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‘Don’t go,’ she pleaded, but her arms hung limp by her sides, unable to stop him.
Her mother touched Trey’s arm, delaying him before he reached the door, but whatever she said, it wasn’t enough. He pushed past her and left. The door slammed behind him as he raced up the outside steps.
‘Mum!’ Lizzie’s wail jolted Halle out of her stunned trance. ‘Mum, don’t let him go.’
‘It’s OK, we’ll get him back.’ She enfolded her daughter in her arms as Lizzie’s slender body vibrated with wrenching sobs.
‘But he won’t come back, not now,’ Lizzie cried. ‘Not after Dad hit him like that. How could he? Trey’s mum died yesterday. He’s already been through so much.’
‘What?’ Halle held her daughter at arm’s length.
Shock layered on shock. She had no clue what Luke and she had just walked in on between her daughter and Trey, but it had looked very intense.
‘His mum died, yesterday,’ her daughter repeated between heaving breaths. ‘She’s been sick for a long time. Trey used to look after her.’
‘I didn’t know that.’ It seemed there were a lot of things she didn’t know.
‘Stop kicking me, kid!’ Luke’s shout drew her back to the present.
She jotted the problem of Trey, and Lizzie, and Trey’s dead mother down on Future Halle’s to-do list, because Present Halle had a much bigger problem. How could she have been stupid enough to trust Luke? She’d let him in here. Let him into her home. And he’d turned into the bloody Terminator.
She grabbed a saucepan and smashed it down on the countertop. The sound crashed around the room, calling time on Luke and Aldo’s wrestling match.
‘Aldo, stop kicking Luke. Luke, put my son down,’ she demanded in her best obey-me-at-your-peril voice.
Their two heads rose together and, for a split second, as Luke hugged Aldo round the waist, lifting her son off the ground to prevent Aldo kicking his shins, the illusion she’d kept at bay during the long flight home, of Luke and Aldo becoming father and son, became real.
And then shattered as she registered the tears smearing her son’s cheeks and the sharp frown on Luke’s face.
Luke dropped Aldo and Halle grabbed her son’s shoulder before he could launch another attack on Luke’s shins. ‘Don’t, Aldo, that’s enough.’
‘I hate him,’ her son sobbed, crumpling against her. ‘He hit Trey.’
‘I know. He won’t do it again.’
Luke looked shell-shocked, what he’d done finally beginning to dawn on him. She glared at him over her child’s head. Not caring.
How could he have reacted like that? In anger and aggression without a thought to the consequences? How could he have put her children and Trey through this? She’d trusted him. How could she have been stupid enough to think for even a second that he would ever put her needs, her children’s needs above his own?
‘Lizzie.’ She turned to her daughter, who stood forlornly in the corner, sniffing back tears. ‘Could you take your brother upstairs? I’ll be up in a moment to talk to you both, but I need to talk to your father first.’
She prayed that Lizzie wouldn’t throw a wobbly, but she braced for it anyway. To her astonishment, Lizzie simply sucked up the last of her tears and threw a consoling arm round her brother’s shoulders, before giving her a nod. The expression on her face was one of sympathy and solidarity and total faith. ‘Don’t worry, Aldo. Mum will sort this out.’
Sending her dad a furious glare, she led her brother out of the room, saying, ‘You were really brave, you know. Trey would be proud of you.’
‘Who the hell is that guy, and what was he doing with my daughter?’ Luke went on the offensive as soon as Aldo and Lizzie had left the room.
Halle’s temper soared, the sense of betrayal consumed by her fury.
‘That guy is Trey, our au pair. And what he was doing with our daughter was obvious. The question is what the hell did you think you were doing assaulting him like that?’
‘What was I doing assaulting him?’ He thumped his chest, like the Neanderthal he was. ‘He was assaulting my daughter. She’s just a kid.’
‘She’s eighteen years old. I was pregnant with her at that age.’
‘It’s not the same thing. She’s innocent. She’s a bloody virgin.’
What planet is he living on?
