52. He Refused to Believe
He Refused to Believe
Toby
I dumped the portacot by the front door. Two suitcases and the overstuffed baby bag sat stacked and waiting. A duffel had been tossed on top. Gwen must have packed that one. I tugged back the zipper to see her laptop, the printed copies of the clinic books, and wads of paper stuffed inside.
I darted a look at Gwen. She slumped on the bottom step, her phone pressed to her ear, still on the line to the police.
I pointed to the duffel and whispered, “No working this weekend.”
Gwen mumbled, “Excuse me,” and held the phone away from her ear. “It’s not work. It’s to cover our asses. It’s all our legal and personal papers. The trust documents. The books. I even dumped the crap from my bill’s drawer in there. Weird shit’s happening, Tobes. We shouldn’t take any chances.”
The adrenaline that had burned through my body only simmered now, but even if I was calmer and could string together coherent thoughts beyond a whirlwind of “Go, go, go!” we were still going on our surprise vacation. Gwen was right—we shouldn’t take any chances.
She waved a hand at me and held up three fingers.
“The cops are three minutes away?” I asked.
She nodded.
Go Time.
I could be useful for once. It was time to pack the car, talk to the cops, and sort out the wanker still hovering outside my yard.
Grimacing, Gwen had suggested I might be overreacting about Romeo.
He’d stepped in to help diffuse the situation with my mother and gotten Marnie home safely.
Whoop-de-doo. A stalker with a hero complex.
With the duffel slung over my shoulder, I opened the front door, grabbed the portacot and a suitcase, and headed for the driveway.
“ Buonasera ,” Gwen’s new friend called out to me.
I flipped him off. “ Buonasera .” What did that even mean? Hi? Piss off? I hoped it meant piss off.
Vaguely amused, Romeo’s eyebrow went up. “Going somewhere?”
“Yeah.” I slid the portacot into the trunk and called back to him over my shoulder, “Your mum’s!”
He laughed, but his calm demeanor shifted when red and blue lights lit up the street. Scowling, his eyes narrowed on me before flicking back to the police car pulling up outside.
I grinned at him. “Well, what do you know? Looks like the party’s at my place tonight!
” His scowl deepened, which only made my smile bigger.
“You planning to stick around? I can’t wait to introduce you to a couple of my friends—Sergeant Go Fuck Yourself and Constable Keep the Fuck Away From My Wife. ”
Romeo’s lips twitched, but instead of tossing a barb back at me, he pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket and called someone. Better be his lawyer—he was toast.
I had a brief conversation with the two officers before pointing them to the penis extension parked past my driveway. When Romeo started bullshitting about going for a drive and stopping to stretch his legs, I rolled my eyes and made my way back to the house for the rest of our bags.
My phone rang. Not one of my contacts, so I ignored it. I’d had enough of unknown numbers for one night.
A message buzzed.
Unknown
Answer your phone, sweetheart.
Oh, great. My Christmas sweater buddy was the last person I wanted to talk to in all this chaos. Why was Liam calling me anyway? Had Gwen given him my number? Against my better judgment, when my phone rang again, I answered it.
“Sweetheart.” Liam’s drawl was a little more slurred than usual. He sounded almost drunk.
“What in the actual—?” I scrubbed my palm down my face. “What do you want?”
“I’ve missed you too.”
“Look, now’s not a good time—”
“No, I suppose it isn’t. A visit from the police is always most inconvenient.” He gave me a tsk of disapproval.
I scanned the street. It was empty except for the mess outside my place and one nosy neighbor craning their neck over their front fence to get a good look. “Where are you?”
“Indisposed.”
“Brooding again?” My eyes narrowed with suspicion on Romeo’s charm offensive of Sydney’s finest. Coincidence? Not a chance. “Or are you just pissed off that I interfered with you stalking my wife?”
“Stalking? Hardly,” Liam scoffed. “Romeo’s a friend…
of sorts…” He paused. I could imagine him dramatically sipping his drink and rolling bored eyes at the ceiling.
“I prefer to keep my arrangements private, but protecting Gwen more openly became necessary. And Romeo isn’t so bad, is he? He’s a rather pretty distraction.”
“You sick bastard—”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I don’t think he’s nearly as pretty as you are.”
Christ, this guy … I huffed with annoyance. “And who’s following me?”
Silence stretched. “Why would anyone be following you? Surely, the dentist is big enough to fend for himself.”
Ice trickled down my spine. My gaze snapped to the garage, the hair on my arms prickling and my heart racing. I hadn’t imagined the noises. Someone was following me. But if it wasn’t Liam…
“Sweetheart, it’s time for you and me to have storytime,” he continued. “There are things you need to know. Just you. Far away from the hearing of clever ears.”
Pfft. Yeah, right. “You can tell me anything you want, but I won’t keep secrets from Gwen.”
“Stop acting like a fool for once in your wretched life,” Liam spat.
“Did you learn nothing from the devil who raised you? You may not care about protecting Gwen, but I do. Ignore me if it pleases you. Choose any hotel you want for your impromptu vacation,” Liam snapped.
“Someone will always be close behind. Involving the police is an inconvenience. Nothing more. They are of no concern to me—and certainly not to the people you should be worrying about.”
“If Gwen’s in danger, she needs to know—”
“That burden is yours to bear, not hers.” Liam’s usual cool tone was replaced with undisguised anger. “Your former business partner’s stirring up a hornet’s nest you can’t even fathom. If you decide to grow balls even half the size of your father’s, I’ll tell you where to find me.”
Liam hung up.
My shoulders slumped. It wasn’t the weight of the bags I carried dragging me down but my own guilty conscience.
Wide-eyed, Gwen scampered into the hotel suite, her hand smoothing over the perfectly made bed. “This is nice,” she murmured with a grin. “What do you reckon, little dude? Fancy digs?”
Noah didn’t answer. He was fast asleep, thumb dangling from his lips.
I set up his portacot beside the lounge. Any distraction would do right now. The police had done nothing. They’d given a lackluster warning to Romeo and handed Gwen a pamphlet about making a restraining order. A fat lot of good that’d do.
This was all my fault.
Exhausted, I sank to the edge of the bed, dropped my head in my hands, and just…sat. Not even Noah sleeping safely in his portacot sparked any life in my chest. I felt flat. Alone.
Gwen’s arms hugged my chest from behind, her legs latched around my waist, and she rested her cheek on my back. I sighed and stole all her warmth. It’d been so long since she’d cuddled me like that.
“Toby, I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Are you still angry?”
“Nah.” And it was the truth. “But, God, Gwen… We’re so bad at this.
Relationships and crisis.” Lying. Keeping secrets.
“It’s like we’ve got all the right ingredients to be perfect for each other, but we’ve got no idea how to mix them all together to make it work.
We’re great at making fireworks, but smoothing out the bumps… ”
Gwen clambered around me, and, wobbling ungracefully, almost toppling off, she landed in my lap. Her arms wound around my neck, and she looked down at me with a smile. “I like our fireworks.” Her kiss was soft on my cheek. “We’ll get better at handling the bumps.”
“I know.” I tipped my chin so her lips would land on mine this time.
One kiss. And then another. Perfect. I muttered her name with a groan, curling my fingers around her waist to drag her flush against me, rocking her hips the way I wanted.
After I shimmied her into just the right angle, I sighed. Yeah, that’s the spot . “I miss you…”
“Naked,” she finished for me with a grin.
“It’s more than that. I miss seeing the other side of you.
” I kissed her only once this time. “The Gwen only I get to see.” My hand slid under her shirt, up the curve of her waist to her ribs, and with my breath warm on her cheek, I watched her eyes carefully…
so carefully. “If I stripped you down…pinned you to the bed…just like I used to…would I get to see that Gwen?”
Her breath hitched. She rocked her hips, teasing me, and tried to land a kiss, but I jerked back.
“Will I, Gwen? Will you be able to let go?”
She frowned.
“And there’s my answer. We’re not ready for this yet.
” The kiss I gave her was ten out of ten good, but lifting her off my lap and the part of me that was very happy she’d been there was like handing back the keys to heaven.
We couldn’t rush this. Fireworks and kissing and making up?
We were great at those. Talking through the bumps? We were terrible.
“Tease,” she grumbled, pouting as she wriggled up the bed to collapse against the mountain of pillows piled against the headboard.
“Quit distracting me, doll. We need to start talking.” I plumped the pillows next to her. “You promised me an explanation, but let me go first. I’ve got a confession to make.”
Her head turned, eyebrows up.
“It was Liam,” I said. “He called me tonight. He was pretty pissed off that we’d called the cops on his bodyguard.”
“That son of—” she huffed. “Okay, Liam hadn’t been on my radar. I’d convinced myself that Romeo was some pathetic standover tactic for the hearing or the charges pending against Kayleigh.”
“Liam seems to think you need protection. He hinted it was something to do with Ian, but he said he’d only spill his guts if I didn’t tell you.”
“Toby!” Gwen swatted my shoulder. “So, tell him you won’t breathe a word, get all the details, and then tell me anyway.”
“That’s lying!”