Page 28 of Amber's Fall

He stared at me, not that he could focus. His face was puffy, his eyes bloodshot and drug fuelled.

“Last time I looked, I lived here. It’s my name on the paperwork.”

“I meant, I wasn’t expecting you home. Do you want dinner? I could nip to the shops.”

“You don’t look dressed for a night in. Who are you whoring with?”

I sighed. “I was going out for a drink with Tania.”

“Tania huh? That washed up old bitch.”

I swallowed back my retort.

“I’ll tell her I’m busy. Would you like dinner? Maybe have a shower while I grabbed something? How about a Chinese?”

He stepped closer to me. “You smell nice, Amber. A bit too nice just to be getting a drink with Tania. Unless... You and Tania aren’t up to the naughty, are you?”

He laughed and licked his lips. His breath stank. When I looked at him, his shirt was crumpled and there was a dirty tidemark around the collar. His tie had a food stain on it.

Obviously, he didn’t have a change of clothes at Petra’s.

“No. Now, would—”

He grabbed my shirt and in my haste to pull back, I toppled over the arm of the sofa. I lost a shoe along the way.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” I screamed.

He was one side of the sofa and I was the other. “Touch you? Are you out of your mind? Why would I want to touch you? You have a foul mouth, Amber. Gutter crawler, that’s all you are.”

His words didn’t hurt, I’d heard them lots. It was his fists I worried about. The ones he had balled at the side of his hips.

He was between me and the door. Between me and my bag that contained a couple of hundred pounds. Not all that I’d saved. That was squirrelled away at work. I wanted to be able to pay my way when I met with Daniel.

He saw me look at my bag and reached for it. He shook out the contents. “What’s all this then?”

“Nothing.”

“Looks a lot like money to me, Amber. Where were you going?”

“I told you, out for a drink.”

“That’s a lot of money just for a drink.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “We might do a little shopping.”

He bunched the notes in his hand. “Where did you get it from?”

“My salary, I have a job, remember?”

“You don’t earn enough to have any spare. Where did you get it from? Been out whoring have you?” he screamed the words at me, and I hoped a neighbour might hear.

“Yeah, while you’re fucking Petra, I’m earning well on the street corner.”

He flew over the sofa so fast it took me by surprise. He shoved me hard back against the wall and I cracked my head on the plaster. A piercing headache instantly had me close my eyes. I didn’t see his fist coming. I had no chance to duck or weave out of the way.

He punched over and over, when he kneed me in the stomach, I panicked.

“I’m pregnant,” I shouted, covering my stomach as I fell to the floor.

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