Down London Road (On Dublin Street 2)

Olivia and Cam were there.

Braden looked down at me, drawing my gaze. ‘I can hit him now if you want?’

I’m not going to lie – I seriously pondered the suggestion before finally saying with a sigh, ‘Not worth it.’

‘Jo?’ Cam asked hoarsely.

I looked at him and felt Joss’s hold on me tighten. Cam’s blue eyes searched my face and just like Mick’s had, his expression clouded over, undiluted rage sparking to life in his eyes. ‘Who the f**k did it?’ he asked between gritted teeth.

I didn’t answer his question. Having him here was incredibly painful. The anger he felt over my attack seemed fake in light of the fact that he’d cheated on me with Blair. ‘I want you to leave.’

Cam closed his eyes as if he was in pain. ‘Jo, please, what you saw …’

‘Just leave.’

‘Jo.’ Olivia stepped forward. ‘Give him a chance to explain.’

‘Later,’ Mick snapped, his gold eyes fixated on my wounded mouth. ‘I want a name. Now.’ I gulped, feeling the threat of violence rise in the room. Not just from Mick – his anger was infecting Cam and Braden.

‘Murray.’

Mick’s nostrils flared at the name.

‘Dad did it,’ I clarified.

‘What?’ he yelled, his question muffled by Cam’s explosion of expletives.

Olivia strode between them, trying to calm them. ‘We’ll get thrown out of the hotel,’ she warned them. She turned to me. ‘Explain what happened.’

For the second time that night I related my tale, and when I was done the air was thick with testosterone. Cam finally couldn’t take it any more and he crossed the room, his shaking hand reaching to cup my chin. At the brush of his skin against mine, I tugged my head away, then grimaced at the sharp sting of pain in my neck from where I’d suffered whiplash from Murray’s attack.

‘Jo, I didn’t do what you think I did,’ he insisted.

I couldn’t look at him. All I could picture was his face above mine as he made love to me, his eyes telling me he cared, and then the image tearing down the centre to reveal him and Blair writhing naked together on his bed. My stomach turned at the thought and the pain in my chest was indescribable. So this was what it was like to be heartbroken? ‘Why did you even come here?’

‘I came here because I thought this was where you’d go if you were in trouble.’

His response startled me. My eyes betrayed me and sought out his. He’d thought I would come here? ‘Not Malcolm’s?’

He shook his head, his expression desperate.

That disconcerted me. I didn’t like it. I dropped my gaze, my confused thoughts giving me a headache. Cam had trusted me not to turn to Malcolm after all. He did see me.

He saw me.

I scoffed at the hope bubbling up inside me.

He’d also screwed Blair.

Deflated, I felt my shoulders slump.

‘Where is he?’ Mick demanded. ‘I’m going to sort that f**ker out once and for all.’

I wasn’t big on violence. Anyone who really knew me knew that. But as I looked up into my uncle’s distressed and bloodthirsty gaze, I couldn’t find the willpower to lie to him. I wanted to believe fighting violence with violence was never the answer. I wanted to believe that there was a better way. And maybe for other people there was. Unfortunately, fear was the only thing Murray Walker understood. He was a schoolyard bully, and bullies really were cowards at heart. Murray definitely was … but only when it came to Mick.

One day I’d have to ask Mick why that was.

Not tonight, though.

‘The flat above the Halfway House on Fleshmarket Close.’

Mick grabbed his phone from the bedside table and stuffed it into his pocket. He turned to Olivia. ‘Take Jo home. I’ll call you when we’re done.’ He nodded at Cam and Braden. ‘You two are with me.’

My eyes disobeyed me again, finding Cam’s. The emotion roiling in those blue eyes of his was like an electrified net that caught me. Holding my gaze, he stepped towards me and cradled my face gently in his hands, then pressed his forehead against mine without a word. The familiar scent of him, the heat, the feel of his skin, all made me shudder with a rush of anguished longing.

‘You know I didn’t sleep with her, Jo,’ he whispered against my mouth, and everyone else just seemed to disappear. I wanted to believe him so badly.

Pulling back to gaze into my eyes, he refused to let go of me. We had a silent conversation.

You have to trust me.

I saw her there. In your T-shirt. What else am I supposed to think?

That I would never hurt you like that.

A deluge of images flashed in flutters and whispers of colour and feeling. The tenderness in his eyes, the honesty I’d known from him, our laughter, searching hands that couldn’t seem to get through a day without feeling my body beneath them …

Blair coming back into Cam’s life was a problem for me. However, it had never been because I was worried he would do something so callous as cheat on me with her. Yes, I had worried that he’d leave me for her, but I never believed he would cut me like that. I’d trusted that he would never cut me like that. Did that trust still exist? I searched his face for the answer.

No. Cam would never cut me like that.

Something in his gaze shifted as he recognized my realization and he sighed.

There she is.

I pinned him with a look that told him he wasn’t off the hook just yet. ‘We still need to talk.’

He nodded, his gaze flickering to my mouth. His own lips thinned, a hard glitter entering his expression at the sight of my bruised and swollen lip.