Her shoulders rose and fell. When she turned to look at me, whatever I’d expected to see, it was not her face, tight and grey, her shoulders up around her ears, her eyes pleading.
“You can’t say anything to anyone,” she begged, fingers knotting in front of her. “Especiallynot Lucian. It’s … complicated.”
My heart lurched, because if there was anything I understood, it was ‘complicated’. “Hey. I wouldn’t dream of spilling your secret. I promise, it’s safe with me.”
Her shoulders dropped as she exhaled. “It’s not that … it doesn’t matter how I feel about him, because I’m already spoken for.”
I frowned. “But you’re so intimate with Lucian. You touch him like it’s normal to be that familiar with his body.”
Liv dropped her face into her hands. “Please, don’t judge me. I promise I’m not cheating on my boyfriend. It’s just … I feel safe, with Lucian.” Her fingers trembled, and a tiny sob hiccupped out of her.
Pizda. My stomach churned, and I took a step towards her.
“Liv, I …” I stepped closer again, not wanting to touch her, but needing her to know I was here. That I really did have some idea of what she might be going through. I tentatively reached out, patting her on the back. She flinched, and tears sprung to my eyes.
“I won’t hurt you,” I promised, running my hand across her back between her shoulder blades. She was a tiny shadow of the bubbly girl she’d shown me the few times we’d spoken before, shaking with the burden of her silent pain.
“Does he hit you?”
“No,” she warbled, her throat raspy. “He … sometimes he holds me a bit too tightly, though.” Her hands slid from her face, fingers digging into her upper arms, no doubt reliving this prick ‘holding’ her.
“He doesn’t like that I’m not always in the office, for my job. He likes to know where I am, and what time I’ll be home, and who I speak to, and if I’m not where he expects me to be, and when, he gets … upset.”
I clenched my teeth against the stream of curses that threatened to explode out of me.
“Does Lucian know?” I asked. She shook her head, straightening, dabbing at her tears with damp fingers.
“Not everything … not even close. But I think he suspects—he’s been nearby when I’ve had Josh on the phone, a few times. I’m … I can’t tell him, because then he’ll want to confront Josh, and I just …” She sucked in a shuddering breath. “I don’t want to burden anyone else. And it won’t help anyway.”
She grabbed up a couple of the garment bags and pasted a ghastly impersonation of a smile on her face. “Now, let me play Front Row Barbie with you!”
I plucked the bags from her hand and steered her towards the lounge, pressing her until she sat. “Do you drink vodka?”
Liv’s face crinkled in confusion. “Usually not at ten in the morning on a weekday.”
I waved a dismissive hand. “Time, schmime! It’s happy hour somewhere in the world right now, I don’t think one little shot will hurt.”
“But I’m working …” she protested weakly, but I was already dragging my bottle from the freezer and tipping a small portion into two tumblers. Henry, who didn’t drink at all, had no shot glasses, which didn’t usually bother me, because my pour was more generous than most shot glasses allowed for.
Not today, though. We weren’t getting drunk. We were just taking the edge off for Liv, who was suffering an abusive partner in silence.
I handed her the vodka, collapsing onto the lounge and tossing mine back. “I had a girlfriend, not long before I met Henry … she was very good at making me feel like I was nothing without her. She’d love-bomb me until I was sure I was the most important person in the world, and then she’d spend days outlining in detail every one of my flaws, or just ignore me completely. I never knew where I stood, or what she really thought of me … or what I really thought of myself.”
I reached for the bottle, suddenly very much in need of a second drink. “It took me a whole year of that to realise thatherwords had nothing to do withmyworth. But if I tried to break free of her, she’d get nasty.”
Liv sipped at her vodka, her mascara-smeared eyes wide. “But you’re not with her now, so you did get away.”
I shrugged, knocking back my second glass before setting it firmlyon the coffee table. The temptation to keep going was strong, sometimes, but I was stronger.
“I did. But not everyone is as lucky as me.” I didn’t mention that Rumi very much hadn’t letmego—I didn’t want to frighten her. I took a deep breath, choosing my words carefully. “I think, if you could find a way, Lucian would be there by your side, every step of the way.” And he wouldn’t let somenenorocitulelike this Josh guy keep hurting her.
Liv huffed out a sad sigh. “I know, but that’s exactly the problem. I really like Lucian. I know he can be grouchy at times …” I snorted, and she let out a watery chuckle. “But he’s got a heart of gold, underneath the stern façade.” She giggled, tucking a strand of brown hair behind her ear. “Not to mention, he’s very handsome—like … a young Alexander Skarsgård.”
I made an overly dramatic gagging face. “Sonot my type! Not that Mr Skarsgård isn’t objectively hot, but my taste definitely leans more towards?—”
“Tall, dark curls and slutty little glasses?” Liv asked slyly. I raised my eyebrows as she hid her smirk behind her mostly-empty glass.
“Theyarequite slutty, aren’t they?” I replied just as Liv took her final sip of vodka. She choked, spitting it back into the cup. I watched, amused as she got herself under control and placed the glass down very deliberately on the coffee table.
