Page 48 of Never Gonna Happen

Leon sagged. ‘He doesn’t deserve you,’ he mumbled.

Emily raised her eyebrows. ‘Why not? Is he a bad person?’

‘No, he is a good person. I like him very much.’

‘Then why doesn’t he deserve me?’

Leon said nothing for a moment, looking sick and guilty. ‘I don’t know. I guess I just said that because I’m sad. He is lucky. If he hurts you I will kill him.’

Emily smiled. ‘Thanks, Leon.’ She reached out and took both his rough, hairy hands in hers. ‘I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. Your Christmas present was the nicest thing anyone has ever given me. I hope we can still be friends.’

Leon gave the tiniest nod and squeezed her hands in return. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘You are good person. Jamie is lucky man.’ He took a deep breath and stood up to leave, giving Emily a watery smile.

‘Tell him. Tell him I will kill him if he hurts you.’ He held his hands in a circle and pulled a face, like he was strangling someone.

She laughed. ‘I will. Thank you.’

Emily stomped up the stairs feeling wrung out over Leon, and livid with Anna for stirring up trouble. She briefly considered having it out with her but decided to not give her the satisfaction of seeing how rattled she was.

If Anna had been poking around in her room there was no sign of anything having been moved, and nothing of interest for her to find anyway, unless you counted a super-quiet vibrator that Kelly had bought her as a ‘men no longer required’ going-away gift. Hopefully she wouldn’t be needing that for a while.

She spent five minutes gathering dirty laundry and organising it into lights and darks, then stuffed the darks into a carrier bag and headed downstairs to the laundry room at the back of the kitchen. None of it was particularly dirty, so she set it on a half-hour wash and returned upstairs to paint her nails. She’d do one hand, then come back down to move everything into the dryer and put the light wash on. By the time her nails were done, she’d be ready to go for a swim.

Emily was sixty lengths in before she caught sight of a pair of feet in brown leather brogues on the side of the pool. She stopped and pulled off her goggles, trying to catch her breath. Her stomach sank when she saw it was Adam. He glared at her, his eyes as cold and dark as flint, but said nothing.

‘Did you want the pool?’ she asked. She wondered if Mr Hunter had told him about her sneaking photocopies of his plans, or if he’d found out about her and Jamie. In that moment, she wasn’t sure which would be worse.

‘No I fucking don’t,’ said Adam, his voice dripping with malice.

Uh-oh, this is bad. Emily tried another tack. ‘How was your trip?’

Adam folded his arms, ignoring the question. ‘I hear you’ve been getting your feet under the table while we’ve been away.’

He knew about Jamie, then. Oh, yippee.

She eyed him carefully, feeling exposed and vulnerable in her thin swimsuit, but far enough away that he couldn’t touch her without getting in the water. She’d also seen him swim, and she was faster.

‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

Adam shook his head, a sneer on his lips. ‘I said you were a piece of work weeks ago, turns out I was right. But I’ve got bad news for you, Little Miss Gold Digger. If you were planning on getting your hands on the family fortune, you’ve picked the wrong brother.’

Emily could feel her anger rising. ‘I wasn’t planning anything, and I didn’t pick anyone.’ I wouldn’t pick you if you were the last man on earth, she thought. I’d rather poke my eyes out with a chopstick.

‘You say that,’ said Adam, inspecting his fingernails, ‘but I’ve met women like you before. Crawling out of nowhere, wrapping men like my father around your little finger. You may have flashed your tits at my brother . . .’ His eyes drifted to her chest, and he gave a sly smile. ‘Actually, forget that, you don’t have any. But I’ve got your number.’

Emily’s face burned at Adam’s slight on her background and her body, but she held her head high, refusing to be cowed by him. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

He pointed a finger in her face and narrowed his eyes to snake-like slits. ‘I’m watching you, Emily. You’ve picked the wrong family to fuck with.’

Emily hurried back through the crusty snow to the house, her wet hair freezing to her head, feeling furious and upset in equal measure but refusing to shed any tears over that arrogant piece of shit. She’d dealt with intimidating men before; it came with the job. And she was no stranger to having her character or her body criticised either, that was just part of being a woman. But calling her a gold digger was completely out of order, particularly when she’d tried so hard to do the right thing.

The big question was, should she say anything to Jamie or Mr Hunter? Jamie would be furious, and she definitely didn’t want to be responsible for a family rift. For one thing, it might change how Mr Hunter felt about the relationship between her and Jamie. Adam was better off thinking that Emily was too scared of him to say anything; nothing more than a stupid woman who had caught his brother’s eye but posed no threat.

She looked at her watch. Four hours ago she’d left Jamie’s bed after their snowy New Year mini-break, and in that time she’d upset Leon, elevated Anna’s hatred of her to a new level, and been threatened by Adam. What else was today going to throw at her?

She detoured to the laundry room to put her second wash into the dryer, only to discover that one of the navy blue penguin socks Kelly had bought her for Christmas had crept in with the lights, so everything was now a patchy tie-die turquoise. Emily took a deep breath and decided that today could absolutely do one.

Chapter Twenty-Five