LOGINLochlan stood in the doorway.I had not, until that moment, fully understood how much of the day I’d been holding together with sheer bloody-mindedness.The car. The road. Desmond’s first aid kit. Gran’s face when she saw the blood. The revelation that had turned the ground under my feet into something I no longer entirely recognised.All of it, held at arm’s length through the long hours of the evening by the simple necessity of getting through the next five minutes and the five minutes after that.Lochlan’s face undid about six hours of that effort in approximately three seconds.He nodded at Desmond, said something quiet to Mum, and crossed the room to me. He leant down and put his arms around me, carefully, mindful of the bandaged arm, and I let my head drop against his shoulder and closed my eyes and thought: there it is. There’s the thing I’ve been waiting for all day without letting myself know I was waiting for it.He straightened up after a moment and looked at my arm, examini
Mum came into the room. She put a tray down on my bedside table.‘I brought you dinner,’ she said.I looked at the food, then back at her. ‘Why are you telling me this now?’‘What do you mean?’‘You spent more than twenty years keeping this a secret. Why did you decide to tell me now?’Mum fell silent. She looked down at the tray, and her fingers twisted together.‘Is it because of Aaron Lockwood?’ I asked. ‘He’s been behaving strangely since the day I met him, and he kept visiting you to ask questions.’Mum’s voice was low. ‘He would’ve found out eventually. I couldn’t let you be the last person to know the truth.’‘It doesn’t change anything, you know,’ I told her.‘Hyacinth, please,’ she began.‘It doesn’t. You are still my mum, and Dad is still my dad. Aaron Lockwood is my biological father, and that’s all he’s ever going to be.’‘I know you are upset and confused right now. I know we dropped this on you without notice and it’s unfair to you. You might need some time to think it th
I stood in the open doorway and surveyed the damage.The bedside lamp lay in pieces across the carpet, and the curtains had been ripped half off their rails. The dresser drawers had been pulled out and emptied, leaving clothes scattered everywhere.Helen sat on the edge of the mattress, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest, her eyes narrowed to slits. ‘I should’ve known you were just as cunning a bastard as your dad.’‘I told you to leave London.’‘I ain’t leaving until I get my money. I want my money.’‘I’m not giving you any money.’Helen spat on the floor and lunged to her feet. ‘You fucking idiot, you’ve just thrown away your own future. I’m going to call every tabloid I know. I’m going to call the fucking ITV and BBC, and by tomorrow morning everyone in London will know the almighty Lochlan Hastings is a bastard child, a crack baby with addicts for parents. I’m going to cry so hard in front of the cameras the public will want to believe I’ve reformed. They’ll know you turned
The man standing in the kitchen doorway was tall, silver-haired, and the last person I’d expected to see.Apparently, Desmond had the same thought.He was on his feet in an instant. ‘Uncle Aaron. What are you doing here?’Aaron Lockwood looked at him, then at me, then back at Desmond. ‘I could ask you the same thing.’‘I asked first.’‘Desmond –’‘Gran,’ I said.Everyone looked at me.I was looking at Gran Alison, who was standing very still by the fireplace with her hands clasped in front of her, wearing the expression I knew meant she had something difficult to say and had decided the time for saying it had arrived.‘What’s going on?’ I asked.Gran said, ‘This is why I asked your mum to call you down here. We need to talk.’ She looked at Aaron Lockwood. ‘All of us.’We sat. Dad on the sofa beside Mum, whose hands he was holding in both of his. Desmond in the armchair he’d been in before, his elbows on his knees now, watching his uncle like a police officer watching a suspect.Aaron L
The impact didn’t come.Instead there was a sound – an almighty crack from somewhere behind and to the left of me, followed by the shriek of tyres on tarmac and a second impact that I felt rather than heard, the shudder of metal meeting metal at speed, and then my car was spinning, not off the road but on it, the fields wheeling past the windscreen in a smear of grey-green until I got my foot on the brake and brought it to a shuddering stop half on the verge.I opened my eyes – hadn’t even realised I’d shut them. My hands were still on the wheel.Outside, something was still moving – engines, voices, the sound of a door.I couldn’t quite make sense of it. My head felt like it was full of cotton wool and my left arm was burning somewhere between my elbow and my shoulder where it had connected with the door panel, and there was something warm on my temple that I was fairly sure was blood.I tried the door. It opened, which surprised me. I got one leg out and then the world tilted conside
‘What if I’m... what if I’m never ready?’‘Then the box stays in the safe.’I stood up. My legs felt like string cheese on a hot day.‘I need some time,’ I croaked out. ‘To think. Alone.’‘Of course.’Lochlan stepped toward the desk, his hand hovering over the intercom. ‘I’ll have someone escort you home.’‘I don’t want a security detail.’‘Hyacinth—’‘I’ll call you. Later.’ I picked up my bag, my fingers trembling against the leather. ‘I mean it, Lochlan. I need to think and I can’t do it with two of Cameron’s people watching me from the pavement.’He looked like he wanted to argue. He didn’t. ‘Call me,’ he said. ‘When you arrive.’I was halfway down the M4 when my phone rang.‘You need to come to Mousehole,’ Mum said, without preamble. ‘Today. Gran and I have something to tell you.’‘Mum, today’s not—’‘The sooner the better, Cinny. Please.’I could never say no to her. ‘Fine. I’m on my way.’The long drive would clear my head. I wondered for a moment what they wanted to tell me, but
The question had struck a chord so deep and so dormant I’d forgotten it was there.My dream? When Mum got sick, my dream became simply ‘keeping her alive’.Then it became ‘surviving Cary’.Now… now my dream was just leaving that life behind and keeping my head above water in this new one.A dream fe
Lochlan followed my gaze. ‘The car is armoured. And Declan is armed for security purposes. He’s fully licensed, I assure you.’I slid into the back seat, my mind reeling. The luxurious interior now felt less like a car and more like a mobile vault.I wanted to ask if he was in immediate physical dan
I checked my reflection in the mirror.The navy silk dress was a silent masterpiece, the kind of garment that felt like a second skin and a full suit of armour simultaneously.It was, I had to admit, perfect.Portia appeared behind my shoulder, her expression one of grudging admiration. ‘Okay, fine.
Climbing out of the wrecked helicopter into the full fury of the blizzard was like being punched in the face by winter itself.The wind stole my breath, a greedy, invisible thief, and the snow, driven horizontally, felt like needles against any exposed skin.I couldn’t see more than two feet in fron







