernox?”
“Yes, like I said earlier. I hope you’re not upset but I’ve just got a lot to do at the moment.”
“It’s fine,” he failed to convince me, his disappointment clear to see, “it’ll be much easier if I just get a taxi home. Then you can be on your way.”
“Okay… well, thanks for dinner.”
He kissed my cheek, holding my elbow for longer than was polite. He waited, as though hoping I might change my mind, and when I didn’t he smiled a strained grin and walked off. I waited by the side of my car, watching him walk to the road, hail a cab and shoot off within mere seconds.
I stood wondering what it was with him tonight, when that cold shiver ran down my spine again, like someone walking over my grave.
I ignored it and turned towards my vehicle, reaching for the handle.
“Ciara,” a voice came, from behind me.
His voice.
I swallowed the gigantic lump in my throat, but nothing else had the effect on me that he had – goosebumps and hot cheeks, hotter thighs and heavier breasts.
“Dante,” I managed to whisper.
“Let’s have a chat… in the privacy of your car. Nice, by the way.”
I turned slowly to look at him, surprised to find him wearing thick-rimmed, rectangular glasses, his hair long and pulled back in a small bun, jeans rolled at the ankles, boating shoes and a plain white t-shirt showing the extreme musculature of his arms. If I didn’t know his voice, I might not have known him. He seemed so different. Unidentifiable, even.
I slid into the vehicle, barely able to breathe. He got in beside me, taking the passenger seat.
“I know somewhere. I’ll punch it in for you,” he said, keying in an address on my satnav. I obeyed without contest because it was better than him knowing how affected I was by him. I could barely look at him without my pulse rocketing skywards.
No man had the same effect on me.
We both buckled up and I followed the satnav, realis
ing it seemed to be an address in Primrose Hill he was sending me to. From where we were in Soho, it only took us twenty minutes to get there but the silence made the journey feel like hours. I had far too many questions which would make me seem far too concerned.
We pulled up outside a property and I killed the engine.
“Wait,” he said, while pointing at a house across the road.
We waited and I wondered what the hell was going on.
When I saw them, I was beyond surprised.
“Is if I would leave you for LA, Ciara. As if I would leave you alone with him. I’ve been waiting for him to make his move but so far, he seems to have failed to win you.”
Over the road, in a large five or six bedroom house, I saw Edward or Teddy, whatever his name was, with a woman. They weren’t hiding themselves from view, sat inside what was seemingly their living room. He still wore the same clothes he’d met me in but now he held a glass of red wine, chatting amicably with her on the same sofa.
“What is he doing,” I whispered, as though fearing Edward might hear me, which was ridiculous.
“That’s his familial home and the woman is Faith, his wife. Since you got back from Ireland, he’s been spending evenings here. Maybe he’s trying to win her back. They do look cosy, right?”
“What the hell, Dante?”
“I crossed off everyone on my list of suspects. Everyone but him. Like Holmes said, ‘when you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,’ and as much as I don’t want to believe my oldest friend betrayed me… well, look at him. Meeting you one minute… taking you to Ireland… and now, tucked up inside his house, safe and sound.”
Of course… Dante had followed us. Tracked us. Listened in on us. I would have been angry about that ordinarily if I wasn’t so preoccupied with hurt.
Was Edward a bastard?
“They’re getting divorced.”
“It doesn’t look like it to me,” he said, “from where I’m sitting, it looks like he’s trying to make amends. What else?”
“Maybe… I don’t know… they’re discussing what’s best for the kids, I don’t know…”
“What if he’s not who we think he is?”
I’d started to trust him. I thought he was my friend if nothing else. Fire radiated up my arms, waves of anxiety washing over me.
He held my chin in his hand and turned me to face him. “These cunning, manipulative, untrue people, Ciara… don’t you see,” he said, with such ferocity and seriousness, I felt teary, “they’re all around us. Everywhere. Double crossing. Backstabbing. Lying. Hateful. Bitter. Vindictive. When I met you, I saw a pure angel I wanted to protect from this world of evil. I wanted to close you off, coddle you, cuddle you up in my arms and hide you from this bad state of affairs for the rest of our lives. I’m sorry now that I thought that was for the best but now perhaps it is best you know, that this is what I have been surrounded by. Liars and cheats and murderers. Perhaps it’s best you see for yourself how duplicitous people can be. I know the world you’ve come from is different to this one, and if you really wanted to go back I would let you, but we both know this thing between us isn’t going away and neither of us can really give it up, can we?”
“So you are finally giving up fixing?”
There was too long a pause for me to believe him when he finally said, “Perhaps.”
“That’s a no, then.”
“It was a maybe.”
“No, it was a no.”
He sighed. “Ciara…”
“Thank you for ruining my night, but you can leave my vehicle now.”
“But–”
“I said you can go. Just because he’s a married man with problems, doesn’t mean you’re the better option, if an option at all. This was never about anyone else but us and you chose your career over me. You always will.”
I looked up, just in time for me to catch Faith and Teddy by the window, kissing before shutting the drapes.
It hurt… it all hurt.
Maybe this was better… a clean slate.
Fresh start.
I would eventually love again… right?
Someone much less complicated.
“Ciara,” he whispered, “do you still expect me to turn a blind eye to what bad people have done and what they’ve yet to commit? Do you? They’re everywhere.”
I swallowed hard. “I won’t wait up every night, wondering if you’re going to come home in one piece. Not when what you do is illegal and with every possible risk attached.”
“You must see… the victims aren’t here to demand justice. It takes people like me to get it for them, people outside the law, outside corruption. I am incorruptible and what happened to Daltrey, it made me who I am. I can’t unchange myself. This is why I am the fixer.”
“Just go,” I repeated, “I don’t want to stay outside their door anymore and you’re not coming with me.”
“I’m watching him. He will slip up, believe me. I’ll nail him.”
“He didn’t do anything Dante. You’ve got the wrong man.” I knew Edward and he wasn’t capable of hurting a fly. He was a beautiful man.
“Well it had to be someone!” he exclaimed, almost raising the roof off my car.
“It wasn’t him, I promise you,” I insisted, annoyed he was bringing anger into my sphere, “it wasn’t Edward and I suggest you give up this hunt because it’s been eleven years now and it’s time you realised, you need help to move on. You need help.”
“Someone killed my brother. Then my team. And Shay. How do you expect me to rest?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed, “I really don’t know.”
“You’ve got to help me,” he begged, “please, Ciara.”
I took a humongous deep breath, trying to calm myself. There were a few factors stressing me out – Edward being so close, and in the same house as his wife, then Dante back in my vicinity, but still the same man, no different to before – and yet I’d changed now.
I knew I could survive alone.
“My mother’s dead.”
“I know.”
“I wouldn’t have gone to the funeral but I’d have liked the choice.”
“You once told me you didn’t care about keeping in touch with them.”
“The thing is, a good man would realise a girl needs her family.”
“I thought you didn’t… I thought they hated you and it was reciprocated.”
“You imagined things about me, yes, but you never asked enough questions, did you? You never asked, because you never treated me like a real person, did you?”
“No,” he said, almost in a whisper.
“And then we made love… and it all seemed wonderful… and everything was fixed and I one day hoped you’d quit and we’d sail off… and yet, I was deluded. Stockholm syndrome or whatever, I was blind to the reality of the lie I’d been living. Your lie.”
“What, lie? What are you talking about?”
I turned and looked him in the eye. “That I was in your life for your pleasure.”
He swallowed hard.
He said nothing.
Because he knew I was right.
“I was in your life to keep you functioning,” I said, “and now this new mystery, this whole whodunnit surrounding the murders of your staff, now that’s keeping you functioning.”
“I don’t like the way you’re talking.”
“I don’t like the way you locked me up.”
“I didn’t do it to harm you–”
“You harmed me!” I shouted, and he sat, shocked.
I trembled, trying to avoid saying the words that would break us… that would destroy us. Maybe they could be unsaid. But as the minutes passed by, I finally just had to say it.
“Dante… you abused me. Maybe not recently, but before we became a couple, you abused me. The abused became the abuser. It doesn’t matter how much love we have now, I am never going to be able to get back those six years of my life wher
e I was in the dark… where I was a victim. I can’t get over it. I never will. Now, get out of my car.”
“I virtually bought you this,” he paused, refusing to admit what I was saying was true, “this car. I gave you these things.”
Like they made up for it all…
“Get out of my car,” I reiterated.
“I gave you opportunity… I made your life better, didn’t I?”
“Get out of my car,” I repeated, knowing it would take an iron will not to succumb, not to give into him.
Not this time.
“You have money, options now. You can run Pernox while I do this… we can be together. I’ll be whatever you want but just… give me one, more chance.”
“Goodbye, Dante.”
I stared ahead, waiting for him to leave.
Anxiety radiated off him, so thickly, I felt a desperate urge to comfort him.
But I couldn’t.
My abuser couldn’t put right what was impossible for him to fix. Only another could fix me now.
“Goodbye, Dante.”
“Fucking fine,” he spewed, and threw open my car door, almost breaking it.
I immediately started the engine and tore off, willing myself to keep going, willing myself to never turn back. I avoided checking my mirrors until I turned a corner and then finally, I let myself cry as I drove back to Pernox. It all washed out of me and I felt nothing.
There was no triumph in escape, only sadness;
Sadness that I’d had to escape at all.
Epilogue
Past
DALTREY COULDN’T BELIEVE THIS WOMAN had his brother under some sort of spell. Not only was she nearer his own age than his younger brother’s, but she was a vicious little cow and clearly a regular fan of botox injections and fillers. Daltrey knew the sort but for the life of him, he couldn’t understand any of this. Dante had his pick of women. Literally. Any woman. Models. Dancers. Actresses. Ballerinas. Doctors. Nurses. Any sort of woman. Not this haggard dominatrix, Shay. No doubt a former drug habit had prematurely aged her. Daltrey saw it in the veins of her nose and the slight shake of her hands. He knew if she lifted her sleeve, there’d be the evidence of old track scars and no doubt it was why she dressed so heavily in riding clothes – to cover all her bodily imperfections. Daltrey read people easily. Always had. Always would. And this woman… she disturbed him. He recognised a flicker of evil in the pits of her eyes and didn’t understand it. Never could. Never would.
The Fix (Nightlong Series Book 2) Page 35