Big Ben (See No Evil Trilogy #1) - Nana Malone Page 0,17

couldn’t talk to me any way he liked and get away with it.

He’d never put his hands on me. He must have known that would be my limit. But he did like to wield the guilt like a weapon.

My mother had really liked Dex. He liked to invoke her name when I was on the verge of giving up on him. But she’d often told me how happy she was that I had him so I wouldn’t be alone when she died.

In the last six months, there had been moments daily that I’d considered walking out. But her last words to me haunted me. We all need love. Don’t throw it away.

She was right. We all did need love. And I tended to self-isolate. Without Dex and Telly, I’d go ages without socializing. So I tried. Relationship work was a lot of effort, but this was Dex. We loved each other. And thankfully, therapy was working… mostly.

“I do want that. I’m sorry. But I need you to do this. I have work.”

“So do I, Dex. Not to mention I’m working on the book.”

He rolled his eyes. “But my job is important. Actual high stakes. No one is going to lose their life savings if you don’t get Kennedy’s coffee. And you need to be realistic. You’re not going to win a Pulitzer with that book.”

The double whammy made my hands twitch to throw something. If I’d had the energy, I’d have screamed. I’d have let the rage nestled behind my sternum explode and consume everything in my path.

But I had nothing left to give. “Nice, Dex.”

Before my mother died, she’d been working on a true crime book about the disappearance of one of her friends. When she’d died, I’d taken on the book. It helped me feel closer to her and acted as excellent grief therapy. And I’d come to find I loved the storytelling. I felt alive when I was writing. I could see the pieces fit together in my mind, like a movie. Dex didn’t understand why I needed to finish the book so badly. He saw it as another thing that dragged focus away from him and us.

He frowned as if suddenly seeing me for the first time. “Where were you? And why are you so disheveled?”

“Gee, thanks, Dexter.?I’m all right, thanks for asking.?Nothing that a hot bath and a soak won’t fix.?After all it was only a light mugging.”

His face fell. “You were mugged?”

“Yep. A stellar end to a stellar evening.”

He recoiled. “Oh, so this is my fault?”

“You vanished on me.”

“Well, I needed to unwind, so I went up to the balcony for a smoke. And for the record, I didn’t abandon you. I was talking to Mills and lost track of time.”

I frowned at his lie. Doubt crept up my spine like a huntsman spider stalking its prey. He could well have been embroiled in a conversation with Mrs. Mills when I’d been looking for him, but he’d clearly tried to imply he’d been caught up with his boss.

In the morning. You can deal with this in the morning.

I was halfway up the stairs when I paused, remembering we were meant to go out on Thursday.? “Don’t forget, Thursday night is the thing for my mother—to spread her ashes.”

He sighed as if I was asking the world of him. “You sure you don’t want to take Telly? It’s not really my thing. I think I have physical therapy that night anyway.”

For fuck’s sake, was he really doing this? “Can’t you move it?”

“Not really. I want to get better as quickly as possible. You want that too, right?”

I did want him to get better as quickly as possible, but this was for my mother. She’d been his biggest champion. “You’re serious?”

“Look, let’s chat about it later. Head on up for a bath. You look a wreck.”

As I trudged up the stairs, I couldn’t help but wonder if my mother was wrong about relationships. Surely, I was better off on my own.

Ben

The three of us convened in East’s suite at the hotel.?He’d taken one of the penthouse units as his own.?At one time, we’d all lived in the hotels.

Eventually, Bridge had left bachelorhood for Belgravia Square. And when I’d become engaged to Lila, I’d bought two townhouses down the road from his and spent a million quid to renovate them into Covington House. But then my life with Lila had blown up, and I’d come back to the anonymity of bachelor life. I still had a staff