There was a part of me that was beginning to expect trouble every time I opened my eyes to a new morning. Walking through the doors of my workplace was even worse. What had once been a safe place for me had now become a brick hole filled with uncertainty and anxiety.

My head was pounding from the alcohol and the rough, desperate sex Marcus and I had got lost in the night before. After hours of pushing each other to our physical limits, we’d fallen into an exhausted heap beside one another – him wearing a satisfied smile on his face while I tried to focus on one clear thought or feeling that made sense.

Three hours of sleep and a full day of work ahead of me weren’t helping the banging in my head, either. As I sat at my desk, I’d sneakily slipped two painkillers into my mouth, and was halfway through taking a sip of water when the front doors flew open and the shouting began.

“Thefuckishe?” came an aggressive slurred voice from not too far away.

“Oh, Christ,” mumbled Barbara before I had a chance to look up. I’d barely lowered the glass from my mouth when it started again.

“Cleveland?” he roared. “Cleveland, getchor backside out here right now. I got a bone to pick with you.”

Peering up and over the high counter, I watched as Nicholas Law staggered deeper into the building, making slow progress as he stumbled from side to side. His oversized trench coat, which I had no doubt once fit him perfectly, now hung from his gaunt body, making it look more like a sleeping bag than the smart jacket it was obviously meant to be.

“Oh no,” I mouthed, pressing my hands against the desk as I cautiously began to rise out of my chair. I couldn’t take my wide eyes away from him as the memories of the violence from that night five years ago came soaring to the forefront of my mind.

“Natalie, get in the back room now,” Barbara ordered, but I ignored her completely.

Nicholas’ gaze snapped up to mine, the whites of his eyes now yellow, shot with blood and completely focused on me as he made his way towards the desk.

“You.” He pointed. “You!” His eyes widened, as did his mouth. “What the fuck’s your name?”

“M-my name?”

“Her name is Christie,” Barbara offered, moving closer to me in my defence.

I glanced at her, a little too dumbstruck to make sense of anything. I was still glazed with alcohol myself, and the world and all its inhabitants were more confusing than ever.

“Did I ask your fat, black arse? Sit the fuck down,” he growled.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me, fat bitch.”

Barbara’s face fell. Torn between hurt and wanting to hurt, she slammed her knuckles down on our desk and leaned closer, her face now set to thunder mode. “Say that again, sir. I dare you.”

“Which part?” he slurred, coming to a clumpy stop in front of us. The smell of stale alcohol tore through the air, turning my already delicate stomach even sicker. “The part about your arse, or the part about you being black?”

No matter what state I was in, I’d seen Nicholas Law this way before, and I knew it meant only one thing. We were in trouble – trouble that needed diffusing.

“Barbara,” I whispered carefully, reaching over to place my hand on top of hers, but she was too lost in a death glare battle with Alex’s father. She wasn’t usually the type of woman to back down and he wasn’t the type of man to know when he’d met a true competitor. I was just hoping she was going to hear the plea in my voice and understand that this was something neither violence nor arguing would solve. “Barbara, please don’t do this. Let me handle him.”

Nicholas’ head snapped back to mine, his expression so intense, it felt like he was lasering giant cracks into my skin.

“Christie, huh?” He snarled. “Yeah, and I’m the motherf’ckin pope.”

Pulling in a big breath, I somehow swallowed down the natural fear in my throat. “Mr. Law, can we help you?”

“Help me? Every fucker wants to help me, don’t they? What if I’m beyond help?” he spat as he spoke before slamming his hands on the counter, making both Barbara and me flinch. His head began to shake as he growled in anger, and his skin soon turned red from the pent-up frustration he was desperate to release. “Do you know what I need? I need a fucking drink to stop this shaking. I need that arsehole, Cleveland, to get his backside out here and explain to me how he can possibly say I wasn’t responsible for what happened. I need people like you to stop looking at me like you’re better than me and to just do your fucking jobs. Tell him I’m here. Tell him now!”

Sweat poured from his forehead in small waves, the odour so bad, it took everything I had not to gag when I inhaled again.

“Dr. Cleveland isn’t in the office today.”

“Did I tell you to speak? Had I finished what I was saying? Do you even know who I am?”

“Hey, now!” Barbara cried, but I cut her off with another quick glance that told her – no, begged her – to leave this one to me. This felt like something I had to do. It felt personal. It was personal, even if he was too intoxicated to remember it.

“I know exactly who you are, Nicholas,” I told him firmly. “Do you know who I am?”

“I know you’re in my way. That’s what I know…. Christie.” He sneered.

I had no idea if he recognised me or not, and I also couldn’t work out how that made me feel either way. What I did know was that he was volatile and I didn’t have long to diffuse the situation before he would probably lash out at one of us. There was no way I was letting Barbara get hurt today.

“Well, I guess we can both agree on that.”

He stared at me then, his body swaying subtly as he struggled to hold on to one position for long. “You’re not going to bring him out here, are you?”

“No, sir, I’m not.”

“The world is full of too many defiant bitches like you.”

“I’m not being difficult. Cleveland isn’t in the office today. He’s miles away on a training course in Birmingham. I’m more than willing to make an appointment with him for you next week. Then I can call you a taxi to wherever you need to go and we can make arrangements to get you home safely.”

“A week?” he snapped, pushing up on his toes. “Take a good look at me, darling, and tell me what you see.”

“I see a man who is distressed and needs to calm down.”

“And what else?”

I narrowed my eyes to study his face, unsure what it was I was supposed to be saying in response. “You need help,” I whispered.

“Bingo! Now tell me… Do I look like I can wait a fucking week?”

“You don’t have a choice.”

The hatred was so alive in his eyes, I was half expecting steam to start pouring out of his ears. “Get him out here right the fuck now, or I swear to God, I will jump over this counter and I will kill you.”

“That’s it. I’m calling the police,” Barbara muttered beside me, but I was too busy staring hate in the eye, trying to project as much tenderness and understanding back at him as I could, even if I didn’t understand him at all.

What had happened to this man to make him all poison and no heart? What or who had broken him so much that living a hazy, alcohol-fuelled life of violence had become his only choice? The future therapist in me was intrigued by the science of it all. The old teenager in love was ridiculously worried both for him and for his son.

“Did you hear me, little girl?” he pushed out through a tight mouth.

“I did,” I whispered back calmly. “But I’m not scared of you or of being hurt, even though I know my fear is what you want to see. So if you think hitting me is the answer, then that’s what you should go ahead and do. If that will give you the peace you need, I’ll walk around this desk and stand in front of you. Is that what you want, Mr. Law? Will that help? Will seeing me on the floor, weak from your punch, make your life better for a while?”

Opening his mouth to speak seemed to prove too much, so he quickly slammed it shut and narrowed his eyes. Something told me that he’d recognised me then, and maybe he had, but I couldn’t back down.

“I need to see the doc,” he eventually groaned, his feet falling flat on the floor with a slam, his shoulders sagging as his eyes fell to his trembling hands that were now pressed against the divide between us. “I really need to see him now.”

“Maybe we should get you to a real doctor.”

“No. I need to see him and only him.”

“Can you tell me why?”

“Because he was wrong about me. He was wrong about every fucking thing.” Nicholas began to cough all at once, the phlegm in his throat getting caught, forcing him to stumble backwards as he gripped his chest, scrunched up his face and winced.

“Nicholas?”

“I’m begging you.”

“Nicholas, please sit down.”

“I just need to see…”

I scanned him from head to toe and back again, taking note of the way his legs were trembling and how sweat was now pouring out of him so much, it was beginning to soak his clothes. Whatever he was, fine wasn’t it.

That’s when I began to move without any thought whatsoever. The reality of his condition forced me to practically sprint around the desk in my heels and stiff burgundy dress, but run I did, stopping just a few feet away from him, unsure how close he would want me to get.

“You don’t need to do this,” I told him quietly, my eyes fixed on his hand that was now clutching desperately at his chest. “Tell me where you’re hurting. Let me help you.”

The look on his face fell to one of absolute heartbreak, and it took him a while to tear his gaze from the floor to look me in the eye again. When he did, and when I saw his unshed tears shining back at me, I felt something I never expected to feel when looking into the eyes of a man I’d hated for so long.

I wanted to save him.

“I know you,” he breathed.

“I…”

“His Natalie.”

My small gasp caught in my throat, but my hands remained limp by my thighs as I gave him a small nod.

“Natalie Vincent,” he said almost in reverence before he curled his fingers into the wet fabric of his shirt in anger.

“Hello, Nicholas,” I said softly, the heels of my shoes sounding too loud for the quiet moment as I took a tentative step closer.

“You hate me, too. I remember.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to him, so I remained silent, wary of rattling the cage that held the beast too much.

“It was my fault,” he rushed out, the panic returning to his eyes.

“What was your fault?”

“I was responsible. It was all because of me.” A single tear fell, and it seemed that the weight of that small release was so heavy, it had the power to make him stumble to the left before he regained his balance.

“Please, let me get you sat down,” I offered, holding out my arms as I took my final step closer. “You’re pale. You need rest and you need some water.”

“I don’t need water. I need my wife back.”

“Beatrice?” I asked with a frown. “Where did she go?”

“Somewhere I can’t hurt her anymore.”

It was almost a relief to hear she’d finally gotten away from such a destructive relationship, but I couldn’t focus on that too much as Nicholas quickly gasped for oxygen, doubling over in agony as one arm hung limp by his side and the other clutched desperately at his chest.

Within seconds, I was hunched over him, my dry body pressed against his soaking wet skin as I tried to hold up his crumbling bones together in my hands. Before the full weight of this once formidable, now frail man gave way altogether, he managed to growl out a few words that had my blood quickly turning to ice.

“I killed my Beatrice, Natalie. She’s gone.”

That’s when Nicholas closed his eyes to let the convulsing take over, and the ear-piercing scream that escaped from the very depths of my throat was as painful as someone taking a knife to my stomach.

“Call an ambulance, quick! Someone... help!”