She shook her head.
“Just a little hug, then I’m gone. I promise.”
She looked at his meaty hand over hers on the door handle, his solid height and bulk. She had no chance of getting rid of him if he wouldn’t go.
“Get it over with then,” she muttered.
She shuddered as he scooped her up against him, hating the feel of his arm at her back, like an iron band imprisoning her.
“Oh, Ness,” he murmured, his lips at her neck.
Oh God, what was he doing? Kissing it. More than kissing it. Sucking hard at the soft skin.
Meanwhile, he tugged with his free hand at her dressing gown cord, loosening the knot, then he got hold of her nightie and, with one fierce yank, ripped it open.
She kneed him in the groin and he groaned and let her go.
But before she could re-open the door or sort out her ravaged clothing or do anything, a flash burnt her eyes and when she could see again she knew that he had taken a photograph of her on his camera phone.
A photograph of her, full-frontally naked.
“What are you doing?” she yelled, beside herself.
“Whatever it takes, sweetheart,” he replied. “If you won’t see what’s good for you, I’ll have to play dirty. Because I’m going to have you back, Vanessa. No matter how, I’m going to have you back.”
“Get. Out. I’m calling the police. If you aren’t gone by the time I come back in here…”
She fled to the living room and picked up her phone.
While she was trying to still her fingers enough to hit the right buttons, she heard the door bang and his footsteps on the stairs.
He had gone.
She put the phone down and ran into her bedroom, watching through the window until the beams of a car’s headlights lit up the windswept Close with its darkened squares of apartment blocks standing like sentinels at evenly-spaced intervals.
She saw Dafydd’s big dark figure in its ankle-length coat come out from the shadows, open the door, talk to the driver, then get into the passenger seat.
As the car drove away, he looked up and she jumped back, flattening herself against the wall. The room was dark, but the light from the hallway outside was sufficient to allow herself to see her reflection in the mirror.
Torn clothes, naked body and…her neck.
She moved closer and put her fingers against the unmistakable dark red mark. That bastard had given her a love bite.
Was it assault if she’d let him do it? Could she call the police? Wouldn’t they ask her a million awful questions about why she’d let him in in the first place and disbelieve her as default?
She couldn’t face it. Not tonight.
Tomorrow she’d tell Ben what had happened and make an appointment with a divorce lawyer. She wouldn’t keep her park date with Dafydd. She was never, ever going to be alone with him again. And perhaps she should get an ammonia spray to keep handy. Or one of those shrill alarms. Or both.
Her mind working overtime, she sank down on the bed and cried and shook until a queasy October dawn broke.
Chapter Eleven
Lydia had had to call Karl-Heinz and ask him what the hell she was expected to wear to a dinner/play party.
“Whatever you are comfortable in,” he had said, unhelpfully.
So she had decided to dress for an ordinary dinner date, albeit with her best underwear and stockings underneath her plain little black dress.