“I think that’s unlikely. Bloody hell, Huw, how many keys have you got?”
“I’m a builder. Buildings have keys.” He scratches his ear. “I swear they were here last time I looked.”
Mia’s feet are killing her. She walks toward the front door. “I’ll have to wait till Rhys gets here and fit it in next week. But honestly, Huw, sort this place out. It’s a shit pit.”
Later, with a glass of wine in her hand and her feet in a bowl of hot water, she juggles next week’s calendar, then messages Rhys and arranges for him to leave number three open for her. In a fit of pure masochism, she finds an old episode ofCarlton Sandsand fast-forwards between Bobby’s scenes. Their daily rendezvous in the cove over the summer seem light-years ago, and she aches with longing.
It’s pouring with rain when Mia gets to The Shore. She’s worked all weekend getting holiday rentals ready for half-term visitors, and she’s got Airbnbs on one-night turnovers all week. She sends Bobby a photo of his bedroom.
Wish you were here.
Ditto.He sends a photo back: dazzling white sands and turquoise sea.
She sends one of the loo brush and receives a string of laughing emojis, followed by dozens of hearts.Love you, my Mia.
Downstairs, Mia cracks open the sliding doors to let in some air and puts on music while she works. She turns up the volume, singing as she pushes the vacuum cleaner under the table. Bobby has come good on his pledge of time away together, booking a suite and promising to spoil her rotten.
She catches a movement and looks up, screaming when she realizes it’s the reflection in the glass doors. She spins around, one hand on her chest as she gets her breathing back under control.
“What are you doing here?”
Rhys walks toward her, his face twisted in a sleazy leer. “I was hoping you couldservicemy needs.”
Mia turns away. She has encountered this sort of thing before. Clients—or clients’ husbands—making suggestive comments as she vacuums their offices. Once, she turned up at a new customer’s house to find him in a bathrobe, the belt “accidentally” falling open once the door was closed. She has a one-strike rule, which is easy to do when you work for yourself and it’s a single client. But Rhys owns The Shore. If she tells him to fuck off, he won’t hire her again, and when the rest of the lodges are built, that’s a lot of money.
“I’m supposed to be cleaning,” she says. She moves away, her eyes on the vacuum cleaner. “Ashleigh’s got a thing about moths.” If she ignores him, he’ll go away. He’s trying it on is all.
But now he’s behind her, and she can feel heat on her neck, and she’s so scared, she can’t move. He runs his hands down her arms.
“Don’t—” she starts, but she’s shaking from fear, and she bites down to stop her teeth from rattling.
“It’s okay. The coast is clear.”
Mia lets out a whimper of terror. She tries to tell herself he won’t do anything, not here on his doorstep, with his family two doors down, but now he has a hand on her breast, and she tries to move but he’s pressing her against him, and the hardness in his trousers is a threat, not a promise. He touches her lips, and she turns her face, but he forces his fingers into her mouth.
“Please. I want you to stop.” The plea is pitifully small, smothered by his fingers. She’s crying now, so scared and feeling so stupid for letting this happen. Her head is telling her to use her elbows, to smash her head back against his, to twist away, to scream…
But her body won’t comply. It won’t do anything. It stays frozen, letting this man’s hands control it, cover it, take what they want. Mia feels as though she’s watching from above, screaming at herself to wake up, to do something, doanything, but—
There’s a sudden jolt. Space, clean air. His hands, leaving her body, and she feels as though she’s breaking through waves, pulled to the surface just as she was drowning. She doesn’t know why he’s stopped, but she isn’t questioning it—she just wants him to go and for the buzzing in her ears to subside.
“I should—” Mia grips the hoover, trying to stop her limbs from shaking. She hears him walk away, saying something under his breath, and then the front door slams and relief floods out of her in hot, noisy tears.
“My dear, are you all right?” Dee’s on the deck, pulling open the doors and picking Mia off the floor with an embrace so tight and safe it makes Mia cry more.
“Rhys—”
“I saw.” Dee’s voice is soothing. “He thought he could take what he wanted. But you’re safe now. It’s all okay.”
“Bastard,” Mia says. She is slowly feeling normal again, fear morphing to anger. Bobby will go ballistic when he finds out.
“He certainly is,” Dee says. She strokes Mia’s hair like she’s a child. “And he’ll get his comeuppance, never fear.”
Mia hopes she’s right. Rhys can’t be allowed to get away with it, and if he’s done it to her, who knows who else he’s tried it on with?
“Oh yes,” Dee says, a hard edge to her voice. “Men like that always get what’s coming to them.”
Forty-Two