‘No, you can’t.’
‘Why not?’ the minx demands.
I don’t hear Lily’s answer because I’m already too far away, or they’ve moved into one of the other rooms. It hits me then: I’m not part of this family, and it looks like I never will be. I stand for a moment outside the door at the end of the corridor. Taking a deep breath, I knock.
It is opened almost immediately.
‘Come in,’ Jake invites cordially.
He is wearing a black T-shirt and gray jeans, and I must admit, just being in his presence makes me nervous. He is as big and intimidating as Dom, but there are absolutely no buttons to push. No weakness. No secret sadness to exploit. He is one of those smoothly impenetrable and guarded people. It was always clear to me that he is the boss of his family. He guards them as ferociously as a mother lion guards her newborn babies.
Woe betide anyone who tries to hurt them.
‘Thanks,’ I say quietly, and step into a large, wood-paneled room. It has soft rugs, a heavy wooden desk at one end of the room, and a nest of expensive leather couches at the other end. There is an air of old world opulence about it all. Here, one can feel safe and cultured. The outside world never intrudes. Here, Jake is King. From here, he controls his empire.
He gestures toward the sofas.
I move over to them. My legs feel like jelly and my skin is tingling with nervous energy. Stop it, I tell myself. You have nothing to fear. I am on the same side as Jake. I don’t want to hurt Dom. I love him. It is perfectly obvious that he is in terrible pain, and I just want to help him.
‘I was just about to have a drink. Would you like to join me?’ he says.
I start to shake my head and then decide that I actually do need something strong to calm me. ‘I’ll have whatever you’re having.’
‘I’m having a whiskey,’ he says, and I nod.
He moves toward a drinks trolley. With his back to me he pours two fingers of whiskey into two glasses and comes toward me. As he crosses the room, he passes the last rays of evening light coming from the window. They hit the side of his face and I am struck by how handsome all the Eden brothers are.
I take the glass and bring it to my lips. The whiskey is strong and hits my empty stomach like liquid fire.
Jake doesn’t say anything, simply watches me with a deliberately bland expression. I know that his first and most natural instinct is to protect his brother. These gypsies stick together. For them, blood will always be thicker than water. He will help me, but only if it means it will also benefit his brother.
Fuck it. I decide to take the bull by the horns.
‘Last night Dom had a nightmare. When I woke him up he thought I was dead. And then he… he … said he couldn’t continue our relationship anymore and walked out of my flat. I haven’t spoken to or seen him since. Can you tell me anything that would help me understand what’s going on, Jake? I … I’m … really … um … in love with your brother.’
An expression of pity crosses his face. He takes a gulp of whiskey and turns his face away from mine. Seconds pass in silence. He appears to be looking into a distant past. At something that saddens him very much.
He turns to me. ‘When Dom was seventeen years old, he fell in love with a girl. She was sixteen. A laughing, wild, rebellious gypsy girl. Her name was Vivien. He thought they were soul mates because they were both so crazy and so alike. They could finish each other’s sentences. He wanted to marry her straightaway, but I forced him to wait until he was eighteen.
‘“You have your whole life ahead of you. What’s the hurry?” I told him. The truth was, I disapproved of her. She was bad for him. Too wild. She took too many risks. She egged him on, dared him to new and dangerous adventures. The kind of things that could land him in prison. Together, they reminded me of Bonnie and Clyde. I hoped, I prayed it would not last.
‘But I was wrong. The love he had for her didn’t die. It just became stronger. They became inseparable. After his eighteenth birthday, very reluctantly, I started to make plans. Everything was ready. In one month they would have been married, but then she did something no one had ever dreamed she would. I don’t know how she did it, but she stowed away on a smugglers’ boat that Dom was on.
‘It was night and the sea was rough. Something happened on that boat. She fell overboard and was swept away.’
TWENTY-ONE
With the swiftness of a gull, Vivien went over. She rushed to her fate, so near to me that I know I could have caught her if only I’d put my hand out.
Her hopeless, terror-stricken, doomed face, I saw for merely a moment, but it would be forever etched in my soul. The wide, laughing mouth had become a dark hole in her white face, and her beautiful, dancing eyes were huge with shock. Legs wheeling. Arms flailing. Desperate …. Oh God! How desperately she had looked for something to hold on to, anything, other than salty, gray air and diagonally flashing rain.
The cast iron rule was:
If you fall overboard that’s your fucking funeral. The boat stops for NOTHING.
One look at Preston and Dallas and I knew: they had absolutely no intention of stopping. Hardly surprising since the pair were certifiable psychopaths. It was the reason Jake wouldn’t have anything to do with them. But me, I had to be the big I AM. I had to work with the most dangerous thugs in Britain to prove what a tough guy I was.
So …