The Piano Man Project Page 0,8

her now pressed hard against his skull. His aggressive streak had aided his meteoric rise as one of the country’s brightest stars in the restaurant industry. And he’d loved it all. The money. The cars. The celebrity patrons. The girls. One girl in particular. And he’d lost it all in a split second of showman distraction.

Life was different now. It was made up of the four walls of this flat, daytime TV he was almost glad he couldn’t see and wished he couldn’t hear, and microwave dinners that tasted of the boxes they came in.

He screwed his face up and sighed hard. Everything had gone to hell, but none of that was Strawberry Girl’s fault. Everything else in his life may have changed, but frightening women had never been his style and he wasn’t about to start now.

‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re right. You don’t understand, and I hope for your sake that you never need to. Can I go now that you’ve been a good girl guide and checked on your needy neighbour?’

Hal heard her draw breath to answer, but closed the door so he didn’t have to listen.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘It was so weird, Nell. He had blood all over his hands, and looked like death warmed up.’

Honey perched on a high stool at Nell’s breakfast bar, a sleeping Ava nestled in the crook of her arm.

‘Maybe he’s a vampire.’ Nell closed the dishwasher and spun around with a startled look in her eyes. ‘God, you don’t think he’d been trying to …’

Honey shook her head. ‘There were no cuts on his wrists, if that’s what you mean. I checked. It was his actual hands, but both of them. That’s weird, isn’t it? I think he’d tried to clear up my glass jug, but then why would he have been so clumsy? And then not finished the job!’

‘Prison’s such an odd thing to call your home,’ Nell said.

Honey glanced around the warm, welcoming kitchen. Nell’s tidy, gorgeous home embraced everyone who entered through the door in a big warm hug. Just being there was balm for her tattered nerves.

‘He was angry, Nell. Proper angry.’

Nell frowned. ‘I don’t like the thought of you living alone next to him, Honey.’

‘That’s another odd thing.’ Honey reached for her coffee mug. ‘I’m not scared of him, not in that way. If anything, I felt sorry for him.’

Nell leaned back against the kitchen surface with her steaming mug cupped in her hands. ‘I’m not sure I do. He’s been nothing but rude to you from the day he moved in.’

‘Well, I won’t be nominating him for neighbour of the year, that’s for sure.’ Honey stroked the sleeping baby’s fragile fingers, struck by how vulnerable and innocent she was. She couldn’t imagine the man she now shared a house with ever being like this. She had no clue who he was, but something had happened to him. Something awful, and it had made him just about the most angry, jaded person she’d ever met.

‘Tash texted me this morning from Dubai,’ Nell said, changing the subject.

Honey glanced out at the rain through the window, her train of thought broken.

‘Lucky cow. She moans about that job, but at least she gets to see the sun every now and then.’

‘She’s found you a pianist.’

Honey looked up sharply. ‘Jeez, Nell. It was a joke. She isn’t serious?’

Nell shrugged with a half-suppressed smile. ‘I think she is. She’s going to call you when she gets home tomorrow.’

‘Nell. I’m about to lose my job and Freddy Krueger has just moved in next door to me. Do you think I need any more hassle in my life right now?’

Ava stirred, her sleep disturbed by Honey’s agitation.

‘Probably not,’ Nell conceded. ‘But then what if he looks like Michael Bublé?’

Honey grinned. ‘Then I’d let him buy me dinner.’

Nell eased the half-awake baby out of Honey’s arms and into her own, where Ava slipped straight back into contented sleep.

‘Just wait and see then, okay?’ Nell winked as she headed upstairs to lay the baby down. Honey sighed. The relentless gloom outside was a fitting reflection of her mood, and the idea of having to endure a blind date with some random stranger to satisfy Tash and Nell’s ridiculous quest wasn’t a welcome addition to her burden.

Honey walked past the chemist on the way home, and then backtracked and went inside. A few minutes later, she emerged with a carrier. When she let herself into the house she approached her neighbour’s door rather than her own.

‘Umm, hello?’ she