Page 72 of A Lethal Game of Trust

I drove around the fountain to park directly in front of the twenty-eight steps to the front door.

Two years ago, after pummelling Jared’s face, I’d hired a gardening team to come in and sort the grounds as they had grown wild. The fountain on the circular drive was infested with green water, moss and bugs. The ivy that had once trailedneatly up to her parents’ balcony had since taken it over and made the door impossible to open. The hedges around the drive were so overgrown that my car had been scraped with thorns. Now every six months, the bushes were trimmed back, the water of the fountain treated. I’d had the pool cleaned, emptied and covered.

If Leonie wanted to come home, she would just have to take the sheets off her furniture and hardly anything would have changed. If she wanted to sell the place, she wouldn’t have to see it in such a mess, she wouldn’t have to put time and effort into making it habitable.

That first time I’d hired a team to tidy it up, it had taken them two weeks because the gardens were so large and the plants excessive.

And that was just the outside of the property.

Other than when I installed the new security systems, I didn’t dare to go inside.

It was a shrine to Leo’s previous life, a time capsule. A door to the past where there had been so many possibilities.

“I want full access,” she said, picking at the blanket. She hadn’t looked up at the house yet. “You can still have the app, but I want to be able to get in with or without your permission.”

“I would never revoke—”

“Please,” she said, looking up at her home. “Just… I want it to be mine again.”

When I didn’t say anything, she rolled up the top of the bag of sweets, put them in the glove box, took out my gun and handed it to me.

She made herself so small, hunched in the corner of my car. A cub, not a lioness. The gun shook in her hands. “I’m notsaying I want to come back or that I even want to see this place ever again. I just want the option.”

I gave a slow nod and extracted the weapon from her hands.

She took a deep breath and opened her passenger door. I quickly got out and helped her jump down, taking her hand.

Her eyes didn’t leave the towering, dark house.

It had once been the brightest white, but it had faded. The ivy that scaled the walls, the two columns beside the front door were the darkest green and no longer flowered. Since she had last been here, some things had been unfixable.

“Thank you,” she said and leaned into my side. “Being back here makes me feel… heavy.”

Her leaning into me wasn’t enough. I snaked an arm over her shoulders.

“We don’t have to go inside,” I said, looking down at her as she bit her bottom lip. “Maybe this is enough for today. We can come back tomorrow, or the next day. Whenever you want, Leo.”

Her hair tickled my neck as she shook her head. “It has to be soon so it might as well be now. I need to write that impact statement. So I want to feel everything. I need to feel the break.”

I pressed a kiss to her temple and she melted into me a little before I pulled out my keys and handed her the one to her front door.

This definitely wasn’t just the sex she’d signed up for. But there weren’t thoughts behind the sweet gestures, behind my need to touch her.

She led the way up the twenty-eight steps. Her pace was off, going from really slow to a sudden sense ofurgency, back to hesitation.

Two steps from the porch, she stopped and turned to face me, holding me by my top with both hands. “You won’t leave me in there?”

“I won’t,” I promised. “I’ll be right by your side.”

She nodded, pooled eyes glancing at the door.

Taking both of her hands, I said, “I’m right here. If you want to leave, if you want to collect some things, if you want to cry or sit here right now and write the statement. Whatever you want or need, Leo, I’m here.”

Her nod this time was more confident. “Thank you,” she said again and squeezed one hand before gesturing around us with the other. “And thank you for this too. I had no idea you were doing this.”

“It’s my dad,” I lied. “I just helped organise it.”

“Who knows,” she started, a glimpse of a smile on her lips, “if we had Belov Security Systems back then this may have never happened.”