“For fuck’s sake.”
Vanessa, bright red and panting with dread, opened the door swiftly, leaving it on the chain.
“Give it to me,” she said, pushing her hand through the gap.
A smiling Dafydd, his face pressed to the gap, removed the video case from an inner pocket and held it maddeningly beyond her reach. He’d pasted a nude photograph of her on to the front, with the title ‘Vanessa Laid Bare’.
“Maybe Ben would like it,” he said. “What do you think?”
Vanessa had forgotten that the film had ever been made, but now lurid memories of it rushed into her mind.
“Of course, it’s pretty old-school,” he said. “Not up to today’s standards, technically. But it has a certain retro charm. I wonder what the people on YouTube would make of it?”
“Dafydd, stop it.” Vanessa was almost in tears. “Please.”
“Just let me in and I’ll hand it to you. That’s all I ask.”
He put the case back in his pocket and caught hold of Vanessa’s hand. She tried to pull it back, but he held it tight, stroking her wrist with his thumb, looking down with a reverent expression on his face.
“The hand you gave me in marriage,” he said softly. “I wish you’d wear your ring.”
“Fuck off.”
“Let me in, Ness, or your movie
career starts tomorrow.”
“You bastard,” she said, but she took off the chain and opened the door with an air of resignation.
Dafydd walked straight into the living room as if he were lord of the manor, shrugging off his heavy wool coat as he did so.
When Vanessa followed him in, she found him standing with a hand on the mantelpiece, like a Victorian patriarch surveying his domain. His air of possession and authority enraged her.
“You can give me the video and go,” she said. “Don’t come near me. Put it on the coffee table.”
She looked around for her mobile phone, then realised with dismay that it was on the mantelpiece, right beside Dafydd.
“This is nice,” he said. “Tasteful. Spick and span. You always liked to be tidy, didn’t you?”
“I spent too long picking up your socks from the floor,” she said. “The video. Put it down on the table. Please.”
“I fancy one last watch of it, actually,” he said, rummaging in his coat before flinging it on to the nearest armchair. “Why don’t you put it on? Let’s have a cup of tea, love, eh? I’m frozen from all that palaver outside.”
Vanessa picked up the nearest handy item—an interiors magazine—and threw it at him.
“Stop it!” she yelled. “Stop acting like you own the place and everything in it. Give me my phone. I want you out.”
Dafydd put up an arm to defend himself, but the magazine flapped harmlessly down at his feet.
He laughed, long and maddeningly, then picked up the phone and started playing with it. The sex tape lay on the mantelpiece so the only way Vanessa could get to it was by getting right into Dafydd’s personal space. And she knew with a cold, hard certainty that that would be a terrible idea.
“You’ve got a text from Ben,” he informed her. “Aww. ‘Wish you were here, bed is too big without you. Save all your hot loving for me tomorrow. Kiss kiss kiss’.” He looked from beneath a thunderous brow. “You fucking whore.”
She froze, rigid with fear, horrible memories of all the things he had done to her and could do again making her stomach churn.
“Please go,” she whispered.
“Go? Where should I go? I’m at home, love. I’m your husband. You belong with me.”