Unfurl: Chapter 38

I’m wrenched from sleep by a loud, violent-sounding roar that has me not only hurtling into consciousness but sitting bolt upright in bed.

I know that sound.

Daddy?

Oh my God. Oh my God.

I jump out of bed so fast I get tangled in the duvet cover and almost fall flat on my face. Dashing to the bathroom, I grab a robe and wrestle it on before tying it tightly around me.

The raised male voices coming through from the main reception area leave just one possible explanation, and it’s the absolute worst.

For some unknown reason, Daddy’s home several weeks early.

And he’s found Rafe in his home.

Shit shit shit shit shit.

I must look like sex and smell like sex. This is a nightmare come to life.

I take a deep breath and emerge from my room, my body so instantly in fight-or-flight mode I feel like I’m going to either have a heart attack or puke.

It’s worse than I could have imagined, because Rafe is naked and holding a tea towel to his front in a way that, under any circumstance, would be comedic and is now plain mortifying. Daddy’s tanned face has turned actual purple, and his overnight bag is sitting on the floor right next to my discarded dress and thong from last night.

Oh my God oh my God oh my God.

This is the most horrifying moment of my life.

Rafe’s head whips towards me, almost as if Daddy’s an unstable gunman and Rafe’s worried my presence will have him targeting me instead. ‘Belle,’ he says hoarsely, his eyes silently conveying the message we are so fucked.

‘Daddy,’ I shriek, ‘let Rafe go get changed. Go, Rafe.’ I jerk my head in the direction of my bedroom, because I cannot endure, for a single second more, having my boyfriend standing naked in front of the man who, until now, believed his only daughter to be saving herself for marriage. My mouth is dry. Like Sahara dry. I observe from some distant part of my brain that my voice is that of someone who’s completely terrified. My neck is so flushed it’s burning. I can feel the heat crawling up my jaw, across my cheeks.

‘Get your clothes and get out of my house, you pervert!’ Daddy bellows at Rafe.

In a show of chutzpah I can’t help but admire, Rafe turns and strolls past me to the bedroom, leaving his naked rear end in full view of Daddy as he goes. He touches me lightly on the shoulder and says, ‘I’m not leaving you with him. I’ll be thirty seconds, sweetheart. Just hang on.’

‘Belina.’ Daddy takes a step towards me before, thank God, stopping himself. He’s vibrating with fury, angrier than I’ve possibly ever seen him, and that’s saying something. ‘What the hell is going on?’ he spits.

‘Why are you back?’ I gasp dumbly, holding the lapels of my robe closed.

‘Business emergency. Jake’s trying to resign—he’s been poached. I need to talk him out of it.’ He flares his nostrils, and oh boy. This is the worst kind of perfect storm, because Jake Tiller runs all Daddy’s investment firm’s global funds. He’s the high-performing poster child and the sole reason their assets under management keep rising.

‘Oh. Where’s Mummy?’ I’m most definitely trying to buy myself time, put off the inevitable meltdown. Again, I feel like a hostage keeping her crazy captor from shooting up the entire room.

‘Still in Rome. I got the first flight out.’ His eyes keep swivelling to my now-closed bedroom door. I hope Rafe hurries up. His mere presence will incense Daddy further, but childishly, I want the moral support. I need a grown up right now, because I certainly don’t feel like one.

‘Has he hurt you?’ Daddy hisses at me, an almost crazed look in his eyes, and suddenly I see how it already is inside his head, what narrative he’s feeding himself.

Of course I’m not culpable. I’m the stupid, innocent little virgin who’s been led astray by the big, bad wolf the moment Mummy and Daddy turned their backs. Daddy will blame Rafe, and he’ll blame himself, but he won’t blame me, because no matter how much it would hurt him to believe I’ve been taken advantage of or groomed in any way, it would hurt far worse to believe I’m a big fat ho-bag.

‘No!’ I shout. ‘God, Daddy, of course not. Rafe’s been nothing but a gentleman.’

As soon as the hysteria-tinged words are out I regret them, because nothing could be further from the truth, and the fact that Daddy presumably saw Rafe brewing coffee and swinging his junk in his home first thing in the morning means that jig is up.

Daddy’s eyebrows wing up contemptuously and he opens his mouth to speak, but Rafe chooses that moment to emerge, fully dressed and, bed head aside, looking every inch the debonair businessman he is.

‘You preyed on my daughter,’ Daddy says in the low, shaking-with-rage voice that has had me practically vomiting with tension whenever he’s used it in the past. Believe me, I’m close to hurling right now.

Rafe looks over at me as if trying to understand what line I want him to take here. I know he’d throw himself under the bus for me, and, terrified as I am of Daddy, I feel more protective of Rafe than I do of myself.

‘Daddy!’ I shout before Rafe can open his mouth. ‘That’s not true. He’s my boyfriend. We’ve been dating—we’re in a relationship. I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m a grownup.’

I say the last sentence with a squeak that fully undermines any sense of maturity, of accountability, I’m trying to communicate here.

‘You’re… fornicating.’ Daddy’s face twists in disgust.

‘Yes.’ There’s so much blood, so much pressure in my head I may pass out. I have no idea what’s going on in my body, but it’s reacting so viscerally that I may as well be in physical danger.

Mortal danger.

I’m shaking, my vision is going black, my arms and legs feel wobbly and unreliable, and there is a not insignificant chance I may pee myself in fear. I cross my legs and squeeze my thighs together tightly as a precaution.

Daddy takes a step towards me. ‘You dirty little slut. You know that’s a mortal sin. How could you?’

My jaw drops open, my face freezing in horror and disbelief as my eyes well up. He didn’t just say that, did he?

‘Hey!’ Rafe’s shout is so loud I’m glad I’ve got my legs crossed, because it scares the hell out of me. ‘You have no right to speak to her like that. Belle, baby, we’re going to my place. This guy is fucked up, and I won’t tolerate a second more of his hate-speech.’

‘Don’t you dare disrespect me. This is my home!’ Daddy bellows. If I’m about to pee myself, he’s definitely about to have a cardiac arrest, or at least a stroke.

‘I don’t give a flying fuck,’ Rafe snarls. I’ve never seen him like this. He’s an angry bull, nostrils flaring, eyes alight with fury. I’m not sure what he might do. He wouldn’t hit Daddy, would he? ‘You lost all right to my respect, and your daughter’s, the second you spoke to her like that. You should be fucking ashamed of yourself. Belle. We’re going.’

I look around in a daze. I’m barefoot in my robe. ‘What about my stuff?’

‘Get your phone, baby.’ He nods towards the bedroom. ‘You don’t need anything else.’

‘Don’t you dare,’ Daddy says. ‘You need to go to confession, my girl.’ He’s so terrifying in his stillness. It’s like he’s possessed. I’ve never seen him this ravaged by anger.

‘One more word out of your mouth’—Rafe points a finger at him and thrusts it for good measure—‘and I will not be responsible for my actions. Belle. Go.’

I stagger to my room and look around at the unmade, well-used bed. I think I might be in shock. I find my phone and grab it. When I return to the reception area, the men are glowering at each other. I can’t handle the tension in this room. I have to get out of here. Now. I take Rafe’s hand and he squeezes it, hard.

‘We’re going,’ he tells Daddy. ‘When you’ve cooled the fuck off and you’re ready to apologise for your despicable words, maybe she’ll listen. Maybe. If you’re lucky.’

He marches me towards the front door, stooping to pick up my underwear and dress, which he bunches in his spare hand.

‘We’re not finished, Belina,’ Daddy says with admirable disregard for the threat Rafe poses to his safety right now. ‘If you walk out of here, don’t bother coming back.’

I double up as if punched, the coldness and cruelty and contempt in his words hitting me like a blow to the stomach. Rafe picks me up, effortlessly bundling me and my clothes up in his arms.

‘You delusional fucker,’ is his parting shot at Daddy as he wrenches open the front door and carries me out over the threshold.