2. An Unwelcome Visitor

Leonie

Issy’s dad bought us our flat four years ago. Dom hadn’t stepped a foot inside. The only thing he had done was get a couple of guys from his security company to install some cameras and an alarm system.

The way he had called his sister two hours ago wasn’t normal, but coming over to ours was far, far stranger.

I’d gotten through more wine than I’d thought this week. And I’d become slovenly. The corner of the kitchen counter had become a recycling centre because the green box was full of bottles and cans, the odd cardboard slip of a microwave meal.

The bottle before me on the coffee table was nearly finished.

I couldn’t let Dom see our house like this. For his sister’s sake.

I stood, ignoring the faint rush of my head and ran to pile up the bottles in my arms before shoving them under my bed. The pizza box from a couple of nights ago — gosh, okay, slovenly might be an understatement — had to be crammed into the bin.

And then there was me.

It wasn’t like I would dress up for him, but he was so judgemental I couldn’t bear for him to see me in this state.

His brows would lower, his top lip would lift slightly at the corner as he looked me up and down with disgust—every time. I had no idea how Mia, his girlfriend of a year and Issy’s employee at the bakery, put up with him. How she loved him so much that she had moved into his house after only six months.

The big pool, hot tub and movie room definitely sweetened the deal.

His security business had taken South West England by storm, apparently. Though Issy and I had completely isolated ourselves from our parents’ world, Dom had and hadn’t.

He mostly worked in the legal businesses, but the odd cut lip, black eye or gunshot wound over the last few years told me he hadn’t fully departed.

Despite our history, when he first joined the military, I’d worried. I’d had nightmares of him over there, alone and dying.

Those nightmares often merged to the ones of my father bleeding on the floor.

Just because I’d managed to get out, didn’t mean I wasn’t petrified for my adoptive family who were still involved. They were far less involved than when my dad was alive, now building more reputable businesses, but that didn’t stop the risk, nor the enemies they created.

But Dom had handled himself. He still did now.

At 10:30 pm, it was too late to vacuum our wood floors, but I quickly swept them and then pulled the tie out of my hair, letting it fall in a wild mess. Grooves from the band made it fly out at odd angles.

I threw it back up.

When it came to pyjamas, my options were limited. I was in a baggy slogan top and ratty gym leggings that only my friend Rocco saw when he trained me. Most of my pyjamas were made of silk and lace, which I would normally parade around in, waiting for my ex to arrive and ravish me whenever he pleased. Or a pair of flannel pyjamas my mother’s nurses had bought me for Christmas.

My phone went off on my desk, the vibration nearly throwing it off the side.

ISSY: We’ll be up in two, but you may want to make yourself scarce. Dom needs to rant. And drink.

He was even worse after a drink.

Without time to think, I pulled out the flannels, tore off the tag and put on my slippers. Then I staged myself on the sofa, a leg underneath me, the blanket draped over my lap.

I should read a book.Yes, a book and some music.

All the books under the coffee table, piles and piles of them, were either smut of varying degrees with half-naked men on the covers or self-help books, titled along the lines of ‘Learning Not to Give a Shit’ or ‘Sort Your Life Out, You Mess’ or ‘Why Your Twenties are Just the Start’. None of them would do. Dom had to think my life was great. Perfect. Nothing to judge.

I needed more to drink. I topped up my glass of wine — just an inch, so it looked like I was halfway through — and then panicked at the empty bottle.

As I heard the key in the lock, I grabbed it and shoved it under the sofa, having to use more force than I liked, worried I may, in fact, smash the bottle.

It was secure by the time I heard Issy’s laugh and their feet wiping against the doormat.

Issy’s face was red from the sun as she shrugged off her sheer cover. Stepping towards the coat hook, she cleared the view for me to see Dom.

Despite the humidity, he wore a light jacket over his black top. His shorts hugged his thighs tight, the power in each stride evident through them. I knew that when he turned around, they’d show off his perky ass, too.

I tried not to look at his face. I really tried. But it had been nearly six months since I saw him last.

Mia hadn’t requested for him to join us on nights out and I’d been successful in avoiding him.

He was more stupidly rugged than I remembered. Jaw as sharp as his cheekbones and as he shrugged off his jacket smiling at his sister, long dimples perfectly symmetrical cut into his cheeks even through the thick stubble. I hadn’t seen those dimples from a genuine smile in months and months. Once, those smiles had been aimed at me.

But, instead, his face fell flat when he saw me. The expression I’d imagined not so long ago was clear as day on his face, yet somehow more handsome. His voice was flat and deep, something that always ran through my spine against my better judgement. “You said she wasn’t here.”

Issy threw a ‘sorry’ over her shoulder, pulling off the baseball cap from her ginger-dyed hair. “I didn’t say that. I said she was busy.”

Overstatement. I’d spent five minutes stressing over what book I should pretend to read. As they came in, I grabbed one at random.

“Nice to see you, too,” I said sweetly, “in my house.”

His jaw stiffened.

“Vodka?” Issy asked, already in our cupboard full of alcohol.

He nodded, his eyes on me. “It’ll do.”

Even when he started dating Mia, and therefore having to see me more frequently, it didn’t fix our fractured relationship. In fact, he started to despise me more. Since my father died, the only form of affection he’d shown me was when the boy I’d lost my virginity to started blabbing to the whole school. Dom, eighteen, in the sixth form, punched him to the earth behind the bike sheds on his exam results day.

If I needed his help, if I was dying in the streets, he might answer my Instagram message. I didn’t even have his number. He may send an Uber. But he would spend no actual time on me. I was beneath him.

As she poured his drink, he came to sit on the arm of the sofa. The far arm. Nearly two metres away from where I sat.

Years ago, I couldn’t imagine the two of us in this situation.

“We could have stayed at the bar,” he groaned.

Wow, he really didn’t want to see me. I would have returned to my room if I weren’t so stubborn or curious to learn what he needed to rant about.

“It was too loud, and I’m trying to save to branch out. Without asking Dad for more money.”

“I would buy you drinks.”

“I would get other men to buy me some if you would back off a bit.” She wasn’t wrong; I’d seen how he prowled over Mia and Issy on the odd occasion he would come to pick Mia up.

“Other men ain’t shit.”

The way those words fell out of his mouth, the anger coating them, made my back straighten as Issy passed him the vodka coke and gave me an awkward look, her hazel eyes the same as her brother’s.

“I didn’t say I wanted a mixer,” he snapped, taking the drink and holding out his other hand. She sighed and scuttled off to put the bottle of vodka in his hand. He rested the glass on the coffee table and filled it to the brim with the spirit.

I sipped at my wine, watching them.

We’d all been best friends growing up, but as we got older, Dom had distanced himself, taking girls and his training more seriously. Drop kicks and sex were the priority. And becoming the most handsome man to grace the planet.

He was all muscle, broad shoulders, darkness enhanced only by the stubble that was always pristine, never too long, never too short. He’d been one of those teenagers that didn’t even have the awful patchy stage.

He didn’t know it, but he’d been my first love. Then he broke all of my trust.