Page 139 of Ace My Heart

“But if Joel … if he’d died, I … I love Joel.” The words sighed from my body, like it was a relief for them to finally be out there.

Brad watched me, mouth tight. “Even if he doesn’t love you back?” he asked.

I nodded. “Even if he doesn’t love me back.” I let that thought sink in, and the lump in my throat throbbed.

Brad sighed, his grey eyes meeting my brown ones. “I know, Mel. And I’m sorry. Well, I guess now we both know what it feels like to love someone who doesn’t reciprocate.”

I leaned my head against his arm. “I love you too, Brad. You’re my best friend. That’s never going to change, no matter how many men come and go in my life.”

He snorted. “Yeah, I’ll be the one you know you can always rely on.”

I turned my head and pressed my lips to his arm.

The door opened and Amanda rushed in, stopping dead when she saw me.

“You’re awake,” she said. She looked from me to Brad, and back again, and suddenly she was sobbing, her face quickly getting red and splotchy with tears.

“Oh Mel!” she blubbered, collapsing on the bed, lying down beside me and grabbing my other hand. “I’m so sorry. I don’t … I can’t believe I …”

I looked at her in confusion. “What are you sorry for?” I asked.

She looked up at Brad and my stomach dropped. “Someone better explain what’s going on,” I muttered.

“It’s all my fault! I should have known that he seemed too good to be true.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “What do you mean? Who are you talking about?”

Amanda refused to look at me. “Thomas … it was Thomas.”

Fuck.

The voice that had been horrifyingly familiar, that I couldn’t place, suddenly all meshed in my skull.

“No!” I gasped. “Why? How?”

Amanda shrugged, tears plopping onto the blanket. “I don’t know. No one knows. He’s still in intensive care. They’re not sure when, or if, he’ll wake up.”

“Steve?”

Amanda nodded mutely.

“And Ben?”

Another nod.

“And … Grant?”

Brad intervened. “Amanda, we don’t know any of that for sure. We might never know. He might die before they can question him.”

Amanda shook her head. “I just know it was him! He asked me a heap of questions about you – even before we were dating, that night we met down in Melbourne. I thought he was impressed that I knew a famous person. He was … he was only with me because it meant he could get closer to you …”

A cold shiver ran down my spine.

Brad slipped his hand out of mine and walked around the bed, pulling Amanda up gently, moving her until she sat in the chair he’d vacated. She shrunk into it, shaking, clinging to him.

“Those detectives spent three hours with her,” he explained. I shuddered. I’d had enough experience with police interrogation to know what she’d been through.

A nurse bustled into the room at that point. She glared disapprovingly at Brad and Amanda.

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