know Eamon, Ma.’
Dimitri watched as Anna’s mother tried to get out of the chair, pushing Anna away and nearly succeeding, until Anna stood and took her by the shoulders.
‘Ma, please. It’s late and you’ve woken Amalia.’
For a moment, that seemed to do the trick. ‘My precious Amalia...’ But the moment she caught sight of Dimitri standing with her granddaughter, any hold that Anna might have had on her mother disappeared.
She knocked Anna off balance and she fell awkwardly on her knee. Mary took two uncertain steps towards him and Dimitri instinctively turned to protect his daughter, angling his body away from the drunk woman. He held out his arm.
‘Enough!’ His strong command brought the older woman to a standstill. ‘Anna, take Amalia upstairs.’
Anna looked for a moment as if she was about to argue, but clearly thought better of it.
She took her daughter from him, their skin brushing against each other’s for the first time since that night three years before. Ignoring the waves of little pinpricks that rushed over his hands, Dimitri watched as Anna disappeared up the stairs, her last glance at them uncertain and worried.
Dimitri stared at the woman in front of him, seeing very little trace of Anna’s colouring, but for just a moment he could see reflections of what must have once made the older woman beautiful, especially in the startling moss-green eyes looking back at him.
Dimitri wasn’t a stranger to what alcohol could do to a person and what kind of chemical prison it could be. Some responded to gentle persuasion, but the time for that had passed.
‘I’m going to get you some water, and you’re going to sleep down here on the sofa.’ There was no way he was going to let her upstairs near his child or her daughter. Mary made one last effort to complain, but he saw that off with a raised eyebrow.
‘Do not test me, Mrs Moore. You’ve done enough damage tonight.’
She just hadn’t realised how much yet.
As Mary reluctantly lay down on the sofa, Anna stuck her head over the bannisters. He raised a hand to stop her from coming further down the stairs, knowing that her reappearance would spark another round from the woman on the sofa.
Anna’s eyes were sad as she mouthed the words ‘thank you’ to him and disappeared. And just for a moment he felt sorry for her. Because she had no idea what was about to happen.
He waited until Mary Moore fell into a comfortably drunk sleep and pulled out his mobile. David answered on the second ring.
‘I need you to do a couple of things for me. I need indefinite management cover for the bed and breakfast and a list of rehab clinics as far away from this village as humanly possible, and I need both by ten a.m. tomorrow.’
‘Sure thing. Anything else?’
‘Yes. Tell Flora to get the house prepared for anything a two-year-old might need. And after that, I want you to start working on a watertight prenup.’
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