Page 26 of Unbind

She sighs.‘Fine.’

‘Thank you.’

There’s a question on the tip of my tongue. It’s so close. I want to ask her how Stephen is. How hereallyis, deep down, aside from the fact that he’s apparently thriving in his newish job at Totum, a medical data company founded by one of my great mates, Aidan Duffy.

Aide did me a solid with that one.

But my guess is that if I ask her how her brother is, she’ll go fucking nuclear. She’ll read all sorts of things into it: that I feel entitled to ask, that I’m digging for information I have no right to, that I’m hinting at my desire for absolution, and none of those is true.

Instead, I say something else I know will piss her off.

‘I need you to eat more food. How’s your glucose looking?’

She certainly isn’t smuggling a phone in those snug yogapants, so how she’ll answer my question I have no idea. She stares at me like she can’t believe what I’ve just said.

‘My glucose isfine.’

‘And you know this because your phone is right here, where you can hear it if it alerts you?’

‘I know it because I feel fine, and because I ate far too much cheese and crackers from that platter in the living room,’ she grits out.

‘Still, you should eat more. Especially the chickpeas.’ I have no way of knowing how much of the snack platter she ate, but believe me, I’m going to check.

She sets down her fork. She has beautiful hands with long, slim fingers. ‘Adam. I’m sorry you had to deal with me earlier, but I’m fine. I’m pretty full. And I’ll be fine tonight, okay?’

I wonder how many more times I can get her to sayfine.

‘Even so, I’ll need you to let me have access to your CGM data tonight.’

If I wasn’t so frustrated, I’d laugh at the expression on her face. Sweet little Natalie looks like she wants to rip me a new one.

‘You have got to be kidding me.’

‘I’m not kidding you. You went full hypo in front of me, you scared the absolute shit out of me and Gen, you’re pissing around with your food, and you’re my responsibility tonight.’ I take a deep breath, willing myself not to get riled. I will do everything in my power to ensure she never spends a second fearing me.

‘I need to be able to check that you’re stable.’I won’t let another person have a fatal hypo on my watch. ‘We can do this one of three ways. You can give me your phone, which I assume you have no interest in doing, you can add me to the app, which I assume is relatively straightforward to do,orwecan go old school, and I’ll prick your finger every hour, on the hour. Dyson left me some testing kits. What’ll it be?’

Our gazes are locked. Her breath is coming quickly. She’s doing a far worse job than me of not rising. She pushes her plate away and climbs down from her stool, standing so she’s facing me, and only then does she deliver the sucker punch.

‘Once a bully, always a bully, I see. I’m going to bed. Thanks for dinner.’

15

NATALIE

I’ve bathed in a perfect pink marble bathtub, soaking my body in water that’s rich with Epsom salts and Jo Malone bubblebath as I wonder how the fuck I’ve ended up in this ultimate, if temporary cliché—a gilded cage.

I’ve indulged in the comfort of a night-time ritual complete with as few of the items from Selfridges beauty department as I could get away with: namely cleanser and moisturiser.

I’ve brushed my teeth and checked my levels and donned these sumptuously silky pyjamas that slink when I walk across the room.

I’ve turned off the lights and set my phone on the convenient wireless charger and climbed into a bed so high and soft and warm, thanks to the hot water bottle tucked cosily inside it, that I would happily stay here forever if I wasn’t so desperate to put serious mileage between me and the Beast.

It’s only now, as I lie on my back in the dark and hug my hot water bottle to my stomach, that I allow myself to face what is really the worst thing about this entire situation.

And that’s not my having humiliated myself with a full-on hypo in front of the person I despise most.

It’s not being here, having to accept (however reluctantly) the hospitality of a man I hate and having his insane wealth rammed down my throat.

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