I pushed the old brass key into the lock, turning the cold metal in my hand, wincing at the pain it caused. After I had pushed the grey gloss painted door open wide, I stood back and watched as Charlie moved in front of me. He carried her inert form through from the front of the house to the back kitchen. I followed behind him still in complete shock, my unlaced boots banging noisily on the bare boards of the hallway. I had wanted to carry her, to hold her close to me, but after the fight my tired muscles were reacting to the abuse I had put them through. I couldn’t trust them not to spasm and drop her. I watched in disbelief as he placed her down on the overly huge settee that I had dreamt about her sitting on, with me.

In my dream, I had held her in my arms while she read out loud from whatever book she was reading at the time. The settee was situated in front of the lit AGA. I had placed it there deliberately as I held on to the fantasy of one day finding her and making her mine again. When I had lost all hope of ever doing that, I hadn’t the heart to move it.

Laura, my stable girl, had recommended several times it would be better somewhere else in the room but I wouldn’t accept it. Like I wouldn’t accept her suggestion that her sharing my bed was just what I needed. She wanted more from me than I was willing to give, so I kept her where I kept everyone else, at arm’s length. I glanced over at the lit fire, although it was summer the evening was chilly and I knew Laura had been in to light it for me.

With my eyes still trained on Lily, I shook my head at the position I was now in.

How the fuck was I going to explain this to anyone? I rolled my neck around, relaxing into the familiar clicks it gave me. I ran my hands over my short, cropped hair and linked my fingers together. I pulled my gaze away from her and looked up to the plastered ceiling and hand-made rose that contained the light fixture.

The kitchen was one of only three rooms in the big six-bedroomed house that I had so far got around to completing, the others were my bedroom and adjoining bathroom. It took time, money and dedication to refurbish old Georgian properties. I had other priorities, like the land around it, and the brand-new gym I’d had built. It was slow progress, and the truth be told I had never wanted to do it alone. I had, in my mind, always been going to live here with Lily.

My eyes swept up and down her motionless form lying on the settee. How was she here?

I needed my home, my one place of comfort, to be done properly. It was where in my head she and I were always meant to live. I knew that was the motive that drove me on to complete it. This beautiful house had been my passion and even a mausoleum at times, but it had always been a constant in my life and I needed the fucking reassurance that it gave.

‘So, now what?’ he quietly questioned as he stepped away from her. ‘She’s a drugged-up mess. You’re gonna need help.’

I heard his words as they washed over me, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her. We had only slowed up trying to find her a year ago. Truth be told, I had never stopped looking and now she was here. It was fucking unbelievable.

Where the fuck had she been? I’d searched everywhere I could think of, until every one of the small leads we had, had run dry. We had only been one step behind her at one time, but it had proven to be a step too far. We had finally worked out where her family lived, but the day we arrived the house was being sold under auction. That day, I bought a part of her home, but it never filled the gap of her not being with me.

I watched her turn her tiny frame over and away from us. As soon as Charlie had placed her gently down on the comfortable old brown leather, he had undone the rope I had made him put on her wrists earlier and she had almost immediately curled up.

‘She didn’t need this on her…’ His voice showed me his disgust as he dropped it to the floor.

‘They needed to see that we didn’t care about her… God help her if they’d felt we knew her.’

‘Hhmmpph,’ he threw out into the room.

‘I ain’t making excuses, Charlie. I needed to get her out of there, causing as little concern about my fucking intentions as possible.’

‘And just what are your intentions? Ninety days until they come banging at your door. You saw Tony, she’s his plaything. You’ve heard the same sickening rumours as me. Once he becomes fixated, he doesn’t let go.’

‘I. DON’T. KNOW,’ I threw out into the tense atmosphere of the deceptively warm, cosy kitchen and let my eyes fall back down on her resting body, hoping I hadn’t disturbed her.

Her protruding spine was turned in our direction, almost as an act of defiance. The foetal position seemed to be her preference, I could see that it was a well-used routine of protection. Once again, my heart rate picked up with that thought. I clenched my fists so tightly my nails began to dig into the flesh on my palms.

Bile pushed its way up from my stomach and forced itself violently into the back of my mouth. I pushed my way past the old oak kitchen table and chairs, knocking one chair over in my hurry. It hit the slate floor with a resounding bang, shattering the false cosy silence in the room. I made it to the sink, grabbed hold of the large rectangular, ceramic beast and spewed up the entire contents of my stomach. Opening my eyes, I saw the carbs that only yesterday I had been stockpiling for energy. They whirled clockwise in the stream of water from the tap I had knocked on, and disappeared down the drain.

Just thinking about what had happened to her to make her act in such a way was fucking abhorrent.

I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand and looked out of the window and into the darkness. My reflection stared questioningly back at me. I could see Charlie standing still, his huge arms crossed over his chest and his gaze moving from me and then back to her.

‘She stays with me… that’s all I know,’ I finally answered.

I drank down some cool water, quenching the burn at the back of my throat, rinsed the sink around and cleaned my hands. Then I walked back to her and stood over her like some sort of protector, causing my shadow from the firelight to fall over her.

I heard myself sigh as I took in the state of her.

Make-up that Lily would never have even thought about wearing, was plastered to her face, dirty pieces of straw-like hair were stuck to her chin, imbedded into the thick crap on her face. As I watched her shiver, I instinctively placed my hand down onto her forehead to check for a temperature. I felt the familiar electrical surge enter my hand at our connection, and my hand jerked away, as though my body was trying to protect my heart.

‘She’s starting to burn up,’ I stated to Charlie who I knew was still behind me.

‘Fucking hell… She needs help, Jack! We don’t know how to help her… she needs admitting somewhere.’

‘NO.’ I fell to my knees next to where she lay. ‘She ain’t going nowhere. I’m gonna look after her. I should have fucking looked after before, but I wasn’t there… and now look at the fucking state of her… What the fuck have I done, Charlie?

‘You’re not to blame for this, those bastards are. But unless she gets treatment for her addiction, that will be your fault.’

I let his accusation run over me as I gently pulled the hair away from her face and stared down at her. I fought with everything I had not to pull her into my arms. But I knew that would be for me and not for her. She hadn’t chosen me before, and for all I knew the thought of being in my arms might be repulsive to her. I didn’t want to become like them in her eyes. I wondered if she even knew that it was me, that she was with me? Was she so used to being out on fucking loan to other men that she just thought she was with some other depraved bastard? If I had anything left in my stomach it would have shown its ugly face at those thoughts.

But I remembered the one tear she had shed as she had looked up into my face back at the concrete enclosure. I was sure there had been a spark of recognition in her green eyes.

Hope was once again all I had. But, it didn’t feel like it was anywhere near enough.

‘I’ll get my dad, he’ll help her.’ Suddenly, I was grateful that my dad was a doctor. I had never needed his help before, but I fucking needed it now.

‘How will ya explain the state you’re in?’ Charlie referred to the fact that my family, well my parents at least, thought I still worked a few days a week in London, dabbling on the stock market. When in truth fighting had paid my way for a while.

‘I don’t know, and I don’t fucking care. Lily needs his help and she has to be the priority here.’

At the sound of my voice Lily’s eyes flew open wide and she stared blankly at the back of the settee. I looked to the right to catch Charlie’s eyes. As the first wave of tremors took over her small, pained frame, her dry, cracked lips parted and she repeated one word over and over.

‘Harry…Harry?’

Who the fuck Harry was, I didn’t know. But, the way she said his name made me want to be him. I knew by the tone in her voice that she loved and cared for him. At that moment, I fucking hated him. The word was like a knife being driven into my heart.

So, she had replaced me. But where the fuck was that bastard when she needed him?

For the first time in my life water collected around my eyes and fell down my face.

I was crying for the woman I knew at that moment I would always love.

I was crying for her pain and for my loss.