‘I didn’t say you shouldn’t. I asked you not to,’ I murmur timidly. ‘And I realize I have a way to go, Ryan. I realize I’m a work in progress, but I’ve been doing well. I’m proud of myself, and you should be proud of me, too. This is a blip, that’s all. A minor relapse.’ I slide down from the counter, feeling a bit mad. Kill him. Problem solved. Except for the fact that Ryan will be locked up or face retribution, and, frankly, keeping Ryan is more important than inflicting pain on my husband. ‘So lose your damn ego and look a bit closer to home for what’s important.’ I barge past him and get precisely nowhere, his arm shooting out and curling around my stomach, hauling me back. I’m picked up and set back on the counter, trapped by his hands on either side of me.

‘No running,’ he grates, his face furious. ‘Never, ever run from me again.’

‘Then stop being such a pigheaded arsehole,’ I fire back.

His forehead falls onto my shoulder, resting there, and I watch his back roll with his deep breaths until he finds it in himself to look me in the eye again. ‘You said dying was easy. How did you do it?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes, Hannah. It matters to me. I need all the pieces of the puzzle to stop me losing my fucking mind.’

He’s right. He’s losing his mind, and I can’t watch that happen. God knows what he’ll do. ‘The caves,’ I confess, and Ryan frowns. ‘There are tunnels in the caves where we were on holiday in the Bahamas. One of them opens onto the rock face to the side of the waterfall. I crawled in and followed it to an opening on the beach.’

‘How did you know where it would lead?’

My lips purse, and I realize how ridiculous this is going to sound, but it’s the truth, however crazy. ‘TripAdvisor,’ I murmur.

Ryan lets out a loud bout of laughter. It makes me flinch. He thinks I’m joking. I’m not. ‘Be serious,’ he chuckles.

‘I am.’ My shoulders jump up on an awkward shrug. ‘A guy uploaded a video of him following the tunnel from a beach on the east of the island to the waterfall. It took him forty-three minutes.’ Another shrug. ‘It took me an hour and fifty minutes, and I was covered in cuts and grazes.’

Ryan stares at me in utter disbelief, and my lips press together in something close to an awkward smile. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ he murmurs quietly.

‘You don’t need to say anything.’

‘And then?’

‘Then I stole a towel off the beach, went to a hotel and collected the stuff I’d sent there, and from there I flew to Tenerife.’

‘Why Tenerife?’

‘Jarrad hated the place. Reminded him of the time he couldn’t afford luxury holidays and he had to settle for cheap package deals.’ Those vacations were some of my favourites. Before everything went horribly wrong. Before Jarrad became more successful.

‘And money?’ Ryan asks. ‘I know you paid for your identity with a watch, but how have you survived? Did you siphon money off over time?’

I laugh. ‘Jarrad knew how much he made every second. I couldn’t buy a tampon without producing a receipt.’ The man was controlling down to the penny.

‘Then how?’

‘My rings.’ I hold up my left hand. ‘Jarrad had them commissioned. My engagement ring was a heart-shaped yellow diamond. One of a kind and worth a fortune.’

‘Isn’t that a huge risk?’

‘I sold them to a private collector of precious stones. There’s a reason he wanted to remain anonymous.’

‘Crook?’

‘I guess so. I didn’t ask. Brayfield put me in touch with him.’

His head looks like it might pop off with the pressure of my secrets. Weirdly, I find myself smiling on the inside. I know he’s not just shocked over it all because it’s all pretty shocking, but because this is me. His cute, quirky Hannah. He didn’t know me back then. He doesn’t know of the things I faced. I had no choice but to play the game. I’m well aware that if Jarrad had gotten a sniff of my betrayal, I would have paid the ultimate price. It wouldn’t have just been old man Brayfield dead. It would have been me, too. I hope Ryan sees that now. I hope he sees my world through my eyes.

My happiness hangs on the wire. Without anonymity, there is no freedom for me. And there is no me for Ryan to love.

He drops his head low, and it hangs heavily, the information weighing it down. ‘And you came back to England for your mother,’ he eventually says, looking up at me.

‘She’s dying, Ryan.’ I don’t know how I keep my voice even. I feel hollow. ‘I needed to see her. And soon I won’t be able to see her at all.’

Tags: Jodi Ellen Malpas Romance
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