Chapter 37
Estella couldn’t sleep. Ellie was wrapped tight in her arms, and it was everything right and everything wrong all at the same time.
The sight of Ellie Graham sitting there on that couch with those bruises darkening on her skin, those heavy circles under her exhausted eyes, the fragility of her had just about fractured Estella.
It was her fault. Ellie had gotten hurt purely because of her relationship to Estella, just like her mother had been harmed because of who she was married to.
It shattered Estella’s fucking heart into a thousand pieces because if there was one thing about being with Mike, it was that she never had to feel responsible for the life he’d lived.
And yet because of Estella’s stupid slip-up and the way she’d given into the temptation of this one, beautiful, innocent normie, Ellie had been harmed.
The one right thing she could do in this life was to get the hell away from Ellie Graham.
And yet, she couldn’t. Her job now was to make sure no one had a bright idea like finishing off the fucking job now they’d worked out how critical Ellie was to Estella.
On top of that, she badly wanted to pick up the pieces for Ellie.
She could feel it, like a pulling sensation, right where her heart should be: Ellie needed the comfort of a warm body and strong arms around her right now, and Estella — for better or worse — was the only one here.
Estella was the biggest threat to Ellie’s safety and at the same time, the best comfort and protection she had.
The scariest thing of all was that Estella wondered if the same was true in reverse.
Ellie was, as it turned out, a serious risk to her — to her life, and her emotional state — even without meaning to be.
She couldn’t keep Ellie around; it wasn’t a possibility.
The kind of life where Ellie could lay her head in Estella’s lap, Estella’s fingers running through her hair, talking about their days…
that was not something Estella would ever get to have.
And yet, already, her arms around Ellie’s warm soft body in the dark, she could feel how much it was going to hurt to inevitably let her go.
Perhaps worse, was that Estella knew the lengths she’d go to keep this woman safe. Oh, Ellie was a risk to her alright.
And so she lay awake, running it all over and over in her mind.
Zara and Arthur and a small ginger guinea pig all safely transported to a little chalet on the verge of Gold Hill lake, neatly positioned in a row of holiday accommodation filled with happy tourists.
There was no way for anyone to get to them without a thousand witnesses, not to mention Kenneth keeping watch.
Estella had settled them both in herself, Zara’s gaze careful and assessing, Arthur’s wide and curious.
Zara had, despite her suspiciousness, been surprisingly good at self-protective subterfuge.
She’d called in to her job with a plausible excuse for an urgent, unpreventable fortnight away, then repeated the same to Arthur’s school.
Both her boss and the principal had believed her without hesitation.
She’d confiscated her child’s devices, not even bothering to try simply warning a teenage boy not to give them away to his friends.
She’d easily struck a balance of impressing on him the seriousness of the situation while reassuring him not to be afraid.
Estella watched the whole thing go down, Ellie’s words ringing in her ears.
My sister has trauma. Estella knew exactly what kind of woman Zara Graham was, just by watching her respond to a dangerous criminal arriving in her home on a weekday morning and telling her she and her child were at risk.
It made her heart squeeze to witness the familiarity of it: Zara’s flight response was perfectly honed.
And then she thought of the other process she’d set in motion, her urgent meeting with Florence, the immediate escalation of their plans.
Keeping the Grahams safe was now item one on her agenda, but if the situation meant two birds, one stone, then all the better.
Yolanda was breathing down her neck, the Florellis at a fever pitch, the Grants roaring toward what they believed to be a victory.
The time to strike was glimmering right on the horizon, the final blow hers to deliver.
She felt Ellie stir beside her on the pillow and couldn’t help herself from nestling in closer, breathing in the soft scent of her hair and her skin. Did you? Ellie had asked her. Did you kill someone today? The answer had been technically the truth. I did not.
I did not kill anyone, Ellie Graham, I swear on your life. But don’t ask me what I set in motion.
She held Ellie in her arms and breathed her in like a drug. Dappled shade under a tree, blue skies reflected in her eyes, laughter on a beach, the hot gasp of her kiss, Estella’s fingers inside her, the sweet salt of her skin, her hand on her thigh, imagining she was hers.
Finally, Estella slept.
When she awoke, she was in bed alone. For that, she was grateful. She looked and felt like shit, probably because she hadn’t slept that hard in… ever? She showered in the bedroom’s ensuite and got dressed, then wandered out to face the gauntlet.
The house was quiet, and for a moment she thought she was alone. She could smell fresh coffee though, so she filled a mug with it. She glanced out through the french doors and saw Ellie sitting on the back porch steps overlooking the garden.
“Hey,” she said, as she stepped out. Ellie turned her head to look at her and froze still, staring. And then, she smiled, the expression on her face a little dazzled. “What?” Estella asked, knocked off-guard. She walked towards Ellie and took a seat at her side.
“I’ve never seen… this before,” Ellie waved her hand vaguely at Estella. Estella frowned.
“Seen what?” she demanded. Ellie laughed.
“You looking like a normal person,” she explained. “No makeup. Fucking track-pants. What the hell?”
Estella rolled her eyes. “Shut up,” she said.
“What else am I supposed to wear at 9AM in the middle of the countryside?” She felt oddly exposed, wishing she had at least put makeup on.
She sipped her coffee and gazed out at the lush garden, inhaling the fresh scent of the eucalypts on the breeze. She felt Ellie’s eyes on her face.
“You’re fucking beautiful,” Ellie said, her words a little breathless.
Estella whipped her head around to stare at her.
They weren’t doing this. They definitely shouldn’t be.
She wanted to make some kind of retort, but Ellie’s eyes were confusing.
They were soft and serious and laughing all in one, and while the dark circles had disappeared from under them, the bruise on her cheekbone had darkened.
Estella couldn’t snap at a bruised woman.
“Thank you,” she said simply, and to her horror, felt a rush of warmth in her cheeks. “You look like shit,” she lied, trying to cover it. Ellie only smiled wryly.
“Try that again,” she said. Estella huffed. Fuck’s sake. Why was this so hard?
“You’re beyond gorgeous, Ellie Graham and you fucking know it.” She sucked in a breath, her chest feeling tight. “But you have a massive bruise on your face and a bandage on your head, and I am so fucking sorry you ever met me that I can hardly look you in the eye.”
She delivered all of that somewhere toward Ellie’s right eyebrow, then turned away to drink a big sip of coffee before she fucking cried.
Ellie inhaled sharply beside her, and Estella tried not to flinch ahead of the empty reassurance or blame that was coming.
But instead, Ellie just let her breath escape slowly into the morning air.
They both sipped in silence, looking out over the garden, until Ellie moved imperceptibly closer to her and put her hand back on her thigh.
“I called Zara,” Ellie said after a while. “She’s mad and relieved and furious at me and seems to love you, so I don’t know what to do with any of that.”
“Okay,” said Estella. She shrugged. All she could think of was Ellie’s hand on her thigh, no one there to see it, no meaning beyond closeness.
She’d held Ellie all damn night, which in its own way had been far more intimate than fucking, but Ellie had been asleep for most of it.
She didn’t know where to look, even though she was the one who’d started this, by touching her the same way yesterday.
It was just that Ellie had looked so sore and lost and Estella was entirely at fault and all the people in the room hated her — which, of course they did — but there was something deeply stabilising about touching Ellie, not least the part of her that did it to piss Alison Hartmann off.
Because hearing Alison verbally rip her to shreds even after Estella had saved her life and set her free? Honestly, it rankled.
She and Alison had been rivals for a fucking decade, that was the god honest truth.
But that had only been because Estella was once young and dumb and thought Alison had it all, when really, all Alison had had was Simon fucking Hartmann.
And that was — as Estella found out, once she’d had it — worse than having nothing at all.
Of course, by then Alison rightfully hated her, and Estella had been too busy fighting for her goddamned life to do much about it.
But when the chips were down, and everything was on the line, Estella had raced against time to save Alison’s life.
She’d saved Alison — and the woman Alison loved — and all the thanks she got was to be called a vicious, calculating, multiple murderer. In front of someone she had a crush on!
“What are you thinking about?” Ellie asked and Estella pulled up her racing mind.
“Alison Hartmann,” she admitted.
“If I asked you to tell me the truth about that, would you?”