Page 149 of Never Tell Secrets

“It used to be longer,” I said before I could stop myself.

“Why did you cut it?” I didn’t answer. That would be giving away more than I wanted. “Alfie didn’t like it?” Kal asked and I squeezed my eyes shut. “Or maybe he liked it too much.”

He set the brush aside and I shivered as slender fingers massaged my scalp. This wasn’t what I wanted and I shifted in frustration. He was supposed to be distracting me, but all he was doing was letting Alfie in. He pressed a hand to the nape of my neck, another to the small of my back. “Straighten, arch your back, drop your shoulders.”

I moved as he directed me, automatically feeling like a gift being presented.

“When Alfie ties you, this is how you need to sit for him, it lets him see the lines of your body.”

Why did he keep mentioning him?

I stiffened at the thought of Alfie tying me up. Kal's hands on my shoulders told me he’d noticed. He rubbed his thumbs in soothing circles, massaging me. “Colour?”

“Green.”

He took the second piece of rope and began braiding it through my hair. I relaxed into the silence as he worked, his presence surprisingly calm. This wasn’t the teasing man I’d met before.

I don’t know how long I knelt there, eyes closed as he wove his mark into my hair. The heartbroken girl wailed deep inside, I willed her back to sleep but it was getting harder to keep her quiet. The gentler and kinder Kal was, the worse it got.

Steel grey eyes watched me, judging.

I shouldn’t be here. I felt a warm hand cup my cheek but when I opened my eyes it wasn’t Alfie staring back at me, it was Kal. Beautiful Kal who was everything except my Alfie.

My Alfie?

The thought was a joke.

“Colour?”

“Green.” I answered but the crack in my voice betrayed me. Kal’s mouth set into a thin line.

“I don’t tolerate lies in here, Lola. Tell me your colour.”

I automatically tried to lift a hand to my necklace but of course I couldn’t. I looked down at the ropes binding me, ropes I’d wanted but ropes that were wrong because of who had put them there.

Alfie…

I wanted Alfie. Just like the night at the Never Tell Club, I couldn’t do this as a casual encounter. No matter how hard I tried, I was never going to be that girl.

But I couldn’t be Alfie’s girl either. Not after what he’d done.

He’d…

I gasped as a tear slipped free as the weight of what he’d done came to sit fully on my chest.

Alfie had lied to me.

Another tear followed.

Alfie had violated me.

Yet another tear.

It still wasn’t over. Despite his actions, it still wasn’t over.

My tears fell one after another in agonised silence.

Kal brushed a tear away. “I wondered how long it was going to take for you to break.” He pulled on my bindings and my wrists came free. His arms came around me and I held stiff for a moment before falling into his chest and crying like I hadn’t in two years.