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“Thank you for not taking it away. I know that you could have.”
“You shouldn’t thank me for treating you with basic decency.”
Before I could say anything else, the lift arrived and we stepped inside. Silence accompanied us all the way to the ground floor. As we stepped into the lobby, I was greeted by a sea of disapproving looks as I emerged in an evening gown and just-fucked hair. My cheeks heated with embarrassment. I felt an arm slip around my waist and Alfie’s voice in my ear.
“Fuck them,” he whispered. I looked up to see him slipping on his Wayfarers. His chin lifted with a cocky ‘fuck you’ to every onlooker, a reminder that there was a whole Never Tell side of him that I had yet to discover.
He squeezed my waist and just like that, my self-consciousness was gone. It should bother me that he could manipulate my moods as easily as he manipulated my body. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, it did.
Twenty-Two
“So it was good? Are we talking leg-trembling good or speaking-in-tongues good? A nice, gentle afterglow or a raging blaze in your loins?” Keira was sitting cross legged on the floor next to me as she painted the edges of the wall with a thin brush. I stood next to her with a roller, applying magnolia emulsion to her living room wall.
“My loins?”
“Yeah, your lady area.” She gestured at my crotch with her paint brush.
“Wow. Are you twelve?”
“Are you avoiding the subject?”
“Okay, fine. He was great. Like mind-blowing, eyes-rolling-back-in-my-head, my-toes-have-gone-numb amazing.”
“And you could have spent the rest of the day with him but instead you came here to paint walls?” I nodded, knowing exactly where she was going with this. “You’re an idiot, Lo. If I had a guy willing to spend the day getting me off, I wouldn’t give it up to bail you out of jail, nevermind paint walls! Go and get lost in the dick sand while you have the chance! It’s not like he’s going to hang around in this tiny town forever.”
That was a painful fact I didn’t want to think about right now.
“I know, I’m just trying to maintain some distance between us.” I stuck my roller back in the paint tray before slapping it back to the wall and rolling it with vigour.
There were other reasons I needed to maintain a distance. His controlling behaviours, the tracking devices, and now hacking my medical records were major red flags. They hadn’t been enough to stop me going to bed with him, but I couldn’t forget them. I hadn’t told Keira about them and it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out why. If she knew, she would make me stop seeing him and I didn’t want to. Yet. I guess Alfie wasn’t the only one making irrational decisions. What I didn’t understand was why I was making them at all.
“I just don’t want to get in too deep.”
I could feel Keira’s eyes on me, her paint splattered face creased in thought.
“I think it might be too late for that.” She gave me a knowing look, like she knew, just like I knew, that I was already in way too deep.
As usual, Monday morning found me pulling into the car park with a minute to spare. I hopped out of the van in a deep green sundress and matching sunglasses, ready to face the day.
My first port of call was Bradley. I needed to ensure his secrecy. Not that my leaving the opening with Alfie was a huge secret. I just didn’t want my business splashed all over the place before I even knew what my business was.
I found Bradley in one of the greenhouses, assessing the seedlings. I smiled when I heard him whispering to them.
“How are they doing?”
“They’re stubborn,” he answered without looking up.
“Can’t relate.” He snorted and dug his hand into the soil, brought out a handful and sniffed it, frowning still. “Bradley, I think I have some explaining to do?—”
“No need,” he cut me off, holding up one hand. “I heard nothing, I saw nothing.”
I winced. He sounded pissed and a little hurt. I crouched next to him, sticking my hand into the earth too. I sniffed it. It smelled perfect to me, but the seedlings were a little on the small side.
“Can you move them? This is a pretty stressful spot.” I looked around at the human traffic, the noise. Some plants were more sensitive than others.
“Yeah, maybe.”
I got the feeling he wanted me to leave him alone, but I forced myself to stay and make things right. “Look, I’m really sorry about Saturday. I didn’t mean to ditch you like that…” I trailed off, unsure how to continue.