Page 140 of Red Flag
But… not now. Not when I could still lose my job if I hadn’t already. Not when he might just be seen as the next client I tried to fuck over. I would look like a fame-hungry wannabe.
“I’m just… I’m worried about what my reputation will do to your career.”
He inhaled deeply. “Livie, you need to stop worrying about me. We need to think about you. Okay, actually, let’s think about if I were you. Think of yourself as a client. What would you do?”
I thought it through, wrapping my arm around him. “It depends if this just goes away or not. If it doesn’t, I’d do my own trial on my character. Ask people to come forward with support. And then release a statement.”
“So that’s what we’ll do,” he said and kissed my head again. He stilled, lips still on my skin. “Were you planning on going somewhere?”
“I was going to go to London,” I told him. “To my brother’s. I’m pretty sure it was either my mum or David who spoke to the press. So not there.”
He held me tighter, protective. “What about our house?”
I pulled back to look at him. “In Chelsea?”
“Yes,” he said. “Or my place in France.”
“I want to be close to my brother,” I said. “And the trial is next week.”
My heart fluttered in my chest and I swallowed harshly.
“Do you have to go?” he asked, resting his cheek on mine.
I nodded into him.
“Okay, so we’ll go home to Chelsea. You can get lost in as many murder documentaries as you like,” he said, pushingmy hair back from my face. “I can even hire an acting school to create a fake murder you have to solve. It was my plan for your birthday, but…”
I kissed him. A delicate kiss, a breath on the lips.
“I love you, Livie.”
His arms were warm as they wrapped me up. Protected me. “I love you, too.”
Chapter 31
Now that I was in Nix’s company, the tears fell sporadically.
One second, they were there. The other, they weren’t.
Dressing for the plane back to London, I was fine, singing along to Florence + The Machine with angst. The ride over, I’d checked emails and sent them out forLuca’sboxing match in a couple of weeks. After asking Nix to read through and archive anything I wouldn’t want to see right now.
Because, soon, when the numbness left and the anger hit, I might.
I’d taken my anti-anxietymedsbut on Nix’s plane, everything was too much. The second one of my ears popped, it was game over.
I wasn’t even sure what I was crying about.
The fact I was raped? The fact the whole world knew about it?
That I knew what happened in these cases? That everything about my life was about to be scrutinised?
I didn’t know. My body ached with fear at the unknown, of what might happen next.
Nothing had changed. I hadn’t seen anything more, thoughI didn’t doubt it was out there.
Then, in the car from the airport to our apartment, I was okay again. I even cracked a joke, which alarmed Nix more than anything. His eyes widened, and the laugh that came from his throat was more of a shocked choke than anything remotely humorous.
I couldn’t keep up with my feelings. I was probably giving him whiplash.
