Total pages in book: 235
Estimated words: 224334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1122(@200wpm)___ 897(@250wpm)___ 748(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 224334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1122(@200wpm)___ 897(@250wpm)___ 748(@300wpm)
I step back, suspicious. “Okay,” I say quietly. When has she ever locked the bathroom when she’s used it? We were past shyness on the first . . . date. “Don’t be long.”
“I won’t,” she sings, as I back up, my mind racing, my eyes on the wood. I don’t like this, not at all.
When I make it downstairs, Jay’s in front of the TV, a remote control in his hand. “What am I watching for?” I ask, joining him, looking back up the stairs. Is she throwing up? Morning sickness?
“Just watch,” Jay says, pulling my attention round.
I squint, focused on the TV as Jay speeds up the footage, seeing the comings and goings of a London bar on a Saturday night. Then I see her. It’s grainy, blurry, but I’d know my girl anywhere. “Slow it,” I say, and he does. “That’s it, leave it playing.”
I study the screen, Ava and her friends huddled around a table, each of them coming and going, but Ava remains on her stool for the duration. Then, suddenly, all of them are gone and she’s alone. Alone until a man approaches. I exhale, leaning in, squinting harder to see the blurry footage better. “Pause it.” The screen stills, and I wander closer, eyes on the man by Ava’s table. Turner. She never mentioned him. Why? “Keep it going.” My eyes travel around the TV, then down to the bar floor when Ava starts picking things up. “I need another angle.”
“There’s another camera.”
“Get me it,” I order shortly, looking at him. “Did you see her talking to him?” The burn in my gut is intense.
Jay shakes his head, frustrated. “Ward, I do what I can,” he says, like cut him some fucking slack. “But if I’m called away to deal with some drunken twat or a few catfighting girls, I can’t watch her.”
“I don’t need someone watching me.” Ava’s voice pierces the thick air, and I turn to find her sitting at the top of the stairs, looking wary and nervous. Her firm tone isn’t fooling me. Why the hell didn’t she mention Turner? To protect him?
“Did you leave your drink unattended at any point?” Jay speaks up, filling the horrible silence. He thinks Matt is responsible too. Is this some kind of sick retaliation after I punched him? I’ll fucking kill him.
“No.”
“When did you start feeling strange?” I ask, my body tightening everywhere, engaging, getting ready to let loose, trying to hide my balled fists from Ava.
“I had a little stagger at the bar,” she says, her eyes flicking constantly from me to Jay. She shakes her head. “But I put it down to my heels.”
“Did you speak to anyone at the bar?”
She stares at my heaving form, silent. Guilty. How much exactly has she withheld from me? What hasn’t she shared?
“Answer the question, Ava.”
“There was a guy at the bar who offered to buy me a drink.” She rushes over her words. “I refused.”
So now we have two potential culprits? Any more?
“It was fine,” she says with absolutely no conviction. “I left the bar and returned to Kate.”
It’s fine. It’s fine. Nothing about any of this is fine. “Stop saying it’s fine,” I snap, louder than I mean to, but the strength required to remain fine is more than I have. She looks at me, and I see it on every inch of her. She knows that this is not good. She knows this will send me over the edge. She knows every reason why I’m so fucking protective is happening on the screen behind me. She can’t even look at me, her eyes instead on the TV. Then I catch a slight recoil before she can rein it in. What was that?
I face the screen, the turmoil within flaring, the pressure in my head building. And then I see what she’s seen. The fuck? A man, suited, tall, light-haired, is at the bar. Van Der Haus. My stomach turns as I watch him come on and off the screen, as Ava orders drinks a few meters up the busy bar, and another man moves in, talking to her. She’s on the floor again, picking something up before she staggers away. What was Van Der Haus doing when he was off the screen? What was he doing before this footage captured him?
I can hardly see now through my rage, so I turn away from the screen—I’ve seen enough—and look at Ava. My beautiful, young, careless, fiancée. The odds have always been against me but, truly, I never ever considered that someone would act so callously to exact their revenge. Never. I protect her from my past, from alcohol, from accidents, the leery eyes of other men. But this?
“Have you seen enough?” Jay asks, uncomfortable.
“Yes.”
I hear the front door close a few moments later, and the silence screams as I lock every muscle down, coiled, tense, and fuming. She’s quiet. Guilty. “You didn’t mention Matt before.” My throat hurts, the muscles there tense too.