Page 32 of Unbind

‘Stop catching flies, then. Honestly, though, the librarywasepic.I even saw the full set of those Assouline destination books. You know, the Ibiza one, and Capri…’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ He stops me with an impatient wave of his hand. ‘Tell me about his dick again.’

I groan. ‘But I’d much rather talk about the coffee table book porn.’

‘Bollocks. Give me the dick porn.’

‘It was there. It looked big. It looked hard. It looked like the answer to nuclear warheads and cancer and food inequality and every other problem facing mankind. Okay?’

He chews on the inside of his cheek as if formulating a reply, and I know I won’t like whatever he has to say.

‘So, in summary, he basically nursed you through your hypo in, like, expert style, he swept you up and took you home, he had half of Selfridges delivered to you, he bought youOlivia von Hallepyjamas, he fed you, he crept into your room in the middle of the night to keep a tense vigil through the darkest hours, oh, and he got an epic boner during said vigil…

‘What else? Ooh, he owns a palace, he understands the healing power of a beautifully shot coffee table book, and he lavished upon your ungrateful little head medical experts who probably cost hundreds of pounds for a consultation. But you called him a bully.To his face.Am I missing anything? And don’t roll your eyes at me, missy.’

If I could roll them any harder, my brother wouldn’t be the only member of our family in need of a prosthetic eyeball.

Evan pats his hair carefully to ensure it’s still perfectly coiffed. ‘I’ll take that as a no, then.’

‘I apologised for the bully comment,’ I mutter into my mug. ‘And what you’remissing, dipshit, is that he relieved my brother of an eyeball. Not to mention that his attack sent mydad into an endlessly black guilt spiral over fucking up our lives and our schooling. So forgive me if a few hours of perfectly pitched hospitality and swoony generosity don’t quite wipe the slate clean for me.’

He sighs loudly and stretches his arms above his head. ‘Motherfucker.’

‘Quite.’

‘Did you talk about your brother at all with him?’

‘God, no. That would be a can of worms.’

‘Because it’d be too triggering for you, or because you’re worried if you let him explain himself, you might hate him a bit less?’

Both.‘The former. There’s nothing he can say to justify it. He beat the shit out of a kid half his size. End of story.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Evan groans. ‘Adam, Adam. Give us something to work with here. Ooh. Maybe he had a lobotomy in prison?’

‘That would explain a lot,’ I concede.

The giant Selfridges bag turns up at the studio a few hours later, with a sheepishly smiling Nigel attached to it. ‘Your stuff, Miss. The boss asked me to bring it over.’

So poor old Nigel has had to come into town twice today on my account. Fuck’s sake. I swallow my exasperation and thank him sincerely for his trouble, lugging the bag back upstairs to the studio.

Aside from the pairs of Vejas that didn’t fit me, it’s all there. The pyjamas, the skincare—the used and unused skincare, the unused underwear, and a couple of spare t-shirts from the original haul, as well as two surprises.

The gorgeous Giambattista Valli coffee table book.

And a little note, handwritten on a stiff white notecard monogrammed with AW.

You forgot your stuff. Thought you might like the book, too. And keep an eye on that glucose :) A.

Dear Lord in heaven, help me to survive this man.

18

NATALIE

If anything has the potential to stoke the fires of guilt that have licked away at me all week, it’s dinner with my family. I can’t begin to imagine what they’d say if they knew I spent a night quite literally sleeping with the enemy (and his boner).

Which is why they can never know.

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