Page 33 of Such A Filthy Girl

Fingers slipped into mine, pulling me to a darkened corner.

My breath caught when I stood face to face with Leo.

‘Dance with me.’ He slid one hand deftly onto my waist, the other demurely taking my other hand.

To everyone else we looked chaste. Darling. A cute step-sibling moment at their parent’s tenth anniversary.

‘Leo,’ I said, turning my gaze from his to stare over his shoulder. ‘Last night shouldn’t have happened.’

‘It should have. It should happen again. Forever. I want to look after you, Starshine.’

‘I have a life.’

‘And does it make you happy? Areyou desperate to get back to your job? Itching to get home and ride Graham?’

‘He’s good for me,’ I hissed.

‘Yeah if you want to die of fucking boredom.’

‘And being here with you would be so much more riveting would it? Locked up in the attic like some sweaty youths?’ Leo turned us around, making me look at him.

‘I’ll be good to you. I’ll get you anything you want.Anything.’

‘How about a beach holiday? How about s’mores around a bonfire? How about being there to watch our kids in their school play? Life can’t exist in one fucking house, Leo.’

Leo’s face fell, reality slapping him.

‘You want kids?’

‘I don’t know. But I don’t want to have to do everything on my own for the rest of my life. Other than a good fuck, what can you give me? If I walk out that door, you wouldn’t come after me. That’s always been the problem.’ My eyes burned with the threat of tears. ‘You send people to follow me. To put cameras in my home. To watch me fuck my boyfriend. Yet you don’t have the balls to come to me yourself.’

‘Estella,’ Leo breathed, and his pain hit me viscerally.

‘Tell me you’ll come after me when I walk out the door tomorrow, and I’ll give it all up for you.’ My chest ached as I waited for him to say it. To promise me.

‘I can’t.’

‘Then there’s no more to say.’

‘I’ll tell him,’ Leo threatened, his eyes darkening. ‘I’ll tell them all what we did.’

Panic gripped me, sweat gathering at the bottom of my spine. ‘If you do, you will never see me again. I’llneverforgive you.’

A hand touched my shoulder, and I dropped Leo’s hand, blinking away the threatened tears. Graham smiled at me, excitement in his eyes.

‘Sorry, Leo. Can I have a dance with my lovely lady.’ Graham didn’t wait for an answer, slipping his arms around me and twisting me into the dance floor.

Leo’s stare burned into my back.

TWENTY THREE

LEO

‘Aren’t they a picture together?’ Grace asked, handing me a glass of red wine while swooning over Estella and Graham. Graham swept her in a circle, oblivious to the conversation we’d just had. Everyone unaware of my heart being ripped out and trampled beneath their feet.

‘Sure are,’ I murmured, unable to take my eyes off of the one light in my miserable life.

Estella would be with me despite all the obstacles, if I could go with her into her new life. But I couldn’t.

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