Page 47 of All the Forbidden Things

She stares down at her feet as she moves slowly along my driveway. When she reaches the front of the car, she looks up. The bluest of blue eyes meet mine, and she stops moving.

Deafening silence.

No birds singing.

No traffic sounds.

The silence is so loud it hurts my ears.

What. The. Actual. Fuck?

She takes a step towards me, and my hearing returns. The gravel crunches beneath her green biker boots, a pigeon coos, brakes screech, engines rev . . . a bomb could fucking drop, but nothing, not a single thing can divert my attention from Billie Wild as she moves towards me.

Her long red hair hangs in a thick plait over her right shoulder, and the khaki green sweatshirt she’s wearing hangs off her left.

A current surges through me, both inside and out, jumping from hair to hair across my skin, igniting each one with a charge.

This is fucked.

This is Billie.

Cal’s little sister.

My body’s reaction to her is ridiculous to the point of making me paranoid that anyone watching me might know that my dick just twitched. I shake my head and turn my head to look along the hallway and into my house, just to check that no one’s witnessing my reaction to seeing my best friend’s little sister.

I need to get fucking laid.

I laugh at my sad, pathetic self and turn back to face Billie. Her step falters, and the small, shy smile she was wearing turns into a full-on grin just as the sun fleetingly breaks through the grey November sky and she comes to a stop right in front of me.

“Bamm,” I greet her quietly, “you grew up.”

“Wilma,” she responds, sounding breathy, “you had a kid.”

I don’t reply. I can’t. I just watch Billie look at my daughter then back up at me. My arm reaches out and slides around her small waist, and I almost drown in my own awareness of her as I lean in and kiss her cheek.

“It’s good to see you,” I say against her skin.

“It’s been a while,” she replies without moving.

“Years.”

“Too long.”

I take in her fresh, clean scent as I hold her close. The citrus of her perfume pervades my senses, and then she’s gone. Stepping back and looking up at me, I take in the confused expression on her face, and all I can do is shrug because, in all honesty, I have no fucking clue what just happened.

“Let’s go in before the baby gets cold,” I suggest.

Without another word, she turns and heads into my house. I look down at Layla with a frown before turning to follow Billie. Her hips sway in front of me, and I make zero attemptsnotto take in every inch of her fine arse, which looks as if it’s been poured into her jeans.

“Daddy’s going to Hell, baby girl. Straight to Hell,” I tell her through gritted teeth.

Makenzie takes Layla from meas soon as I enter the kitchen, Mel unpacks a bag full of groceries, Cal heads to my beer fridge, and Billie leans against the worktop, taking in everyone else as well as my home.

It bothers me that I instantly wonder what she’s thinking.

Mum and I spent a few hours last week De-Whitney-ing the house. We moved her clothes out of my wardrobe and into her new, downstairs bedroom, and all of the artwork she’d insisted we buy when we were together is now hanging in the same room too. Every picture of us was removed from its frame—because Mum wouldn’t let me destroy the frames—and thrown into the recycle bin. The only one I saved was a photo of Whit holding Layla just after she’d been born. That one I’d put beside her new temporary bed in her new temporary bedroom.

Cal reappears with a beer in each hand and passes one to me. I hear Makenzie talking to Layla as she wanders around the family room, and Billie quietly asking Mel if there’s anything she can do to help. It’s then that I notice the plaster cast on Billie’s hand and realise I never mentioned the attack when she walked in.