Page 37 of In Love and Revenge

‘Hey, Mike,’ I sigh as I manage to get it open.

The space where Mike’s face would be is filled with the perfect knot of a forest-green silk tie.

‘Oh.’ My gaze climbs up a thick neck and over the bump of a strong Adam’s apple before sliding over a sharply cut jaw, lips that are set in a grim line, and finally ... deep bronze eyes that are pinched at the corners, studying me.

My stomach drops to my feet.How the hell did he find out where I live?

‘What are you doing here?’ I balk.

‘ExpectingMikeinstead?’ Rafael clips, his gaze boring into me.

‘Yes,’ I splutter. ‘Actually, that’s exactly who I was expecting.’

His lips thin into a grimace.

‘Why are you here? Is Dove okay? Did something happen?’ My heart races.

‘Nothing’s happened. She’s fine. May I come in?’

His eyes hold mine, his broad frame filling my doorway like a huge shadow that’s sucking the air from the space.

‘Um ... sure,’ I say, standing aside to let him enter.

He steps inside the room that makes up my lounge, kitchen, and bedroom, and scans it coolly, before his gaze tracks over to the only other door – leading to a tiny bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower so small I can barely lift my arms to wash my hair. There’s an open box of tampons sitting on the side of the sink in full view and a muscle in his jaw clenches as he stares at them.

I cross the room in a few small steps and pull the door shut, leaning back against it like I’m standing guard over what’s behind it.

‘So, whyareyou here?’

His attention turns to the TV, where the camera is spanning the view from the top of the wall the gladiators and contenders just raced to climb. He screws his face up like he’s tasted something sour and turns away.

I get it. He probably only watches boring insurance programmes that no one with any personality would find remotely interesting. But he doesn’t have to be so damn obvious over his clear disdain.

‘I came to return this.’

He reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket, and I get a flash of forest-green silk lining that matches his tie. He looks so out of place in my bedsit in his bespoke suit that it’s laughable.

Sliding a brown envelope out, his eyes snag on my face. Instead of taking it straight away, I look back at him in challenge.Doesn’t he know it’s rude to stare?

‘Those ...’ He lifts his free hand and gestures to my face with his index finger. ‘Is one supposed to be that far down your cheek, and the other beneath your eye?’

I reach up to the cheek he’s pointing at.

‘Yeah, that’s how they’re designed,’ I lie, quickly peeling the bright green under-eye pad from where it’s slid down my cheek like a blob of snot. I grab the other that’s still in place and yank that one off too, squishing them into a ball and stuffing it in the pocket of the pyjama shorts I’m wearing.

Rafael’s attention drops to the shorts, sliding over my thighs and making my cheeks heat.

I tilt my chin up, waiting for him to pass a comment on the potato print that’s all over them. They were a birthday gift from my father – a joke because of how much I like crisps.

‘It’s yours,’ he says, his jaw tightening as he holds the envelope out to me.

I take it and lift the unsealed flap up. ‘Why are you returning my money? I owed it to you.’

‘Did I say it was a loan?’

‘Um ... no, but you didn’t say it wasn’t either.’

He pushes his hands into his trouser pockets, his lips curling down in disapproval as he looks around the one room that I exist in when I’m not working, seeing Dove, or visiting my father in prison. At least I made my bed, which is squashed into an alcove so small I have to climb into it from the foot end.