Read Damage for Free Online Page B

wash.
    “That’s not what I said.”
    Great. Off to a prickly, defensive start. Why did he have to react to everything as if it was some kind of challenge?
    Just then, Alfie burst across the space between the two of them and Holly flashed back to their last encounter in the grounds of the Hall.
    “Why me?” she said now. “You don’t even know me. Why mess with my head like that and then run away?”
    He raised a leg and tapped at it with his stick. “I could hardly run anywhere, me.”
    A smile, a joke at his own expense.
    Those eyes never left her. Even when he dipped his head, or turned away, those pale gray eyes kept flitting back towards her like a moth to a flame.
    She let the silence stretch so that eventually he spoke into it. Instead of answering her question, he said, “I figure you’re owed an apology.”
    Even when he apologized he did so defensively, distancing himself from the words. You’re owed rather than, simply, I’m sorry .
    “I am?”
    “Look, I must owe you some money, or something. I don’t know how these things work.”
    “Surely you’ve sacked a cleaner before?” Then, softer: “It’s okay. I get paid by Karen. If you owe any money it’s between you and her. She’ll make sure you know about it if you owe anything. And I’ll tell you this much: I wouldn’t cross her, if I were you.”
    “I’ve sacked all kinds of people before. But I’ve never...” He stopped, shaking his head as if trying to dislodge something from his skull. “I knew this was a mistake.”
    He had planned this encounter then. He had been waiting here for her, either on the off-chance she would pass or because he somehow knew her schedule for the day.
    “I’ve got to go,” she said. “I’ve got another job.”
    Lunchtime at The Bull, and she still had to shower and change.
    She made as if to step past him, but he moved sideways, blocking the way. “I came here to apologize,” he said. “Why does it have to be so hard?”
    “Listen, Mr Blunt. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I think we should draw a line under it, okay? You go your way and I’ll go mine and we’ll forget all about it. Okay?”
    Then: a finger, touching lightly under her chin so that she tilted her face up towards him.
    She thought he was going to kiss her again, and in that instant she didn’t know whether her anger would melt away or if she would slap him, hard, across the cheek.
    And then the moment had passed and he was stepping backwards, turning away, calling to Alfie as he went.
    Standing there in the middle of the village green, her heart thumping, she watched him go.
    She didn’t know whether she should feel flattered or stalked. Didn’t know whether that was genuine arousal she felt, or a fear thing, a fight or flight thing.
    She realized then that she already knew the answer to her question: Why me? Sure, he didn’t know her, but then she didn’t know him and still she could respond like this. She didn’t understand it, she didn’t know what these feelings were or what they might signify, but the response itself was powerful, undeniable, almost overwhelming. If he even felt half as much, that answered the whole Why me? thing.
    §
    “So what happened? Did he try anything? I saw the way the two of you were flirting. I haven’t seen you like that for years, Holls.”
    It was after midnight. Holly had stayed late at The Bull, and now she was curled up in her bed, the duvet pulled around her like a second skin and her phone pressed to her jaw.
    For a moment Holly was thrown by Ruby’s question. Did who try anything?
    “Oh Tommy ,” she said. “No, not at all. He was very sweet, actually. We haven’t chatted like that in ages. I’ve hardly seen him for the longest time.”
    “You think you two might, you know, give it another go?”
    There had been moments on the Friday evening when it would have been so easy to just slip back into how things had been. When she’d briefly put her hand on his wrist to