anyone needed right now, but they’d damn well made sure one more had been added to the pile.
‘Was he okay? Michael, I mean. When you saw him?’ Dominic asked, clasping his hands between his open knees.
‘He’s fine. Surprisingly fine, considering what’s happened.’ India sat back, pulling her knees up to her chest and hugging them tight.
‘I told him how I felt. About you.’ Dominic looked at her, those ice-blue eyes boring right into her. ‘I told him I loved you.’
‘I know you did. But maybe now wasn’t exactly the right time to be telling him all that.’
Dominic threw his head back, sighing. ‘You’re protecting him?’
‘No, of course I’m not protecting him.’
He watched her as she fiddled with the frayed leather bands tied round her wrists. ‘Your dad.’
India looked at him. ‘What about him?’
‘Why was he there? At Michael’s villa? It’s common knowledge they’ve never really been the best of friends, so, I’m guessing it wasn’t a social call. Reece he – he’s always been slightly wary of Michael so, why was he there?’
India turned away. This secret she’d tried to keep hidden for so long – was it destined to follow her around for the rest of her life? Was it always going to be a barrier between her and any man she met? But then, this man here beside her, he was the son of the man who’d hurt her so much she never thought she’d ever get over it. The son of the man who’d done that to her, a man she still couldn’t get out of her head. A man she still found hard to hate, despite everything.
But, did Dominic need to know just what it was that his father had done to her all those years ago? If she told him, surely it would only create yet more problems, problems that could prevent Dominic and Michael from ever building some kind of father/son relationship. So, did he need to know? No, he didn’t, not really. But then, her father hadn’t really needed to know either, and look what keeping that secret from him had achieved.
‘I don’t know,’ India replied, still fiddling with her leather wrist bands, still unable to look Dominic in the eye. ‘Michael and my dad… it’s a relationship that’s just, well… they’re never gonna be close, let’s put it that way.’
‘But, I still don’t understand why he was there, India. And Layla won’t say anything either. She told me she just walked in on some kind of argument between the two of them. But an argument about what? Something that caused a freakin’ heart attack? What the fuck’s going on here?’
She finally turned to look at him. ‘How the hell should I know, Dominic? When this was all going on we were having sex, remember? So why the hell would I have any idea what was going on between my father and Michael?’
No. Telling him would be such a bad idea. A really, really bad idea,
‘Do you still want to be with him?’
‘Do I still want to be with who?’
‘Come on, India. Michael. My dad. Do you still want to be with him?’
She turned away, resting her chin on her knees as she stared straight ahead again. ‘No… I don’t know. No, I don’t want to be with him. Look, do we have to talk about this now? He’s just had a massive heart attack and we’re all trying to deal with that…’
‘Yeah, I think we do have to talk about this now, India. Because I need to know where I stand. So, you need to make a choice, baby. Okay? You need to make a choice. Is it me? Or is it Michael?’
CHAPTER 37
Charley sank down into the bubble-filled bath, turning up the radio just that little bit louder to drown out the silence that emanated throughout the apartment.
She may have only been a few doors down from the private penthouse she shared with Vince within The Amber Palace, but it felt as though she were a million miles away.
The days since Vince had found her and Kenny together had been the hardest she’d ever experienced since this whole business with Jimmy Cash had begun and as she lay there, listening to the smooth vocals and hypnotic guitar-playing of Joe Bonamassa’s very own brand of the blues, she felt now-familiar hot tears flood down her cheeks.
She’d been stupid, there was no doubt about that. And every second she’d been with Kenny she’d known it was stupid and wrong but once again she