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‘I’ll repack the shed, you hand the stuff through to me.’ Alex was already in there.
‘Thanks.’ She didn’t fancy the job of being inside that windowless shack.
They worked quickly—Dani stacking the cones and tossing the balls through to him. It took no time in the space and silence the rowdy kids had left. She waited outside the door while he put the remaining items away.
‘Why do you feel trapped in enclosed spaces?’ he asked from inside the shed. ‘What happened?’
She spun the last ball between her hands. It wasn’t a small space putting her on edge now.
‘Tell me.’ He stuck his head out of the door. ‘Something happened, right? You got a fright some time.’
It was a long time ago and she tried never to think about it. ‘It was nothing. I was an idiot.’
‘What was nothing?’
No one but her mother knew what had happened that day. No one but him, of course. ‘I’m not telling.’
He took the ball from her. ‘Why not?’
‘Because it was nothing.’
‘It obviously was not,’ he said with feeling, tossing the ball home. He shut the door and fixed the padlock, then moved to tower over her. ‘Look, if you don’t tell me, I’ll hold you on the brink of orgasm for so long you won’t be able to walk for three weeks because your body will be so sore from the strain of wanting it, but not getting it.’
She couldn’t help but giggle at that. ‘Sounds great—when do we start?’
‘Tell me.’
Dani sighed. So he wasn’t going to give up. Well, she’d give him the abridged version. ‘I locked myself in a cupboard when I was fourteen. Was stuck in there for ages.’ She forced another laugh—but it was too high-pitched.
‘Why on earth did you do that?’
OK, so here was the not-so-fun part. She hesitated and felt him lean closer to her.
‘Dani…’ A very gentle warning.
‘My mother’s boyfriend came round. She was at work. She used to give her boyfriends a key,’ Dani blurted—sooner said, sooner forgotten. ‘I didn’t like the way he looked at me.’
‘So you hid from him?’
‘He came into the house and called my name—he must have known Mum was at work so I went into my wardrobe. I heard him come into my room. He poked around everything. I was too scared to move. He stayed for ages. Until I couldn’t tell if he was still there or not.’
All she’d been able to hear was the pounding of her heart. And her ears had hurt with the effort she’d had them under—waiting for the tiniest sound, terrified he was lurking just on the other side of the door and was going to smash it open at any moment.
And she’d been right.
‘What happened?’
‘He tried to break down the door.’ Dani flinched, lost back in the memory of it. Barely aware she’d answered.
‘What?’
Heart galloping, she turned to stare at Alex. Her body trembling with remembered shock. ‘He knew I was there. He knew. And he waited and waited and waited until he got sick of waiting. And then he smashed the door.’
Alex swore. ‘What did you do?’
‘At first I couldn’t do anything. I just couldn’t move and I thought he was going to, to…but then the scream came out. I screamed and screamed.’ But that moment—that infinite moment when she’d been unable to make a noise—had been the root of nightmares for years after.
‘Did he get you? Did he hurt you?’
She shook her head. A couple of bruises from a couple of punches was nothing on what she could have suffered. ‘The neighbour came over, she banged on the door and threatened to call the cops. He shoved her out of the way and ran off.’
‘Did you go to the police?’
‘No.’ They’d been too scared for that. ‘We changed the locks. Then we moved. But it wasn’t that long before she gave the key to another one—he was different, of course.’ Dani started to walk across the field. ‘I did those self-defence classes. I got quite good.’ Or she’d thought she had. Fortunately she hadn’t had to test it out.
Alex was quiet. ‘But you still get freaked in small spaces.’
‘Silly, isn’t it?’ She laughed—still too high-pitched. ‘Happened years ago. I should be over it by now. I mean, it was nothing. It wasn’t that bad. What a wimp.’
‘Don’t.’ He took her hand and stopped walking. ‘Don’t try to minimise it.’
Dani shut up at the touch of his fingers on hers, but it took a long time before she could bring herself to look at him.
‘You must have been really scared.’
‘I couldn’t breathe,’ Dani answered almost unconsciously.
‘He was going to hurt you.’ Alex’s face hardened. ‘He did hurt you.’
She shook her head. ‘No. He didn’t.’
‘He did,’ Alex said quietly. ‘Maybe not as bad as he could have, as he wanted to, but he did hurt you.’
She had no answer to that.
‘Your mum had lots of boyfriends.’ Alex stated the obvious.
So? Dani’s hackles rose and she pulled her hand away, instinctively wanting to karate chop him in the neck. Instead she took a second to breathe—and heard the way in which he’d spoken. He wasn’t judging. He wasn’t even asking. It was a plain statement of fact—nothing more. And so she nodded. ‘And every time she thought she’d found the One.’ Then she shook her head. ‘There isn’t a One. She was so naive—such a romantic fool. She let them walk all over her because she thought she loved them and she wanted them to love her. I won’t be such a fool.’
‘Not every guy wants to take advantage, Dani.’
‘No?’ She turned to face him. ‘He was still taking advantage right up ‘til the day she died.’
‘Your dad?’
‘Yeah.’ Always he returned like a damn boomerang. How her mother could take him back time after time she never knew. He was—amongst other things—a convicted fraudster, how could she possibly believe a word he said? But Dani did know why—because she had wanted to believe him too. She’d wanted him to love her—he was her father.
Instead he used them both.
‘You and your mum were close, huh?’
‘For a lot of the time it was just the two of us.’ Those were the best times. When her mother wasn’t bending herself into any shape the new guy wanted—trying to please him, to keep him, to make him love her. She’d never seemed to feel able to just be herself. Because she was loveable. Her mother had been a fun, generous, wonderful woman. But she’d also been co-dependent, believing it was impossible to be happy if
she didn’t have a man.
‘So you decided to have your joy boys rather than relationships? Is that what happened?’
She wrinkled her nose. She should never have made that lot up.
‘How many were there, really?’ He bent to look into her eyes, his own glinting.
‘What is this? You going on Mastermind and your topic of choice is the scintillating life of Dani Russo?’
He chuckled. ‘I’m betting one. Two at the most. Boyfriends.’
‘You think you’re so smart,’ she grumbled. ‘What is it you really want to know, Alex? You think one broke my heart? Put me off men?’
‘Maybe,’ he answered calmly. ‘I want to know who and how.’
‘I haven’t been put off completely,’ she said brazenly. ‘I wouldn’t be sleeping with you if I had.’ She turned and started to run. ‘Race you to the car!’
She had a good head start, but she knew he was fast. As she ran ahead of him the old memories flashed faster than her feet. Yes, she’d had a boyfriend. After almost making it through her teens without becoming a statistic as her mum had, she’d finally fallen for one of the neighbourhood guys—the older brother of another of her employer’s cadets. He’d pursued her so hard and so sweetly—or so she’d believed. Only she’d been determinedly single for so long she hadn’t known she’d become a sport to the gang of them—the ultimate challenge. It had taken him six months of occasional dates, but he’d won a crate of beer for being the one to bed her. He’d bragged and betrayed her intimate secrets.
She’d been such a naive idiot it was embarrassing and she didn’t want to tell Alex a thing about that one. What was she doing going all Oprah-sofa-open anyway? He’d heard more than enough already.
He overtook her in the last five metres to the car—easily striding out, and she knew he’d been holding back to let her think she could win. She leant against the door, trying to catch her breath back. But it was impossible. She couldn’t touch the bottom of this pool they were swimming in anymore. She was way out of her depth. She didn’t want them to just be bed buddies. She didn’t want this ever to end.
So she was just like every other woman who’d slept with him—once bitten, his forever. That was why all his old flames stayed friends with him—because their hope sprang eternal, that he’d go back to them. And she couldn’t blame any of them. Because when he turned his full attentiveness on?
