Gregory turns now, fast and furious, his entire body tensing, making him seem taller and broader than normal. “She had nothing to do with it.”
I did. And I can see clearly now. This was supposed to happen. Gregory made me follow his plan when I wanted to tell the truth but now he can’t deny the evidence.
It’s time. It’s time to put a stop to this. It’s time to free Gregory from his past and tell the truth. I stand and walk down the remaining steps, no longer worried about my presence being heard, mentally preparing myself for the admission I’m about to make.
“Get back upstairs!” Gregory roars, my entire body jumping back.
“No.” I’m resolute. This is the right thing to do. I’m sick of the lies. I listened to him before, when he convinced me this would go away. Not now. They have evidence.
“Scarlett, get back upstairs, now!”
“Stop speaking to me like that. It’s time, Gregory. I won’t stand by and watch you go through this. I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you.”
“Scarlett, I won’t tell you again. Get back up those fucking stairs, now!”
“Do you have something to tell me, Scarlett?” D.I. Barnes positions himself between Gregory and me.
“Yes. I do.”
“No, she fucking doesn’t.” Gregory is irate. His eyes are wild, possessed. In three strides he reaches me. He drops his shoulder into my waist and hoists me up, leaving me kicking and screaming against his back as he drags me upstairs.
“Well at least I know what I’m really dealing with now.” D.I. Barnes stands then and moves close to Jackson, his mumbles almost inaudible above my screeching.
“Put me down!” I’m screaming at him, punching at his lower back. Then I’m thrown on the bed in the first bedroom we come to. “Why did you do that? Why won’t you accept that I need to do this?”
“Fuck!” He’s pacing the floor, both hands locked in his hair. Each time he glances at me his eyes are bulging. He’s trying to control himself but fury is driving him. My body jumps as he lets out a roar of exasperation then pounds his fist into the back of the bedroom door, puncturing the wood.
I don’t know what to do or say so I sit on the edge of the bed, motionless.
“Why can’t you just understand that this is something I have to do?” His tone is calmer now but he’s still fighting his anger. He shakes off his already colouring and swelling hand as if pounding the door was a tickle.
“Because you won’t talk to me. You won’t let me understand. Take a chance on me, Gregory. Let me in.”
He drops to his knees in front of me, shuffling between my thighs, then he lifts my chin with his index finger until I’m looking into desolate eyes. “Everything in my life before you was screwed up. I’ve spent my life trying to make up for everything I’ve done wrong and trying to move on from my past. But it haunts me. It’s haunting me now. Can’t you see that I expect us to go wrong? I know we will because that’s what I do. I damage things and people.”
I open my mouth to speak but no words form. He expects us to fail. It’s like he won’t even try to defy the odds. My eyes fall to my fingers in my lap as they turn around each other.
Gregory lifts my chin again. “Look at me. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to kill him. You pulled that trigger but I’m the one who loaded the gun and forced you to fire. I screwed up and I’ll spend every day for the rest of my life hating myself for dragging you into this. I didn’t protect you. I let who I am hurt you.”
“Please don’t say that. I picked up that gun to save you. I wanted you to be free of your past and I wanted revenge. You didn’t drag me into this, Gregory. I had my own motives.”
“Motives that I inflicted on you. My past, my demons. I live with them every day and I won’t...I couldn’t live with myself if I did that to you. I’m dark, Scarlett. I’m fucked up and I keep telling you that you deserve so much more than that.”
I swallow the lump that forms in my throat. “And I keep telling you to stop saying that. You aren’t like him, you aren’t like your father. You deserved better than him.”
He shakes his head. “You. Are. Incredible. You’re strong, beautiful and smart. And I’m too damn selfish to let you go. I’m too selfish to let you have a happy life without me. But you should walk away and at some point you’ll see that. That’s why we have to do this my way. Please.”
So she can move on. Anxiety strikes my chest and pressure builds behind my eyes.
“Gregory, I am happy with you. You’re the only thing that makes me happy anymore.”
He shakes his head again on a slow blink. “Please don’t ever say that. It breaks my heart to hear you say that. I’ve brought you so much upset.”
I take his divine, messed-up face in my palms and look him directly in the eyes. “And you’ve shown me a new world, an unbelievable world where I’m alive. Truly, alive. You do make me happy. Happier than I could’ve ever imagined before I met you.”
He shakes his head again. “If anything ever happened to you I’d kill myself, Scarlett.”
“Hey! Don’t you ever say things like that! Do you hear me?”
“Please, Scarlett, you have to let me clean up this mess. The mess that I’ve caused.” My heart is breaking as he gives me what I suspect is just a taste of the depths of his pain. I can’t promise to see this through. But for now, I’ll give him what he wants.
“You do deserve me,” I whisper, dropping my lips to his. I feel his head shake but I hold his face to mine, pouring every ounce of love I feel into him, until he relaxes into my kiss.
We won’t fail. I won’t let us.
Chapter Thirteen
Jackson let me fool around with the punch bag for ten minutes when I first came into the gym. Today’s lesson focussed on teaching me to kick like a man...as opposed to a girl. Now I’m dripping in sweat on the spin bike, keeping a steady pace in the verses of the dance tracks he’s playing through the sound system and sprinting through the choruses. Jackson is hollering at me to go faster. It feels good. Through each leg turn I vent my frustration. We’re back to where we were a week ago, overshadowed by uncertainty. But now the question isn’t only whether the CPS will charge Gregory, it’s also whether they’ll charge me. I can’t rely on self-defence. There was no glass in my side, no chain around my neck, killing me. There were only two things. The first, and I think or hope the most prevalent, was my need to protect the man who unequivocally possesses my heart. The second was the black streak of revenge coursing like tar through my blood.
John Harrison really does have his work cut out.
When my chorus ends, I drop the pace of my rotations and push back on my hands, sitting up straight and filling my lungs.
I open my eyes to see Gregory, back from his run, his grey T-shirt stained with sweat, his hair wet and slicked back. Anything I was thinking just got lost in the Land of Lascivious.
“Keep turning, Scarlett,” Jackson hollers, pausing midway through a bicep curl.
A smug half smile washes over the face of the reason my legs refuse to move. I force myself to keep going, picking up the pace with the beat of the music but I can’t take my eyes off my fine specimen as he removes his headphones from his ears then peels his top from his hot, damp skin and over his head. Every muscle in his chest moves. If I was in paradise with just this man, there’s no way I’d ditch the Adam to my Eve for an apple. This is why God made men, of that I’m sure.
“Like what you see?” Arrogant arse.
Ignoring him, I drop my head to sprint through the chorus but can’t help a cheeky little glance up through my lashes.
He straps himself into boxing gloves and sets off swinging at the bag. Fuck me gently! His back twists, turns, stiffens, releases with each punishing blow. I think, I know, my jaw is hanging loose. When I realise that the tu
ne in my ears is already part way through the next chorus, I force my feet to spring into action, much to Jackson’s amusement.
When I hit thirty minutes, I climb down from the bike and move to the area where there are mats, mirrors and exercise balls, to stretch. I make sure my leggings and climacool T-shirt are where they should be, then reach up high and bend from my hips to touch my toes. When I rise I take my legs wide. I reach up again and drop my hands to the ankle of my right foot. It feels so good I hum. Then I repeat the same move, bending to meet my left ankle. The pounding of gloved fists against the punch bag stops. Peering between my legs I find Gregory, unashamedly standing next to the punch bag, arms folded, watching my arse.
“Like what you see?” I say on a smirk.
The Velcro of his gloves is ripped open and he’s on me in a flash. He wraps his arms around my waist and lifts me, my back pressing against his chest as my legs flail in the air and I squeal. “Damn right I do.”
We leave Jackson laughing on the leg press. He’s obviously feeling stronger. I’m laughing too as Gregory darts up the stairs carrying me like I weigh nothing. He flicks on the shower then plants me on my feet, spinning me to face him.
“Such a temptress.” His hands are already under my T-shirt, lifting it over my arms. His mouth is on mine before my top reaches the floor. We kick off our trainers. This is going to be an extension of his high energy workout. An endorphin fuck—killing my pain and taking me to Gregory euphoria all at once.
* * *
“Which one?” I scan the row of Gregory’s supercars in the basement carpark.
“You pick.” He stops walking, adjusting the cuffs of his navy Hugo Boss jacket.
“Let’s try one I haven’t been in before.” I have no idea about cars but I do recognise the Ferrari emblem. “Ferrari,” I say with a smile.
He bends and adjusts the bottom of his dark jeans over his leather boot. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not? I’ve never been in a Ferrari.”
“Are you getting a taste for fast cars, Miss Heath?”
“Everything high and fast, right?”
He moves towards me, engulfing me in his firm arms. “That’s my girl.” He drops a kiss on my brow. My inner princess swoons. “But we’re not taking the Ferrari because the key in my pocket is for the Aston Martin.”
“If you had the key the whole time why did you let me pick?”
He shrugs and drops a hand in to mine, walking us towards the DB9 as it bleeps and flashes. “Because winding you up is fun.”
I scowl at his back as he ducks into the driver seat.
We drive to Lincoln’s Inn with relative ease, rush hour having subsided. We walk the corridors of the Inn in silence, my grip of his hand tightening as we get closer to John Harrison’s office. Another dramatic switch from light to dark in our turbulent relationship. One minute we’re making love like animals in the shower, the next we’re on our way to see a lawyer about a murder charge.
I make to knock on the antique office door but Gregory grabs my hand and turns me to face him. “Before we go in there, I want you to promise me that we’re doing this my way. No attitude, Scarlett, do you hear me?”
“And by attitude you mean truth?”
He sighs and bites my nose, I suspect half playful and half in exasperation. “By attitude I mean that kind of insolence. My way, Scarlett. Don’t make us fall out on our day off.”
“Some day off.”
“What did I just say?” He bites the tip of my nose again. “Attitude.”
He raps on the door and John chirps, “Come in.”
“Gregory, if John knows the truth he’ll be prepared.”
“Now then, old boy, good to see you again.” John stands from behind his desk as Gregory opens the door, deliberately cutting me off.
“Mr. Harrison,” Gregory says with a curt nod.
“Take a seat, take a seat.” John wafts a hand at two leather chairs then lifts a pile of documents from his desk and dumps it on the floor so we can both see him when he resumes his position. “Tea? Coffee?” He flicks his wrist in front of him and assesses his Breitling. “It could be time for a pastry, could it not?”
I feel Gregory tense in his seat, heat emanating from him. “We’re fine. Can we discuss my case?”
John is visibly taken aback and must think better of ordering himself a drink and a pastry. “Rightie-ho, old boy.” He shuffles through some papers on his desk. “Ah yes, here she is. The ballistics report.”
Gregory crosses one ankle over his opposite knee and drops his shoulders from their position around his ears. “It suggests my story doesn’t add up.”
John’s eyes are wide. “Dare I ask how you already know what is in the report despite the fact your lawyer received it thirty minutes before you arrived?”
Gregory brings his hands to a steeple. “Best not.”
John drops the report to the desk in front of him and leans back in his chair, his upper body mirroring Gregory’s. “Right you are. In that case, the report suggests to me one of two things. In the first option, three witnesses, including the accused, were mistaken about what they saw and did. In the second, someone else took that shot.”
They stare at one another across the desk, neither one willing to be the first to break contact. Eventually, John blinks.
“I have told you before, young man, I am defending you, I am not protecting a third party.” He shifts his focus to me and back to Gregory. “If you want me to help you, you need to give me the facts.”
“You have the facts, Mr. Harrison.”
“Are you telling me the report is wrong? Because if that is your proposed defence strategy, old boy, you might as well put yourself in shackles and chains and cart yourself off to hell now.”
I close my eyes but the image of Gregory in a prison cell won’t be blocked out. I take two deep breaths and when I open my eyes, Gregory’s watching me. He moves a hand subtly to my knee and I accept it, placing my chilled palm across his warm skin.
“What are the options?” He speaks to John without moving his attention from me.
John sighs. “Well, you can change your story. The danger being, you look like a liar. If it goes to court, you have already lost the jury. Or, you can stick to your story. Then you have three statements, assuming none of those statements change, arguing against a ballistics report. If you risk the latter, there is a good chance the prosecution will start digging for the person who really took that shot, scrutinising the forensic evidence more closely, interviewing acquaintances.”
This is falling apart and there’s only me who can stop it.
“Of course, I will continue to look for holes in procedure. That is a technical way out but I am yet to find anything.”
Gregory takes my hand, squeezing it until I open my eyes. “Scarlett, would you leave us, please?”
“Excuse me?”
“Attitude,” he says under his breath. “Five minutes. This isn’t a discussion, Scarlett.”
“No.”
“Scarlett. Go.”
John rises from his chair and makes his way towards me. “If I may say, Scarlett, I think it could be helpful for me to have a chat with your boyfriend alone.”
Seriously? Now they’re in it together. Unbelievable. With a giant scowl, I leave the room and go in search of the ladies’.
Business taken care of, I tuck my shirt into my tapered trousers and wiggle the material at the calves, adjusting them so they fall just above my pointed black heels. My reflection seems older than it did two months ago. So much has happened, so much is happening. Things were so simple when it was just Dad, Sandy and me. That feels like the life of an entirely different person and right now I don’t know which Scarlett is best. Old Scarlett had a father, a career she could be proud of, morals. New Scarlett
is confused, up and down on a daily basis, a liar, a murderer. But she has a man she adores. A man she’s so utterly infatuated with she’s about to throw away a huge opportunity at work because she can’t stand the thought of leaving him. A man who could be carted off in cuffs at any moment for a crime he didn’t commit.
He’s standing outside John’s room, leaning one hip against the wall and holding my black wool coat across his arm. “Ready?”
“You’re done?”
“Yes.” He opens out my coat for me to slip in my arms then turns me and fastens the buttons to my neck. He drops a kiss on the tip of my nose. “Right. What’re we doing with our day?”
“Are you joking?”
“Scarlett, I’m not letting this whole thing keep dragging us down.”
“What happened in there?”
“We agreed to request another ballistics report.”
“Can you just request another ballistics report?”
“Well, we aren’t changing our story and the report doesn’t match our story, so John’s going to make a case for it. If not, we’ll go independent.”
I mull the idea over for a moment, trying to get things clear in my head. “Let’s say we get a second report.”
“We are.”
“What if the report comes back exactly the same, which, let’s face it, unless they’re utterly shite at their job, it will do.”
“Was there really a need to swear then?”
“Stop changing the subject, Gregory, and yes. Since meeting you I’ve found a lot of reasons to swear so please let me indulge in my new vice.”
He steps towards me and wraps his arms around my lower back. I turn my head because I know I’ll see hooded eyes if I look at him and I’ll completely lose my trail of thought.
“Look at me.” His words are heavy.
“No.”
“Look. At. Me.”
I do. His eyes are filled with desire. “I like that I give you a reason to swear...in some departments. In others, please watch your dirty fucking tongue.”
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