Chapter 29
Dixie
I woke in Tyler’s arms. The first time we’d spent a night in the same bed together, though he’d come up late, and remained on top of the covers and half-dressed.
Didn’t stop me snuggling deeper into him. If he thought I wasn’t taking advantage of warm gangster chest, he didn’t know me at all.
For a few perfectly content moments, he held me, his soft exhale heavenly. Then he seemed to remember himself.
Tyler kissed my forehead and climbed out of bed. “I’ll fetch breakfast.”
He slid black jeans up his thick legs, giving me a wink when he caught me watching, then left me for his task.
We were being so careful with each other.
Him presumably because of how we’d started, me for reasons I didn’t fully understand.
On the bedside table, my phone waited. I left it untouched. Dread had me unable to check it. I didn’t want to read how Cassie’s impromptu mission had ended, and the implication I wouldn’t be able to ignore. Instead, I got dressed and escaped to the living room.
At last, I was ready to tackle my boxes.
A lot had changed. In the space of a few days, I’d gone from scared little creature to something angrier. With teeth. That in itself was frightening.
I searched through the open box on the dining table, finding kitchen goods, then carried it to put things away in the far more luxurious kitchen than I was used to.
Tyler had minimal possessions, mostly only furniture.
Nothing to cook with. No glasses or mugs.
My mismatched items, bought because I thought they were pretty, graced his shelves, and I didn’t hate how they looked.
Or how it made me feel to quietly claim space in his world.
Another box gave up pillows for the sofa, bold pink against his sombre grey leather.
Then I lined my books up on a shelf, mostly biographies of glamorous women I admired for owning their lives.
Kathleen Turner buddying up to Elizabeth Taylor.
The beautiful Audrey Hepburn now besties with Lauren Bacall.
Not one of them had lived without tragedy. I’d devoured their stories, reading about pain, loss, and how they’d carried on.
Weirdly, that made me feel better for my cray-cray mental state. If they’d survived, I could, too.
Stepping back, I flattened the collection of empty boxes. Between here and the house on the ridge, I had places to call home. At least for now. My whole life felt up in the air, but at least I could go to a drawer for a spoon or to the bedroom for my spare curling wand.
The door clicked open, bringing my man back into the apartment. Tyler’s gaze soaked me in then leapt to the changes I’d made.
I tangled my fingers together. “I unpacked. Is that okay?”
He set down the paper bag he’d brought, the name of a local café on the side, and came to me. In broad daylight, toe to toe, he put his arms around me and lowered his lips in a so-familiar forehead kiss. “Ye have no idea what that does to my heart.”
My lips parted, and my breathing stopped. His heart. More than a little terrified, I placed my palm to the centre of his chest.
Our kiss was a mutual thing, our lips meeting halfway. I sank into the warmth of him. The taste I’d barely got used to.
Tyler kissed me like the whole world had come to a halt around us. He was careful, reverent, then hungry. It woke up my brain and body in the best possible way and sent heat flashing through my veins. I pushed closer to him, up on my toes, needing more.
Deep in his pocket, his phone buzzed.
I broke the kiss. “Bad timing, bestie. Leave us alone.”
He returned his lips to mine. “Whoever it is can wait.”
So they did. Tyler backed me to the nearest wall and let the call ring out while he kissed me stupid. One hand dove into my hair, the other safely curved around my hip. He wouldn’t take this further, I already knew. He treated me so precious.
It was then I realised I had a problem.
A feelings-shaped one.
No refunds. No returns. Mine to own forever.
He smiled as he ended the kiss, unaware of what he’d done.
“Look in the bag. I wasn’t sure what you’d like, so I picked half a dozen pastries and a couple of coffees.
” My handsome gangster kissed my cheek, linking his fingers to mine to draw me across the room, his chatter continuing.
“One is sweet, so that might be yours. I saw you went big on the sugar back at the ridge.”
“I used to live on sweetened coffee,” I mumbled, dazed by my realisation.
I’d got used to being in the midst of big emotions with him. Warm, happy, glittering ones. But I’d never loved anyone who wasn’t family, and barely any of them. Never a man. Not in the romantic sense.
Tyler took up his phone to check the call. It gave me the opportunity to escape.
“I’ll be right back.” With heated cheeks, I scurried to the bedroom and closed the door.
That lingering sense of foreboding hit big time when I unlocked my phone.
It wasn’t even the skeleton girls’ group where the danger lurked.
A few nights ago, I’d set up a notification for any new articles that mentioned me, Kane, Mila, or our vile relatives.
I’d wanted to know the moment the Marchant-Smythes were outed as being under arrest.
But that wasn’t the headline.
With trembling fingers, I scrolled and read.
Mila Marchant is a coward.
It was a brutal piece, centred on the relative of one of the women who’d died on the Eden. The lady, Bella, had travelled to the UK in pursuit of answers.
They won’t let me bury my cousin. No answers have come from the Marchants, and their princess, Mila Marchant, has refused to meet with me.
Her solicitor told me to take my request to her grandmother.
That coward. Passing me off to an elderly lady.
My cousin’s name was Tia, Mila Marchant, and she was twenty-three years old. Face me and face what you’ve done.
A quarter of an hour on, and half of the skeleton girls were in my apartment, only Cassie and Everly not present. Tyler left with a worried expression but a final loving kiss. He’d be leaving tonight to go out on a people raid. I’d only made one request.
Not Denise. Not yet.
He didn’t ask me to explain why.
Lovelyn scowled at her phone. “There’s nothing on the new arrests. I know it’s early, but I thought Lyle would be yelling this from the rooftops. The police have had huge criticisms over inaction and no results. Why aren’t they celebrating the arrest of real villains?”
“Could you ask him?” Genevieve said.
Lovelyn gave a dramatic shudder. “I’ll try my father first.”
She stabbed a number and took her phone to the window, staring out at the grey city.
On the sofa, Mila curled in on herself, holding one of my pink pillows as if it were a shield.
“I’m so sorry. It’s so unfair,” I said.
She shook her head in disbelief. “The solicitors didn’t even tell me about the request. They said I’d asked not to be contacted, and for all demands to be sent to our grandmother, so they were just following orders. How could they not see this was different?”
“Would you want to talk to this woman?”
“Absolutely. She’s owed it, and I can’t imagine how she’s feeling. But it’ll be a media spectacle. I don’t know how to stop that.”
She scrubbed her face with her hands, frustration plain.
My heart hurt and hurt some more.
“Tomorrow is the vote. The solicitors advised that without Sullivan appearing, it can’t go ahead. I can’t do anything to change any part of this.”
Her phone rang, and she snatched it from under the cushion with a grimace that suggested she might throw it. Instead, she checked the screen, rolled her eyes, and tossed it back down. “Wallace.”
I curled my lip. “I never liked him. He gives off damp handshake energy.”
“He’s the worst. Lazy, slobbish, loves spending money he never earned. Did you spend much time with him?”
“He didn’t often come home. Our grandparents despaired over him in my earshot. He was always calling up to ask for top-up money because he wanted to go to some new and exclusive resort with amazing friends he was sure would offer him business opportunities.”
Mila scoffed. “A job? He’s never had one.”
Lovelyn muttered an end to her call and returned to us, her expression still just as dark. “My father said the same answer as when I questioned him on the bodies being announced. ‘It’s political.’ What does that even mean?”
Mila’s gaze turned speculative. “They’ll name inconvenient names. Which means someone’s leaning on the police to slow any updates on that case, or even stop them. Who has that power?”
“Arran does,” Lovelyn said. “I don’t mean it would be him, of course, but he pays off people like my father, so others must be able to.”
I made a face. “I hate answers that start with ‘anyone rich enough’.”
Mila rested her chin on the heel of her hand. “It’s right, though. Basically anyone with enough cash. Like the top business owners in the city might. It feels like all we need is one tangible piece of evidence and a network will be exposed.”
“I know exactly how you feel,” I breathed.
Lovelyn angled her head, her focus coming to me. “Something’s been bugging me in how you described the trusted companies. It came back to mind because you said the top companies in Deadwater. They’re among them.”
Mila nodded. “With MH, they’re four among maybe fifteen that dominate employment and profit in the city.”
“Right. Dixie, you said your grandfather was meeting them to discuss joint ventures, but when I looked into them, there was no connection in finances.”
Mila glanced between us. “They weren’t in any way financially connected. Apart from what you uncovered with an unknown Marchant investing in one. But from the top down? Nope. Distinctly not. I can remember our grandfather stating not to mix business with friendships.”