Chapter 11

Eleven

E is held my hand in a death grip as we walked into Hardware HQ. Years ago, the one word I'd have used to describe him was "confident," and it hurt my heart that a jealous nutcase had stolen that from him. The acid attacker was in jail now. According to the news reports, Eis had felled him with a single punch before the police arrived.

The female victim, a petite blonde named Madison, had worked at one of his gyms, a personal trainer and occasional ring girl who'd met her assailant through a dating app and been out with him only a handful of times before coming to the conclusion he was bad news. Then he'd stalked her for months, leaving her scared to live in her own home.

Eis had been at the gym for a routine visit when he'd done the gentlemanly thing and offered to see her safely to her vehicle, and he paid the price for his kindness. Madison still had her sight, but she'd lost most of an ear to the acid.

Rather than hiding away as Eis had done, she'd been speaking out about the ordeal, and in recent months, she'd started a podcast to talk about her recovery. It was on my "to be listened to" list. The subject matter was grim, but I desperately wanted to understand what Eis was going through.

While I overthought everything, he loaded the trolley with pipes and widgets and gubbins and a whole bunch of other stuff. Me? I watched people watching him. And they did watch him. Everyone looked. His broad shoulders, the graceful way he moved, his assets in those freaking sweatpants… They all drew people's attention. And with his head down and his hood pulled forward, he only became more mysterious. People couldn't keep their eyes off him. A woman my age bumped her trolley into ours and apologised profusely.

"So sorry, I was just a little distracted."

"It's fine."

But it wasn't fine. Every time a girl checked out his backside, I wanted to poke her in the eye with a screwdriver. Was that normal?

"We're done," he said.

And then we had our first argument.

If I'd thought about things ahead of time, it was inevitable, really. We reached the checkout, and I got out my credit card. Then Eis got out his credit card, which was black and shiny and had his fancy name. E Kennedy-Renner.

"This is my stuff," I told him. "I'm paying."

"No."

"What?"

"No."

I just stared at him. This wasn't a situation I'd experienced before. Whenever it came to paying, Steven conveniently wandered off to look at something on the other side of the shop.

"You can't buy pipes for my house. You're already providing the labour."

He flashed me the dirtiest smile. "I'm a full-service kind of guy."

"I know that, but… Wait, wait, I don't know that." Everyone in the queue was gawping. The checkout lady's gaze was ping-ponging between us in rapt fascination. "Honestly."

"You can service my pipes any time, darlin'," a woman called from behind us, but Eis's attention was focused on me.

"When I bought all the drinks in the Hand and Flowers, you didn't complain."

"That was different. That was a date, sort of."

"We can go and make out by the ballcocks if it would help you to feel better."

"The ballcocks? Is that a plumbing thing? Or are you being filthy again?"

"Yes."

"Yes to which one?"

"Both."

I closed my eyes and took a calming breath. This man was impossible. Frustrating, demanding, bossy. Hot. So, so hot.

He leaned in closer. "I forgot to look for the nipples."

"Okay. Okay! You win. Fine, pay for the damn stuff."

There was a round of applause as he handed over his credit card, and I wasn't even sure who folks were clapping for. Nothing would ever be easy with Eisen Renner, but for the first time in years, I felt alive. Energised.

Maybe even happy.

"Does that count as a fight?" he asked as we headed back to his SUV, and I didn't miss the note of hope in his voice.

"We're taking things slow, remember? No make-up sex today."

"Will you yell at me if I buy you dinner?"

"Probably."

"Indian? Chinese? Italian?" he asked. "Or sushi?"

Eis didn't get that body from curry and carbs. "Sushi's your favourite?"

He nodded.

"Then we'll have sushi."

* * *

We actually did go to the nature reserve—Primrose needed a walk—but there were far too many people around for us to get up to any funny business, much to Eis's disappointment. Primrose had been Elizabeth Renner's service dog, I found out, which was why she knew how to open doors. Plus she could turn lights on and off and pick up objects if you dropped them. When we got back, Eis gave me a proper tour of Twilight's End and its rabbit warren of rooms. It turned out he didn't own the house, not completely. The estate belonged to Edie too, and he owned half of the house in Kensington where she spent most of her time. It was clear from the way he spoke that he adored his little sister.

Eis had converted a barn beside the walled garden into a gym, complete with a fight cage, but he hadn't touched the old stables because Edie loved horses, and they figured that if either of them ever had a little girl who wanted a pony, it would need somewhere to live. There was the pool, a sauna, a steam room, a hot tub, a games room, a movie theatre… I began to see why Eis never left the place.

Dinner was delivered, and I thought we'd eat in the kitchen or the dining room or maybe the orangery, but instead, he led me to the fanciest of the three staircases.

"How long have we got?" he asked.

"At least two hours."

Steven had taken Harry to watch a football match, but because he only had two tickets, he'd left Alfie behind with Luisa. Which was apparently okay because Alfie "doesn't really get football anyway."

It wasn't okay.

Luisa's idea of childcare was to give the boys snacks and sit them in front of the TV, or worse, let them loose with craft materials. Earlier in the year, she'd sent Alfie home with a Lego brick superglued to his forehead. And the snacks were always the unhealthy, sugary kind, which meant both boys would be bouncing off the walls until the early hours and I'd get no sleep again.

But that was a problem for later.

Right now, I faced a much bigger challenge.

I will not lose my clothes, I will not lose my clothes, I will not lose my clothes.

You have to understand, waxing hadn't been high on my list of priorities these past few months, and the area between my legs resembled an overgrown wasteland. I needed to go on a crash diet, do three hundred crunches a day, and buy every cellulite-busting cream on the market in the hope that one of them worked.

Eis got to the top of the main staircase and opened a door we'd walked past earlier. I'd assumed it was a closet, but inside, a narrow spiral staircase wound upwards to a cosy room that contained a couch, a coffee table, and a bookcase. Half a dozen steps at one end led to a funny little platform under a dome.

"This was my grandfather's observatory." Eis flipped a switch on the wall, and the whole ceiling rolled back to reveal the sparkling sky above. "His favourite room in the house, and mine too. This might be the last night this year that it's warm enough to open the roof."

"It's…it's beautiful." And so unexpected. My favourite room was the library with its floor-to-ceiling shelves and rolling ladders, but this came a close second.

"I wanted to bring you here the night we ended up at the nature reserve, but Grandma was holding a bridge party, and I thought we'd have more time." He brought the back of my hand to his lips. "I thought we'd have so much more time."

We ate sushi under the stars, and we talked. Eis kept his promise not to rush things and instead pointed out the different constellations as we lay on the sofa, my head nestled against his shoulder. It reminded me of our first night together, just without the sex or the peeing-in-a-bush parts.

"This is the first evening in I-can't-remember-how-long that I've taken an hour to do nothing," I confessed. "It's weird."

"That's a feeling I understand. Fifteen months ago, I never had a moment to myself, and then suddenly I had all the time in the world."

"I'm so sorry."

"I realise now that my old life wasn't the one I wanted, but that didn't make losing it easy."

"That's a feeling I understand. I hadn't been happy for a long time, but the idea of starting again from nothing was terrifying."

"What do you miss from your old life?"

Nobody had ever asked me that before. "I guess…I guess the security. Although we were living in a house of cards, I know that now. Steven dealt with the finances, and it was a mess. Probably still is a mess. My solicitor helped me to take my name off all the joint stuff, but my credit rating is shot to pieces." I sighed. "So, what does that leave? Social status, maybe. People look at you differently when you're a wife. As if it's something to aspire to."

"We're not so different, you and me."

"Oh, please. Your roof is actually designed to be open to the elements."

Eis laughed and rolled onto his side to face me. "People looked at me differently when I was a champion compared to when I was a victim."

"You still are a champion. Nobody can take that away from you."

He shrugged one shoulder. "Big pieces of my life vanished overnight. My ex came to visit me in the hospital the day after it happened. Once. She came once, and after she left, she called Edie and told her that ‘this wasn't what I signed up for.'"

"She broke up with you via your sister?"

"Makes sending a text message seem classy, huh?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Don't go there."

"It was worth a try."

"You couldn't continue with your career?"

"Not with the amount of peripheral vision I have at the moment. I need to see a move coming and have time to react. Mostly, I'm watching the guy's waist, but I also need to be aware of the cage, the ref, his hands…"

"I hate that you lost something you love."

Eis brushed my hair away from my face. "When I got out of prison, I was so fucking angry. Every time I went into the cage, I imagined I was facing Neil Short. You know who he is?"

"The man who forced himself on your sister?"

"Yeah, but he was no man. He was scum. I let that anger fuel me, and that's why I won every fight. He'd taken two years of my life, but worst of all, he'd taken you."

There was so much unbearable agony in Eis's voice that my heart broke all over again. If I ever met Neil Short, I'd be at risk of doing jail time too.

"But I'm here now. And Neil Short is in prison, isn't he?"

Eis nodded. "Every single one of my gyms offers free self-defence courses for women and free safety classes for kids. Stranger danger and all that. Short tried his shit on a woman my team had trained, and she put him in the hospital. Plus Edie bankrupted him in the civil trial."

"Good for them."

"None of that makes up for what he did, but I don't feel the all-consuming rage anymore. Maybe I lost my edge?"

"What about the man who threw acid on you? You can't picture his face instead?"

"It doesn't have the same effect. But I made friends on the inside, and he isn't having a good time there. Grandma Elizabeth used to say everything happened for a reason, and I used to tell her that was bullshit, then she used to clip my ear and order me to mind my language. But perhaps she was right?"

"Possibly, but that doesn't excuse Harry from throwing paint at your door."

"I thought my mind was playing tricks when I heard your voice on the phone."

So he had recognised me, but he hadn't said anything.

That put another checkmark in the "jerk" column.

"So you gave me a fake name and then hid inside?"

"Would you rather I'd greeted you on the steps with a ‘Hey, babe, did you miss me?' If you were still happily married, I wouldn't have interfered."

"I guess I can understand that." I leaned in closer and brushed my lips over his. This man gave me courage I hadn't felt in a long time. "I'm strangely glad you're back in my life, Chip ."

He touched a finger to his lips. "What happened to taking things slow?"

My turn to shrug.

In a heartbeat, I found myself underneath him, and he returned my kiss with a barely-there one of his own. Electricity charged through me, but when I tried for more, he shook his head.

"Don't start something we can't finish. The boys will be home soon."

A groan escaped. "Are you coming over tomorrow? For the plumbing, I mean. I should buy some dog biscuits for Primrose."

"What time do the boys leave for school?"

"Harry gets the bus at seven thirty, and I walk Alfie to the school in the village at ten past eight. My first appointment is at eleven."

"Mondays, I have a family call at nine, and they never last longer than an hour, so I'll come over after that."

"A family call? Sounds very formal. My family has a WhatsApp group."

"I doubt my cousins use WhatsApp. They'd probably just get their PAs to post sanctimonious reminders about not bringing the family name into disrepute." This time, he kissed my nose. "Text me with your coffee order."

Eis drove me home and waited politely while I walked to the front door. Or at least, I thought that's what he was doing. Safety first, that kind of thing. I was halfway up the path when I heard the car door slam, and then he was on me. One fist tangled in my hair, and his other arm snaked around my waist, lifting me onto my toes so my lips met his. Such soft lips, but the rest of him was hard as granite. Chest, abs, cock… Oh my. His tongue teased the seam of my lips until I gave in and yielded, and then he kissed me so thoroughly that my knees trembled.

Finally, I dredged up every last ounce of willpower and pushed him away.

"Don't start what you can't finish, remember?"

"When are the boys going back to their dad's?"

"The weekend after next."

"Block it out on your schedule. You're mine from the moment they leave."