Page 176 of Lovers' Dance

Dante’s face hardened as he glared at Matt’s eyes in the rear view mirror. Matt continued in a hard voice, “I’ll make it clear for you, Palmer. Madi is mine. I will do everything in my power to ensure she’s happy. If you get in my way, I will simply remove you from the equation. If you value your so-called friendship with her, I suggest you learn how to be a real friend. Otherwise, keep it strictly business between yourselves.”

“Do you think I’m afraid of you?” Dante scoffed. “What? You think because you’re some rich asshole that I’m gonna quiver at your threats?”

“You should,” Matt stated frigidly. “Trust me, Palmer. I am not a man you want to cross.”

Dante rolled his eyes and looked out the window. He remained silent, as did Matt. He’d said what he wanted to her friend. There was nothing more Matt needed to say.

“You think I don’t know it’s messed up?” Dante suddenly asked. “You think I haven’t tried to talk to her over the years? She won’t listen, not about this. It’s as if she’s stuck in this dark place…every fucking year I watch her fall apart. Then she goes back to normal, like she presses a reset button in her head and everything is fine. I don’t know why she does it. It got to the stage where I stopped asking and went along with it…because, sometimes, that’s what friendship is. If your friend is drowning in shit and refuses your help, you dive right in there with them so they know they’re not alone. You don’t know shit.” Dante turned back towards the window, his harsh breathing giving Matt a clear indication of how upset he was. “She told me once, I think she was ten, she said to me: ‘D, I’m broken inside and no one sees it.’ How the hell am I supposed to fix that? To fix her? Trust me, I’ve tried. I uprooted my whole damned life for her. I would do anything for her. But I can’t fix this. I don’t know if anyone can. You self-righteous bastard. You think what happened over this weekend was bad? You have no idea. This was nothing in comparison to how she used to be. You don’tknowshit.”

Matt wasn’t going to back down, but the impassioned outburst from one of Madi’s oldest friends, her best friend, gave him food for thought.

“Help me understand,” Matt said quietly. “Help me understand so I can help her get better.”

Dante shook his head, peering gloomily out the window. “If I understood it, don’t you think I would have done something about it by now?” He twisted his head around so their glances met in the rear view mirror. “She’s afraid of something, something about that day, about today. She blames herself, and I honestly don’t know why. Survivor’s guilt, maybe. Whatever it is, it shuts her down. You happen to be in her life now to witness this. Next year you might not be, but I will. What you’ve seen the past few days, like I said, it’s nothing in comparison—”

The loud ringing coming from Madi’s bag broke Dante’s tirade. Matt saw his face fall for a second before it settled into a resigned mask. Dante reached forward to grab her bag and start rummaging through it before plucking out her mobile.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Matt said in surprise over the man’s bold behaviour. Matt felt further shock when he saw Dante key in the pass code. “How dare—”

“Hey, Aunt Cleo,” Dante said, holding a finger up to Matt in a shushing gesture.

“No, no, she’s doing okay. We’re at the cemetery now,” Dante said.

Matt arched an eyebrow at Dante’s words. His poppet was not doing okay.

“Yes, I’ll keep an eye on her.”

Matt’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. Bollocks to that. Matt would be taking care of her from now on.

“I know, Aunt Cleo. I’ll get her to call you later. Why don’t you go to bed? I know Madi won’t like thinking of you up at this time.”

Matt instinctively looked at his watch. Six forty-five am. There was a five hour difference between their time zones.

“I’ll tell her. Bye, Auntie.”

Dante ended the call with a tired sigh, then glanced at Matt who had twisted around in his seat to observe him.

“Madi’s Aunt,” he advised as he placed the phone back in her bag.

“Yes,” Matt said dryly. “I gathered that.”

“Look, I don’t want to get into anything with you. You’re Madi’s boyfriend for whatever reason, and I accept that. But you’ve got to accept that I’m not going anywhere, either.”

Matt pondered his words silently. It wouldn’t be easy but, if he wanted to, he could find a way to cut Dante out of Madi’s life. He was a Bradley, and nothing was outside his reach. But could he do that to her? She obviously valued her close friendship with Dante. Hell. The man had keys to her bloody house. Was Matt secretly that envious of their bond that he would willingly fracture their friendship? He had no answer to those questions. All he knew was she was hurting, and he felt as if there was nothing he could do to protect her from it.

Then the skies opened up, and in typical British form, a downpour began.

“Shit,” Dante muttered, peering out the window.

Matt was reaching for the umbrella that came with Rolls-Royces, grasping the door handle to open it and go to her.

“You can’t, Matt.” Dante said, using his given name for the first time. “She’ll freak if she doesn’t spend at least an hour at their graves. She never comes here except for today. The first time we came here, three years ago, she sat there crying for five hours straight, man. Five hours. So I made her promise, one hour, no more no less. You can’t go.”

“What the fuck am I supposed to do?” Matt finally voiced his anger. He’d never felt helpless before, and it enraged him. “Sit in the bloody car while she gets soaked? Strike up a conversation with you about the state of the fucking economy while the heavens open up?”

“I don’t give a fuck what you do,” Dante replied in a voice as frustrated as Matt’s. “But you’re not going out there and intruding on her time with them. Right now, the rain is the last thing on her mind. We have to wait.”

Matt muttered a foul expletive and glared out the windscreen at the downpour. He checked his watch. She’d been gone seventeen minutes. Goddamn it. This was going to be the longest wait of his life.

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