28. Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Eight

I throw the key card down onto the dark wood dressing table as we walk into the coolness of the air-conditioned room. The journey took place in strained silence, and there's a tension in Art's broad shoulders, which is making me even more on edge.

He sinks down on the end of the bed, resting his elbows on his knees and looking at the floor. I stand a few paces away from him and fold my arms.

"How did you know where I was?" I ask, desperate to break the awkward silence.

"It's not rocket science. I knew you'd be with Lucy. Big Steve told me he knew where you were staying."

"So, you flew out here?"

"Yes."

"How did you manage to get a flight at such short notice?"

"I hired a private jet." He briefly meets my eyes for the first time since we arrived back at the room. "Did you really think I wasn't going to track you down?" His eyes scan my body and then return to the floor. "Put some clothes on."

I'm caught off guard by the abrupt demand. "What?"

"Put some clothes on," he repeats, still not looking at me.

He's got a nerve.

"Do you seriously think you can turn up and start dictating?" I snap. "Don't you think we've got more important things to talk about than your issue with me wearing a bikini?"

"It's not that. I can't concentrate … I can't concentrate with you looking like that."

I'm on the back foot. I was wrong. He does like the bikini. Too much. Tough. He's not calling the shots, and I know I'm being petty, but I'm making a point.

"You'd better try and concentrate harder then because I'm not changing."

A muscle in his jaw twitches with tension at my defiance. "I'm taking you home."

"I'm not going anywhere with you. Yet."

"Do you have any idea how hard it is, talking about that part of my past?" He looks at me. "Every single day, I think about what happened. What I did. I killed an innocent man. I took someone's life, and nothing I can do will ever bring him back. I did my time; I don't need your condemnation. I do that to myself without your help."

His angry words slap me round the face, and all I can do is stand there and take them. The hurt look in his eyes shows the remorse he feels and the reality he has to live with every day for the rest of his life.

"I wish you'd told me. You have to see how it looks to me."

"It's not exactly something that's easy to weave into conversation. Oh, by the way, I killed a guy when I was pissed behind the wheel one time ." He shakes his head. "When I found out what had happened to your dad, it made it even harder. I was worried you'd hate me and leave … just like you have."

Do I hate him?

My memory sparks, and I suddenly remember something. "The morning you gave me the Turner print, I told you about Dad, and you rushed off. That was the night you stood me up."

"I never meant to stand you up that night, but Big Steve kept me at the club, trying to convince me to break up with you because he thought I was going to hurt you. He thought I was just going to fuck you and move on, like I'd done with the others, but that was never going to happen. The morning when you told me about your dad, I freaked out."

I sink down on the other side of the bed. "And that's why you rushed out of the apartment." I stare down at my hands and pick at the skin around my fingernails. "I know it's in your past and you've done your time. It brought everything back about Dad. When you told me, I was shocked and upset, and in that moment, you were the guy who had killed my dad."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I know it was a stupid mistake."

"I've heard this before. You still lied to me."

"I'm just so scared of losing you."

"That's not enough." I twist round on the bed to see him hunched forward, arms on his knees, his back to me. "You should have told me. You should have told me about the club; you should have told me about the accident. The only reason I know about either of those things is because other people have let stuff slip. Do you know how that makes me feel? If they hadn't, I'd still be none the wiser."

Silence fills the room. He remains bent forward in defeat because he knows I'm right. He knows he should have told me, and there's no getting away from it.

"For this to work, you have to be honest with me. You have to let me in."

"I would have told you," he says. "It might have taken a little time, but I would have told you. And I have let you in. I've told you more stuff than I've ever told anyone."

"You made me think you'd let me in, but you've only shared the bits of you that you want me to know about. That you're willing to share. That's only half the story. What about the other half? I want all of you, Art, not half of you."

He lifts his head and draws in a long breath, as if steeling himself. "Ask me whatever you want to know, and I'll tell you."

I stand up and walk over to the sliding door of the balcony, my brain ticking over at the carte blanche he's thrown my way. I lean against the doorframe and eye two seagulls scrapping on the floor of next-door's balcony.

"Someone stabbed you. What the fuck is that all about? Did that happen in prison?"

"Yeah. When I first went inside, I was angry about everything. About losing Dad, about the accident. Most of all, I was angry with myself. I ended up pissing off the wrong people. One day, they cornered me in the communal room and stabbed me. Luckily, it missed my major organs. It just made me more determined to never go back there."

His reluctance to talk about this suddenly becomes clear.

I turn round to face him. "You couldn't tell me about how it happened because then you'd have to explain to me why you went to prison in the first place."

He nods.

That's one down. Now, onto the next hazy bit of his past.

"You said you were introduced to Savage when you went through a 'dark patch'. Was that before or after you were in prison?"

"Afterwards. For the nine months I was inside, more than the loneliness and the fear, the thing I hated the most was the total lack of fucking control I had over my own life. Every single fucking waking moment was dictated; every step I took was directed by someone else. My life was under their control. I was helpless, and I despised it. I get that's part of the punishment, but it fucked with my head more than anything else. After I came out, the one thing I was certain of, other than the fact that I was never going back inside, was that I needed to get back in control of my life – or at least feel as if I was. Going to the club and being in that room for an hour a week meant I was in control of something. I was the one calling the shots for a change. I know it might sound stupid, but somehow, it really helped."

Control . The word reappears again.

"Who introduced you to the club?"

He drags a hand uneasily through his hair and hesitates. "My therapist."

The word ricochets around my head, looking for some meaning, and then it clicks. "Your mum told me you saw a therapist after your dad died and they helped you. Clearly, they went above and beyond the call of duty." Bitterness drips from my tone as the reality of what he said sinks in. "She's a therapist. She's in a position of trust. Oh, but wait. You don't care about that sort of thing, do you? Blurring the boundaries. If you did, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"It wasn't the best decision I've ever made."

"What was her name?"

"Aisling … Aisling Lonergan."

"You know you're meant to talk to them, not fuck them."

"I'm not exactly proud of it."

"How?" I demand. "How did you go from talking to her to fucking her?"

He dashes a hand through his hair and looks awkward. "I'd been seeing her for a couple of weeks. We got on well; she was my age, easy to talk to – well, that's her job – and I needed that. I had a lot going on that I needed to deal with. One day, the session finished, and she said she didn't want it to end. Sometimes, therapy can be really intense. It just happened." He throws me a hesitant look. "She let me dominate her. Afterwards, she said she could introduce me to more of that type of stuff if I wanted, and I did – at the time."

I can't believe it.

"She made a pass at you? How very professional."

I hate the thought of him being with any woman in this way, but this is another level of fucked up. The idea of someone abusing their position to prey on his vulnerability incenses me.

Jealousy and bitterness enmesh themselves in my heart. Despite his claims that she helped him regain his lost sense of control, I'm struggling to see it as anything other than she took advantage of a vulnerable client.

"You know that was gross misconduct on her part."

His jaw works, and he carries on, looking at the floor.

I shake my head, still not quite believing it. "Did you always fuck her after a session?"

"No, it happened once."

"And at the club, you said you partnered up with her the most?"

He drags his hands down his face, tiring of my interrogation. "Yes, but like I already told you, it was just sex."

His attempt at reassurance fails to hit the mark.

"For you. You said she wanted to be with you."

"And like I've said, that's not what it was about for me …" He heaves a sigh. "And it was complicated."

"How could it possibly get any more complicated?"

He doesn't answer me.

"How?"

"She was married."

I can't help the laugh that falls from my lips. "This just gets better and better." I sag against the wall and draw in a deep breath as an uneasy feeling takes hold of me. "So, that's what stopped you from being together? The fact that she was married."

"No." He fixes me with a determined look. "You're wrong. I didn't want a relationship with her. It was about control and sex. Call me a cold-hearted bastard, but that's all our arrangement was to me. I'd see her once a week for a therapy session and one night a week at the club."

"Where you'd fuck her."

He presses his lips together. He doesn't need to reply.

"And she got off on all that kinky stuff."

"She enjoyed being controlled." He pins me with his gaze. "It was so far from what we have; it doesn't compare."

I scrape my bare heel against the cold marble floor. What do we have?

"I'm sorry for not telling you about the accident."

I tilt my chin up in defiance. "It's easy to say you're sorry; it's harder to be truthful from the start. I asked you if there was anything else you hadn't told me, and you lied to my face and said there wasn't."

He stands up. "There's nothing more. I promise."

"How can I believe you?" I shake my head. "How can I believe anything you've said? Your talk about marriage and kids and our future … how do I know it's true?"

"I meant every word."

"I've given my heart to you. You've not given yours to me." I sink my teeth into my bottom lip to stop myself from welling up. "I love you, but after a while, it becomes really hard not to hear it back."

Art draws his head back a fraction, as if I've wounded him. "You don't get it, do you?" He shakes his head. "I can't … I can't love you."