Page 1 of Mutual Obsession (Rivals of Blackthorn #2)

“ S lam another kitchen cupboard door and I will beat you to death with this frying pan,” Chloe snarls as she waves the spatula she’s holding in my direction. Her glare tells me her threat is very serious.

Marcus looks up from where he’s sitting at the kitchen island and chuckles, not helping me in the slightest. He’s looking over at his girl, who is frying bacon for our breakfast, mooning over her like a fucking lovesick teenager.

Ever since my best friend admitted how he feels about Chloe, there’s been no going back. She was supposed to move in for sixty days, thanks to his stupid bet with Jacob, but I don’t see her ever leaving.

I’ve spent a lot of mornings in this kitchen with them since Chloe came to live here, so I know she’s not a morning person. She’s one of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet, as long as she’s had her morning coffee and some food. Before then, you risk her wrath every time you interact with her.

Normally, I make breakfast to help ease her grumpiness, but today, I’m too wound up to do anything. I only went to get the bread out of the cupboard to help her, but apparently, my barely contained rage means I’m slamming things too loudly.

She’s not fucking wrong, but I don’t want to hear it today. My mind has been whirling since the night before, and after only a couple of hours of very disrupted sleep, I feel like I’m going fucking crazy.

I ignore Chloe’s grumbles as I slide the bread towards her with a bit more force than is necessary, and turn to meet the gaze of my best friend and boss, who looks less than impressed by my interaction with his girl.

“You have to fire her,” I say through gritted teeth, trying my best not to shout.

I can’t even bring myself to say her name. Not that it fucking matters anyway, since she’s clearly not using her real name. That’s most likely why I didn’t recognise it when she came through my security team for clearance.

Although I don’t personally do any of the security checks for new hires in the clubs, or any other business Marcus is involved with, I am made aware of new hires.

We have regular security briefings where my team tells me who all of the new people are, and we discuss their background checks.

She never flagged up, but since she gave a fake name, that’s not entirely surprising.

Now I have to bollock my team to find out how the hell we didn’t realise she was using a fake name. If people with aliases and backgrounds can get jobs with us, it sort of defeats the purpose of the checks in the first place. She could be hiding anything, and that’s a massive threat to us.

I try to tell myself that the reason I’m so fucking pissed is that she got past my team. The team I personally trained to a high level—or so I thought. But I’m just bullshitting my brain. I’m pissed because she’s back, dredging up the past all over again.

It’s not bad enough that Jacob is working through all the ancient history between us, thanks to his fucking therapy, now she’s here too. Some things are better left in the past, as I might not survive them a second time.

Marcus winces at the tone I use on him, as he runs his fingers through his dark hair. “I can’t fire her.”

I slam my fist onto the counter, making Chloe yelp. I want to apologise straight away, particularly when I see Marcus glaring at me, like he might actually kill me, but all logical thought has gone flying out of the window.

“I’ve never asked you for fucking anything,” I tell him, hating how fucking desperate I sound.

Marcus must be able to hear the pain in my voice, as his face softens in a way it’s only ever done since Chloe came into his life. She, somehow, managed to crack through his tough exterior, and made him more human, which I thought would benefit me with this request.

“I know, Miles, and I really am sorry. She has a legal contract, and I can’t fire her without good reason. It would put me in a difficult legal situation, as she can claim I unfairly dismissed her,” he explains rationally.

I scoff, shaking my head at my best friend’s stupidity. “There are plenty of reasons to fire her. I’m guessing she’s on a provisional contract for the first few months, so she only needs one infraction for you to terminate, and I can give you that now.”

“Miles…” Marcus drags my name out into a long groan, obviously losing patience with me, but I cut him off, continuing with my point.

“After I left the club last night?—”

“After you stormed off in a hissy-fit, you mean?” Marcus adds in, somewhat unhelpfully.

I flip him my middle finger, but continue with my story. “I went and sat in the car to chill out and clear my head.”

“That worked well,” Chloe mutters sarcastically as she flips over the bacon, shaking her head at me.

I pretend like she didn’t even speak. “I saw her leave with Jacob. She clearly broke your ‘no fraternising’ rule, so her contract can easily be voided.”

Chloe clears her throat, trying to grab my attention. “Look, Miles, there’s stuff you missed out on after you left. Yes, Jake tried to ask out Indie, but she said she wasn’t interested in starting anything with him, except friendship.”

I let out a loud, humourless laugh as I shake my head in confusion. “How many fucking girls has Jacob slept with after he said he wouldn’t? How many of them did he say he just wanted to get to know, yet he still shagged them?”

Chloe winces, her nose wrinkling at the mention of her brother’s sex life. “I’d prefer not to answer that.”

“Because you know I’m fucking right,” I shout, throwing my hands into the air in frustration.

“Miles, stop,” Marcus states firmly, fixing me with a hard stare that lets me know I’m tip-toeing the line where Chloe’s concerned.

“You’re right that the rule is still in place, and I will remind them both of that when I next see them.

But, for now, as far as we know, neither of them has broken the rules, so that’s as much as I’m prepared to do. ”

I look over at the man I’ve known since we were kids, staring at him like he’s grown a second head. “When the fuck did you stop having my back?”

I don’t miss the hurt that flashes in his eyes for just a second before he gets control of his emotions. My stomach sinks, and I know I’ve gone too far, but I can’t seem to pull myself back from the edge.

Chloe walks over to us, having finished cooking, and places a plate in front of each of us, with our bacon sandwiches on them. She puts a hand on Marcus’ shoulder. Evidently, she saw the flash of hurt too and needed to comfort him.

“Miles, what happened with you and Indie?” Chloe asks gently, almost like she’s trying to understand, but doesn’t want me to fly off the handle any more than I already have.

“That’s not her name,” I grind out.

Chloe looks confused, her eyes flicking from Marcus to me, waiting for someone to speak. Marcus takes her hand off his shoulder and laces their fingers together as he pulls her onto his lap.

He lifts his gaze to meet mine. “We will look into why she’s using a fake name. You knew her as Dee, right?”

I nod, my chest aching as I hear the name that’s been haunting my dreams for far too fucking long. “She said her real name was Deena, but she was always called Dee.”

“Indie can be shortened to Dee too,” Chloe adds, pointing out the fucking obvious.

“She clearly chooses names where she can use the same nickname. I’m guessing if she changes her name regularly, that’s the easiest way to keep track,” Marcus states.

I have to focus on pulling in breaths to stay calm, as if I don’t, I’ll lose it, and my friends don’t deserve that.

“Surely, we should look into why she’s changing her fucking name.

She can’t be trusted, and she obviously lied on her paperwork, which is yet another excuse for you to fire her. She could be bloody dangerous.”

“Do you think she’s dangerous?” Chloe asks, missing the point entirely.

I think for a second before I answer. Going back to those memories is so painful for me, and I can only do it for a few seconds before my chest aches. Just thinking of her has my pulse racing, and I hate that my heart still beats for her, after she broke it beyond repair.

“Honestly, I don’t know. The girl I knew wasn’t dangerous, but I obviously didn’t know her as well as I thought I did. I was sure Dee would never leave me, or hurt me, and she definitely did not need to use a false name. Whoever Indie is, I don’t know her at all.”

Each word feels like ash on my tongue, and I hate how true my statement is. For a while, she was the one person I would have said knew me the best—even more than Marcus.

I let her see a side to me that nobody else ever has. She was there for me during one of my worst times, and she helped me through it. When I met Dee, I’d already closed off my heart, having had it broken once before, but giving her a chance was as easy as breathing. I never thought she’d hurt me.

How fucking wrong was I?

“What happened between you?” Chloe asks again.

I can tell she’s not trying to pry. She just wants to understand—which makes two of us. I let out a sigh, and tell her as much as I can bear to part with.

“I met her during the hardest summer of my life, and she turned it into the best. When my whole world was turning to shit, she walked in and brightened it up.

“I had closed my heart off a couple of years before, after it was broken for the first time, and vowed never to let anyone in again. I didn’t even realise she'd crawled under the walls I’d built, until it was too late. I fell for her, hard and fast.

“I didn’t think I could fall for someone else. I never really got over my first love, and despite knowing nothing could ever happen with us, I still couldn’t move on—until Indie. She wiggled her way into my heart, like she was always meant to be there.

“A piece would always belong to my first love, but I knew I couldn’t live in the past forever, so I took what was left of my heart and gave it to Indie. She promised to keep it safe, and to care for me with all she had. Instead, she left without a word, taking my heart with her.”

With so many broken and missing pieces, my heart has never recovered. I’ve never tried to move on, because I have nothing left to give to someone else. I’ve only been in love twice, and both times shattered me. I don’t think I could survive another.

I see the sadness reflected in Chloe’s eyes, and though her words are reassuring, telling me she understands, she doesn’t really. Neither her nor Marcus have ever had their hearts broken the way I have, so they can’t relate.

Even just reliving the memories is painful, despite some of them being my happiest. All I know for certain is that it’s hard enough having to see my first love all of the time and pretend like it doesn’t kill me. I can’t do it with Dee too.

No matter what, Indie has to go. I’ll do whatever it takes to get rid of her, but before I do, I need to find out why she’s back, and why she’s using a fake name.

I know I shouldn’t care, and I’m telling myself that my interest is purely a safety concern, but that’s bullshit.

I’ve asked myself the same question every day since she left: Why did she leave me? Maybe investigating why she’s back will get me the answers I need.