‘You were vulnerable, Katie,’ Sarah said, her voice hardening and her grip tightening on her hand. ‘That bastard took advantage of a young girl who’d just lost her family. Mum and Dad didn’t even think you should be going away to uni in London. They wanted –’
‘What are you on about?’ Sam suddenly barked out, staring at Sarah and then Katie in shock.
‘Sam, I –’ Sarah started.
‘What do you mean, “lost her family”?’
‘Dad died of lung cancer when I was just a baby, and Mum died of breast cancer when I was sixteen,’ Katie told him, and felt Sarah squeeze her hand again.
‘She came to live with us,’ Sarah said. ‘Mum and Dad wanted her to stay in Wales but she got the place in medical school in London. She said she was ready to go away and we all … we all believed her and we …’ Sarah trailed off, tears suddenly filling her blue eyes. Rob leaned back into her, putting his arm around her shoulders, and Katie reached across the table with her other hand so that both were holding onto Sarah’s. ‘We let you down,’ Sarah whispered, a tear escaping and trailing down her cheek. ‘It was my fault – all that palaver when I got pregnant so young and nearly dropped out. Mum and Dad didn’t even think to worry about you whilst all that was going on.’
Sarah had met Rob when she was nineteen, and was pregnant with Jack six months later. Unfortunately, by the time she’d found out, Rob had been deployed to Afghanistan for another six-month stint. She had been with Rob for such a short time that she wasn’t sure how he would react, so she only had her parents for support. She shouldn’t have worried. Once Rob returned he was ecstatic that Sarah was pregnant. Very unromantically he told her, ‘This is great, saves me all the hassle of trying to convince you to get married and settle down early. We can just jog on and get it all done now. I want six, by the way.’ That statement may have contributed to Sarah’s decision to keep him waiting, marriage-wise, for another two years.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, honey, I was –’
‘You’re an orphan,’ Sam interrupted, his face looking strangely pale.
‘Um … I’m not sure if a twenty-nine-year-old woman can exactly be termed an orphan as such.’ Katie said, smiling a small smile at him, which was met with a stony expression.
‘No siblings?’
‘No. I have an auntie in north Wales but I don’t see much of her; it’s quite a long way see, and the roads are all igam ogam*. I’ve never been very good with –’
‘Igam ogam?’ Sam asked as Katie watched his jaw relax and his lips tip up.
‘Yeah, you know,’ Katie said. ‘Igam,’ she released Sarah’s hand so she could wave it in front of her face, swaying her body in sync, ‘Ogam,’ she finished in a whisper, spellbound by the soft look that Sam was now directing at her.
‘Right,’ Russell cut in, his voice sounding strained. ‘Now, can someone please explain to me what’s going on. This Daniel character – is he your slimeball ex?’
‘Yes,’ replied Katie, and Russell’s jaw tensed. Suffice to say that over the years he had wheedled out the details of her one and only proper past relationship, if not the bloke’s actual name. Katie was a source of fascination to Russell, who was always warning her ominously that, ‘Your foof will close over if you don’t get it some action once in a while, darling; it’s not healthy.’ So she had had to reveal enough about Daniel to satisfy his rampant curiosity and attempt to dissuade him from trying to kick-start her love life, not that he did in fact let it tone him down too much in the matchmaking stakes. He’d recently tried to upload a heterosexual equivalent of the grinder app to her phone, which kept beeping to let her know when another fellow user was in the vicinity and ready for a spot of ‘tromboning’ (Russell had tried to explain this act in great detail, making Katie throw up in her mouth a little and put her fingers in her ears to block out the rest) – very off-putting if you were simply in the queue for a latte at Starbucks.
‘Right, well, what are you lot going to do about it?’ Russell asked the men accusingly, puffing his chest out as much as was possible. ‘I mean, what’s the point in her best friend’s husband running a security company full of ex-military mercenaries if they’re just going to sit around and –’
‘She has an alarm system with external security cameras which has a feed direct to our main office,’ Sam cut in, his eyes on Katie. ‘If her alarm goes off, the police and every member of our company are notified. She has a tracker on her car, in her purse, and installed in her phone. She has not been walking anywhere alone after dark for the last two weeks. Every member of our crew and all the freelance agents we work with have been briefed about her and that piece of shit stalking her.’
Katie’s jaw dropped open. ‘Uh … Sam, isn’t that a bit, well … overkill?’ I mean, people get stalked all the time, don’t they? Nobody else has a group of mercenaries more used to dangerous extractions in foreign lands and guarding ships against pirates looking out for them.’
‘Seventy-six per cent of women murdered by their ex-partners were stalked by them beforehand,’ Sam told her, and Katie felt the blood drain out of her face. ‘And Katie, he’s not just your average run-of-the-mill stalker. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Katie forced out, her throat closing over. ‘Yes, I know he’s not average.’ She shuddered. By the time she’d managed to get out from Daniel’s control she’d been under no illusion that he was a good man but she did know he was a powerful one, even then. And the type of man he was, the kind of charisma and sheer strength of character he projected, she knew that by now his power would have grown. ‘But um … how do you know about … ?’ she scrunched her nose whilst trying to make sense of this Spanish inquisition. ‘Rob, honey, you really didn’t have to go all security-forces-crazy about this whole thing. I mean, it’s not like I’m the Dalai Lama. All this investigating Daniel and hooking my cottage up like Fort Knox is going a bit overboard, don’t you think?’
‘But Rob didn’t –’ Sarah started.
‘Right,’ Sam cut in, pushing his chair back and standing in one sharp movement. ‘Now that’s cleared up I’ve got somewhere to be.’
‘But you haven’t even eaten any pizza,’ Sarah cried, suddenly distracted from whatever she wanted to say. She stood and laid her hand on Sam’s arm. ‘Stay,’ she said softly. ‘What else are you doing?’
Sam glanced at Katie, then back at Sarah. ‘I can’t,’ he whispered. ‘I –’ His phone cut him off and he glanced at the screen. He looked at Katie again for a second, before tensing his jaw and taking a deep breath, as if he’d made some sort of decision.
‘Lydia,’ he answered tightly. ‘Yeah, that’s fine. Meet you at my place.’ He shut off the phone, shoved it into his back pocket, jerked his chin at the rest of the room, saying, ‘Later,’ before stalking out of the house.
‘Weird Rambo is moody, but he’d still get it,’ Russell said dreamily, leaning his head on his hand and sighing.
Whilst Rob looked at the ceiling yet again seeking patience, Katie shook her head to clear it.Of courseSam was still seeing Lydia. Lydia was gorgeous, she was famous, she was immaculate, and she was very muchnot‘goddamn ridiculous’, which was how Sam had described Katie on more than one occasion. Sam was probably a tad bit pissed off that Rob had pulled the Boss Card on him and made him explain her security arrangements, seeing as Sam probably thought they were crazily over the top himself. There was absolutely no reason that this news should cause an ache in Katie’s chest or make her eyes suddenly smart with unshed tears.
‘Right,’ she said, squashing down all her emotion and focusing on the here and now. ‘Let’s eat some of the cake I made.’ She ignored the collective groan from around the table. ‘And you can fill me in on all this security stuff and why on earth you think it’s necessary.
Rob explained everything he could to Katie about the ‘security stuff’.
