Page 92 of In Love and Revenge

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‘All that happened?’ I snort.

Of course she’d like to take my words last night as gospel, toss them back at me. A deluded part of me thought one night with her would be enough. The part that controlled my mouth last night. But now I understand, one taste of her will never be enough. Not even close.

One night can’t rid me of this maddening obsession with her. And now I understand she’s safe to get close to, I can indulge this overwhelming need to be near her. To fuck her until she admits what she knows. Until I finally get the truth. And whilst I take delight in George Thorne’s infuriatingly beautiful daughter’s body, I can quell some of this anger inside me whenever I think about how much her father cost me.

I need Aurora. Iwanther. Not just for what she might know, but for everything else. Her way of getting under my skin with her snarky little comments. The way she acts like she wants to fight me but then submits like a goddamn angel. The way she looks when she’s arguing with me and it makes me burn inside with hunger, rather than hate. The softness of her voice when she’s confiding in me, even though she admits she doesn’t know why she’s telling me things.

And most of all, the way her perfect aquamarine eyes light up when she sees me – even though she’ll swear they don’t. But I see it. They light up like she’s looking at a man worthy of her attention. Of her admiration.

Aurora Thorne looks at me like she sees a man she could be proud to know – if she didn’t claim to hate me, that is. And fuck, the idea ofherbeing proud ... The ramifications are too huge to digest right now.

I turn my focus to the note and squint at it. The little smiley face beams at me with smugness, its eyes staring right at me like it knows something. Beneath it, pushed up against the skirting board, is a small rubbish bin without a lid. There, sitting alone inside it, like a glaring beacon, is a wad of tissue, thick with my cum.

I knew I’d never last with her if I hadn’t taken matters into my own hands last night when I stepped through the door. Her scent was everywhere in here. I was a condemned man the moment I crossed the threshold.

Where the hell are you, Beauty?

I walk back into the main room, gather up my crumpled clothes from last night and pull them on. As I shake out my jacket, a stack of mail falls off the small table beside me.

Bending, I gather up the documents.

Final notice.

Missed payment.

Last warning.

The pile of demands goes on and on. Phone bill, heating bill, credit card bill, a bank statement showing she has exactly thirty-seven pounds and fifty-one pence in her account. She even has a goddamn unpaid parking ticket for overstaying in a supermarket car park.

What the hell is this?The numbers – or lack of them – swim in front of my eyes. I check the company headers on each paper. Theseare real. They aren’t a part of some elaborate plan to make out she’s poor, when in reality she’s sitting on hidden piles of stolen money.

I glance around the bedsit, seeing it through new eyes.

This really is all she has left.

She’s goddamn skint.

The back of my neck grows clammy, sickness washing over me. I step backwards clumsily and drop on to my arse on the end of the bed, the papers crumpling inside my white-knuckled grip.

I’ve spent months assuming Aurora knew what her father did with the money. That she was his accomplice, or at the very least a silent enabler. I’ve never allowed myself to consider that she wasn’t involved in some way. But what if she wasn’t? What if she knew and tried to talk reason into George Thorne? Scared she could lose her one surviving parent? The way she talks about him, it’s obvious they’re close.

But if that were true, then how can she be in this situation? How can a man with all the money he’s stolen stand by and allow his only daughter to live like this? She’s barely making ends meet. Is it all to maintain the appearance of his innocence? Would he really do that? Leave his daughter to fend for herself for all those years he’s inside, so that when he does get out, the money is safe, ready for them to disappear together, no questions asked?

If that’s true, then my hatred for the man has just increased ten-fold.

George Thorne will be living in conditions better than his daughter. No one’s threatening to cut his heating off. No one’s shoving payment demands through his door every day. His ‘debt’ ended once they slammed that cell shut.

I shuffle through the papers until I get to her bank statement again. Multiple entries for payments made to the same business come up over and over.

‘Bloody hell,’ I hiss, recognising the name of the specialist law firm. The one I vaguely recall Dove asking me about once in passing, specifically wanting to know if they were good at taking on criminal appeal cases.

Aurora’s not hiding a bloody thing. Except the fact she’s living on the goddamn breadline. She’s spending every penny she has fighting for her father.

Can I really have been this wrong for so long?