Page 26 of The First Chord

Bile rose in my throat at the thought of him doing to that to her. It took everything I had not to turn around and go back to their flat and… instead, I made a mental note to check out the symptoms of internal bleeding when we got home.

“I think we should call the police,” I said, watching her carefully.

She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to. I’m away from him now so he can’t do it again.”

“Please, Amber, I think you—”

“No, Ronnie,” she said over the top of my pleading, in a no-nonsense tone. “I don’t want to.” Her lips were set into a determined line and her eyes unblinking.

“Okay.” I sighed. “But don’t ever go back to him, Amber,” I begged. “Please just promise me that.”

“I won’t. I never will.”

“No matter what he promises you, or says, or does, he’s hit you once. That means he will hit you again. You know that, don’t you?”

She nodded and reached for my hand. “I know this is putting a lot on you, with Blind Devil being your support act, so if you want to drop me at a hotel or something I fully understand.”

“Not happening.” I looked down at our hands, hers so tiny on top of mine, both of them tanned from our days off in Europe. “I have plenty of room. You can stay as long as you like, and my house is big enough that you won’t even have to see me if you don’t want to.”

Her huge eyes looked up at me and the tears which had been threatening were now crawling down her cheeks. “I’m not scared of you, Ronnie.”

“Good to know, because I’d never hurt you.”

“I know that.”

As my shoulders sagged in relief, I started the car. “Okay, here’s a good one for you. What do you call a man with a toilet seat on his head?”

“I don’t know,” she replied with a sniff crossed with a giggle. “What do you call a man with a toilet seat on his head?”

I gave her hand a squeeze. “Lou, of course. God, Amber, you really need to up your game, love, you really do.”

She giggled and then turned to look out of the window as we continued the rest of the journey in silence.

CHAPTER14

AMBER

When I woke, the dread from the night before dropped itself on my chest. Heavy and strong it lay there, weighing me down to the strange but comfortable bed where I’d spent the night.

It wasn’t actually a night, more like an early hours of the morning until mid-morning, where I’d tossed and turned. There’d been too much to think about, too many images and thoughts swimming around in my head, the main one being that Jimmy was a wife-beater.

Wife-beater might be over-exaggerating it, but I’d never considered he would ever slap me, never mind punch me, too. I knew he was a cheat but that I hadn’t considered. It had made my decision to leave much easier if nothing else. It had already been made but there’d still been an element of guilt that went with it. At least now I wouldn’t have to care about whether me leaving was the right thing to do for Jimmy’s career because I didn’t care any longer. Any last vestiges of love I had for him had gone the moment his hands were laid on me in anger.

A knock on the door surprised me. Sitting up, I looked around and grabbed Ronnie’s hoody, slipping it on. “Come in.”

The door didn’t open fully but Ronnie’s head poked around it. “Hey, you sleep okay?”

“Yes, I did. Thank you.” Conscious that my legs were bare as I’d only slept in knickers and a vest, I dragged the duvet back over them. “It’s a really comfy bed.”

“I know.” He grinned. “I have the same mattress on all the beds in the house. They’re the ones they use in this hotel we stayed in. All of us said it was the best night’s sleep we’d ever had.”

“Yeah, I slept like a log.”

“How are you feeling? Any pain of any kind, you know in your stomach?”

“None. Honestly, I’m fine.” I had a little redness still, but otherwise couldn’t feel it. I suppose I had to thank the fact that Jimmy was full of booze from the plane and weed from the car journey home. Maybe it would have been harder if he hadn’t been.

“Do you fancy some lunch?”

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