Page 33 of A Very Happy Easter

“Edie, this is Nye and Olivia,” Heath introduced. “I work with Nye.”

Olivia beamed at me. “Nye said I shouldn’t come over and scare you off, but are you okay? Who was that crazy guy?”

“My cousin, unfortunately.”

“The black sheep of the family,” Dennis put in. “Always good for a bit of entertainment.”

Olivia made a “yikes” face. “I’m so sorry for that. Anyhow, we heard Heath was dating, so I’m here to extend your formal invitation to the Blackwood WAGs club. We have gin and cake.”

Nye groaned. “Liv… Give Edie a break.”

“Okay, okay.” She pointed to a table on the other side of the room. “We’re over there—if you want to, come and meet Lily, Dove, and Mack later.”

She disappeared with Nye, and I breathed for what felt like the first time in ten minutes. My anxiety had spiked, but it hadn’t escalated into pure panic, and slowly, I realised two things. Firstly, I hadn’t been fighting tonight’s battle alone. Usually, I only had Eisen in my corner, and if he wasn’t there, I often ended up having a panic attack in the bathroom. Tonight, Heath and Verity had backed Robert so neatly into a corner that he’d had to smash his way out for all to see. Secondly, I’d slipped my hand into Heath’s when I retook my seat, and I hadn’t even realised I’d done it.

For the first time in a long while, I felt comfortable around a man. Really comfortable.

Too bad it was the man I was paying to be there.

Nine

“You look hot,” Salma said as she studied my Halloween outfit. “Your absolutely-not-a-date will go slack-jawed when he sees you.”

I spun around, fabric swishing. “What? Oh, no, no, no. Hot isn’t the look I’m going for, not at all.”

My dress was floor length and four feet wide. I was trussed up in a corset and barely wearing any make-up, plus my wig was straight out of the nineteen hundreds. But I looked down and saw cleavage. Shit.

After Robert got tossed out of the fundraiser three weeks ago, I’d eaten a stressful meal with Freddie and Petunia—I kept waiting for them to bring up the subject of porn again—but Verity had kept me busy by talking about Christmas, still over two months away at that point but approaching far faster than I’d like. Then Dennis’s heartburn played up, so Freddie volunteered to take him home, and Petunia and Verity left with them.

That was how Heath and I found ourselves sitting at the Blackwood table during the auction part of the evening. Olivia convinced a waiter to bring extra chairs over. Nye poured me a glass of wine, and I stared in horror because I never touched wine while I was away from home because of what happened when I was sixteen—yes, obviously I knew I shouldn’t have been drinking at that age, but I’d chugged back several cocktails and ended the evening with bruising, vaginal lacerations, anal tearing, and gonorrhoea, not to mention the added trauma of a police investigation that never went anywhere thanks to my reputation as a party girl and Neil’s excellent lying skills.

But tonight, I was with Heath.

Heath wouldn’t stick things where they didn’t belong.

Would he?

No, of course he wouldn’t. He’d become a friend. I’d barely even known Neil Short. He’d just been Victoria’s brother, the guy who sometimes showed up to collect her from parties. And who took advantage of her friends. I wasn’t even the first—eleven more victims had spoken to me in the years since, each with hazy memories and a whole host of regrets, plus I’d heard horror stories of more attacks on the grapevine. Finally, he’d made a mistake and preyed on the wrong woman, one who knew how to fight back, and now he was serving eight years in HMP Brixton.

And when he got out, he’d have nothing. I’d sued him, and thanks to the differing standard of proof required in civil court—balance of probabilities versus beyond reasonable doubt—I’d taken his money. He’d declared bankruptcy, but that still didn’t absolve him of responsibility, so he’d probably be paying me for the rest of his life.

In truth, I’d thought his father would bail him out of the mess—David Short was an investment banker and certainly not short of a bob or two. But David had come to see me after the verdict, and he’d made it clear that Neil was no longer welcome in the family. And he’d given me a choice. Either he’d pay me all the money right then, and I’d have what I was owed. Or I could wait for Neil to pay it himself. Realistically, I’d never collect the whole sum that way, and since I intended to donate every penny to Vocare, it wasn’t the easiest decision. But in the end, I decided the lesson was more important than my bank balance.

Neil would be quite literally paying for his sins for many years to come.

Heath isn’t Neil.

I’d drunk the glass of wine, and another, and a gin and tonic because damn, I’d missed letting go and enjoying myself. I had vague memories of Heath unstrapping my shoes when we got home, then lifting me onto a stool in the kitchen while he made me a buttered crumpet because I had the munchies. And I knew he’d been in my bedroom because in the morning, there was a glass of water and a packet of paracetamol on my nightstand that hadn’t been there the night before, but I’d slept in my frog dress and my underwear too.

Rather than feeling violated, I felt…happy?

And relieved I hadn’t made yet another dumb decision.

Unless, of course, you counted the Halloween costume. Apparently, at some point during the evening, I’d accepted Lily’s offer to help with my outfit, and at nine-thirty the next morning, she’d called me to arrange a fitting appointment, sounding far too perky for a human person.

Lily, it turned out, owned a high-end lingerie label, so she simply took two corsets she already had and added a full skirt for me and a tutu for Salma because if I was going as Christine, then she had to be Meg Giry. I’d also bought half a dozen sets of beautiful lingerie, not that I planned to wear any of it, but I thought I should show thanks after all the effort Lily had gone to.

“Perhaps I could wear a top underneath the corset?” I suggested to Salma.

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