Page 118 of Flare

I slipped my arm around his waist. “We can fix this.” I winced, still unsure if there’d be aweafter we talked. “It’ll be good as new when we’re done. They said it’s mostly smoke damage.”

But his silence spoke volumes as he stood staring at the ruin of his store, the stench of the fire filling the street and stinging the back of my throat.

“What the hell happened?” He wiped at his eyes, wet from the smoke or the shock, it didn’t matter.

Leon broke through the crowd and took him in a fierce hug. I almost smiled at the startled look on Rhys’s face. Whether he knew it or not, those sharp, defensive edges were softening.

“Where’s Christopher?” Leon searched the crowd.

“Parking the car,” Rhys answered, his gaze fixed on Flare like he was willing the image to change.

A good-looking man with an official air about him appeared beside Jack. “Are you Rhys Hellier, Flare’s owner?”

Rhys nodded blankly.

“I’m Detective Preston Lewellyn. Preston will do. The fire was contained at the front of the shop and put out quickly, but there’s a fair bit of smoke damage. Maybe get onto your landlord about sprinklers. It could be a couple of days until the arson squad clear you to go back inside.”

“Arson?” Rhys paled and I reached for his hand. “You mean it was deliberate?” His gaze darted to mine.

“Something was thrown through the old glass door, some kind of Molotov cocktail.”

Kip joined the group, breathless. “What did I miss?”

“And who are you?” Preston ran a slow eye over Kip.

“I’m the storemanager,” Kip replied haughtily.

Preston raised a brow. “Fine. I’m going to need to talk to you all before you go, especially the boys who were seen leaving the store after the fire started. You know them, clearly.”

Rhys nodded. “Yes. Jack does some work for me and Drew’s a friend.”

“They think Drew and I did it.” Jack’s epic eye-roll said everything that needed to be said about how he felt about that.

“What?” I rounded on the detective. “There’s no way they had anything to do with this.”

Preston raised a hand. “No one’s accusinganyoneofanything.”

“It was my fault,” Drew blurted to Rhys. “I texted Jack to tell him I was... leaving.” He flushed bright red. “He offered to lend me some clothes because... well, you know why. Then I was going to call Greg.”

Jack shot him a look. “It wasbothour fault. And we didn’t do anything wrong. All we did was try and save Valentino, but the place started filling up with smoke, so we had to get out.”

“We’ll be checking the security footage.” Preston turned to Rhys. “Is there anyone else we should be looking at?”

Rhys glanced my way and sighed heavily. “Gloria Markham, the designer and owner of Mennz fashion label. She’s just had to pull out of Fashion Week over some designs that social media claimed were stolen off mine, and she undoubtedly blames me. She said as much to my face, today.”

Gloria pulled out? And also, fuck her.

Preston wrote busily in his notebook. “Anyone else?”

Rhys winced and glanced to Drew. “There’s Drew’s father.” He went on to explain as Drew’s eyes blew wide.

“We’ll need that recording.” Preston shot a look to Kip who nodded. “I think that’s enough for us to go on, but rest assured we’re treating this very seriously. If the others hadn’t been here and you’d been in your flat, things might’ve turned out very differently, Mr Hellier.”

The implication wasn’t lost on any of us, and an icy hand snaked around my heart.I could’ve lost him.

Preston pocketed his notebook. “Okay, now I’d like to see you one at a time before you go, starting with you, Leon. After that, as long as someone has your contact details, you’re all free to go.” He walked back toward the police cars and Leon followed.

“I’ll deal with the insurance company.” Kip rubbed Rhys’s arm and headed for a quiet spot to call just as Drew caught sight of Greg racing up the street and ran to meet him.

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