Gentleman Sinner

‘He got out on bail.’ Theo pretty much spits the words, disgust drenching them.

I inhale, shocked, moving back and dropping my gaze to the floor. It darts around our bare feet. ‘They let him out?’ I don’t believe this. Theo handed him over to the police, rather than break his legs, and they let him out, free to terrorize Penny again, and God knows how many other women? It’s horrifying. ‘How did he get in the club?’

‘I don’t know.’ Just the way he says it tells me he’s absolutely raging. Has he realized, like I have, that he’s not untouchable?

‘What are you going to do?’ I look up at him, now worrying about his intentions.

‘Hurt him.’ He doesn’t hold back, doesn’t bother to try to pull the wool over my eyes. I can see the intent on his face, the thirst to draw blood from the worthless lowlife. The power behind his words matches the physical power I know he has. ‘I’m going out with Callum.’

‘No.’ I shake my head, moving towards him. ‘Theo, please, no.’

‘You don’t think he deserves it?’ His question gives me pause. There’s something in his blue eyes making me read between the lines. His question feels tactical. He’s gone low, and I’m not sure I can blame him.

‘I know what you’re capable of, Theo.’ I push on, desperate for him to understand my plight. ‘You’ll be locked up. You’ll be taken away from me.’

‘That’s not going to happen.’

‘It might! You thought you could hand him over to the police and they’d do their job. They failed, Theo. Not you.’ His face twists in agony. It kills me, because I know my words aren’t sinking in. I lift my arm and let him see it, his eyes following my hand to his chest to where his new tattoo is still reddened and shiny from Vaseline. ‘Please, promise me you won’t do anything stupid.’

He studies my hand resting on his skin, taking a deep breath. ‘Promises are nothing but words that evaporate the moment they’re spoken.’ Looking up at me, his face is completely blank. But the tinge of deadliness in his eyes is more apparent. ‘They disappear. They mean nothing.’ He turns and walks away to the bathroom, leaving me shell-shocked, my palm warm from the lingering aftermath of our physical connection.

It’s ironic. I’ve welcomed Theo’s protective instinct, craved it. His safety and security. His ability to keep danger at bay. Now that instinct means I might lose him.

I can’t lose him.

He sees nothing but a need for revenge. Right now, he’s not seeing me. My need. My pain. Anger bubbles up from my toes, fear engulfing me. ‘You stupid, selfish pig!’ I yell. ‘What about us?’ I snatch my jeans from the nearby chair and yank them on before grabbing up my bag and heading for the door. I slam it behind me and work on slamming a lid on my mind as well.*My day is spent doing anything to stop myself from thinking. I went home, showered and readied myself, then headed out with a list of things to do. It took me longer to write the list than it’ll probably take me to actually do it all. I say all. All two things. The supermarket is my first stop. I stock up on everything, and I take my time doing it, roaming up and down every aisle, whether I need dog food or baking supplies or not. I pick the longest check-out queue, and I decline the offer of help to pack my bag. I don’t grab a coffee from the Starbucks in the supermarket; I walk the five streets to another one instead. And I don’t use the nearby Boots to finally get my photographs from Vegas developed; I walk a few miles to the next one.

As I sit on a stool in the booth, my phone linked via a USB cable to the machine, I flick through the images of my first girlie holiday in my twenty-seven years. I smile, selecting and printing as I go, reliving the time that feels like years ago through the images. After collecting my prints, I think of something else to add to my dwindling list of things to do. I need a frame. But not from this shop. Collecting my bags, I go in search of a home store.*Hours later, I’m on the floor in my lounge trimming photographs and arranging them in a huge frame made up of a dozen smaller ones. When I’m done, I’m surrounded by offcuts of photographs, and each of the frames contains a picture of either me, Jess, or both of us. I prop it up on the couch and stand back, scanning every image. Jess was my only family. Now, I have Theo. He should be in these photographs. But there are none in existence of Theo and me. I should fix that.