As we stopped outside Mick’s hotel door, Braden knocked on it loudly and Joss put an arm around my shoulder and pulled me to her. It put pressure against my side and I winced, immediately rewarded with a rambling apology from Joss. It would have been funny how many times she called herself a dick if I hadn’t been trying to catch my breath.
The hotel door swung open and I was surprised to find Uncle Mick fully dressed and alert. His eyes narrowed in on me and I saw the muscles in his jaw working against his fury. ‘I’ve been trying to call you,’ he said tersely.
Confused, I blinked rapidly. ‘Um … my phone’s switched off.’ I’d turned it off when Cam had tried to call me again.
Mick nodded and then stepped back so we could enter his room. Braden led us in and stopped quite abruptly at the threshold. I knew why when I sidled up next to him with Joss.
Olivia and Cam were there.
Braden looked down at me, drawing my gaze. ‘I can hit him now if you want?’
I’m not going to lie – I seriously pondered the suggestion before finally saying with a sigh, ‘Not worth it.’
‘Jo?’ Cam asked hoarsely.
I looked at him and felt Joss’s hold on me tighten. Cam’s blue eyes searched my face and just like Mick’s had, his expression clouded over, undiluted rage sparking to life in his eyes. ‘Who the fuck did it?’ he asked between gritted teeth.
I didn’t answer his question. Having him here was incredibly painful. The anger he felt over my attack seemed fake in light of the fact that he’d cheated on me with Blair. ‘I want you to leave.’
Cam closed his eyes as if he was in pain. ‘Jo, please, what you saw …’
‘Just leave.’
‘Jo.’ Olivia stepped forward. ‘Give him a chance to explain.’
‘Later,’ Mick snapped, his gold eyes fixated on my wounded mouth. ‘I want a name. Now.’ I gulped, feeling the threat of violence rise in the room. Not just from Mick – his anger was infecting Cam and Braden.
‘Murray.’
Mick’s nostrils flared at the name.
‘Dad did it,’ I clarified.
‘What?’ he yelled, his question muffled by Cam’s explosion of expletives.
Olivia strode between them, trying to calm them. ‘We’ll get thrown out of the hotel,’ she warned them. She turned to me. ‘Explain what happened.’
For the second time that night I related my tale, and when I was done the air was thick with testosterone. Cam finally couldn’t take it any more and he crossed the room, his shaking hand reaching to cup my chin. At the brush of his skin against mine, I tugged my head away, then grimaced at the sharp sting of pain in my neck from where I’d suffered whiplash from Murray’s attack.
‘Jo, I didn’t do what you think I did,’ he insisted.
I couldn’t look at him. All I could picture was his face above mine as he made love to me, his eyes telling me he cared, and then the image tearing down the centre to reveal him and Blair writhing naked together on his bed. My stomach turned at the thought and the pain in my chest was indescribable. So this was what it was like to be heartbroken? ‘Why did you even come here?’
‘I came here because I thought this was where you’d go if you were in trouble.’
His response startled me. My eyes betrayed me and sought out his. He’d thought I would come here? ‘Not Malcolm’s?’
He shook his head, his expression desperate.
That disconcerted me. I didn’t like it. I dropped my gaze, my confused thoughts giving me a headache. Cam had trusted me not to turn to Malcolm after all. He did see me.
He saw me.
I scoffed at the hope bubbling up inside me.
He’d also screwed Blair.
Deflated, I felt my shoulders slump.
‘Where is he?’ Mick demanded. ‘I’m going to sort that fucker out once and for all.’
I wasn’t big on violence. Anyone who really knew me knew that. But as I looked up into my uncle’s distressed and bloodthirsty gaze, I couldn’t find the willpower to lie to him. I wanted to believe fighting violence with violence was never the answer. I wanted to believe that there was a better way. And maybe for other people there was. Unfortunately, fear was the only thing Murray Walker understood. He was a schoolyard bully, and bullies really were cowards at heart. Murray definitely was … but only when it came to Mick.
One day I’d have to ask Mick why that was.
Not tonight, though.
‘The flat above the Halfway House on Fleshmarket Close.’
Mick grabbed his phone from the bedside table and stuffed it into his pocket. He turned to Olivia. ‘Take Jo home. I’ll call you when we’re done.’ He nodded at Cam and Braden. ‘You two are with me.’
My eyes disobeyed me again, finding Cam’s. The emotion roiling in those blue eyes of his was like an electrified net that caught me. Holding my gaze, he stepped towards me and cradled my face gently in his hands, then pressed his forehead against mine without a word. The familiar scent of him, the heat, the feel of his skin, all made me shudder with a rush of anguished longing.
‘You know I didn’t sleep with her, Jo,’ he whispered against my mouth, and everyone else just seemed to disappear. I wanted to believe him so badly.
Pulling back to gaze into my eyes, he refused to let go of me. We had a silent conversation.