Page 77 of In Full Bloom

“Dude, I warned you about her,” Max snaps at Dallas. “She’s a snake in the grass.”

“Not interested in your opinion,” Dallas growls, his hand curling protectively over my shoulder as he steps closer to me.

“I shouldn’t be surprised she got to you, too.”

Ice fills my veins, a sharp contrast to the red hot heat that’s flaring behind my eyes. Not heat like I’m about to cry. Heat like I’m going to rage out and completely lose my shit. “Shut up, Max,” I growl. “You don’t know what you’re talkingabout.” My hands shake and my knees feel wobbly. Without Dallas here beside me I’m sure I’d be a puddle on the ground.

“I can’t believe you’re letting her near your kid.” Max keeps talking, completely ignoring me. “Sadie’s a sweet girl and you’re asking for her to be hurt.”

“Come on, Katie. Let’s go.” Dallas strokes his hand down my back again. “You don’t need to listen to this.”

I shake my head. If I’m going to live here, I need to end this thing with Max. I can’t keep hiding from him.

“I don’t know what you think I did to you,” I say, willing my voice not to shatter. “But you have to stop.”

“Stop what? Telling people the truth about you?”

“What truth?” I snap.

“It’s your fault my brother is dead.” His voice is low and filled with venom. “You made him leave. He hated it in the city. He hated it with you. But you wormed your way into his head so fully he didn’t know how to get himself out. For years he put up with your bullshit.”

I stare at him dumbly. “That’s not what happened.”

“Isn’t it? Why the hell would my brother lie to me about that? Why would he lie to me that you threatened to hurt yourself if he left?”

“I have no idea …” I trail off. I try to remember back through the years, if at any point I said something like that.

Things weren’t good after I lost the baby, but they weren’t that bad. I don’t ever remember wanting to hurt myself, or telling him I was going to.

Even after I discovered the truth about Toby, I still couldn’treconcile this version with the man I knew. Or thought I knew. Why would he say things like that about me?

“I know you only wanted him for the money you thought he would have. He was too good for you though, wasn’t he, and you ended up with nothing. You didn’t care that he died. You only cared about his money.”

Max keeps snarling at me and every word cuts me a little deeper. He turns to Dallas. “Keep her out of your bank accounts. I’d say keep her out of your pants but it’s clearly too late for that.”

“That’s enough,” Dallas says, voice steady and quiet, but firm.

I reach out and squeeze his hand and with a subtle shake of my head tell him we need to finish this properly.

“Do you know what really happened?” I ask, my voice low and lethal now.

“Yeah, I do. Toby told me everything.”

“So he told you it was his choice to leave Kauri Creek and a few months after we left, he started fucking his way through the women he worked with? That eventually, he lost his job because someone accused him of harassment? Then, he couldn’t get a new job and he spent every afternoon drinking and finding more random women to sleep with?”

Max was ready with a retort on his lips before I started speaking, but it slowly fades as I tell him the harsh reality of his brother’s actions.

I stop speaking and haul in a few deep breaths, trying to centre myself. Dallas’s hand is back gripping my shoulder and I use the heat and pressure to ground myself.

“If he was so awful, why were you still with him?” Max finally asks, the potent fury gone, but his voice is still laced with poison. He doesn’t believe me. And why would he, if Toby spent all that time telling him awful things about me?

“Because I didn’t know,” I say, lowering my voice too.

Max snorts. “How could you not know?” he asks, exasperation causing his voice to rise.

“Because I was too busy working two jobs to keep our flat. I didn’t find out until the day he died.”

“The day he died you bitched and moaned and nagged at him and he finally decided he’d had enough of you. He called me right before his accident and told me he was going to leave you and come home. That’s where he was going. He was on his way home.”

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