“Er… what exactly are you sorry for?” Lily asked, and Poppy’s eyebrows went up.
“Well, I just thought Clara might be a bit sensitive about family chat. She told me the other night about how her parents died, and she doesn’t have any other family. I really am sorry for banging on about mine like a complete ninny.”
Lily’s eyes widened at this, and her mouth dropped open, but before she could speak, Clara sent her a sharp look, and she snapped her mouth shut. I knew Clara didn’t have any family. She’d already told me she was an only child and her parents had died a few years ago, one of cancer, the other a heart attack. What was there to hide about that? Something was not right here.
And I just couldn’t shake the nagging suspicion I had in the back of my mind that Clara was slipping through my fingers.
Intent on knowing Clara’s full story, I’d even triedcornering Mrs Clayton last week to pump her for information. Mrs Clayton was just as tight-lipped as Lily and just as bad a liar. But the most interesting thing about that one-sided conversation with Mrs Clayton was the flash of fear in her expression when I mentioned Clara’s background and parents. That startled me. What on earth was there to be frightened of?
Now, for some reason, in the last few days, Clara had lost her openness from before. Her shields had gone back up with me, and it was pissing me off. I’d worked hard to gain her trust and I’d done nothing to warrant losing it. When I asked her what the matter was, she said she wasfineand gave me one of those small, tight smiles that I hated. Gone were her giggles, gone were her wide grins that lit up her entire face and, in turn, the room.
To compound my frustration, her complete refusal to talk to Ozzie about the fact we were together now, and her absolutely adamant avoidance of being seen in public with me was starting toreallypiss me off. Most of the women I dated in the past couldn’twaitto be seen with me, all of them happy to be featured in papers and magazines as a potential future Lady Sterling.
Clara was the complete opposite. In fact, when I’d mentioned taking her out for dinner last night, her face had lost all colour and she’d swayed on her feet for a moment like she might actually pass out. I’d been so shocked at the time that I just steadied her, before hugging her to me and telling her I would get fish and chips instead. She’d melted into me like she always did, kissed me like she always did, and even made love to me later that night like she always did, but I knew her shields were still up. There seemed to be no way of getting through to her.
And now, the woman who had consistently refused togo anywhere with me over the last few days was telling me that she had to go out.
“That’s fine,” I said in a measured tone, crossing my arms over my chest. “But where are you going?”
Clara bit her lip and then tucked her hair behind her ears before she answered, one of her tells for when she was anxious.
“Just to meet an old friend from teacher training,” she said.
Okay, so I wasn’t happy about it, and not just because I was a possessive arsehole – I still had the memory of her bruised face after her “fall” down her non-existent stairs. And I could tell that she didn’t actually like being out in the open. She didn’t even really seem to like the walk from the school to the car. Her shoulders were always tense and her posture stiff until she was in the backseat with the door slammed behind her. Same went for the walk from the car to my house. I could feel her relief once I shut the front door. I’d wanted to ask her about it, maybe even suggest some therapy about what I was starting to suspect was some form of agoraphobia triggered by past trauma. But now she was going out alone on a whim? It didn’t make sense.
I gave her a small smile. “How about I come too?” I suggested.
Panic crossed her expression for a moment before she blanked it. What the fuck?
“Uh… you’ll be at work. I’m meeting her early.”
“I can try and get out of work in time,” I said, knowing that would be incredibly difficult. The two interlinked cases I was working on were taking up a huge amount of our time. The first one was proving relatively simple: a charge of GBH with intent, two witnesses willing to come forward and the whole thing captured on CCTV – open and shutcase, in my opinion. But the second case being brought against the family-run East End crime organisation… it was beyond complicated, with so much evidence streaming in from the encrypted messaging network that the police had managed to gain access to; it was going to require an entire team of barristers once the arrests were made.
But at this point, Clara was my priority, which, for someone as obsessed with work as I was, was saying something.
“No,” she snapped, a hint of that fire that I usually liked in her expression now, but when it came to her being stubborn about something that worried me, it only served to piss me off. “Youcan’tcome.”
I held my hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay.” I pushed my hand into my hair and shoved my other hand into my pocket to stop myself from reaching for her. “Just be safe, Clara. Understand me?”
Clara nodded and then tried to pull away from me in a sharp jerk. But I kept my arm wrapped around her waist to hold her in place for a moment. My other hand came up to her jaw to tilt her head back.
“I’ll see you later, yeah?” I whispered low in her ear. “Tonight?”
“Yes,” she said in a shaky voice. I could have sworn she was on the verge of tears, but when I pulled back, her eyes were dry.
Chapter 24
It’s time for you to step up
Clara
I tooka deep breath and pushed open the front door to my family’s house. The first thing I saw as I walked in was Mum standing in the middle of the hallway, facing the entrance.
“Hi, Mum,” I said softly. Her vacant expression cleared for a moment as she met my eyes. We were both small women, just a touch over five feet, and delicate –toodelicate. It had been the same for generations – the women of the family were tiny, the men all tall and well-built. Zach was really the only skinny aberration, but I suspected that if he wasn’t under so much stress and didn’t have to avoid the common areas of the house so much, he’d fill out quickly.
“Mum?” I pressed when she didn’t respond. Mum wasn’t really there anymore to be honest. She was present in body, and she functioned… Well, most of the time, she functioned. Sometimes she just sat at the kitchen table and stared into space. She still wore make-up. Concealer was a must, as it was a rarity for her face to be totally clear of bruising, but she wasn’t the beauty that she once was. Her nose had been broken a couple too many times, and she had a cauliflower ear on one side. I doubted that she cared though. I doubted she felt much of anything now.
“Clara,” she breathed, moving to me and giving me a weak hug. I hugged her back more fiercely but mindful of her fragility. “You’re late,” she whispered as she pulled away. “You know your dad doesn’t like it when you’re late, love.”
