Page 25 of The First Chord

“He must be dead to the world if you had time to pack.” I took the handle from her and then pulled her into a one-armed hug. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I never got chance to unpack,” she explained.

I felt her shoulders shake and knew she was on the edge of breaking down. “Come on then, let’s get you somewhere safe.”

“I’m sorry that I dragged you into this, I really am.”

“I told you that it was fine.” Leading her back to the car, I was tempted to go back and sort Jimmy out, but she’d made me promise. “Get in, sweetheart.”

Once her case was stowed in the boot, I jumped in and started the car. From the corner of my eye, I could see that Amber was shaking, so reached into the back seat and grabbed a hoodie that I’d spotted in there.

“Here, put this on.”

Amber’s eyes were brimming with tears as she took the jacket. “Thanks. I think it’s just the shock.”

“Probably.” I cranked up the heat a little bit. “Do you want to tell me what happened? No problem if you don’t. Take whatever time you need.”

“I told him that I wasn’t going back on tour and that I was leaving him.” Her voice was monotone, like she’d just told me that we needed to turn left.

“Okay. And he hit you for that?” My hands gripped the steering wheel and I had to force myself not to double back to sort the bastard out.

She cleared her throat and then said, “He punched me in the stomach and slapped my face and then told me to forget what I’d said and never talk about it again. He said I should get a shower and that was when I locked myself in the bathroom. I waited until I thought he was asleep and then called you.”

“He fucking what?”

On a breath torn from her lungs she said, “He punched me in the stomach and then slapped my face.”

A slap was bad enough, but a punch! I wanted to kill him. I wanted topunchhim and keep punching him to see how he liked it. I wanted to…Christ, I needed to get some control if I was going to help Amber.

I inhaled slowly, desperately trying to maintain some composure. The last thing she needed was me getting angry and scaring her, or getting myself arrested. “Right,” I said on a long exhale. “He didn’t hear you get your case?”

“No. He was passed out. It seemed he wasn’t as hungry as he thought.”

“Sorry?”

“He wanted me to make him something to eat but I wouldn’t.”

I shot her a glance. “Has he hit you before?”

“Never.” She put her hand on my arm, before quickly snatching it away. “Honestly, Ronnie, he hasn’t. I swear it was just this once.”

“You did the right thing, getting out now. So many women don’t say anything and end up badly hurt or worse.”

Amber was silent for a few moments and then blew out a breath, bracing her hands on her thighs. “I was one of them, Ronnie. I wasn’t going to call you. I almost decided to stay, for just a minute, and I’m so ashamed of myself for that.”

I pulled the car to a stop, knowing that I had to make her see she was wrong. What she’d done was brave and courageous and having those feelings was natural. As I turned off the engine and looked at her, my chest clenched. Shoulders slumped in defeat she sniffed as I took her hand.

“Amber don’t ever feel ashamed for doing whatever it takes to survive. Don’t ever think that you’re weak because you almost stayed. Leaving was a brave thing to do, but staying would have been, too.”

“But how can it have been?”

Even in the darkness of the car, I could see her eyes were shining with tears and devastation. “It’s human to think it would be better, easier to stay. It’s not shameful.”

As she looked at me, she drew in a ragged breath and instantly the atmosphere in the car changed. It was charged with the certainty that our lives were about to change. Whatever we did with the situation, things would never be the same. If she stayed with me, if she went off and I never saw her again, or even if she went back to Jimmy, the future was going to be totally different to what it had been twelve hours before.

“Do you feel pain anywhere? Do you think we need to get you checked out?” In the dim light of the car, I couldn’t see anything on her face. If he’d punched her in the stomach, though, it might have caused some internal injury.

She shook her head. “I’m fine. My stomach is a bit red, but it doesn’t hurt. He winded me but I feel fine now.”

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