Page 96 of Unbind

I give Adam a slow smile before answering her. ‘We met through Anton,’ I confirm. ‘Adam came in one night with him and Gen, and I recognised him instantly. I kind of had a meltdown when I saw him. Gen had to bundle me up in a cab and send me home.’ I grimace at the memory, andAdam takes my hand under the table, squeezing it reassuringly.

‘I’m not surprised,’ Mum says. ‘It’s not like you had any sense of who he really was as a person.’

‘Exactly. Anyway, it turned out he was in talks with Gen to buy Wolff’s stake in Alchemy off him, so Gen called me in for a meeting with Adam to see if we could work things out.’ I hesitate and hold up my hand in warning. ‘Please don’t freak out, okay? But I was so stressed about the sit-down that I didn’t eat enough, and I ended up having a hypo in the middle of the meeting.’

Mum’s horrified gasp has me pausing, but I push on. ‘I know, I’m not proud of it. But Adam was amazing. He totally nursed me through it, even if I wasn’t at mymostgracious.’

Adam laughs. ‘She was an ungrateful little horror, more accurately. Not that I can blame her.’

‘I can only imagine,’ Mum murmurs. ‘But Adam, that must have been horrifically upsetting for you.’

He attempts to deny it, but I butt in. ‘It was, and I was awful. Just awful. Obviously, I didn’t know anything about Ellen at the time, and I just thought he was this overbearing pain in the arse. Anyway, he basically kidnapped me and took me back to his place and forced all sorts of doctors and chickpeas and nutritionists down me, and he even made me stay the night.’

I glance over at him, and the softness on his face, in those pale blue eyes, as he listens to me recount the story almost fells me.

How far we’ve come since then.

How profoundly wrong I was about him.

I let my eyes drift closed for a moment as I brush my thumb over the back of his hand under the table.

‘It’s kind of gone from there,’ I conclude lamely. ‘Helooks after me so well, and he’s a major, major feeder. Oh, and he’s been incredible with Gossamer, too.’

Mum’s been watching us as closely as she’s been listening, it seems. She cocks her head and regards us thoughtfully.

‘Thank you, Adam, from the bottom of my heart, for looking after my little girl. Even if she is an ungrateful little horror, as you say.’

‘She’s improving,’ he teases. ‘Slowly.’

I pout like the brat I am.

‘And it’s serious?’ Mum presses. ‘It certainly seems that way.’

‘It’s still early days,’ I hedge, right as Adam says firmly, ‘It’s serious.’

I swear my heart does a full somersault.

It’s not until our soups and salads have arrived that I broach the topic of Stephen. The conversation has flowed non-stop, actually. Mum wanted to hear every detail about our relationship, although clearly the version we’ve given her is highly sanitised.

‘I was actually going to tell you about Adam today, Mum,’ I confess between spoonfuls of my deliciously velvety butternut squash soup. ‘That’s why I suggested lunch. I was hoping you wouldn’t totally freak out and that you’d be able to give me some advice about how to tell Winky.’

Adam sniggers. ‘I still think it’s seriously fucked up that you call him Winky.’

‘He can take it,’ I say airily. I turn back to Mum. ‘But obviously I’m worried that he’ll be a lot less amenable to getting to know Adam properly than you’ve been.’

Mum frowns. ‘Oh dear. Yes, I can see that he might go off the deep end. But at the end of the day, you’re an adult and you’re entitled to be in a relationship with whomever you choose, as long as they make you happy, which I can see Adam does.’ She shoots him a smile. ‘I imagine your best bet is to try to persuade him that Adam isn’t the man Stephen thinks he is, or ever was, really. I can talk to him, too.’

‘No,’ I say quickly. ‘It needs to come from me.’

‘I agree, darling, but if your news doesn’t land well, I can talk to him afterwards.’ She turns to Adam. ‘I’ll come clean about my visits to you in prison. That man has no idea what you’ve done for him. I assume you were behind the Totum job?’

‘What?’ I demand through the roaring in my ears.

Adam groans, shooting me a panicked look. ‘Jesus, Adelaide.’

‘What? I follow you on Instagram. You’re always hanging out with Aidan Duffy. It didn’t take a genius to make the connection.’

‘You got Stephen his job?’ I ask, my mind racing. Fuck, I can’t believe this. Neither can I believe I didn’t work it out for myself. ‘Does he know?’ I ask Mum.

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